These paragraphs sufficiently indicate the general capability of the American people for production under the existing conditions.
If an Austrian wine-producer or a farmer is six times less capable to produce than an American farmer; and if this Austrian farmer |POVERTY IS IMPOSSIBLE.| can easily defray the multiple expenses of his family and his own out of the results of his less capable labor and live comfortably every year, the American farmer ought to have five times as much of net profit from the results of his capable labor energy as the Austrian farmer can spend every year for his living. So that, living in the same way as the Austrian, the American farmer ought to be in six years fully thirty times wealthier than an Austrian farmer of an ordinary type.
How is it then that the wealth of the sturdy American farm tenant consists on the average of but $360 per family of nearly five members each; while an Austrian farmer is incomparably better off, being almost always a propertied man?
And if seven American laborers are able to serve 1,000 persons with bread and feed themselves every year, it is perfectly legitimate, then, that every one of them should have a yearly profit of his labor, which is equal to the value of bread, yearly consumed by nearly 143 men. And this yearly profit must quickly make a considerable amount of wealth in his store.
How is it then that the millions of American producers of bread, each supplying hundreds of |POVERTY EXISTS.| persons, are obliged to live from hand to mouth, having neither property nor land, nor any other wealth in store for their future? And if their productivity testifies that they are able to feed and clothe the world, as Mr. Atkinson very reasonably affirms, is it not highly important to find out who profits by their remarkably efficient labor energy? Or, who yearly devours the surplus of their products, leaving them in poverty?
Further, the work of one American miner, “for one year, divided between the coal-mine, the iron-mine and the iron-furnace,” ultimately |NO ROOM FOR POVERTY.| “suffices for the supply of 500 persons” with the metallic goods and utilities they consume in a year. “One operator in the cotton factory can provide goods for 250, in the woolen factory for 300, in a boot or shoe factory for 1,000 men or more than 1,000 women”—one worker in any of these industries, in one year, can work out the respective goods these numbers of consumers require for a year, thus showing that the productivity of every operator is simply phenomenal.
How is it then that these very operators who can and do supply hundreds and even thousands of consumers with different utilities |YET POVERTY EXISTS IN THE ABSENCE OF JUSTICE, ETC.| for living and enjoying, are unable to support their own families for six months after they cease to be in their exceedingly productive employment? And why are nearly all of them homeless? Is it the essential and necessary demand of modern ethics, that the more one produces the poorer one must be? Or is it exactly the demand of modern justice that millions of human beings should only toil and work for others, without having the right to work for themselves and to partake of the fruits of their own labor? And where is the court of justice to be found which can vindicate their cause in view of their unusual productivity?
Many consumers are convinced that these operators as well as all other American laborers are always paid what they deserve, though they cannot provide for |ILL-BASED REASONING.| their future. Many other consumers think that they could not be so productive if it were not for the highly efficient aid of costly capital under their operations. And as a logical inference, these consumers further think that this capital must be highly paid for its own productivity. Hence the capitalist must have a lion’s share from the results of the active energy of every operator with the mechanical forces in production. And, although the error of such reasoning is transparent from beginning to end, yet it seems that justice itself is thus often satisfied.
These reasoners seem to never ask, Whose energy is embodied in the capital that the inventors have |JUSTICE CLAIMS A DEEPER BASIS FOR REASONING.| left as great blessing for working humanity? And whose energy has realized, or rather materialized, the existing inventions after they had been created in the minds of the great men? Has all this been done by inanimate dollars or money, or by the same animate and intelligent beings whom we now regard as the mere operators in every sphere of human activity? Is it not their energy that flows like a river into all things of utility?
Then they say that the organizers, the managers, the superintendents must be paid manifold for their superior work and intelligence. All right, nobody denies that.