BOOK I. RÉSUMÉ OF SOME OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, SPECIALLY WITH REGARD TO SOCIALISTIC LITERATURE. : CHAPTER I. Query Is Labour the Source of all Wealth ?-Definition of Capital.-Production and Consumption.-Fundamental Laws of Political Economy. In order to judge accurately, and to form an opinion on sufficient data respecting the "antagonism between capital and labour in our day," we must have clear ideas on the subject of political economy. And the first steps towards a study of the leading principles of social science must of necessity be less entertaining, and accompanied with a certain amount of mental exertion. But we cannot spare the reader this trouble, for in the investigation of social problems it is of the utmost importance to understand thoroughly the terms employed in stating the fundamental truths of the science. A close perusal of the works and public speeches of social, democratic agitators will show how by a confusion of ideas, and the employment of words used in diverse senses, the judgment is often warped, and truth is often misrepresented. We must on this account prepare the way by arming the reader with a few definitions of terms here employed, and pointing out the misapplication of them by socialists or LABOUR REPRESENTS HUMAN LIFE-FORCE. 11 other political writers. In the first place then let us inquire: What is the object, and what are the laws, of economy? In answer to this it must be stated that man, placed as he is in an endless chain of being, requires for his continued existence the co-operation of the outer world. He requires the reciprocal acts of fellow-men in the shape of services, and he requires certain inanimate commodities which sustain, cheer, and embellish his individual life. In a word every member of society requires external instruments and means, in order to live and develop those powers which nature has implanted. And those means are of a twofold nature: those which can be. obtained without, and those which cannot be obtained without, exertion or expenditure of force. Air is free, and though indispensable to life can be had without exertion. But there are other necessaries of life, equally indispensable, but more difficult of attainment, as for example-bread, clothing, and the like; these are the result of labour. But labour is human life-force expended in order to obtain the means of livelihood. Now these instruments for the sustenance of life are called economic commodities, and they are the objects of the science of economy; and in a wider sense, extending the science of economizing means to a state-i.e. political society,—it becomes the science of political economy. Now these economic commodities may be regarded, as equivalents of life-force expended in calling them into existence, as so much labour. Socialists lay much stress upon this. According to their opinion every article purchased in the market represents so much human labour, no more and no less. Moreover they assert that whoever in the necessary transactions of commerce, barter, or exchange, makes an unfavourable bargain, receiving back that which represents less of life-force for that which he has expended, loses actually so much life. For example, a working population, receiving as a rule for their actual labour less value in return of their services in the shape of wages (in money or kind) than what is tantamount to their expenditure of life-force, are slowly consumed by those who overreach them. Anthropophagy is thus possible in civilized countries, a cruel slowly-consuming cannibalism under cover of exchange in services for goods. And all are guilty in this sense who do appropriate other men's labour by curtailing their reward, all who make an inadequate return for the amount of life expended by the labourers. Thus philanthropic Europe, co-operating for a time with the American slaveowners, consumed so much nigger flesh and blood in the shape of cheap sugar, tobacco, and cotton goods; on this account socialistic economists wish us to look away from commodities in their concrete form, as articles of commerce, and to regard them barely as quanta of labour. Thus, they say, if you exchange a hundredweight of iron for two yards of stuff you scarcely know who is the gainer or the loser. But once ascertain that a hundredweight of iron is equivalent to five days of labour, and two yards of stuff are equivalent to three days of labour, and you will clearly perceive a clear loss on the part of the producer of iron. Now under cover of wages, it is asserted, the labourer is injured incessantly in this manner, the whole and true value of labour produce is only in part refunded to the working man, and under the mask of exchange he is deprived of his due. This deception the socialist exposes by a comparison of the work and wages for any given day, and shows the inequality of the price of commodities and the labour they entail. reason the use of money as concealing the true proportion between the value of labour and the cost of its results in For the same the shape of goods, is held in abhorrence by all social neologians, from Plato downwards to the democratic socialists of our own day. Again, all commodities are either means of enjoyment ready made for use, or they are instruments of production, goods representing capital. To the latter belong machinery, factory buildings, or raw stuffs, half-manufactured goods, etc. Now as to their origin all these undoubtedly may be regarded as the results of labour; e.g., wood used for building purposes is first hewn down, that is it is rendered useful by labour. Hence all capital commodities (by which is meant capital in money as well as everything which possesses value, as machinery, etc.) are called by Marx and Lassalle "congealed," "previous," or "accumulated" labour. There may be a long chain of various transmutations in these forms of capital, in order to the ultimate production of any given commodity. For example, no less than two hundred branches of industry are engaged in turn in the manufacture of one single watch, and capital enterprise has been engaged in each of these branches, and in each successive case more labour has been accumulated. And so the final product in the shape of a watch may be regarded as so much "time of labour coagulated." Hence the socialist's doctrine, that the very instrument employed by the capitalist for the production of commodities, his money, and his buildings, his machinery, and his establishment generally, are only the result of so much labour. They call capital the child of labour, which subjects first, and then domineers over, its own progenitor. But it may be remarked, in passing, that the business of the enterprising capitalist consists in directing the efforts of labour into the right channel, and at his own personal risk to produce, by means of different successive industrial applications of labour and skill, the commodities required, and also to provide the necessary machinery and prepay the human labour engaged in such production. If by means of a new machine a factory girl can produce 600,000 needles a day, of course this can only be done on the supposition that she works. It is also true that the appliances or previous forms of capital represented by machinery, steel wire, etc., are the results of labour. But it is also to be remembered that unless some capital had been previously sunk to prepay former labour, to place machines, steel, etc., at the disposal of the manufacturer in the last instance, at the right time, and in the right place, these 600,000 needles could not be produced at all. Organizing capital is absolutely necessary in order to an efficient division of labour, and has an important function to perform in the production of commodities on a large scale. But, apart from this, the view of capital property as "coagulated work" is onesided. There is a prospective as well as this retrospective view. When looking away from its origin to its ultimate object, it becomes the very foundation and starting point of future labour in the most effective manner. Thus, without the aid of private capital to begin with, the ultimate astounding production of the 600,000 needles in one day by one female labourer could not be accomplished, and the capitalist deserves his reward as a premium on his enterprise and risk. Thus capital, as the derivation of the word (from caput) implies, becomes the starting point of production, and all those subsequent metamorphoses of trade, from which result at last articles for use. There is circulating capital, such as raw material and half fabricated goods, which after completing a circle of technical metamorphoses and "circulating" through |