Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1893-09-02
WEALTH PRODUCERS.
A Few Inventors Have Furnished In
creased Wealth to All.


In this age the majority of single
products are produced by great num-
bers of men, and one cannot say, in
literal sense, than any one man pro-
duces any one thing. According 10
w. NJ. Mallock, in the North American
Review, the same number of men
who, in the United States, in the year
1910, produced wealth to the value of
$1,000,00O,O00 per year, are producing
this present year wealth to the value of
$1,000, 100000. In proportion to the
number of producers the product has
been more than doubled, while IL the
inquiry is carried back to 1900 the then
product is now trebled. This increase
in the productivity of the same number
of producers must be due to some
cause or causes which are in operation
now, and which were not in operation
then. These causes are scientific in
yention and discovery, and improved
methods Of dividing and applying labor.
These Improvements are not the work
Of chance, or of nature, but have been
brought about by the deliberate and
persistent action Of a few men, and
the millions said to be due to the i'm
provements are really due to these
men by whom the improvements were
introduced. These men, who are
very small minority, correspond, broad
ly speaking, with the weather. class
es, and out of every hundred million
dollars produced in the United States
to-day these men produce at least $780,
100000 Instead of the riches of the
few being taken from the products of
the many the present competence of
the many is taken from the products of
the few, who produce the whole of the
wealth which they enjoy, and also
every increase of wealth which is, year
by year, enjoyed by the many. Labor
Is the industrial exertion of a single
man on some single piece of work only.
Ability is the industrial exertion of q
single man which affects Simultaneous
ly the labor of many men, multiplying
and improving the results of 1t in each
case. There is an inventive ability
and an ability of enterprise. Capital
is the economically saved creation of
past ability. Interest is the sum paid
by ability for the use of capital to the
owners of capital. That labor plays
a subordinate part in production in no
way casts slur on the general quail
ties of the laborer. Wealth is not the
measure of a man, and many laborer
may be far superior as man to the
man on whose industrial ability he is
absolutely dependent as laborer. He
should not long remain thus depend
ent, but by cooperation should gain
ability to manage his share of the
worlds work, If necessary to social
freedom. But an accurate study of
the daily work of the world will show
that the few, however inferior morally,
produce the larger part of the wealth
of the modern world; that wealth is
not, as commonly said, the result of
social labor only, but Is the result of
social labor multiplied by ability; and
whatever claims the public may have
on the wealth of the minority, that
claim cannot be sustained on the
ground that the public has produced
this wealth, for the minority as body
have not only produced the whole Of
it, but vast amount besides, which
the public has already appropriated.