The scheme
consisted of a capitalist who had diligently saved capital from his
labor, an entrepreneur who conceived a socially useful demand and
organized a factory, a collection of workmen who freely contracted,
take it or leave it, for their labor, a landlord, and a group of
consumers who bought in the cheapest market those goods which by the
ready use of the pleasure-pain calculus they knew would give them the
most pleasure. The model worked. The kind of people, which the model
assumed, living in the sort of world the model assumed, invariably
cooperated harmoniously in the books where the model was described.
With modification and embroidery, this pure fiction, used by
economists to simplify their thinking, was retailed and popularized
until for large sections of the population it prevailed as the
economic mythology of the day. It supplied a standard version of
capitalist, promoter, worker and consumer in a society that was
naturally more bent on achieving success than on explaining it. The
buildings which rose, and the bank accounts which accumulated, were
evidence that the stereotype of how the thing had been done was
accurate. And those who benefited most by success came to believe they
were the kind of men they were supposed to be. No wonder that the
candid friends of successful men, when they read the official
biography and the obituary, have to restrain themselves from asking
whether this is indeed their friend.
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