I maintain that the share falling to the capitalists will descend, successively, from 50 per cent., to 40, 35, 30 per cent., and that the share of the labourers will rise, consequently, from 50 per cent., to 60, 65, 70 per cent.,—so that the ‹absolute› share of the [p213] capitalist will be always greater at each period, although his ‹relative› share will be smaller. The division will take place in this way,— Total Share of Share of Product. Capitalist. Labourer. First period, 1000 500 500 Second period, 2000 800 1200 Third period, 3000 1050 1950 Fourth period, 4000 1200 2800 Such is the great, admirable, reassuring, necessary, and ‹inflexible› law of Capital. To demonstrate it, appears to me to be the true way to strike with discredit the declamations which have so long been dinned into our ears against the ‹avidity›, the ‹tyranny›, of the most powerful instrument of civilisation and of ‹equality› which has ever proceeded from the human faculties. The demonstration is twofold. First of all, we must prove that the ‹relative› share of the product falling to the capitalist goes on continually diminishing. This is not difficult; for it only amounts to saying that ‹the more abundant capital becomes, the more interest falls›. Now, this is a matter of fact, incontestable and uncontested. Not only does science explain it—it is self-evident. Schools the most eccentric admit it. It forms the basis of their theory, for it is from this very fall of interest that they infer the necessary, the inevitable annihilation of what they choose to brand as ‹infernal› Capital. Now, say they, inasmuch as this annihilation is necessary, is inevitable, and must take place in a given time; and, moreover, implies the realization of a positive good, it is incumbent on us to hasten it and insure it. I am not concerned to refute these principles, or the deductions drawn from them. It is enough that Economists of all schools, as well as socialists, ‹egalitaires›, and others, all admit, in point of fact, that interest falls in proportion as capital becomes more abundant. Whether they admit it or not, indeed, the fact is not the less certain. It rests upon the authority of universal experience, and on the acquiescence, involuntary it may be, of all the capitalists in the world. It is a fact that the interest of capital is lower in Spain than in Mexico, in France than in Spain, in England than in France, in Holland than in England. Now, when interest falls from 20 to 15 per cent., and then to 10, to 8, to 6, to 5, to 4½, to 4, to 3½, to 3 per cent., what does that mean in relation to the question which now engages us? It means that capital, as the recompense of its co-operation in the work of production, in the realization of wealth, is content, or, if you will, is forced to be content, with a smaller and smaller share