◆¹ But this idea, which is suggested, and seems to be supported, by the modern development of labour-organisation and strikes, really ignores the most fundamental facts of the case. In the first place, it may be observed that though Ability, regarded as a faculty, is no doubt helpless unless there is Labour for it to act upon, Ability, if we take it to mean the men possessing the faculty, is, whatever happens, in as good a position as Labour; for the average man of ability can always become a labourer. But the principal point to realise is far more important than this. We are perfectly right in saying, as was said just now, that if Labour should refuse to exert itself, Ability could produce nothing; but it seems completely to escape the notice of those who use this argument that to refuse to exert itself is what Labour can never do, except for very short times, and to a quite unimportant extent; and it can only do thus much when Ability indirectly helps it. The ideas of the power of Labour which are suggested by the phenomenon of the strike are, as I shall by and by show more fully, curiously fallacious. ◆² Men can strike—that is to say, cease to labour—only when they have some store on which to live when they are idle; and such a store is nothing but so much Capital. A strike, therefore, represents the power not of Labour, but of Capital.[39] The Capital which is available in the present day for supporting strikes would never have been in existence but for the past action of Ability; and what is still more important, a widespread strike would very quickly exhaust it. Further, a strike, no matter what Capital were at the back of it, could never be more than partial for even a single day; for there are many kinds of Labour, such as transport and distribution of food, the constant performance of which is required by even the humblest lives. But it is not necessary to dwell on such small matters as these. It is enough to point to the fact, which does not require proving—the broad fact that men, taken as a whole, can no more refuse to labour than they can refuse to breathe. ◆³ What compels them to labour is not the employing class, but Nature. The employing class—the men of ability—merely compel them to labour in a special way. [Sidenote ◆1 But Nature forces no one to exert Ability; therefore Ability is, in the long run, in a stronger position than Labour.]