On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
upon ; to me it is a sacred thing , and if I saw no chance of help , I should feel I best showed my sympathy by sorrowing in silence . But what chance of help can either of us see within our very limited range of vision ? Lutle enough , indeed ; still , if all look , one may find ; a spark from any one of our farthing candles may light the beacon on the hill , and you , at least , give me another candle to burn . Excuse me , then , if , to get more light from it , I try to snuff it .
Your letters give me the following propositions , if not new to me , yet fresh , from the force with which you state them , —viz . : — First , That the land is the inheritance of all who dwell on it ; that the earth was God ' s gift to mankind , given to man as a ra ^ e to subdue ; and that therefore , man , as an individual , has a right to his share of this gift as his " landed estate . " Secondly , That the division of labour consequent on civilization , implies no disclaimer of this right ; that the man who does not labour on his land , but toils to supply comforts or luxuries to his fellows , does so on condition that they shall in turn provide for his necessities . He does not give up or give away his estate , but he makes it over to society in trust that , while he works elsewhere , it shall be tilled , and tilled for him—neither lie waste , nor its produce be withheld from him . Thus the earth is , or rather ought to be , divided among its inhabitants ; each inhabitant being de jure , a landowner , inasmuch as he is a citizen of the world . Society , you say , is the trustee of those landowners , who , not occupying their own land , engage in what you well define as " secondary , " instead of " primary , *' employments—that is , who produce comforts and luxuries instead of necessaries . Trade is the process by which , this trustee professes to fulfil its trust , to exchange the one produce for the other .
Now before we proceed further , I must confess that , to the wording if not the meaning of these propositions , which I think you will allow I have stated fairly , I demur , because I do not think you mark with sufficient clearness the distinction so ably drawn by John Stuart Mill between land and its improvements ; between laud without labour , and land with labour ; between land in its original form , and land transformed by human toil . In the one case it is a power
which all may use ; in the other case it is both a power and a result—the result of the use of the power . Doubtless , strictly speaking , there is no right of property in land ; the property is not in the land , but in the labour which is put into it ; but you cannot separate the land from the labour—that which is put in from that into which it is put . A man waters the earth with the sweat of his brow , and a new earth is formed , and the chemical power of man's intellect is not able to decompose it ; so , then , I cannot agree with you when you say , that each man has by right a landed estate ; a man earns an estate by his labour , does not inherit it as the birthright of his manhood ; nor can the land belong to all who live upon it , nor bo considered the property of society ; society holds no property ; to say that it does is a contradiction in terms , for property is , by the very conditions of its nature , private ; as Proudhon acknowledges when he makes the first article of his Communistic creed the assertion that " property is robbery . "
Property is the wage of labour , and that alone ; if it be not that , or derived from that , whatever it profess to be , it is not property but robbery . It presupposes two things . First , that a man works for his wage ; and , secondly , that he gets it . The Communist ; differs from all the rest of the world in denying his right to the wage ; he would abolish the wage , but , in so doing , he would abolish property , not give it to society . " Nothing , " as Dr . Arnold well stated in treating this question , •? belongs to everybody ; but it either belongs to somebody or to nobody : " so the land belonged to nobody till it was
cultivated , and then it belonged to the somebody who cultivated it—its rightful owners are its conquerors who have subdued the earth , with their labour , they hold it by the right of conquest . No man , therefore , can justly complain because others have " landed estate" and he has none ; their estate is their labour , and he could not get part of the estate without robbing them of the labour ; but of this he can justly complain , that he has had no chance of acquiring an estate for himself either landed or other , not that he may not take the property , — which is the wage of another , but that he may win , no wage for himself .
Land , as I have defined it , is a power which originally all may use ; but though all may , only some do , and their use of the power gives them a right to it , a property in it , they appropriate this power , so that they alone can use it ; "what , then , becomes of the rest ? Man lives by the sweat of his brow . They , too , are men . Have they not the right , at least , to choose between toil and death ? Is it not the birthright of
each member of the human family to force the earth by the strength of his hand and the skill of his brain to give him its fruits ? and yet , first come first served , the new comer finds the earth possessed ; is he , then , a trespasser ? Who has a right to warn his brother off God ' s earth ? Has not his life also a purpose ? and he cannot live on the land without living by it ? But , if he seizes the land , or part thereof , he seizes his brother ' s labour . How , then , reconcile the destination of man , which is the right to live , to fulfil life ' s
task , —the basis of all rights , —with the right of property ?—only by allowing the right to labour , which is but allowing each man to do his part in the fulfilment of the destiny of his race . Yes , the right of property , which is the right of labour to its reward , depends on the right to labour . The security of property , which is the possession by the workman of the wage which he has earned , depends on his permission to his brother to earn his wage ; and this permission can be ensured only by property
admitting , nay , believing with a living faith , that it has its duties as well as rights , and that its first and chiefest duty is to take care that no man is injured by the exercise of its right . So that the duty of the landowner is to care that no man suffers because he enforces his right to his land ; but the landless does suffer if he may not live by his labour . Originally all might till the earth ; but only some have used their might , so that to them , the might has become a
right—to possess the earth , inasmuch as they have subdued it ; not a right to monopolize its fruits , but a right which is a duty to sell them to all who are willing to earn them by the sweat of their brow . The landless may then with justice say to the landed , " Put me , at least , in the same position , give me the same leave to toil as though you were not ; in the sweat of my face shall I eat bread , that bread , not your land , which is the sweat of your face is my inheritance , mv estate . "
Yes ; " curse , " which turned by toil into a blessing , is God ' s gift to man , and all the aids of civilization to bear it , which are man ' s gift to his brother , the legacy of the past to the present , for
man s Heir of all the ages in the foremost file 3 of time . " These constitute the inheritance of man , the estate to which his title-deed is his manhood . The promise of trade is to secure to each man , landless as well as landed , this inheritance .
So much for what ought to be : now , then , for what is—you and I agree that each man has an estate , though we may differ in defining it ; we agree , moreover , that civilization , or division of labour , which is but a process of civilization , should not destroy nor take from , but rather add to this estate , though it may have made society the trustee for its members . We agree ,
moreover—1 st . That society does not fulfil its trust ; that if it relies on tho promise of trade" to do so , trade breaks its promise ; that millions are robbed of their estate in whole or in part , 2 nd . That trade breaks its promise because it knows not how to keep it : that it fails in its efforts to establish a market wherein each man may exchange his labour for another ' s , because it sets many to useless labour which cannot be exchanged ; it tempts them to produce a something which is a sham
thing , for which , therefore , nothing can be got : relying , for example , on the man who has a store of necessaries , say food , wanting nicknacks ( to use your excellent nickname for luxuries ) , it tells the foodwantcr to make them ; he does its bidding , makes them as fast as he can , soon makes too many , more than the food-possessor wants , so he cannot get food for them ; but other niuknacks are wanted , so he
tries to make them , learns a new trade , travels into a fresh path ; but the journey takes time , during which he pines . Thus , while over-production of necessaries , or too much primary labour , seems , while so many are necessitous , an absurd impossibility ; over-production of any one luxury , or misguided secondary labour—in a word , mistaken , production—is both possible and probable , and a cause of misery to tho producer .
Trade , which is barter systematized , offers to give the producer at least food in exchange for his produce ; but it does so on condition that his produce is wanted , if not it is useless , therefore unpaid ; but though no one may need his produce he must need his pay—till he dies . But why , then , does he produce what is not wanted ? If he makes mistakes he must suffer for
them ; if mistaken production be the cause ot misery , it is so inasmuch as every mistake is the cause of its penalty , —that penalty is non-payment ? the law of nature is that the payment of everj' mistake is nil he who sows the wind reaps the whirlwind ; useless produce is a mistake : after all , then , trade docs keep its promise , which is , to pay for what is made , not marred .
But who makes the mistake ? that is the question . Surely , he who employs the labour uselessly ; but , who is he ? Not the labourer himself , but his employer—the capitalist . It is the capitalist who guides the labourer in the employment of his labour , guides him—into the pit of pauperism . Why , then , does the labourer follow his guidance ? If the capitalist be blind , not seeing where labour is wanted , why does the labourer let a blind man lead him ? He must be blind also ; and if the blind lead the blind
no wonder that both fall into the ditch . Alas ! he cannot but let him lead him ; he is forced , be his eyes ever so open , to follow the blind man , becauseby him he is fed . It is food , not guidance , the labourer wants , therefore he follows the capitalist . Capital , as you well define it , is " stock ; " past labour saved , stored up to provide for present ; the capitalist owns that stock , it is his . How he got it is not now the question , perhaps he made it—saved it out of his own wage , perhaps not ; any way he has it , and
without it the labourer cannot labour , for he cannot live ; so to get it the labourer must submit to the conditions of the capitalist , and the first of these conditions is that he must do his bidding , find out how his stock can be used to a profit , be his catspaw , try his experiment for him , above all , pay the penalty of its failure , that is , suffer for his mistake ; for if the capitalist makes the mistake of setting tho
labourer to useless employment of his stock , his stock does , indeed , remain useless , perhaps lies waste , he loses his interest , perchance diminishes his capital ; but the labourer loses his labour—wastes his time—spends his life ; for , mark , the capitalist only feeds him while he tries the experiment ; if it fails ho lets him alone to pine , for he has turned him into a tool fit for that experiment , and that alone , and
now he wants to try another . The law of demand and supply professes to be the rule of society ; the demand of the labourer is not unreasonable , merely life in return for labour ; the capitalist is employed by society to supply this demand , by using the labourer ' s produce for the supply of the demands of others , by finding out what is for him the best—the fittest labour , how he can produce that which will pay him most ; but the capitalist does not fulfil his duty ; he takes the labourer ' s produce , it is true , his time—his strength—his life , but he sells it in the market for nothing .
Nor docs the mistake of the capitalist cause merely an over production of luxuries or nicknacks , a Jg lut of secondary produce , it also realizes a paradox , performs what seemed an impossibility , inasmuch as it causes a glut of primary produce , a glut of necessaries to their producers , though not , alas ! to their consumers . Tho capitalist forces the labourer to make what no one needs , so the labourer has nothing to offer in the market which will be taken as payment for what he needs ;
the food-wanter has nothing to pay for food , so the food-producer may give , but cannot sell , his produce to him ; but the food-producer is himself but an agent of the capitalist who employs him , gives him part of his stock , keeps him—on condition that ho uses his Btock to his gain , on condition that his labour bo profitable , which , if its produce bo unsaleable , it is not ; so , then , the capitalist tells him , •¦ I can keep you no longer ; what matter to mo that your fellows are
starving for want of tho fruits of your labour r they cannot buy them ; my object is to sell not give ; you labour for my profit not their preservation ; you produce more food than can be sold , therefore you glut the market ; your labour is useless to me , therefore it must bo useless to you : go you , and sell your labour to your starving fellow , ho will pay you with his cries , but I will pay you nothing , for to me you are a surplus labourer , an article I do not want I "
Untitled Article
Nov . 9 , 1850 . ] QCfte & * afrit * 78 i
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 9, 1850, page 781, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1858/page/13/
-