It is the overwhelming and all-engrossing nature of compound interest,also,which gives to Mr Ricardo's theory and his definitions,as I have already described them,though this principle is nowhere brought sufficiently into view in his book,their mathematical accuracy and truth.I refer to them,not as caring much to illustrate the subtleties of that ingenious and profound writer,but because his theory confirms the observations I have just made --viz.that the exactions of the capitalist cause the poverty of the labourer.It is an admitted principle that there cannot be two rates of profit in a country,and therefore the capital of the man who cultivates the best soil of a country procures of its owner no more than the capital of the man who cultivates the worst soil.The superior produce of the best soil is not,therefore,profit,and Mr Ricardo has called it rent.It is a portion of produce over and above the average rate of profit,and Mr Ricardo has assigned it to the landlords.The labourer must,however,live,though the exorbitant claims of capital allow him only a bare subsistence.Mr Ricardo has also been aware of this,and has therefore justly defined the price of labour to be such a quantity of commodities as will enable the labourers,one with another,to subsist,and to perpetuate their race without either increase or diminution.Such is all which the nature of profit or interest on capital will allow them to receive,and such has ever been their reward.The capitalist must give the labourers this sum,for it is the condition he must fulfil in order to obtain labourers;it is the limit which nature places to his claims,but he will never give,and never has given,more.The capitalists,according to Mr Ricardo's theory,allow the landlords to have just as much as keeps all the capitalist on a level;the labourers they allow,in the same theory,barely to subsist.Thus Mr Ricardo would admit that the cause of the poverty of the labourer is the engrossing nature of compound interest;this keeps him poor,and prevents him from obeying the commands of his Creator,to increase and multiply.
Though the defective nature of the claims of capital may now be satisfactorily proved,the question as to the wages of labour is by no means decided.Political economists,indeed,who have insisted very strongly on the necessity of giving security to property,and have ably demonstrated how much that security promotes general happiness,will not hesitate to agree with me when I say that whatever labour produces ought to belong to it.
They have always embraced the maxim of permitting those to "reap who sow,"and they have maintained that the labour of a man's body and the work of his hands are to be considered as exclusively his own.I take it for granted,therefore,that they will henceforth maintain that the whole produce of labour ought to belong to the labourer.But though this,as a general proposition,is quite evident,and quite true,there is a difficulty,in its practical application,which no individual can surmount.There is no principle or rule,as far as I know,for dividing the produce of joint labour among the different individuals who concur in production,but the judgment of the individuals themselves;that judgment depending on the value men may set on different species of labour can never be known,nor can any rule be given for its application by any single person.
As well might a man say what others shall hate or what they shall like.
Whatever division of labour exists,and the further it is carried the more evident does this truth become,scarcely any individual completes of himself any species of produce.Almost any product of art and skill is the result of joint and combined labour.So dependent is man on man,and so much does this dependence increase as society advances,that hardly any labour of any single individual,however much it may contribute to the whole produce of society,is of the least value but as forming a part of the great social task.In the manufacture of a piece of cloth,the spinner,the weaver,the bleacher and the dyer are all different persons.All of them except the first is dependent for his supply of materials on him,and of what use would his thread be unless the others took it from him,and each performed that part of the task which is necessary to complete the cloth?
Wherever the spinner purchases the cotton or wool,the price which he can obtain for his thread,over and above what he paid for the raw material,is the reward of his labour.But it is quite plain that the sum the weaver will be disposed to give for the thread will depend on his view of its utility.Wherever the division of labour is introduced,therefore,the judgment of other men intervenes before the labourer can realise his earnings,and there is no longer any thing which we can call the natural reward of individual labour.Each labourer produces only some part of a whole,and each part having no value or utility of itself,there is nothing on which the labourer can seize,and say:"This is my product,this will I keep to myself."Between the commencement of any joint operation,such as that of making cloth,and the division of its product among the different persons whose combined exertions have produced it,the judgment of men must intervene several times,and the question is,how much of this joint product should go to each of the individuals whose united labourers produce it?
I know no way of deciding this but by leaving it to be settled by the unfettered judgments of the labourers themselves.
