Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital [14]
up to our admiration, as the great means of civilising and improving the world. To show the labourer the effects which bestowing this abundant reward on the supposed productive powers of food, clothing and instruments have on his poverty or wealth, I must observe that all political economists agree in saying that all savings in society are usually made by capitalists. The labourer cannot save; the landlord is not disposed to save; whatever is saved is saved from profits and becomes the property of the capitalists. Now let us suppose that a capitalist possesses, when profit is at ten per cent per annum, 100 quarters of wheat and 100 steam engines; he must at the end of a year be paid for allowing the labourer to eat this wheat and use these steam engines with 110 quarters of wheat and 110 steam engines, all in the same excellent condition as the 100 steam engines were at the beginning. It being an admitted principle that, after a portion of fixed capital is prepared, it must be paid for at a rate sufficient to pay the ordinary rate of interest, and provide for the repairs or the remaking of the instrument. Let us suppose that 5 quarters of wheat and 5 steam engines, or the value of this quantity, suffices for the owner's consumption, and that the other 5 of his profit being added to this capital he has the next year 105 quarters of wheat and 105 steam engines, which he allows labourers to eat or use; for these the labourer must produce for him, the following year, supposing the rate of profit to continue the same, a sufficient sum to replace the whole of this capital, with the interest, or 115 quarters 4 bushels of wheat and 155 ? steam engines. Supposing that the value of the 5 quarters and of 5 steam engines suffices for the consumption of the capitalist, he will have the next year 110 quarters 4 bushels, and 110 ? steam engines, for the use of which he must be paid at the same rate; or the labourer must produce and give him, the third year, 121 quarters and 1/20th of a quarter, and 121 steam engines and 1/20th of a steam engine. It is of no use calculating all these fractions, or carrying the series further; it is enough to observe that every atom of the capitalist's revenue, which he puts out to use, or, as it is called, saves, which means given or lent to labourers, goes on increasing at compound interest. Dr Price has calculated that the sum of one penny put out to compound interest at our Saviour's birth, at 5 per cent, would in the year 1791 amount to a sum greater than could be contained in three hundred millions of globes like this earth, all solid gold. Perhaps I can make the evil effects of capital more apparent by another sort of example. The real price of a coat or a pair of shoes or a loaf of bread, all which nature demands from man in order that he may have either of these very useful articles, is a certain quantity of labour; how much it is almost impossible to say, from the manufacture of a coat, a pair of shoes or a loaf of bread being completed by many persons. But for the labourer to have either of these articles he must give over and above the quantity of labour nature demands from him, a still large quantity to the capitalist. Before he can have a coat, he must pay interest for the farmer's sheep, interest on the wool after it has got into the hands of the wool merchant, interest for this same wool as raw material, after it is in the hands of the manufacturer, interest on all buildings and tools he uses, and interest on all the wages he pays his men. Moreover, he must pay interest or profit on the tailor's stock, both fixed and circulating, and this rate of interest is increased in all these instances by something more being always necessary to pay the rent of all these different capitalists. In the same manner before a labourer can have a loaf of bread he must give a quantity of labour more than the loaf costs, by all that quantity which pays the profit of the farmer, the corn dealer, the miller and the baker, with profit on all the buildings they use; and he must, moreover, pay with the