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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: exploitation involves, and the self-respect and social esteem
which its success wins, effect an improvement in Alberic's own
character which neither Marx nor Wagner appear to have foreseen.
He discovers that to be a dull, greedy, narrow-minded
money-grubber is not the way to make money on a large scale; for
though greed may suffice to turn tens into hundreds and even
hundreds into thousands, to turn thousands into hundreds of
thousands requires magnanimity and a will to power rather than to
pelf. And to turn thousands into millions, Alberic must make
himself an earthly providence for masses of workmen: he must
create towns and govern markets. In the meantime, Fafair,
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