There are capitalists and capitalists; there are socialists and socialists. Among the capitalists there are those who want wealth—mainly the fruit of dead men's toil—for themselves. Among the socialists there are those—the orthodox socialists—who seek to disperse it. The former do not perceive that the product of the labor of the dead is itself dead if not quickened by the energies of living men. The orthodox socialists do not perceive the tremendous [pg 133] benefits that accrue to mankind from the accumulation of wealth, if rightly used.
Whether we be capitalists or socialists or neither, we must learn that to prey upon the treasury left by the dead is to live, not the life of a human being, but that of a ghoul. Legalistic title—documentary ownership—does not alter the fact. Neither does lust for the same.
When we have acquired the just conception of what a human being is we shall get away from the Roman conception according to which a human being is instrumentum vocale; an animal, instrumentum semivocale: and a tool, instrumentum mutum. To regard human beings as tools—as instruments—for the use of other human beings is not only unscientific but it is repugnant, stupid and short sighted. Tools are made by man but have not the autonomy of their maker—they have not man's time-binding capacity for initiation, for self-direction, and self-improvement In their own nature, tools, instruments, machines belong to a dimension far lower than that of man.
Talk of dimensions or dimensionality is by no means theoretical rubbish. The right understanding of dimensions is of life-and-death importance in practical life. The intermixing of dimensions leads to wrong conclusions in our thought and wrong conclusions lead to disasters.
Consider the classes of life as representing three dimensions (as explained in an earlier chapter), then human production belongs essentially to the human or as I call it the third dimension. With the base of (say) 5, we produce in the third dimension a result of 125 units, and so when humans are paid but 25 units in accordance with the standards of the second dimension (that of animals), humanity is deprived of the benefit of 100 units of produced wealth. That is an illustration of what a part dimensions play in practical life. The reflective reader may analyse for himself what effect these same rules would have, if expressed and applied in the human “time-binding” dimension, time being the supreme test. The following table gives the visual shock:
| 1st Dimension | 2nd Dimension | 3rd Dimension |
| 5 | 25 | 125 |
| 10 | 100 | 1,000 |
| 100 | 10,000 | 1,000,000 |
| 1,000 | 1,000,000 | 1,000,000,000 |
This explains why the intermixing of dimensions is the source of tremendous evil.
Who can now assert that the problem of dimensions is one only of theory? It is not even a question of limitation of mind, but it becomes a question of limitation of eyesight, not to be able to see the overwhelming differences between the laws of development of the first, second, and the third dimension.
Dollars, or pounds sterling, or other units of money follow the same rules: the strength and in fact the source of power of modern capitalism, is found in just this difference in dimensions—in the difference between what is given and what is taken, in the difference between what is earned and what is “made.” The problem of dimensions is, therefore, a key which unlocks the secrets of the power of capitalism and opens the door to a new civilization where the understanding of dimensions will establish order out of the chaos.
We have seen that kinetic and potential use-values, produced mainly by the dead, are bound up in wealth, which is measured and symbolized by money. This being true, it is obvious that money is a measure and symbol of power, of work done, of bound-up time.