The Detroit times., 1916-02-05
Democracy of Plutocracy
ev DR.. FRANK CRANE
Copyright. 1916. b. Frank CraneD

Plutocracy is government by money.
as autocracy is government by uncheck-
ed rulers. aristocracy by mobiles, mon-
archy by kings, etc.
Probably government by money is the
best kind, and will be the eventual gov
ernment universally.
Because money is the most natural,
normal and practical from of power over
men.
1t is significant that wherever dem
ocracy obtains, there money is more and
more made the basis of precedence, the
root of privilege.
| or course, money-government ought to
be purely so. The trouble with our ex-
tant plutocracy is that it is contaminated
with deal of the ideas of monarchy.
For instance. we have the notion of in
heriting money, monarchic fallacy,
there being no more reason why the son
of millionaire should be given unearned
millions than there is reason why the
government of a people should be handed
over to the Prince of Wales because he
is the kings son.
The essential principle in a money
ruled nation ought to be that man can
receive no money unless he earns it.
Where there shall be ito every man his
penny" when every producer shall get
his honest wage, and when every drone
shall get no money at all, then we shall
witness pure plutocracy, and the OBJ
jections to our money kings shall vanish.
Money is by nature the common de-
nominator of accrued useful work. What
better. juster ruler?
The fairest way for me to get food.
or luxury, or the service of my fellow
creature, is for me to pay for it, cash.
| The fairest way for the State to hold
the rule over it citizens is for it to take
over into its Golfers all the surplus profits
made by society, by the community, and
to leave to the individual the profits
arising from his own effort.
This is the basic, vital principle to
which in time all government must come.
No private person or corporation may
own an unearned increment; it is the
States.
That gives us real plutocracy, and
the State, or the people as whole, is the
plutocrat.
As this is no more nor less than abb
solute justice we must come to it in the
end
1t is true democracy. For it bases gov
ernment on personal efficiency.
But should power be lodged in those
who have money-cunning? These are
surely not the best" men!
True. Every human institution has
its drawbacks, and the rule of the
shrewdest money-getter is not wholly
pheasant to contemplate.
But at least the millionaire lives only
so long; by and by he must die; and il
his children were forced to make their
money as he made it, and if the state
took over the balance, privately control
led wealth-units would not SNOWFALL from
age to age, as they do now.
The monarch never dies. 'The king
is dead; long live the king" The prin-
ciple of heredity fastens special, unearn-
ed privilege upon people forever.
Furthermore, nothing is more suscep-
tible to public opinion than money. Moth
ing depends more upon the cooperation
of the whole people for its continuance.
Money must be constantly invested,
must perpetually pass through the hands
of the workers, or it dissipates.
! Wherefore, take it all in all, world
where every man gets his fair wage,
where the State sees to it that he does,
and where no man is allowed to own
what he has not earned, and thus usurp
government" to which he has no just
title, comes as near being world OF
Justice as any which we can now con.