Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital [10]
various species of industry which are necessary to prepare her for sea. There is the skill and labour of the draughtsman, of the working shipwright, of the carpenter, the mast maker, the sail maker, the cooper, the founder, the smith, the coppersmith, the compass maker, etc., etc., but there is nothing necessary more than the skill and labour of these different persons. After she is made ready the same qualities watch over her, check the first indications of decay, and repair every little defect occasioned by accident and time. She is then, however, of no use unless there are seamen to manage her. To conduct her safely from port to port, and from hemisphere to hemisphere, a great deal of knowledge of the winds and tides, of the phenomena of the heavens, and of the laws which prevail on the surface of the earth, is necessary; and only when this knowledge is united with great skill, and carried into effect by labour, can a ship be safely conducted through the multitudes of dangers which beset her course. To have and to use this fixed capital, knowledge, labour and skill are necessary. Without these it could not be made, and when it would be less productive than the clod from which its materials spring, or from which they are fashioned by the hand of man. A road is made by a certain quantity of labour, and is then called fixed capital; the constant repairs it needs, however, are a continual making, and the expense incurred by them is called circulating capital. But neither the circulating nor the fixed capital return any profit to the road makers unless there are persons to travel over the road or make a further use of their labour. The road facilitates the progress of the traveller, and just in proportion as people do travel over it, so does the labour which has been employed on the road become productive and useful. One easily comprehends why both these species of labour should be paid -- why the road maker should receive some of the benefits accruing only to the road user; but I do not comprehend why all these benefits should go to the road itself and be appropriated by a set of person who neither make nor use it, under the name of profit for their capital. One is almost tempted to believe that capital is a sort of cabalistic word, like Church or State, or any other of those general terms which are invented by those who fleece the rest of mankind to conceal the hand that shears them. It is a sort of idol before which men are called upon to prostrate themselves, while the cunning priest from behind the altar, profaning the God whom he pretends to serve, and mocking those sweet sentiments of devotion and gratitude, or those terrible emotions of fear and resentment, one or the other of which seems common to the whole human race, as they are enlightened and wise, or ignorant and debased, puts forth his hand to receive and appropriate the offerings which he calls for in the name of religion. A steam engine also is a most complete instrument, but alas! for the capitalist, it does not go of itself. A peculiar skill is required to make it and put it up, and peculiar skill and labour must afterwards direct and regulate its movements. What would it produce without the engineer? To the stranger who did not possess the engineer's skill, only misery, death and destruction. Its vast utility does not depend on stored up iron and wood, but on that practical and living knowledge of the powers of nature which enables some men to construct, and others to guide it. If we descend to more minute instruments, and consider such as are guided by the hand, the necessity of skill and labour, and the utter worthlessness of capital by itself, will be still more obvious. It has been asked, what could a carpenter effect without his hatchet and his saw? I put the converse of the question, and ask what the hatchet and saw could effect without the carpenter. Rust and rottenness must be the answer. A plough or a scythe may be made with the most cunning art, but to use either of them a man must have a droit turn of the hand, or a peculiar species