106 THE GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT BK. III

accommodated to the public advantage if an increasedpropensity to consume is expected to exist some day.We are reminded of “The Fable of the Bees”—the gayof to-morrow are absolutely indispensable to providea raison d’être for the grave of to-day.

It is a curious thing, worthy of mention, that thepopular mind seems only to be aware of this ultimateperplexity where public investment is concerned, asin the case of road-building and house-building and thelike. It is commonly urged as an objection to schemesfor raising employment by investment under theauspices of public authority that it is laying up troublefor the future. “What will you do,” it is asked, “whenyou have built all the houses and roads and town hallsand electric grids and water supplies and so forth whichthe stationary population of the future can be expectedto require?” But it is not so easily understood thatthe same difficulty applies to private investment andto industrial expansion; particularly to the latter, sinceit is much easier to see an early satiation of the demandfor new factories and plant which absorb individuallybut little money, than of the demand for dwelling-houses.

The obstacle to a clear understanding is, in theseexamples, much the same as in many academic dis-cussions of capital, namely, an inadequate appreciationof the fact that capital is not a self-subsistent entityexisting apart from consumption. On the contrary,every weakening in the propensity to consume regardedas a permanent habit must weaken the demand forcapital as well as the demand for consumption.