Capital, Profits and Interest Excerpted from the book; Individual Liberty Selections From the Writings of Benjamin R. Tucker Vanguard Press, New York, 1926 Kraus Reprint Co., Millwood, NY, 1973. In the study of the economic question, the first thing that must engage our attention is why the worker fails to get all of the product of his labor. Volumes have been written by economists of various schools in discussion of the problem, most of them muddling about in the mire of their own misconceptions. But the editor of Liberty went straight to the heart of the matter and quickly found the answer: Somebody gets the surplus wealth that labor produces and does not consume. Who is the Somebody? Such is the problem recently posited in the editorial columns of the New York Truth. Substantially the same question has been asked a great many times before, but,...
New Abolition and its Nine Demands. [Liberty, January 25, 1890.] The New Abolition Party, nominally of the United States, but really limited at present (pending by the time when it is to sweep the country like a wave) by the walls of the Individualist office at Denver, started out with eight demands; and, taken as a whole, very good demands they were. Lately it has added a ninth; just why, I don’t know, unless New Abolition was jealous of Liberalism and bound to have as many demands. This explanation seems hardly reasonable, because in the case of Liberalism nine does not seem to have proved a magic number for demand purposes. However this may be, it is certain that the ninth demand is a square contradiction of some of the most important of its eight other demands, no...