Fafnir in the allegory becomes a capitalist; but Fafnir in the legend is a mere hoarder.His gold does not bring him in any revenue.It does not even support him: he has to go out and forage for food and drink.In fact, he is on the way to his drinking-pool when Siegfried kills him.And Siegfried himself has no more use for gold than Fafnir: the only difference between them in this respect is that Siegfried does not waste his time in watching a barren treasure that is no use to him, whereas Fafnir sacrifices his humanity and his life merely to prevent anybody else getting it.This contrast is true to human nature; but it shunts The Ring drama off the economic lines of the allegory.In real life, Fafnir is not a miser: he seeks dividends, comfortable life, and admission to the circles of Wotan and Loki.His only means of procuring these is to restore the gold to Alberic in exchange for scrip in Alberic's enterprises.Thus fortified with capital, Alberic exploits his fellow dwarfs as before, and also exploits Fafair's fellow giants who have no capital.What is more, the toil, forethought and self-control which the 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, wallowing in dividends which he has done nothing to earn, may rot, intellectually and morally, from mere disuse of his energies and lack of incentive to excel; but the more imbecile he becomes, the more dependent he is upon Alberic, and the more the responsibility of keeping the world-machine in working order falls upon Alberic.Consequently, though Alberic in Also may have been merely the vulgar Manchester Factory-owner portrayed by Engels, in 1876 he was well on the way towards becoming Krupp of Essen or Carnegie of Homestead.
Now, without exaggerating the virtues of these gentlemen, it will be conceded by everybody except perhaps those veteran German Social-Democrats who have made a cult of obsolescence under the name of Marxism, that the modern entrepreneur is not to be displaced and dismissed so lightly as Alberic is dismissed in The Ring.They are really the masters of the whole situation.Wotan is hardly less dependent on them than Fafnir; the War-Lord visits their work, acclaims them in stirring speeches, and casts down their enemies; whilst Loki makes commercial treaties for them and subjects all his diplomacy to their approval.