Therefore, according to Mr. Mallock, all the extra wealth, amounting to £800,000,000 a year, is earned by the machines, and ought to be paid to the men who own the machines.
Pretty reasoning, isn't it? And Mr. Mallock is one of those who talk about the inaccurate thinking of Socialists.
Let us see what it comes to. John Smith invents a machine which makes three yards of calico where one was made by hand. Tom Jones buys the machine, or the patent, to make calico. Which of these men is the cause of the calico output being multiplied by three? Is it the man who owns the patent, or the man who invented the machine? It is the man who invented the machine. It is the ability of John Smith which caused the increase in the calico output. It is, therefore, the ability of John Smith which earns the extra wealth. Tom Jones, who bought the machines, is no more the producer of that extra wealth than are the spinners and weavers he employs.
To whom, then, should the extra wealth belong? To the man who creates it? or to the man who does not create it? Clearly the wealth should belong to the man who creates it. Therefore, the whole of the extra wealth should go to the inventor, to whose ability it is due, and not to the mere capitalist, who only uses the machine.
"But," you may say, "Jones bought the patent from Smith." He did. And he also buys their labour and skill from the spinners and weavers who work for him, and in all three cases he pays less than the thing he buys is worth.
Mr. Mallock makes a great point of telling us that men are not equally clever, that cleverness produces more wealth than labour produces, and that one man is worth more than another to the nation.
Labour, he says, is common to all men, but ability is the monopoly of the few. The bulk of the wealth is produced by the few, and ought by them to be enjoyed.
But I don't think any Socialist ever claimed that all men were of equal value to the nation, nor that any one man could produce just as much wealth as any other. We know that one man is stronger than another, that one is cleverer than another, and that an inventor or thinker may design or invent some machine or process which will enable the workers to produce more wealth in one year than they could by their own methods produce in twenty.
Now, before we go into the matter of the inventor, or of the value of genius to the nation, let us test these ideas of Mr. W. H. Mallock's and see what they lead to.
A man invents a machine which does the work of ten handloom weavers. He is therefore worth more, as a weaver, than the ordinary weaver who invents nothing. How much more?