Social capital

“ Comparing simple reproduction of the social capital with its reproduction on a rising scale, we arrive at the most important conclusion that in capitalist economy the demand for commodities is in a sense independent of the total volume of social consumption. ”

“ No longer must industry be thought of as a mere revenue-producing process, in which Capital, Labor, Management, and the Community meet like so many rival and contending factions, each to appropriate to itself by force or might the largest possible share of the fruits of industry. Industry must be thought of, as in reality it is, as in the nature of social service, and participation in industry, whether in the form of labor or capital investment, as social service of the highest kind, since upon its successful accomplishment rest all other forms of human service. ”

“ They both achieve a synthesis between the two aspects which are the basis of the whole movement of social capital: that circulation is at one and the same time a capitalist process of producing and appropriating surplus value, and also a social process of producing and consuming material goods necessary to civilised human existence. ”

“ Let us now take these questions up again, and examine them more minutely, and we shall find that interest is justified from a practical point of view by the fact that the enjoyment of capital by this particular means is not only the sole manner of enjoying it which is consistent with the general welfare, but also constitutes the advantage which, in the eyes of most great producers, gives to capital the larger part of its value, and renders the desire of producing it efficient as a social motive. ”

“ The above economic fiction confuses the laws that regulate the general movement of wages, or the ratio between the working-class—i.e., the total labour-power—and the total social capital, with the laws that distribute the working population over the different spheres of production. ”

“ If the capital were supplied, as it might conceivably be, collectively by the community, the interest would accrue to the community, and all would be well. But as things are, the capital is supplied mainly by the savings of individuals, and largely by individuals confined to a relatively narrow class. The profits of Capital have thus a vital influence on the very serious matter of the distribution of wealth between social classes. ”

“ If the modern man, by aid of the social machinery, can produce fifty dollars' worth of product where he could produce not over a quarter of a dollar's worth without society, then forty-nine dollars and three quarters out of every fifty dollars must be credited to the social fund to be equally distributed. ”

“ The socialization of capitalist industry (as one may designate for short the transference to national, municipal and co-operative possession) will carry with it the socialization of the greater part of the money capital. ”

“ The building of a house, a factory, a ship, or a railway, benefits others besides those who get the direct gains.
Well may the community leave to the individual producer all that prompts him to exertion; well may it let the labourer have the full reward of his labour, and the capitalist the full return of his capital. ”

“ The one-sided connection of social income with agriculture is severed and social income becomes a broader concept; and a broader concept of capital in its two forms, fixed and circulating capital, is made the basis of social production as a whole. Instead of the misleading differentiation of production into two departments, agriculture and industry, other categories of real importance are here brought to the fore: the distinction between capital and income and the distinction, further, between fixed and circulating capital. ”

“ Is there any organization or social system which could check the evils resulting from the present competitive system, and secure that every one who is willing to work should be furnished with remunerative employment? Socialists are quite convinced that the whole problem would be solved were private capital to be converted into co-operative or public capital. ”

“ This term also is used, by a figure of speech, and in a collective sense, for the persons who possess capital, and who come into the [73] industrial organization to get their living by using capital for profit. To do this they need to exchange capital for productive services. These persons constitute an interest, group, or class, although they are not united by any such community of interest as laborers, and, in the adjustment of interests, the interests of the owners of capital must be limited by the interests of other groups. ”

“ The concentration of capital in the form of trusts at the same time as it simplifies the task we propose that society shall undertake, viz. the dispossession of the capitalist class, and the administration of all land and instruments of industry as social property, of which all shah be co-heirs and owners. ”

“ There may be a concentration of capital and a relative impoverishment of the general working mass of people, for example, and yet a general advance in the world’s prosperity and a growing sense of social duty in the owners of capital and land may do much to mask this antagonism of class interests and ameliorate its miseries. ”

“ In short, the use of capital may be socially beneficent, or it may be maleficent, anti-social. The invariable example which the workman adduces of its anti-social use is “profiteering” in many of its accustomed forms. It is a great misfortune that there is no precise term in use to describe the particular function of capital as an agent in production. ”

“ Nobody wants to penalise or to stigmatise income derived from dividends, rent, or interest; for accumulated capital, apart from monopoly, represents the exercise of thrift and prudence, qualities which are only less valuable to the community than actual service and labour. ”

“ On the other hand, in the case of the industrial workers integrally tied to the contemporary productive forces, the greater the social fund of accumulated Capital, the embodied labor stored in means of production, the greater the power of the social class that controls the accumulated Capital, the productive forces that confront the producer as the property of another class. ”

“ As a philanthropist, you may [63] feel sorry that a humble laborer should work through a long day to receive two dollars, but as an economist you console yourself with the reflection that that is all he produces. You may at times, as a sentimentalist, wonder whether the vast sums drawn as interest on capital are consistent with social fairness; but if it is shown that interest is simply the "natural price" of capital representing the actual "productive power" of the capital, there is nothing further to say. ”

“ Economically speaking, aggregated capital will be more and more essential to the performance of our social tasks. Furthermore, it seems to me certain that all aggregated capital will fall more and more under personal control. Each great company will be known as controlled by one master mind. ”

“ Then there is the apparently inevitable antagonism between labour and capital, between the employer and employed, which drives the worker to Social Democracy, as offering the prospect of his becoming his own master and enjoying the whole fruits of his labour. ”

“ The present serious discord between capital and labor is fundamentally born of the belief of some that wealth is as socially right in all important matters as it is socially powerful and the faith of others that the social problems that vex men and women would pass with the destruction of wealth's artificial social advantages. ”

“ We can already catch glimpses of a world in which the bonds which bind the individual are no longer laws, but social habits—the result of the need felt by each one of us to seek the support, the co-operation, the sympathy of his neighbours. Assuredly the idea of a society without a State will give rise to at least as many objections as the political economy of a society without private capital. We have all been brought up from our childhood to regard the State as a sort of Providence; ”

“ There is every indication that we are to see new developments of the power of aggregated capital to serve civilization, and that the new developments will be made right here in America. ”

“ There is room in the world, no doubt, and even in old countries, for a great increase of population, supposing the arts of life to go on improving, and capital to increase. But even if innocuous, I confess I see very little reason for desiring it. The density of population necessary to enable mankind to obtain, in the greatest degree, all the advantages both of co-operation and of social intercourse, has, in all the most populous countries, been attained. ”

“ Capital is a historic necessity, but in the same measure is its grave digger, the Socialist proletariat. ”

“ I expect to see the State, which is in a position to calculate the marginal efficiency of capital-goods on long views and on the basis of the general social advantage, taking an ever greater responsibility for directly organising investment; ”

“ The waste of capital, in proportion to the total capital, in this country between 1800 and 1850, in the attempts which were made to establish means of communication and transportation, was enormous. ”

“ The increasing restrictions on free use of capital, the monopoly of certain branches of industry by the State and the municipality, the growing tendency to take money from the rich by taxation, can be explained, reconciled, and justified on no other principle than the recognition that a certain share of the value of these forms of wealth is due to the community which has assisted and co-operated with the individual owner in its creation. ”

“ I am myself impressed by the great social advantages of increasing the stock of capital until it ceases to be scarce. ”

“ When this principle is once admitted, the only difficulty is to separate that part of the total income of the community, due to living labour in every shape and form, from that part due to capital in the narrow sense of the term. ”

“ The duty of society to guarantee the life of the citizen implies, therefore, not merely the equal distribution of wealth for consumption, but its employment as capital to the best possible advantage for all in the production of more wealth. In both ways, therefore, you will readily see that society would fail in its first and greatest function in proportion as it were to permit individuals beyond the equal allotment to withdraw wealth, whether for consumption or employment as capital, from the public administration in the common interest. ”

“ He held that in this country the entire people are one great working class, working with brains, or hands, or both, who should therefore act in harmony—the brain-workers and the hand-workers—for the equal rights of all, without distinction of color, condition, or religion. Holding that capital is accumulated labor, and wealth the creation of capital and labor combined, he thought it to be the wise policy of the large capitalists and corporations to help in the process of elevating and advancing labor by a proffered interest. ”

“ The author considers the existing methods of distributing the products of human activity by means of the wages system, and demonstrates that it tends to establish working people in a state of independence rather than of subjection; to promote industrial freedom and not to produce 'industrial slavery.' He shows how intimately the welfare of laborers is connected with the prosperity of their employers, and how the attempts to diminish the wealth of corporations may diminish the fund of capital out of which laborers are paid. ”

“ As population increases and business succeeds, if the community is not to run into idleness and distress, there must be a corresponding growth of capital to insure the necessary employment and industry to produce contentment and plenty. ”

“ The use of capital in production is, therefore, but a mode of labor. As capital can be used only by being consumed, its use is the expenditure of labor, and for the maintenance of capital, its production by labor must be commensurate with its consumption in aid of labor. Hence the principle that, under circumstances which permit free competition, operates to bring wages to a common standard199 and profits to a substantial equality—the principle that men will seek to gratify their desires with the least exertion—operates to establish and maintain this equilibrium between wages and interest. ”

“ The savings of individuals would consist partly of consumable commodities or of the means of such industry as had not been socialised, and partly of deferred pay for services rendered to the community, such pay taking the form of a pension due at a certain age, or of a sum of commodities or money payable on demand.
Voluntary associations of all kinds, whether joint-stock companies, religious corporations, or communistic groups would, in the eyes of the Social Democratic State, consist simply of so many individuals possessing those rights of property which are allowed to individuals. ”

“ But secondly, even the 'occupied' classes must be considered not merely as earning income but as furnishing in their private capacity utilities to the community or to their families on which a value may properly be placed. There is no difficulty in seeing that in an estimate of 'living capital' some allowance must he made for the people themselves (apart from their wealth-producing power) —the difficulty is to determine the most reasonable measure. ”

“ In, say, five years, these one hundred laborers will have accumulated a sufficient capital with which to transact the business on their own account; and here is where a system of equality is reached, which again would be followed by another degree of progress for the laborer. The capitalist, finding himself left out of the count by the operation of this method, would come forward and offer his capital to labor organizations at a reasonable rate of interest, and in this way a common interest would be the only possible result. ”