The impending crisis : $b conditions resulting from the concentration of wealth in the United StatesBouroff, Basil A.
History
The impending crisis : $b conditions resulting from the concentration of wealth in the United States
Bouroff, Basil A.
Trusts, Industrial; United States -- Economic conditions; Wealth
5. The propertyless man can not even make himself the source of income
and profit to others without paying an exorbitant price for it to an
owner of wealth. If, for instance, he labors for wages, his employer and
others finally obtain from 25 to 50 or 75 per cent or even more profit
out of the results of his labor. If he works on a farm, in a plant, or
any other wealth [SN: HIS EXPENSES FOR EMPLOYMENT IN ANY SPHERE.] with
capital, or works in making capital, he must in any way divide the
results of his work between the owner of wealth and himself. His portion
is usually paid by time in money, as wages, as a salary, or in some
other way; while the whole result of his work remains, and is dispensed
by the owner of wealth who is profited by him. If the propertyless
person serves to an owner of wealth as a clerk, a bookkeeper, salesman,
or in any other capacity, he cannot serve unless he or she is a
profitable source of income to the propertied master who gives him the
chance to supply his ever drained source of multiple expenses. If,
further, the propertyless man leases a farm or any other wealth of a
propertied person, he has always to divide the results of his labor
between himself and the owner of wealth. Whereas, if the owner of it
himself labors on his wealth, then, the whole result of his toil must
remain as a reward to himself. And there is the difference: The tenant
or the lessee is obliged to labor twice as hard as the propertied man in
order to derive so much income for himself, as the owner of wealth can
derive by working half as hard; and that is because the owner of
property is drawing all income of his labor for himself, while the
propertyless man is drawing income for himself and for the propertied
man, to whom the former is a source of income by paying rent. If,
finally, the propertyless man labors upon a rentable source of income,
and then borrows money for improvements, in addition to the paying for
that source, he thereby makes himself a source of income in favor of the
creditor, by paying per cents for the loan; and, consequently, he must
divide the results of his toil between himself and between two owners of
wealth. The improvements, being a capital, must aid him to produce more
wealth than he can produce without it; but the high rate of percentage
which exists in America must surely ruin the debtor, because per cents
in favor of lenders of money, etc., generally run from 6 to 12 per cent
per annum; and in some cases the money sharks obtain even from 15 to 18
per cent.
What then are the advantages of the propertied person and the
disadvantages of the propertyless man?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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