toil. Neither a failure, nor a strike, nor a lockout will be possible under Socialism.

469.-Make the Desert Blossom.-(5) Under International Socialism the paternal instinct of the race will make a garden of the whole world, and neither the cost of labor nor the lapse of time required will interfere to prevent making the desert to blossom and many of the great waste places to be forever fresh and green with their unfailing wealth. There will be no limit to improvement placed by the impossible sale of an everrecurring surplus which the laborer can produce, but which his wages cannot buy.

470. The Unwelcome Child.-(6) But should the improbable occur and the increase of the population under normal conditions finally outrun the boundless possibilities of co-operative production, then society could deal with the question of limiting the population under no form of social or economic organization so well as under Socialism, where equality of opportunity, with democratic authority, and these only, could enforce the necessary limitations by intelligent, just, scientific and merciful measures for preventing over-population, rather than as capitalism proposes, insist on the undesired birth, only to starve and kill the unwelcomed child.

REVIEW QUESTIONS.

1. What is the doctrine of diminishing returns?

2. What is the theory of the economists regarding the increase of population?

3. Give grounds for holding that population will some time exceed the earth's ability to supply the means of support.

4. Give grounds for holding that this does not need to occur.

5. What measures have been offered under capitalism as a means of preventing over-production? (a) As to marriage? (b) The suggestion of Mill? (c) The crusade of Annie Besant?

6. Under what conditions is it believed by those who deny the necessity of over-population, can over-population be prevented?

7. Why cannot capitalism deal with this problem? (a) Show how the forbidden marriage, the suggestion of Mill, or war, pestilence and famine cannot be relied on to limit the population. (b) Show that capitalism cannot use to the full limit the earth's resources for the support of the people.

8. Why will Socialism be able to solve this problem? (a) As related to comfort? (b) As related to the more perfect life of the people! (c) As related to the full use of the earth's resources, and (d) as related to the direct action of limiting the population?

CHAPTER XXVIII

RENT, INTEREST AND PROFIT

471. The Joint Producers?-According to the capitalists, wealth is produced by the joint efforts of the landlord, the capitalist, the managing producer, and the laborer.

472.

The Landlord.-The landlord contributes his share in the production by furnishing the land or standing room for the producer, and has his share of the products in rent.

473. The Capitalist.-The capitalist contributes his share in the production by furnishing the buildings, the raw materials, machinery, and the advance wages, -that is, wages while the first batch of products is being turned out and the management is waiting for returns. He may furnish these directly, or he may furnish the money or credit with which to obtain them, and he has his share of the products in payments of interest.

474. The Manager.-The managing producer, in order to contribute his share in production, must originate the enterprise, must control it, must find a paying market for the products, must carry all the risks

of the enterprise, and he has his share of the products in profit.

475. The Laborer.-The laborer contributes his share under the direction of the managing producer, with the materials and machinery of the capitalist, and on the standing-room of the landlord, by actually creating the wealth with his own toil, and he has his share of the products in wages.

476. The Division of Products.-The wages of the laborer, the interest of the capitalist and the rent of the landlord are fixed in amount and are guaranteed by the managing producer, but the amount of his share is not fixed and must depend on all the contingencies of business, as well as on his own ability. His share of the products is all that is left after all the others are rewarded.

This statement of the parties to production and of the shares falling to each is not disputed. It is simply a statement of what is of daily occurrence under the wage system. That these are necessary parties to production or that the shares ought to be so fixed, holds only on the assumption that the wage system is a just or necessary method of production. It will be shown further on that it is neither just nor necessary, but it will nevertheless be of interest and of advantage to be familiar with the exposition and defense made by the economists, of rent, interest and profit, for these are the several forms in which the products of labor, over and above the share paid in wages, are taken from the laborers.

477. What Is Rent?-Let us consider, then, the grounds on which the capitalist maintains that the workers should share their products with others, because the others have the legal title to the earth.

They teach that the rent of any given tract of land in any particular region is the difference between the

productivity of that particular piece of land and the productivity of the least desirable like tract of land in actual use in that same region.

They argue that the labor employed on lands which are so poor that they can pay no rent, just pays for the capital, labor and management, or it would not be used. If, then, an amount equal to the value of the products of the poor land be deducted from the returns from the most desirable locations, the remainder of the product, being a surplus over and above the pay for capital, labor and management, would be the rent.1

478.-The Single Tax.-It is the contention of the advocates of the single tax that this sum belongs to society and ought to be collected from the legal owners of the land in the form of a tax and so be devoted to the public use. It is difficult to over-estimate the value of this agitation of the late Henry George and his followers in calling the general public attention to this fact, namely, that there is no pretense whatever that the sums paid in rent for land values, exclusive of improvements, represent any service whatever from the landlords to society, but are simply the appropriation by the landlords of values which have been created by the whole body of the community-for it is the community which most of all determines which location is the most and which the least desirable. The single taxers as well as the Socialists have compelled the economists to face this feature of the wage system.

479. Fixed Improvements.-The economists who have spoken for capitalism have attempted to defend rent by the claim that the improvements really create the value of the land and that the land ought to belong to those who create its value.2

The answer has been made that vacant and unim

1. Ely: Political Economy, p. 215; and Walker: Political Economy, p. 203.

2. Ely: Political Economy, p. 216.

proved land in the midst of a growing community grows in value with the rest; that the people whose improvements create this value are the whole community; that the improvements on any particular piece of land are only a small share of the improvements which make its value, and that therefore the argument for the private ownership of land, and hence the private appropriation of rent on account of improvements, is in fact an argument for public ownership of land and hence the public appropriation of the rents. It is these publicly created values which are called "unearned increments," meaning that they are unearned by the private owner who gets them. They are not unearned by the public which creates them, but does not get them.

480. Land Titles and Other Property.-Again, it is contended that the titles to the land are as good and as just as the claims to patents, copyrights or corporation stocks, the values of every one of which are as dependent on society for their existence as are the land values.3

As to patents, it is contended that it was society which did all the preliminary work which finally made the invention possible; it is society which grants and protects the patent, and it is society which furnishes the market without which the invention would be valueless. Of copyrights, it is also said that society created the language used, lives the life which is portrayed, amused or instructed, and again provides the market without which the copyright would be valueless.

The same thing can be said of corporation stocks of every possible variety. The corporations themselves, as well as the machinery they use, are purely social products. Their tools, their methods and their markets are all the creations of society. The "unearned

3. Contention of Roswell G. Hoar in Debate with Henry George.