Of all the important operations which require more than a year to complete them --and that they all are important,as far as the production of wealth is concerned,does not require to be asserted --by far the most important is the rearing of youth and teaching them skilled labour,or some wealth-creating art.I am particularly desirous of directing the reader's attention to this productive operation,because,if the observations I have already made be correct,all the effects usually attributed to accumulation of circulating capital are derived from the accumulation and storing up of skilled labour;and because this most important operation is performed,as far as the great mass of the labourers is concerned,without any circulating capital whatever.The labour of the parents produces and purchases,with what they receive as wages,all the food and the clothing which the rising generation of labourers use while they are learning those arts by means of which they will hereafter produce all the wealth of society.For the rearing and educating all future labourers (of course I do not mean book education,which is the smallest and least useful part of all which they have to learn)their parents have no stock stored up beyond their own practical skill.Under the strong influence of natural affection and parental love,they prepare by their toils,continued day after day,and year after year,through all the long period of the infancy and childhood of their offspring,those future labourers who are to succeed to their toils and their hard fare,but who will inherit their productive power,and be what they now are,the main pillars of the social edifice.
If we duly consider the number and importance of those wealth-producing operations which are not completed within the year,and the numberless products of daily labour,necessary to subsistence,which are consumed as soon as produced,we shall,Ithink,be sensible that the success and productive power of every different species of labour is at all times more dependent on the co-existing productive labour of other men than on any accumulation of circulating capital.The labourer,having no stock of commodities,undertakes to bring up his children,and teach them a useful art,always relying on his own labour;and various classes of persons undertake tasks the produce of which is not completed for a long period,relying on the labour of other men to procure them,in the meantime,what they require for subsistence.All classes of men carry on their daily toils in the full confidence that while each is engaged in his particular occupation some others will prepare whatever he requires,both for his immediate and future consumption and use.I have already explained that this confidence arises from that law of our nature by which we securely expect the sun will rise tomorrow,and that our fellow men will labour on the morrow and during the next year as they have laboured during the year and the day which have passed.I hope I have also satisfied the reader that there is no knowledge of any produce of previous labour stored up for use,that the effects usually attributed to a stock of commodities are caused by co-existing labour,and that it is by the command the capitalist possesses over the labour of some men,not by his possessing a stock of commodities,that he is enabled to support and consequently employ other labourers.
I come now to examine,secondly,the nature and effects of fixed capital.Fixed capital consists of the tools and instruments the labourer works with,the machinery he makes and guides,and the buildings he uses either to facilitate his exertions or to protect their produce.Unquestionably by using these instruments man adds wonderfully to his power.Without a hand saw,a portion of fixed capital,he could not cut a tree into planks;with such an instrument he could,though it would cost him many hours or days;but with a sawmill he could do it in a few minutes.Every man must admit that by means of instruments and machines the labourer can execute tasks he could not possibly perform without them;that he can perform a greater quantity of work in a given time,and that he can perform the work with greater nicety and accuracy than he could possibly do had he no instruments and machines.But the question then occurs,what produces instruments and machines,and in what degree do they aid production independent of the labourer,so that the owners of them are entitled to by far the greater part of the whole produce of the country?Are they,or are they not,the produce of labour?
Do they,or do they not,constitute an efficient means of production,separate from labour?Are they,or are they not,so much inert decaying and dead matter,of no utility whatever,possessing no productive power whatever,but as they are guided,directed and applied by skilful hands?The reader will be able instantly to answer these questions,and I only add my answers because they lead to some conclusions different from those generally adopted.
