twelve months, more than the total sum of the original investment in the business. 494. The Laborer's Right Undisputed. The laborer is the only factor in production whose claim to some share of the product has never been defended by the economists. His claim is so evident that it needs no defense. 495. The Real Question.-Adam Smith is called "the father of political economy," and his first sentence in discussing the wages of labor is: "The produce of labor constitutes the natural recompense or wages of labor."23 Then why does not the laborer get that produce, and get it all?24 496. The Answer.-1. It is because the landlord possesses the earth, and will not permit its use, except the toiler buys what the landlord does not justly own, by payments of rent. 2. It is because the capitalist possesses the machinery, which has been created by society through the long centuries of its growth, and will not permit the 23. Adam Smith: Wealth of Nations, p. 49. 24. "If they [the working classes] create a small amount of wealth and get the whole of it, they may not revolutionize society; but if it were to appear that they produce an ample amount and get only a part of it, many of them would become revolutionists, and all of them would have a right to do so. The indictment that hangs over society is that of 'exploiting labor.' 'Workmen,' it is said, 'are regularly robbed of what they produce. This is done within the forms of law, and by the natural working of competition.' If this charge were proved, every right-minded man would be a Socialist and his zeal in transforming the industrial system would then measure and express his sense of justice. # The right of the present social system to exist at all depends upon its honesty. A plan of living that should force men to leave in their employers' hands anything that by right of creation is theirs, would be institutional robbery-a legally established violation of the principle on which property is supposed to rest. * # * * "This is the problem we have to solve. It is an issue of pure fact. If the law on which property [right] is supposed to rest-the rule, 'to each what he creates-actually works at the point where the possession of property begins, in the payments that are made in the mill, etc., for values there created, it remains for practical men so to perfect the industrial system, after its kind-that exceptions to this prevalent rule may be less frequent and less considerable. We can deal otherwise with robberies that are not institutional; but it is evident that a turning of a wheel except the toiler buys him off with payments of interest.25 3. It is because industry is undertaken for private profits and the management will maintain a lockout until its profits are secure, regardless of the ruin which overwhelms the worker's family while he waits for society in which property is made to rest on the claim of a producer to what he creates must, as a general rule, vindicate that right at the point where titles originate-that is, in payments that are made for labor. If it were to do otherwise, there would be at the foundation of the social structure an explosive element which sooner or later would destroy it. For nothing, if not to protect property, does the state exist. Hence a state which should force a workman to leave behind him, in the mill, property that was his by right of creation, would fail at a critical point. A study of distribution settles this question, as to whether the modern state is true to its principle."-Clark: The Distribution of Wealth, Chapter I. We "The fact through which the ascendancy of the present continues to express itself in the economic process is everywhere the same. have it in view under the phenomenon of the legalized enforcement, whether by individuals, or classes, or corporations, or sometimes even by whole peoples, of rights which do not correspond to an equivalent in social utility. This is the phenomenon which John Stuart Mill and the English utilitarians had in view in their early attack on the institution of unearned increments. This is the phenomenon which, in the last analysis, we see Henry George endeavoring to combat in his denouncement of the monopoly ownership of natural utilities. This is the phenomenon with which we see Marx struggling in his theory of surplus value, so far as it is true-the phenomenon, that is to say, of the acquirement by capital of values in the produce of labor which represent monopoly rights not earned by capital in terms of function. It is the phenomenon we have in view that class of fortunes accumulated in stock exchange values which have not been earned in terms of function. It is the fact underlying every form of private right accruing from increase, unearned in terms of social utility, in the profit ownership of the instru ments and materials of production. It is the phenomenon we have in view in the now universal tendency in modern industry to monopoly ownership, or its equivalent in monopoly control; with the resulting accumulation of vast private fortunes through the enforced disadvantage of classes, of whole communities, and even of entire nations. It is the fact underlying every form of the exploitation of a less developed people, whether by special tariffs or otherwise by a ruling race for its own private advantage. And last of all, it is the phenomenon which meets us in its final colossal phase in the international worldprocess, under the tendency of aggregates of capital, in an uncontrolled and irresponsible scramble for profit governed in the last resort simply by the qualities contributing to success and survival in a free fight for private gain, to control the general exploitation of the natural resources of the world at the level of its lowest standards in human life and human labor. *"-Kidd: Principles of Western Civilization, p. 476 and following. 25. "Capital is the accumulated stock of human labor."-Mill, Quoted by Adams in Law of Civilization and Decay, p. 313. permission to create the very wealth for the lack of which his children die. 4. It is because the toilers must first provide this rent, interest and profit for those who render no necessary service in production before they are permitted to produce at all, either for themselves or for the helpless ones who depend upon them.26 497. The Prison House of Toil.-This is the wage system. This is capitalism. This is the present prisonhouse of toil. The masters of industry and commerce have been able to compel the toilers to "divide up" with them, simply and only because in the evolution of human society it has reached this stage of advance. They can continue to do this only so long as they can have the authority of the citizenship of the toilers to support them in doing so. They can continue to do this only until society shall evolve out of capitalism into Socialism, and in this evolution the toilers themselves must become the builders of society. 498. The Way Out Is Socialism.-1. Under Socialism, society will own the land, and there will be no rent to pay. 2. Under Socialism, society will own the tools of production, and there will be no interest to pay. 3. Under Socialism, society, acting through those who are engaged in any industry and who will know most about it, and not through private stockholders both absent and ignorant, will manage production and there will be no profits to pay. 4. Under Socialism, whoever shares in the division. of the products will share because he is, or is to be, or 26. "Between robbery and monopoly the difference appears very great, but it consists in two things, both of which are quantitative only. These are the rudeness and the illegality of the former as contrasted with the civility and the legality of the latter. The principle of a procedure is not changed by mollifying the method. The motive is the same."-Ward: Dynamic Sociology, Vol. I., p. 583. has been a producer and no others, unless the victims of disabling misfortune, who will be abundantly cared for, but without the shame of pauperism. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. According to the capitalist, by whom is wealth produced? 2. What does each party do in production, and what is the share of each in the products? 3. How does the capitalist justify the collection of rent? 4. State and answer the argument for rent (1) as related to improvements. (2) As compared to the private ownership of patents, copyrights and corporation stocks. 5. State the grounds of agreement and the point of separation between the single taxer and the Socialist. 6. Quote Walker on the private ownership of land. 7. State and answer the argument that rent is not added to the market price of products and that therefore it is not paid by the general public. 8. State and answer the appeal of the economist to the public conscience on the land question. 9. Why is not the single tax a way of deliverance for the working man? 10. State and answer the defense of interest as made by the economist (1) on the ground of thrift and saving, (2) on the ground of risk, and (3) on the ground that it is a guaranteed part of profit. 11. State and answer the defense of profit (1) as wages of superintendence; (2) as reward for risk; and (3) as reward for special business ability as compared with a poorly managed business. 12. Does rent, interest or profit rest on any necessary share in production? If not, then why are they permitted? 13? Under Socialism how will the workers be made secure in the use of the whole product of their labor? PART V CURRENT PROBLEMS OF PUBLIC INTEREST AND SOCIALISM CHAPTER XXIX THE FINE ARTS AND SOCIALISM 499. What Is Art?-This is not a discussion of the fine arts, but a study of Socialism as related to the fine arts. There is nothing more hotly disputed than “What is Art?" and this will not be an attempt to answer that question. But there is nothing more certain than the natural hunger of a man for that which is beautiful. The things which can excite in his breast the emotions resulting from a vision of splendor, or of grandeur, or of truth and beauty, are things which he will prize, and he who can create the things which will produce these emotions will always have no small share in making this a world, not only of comfort, but of in gladness. * * 1. "Art unites the spiritual and the physical in perfect being. It adds that supreme emotional perfection to life which we term beauty. Art plays an important part in sociology, not only in competing stages of progress, but often as indicating the true direction, when men are baffled by misapplied energy. In some sense beauty, perfection of form, is the culmination of science, philosophy and faith, as it is |