The warmest admirers of circulating capital will not pretend that it adds in the same way as fixed capital to the productive power of the labourer.The most extraordinary visionary who ever wrote cannot suppose circulating capital adds anything to productive power.The degree and nature of the utility of both species of capital is perfectly different and distinct.The labourer subsists on what is called circulating capital;he works with fixed capital.But equal quantities or equal values of both these species of capital bring their owner precisely the same amount of profit.We may,from this single circumstance,be quite sure that the share claimed by the capitalist for the use of fixed capital is not derived from the instruments increasing the efficiency of labour,or from the utility of these instruments;and profit is derived in both cases from the power which the capitalist has over the labourer who consumes the circulating,and who uses the fixed,capital.How he obtained this power I shall not now inquire,further than to state that it is derived from the whole surface of the country,having been at one period monopolised by a few persons;and the consequent state of slavery in which the labourer formerly existed in this country,as well as throughout Europe.As the profits of the capitalist on fixed capital are not derived from the utility of these instruments,it is useless to inquire what share ought to belong to the owner of the wood and iron,and what share ought to belong to the person who uses them.He who makes the instruments is entitled,in the eye of justice,and in proportion to the labour he employs,to as great a reward as he who uses them;but he is not entitled to a greater;and he who neither makes nor uses them has no just claim to any portion of the produce.
Betwixt him who produces food and him who produces clothing,betwixt him who makes instruments and him who uses them,in steps the capitalist,who neither makes nor uses them,and appropriates to himself the produce of both.With as niggard a hand as possible he transfers to each a part of the produce of the other,keeping to himself the large share.Gradually and successively has he insinuated himself betwixt them,expanding in bulk as he has been nourished by their increasingly productive labours,and separating them so widely from each other that neither can see whence that supply is drawn which each receives through the capitalist.While he despoils both,so completely does he exclude one from the view of the other that both believe they are indebted him for subsistence.He is the middleman of all labourers;and when we compare what the skilled labour of England produces,with the produce of the untutored labour of the Irish peasantry,the middlemen of England cannot be considered as inferior in their exactions to the middlemen of Ireland.They have been more fortunate,however,and while the latter are stigmatised as oppressors,the former are honoured as benefactors.Not only do they appropriate the produce of the labourer;but they have succeeded in persuading him that they are his benefactors and employers.At least such are the doctrines of political economy;and capitalist may well be pleased with a science which both justifies their claims and holds them 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 percent,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.
