the laborer, and by increase of power on the part of the latter to command the aid of capital: That the laborer's proportion of the increased product tends thus steadily to increase, while that of the capitalist tends as regularly to decline: That the quantity assigned to both increases, that of the laborer growing, however, far more rapidly than that retained by the capitalist, the latter having a smaller proportion of the augmented quantity, while the former has a constantlyincreasing proportion of the increasing quantity: That the tendency to equality is, therefore, in the direct ratio of the growth of wealth, and consequent productiveness of labor : That wealth grows in the ratio of the rapidity of circulation : That the circulation increases in rapidity as individuality is more and more developed, with growing power for the diversification of employments among those who labor: That the more rapid the circulation the larger must be the proportion of the laboier, and the greater must be the tendency towards equality, elevation, and freedom among the people, and the greater the strength of the State. § 10. The law of distribution above presented for the reader's consideration was first announced more than twenty years since by the author of the present volume.* Reappearing since in the work of a distinguished French economist, its harmony and beauty are recognized by him in the following words, whose truth will be acknowledged by all who study the subject with the attention it so well de serves: "Such is the great, admirable, consoling, necessary, and inflexible law of capital. To demonstrate it is, as it appears to me, to strike with discredit the declamation with which our ears have so long been dinned, against the avarice and tyranny of the most powerful instrument of civilization and of equalization that results from the exercise of human pow**** Thus, the great law of capital and labor, as regards the distribution of the product of their joint labor, is settled; the absolute quantity is greater, but the proportional part of capital constantly diminishes, as compared with that of labor. ers. * Principles of Political Economy, Part I. Phila., 1837. . "Cease, then, ye capitalists and laborers, to look upon each other with eyes of suspicion and envy. Close your ears to those absurd declaimers, of whom nothing equals the pride if it be not the ignorance, who, under the promise of future harmony begin by exciting present discord. Recollect that, say what they may, your interests are one and the same; that they cannot be separated; that they tend together towards the realization of the general good; that the labors of the present generation combine themselves with those of the generations which have passed; that it is right that each who has united in the work should have a portion of the remuneration; and that the most ingenious as well as the most equitable division takes place between you by virtue of providential laws, and by means of free and voluntary arrangements, without requiring the aid of a parasitic sentimentalism to impose upon you its decrees, at the expense of your well-being, your liberty, your security, and your dignity.” 66 Widely different from this are the tendencies of the doctrine which teaches that the landlord is doubly benefited by difficulty of production," obtaining "a greater share," and being paid "in a commodity of higher value." That system, opposing, as it does, the interests of the landlord to those of the other classes of society, tends necessarily to disturbance of the right to property in land, as thus shown by one of its most distinguished advocates, Mr. J. S. Mill: "When the 'sacredness of property' is talked of, it should always be remembered, that this sacredness does not belong in the same degree to landed property. No man made the land. It is the original inheritance of the whole species. *** If the State is at liberty to treat the possessors of land as public functionaries, it is only going one step farther to say, it is at liberty to discard them. The claim of the landowners is altogether subordinate to the general policy of the State." War among nations, and discord among individuals, grow with the growth of monopoly in land. Land becomes consolidated as the farmer becomes more thoroughly subjected to that policy which has for its object the limitation of the world to a single and distant workshop, and as producer and consumer become more widely separated. The more perfect its consolidation the greater must be the inequalities of society, and the more must those who labor be made to suffer in the distribution effected between the people and the State. CHAPTER XXXVI. OF DISTRIBUTION- -CONTINUED. III.-The People and the State. 1. Of distribution between the people and the State. Small security obtained at the cost of heavy contributions in the early stages of society. As employments become diversified security increases and is obtained at diminished cost. 2. Necessity for indirect taxation in the early period. Diminishes as fixed property increases in the proportions borne by it to that which is movable. 23. Commerce tends to become more free as the proportion of movable to fixed property declines. 24. Tendency towards increase of indirect taxation an evidence of declining civilization. Phenomena presented for consideration by Greece and Rome. Indirect taxation of Holland, Turkey, and other countries that are becoming more subject to the dominion of the trader. 25. Substitution of indirect for direct taxation in Great Britain. Taxation of India and Carolina. The real payers of British taxes the land and labor of the various countries which furnish the raw materials consumed in British workshops. 26. Revenue system of the United States. The countries in which direct taxation tends to supersede those which are indirect, are those which have protected themselves against the British system. 27. The more direct the taxation the less will be its proportion to production. 28. The more rapid the circulation the less the power for interference with commerce, and the greater the tendency towards improvement in the condition of man. Why not, then, at once abolish all indirect taxation? Because the power of direct taxationbeing an evidence of that high civilization which is marked by the near approach of the prices of rude products and finished commodities-cannot be exercised in any country that has not prepared for it by placing consumers and producers in close proximity to each other. 9. The more perfect the power to apply directly to the land and labor of the country, the greater the competition for the purchase of both, and the greater the strength of the State.. § 1. FROM the moment when Crusoe discovered that he had neighbors poorer even than himself, he lived in constant fear of his life. Friday, however, having joined him, security was increased, the one watching while the other slept or labored. So has it been, and so is it now, in all the early settlements of the world. Seeking security the early people of Greece and Italy placed all their towns on the tops of hills, a course of proceeding to which they would have thus been led, even had they possessed the power to cultivate the fertile soils of the valleys capable of yielding thrice the return to labor. So was it in Southern England, almost every hilltop there presenting, even now, evidence of early occupation. So is it, now, in Kansas and Oregon, every man being compelled to prepare himself for self-defence. The regular application of labor to the work of obtaining command over the great natural forces, having, therefore, no existence, the potential energy of man remains latent, he, himself, continuing poor, because of the absence of power for combination with his fellow-men. Friday's arrival exercised upon Crusoe's condition a double influence, greatly increasing its effectiveness when applied, and enabling him more continuously to apply it. His wants and his powers being here, as everywhere, a constant quantity, every increase of the latter was attended with an enlargement of his proportions, the resistance of nature to his further efforts diminishing as his powers of attack increased. So is it in all new settlements, security growing in a ratio far exceeding that of numbers, and being obtained in return for contributions of time and mind, or the produce of both, constantly diminishing in the proportion borne by them to the quantity of things produced. Look where the reader may, he will find evidence that the course of man towards civilization is represented by the diagram already more than once submitted for his consideration : here again reproduced, in evidence of the universality of the law under which freedom grows as the prices of raw materials and finished commodities come nearer to each other. On the left there is no security, the law of force alone being recognized. The weak are there the slaves of the strong, to be taxed at pleasure. Passing towards the right employments become diversified, and individuality more and more developed. The power of association steadily increases, until, at length, in Massachusetts, we find a community enjoying a higher degree of security, and giving in exchange for it a smaller proportion of the products of labor than in any other country of the world. Passing upwards through English history we obtain results exactly similar. The men of early England, harassed by Danes and Saxons, enjoyed even less security than those of the days of the Plantagenets. Thenceforward, to the accession of the Stuarts, there was no security in the northern and western counties. Elsewhere, the wars of the Roses, and the execution of 72,000 persons in a single reign, bear testimony to the almost total absence of security as to individual rights. The reign of Elizabeth exhibits a series of depredations on the people of the coast by Algerine and other pirates. The close of border wars is followed by civil war; yet amidst all this waste of human energies we trace a growing steadiness in the societary movement, and a constant increase in the tendency towards equity in the distribution of the societary burthens. § 2. In the early ages of society the contributions required. for the maintenance of security bear a large proportion to the property of the community. Whence, however, can they come? Of fixed property there is none, the little capital that exists consisting of cattle, hogs, corn, or slaves. Hence it is that at this period we find the lord arresting the societary circulation, that he may claim the lion's share of labor's products. At times he demands personal service on the farm; at others on the road, or in the field. He stops the corn on its road to the mill; the meal on its way to the oven; the wool on its way to the clothier; the cloth on its way to the people who need to use it. At one time he calls in heavy gold and silver coins, paying for them in others that are light; at another, he repudiates the light, compelling his subjects to purchase of him those which are heavy, and thus pilfering that which openly he dares not take. Wealth and population, however, increasing, land and labor acquire value as commodities lose it; and men become free as their masters become enriched. The power of interference now declines, the mill and oven monopolies passing away, and lords and masters being required to look to fixed property as a source of revenue. The slave now becomes a tenant, contracting with the land-owner for a certain rent, and being released from personal service. The tenant, too, becomes a freeman, contracting with his sovereign for the payment of a fixed amount of money, and thereby freeing himself from interference in his exchanges with his fellow-men. |