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
But, supposing the bonds have been issued for the deepening of a river
bed, the construction of lighthouses, or the erection of a public
market; or supposing, to embody the same idea while changing the
illustration, they have been issued by a railroad company. Here they do
represent capital, existing and applied to productive uses, and like
stock in a dividend paying company may be considered as evidences of
the ownership of capital. But they can be so considered only in so far
as they actually represent capital, and not as they have been issued in
excess of the capital used. Nearly all our railroad companies and other
incorporations are loaded down in this way. Where one dollar’s worth of
capital has been really used, certificates for two, three, four, five,
or even ten, have been issued, and upon this fictitious amount interest
or dividends are paid with more or less regularity. Now, what, in
excess of the amount due as interest to the real capital invested, is
thus earned by these companies and thus paid out, as well as the large
sums absorbed by managing rings and never accounted for, is evidently
not taken from the aggregate produce of the community on account of the
services rendered by capital—it is not interest. If we are restricted
to the terminology of economic writers who decompose profits into
interest, insurance, and wages of superintendence, it must fall into
the category of wages of superintendence.
But while wages of superintendence clearly enough include the income
derived from such personal qualities as skill, tact, enterprise,
organizing ability, inventive power, character, etc., to the profits we
are speaking of there is another contributing element, which can only
arbitrarily be classed with these—the element of monopoly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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