220 THE GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT bk. iv

the community would choose to save at a rate of interestequal to the marginal efficiency of capital in conditionsof full employment, then even a diversion of the desireto hold wealth towards assets, which will in fact yieldno economic fruits whatever, will increase economicwell-being. In so far as millionaires find their satis-faction in building mighty mansions to contain theirbodies when alive and pyramids to shelter them afterdeath, or, repenting of their sins, erect cathedrals andendow monasteries or foreign missions, the day whenabundance of capital will interfere with abundance ofoutput may be postponed. “To dig holes in theground,” paid for out of savings, will increase, not onlyemployment, but the real national dividend of usefulgoods and services. It is not reasonable, however,that a sensible community should be content to remaindependent on such fortuitous and often wasteful miti-gations when once we understand the influences uponwhich effective demand depends.

IV

Let us assume that steps are taken to ensure thatthe rate of interest is consistent with the rate of invest-ment which corresponds to full employment. Letus assume, further, that State action enters in as abalancing factor to provide that the growth of capitalequipment shall be such as to approach saturation-point at a rate which does not put a disproportionateburden on the standard of life of the present generation.

On such assumptions I should guess that a properlyrun community equipped with modern technical re-sources, of which the population is not increasingrapidly, ought to be able to bring down the marginalefficiency of capital in equilibrium approximately tozero within a single generation; so that we shouldattain the conditions of a quasi-stationary communitywhere change and progress would result only from