Labour's Wrongs and Labour's Remedy

commodity at one price, and without adding any increasedvalue to it by ltis own labour, Ire sells tlte coinmotlity fordot~ble the sum which it originally cost him : and thus hel~ecornes rich at the expense of others. Or again, he procuresa certain quantity of labour for his hundred pounrls,and he sells the product of such labour for two hundred, Now, if the labour was originally worth twok?r!~i!:d pounds, and this newly created capitalist gavebut one hundred for it, he has clearly defrauded his workmenof one-half their just due; and if tlte labour masworth only one liundretl pounds, itnd the capitalist hasobtained two hundred for it, it is equally clear that he hasilefrauded the parties with whom he made the secondexchange, for he only gave them the one huntlred for theirtwo hundred. All the gain thus acrl~lirctl by the citpitalist,whether from the first or tlre second exchange, isextracted errtirely from the productive classes. Society atlarge consists only of two parties-those wlro work, iindthose wlto do nothing. Fron~ the natnre of the case, I~ovrever,the itllers cannot have t~een ilefral~ded by theunequal exchange, for, as they (lo not labour, they canhave nothing of their 011 11 to exchange ; so that the ~vl~olegain-the whole accumuli~ted profit, or interest, or whateverelse it may be callecl, ~vlrich every capitalist receives urltlerthe present system-is taken from the producers at large-from the very working class rif the community, for theyonly l~ave ~rherelrith to exchange-and that is, their ,labour, and the proiluce of such labour. Thc capitalist,by thus continuing to " exchange," is shortly in possessionof as many thousands as he originally had hundreds-andthis, too, with little or no lahour on his part-until atlength he retires to enjoy himself on his " honest pins."The sons follow the course of the father-they live inluxury and idleness, ilnrl so they become, and breed away,ad infinitzm, a race of "capitalists !". Sucl~ is the origin of the great majority of petty capitalistswho now grind tl~e worliiny classes into the dnst.Brit of all the vast wealth thus obtained by unequalexchanges, it is self-evident that tlre original stock onlythehundred pounds, or whatever it may be-is all thateach capitalist is justly entitled to. This hundred pounclsbelongs to the c;tpitalist-it has, we will suppose, been theprod~cc of Itis o m industry-and to it, therefore, he is'justly But here the justice of his claim censes ;for all the wei~lth which this sun1 is instrumental in producing,by means of the labour of otllers, belongs to otl~ers,not to the owner of the hundred pounds. Thismoney possesses not tvitliin itself the poser of locomotion,nor any action-it is no more th:m the representativeof a certain quantity of produce, and can of itself doI,ott~ing-it is neither worn, nor broken, nor deteriorated,after it llas been thus instrumental in production. Theeapit?llist receives it back in the same state as he lent itout-lle is not one farthing less rich from the circumstanceof others having matte use of his money-therefore, hav-ing lost notl~ing, lie is in strict justice erltitle(1 to no com-m ens at ion-to nothing except a revard for his labourequal to that which any otllcr Inan receives for nn equalexpenditure of labour.The political economists and capitalists have writtenand printed many boolcs to impress upon the worlcing lnanthe fallacy that "the gain of the capitdist is ?rot theloss of tlte producer." We are told that Labour cannotmove one step without Capital-that Capital is as ashovel to the man who digs-that Capital is just as necessaryto production as Labour itself is. The working manlinoms all this, for its truth is daily brought home to him;but this muttla1 dependency between Capik~l and Labourhas nothing to do with the relative position of the capitalistand the morliing nlnn ; nor does it show that theformer should be maintained by the latter. Capital is butso much unconsumed produce; and that which is at thismoment in being, exists now indepetident of, and is in noway identified with, nny particuliir individual or class.Labour is the pnreilt of it, on tlic one side, and motherearth upon the other ; arid were every capitalist and everyrich man in the United Kingdoln to be nnniliilated in onemoment, not a single particle of wealth or capital woulddisappear with them ; nor would the nation itself be lesswealthy, even to the amount of one farthing. It is thecapital, and not the capitalist, t11:it is essential to theoperations of the producer; and there is as much differencebetween the two, as there is between the actualcargo and the bill of lading.From the relation which capital and labour bear to eachother, it is evident tllat the inore capital or accumulated