It has been estimated by Bastiat, Karl Marx and Nordau, that laborers are unjustly deprived of the value of four days labor in each week. Terrible is the injustice to wage-earners, the world over, if the deductions of Carpenter and Godwin are to be accepted. “Behold the hire of the laborers which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.” Proudhon and Spencer have revealed the “economic’s lies” of modern society. “The great game of the business world is the game of getting on,” wrote John Ruskin; “not of everybodies getting on, but of somebody getting on. What to one family is the game of getting on, to one thousand families is the game of not getting on. Nay, you say, they have all their chance. Yes, so has every one in a lottery, but there must always be the same number of blanks. Ah! but in a lottery it is not skill and intelligence that take the lead, but blind chance. What then! do you think the old practice that they should take who have the power, and they should keep who can, is less iniquitous when the power has become the power of brains instead of fist?”
Is this a world of equivalents in labor? What is the ratio of riches awarded to those who toil? In 1860, the net average income was but three per cent. Yet, for that year the income of bare money (which needs no food, clothing or shelter), was all the way from five to thirty per cent. In England 30,000,000 people are taxed that interest may be paid to 300,000. In 1870, the interest on the national debts of the world amounted to $1,700,000,000. This rate in nine years would absorb a sum equal to the entire property of this country in 1870. We are informed that trade is annually taxed (interest on capital) about $200,000,000, for which not one dollar of actual service is rendered. Is interest on “watered” stock any better than theft?
A world of equivalents, indeed! In our cities five per cent of the population own more property than ninety-five per cent; and twenty per cent of the nation own more than the remaining eighty per cent. At the present rate of increase, within thirty years, 100,000 persons will own four-fifths of all the property in the United States. In twenty-five years the number of our people who own their homes has decreased from five-eighths to three-eighths. In New York City more than 1,100,000 persons are dwelling in tenement houses. “In 1889, the farm mortgages in the western states amounted to three billion four hundred and twenty-two million dollars.” In England, to-day, there are less than 30,000 landed proprietors—one-half of the country is owned by 150 men. Twelve men own one-half of Scotland. The working classes of the United Kingdom own but a thirtieth part of the total real and personal property.
Strictly considered, two things are said to be equivalent when they are “equal in value.” Generally speaking, however, interchanges are seldom, if ever, “alike in worth.” The equality of labor for labor does not occur once in millions of times. “Value” is an indefinite term. Into “worth” enters such intangible qualities as whim, caprice, taste, fancy, ambition, pride, habit, desire, appetite, passion and amusement. Exact and utilitarian standards would destroy belle lettres and the fine arts; dissipate recreation and the amenities of life. Are there precise “work-a-day” equivalents for literature, music, sculpture, painting; for the opera, the theatre, the salon, the club-room? Gaming is an amusement for many persons. Thousands enjoy the excitements of chance. It stimulates their spirits above the cares and drudgery of existence. Such men prefer a game to either book, piano or cigar. With them it is not a question of utility but of diversion. Is the value of entertainment to be measured in muscle or metal?
Wherein, essentially, does gaming differ from speculation or insurance? All have their foundation in chance. Contingencies and uncertainties enter into each as a consideration for investment. A gamester bets upon the turn of a card, or the cast of a die. The speculator purchases in anticipation of contingent advance in the price of a commodity. A corporation indemnifies an individual, conditionally, against possible death or loss by fire. In neither instance can the result be foretold: the gamester may or may not win, the speculator may or may not realize a profit, the assured may or may not forfeit his life policy, or lose by fire. In every transaction, fortuity is the controlling element; if for this reason any one is invalid or immoral, so are the others. Large sums have been won and lost at cards. Many fortunes had their origin in speculation: also, it has been productive of widespread disaster, distress and despair. Insurance companies have benefited thousands of widows and orphans. Innumerable are the families upon whom indigence has fallen through the forfeiture of policies. Forfeited premiums to the amount of millions are now invested in palatial structures throughout the civilized world. Analysis might show in gaming, speculation and insurance, that at least the equities and ethics are even.
View the subject as we may, ye gamester, “where is thine accuser?” To all men he can say: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.”
Now, some one may ask: “Is not gambling immoral to the extent it may induce a reliance upon chance for a livelihood, instead of patient industry.” I might reply: “What is industry, as known to political economy; and what proportion of the world’s wealth is a result of direct personal exertion?” But, generally, men are rational creatures, and do not depend upon games of chance for a living. The credulous men are relatively few who rely entirely upon the outcome of chance in games as a business; and those few are at least on a par in wisdom and ethics with the millions who gamble in future prices of stocks, grain, and other commodities. “Ah! but you forget,” rejoins my critic, “that in other pursuits a man produces something by his industry, or contributes to that result indirectly, whereas in gambling nothing is produced.” I consider this erroneous, in the face of social experience, as has been indicated heretofore. It may be as soundly said, that a “man has no right to invest his money in cattle, or lands, or bonds, unless his labor is put in with it. A man buys a horse and hires him to his neighbor. Is he entitled to the money his horse earns for him? He invests in bonds at fifty cents on the dollar. Does he not hope they will appreciate in value, until they are worth dollar for dollar? He pays $1000 for a piece of land. In two or three years, perhaps, his neighbors have invested around him, and have improved their properties, and he finds that his land will sell for $2000. His labor did not contribute to that result. He risked his capital exactly as he would have done in a game of chance.”
The Destinies;
or,
The Reign of Law.
