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
I am unable to think of any other than such rare and passing conditions
in which the productiveness of labor is really limited by the want of
capital. For, although there may be in a community individuals who from
want of capital cannot apply their labor as efficiently as they would,
yet so long as there is a sufficiency of capital in the community at
large, the real limitation is not the want of capital, but the want
of its proper distribution. If bad government rob the laborer of his
capital, if unjust laws take from the producer the wealth with which
he would assist production, and hand it over to those who are mere
pensioners upon industry, the real limitation to the effectiveness
of labor is in misgovernment, and not in want of capital. And so of
ignorance, or custom, or other conditions which prevent the use of
capital. It is they, not the want of capital, that really constitute
the limitation. To give a circular saw to a Terra del Fuegan, a
locomotive to a Bedouin Arab, or a sewing machine to a Flathead squaw,
would not be to add to the efficiency of their labor. Neither does it
seem possible by giving anything else to add to their capital, for any
wealth beyond what they had been accustomed to use as capital would
be consumed or suffered to waste. It is not the want of seeds and
tools that keeps the Apache and the Sioux from cultivating the soil.
If provided with seeds and tools they would not use them productively
unless at the same time restrained from wandering and taught to
cultivate the soil. If all the capital of a London were given them in
their present condition, it would simply cease to be capital, for they
would only use productively such infinitesimal part as might assist in
the chase, and would not even use that until all the edible part of the
stock thus showered upon them had been consumed. Yet such capital as
they do want they manage to acquire, and in some forms in spite of the
greatest difficulties. These wild tribes hunt and fight with the best
weapons that American and English factories produce, keeping up with
the latest improvements. It is only as they became civilized that they
would care for such other capital as the civilized state requires, or
that it would be of any use to them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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