◆1 We must, then, here note that when Ability is said to produce so much of the national income, what is meant is the Ability of men alive at the time,
These considerations bring us to another important point, which must indeed from the beginning have been more or less obvious, but which must now be stated explicitly. ◆¹ That point is, that when we speak of Ability as producing at any given time such and such a portion of the national income, as distinguished from the portion which is produced by Labour, we are speaking of Ability possessed by living men, who possess it either in the form of their own superior faculties, assimilating, utilising, and adding to the inventions and discoveries of their predecessors; or in the form of inherited Capital, which those predecessors have produced and left to them. Thus, though dead men like Arkwright, or Watt, or Stevenson may, in a certain theoretical sense, be considered as continuing to produce wealth still, they cannot be considered to do so in any sense that is practical; because they cannot as individuals put forward any practical claims, or influence the situation any further by their actions. For all practical purposes, then, their Ability as a productive force exists only in those living men who inherit or give effect to its results. Now, of the externalised or congealed Ability which is inherited in the form of Capital, as distinguished from the personal Ability by which Capital is utilised, we need not speak here, though we shall have to do so presently. For this inherited Capital would not only be useless in production, but would actually disappear and evaporate like a lump of camphor, if it were not constantly used, and, in being used, renewed, by that personal Ability which inherits it, and is inseparable from the living individual; and, though it will be necessary to consider Capital apart from this when we come to deal with the problem of distribution, all that we need consider when we are dealing with the problem of production is this personal Ability, which alone makes Capital live.
◆1 Who are practically the monopolists not only of their own special powers, but of the complicated discoveries of their predecessors.
◆¹ So far, then, as modern production is concerned, all the results of past Ability, instead of becoming the common property of Labour, become on the whole, with allowance for many exceptions, more and more strictly the monopoly of living Ability; because these results becoming more and more complicated, Ability becomes more and more essential to the power of mastering and of using them. As, however, I shall point out by and by, in more than one connection, the Ability that masters and uses them differs much in kind from the Ability that originally produced them: one difference being that, whereas to invent and perfect some new machine requires Ability of the highest class in, let us say, one man, and Ability of the second class in a few other men, his partners; to use this machine to the best advantage, and control and maintain the industry which its use has inaugurated or developed, may require perhaps Ability of only the second class in one man, but will require Ability of the third and fourth class in a large number of men.
◆1 And the monopoly of Ability grows stricter at each fresh stage of progress.
◆¹ Ability therefore—the Ability of living men—constantly tends, as the income of the nation grows, to play a larger part in its production, or to produce a larger part of it; whilst Labour, though without it no income could be produced at all, tends to produce a part which is both relatively and absolutely smaller. We assume, for instance, that the Labour of this country a hundred years ago was capable of producing the whole of what was the national income then. If it could by itself, without any Ability to guide it, have succeeded then, when production was so much simpler, in just producing the yearly amount in question,—which, as a matter of fact, it could not have done even then,—the same amount of Labour, without any Ability to guide it, could certainly not succeed in producing so much now, when all the conditions of production have become so much more complicated, and when elaborate organisation is necessary to make almost any effort effective.
◆1 Thus the argument above quoted against the claims of Ability, when examined, only throws additional light on their strength.
◆¹ Thus the argument, which was fermenting in my American correspondent’s mind, and which he regarded as reducing the claims of Ability to “hog-wash,” really affords the means, if examined carefully and minutely, of establishing yet more firmly the position it was invoked to shatter, and of making the claims of Ability not only clearer but more extensive.
CHAPTER III
That Ability is a natural Monopoly, due to the congenital Peculiarities of a Minority. The Fallacies of other Views exposed.