Progress and Poverty, Volumes I and II: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of WealthGeorge, Henry
General
Progress and Poverty, Volumes I and II: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth
George, Henry
Economics; Single tax
Now, while by adapting capital in proper forms we may increase the
effective power of labor to impress upon matter the character of
wealth, as when we adapt wood and iron to the form and use of a plane;
or iron, coal, water, and oil to the form and use of a steam engine;
or stone, clay, timber, and iron to that of a building, yet the
characteristic of this use of capital is, that the benefit is in the
use. When, however, we employ capital in the second of these modes, as
when we plant grain in the ground, or place animals on a stock farm,
or put away wine to improve with age, the benefit arises, not from
the use, but from the increase. And so, when we employ capital in the
third of these modes, and instead of using a thing we exchange it, the
benefit is in the increase or greater value of the things received in
return.
Primarily, the benefits which arise from use go to labor, and the
benefits which arise from increase, to capital. But, inasmuch as the
division of labor and the interchangeability of wealth necessitate and
imply an averaging of benefits, in so far as these different modes of
production correlate with each other, the benefits that arise from one
will average with the benefits that arise from the others, for neither
labor nor capital will be devoted to any mode of production while any
other mode which is open to them will yield a greater return. That is
to say, labor expended in the first mode of production will get, not
the whole return, but the return minus such part as is necessary to
give to capital such an increase as it could have secured in the other
modes of production, and capital engaged in the second and third modes
will obtain, not the whole increase, but the increase minus what is
sufficient to give to labor such reward as it could have secured if
expended in the first mode.
Thus interest springs from the power of increase which the reproductive
forces of nature, and the in effect analogous capacity for exchange,
give to capital. It is not an arbitrary, but a natural thing; it is
not the result of a particular social organization, but of laws of the
universe which underlie society. It is, therefore, just.
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