Why Wages Should Absorb Profits. [Liberty, July 16, 1887.] Van Buren Denslow, discussing in the Truth Seeker the comparative rewards of labor and capital, points out that the present wage system divides profits about evenly between the two, instancing the railways of Illinois, which pay annually in salaries and wages $81,936,170, and to capital, which Mr. Denslow defines as the labor previously done in constructing and equipping the roads, $81,720,265. Then he remarks: No system of intentional profit-sharing is more equal than this, provided we assent to the principle that a day’s work already done and embodied in the form of capital is as well entitled to compensation for its use as a day’s work not yet done, which we call labor. Exactly. But the princip...
An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of GovernmentFirst Memoir Adversus hostem æterna auctertas esto. Against the enemy, revendication is eternal. Law of the twelve tables. Chapter I. Method Pursued In This Work. — The Idea Of A Revolution. If I were asked to answer the following question: What is slavery? and I should answer in one word, It is murder, my meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument would be required to show that the power to take from a man his thought, his will, his personality, is a power of life and death; and that to enthralled a man is to kill him. Why, then, to this other question: What is property! may I not likewise answer, It is robbery, without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second proposition being no other than a transformation of the first? I undertake to discuss the vital principle of our government and our institution...