day-a —a good deal more than the average wage-that he works steadily along, that he never loses a day's work, that he is never sick, that he lives like a Chinese, and thus is able to save up half of his wages: $1.00 a day. It will take him more than 3000-Three Thousand-years to accumulate a million! It is this contemptible jugglery with words that the Socialist critique unmasks. Now, furthermore, we can understand one very curious phenomenon, to wit: how it comes that the charging of interests was, until not so very long ago, considered infamous, while now it is considered the most natural thing in the world? A conscientious man, like Jeremy Bentham, wanted even to make it out to be one of the "natural rights of man." The reason of the change must lie in the nature of things. The common arguments in favor of interest are transparently flimsy. They say, interest is a reward for abstinence. We have already seen what kind of abstinence that is,—that of not devouring gold coin and locomotives. But even if the capitalist were abstinent, why should he be especially rewarded for it by an increase? The apple which the boy abstains from eating before going to bed does not grow bigger during the night-the boy's "reward" consists in his having his apple the next morning. The German economist, Prof. Roscher, is honest enough to admit: "Rent is an appropria tion of the gifts of nature, and interest, at best, a further fruit obtained by frugality, from older labor, already remunerated." That other argument, that interest is the payment of a service rendered by the lender to the borrower is not better, for the service is reciprocal. The borrower preserves the capital for the lender; no slight service, since most capital will decay when not in productive use. Socialists give the only satisfactory explanation, and here it is: The Roman Jurists used to say: "What is mostly done governs all other cases." In former times when people borrowed money. they generally did it, because they were in distress, and it was, very naturally, deemed disgraceful to take advantage of another's misfortunes. The law and the Church therefore, denounced all interest as usury. But now-a-days 30 a person generally borrows money, in order to "make" money in the manner we have described. The "trouble" he is in, is the trouble how to get rich, and the capitalists like to share that trouble with him. Interest, now. is nothing but a part of the fleecings, nothing but a fair division-therefore proper. Now we can fitly characterize the "harmony," the "partnership "-compared to that of the Siamese Twins-between Capital and Labor, about which our comfortable classes talk so unctuously. "If there be in this world a partnership between men which is natural. wise and useful" exclaimed lately Roscoe Conkling in one of his efforts, it is the partnership between Capital and Labor." Indeed, Capital and Labor are just as harmonious as roast beef and a hungry stomach. There is the most beautiful harmony, the most natural partnership, between the two-when they are united in one hand. But what another contemptible juggling with words we here have! As if there were no difference at all between Capital and individual capital-ists!” Labor, indeed, could not get along very well without Capital. But we are not so sure, that our workers would not get along tolerably well, if some beneficent spirit should take all our capitalists and carry them up to some other planet, say Venus; especially if they had to leave their Capital behind them. And, after all, they might take their Capital along with them -what they could carry away-for Edward Atkinson has told us that we should all be starving within one year, naked within three, and houseless within ten years, if Capital was not constantly being re-created by Labor. The beautiful harmony between capitalists and laborers is happily illustrated by Carlyle in the address of Plugson, the manufacturer, to his workmen : "Noble spinners! We have gained a hundred thousand pounds, which is mine; the three and sixpence daily was yours. Adieu, drink my health with this groat each, which I give you over and above." There is, as a matter of fact, dis-harmony between Labor, reduced to a ware, and Capital, whether in the form of grain, or meat, or stone, or metal, or wood, or clay which is labelled: "hands off!" There is. as a matter of fact, discord between the worker-to whom nothing is coming beyond necessaries and decencies of life; to whom even the most loathsome and irksome labor does not insure subsistance; who is not benefitted by his own increased capacity of production; who is far from becoming richer the more he works—and the capitalist who, contrariwise, becomes richer the more the workers toil for him; who is constantly being immensely benefited by every increase in productive capacity. Instead of harmony there is, as a matter of fact, more than discord; there is a chronic warfare between Capitalists and Laborers, and as an evidence of it we point to-Strikes. Capital and Labor Siamese Twins! Are capitalists and laborers Siamese Twins? Why? Because they are in contact with each other? So are the horse-leech and its victim. Socialism has a serious dispute with Political Economy or rather with its present teachers. The founders of the science taught many truths; truths which we acknowledge and on which Socialism, indeed, builds. But its professors claim that it tells nations how to become prosperous. It does no such thing. It tells individuals how to get rich: and it has found apt pupils in every civilized country. The wealth of the civilized world is incredibly large and increasing at an incredible rate. Its present magnitude may be appreciated from the fact, that the wealth accumulated in England during the present century is far greater than all the wealth accumulated dur ing all previous centuries. Or to come down to figures: The wealth of the United Kingdom was: In 1800 Nine Thousand Million Dollars; Could human efforts have accomplished more? But is this enormous Wealth National Wealth," as is pretended? What part have the beggars in the streets of London in it? What part have the British workingmen, who created this wealth, in it? We shall see. The income of the United Kingdom in 1879 amounted to 5,325 million dollars, distributed as follows: The working-classes (12 million persons) had 2,140 million dollars, or $ 178 to the person; while all others (3 million persons) had 3,185 million dollars; of the latter, again a little over 9.300 individuals had $100,000 apiece. One hundred and seventy-eight dollars a year-that, then, is the share of the British worker in the "National" wealth. * Our Political Economists are yet more guilty. They make their science sanction our present industrial arrangements, instead of explaining them. They virtually teach that, because things are as they are, they will always remain, and ought always to remain so. Socialists, or Social-Economists, as they might call themselves, use the truths of Political Economy to prepare for a higher stage of development, show the workers that though now "The seed ye sow another reaps; The wealth ye find another keeps;" it will not always be so, and urge that a Social Order which per mits certain individuals to appropriate the withheld wages of generations of weary workers ought not to last.. The first lesson of Socialism, then, is that the Wage-System, the Profit-System, the Fleecing-System, is utterly unfit for a higher civilization. "But you are not fair. You have entirely omitted to state that these individuals do contribute to the size of your cakes.' *Do not jump at the conclusion, that because the British workingman is paid $178 a year and the American $346, that therefore the latter is twice as well off as the former. In England a given sum may go twice as far as here for many reasons, one of which is that the store-order "system, so extensively practised here, is in England sternly forbidden by law. |