The Socialism of to-day

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 835096955

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-28834

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Laveleye, Émile de

Title:: The Socialism of to-day

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Field & Tuer

Year of publication:: 1884

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (XLIV, 331 S.)

Collection:: Economics Books

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SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 292 other evidences of general well-being. Finally, the increase of the return to capital has not been in any way in proportion, the yield on the same amount of capital being less than it was, and the capital itself being more diffused, while the remuneration of labour has enormously increased.” It is quite true, however, that a vast amount of want and misery exists side by side with a general increase in well-being. We have not to do merely with averages, important as they undoubtedly are as showing the general tendency. As long as there are two or three millions of people in extreme want, it is poor satisfaction to think that vast numbers of other people have more than they quite know what to do with. This inequality of wealth, even if diminishing, is certainly large enough to constitute a great social evil. What is its cause, and what is its remedy? If Mr. George has really answered these questions, he has done a great service to humanity. To put his answer shortly, Mr. George finds that rent swallows up the whole benefit of increased production in every progressive community, while the returns to labour and capital are stationary or even diminishing. His remedy is to make land common property, and his mode of applying the remedy is to confiscate rent by taxation. By rent, Mr. George means the whole annual value of land, less “ the clearly distinguishable improvements made within a moderate period.” It appears, then, that the working man has been making a mistake in supposing that “ his master is the enemy,” or at least in thinking that it is his employer who, in the shape of profits, gets the lion’s share of the produce. Of the three elements into which profits are divisible—compensation for risk, wages of superintendence, and return for the use of capital—the first, according to Mr. George, need not be considered in deter mining the law of the distribution of wealth, as risk is elimi nated in the totality of transactions ; the second is rightly called “ wages,” and should, he thinks, be classed with the wages of the ordinary labourer ; while the return for the use of capital is interest which, according to Mr. George, is likewise reducible to the law of wages, rising and falling with the rise and fall of wages. Hence Mr. George concludes that the primary division

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