Britain For The British Part 6

Wealth is produced by labour. Wealth cannot be produced by any other means or in any other way. _All_ wealth is produced _from_ the LAND _by_ human LABOUR.

A coal seam is not wealth; but a coalmine is wealth. Coal is not wealth while it is in the bowels of the earth; but coal is wealth as soon as it is brought up out of the pit and made available for use.

A whale or a seal is not wealth until it is caught.

In a country without inhabitants there would be no wealth.

Land is not wealth. To produce wealth you must have land and human beings.

There can be no wealth without labour.

And now we come to the first error of the economists. There are some economists who tell us that wealth is not produced by labour, but by "capital."

There is neither truth nor reason in this a.s.sertion.

What is "capital"?

"Capital" is only another word for _stores_. Adam Smith calls capital "stock." Capital is any tools, machinery, or other stores used in producing wealth. Capital is any food, fuel, shelter, clothing supplied to those engaged in producing wealth.

The hunter, before he can shoot game, needs weapons. His weapons are "capital." The farmer has to wait for his wheat and potatoes to ripen before he can use them as food. The stock of food and the tools he uses to produce the wheat or potatoes, and to live on while they ripen, are "capital."

Robinson Crusoe's capital was the arms, food, and tools he saved from the wreck. On these he lived until he had planted corn, and tamed goats and built a hut, and made skin clothing and vessels of wood and clay.

Capital, then, is stores. Now, where do the stores come from? Stores are wealth. Stores, whether they be food or tools, come from the land, and are made or produced by human labour.

There is not an atom of capital in the world that has not been produced by labour.

Every spade, every plough, every hammer, every loom, every cart, barrow, loaf, bottle, ham, haddock, pot of tea, barrel of ale, pair of boots, gold or silver coin, railway sleeper or rail, boat, road, ca.n.a.l, every kind of tools and stores has been produced by labour from the land.

It is evident, then, that if there were no labour there would be no capital. Labour is _before_ capital, for labour _makes_ capital.

Now, what folly it is to say that capital produces wealth. Capital is used by labour in the production of wealth, but capital itself is incapable of motion and can produce nothing.

A spade is "capital." Is it true, then, to say that it is not the navvy but the spade that makes the trench?

A plough is capital. Is it true to say that not the ploughman but the plough makes the furrow?

A loom is capital. Is it true to say that the loom makes the cloth? It is the weaver who weaves the cloth. He _uses_ the loom, and the loom was made by the miner, the smith, the joiner, and the engineer.

There are wood and iron and bra.s.s in the loom. But you would not say that the cloth was produced by the iron-mine and the forest! It is produced by miners, engineers, sheep farmers, wool-combers, sailors, spinners, weavers, and other workers. It is produced entirely by labour, and could not be produced in any other way.

How can capital produce wealth? Take a steam plough, a patent harrow, a sack of wheat, a bankbook, a dozen horses, enough food and clothing to last a hundred men a year; put all that capital down in a forty-acre field, and it will not produce a single ear of corn in fifty years unless you send a _man_ to _labour_.

But give a boy a forked stick, a rood of soil, and a bag of seed, and he will raise a crop for you.

If he is a smart boy, and has the run of the woods and streams, he will also contrive to find food to live on till the crop is ready.

We find, then, that all wealth is produced _from_ the land _by_ labour, and that capital is only a part of wealth, that it has been produced by labour, stored by labour, and is finally used by labour in the production of more wealth.

Our third question asks, "What becomes of the wealth?"

This is not easy to answer. But we may say that the wealth is divided into three parts--not _equal_ parts--called Rent, Interest, and Wages.

Rent is wealth paid to the landlords for the use of the land. Interest is wealth paid to the capitalists (the owners of tools and stores) for the use of the "capital."

Wages is wealth paid to the workers for their labour in producing _all_ the wealth.

There are but a few landlords, but they take a large share of the wealth.

There are but a few capitalists, but _they_ take a large share of the wealth.

There are very many workers, but they do not get much more than a third share of the wealth they produce.

The landlord produces _nothing_. He takes part of the wealth for allowing the workers to use the land.

The capitalist produces nothing. He takes part of the wealth for allowing the workers to use the capital.

The workers produce _all_ the wealth, and are obliged to give a great deal of it to the landlords and capitalists who produce nothing.

Socialists claim that the landlord is useless under _any_ form of society, that the capitalist is not needed in a properly ordered society, and that the people should become their own landlords and their own capitalists.

If the people were their own landlords and capitalists, _all_ the wealth would belong to the workers by whom it is all produced.

Now, a word of caution. We say that _all_ wealth is produced by labour.

_What is labour?_

Labour is work. Work is said to be of two kinds: hand work and brain work. But really work is of one kind--the labour of hand and brain together; for there is hardly any head work wherein the hand has no share, and there is no hand work wherein the head has no share.

The hand is really a part of the brain, and can do nothing without the brain's direction.

So when we say that all wealth is produced by labour, we mean by the labour of hand and brain.

I want to make this quite plain, because you will find, if you come to deal with the economists, that attempts have been made to use the word labour as meaning chiefly hand labour.

When we say labour produces all wealth, we do not mean that all wealth is produced by farm labourers, mechanics, and navvies, but that it is all produced by _workers_--that is, by thinkers as well as doers; by inventors and directors as well as by the man with the hammer, the file, or the spade.

CHAPTER III

HOW THE FEW GET RICH AND KEEP THE MANY POOR

We have already seen that most of the wealth produced by labour goes into the pockets of a few rich men: we have now to find out how it gets there.

By what means do the landlords and the capitalists get the meat and leave the workers the bones?

Let us deal first with the land, and next with the capital.