These socialists, having discovered that skill and capital, by means of free competition, exercise an undue mastery over labor, propose to do away with skill, capital, and free competition, altogether. They would heal the diseases of society by destroying its most vital functions. Having laid down the broad proposition, that equal amounts of labor, or their results, should be exchanged for each other, they get at the conclusion that as the profits of capital are not the results of labor, the capitalist shall be denied all interest or rents, or other profits on his capital, and be compelled in all cases to exchange a part of the capital itself, for labor, or its results. This would prevent accumulation, or at least limit it to the procurement of the coarsest necessaries of life. They say, "the lawyer and the artist do not work so hard and continuously as the ploughman, and should receive less wages than he--a bushel of wheat represents as much labor as a speech or portrait, and should be exchanged for the one or the other." Such a system of trade and exchange would equalize conditions, but would banish civilization. Yet do these men show, that, by means of the taxation and oppression, which capital and skill exercise over labor, the rich, the professional, the trading and skillful part of society, have become the masters of the laboring masses: whose condition, already intolerable, is daily becoming worse. They point out distinctly the character of the disease under which the patient is laboring, but see no way of curing the disease except by killing the patient.
In the preceding chapter, we illustrated their theory of capital by a single example. We might give hundreds of illustrations, and yet the subject is so difficult that few readers will take the trouble to understand it. Let us take two well known historical instances: England became possessed of two fine islands, Ireland and Jamaica. Englishmen took away, or defrauded, from the Irish, their lands; but professed to leave the people free. The people, however, must have the use of land, or starve. The English charged them, in rent, so much, that their allowance, after deducting that rent, was not half that of Jamaica slaves. They were compelled to labor for their landlords, by the fear of hunger and death--forces stronger than the overseer's lash. They worked more, and did not get half so much pay or allowance as the Jamaica negroes. All the reports to the French and British Parliaments show that the physical wants of the West India slaves were well supplied. The Irish became the subjects of capital--slaves, with no masters obliged by law, self-interest or domestic affections, to provide for them. The freest people in the world, in the loose and common sense of words, their condition, moral, physical and religious, was far worse than that of civilized slaves ever has been or ever can be--for at length, after centuries of slow starvation, three hundred thousand perished in a single season, for want of food. Englishmen took the lands of Jamaica also, but introduced negro slaves, whom they were compelled to support at all seasons, and at any cost. The negroes were comfortable, until philanthropy taxed the poor of England and Ireland a hundred millions to free them. Now, they enjoy Irish liberty, whilst the English hold all the good lands. They are destitute and savage, and in all respects worse off than when in slavery.