Knowledge is power : $b A view of the productive forces of modern society and the results of labor, capital and skill.Knight, Charles
Philosophy
Knowledge is power : $b A view of the productive forces of modern society and the results of labor, capital and skill.
Knight, Charles
Industrial arts; Industries
A man so circumstanced--one who possesses no capital, and is only master
of his own natural powers--if suddenly thrown down from a condition of
ease, must look upon the world, at the first view, with deep
apprehension. He sees everything around him appropriated. He is in the
very opposite condition of Alexander Selkirk, when he is made to exclaim
"I am monarch of all I survey." Instead of feeling that his "right there
is none to dispute," he knows that every blade of corn that covers the
fields, every animal that grazes in the pastures, is equally numbered as
the property of some individual owner, and can only pass into his
possession by exchange. In the towns it is the same as in the country.
The dealer in bread and in clothes,--the victualler from whom he would
ask a cup of beer and a night's lodging,--will give him nothing,
although they will exchange everything. He cannot exist, except as a
beggar, unless he puts himself in the condition to become an exchanger.
But still, with all these apparent difficulties, his prospects of
subsisting, and of subsisting comfortably, are far greater than in any
other situation in which he must labour to live. As we have already
seen, the condition of by far the greater number of the millions that
constitute the exchangers of civilized society is greatly superior to
that of the few thousands who exist upon the precarious supplies of the
unappropriated productions of nature in the savage life. Although an
exchange must always be made--although in very few cases "the fowl and
the brute" offer themselves to the wayfaring man for his daily
food--although no herbs worth the gathering can be found for the support
of life in the few uncultivated parts of a highly cultivated
country--the aggregate riches are so abundant, and the facilities which
exist for exchanging capital for labour are therefore so manifold, that
the poorest man in a state of civilization has a much greater certainty
of supplying all his wants, and of supplying them with considerably more
ease, than the richest man in a state of uncivilization. The principle
upon which he has to rely is, that in a highly civilized country there
is large production. There is large production because there is
profitable labour;--there is profitable labour because there is large
accumulation;--there is large accumulation because there is unlimited
exchange;--there is unlimited exchange because there is universal
appropriation. John Tanner was accounted a rich man by the
Indians--doubtless because he was more industrious than the greater
number of them; but we have seen what privations he often suffered. He
suffered privations because there was no capital, no accumulation of the
products of labour, in the country in which he lived. Where such a store
exists, the poorest man has a tolerable certainty that he may obtain his
share of it as an exchanger; and the greater the store the greater the
certainty that his labour, or power of adding to the store, will obtain
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account