◆¹ Hitherto this truth, though more or less apparent to economic writers and thoughtful persons generally, has been apparent to them only by fits and starts, and has never been assigned any definite or logical place in their theories of production, or has ever been expressed clearly; and, owing to this cause, not only has it been entirely absent from the theories of the public generally, but its place has been usurped by a meaningless and absurd falsehood. In place of the living force Ability, residing in living men, popular thought, misled by a singular oversight of the economists, has substituted Capital—a thing which, apart from Ability, assists production as little as a dead or unborn donkey; and hence has arisen that dangerous and ridiculous illusion—sometimes plainly expressed, often only half-conscious—to the effect that if the labourers could only seize upon Capital they would be masters of the entire productive power of the country. The defenders of the existing system have been as guilty of this error as its antagonists; and the attack and defence have been conducted on equally false grounds. Thus in a recent strike, the final threat of the employers—men who had created almost the whole of their enormous business—was that, if the strikers insisted upon certain demands, the Capital involved in the business would be removed to another country; and a well-known journal, professing to be devoted to the interest of Labour, conceived that it had disposed of this threat triumphantly by saying that, of the Capital a large part was not portable, and that the employers might go if they chose, and leave this behind. A great musician, who conceived himself to have been ill-treated in London, might just as well have threatened that he would remove his concert-room to St. Petersburg, when the principal meaning of his threat would be that he would remove _himself_; and the journal referred to might just as well have said, had the business in question been the production of a great picture, “The painter may go if he likes—what matter? We can keep his brushes.”