For any capital accumulation to occur, individuals must lower their time preference; they must reduce their discounting of the future enough to provide for it at the expense of the present. This point is worth bearing in mind when economic illiterates rail against capital owners for being parasites on the workers. The sacrifice of present consumption by capital owners in exchange for future reward is economically no different from the sacrifice of leisure by workers in exchange for future reward. Had capital owners actually contributed nothing to the production process, then their consumption of the capital good instead of offering it to the workers would make no difference to the workers' productivity. But ask any worker what would happen to their productivity without capital, and the absurdity of hating capital becomes apparent.