Here also is the place to note the answer to another question which the object-lesson may suggest: What is the average amount which the employing class fleeced from each worker during the respective census years?

In 1850 it amounted to $209.00;

By the way, we ought here to remark that it will not do to trust implicitly these or other calculations that might be made on figures in the Census Reports (remember it is the employers who have furnished all data); especially is a comparison of one census year with another liable to be very misleading, since one Report differs materially from another both in method and accuracy. But these Reports are of great service, when only, as here, a rough, approximate idea of the reality is required.

We then find that in 1880-a fairly prosperous year, as all the above census years were, compared with our years of dis. tress-the employer paid the worker on an average $346 in wages and fleeced, on an average, from him the sum of $324. That, perhaps, to many does not seem extravagant.

Three Hundred and Twenty-four Thousand dollars this latter employer gained, fleeced, "accumulated" (mark)! in one year! For what? what had the workers in return? The privilege each to earn three hundred and forty-six dollars! The privilege to use the soil, the machinery and all the resources of our civilization, which this employer possesses!

It is on purpose that we so far in our exposition have avoided to use the word "Capital." Political Economists have surrounded this category with such a hazy atmosphere that the word now denotes a good many things. Yet, the question: What is Capital? is of fundamental importance and relates to the whole structure of our present Social order. We want that question answered, and the preceeding pages, indeed, have been written for that purpose. But we are not concerned about the meaning of the word—throughout this work we care for the essence of things and not for the definition of words. By Capital" we mean what in popular speech is meant.

He is called a 66 capitalist" who possesses wealth which brings him an income without any work on his part. True, many capitalists do some work of one kind or another, but the remuneration they receive for that work has nothing to do with their incomes as "capitalists"; these latter are something over and above such remuneration. We, therefore, mean by Capital": that part of wealth which yields its possessors an income without work. But we are just as willing to adopt the definition of some Economists, that Capital is "the part of wealth which is employed productively with a view to profit by sale of the produce," for it is only by being thus employed, that it yields an income.

The question, then, which we are now intent upon finding an answer to is: What is the nature, the essence of that which

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we have agreed to call “· Capital"? We want to know it, and therefore must learn the process of its origin. That is a comparatively easy thing to us who already know the origin of the "Surplus." Simply observe what our moneyed men. the operators of the cotton mill, are doing. They add their fleecings to what wealth they had already, and make that increased wealth pass through such another operation as we already have described. The oftener they do that and the more operatives they employ, the more surplus labor their wealth absorbs. Now we have "Capital" and "Capitalists." It is these fleecings which, absorbed by wealth. turns it into Capital,” and the pocketing these fleecings turns wealthy men into capitalists."

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Note," Surplus" is the same as "fleecings," is the difference between the price of Labor and the price of Labor's produce, is the latter minus -) the former.

Capital is the original little amount of wealth with which our employers start-which they may and may not have earned— plus (+) the sum of surplus values; is accumulated fleecings— accumulated WITHHELD WAGES.

Therein consists. really, the so-called "productivity" of Capital: in possessing the spongy capacity of steadily going on absorbing surplus labor. This capacity distinguishes it from all other wealth (which other wealth the old Economists called, very happily Revenue.) Far be it from us to deny the invaluable assistance which Capital renders to Labor. But Capital produces no Values whatever; it enables Labor to be immensely more productive, that is all.

We have now reached the very core, the grand secret of the present mode of production. This fact, that such a thing as ·Capital" exists, that it is acquired and increases, legitimately, by fleecing those in its employ by the wage-systema fact, unknown to all former periods-is the one characteristic mark of this era; wherefore it may with propriety be designated: the Capitalist era.

We took our illustration from the manufacturing industries. The same lesson however, might have been equally well drawn from agriculture, to the extent that the cultivator of the farm

or plantation employs wage-laborers. And we arrive at the same results, if we direct our attention to the legitimate commercial enterprises. For commerce,-legitimate commerceis an industry, and a productive industry. The labor of those engaged in causing the cloth of the cotton mills of New England to be transported to the heart of our continent and in their handing it out in small pieces to consumers creates an additional value in these pieces as fully as the labor of the operatives creates value. But here, also, the profits which swell the fortunes of our merchant "princes" are not the result of their labor, but fleecings, exactions, from the labor of their employees. The scores of millions of an A. T. Stewart were the result of the work of thousands of his fellow men-fleeced from them by the process, already described. Thus in all industries, manufacturing, mining, agricultural and commercial, the legitimate fleecings which go to make up Capital, come out of the producers-we say legitimate fleecings, following naturally, as they do, from the wage-sysThey are all fleecers, whether it be the capitalist who joins millions to his millions. or the workingman who brings his hard earned earnings to the bank for the sake of the interest. One is not better than the other. We do not blame either; they simply conform to the system we are living under. But we claim, that in this difference between wages paid and the proceeds of Labor, in this little fold lies hidden the germ of all profit, interest and rent, of all pauperism and of nearly all modern crime.

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Now we can justly estimate the accounts which recent economists have given us of Capital. Some, with the evident design of drawing their attention away from the fleecing process, seek to confound men's minds with most reckless definitions. When in popular speech knowledge and skill are called “Capital," every one is aware that it is a metaphor. But when economists gravely apply that term to such acquisitions, to the wheel-barrow of the day laborer and the wooden horse of the wood-sawyer, then we have a right to dismiss them, somewhat contemptuously, with the remark, that in such case we are all, indeed a band of brother capitalists-since everybody

has, at least. got a coat to his back-such as it is;-but then, also, we have amongst us a great many starving "capitalists." Then the German economist who claims the title of "capitalist" for the bear who goes into winter quarters with lots of fat on him is no wit after all, but a sober truth-teller.

Others, again, J. S. Mill among them. attribute capital to saving. The tendency of such an account is equally obvious. It insinuates, that capitalists are a highly deserving class of people, indeed, since it is due to their abnormal, unselfish "abstinence." that we have any Capital at all!

Well, all that we have is either consumable or inconsumable. The consumable goods like grain or meat-cannot be "saved" for any length of time; they must be consumed, or they spoil; the capitalists therefore only save here in the same way that soldiers "save" the chickens from being eaten by the enemy. The inconsumable things, like machinery, leather, coin-must be saved" anyhow, since they cannot be devoured. And if it is any merit in capitalists, that they have “saved” i, e., not devoured these, why—then it must be accounted them a merit, we suppose, that they have "saved" the very earth, or the moon, since they have not consumed these as yet! 'Saving," therefore, is absolutely inappropriate here, as it properly means the accumulating such thing which might have been consumed.

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Much more to the point, therefore, is that other stereotypic definition of Capital, that it is accumulated Labor." Yes it is; but why then do those who work most not" accumulate" Capital? Ah, nothing is so dangerous as a truth in a delusive dress. This definition omits to state, who does the laboring and who the accumulating. What a heaven-wide difference there is between the two activities, we have already noted. But the definition by that very omission, though it looks so innocent, insinuates that Capital at large is formed by wagelaborers laying up their earnings, and that in that way they be come the capitalists. This insinuation is, to speak emphatically, a falsehood. The first thousand dollars may sometimes be formed in that way; the following millions-NEVER. It is simply impossible. Let us suppose a laborer earning $2.00 a