16 THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE ch.

peculiar to the Central Empires. But all of whatfollows was common to the whole European system.

III. The Psychology of Society

Europe was so organised socially and economicallyas to secure the maximum accumulation of capital.While there was some continuous improvement in thedaily conditions of life of the mass of the population,Society was so framed as to throw a great part of theincreased income into the control of the class leastlikely to consume it. The new rich of the nineteenthcentury were not brought up to large expenditures,and preferred the power which investment gave themto the pleasures of immediate consumption. In fact,it was precisely the inequality of the distribution ofwealth which made possible those vast accumulationsof fixed wealth and of capital improvements whichdistinguished that age from all others. Herein lay,in fact, the main justification of the Capitalist System .If the rich had spent their new wealth on their ownenjoyments, the world would long ago have foundsuch a regime intolerable. But like bees they savedand accumulated, not less to the advantage of thewhole community because they themselves heldnarrower ends in prospect.

The immense accumulations of fixed capital which,to the great benefit of mankind, were built up duringthe half century before the war, could never havecome about in a Society where wealth was divided