◆1 But before proceeding with this argument, there are two side points to dispose of.
◆¹ Before, however, we pursue these considerations further, it is necessary that we should deal with two important points which have perhaps already suggested themselves to the reader as essential to the problem before us. They are not new points. They have been discussed in previous chapters; but the time has now arrived to turn to them once again.
CHAPTER II
Of the Ownership of Capital, as distinct from its Employment by Ability.
◆1 In the foregoing argument, all mention of Land has been omitted, for simplicity’s sake.
◆2 But rent, especially the rent of the large owners, is so small a part of the national income that the omission is of no practical importance.
The first of the points I have alluded to can be disposed of very quickly. It relates to Land. In analysing the causes to which our national income is due, I began with showing that Land produced a certain definite part of it. ◆¹ For the sake, however, of simplicity, in the calculation which I went on to make, I ignored Land, and the fact of its being a productive agent; and treated the whole income as if produced by Labour, Capital, and Ability. I wish, therefore, now to point out to the reader that this procedure has had little practical effect on the calculation in question, and that any error introduced by it can be easily rectified in a moment. ◆² The entire landed rental of this country is, as I have already shown, not so much as one thirteenth of the income; whilst that of the larger landed proprietors is not so much as one thirty-ninth. Now my sole object in dealing with the national income at all is to show how far it is susceptible of redistribution; and it is perfectly certain that no existing political party would attempt, or even desire, to redistribute the rents of any class except the large proprietors only. The smaller proprietors,—nine hundred and fifty thousand in number,—who take between them two-thirds of the rental, are in little immediate danger of having their rights attacked. The only rental therefore—namely, that of the larger proprietors—which can be looked on, even in theory, as the subject of redistribution, is too insignificant, being less than thirty million pounds, to appreciably affect our calculations when we are dealing with thirteen hundred millions. The theory of Land as an independent productive agent, and of rent as representing its independent product, is essential to an understanding of the theory of production generally; but in this country the actual product of the Land is so small, as compared with the products of Labour, Capital, and Ability, that for purposes like the present it is hardly worth considering. Its being redistributed, or not redistributed, would, as we have seen already, make to each individual but a difference of three farthings a day.
◆1 Capital, as distinct from the Ability that uses it, has been omitted also.
◆2 We must now again consider it in connection with the classes which never themselves employ it, but live on the interest of it.
◆3 What place do these classes hold in the productive system?