◆1 One of which would entirely change the existing character of wealth.
◆¹ Though an equal division of wealth would, as we soon shall see, bring a large addition to the income of a considerable majority of the nation, the advantages which the recipients would gain from this addition, would be very different from the advantages which an individual would gain now, from the same annual sum coming to him from invested capital. In other words, if wealth were equally distributed, it would, from the very necessity of the case, lose half the qualities for which it is at present most coveted.
◆1 Were wealth equally distributed, nobody would have an independence.
◆¹ At present wealth suggests before all things what is commonly called “an independence”—something on which a man can live independently of his own exertions. But the moment a whole nation possessed it in equal quantities this power of giving an independence would go from it suddenly and for ever. If a workman who at present makes seventy pounds a year, would receive, by an equal division, an additional forty pounds, it is indeed true that no additional work could be entailed on him. The work which at present gets him seventy pounds, would in that case get him a hundred and ten. But he would never be able, if he preferred leisure to wealth, to forego the seventy pounds and live in idleness on the forty pounds; as he would be able to do now if the additional forty pounds were the interest of a legacy left him by his maiden aunt. Unless he continued to work, as he had worked hitherto, he would lose not only the first sum, but the second.
◆1 Every one would have to work as hard as he does now;
This is self-evident, when we consider what is the essence of such a situation, namely that the position of everybody is identical. For if everybody preferred to be idle, no wealth could be produced at all. However great nominally might be the value of our national property, it is perfectly clear that everybody could not live at leisure in it: and from the very nature of the case, in a nation where all are equal, what cannot be done by all, could not be done by anybody. ◆¹ If, therefore, we estimate the income possible for each individual as an equal fraction of the present income of the nation, it must be remembered that, to produce the total out of which these fractions are to come, everybody would have to work as hard as he does now. And more than that, it would be the concern of all to see that his share of work was not being shirked by anybody. This is at present the concern of the employer only: but under the conditions we are now considering, everybody would be directly interested in becoming his neighbour’s taskmaster.
◆1 And be even more under the dominion of the employer than he is now;
These last considerations lead us to another aspect of the subject, with which every intelligent voter should make himself thoroughly familiar, and which every honest speaker would force on the attention of his hearers. A large number of agitators, who are either ignorant or entirely reckless, but who nevertheless possess considerable gifts of oratory, ◆¹ are constantly endeavouring to associate, in the popular mind, the legitimate hope of obtaining an increased income, with an insane hostility to conditions which alone make such an increase possible. These men[1] are accustomed to declaim against the slavery of the working classes, quite as much as against their inadequate rate of payment. By slavery they mean what they call “enslavement to capital.” Capital means the implements and necessaries of production. These, they argue, are no longer owned by the workmen as they were in former times: and thus the workers are no longer their own masters. They must work under the direction of those who can give them the means of working; and this, they are urged to believe, reduces them to the condition of slaves.
◆1 Nor could any one hope to own the instruments of production used by him.
◆2 Self-contradictions of agitators, who say that capitalism means slavery, and that socialism would make the worker free.