The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1870-03-09
Il, correspondence.
CO-OPERATIVE INDUSTRY
A. n Means or Transition from Social
Isolation and AntagOnism 20 Uni
VersnI Concord and Happiness.
BY E. P. GRANT.
NUMBER K.
Of Capital Stock, and IFS Graduated Div
idendS.
Co-OPERATIVE INDUSTRY
BY r. P. GRANT.
NUMBER 4.

ff~seS e~~S~'s1 - 49, - o N~-1
idendS.
It has already been stated incidentally
that our proposed industrial system recog-
nizes capital as a righful participator IN
the products of industry; and that share
of such products is to be regularly set
apart as a fund for the payment of divi-
dends. The right Of capital to dividends
is founded on the unquestionable fact that
1t Is q cooperating agent IN all useful pro-
duction. tits so indispensable, indeed, that,
if it were annihilated, industry would be
reduced to zero, and man would be re-
manded to that primitive state of destitu-
ton IN which he was obliged to begin the
conquest Of nature with his unaided hands
and teeth. And though capital now spoh-
stes industry, and enables idlers, or those
whose only work is that of spolistion, 10
fare sumptuously on the luxuries which
other hands than theirs have created. yet
We should not permit this circumstance
to blind US 10 the usefulness of its true
functions. The truth is that when labor
shall be so organized that il will be rec
ompensed according to principles of JUS
tice, capital, instead of being an extor-
toner, will become a power as benehcent
as it now Is tyrannical.
Capital is the unconsumed product of
past industry, stored UP or embodied in
some material form. Its value as an as
sistant of industry Is one of the principal
inducements which prompt TO its accumu-
latlon and preservation, and it Is for the
sake OF the profit thence resulting that its
owner postpones the present enjoyments
which 1t might procure for him, and re-
serves it for productive purposes. The
free gifts of nature, such as land in its nat
ural state, and its spontaneous products,
are not capital in our sense of the term
they are the common property of all men
alike. But IN their strictly natural state,
as land IN an uninhabited wilderness,
these things have no assignable value, nor
can they acquire any except as they are
intermixed with human labor, or modified
by 1t. A man may indeed under our
present system of labor, obtain an exclu-
sive title to land in a wilderness for trivial
consideration, and without expending up
on it any labor, may hold it until it Will
command high price, but its enhanced
price is nevertheless due to human indus
try, namely, to the roads which the sur
rounding settlers have made, the schools,
churches and other institutions of civiliza-
ton which they have established, and, in
general, to the improvement of the ada
be cited in which the intervention of hu-
man agency in producing value is perhaps
still less apparent vet is it in all cases
true that capital is directly or indirectly
the creation of industry, and, whether II
be in the hands of those who created it, OF
of spectators and robbers, it represents an
amount of past labor approximately pro-
portioned to the price which it will COM
mand. 1t thus appears that the private
appropriation of land is not necessarily
such an unrighteous usurpation as hal
been sometimes claimed for though the
| monopoly of land has been, and still is, g
potent means of oppression, yet it Is nc
more so than the monopoly of those pro-
| ducts of industry which we call personal
| property, inasmuch as the value appropri-
ted is In both cases alike due to human
labor
In the present early stage Of human
progress, while the vast resources of oul
planet are not only undeveloped, but are
| probably, in great part, even unsuspected
I iF is important that both the creation ano
the accumulation of capital be stimulated
by every available expedient; for being, a:
was Just said, an agent of production, it II
| by its increase that the augmentation o
wealth, or, what Is the same thing, the
multiplication of the means of human
enjoyment, will be specially accelerated
The managers of our enterprise should
therefore, by all legitimate inducementl
within their knowledge, encourage mem
| bers of the Commune to become proprie'
/ tors Of its stock, and one obvious means o
| doing SO is TO give 10 the destitute laboreI
and other members having a small capita
a larger dividend for limited time, OF
the first investments made from their sa
/ wings within the Commune, than is allow
ed to the wealthier members, and especi
ally to those whose capital is derived from
external sources. The capital stock O
the Commune should therefore be gradua
ted IN respect to dividends in such man
ner as to give 10 non-capitalists and small
capitalists certain advantages l subioil
two tables of graduated capital stock, tn
first presenting a case of the most expan
ded, the second Of the most abridged, grad
uation. Either may be adopted, or som
intermediate graduation between thes
two extremes may be preferred; but
presume the abridged graduation of tn
second Table Will be found best adapte
10 the first experiment. The rate unit
or l, which Is that of stock Of the Seeon
Glass, called also General Stock, is assum
ed as the minimum rate of dividends, an
higher rates are denoted by higher mum
bers and decimal fractions. Thus, tn
rates l25, 1904, indicate that as often q
81 is paid to a share of General Stool
$125, $3.50 and 81 will be paid respect
, lively to q hike amount of such Preferre
, Stock as is marked by these rates.