Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1886-02-28

building he is required to erect, to the
incest details. who is unable to tell the
size Of this drawing-room, or the exact
location of that closet. DO not demand
such details from us.
Rather may we liken ourselves to nat
uralists: a bOtanist ought to be able To
tell what plant will develop out of a Ger
tain seed but he cannot tell how many
leaves ii will have.
And in like manner we ought to be
able to indicate the most striking eco
nomic consequences which with logical
necessity will flow from collective con
/ troll of the instruments of labor.
We can say, that Interest, Profit and
Rent, being nothing but the spoils which
private monopoly of the instruments of
| production at present enables individuals
! to exact, will become things of the past
as soon as the Commonwealth takes pos
session of the whole industrial and agri-
cultural plant,
| Interest will, for the first time in hui
| man history, be given fatal blow. All
laws against Usury have proven worse
| than useless. When under the Roman
! Republic Usury was punished with
| death, il Hourished the most at the rate
| of a hundred per cent. We have already
/ seen, how in this capitalist era the taking
! of interest has become a normal and le-
/ ultimate feature Of our system, even one
of 'the nalienable Rights of Man, in
Bentham's words. All Usury laws limit
! ing the rate of interest are set at defiance.
simply because they clash with the pre-
yailing mode of doing business.
The coming Commonwealth will be
the effective destroyer of both Interest
and Usury. For when all enterprises
have been taken in hand by Society,
Wealth will 40 longer he used-and con
aequently will no longer be borrowed
us Capital; in the words of our previous
definition: it can no longer be "employed
productivity WW 4 ripW to profit"
Illus w llll tit ltdNOll IL, W llll llN iutSpH
fetre, Interest itself will cease to be le-
ultimate. Interest and Usury will once
more be convertible terms; that is, it will
become as Of old, infamous to charge in
tereSt for sums Of money loaned to per
sons in embarrassed circumstances. And
who will need to be in such circum-
stances
As a matter of course, that which now
is called Profit will disappear. 1t will be
added to the reward of Labor.
Rent as Rent, as tribute levied by in
dividual mOnopolsts of land, will be no
more. All land used for agricultural or
industrial purposes, will have become
part Of the collective plant. Land used
by citizens for homes or other private
purposes will yield rent or taXes-what-
ever you choose to call ito the Com
monweath; which rent will probably be
} regulated by Demand and Supply, for
there is no reason, why the more desira-
bic sites should not then as now be the
more valuable.
The Commonwealth will derive what
! ever revenues it needs for collective pur-
poses from two sources: Rent and prob
/ ably Il PERCENTAGE on every article sold,
added to the cost of production, which
l then will mean, what "Cost Of produc-
} ton should even now always, but does
not always, mean: the value of the arti-
! Gle, the sum total of Labor embodied in
, it, Everybody will thus bear his share
> OF the public charges III proportion to his
, consumption. And his consumption will
in all likelihood be pretty nearly equal to
5 his income, He will not be able very
= well to go beyond his income, as Is so fire.
: quently the case now by the way, this
q system of diving upon credit" is respon-
sible for very large proportion of the
! miseries by which modern society is
e. atilicted) and he will be, at least, under
very great temptation to spend all he
~ earns 1t will be public policy to encour-
t age him in doing So 1t is not for the
5 individual citizen to save, but for Society
? The best interests of Society require that
2 a taste for comforts and enioyments
= should be widely ditfused and, if possible,
= interviewer with national habits and
l. prejudices as McCulloch remarks.
1 From this it will appear, that the Co
: operative Commonwealth will have an
immense advantage over all modern