m>. G R O N L U N D * M m MEMOE-IAM Digitized by tine Internet Archive in 2008 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.arcliive.org/details/coperativecommOOgronricli THE COOPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH IN ITS OUTLINES AN EXPOSITION OF MODERN SOCIALISM BY LAURENCE GRONLUND *•' My object is not to make people read. But to make them think." Montesquieu — Spirit of Lawn. BOSTO'N' LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS NEW YORK CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM •Copyright, 1884, By Laubence Gbonlukdu .~rK TO THE ONE WHO HAS BEEN MOST INTERESTED In the progress of my work; TO MY SYMPATHETIC WIFE I dedicate this book. m6^633'? CONTENTS. Chapter. Page. To THE Reader , 7 I. The Peofit System 12 II. Social Anarchy 34 III. The Culmination 55 IV. The Sphere of the State 75 Y. Expediency of the Co-operative Common- wealth 100 VI. Social EconOxMy lo2 VII. Democracy vs. Party Government 155 VIII. Administration of Affairs 108 IX. Administration of Justice ........ 186 X. Woman . 201 XI. Education 215 XII. Morals . . \ . . 234 XIII. The Coming Revolution 259 5 TO THE KEADER. A dialogue on " Political Optimism" in the Nineteenth Cen^ tury for August, 18S0, contains the following language : " We see that political systems in all progressive societies tend toward socialistic democracy. We see everywhere that it must come to that. We all of us feel this conviction, or all of us, I suppose, who have reflected on the matter. We feel, too, that nothing we can do can avert or possibly long delay the consummation. Then, we must believe that the movement is being guided, or is guiding itself to happy issues." This passage may serve as a key to the following pages. They have been written that you may see that the social and political phenomena in all progressive countries, and particu- larly in our own country and Great Britain, are, in a perfectly natural manner, evolving a New Social Order, a Social Demo- ' cratic Order, which we have called The Cooperative Common- wealth ; in other words, — to speak pointedly, — that Socialism is no importation, but a home-growth^ wherever found. They are written to give you good reasons for expecting that this New Social Order will be, indeed, a " happy issue " to the brain-worker as well as to the hand-worker, to woman as well as to man. They are written to give reasons for our convic- tions that it must come to that, here as elsewhere, within a comparatively short period, or to barbarism. Barbarism! — Yes. Let not yourself be led astray by the remarkable increase everywhere of wealth on the whole, — possibly the under-current is, nevertheless, carrying us swiftly backwards. Suppose you had told a Roman citizen in the age of Augustus that his proud country then had entered on its de- cline, — as every school-boy now knows it had, — he would have thought you insane. Now, the many striking parallels between that period and the times in which we are living S INTRODUCTORY. must have forced themselves on your attention, if you are of a rerteetive turn of mind, as we assume you are. You will liave observed the same destructive forces to which History attributes the fall of pagan Rome busily at work under your very eyes. You see the same mad chase after Avealth; you find everywhere the same deadening scepticism in regard to high ideals. You observe in all our centres of activity a cor- ruption — I will not say as great as, but — promising in due time to rival that of the Roman Empire. Be careful not to be too scornful if we prophesy that in, say, twenty-five years from now. — if not the Cooperative Commonwealth should then, per- chance, be realized — the demagogues of New York City will buy voters by free public feasts and theatricals, that you will hear the cry of ^'-panem et circenses " — ''give us bread and cir- cuses," if you live then ! Indeed, we have already read in the N. Y. Tribune : " Every one of our civil Justices has giv- en a day's " outing ' to the wives and children of his district." Even now in many of the States wealth seems a pre-requisite to the attainment of Senatorial honors and millionaires and sons of millionaires are bidding for seats in the lower house of Congress. But, for reasons hereafter set forth, we do not believe our race will return to barbarism. The Roman Em- pire was saved from that fate, finally, by being reanimated. Our age as fully needs reanimation as the period of the Caesars. We shall be reanimated : history will once more see Society reconstructed on a new basis. Says Huxley : " The reconstruction of Society on a scientific basis is not only possible, but the only political object much worth striving for." True, emphatically true! Except so far as it is implied in this sentence that any individual or any nation can go to work and arbitrarily reconstruct Society on a scien- tilic or any other basis. Socialism — modern Socialism. German Socialism, which is fast becoming the Socialism the world over — holds that the impending re<^onstructioa of Society will be brought about by the Logic of Events; teaches that The Coming Bevolution i» strictly an Evolution, Socialists of that school reason from no INTRODUCTORY. 9 assumed first principle, like the French who start from " So- cial equality " or like Herbert Spencer, when in his Social Statics he lays it down as an axiom, that *' every man has free- dom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the like freedom of every other man ; " but basing themselves on ex- perience — not individual but univprsal experience — theycau and do i)resent clear-cut, definite solutions. It is this German Socialism which is presented in the follow- ing pages, with this important modification that it has been di- gested by a mind, Anglo-Saxon in its dislike of all extrava- gancies and in its freedom from any vindictive feeling against pei'sons. who are from circumstances what tlioy are. In the first three chapters we present the Soci;ilist critique of the phe- nomena of the era in which we are living ; in the next three chapters we indicate the coming Social order which will, prob- ably, develop itself out of the present system; in the three that follow we outline the political and legal machinery which very likely will be found necessary to the working of that new order ; in chapters X, XI and XII, we point out the principal social efiects which may be expected to follow from it, and ia the last chapter we consider how the revolution — the change — is likely to be accomplished in our country and England. We believe it is time that a work, containing all the loading tenets of Socialism in a concise, consecutive form should be presented in the English language— in the language of the two countries where the social, and specially the industrial conditions, are ripening quicker than anywhere else. Such a work, in fact, exists nowhere. Whenever any one now wishes to inform himself on the subject lie has to wade through innumerable books and pamphlets, mostly German. That such a candid man as JoIdi S. Mill, who had a truly Socialist heart, did not become a Socialist we attribute to this fragmentary shnpe of Sotjialist thought, and that in a tongue unknown to him ; tor his •" Chapters on Socialism." published after his death, show that he was familiar only with French speculations, of a time when Soci'ilisrii was yet in its Infancy. AVe can dismiss nearly all that thus fiir has been written in our language by Socialists oo the subject with the remark that it is not exactly adapted 10 INTRODUCTORY. to people of jiidgniont and cuUnre. TYe thinlv that all Amer- icans who simply want to be well-informed ought to make themselves acquainted with this new philosophy — and Social- ism is notliing less than that — which is believed in by hun- dreds of thousands of our feUow-men with a fervor equalling ihe enthusiasm of the early Christians. We think they will make themselves a(;quaintcd with it. as soon as it is presented to them in readable English, and applied to American phe- nomena and American conditions by a writer possessing the American bias for the practical. Such Socialism, whether true or false, whether destined to be successful or unsuc- cessful, is a matter that concerns you personally. But if the writer of this work did not hope to accomplish something beyond giving some, or even many, Americans more correct notions of the aims of Socialists than those they have, it would never have been written. We have a deeper purpose, far nearer our heart. Most reflective minds, if they do not go the whole length of the one who speaks in the dia- logue with which we started, do admitthat weareatthe brink of an extraordinary change ; that a crisis of some sort is im- pending, no matter if it is likely to burst out now or in ten or fifty years from now. We then say that the only thing that can save us and our children from horrors, ten-fold worse than those of the French Revolution, that can save us from the infliction of such a scourge as Napoleon, will be the activ- ity of a minority, acting as the brains of the llevolution. For while there will be a revolution, it need not necessarily be one marked by blood. "We hope it will not be such a one : a rev- olution by violence is to Society what a hurricane is to a ship struggling on the stormy ocean ; itisonly by herculean eftbrts that we shall succeed in avoiding the ro(;ks and bring it Into the secure haven, and even then we shall be bnt at the threshold of our task. But. then, we must flrst have in our country this minority ; a vigorous minority, even if but a small one ; a minorit}' of in- telligent and energet.ic American men and women ; a minor- ity with sound convictions as to what the crisis means and INTRODUCTORY. 11 how It may be made to redound to the welfare of the whole of Society and with the courage of their convictions. Such a minority will be indispensable to render tlie revolution a bless- ing, whether it comes peaceably or forcibly. Not that this minority is to make the coming devolution — an hidividual, a clique, a majority even can as little make a revolution as the fly makes the carriage wheel roll ; the Revolution makes it- self or '• grows itself; " — but this minority is to prepare for it and, when the decisive moment has arrived, act on the mass- es, as the power acts on the lever. To reach and possibly win this minority — however small — this book has mainly been written. We shall, for that purpose, address ourselves to the reflec- tive minds of all classes, rich as well as poor, professional as well as working men — and, indeed, many, very majjy, literary men and women, very many lawyers, very many physicians and teachers are just as much in need of this Coming Eevolu- tion as most working men. ' But we shall assume, reader, that you are not one of those who are personally interested in the maintenance of the present Social Order, or rather Social An- archy Sov then it is hopeless to try to win you over. Very likely you will deem it a difficult feat to win you over, to turn you into a Socialist — All we ask of you is with us to view fa- miliar facts of' life from a standpoint, very difl'erent from the one you have hitherto beei occupying, to look at them in oth- er lights and shades, and then await the resulc. A man is never the same any more after he has once got a new impres- sion. Mucli tliat we are going to say cannot but shock your preconceived ideas, but from St. Paul down many have been indigr.an'' at first hearing what afterwards became their most cherished convictions. We shall discard all common-places and phrases and throughout be mindful ot Samuel Johnson's ad- monition : " Let us empty our minds of cant, gentlemen I ** THE COOPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH. CHAPTER I. THE PROFIT SYSTEM. '' The worldng class is the only class which is not a class. It is the nation. Tt represents, so to spoak. the body as a wiiole, of w hich the otlier classes only represent special or- gans. These or^j^ans, no donbt, have great and indispensable functions, bnt for most ])nii)OPe'= of government the State consiiJts of the vast laboring majoritj''. Its welfare depends on what their lives are like." — Frederic Harrison. "They (Political Economists) are men of only one idea — "Wealth, how to })rocnre and increase it. 'J'heir rules seemed infallibly certain to that sn})r(Mne end. What did it signify that a great ])art of mankind was made nioanwhile even more wretched than before, provided wealth on the whole increased?" — Catholic Quarterly Review., Jan. 1880. ''That the masses of men are robbed of their fair earnings — that they Iiave to work much harder than thej'- ought to work for a very much poorer living than they ought to get, is to my mind clear." — Henry George, THE PROFIT SYSTEM. 13 We Phall commonoe with an object lesson ; it will consist chief- ly oftigures. aiul tignres are tiresome things; — but the lesson will be a short one. Here are four diagrams, — ''cakes" let us call them : iS6o. 1850. .^ Wages for 957,000 -• -3 " hands." n c 3 J« $ 437,000,000. Wages foi 1,300.000 " hands." Surplus, 53 per cent. $ 805,000,000, 1870. Wages for 3,000,000 "hands." Surplus, 53 per cent. 1,310,000,000. 1880. Wages for Surplus, 3,739,000 48 1-3 per cent. "hands" $ 1,834,000,000. These ""cakes " represent the net produce of all maimfacturin* 14 THE PROFIT SYSTEM. Industries of the United States for the respective years; mark! not the gross vakie of the products on leaving the fac- tories, but only that value which has been given to them in the factories minus the wear and tear of machinery. That is to say, we have arrived at the above figures by first adding the value of the raw materials and the depreciation of all ma- cliiuery, implements and buildings together, and then deduct- ing that sum from the value of the finished products. The value of th^ raw-materials used, and the gross value we have gathered from the respective U. S. Census Reports, but for the estimate of the wear and tear of machinery &c there are ab- solutely no data anywhere to be had. We have taken five per cent, of all the capital invested in all manufactures in the re- spective years as probably a fair estimate of such wear and tear, as but a small part of all capital is invested in machinery and implements, where most of the wear and tear occurs. Sup- posing that we are somewhat out of the way on one side or the other in this guess, it will not materially affect the conclu- sions of this chapter. Observe, first, that these "" cakes" grow at an even and a very great rate ; The cake of 1850 has a value of $ 437 million dollars ; that of 1860 '' " *• *' 805 *' " that of 1870 (reduced to gold) 1310 *' " that of 1880 a value of 1834 ** " Observe, next, that these •* cakes " are divided by a vertical line into two very nearly equal portions. That to the left was paid to the workers in the form of wages; that totheright we shall, for the time being, call the '•'' Surplus." Note, also. — for we do not want to make facts, but simply to declare and explain them — that the portion: wages, in- creases bcth absolutely and relatively in proportion to th€ number of workers : The average wage in 1850 was 248 dollars ; " U ,. .4 IgQQ U 292 '' " "- " ^- 1870 " 310 (gold.) u 41 u »i IgSo " 346 ** Tbe portion : surplus grows at a great rate : THE PROFIT SYSTEM. 15 In 1850 it amounted to 200 million dollars; *' 1860 it was 426 '• '' " 1870 it was 690 ^' (gold.) '^ 1880 it rose to 886 '' •' The average " surplus," that is, when divided by the num- ber of establishments, was as follows : In 1850 it was $1,500. '' 1860 •' '' 3,000. " 1870 it fell to 2,736, because the number of establish- ments had nearly doubled. In 1880 it rose to 3,490. the number of establishments being nearly the same as in 1870. Here ends the lesson. It was all figures ; bnt we should say that to a reflective mind these figures are not dumb, but speaking. The central point of interest seems to us to be this ''surplus." How does this surplus originate 9 For to know what a thing is, we must know the process of its origin. How come tliese cakes — the net results of our indnstrial production — to be di- vided that way? In order to answer these questions we shall have to dissect the system of productioii which now prevails. Take a number of moneyed men who agree to invest their superfluities in some industrial enterprise. They come togeth- er, form themselves into a joint-stock comnany and elect of- ficers ; such companies, in fact, now own and operate some of our largest establishments, and the tendency is that all indus- tries of any consequence in time will be carried on by them. Suppose then our moneyed men engaged in the cotton, or wool- en, or iron and steel industry; either one of these will serve our purpose equally well, as the * surplus ' was in 1880 about the same in proportion in all of them. Supx^ose they engage in the making of cotton cloth. None of these men need have any knowledge wiiatever of the work to be done, and as a matter of fact the stockholders of existing joint-stock com- panies have no such knowledge. They need not know anj^- thing, indeed, except to add and divide — this is not added im- pertinently, but simply to emphasize a fact most pertinent to our subject. All that they need do is to hire a manager at a 16 THE PROFIT SYSTEM. Stated salary and place their funds at his disposal. This manager then rents a factory — a cotton-'' mill " — or has one built; goes then into the market and buys spindles, bales of cotton, and other machinery and raw materials. All that low is wanting is Labor; but that is also to be found in the market — plenty of it. The manager buys as much as he wants of it. Note, however, here a difference. The machinery and raw material he has to pay for on, or a short time after, de- livery ; not quite so with Labor. With that a contract is made to employ it for a week or a month at an agreed price, and then to pay for it after having used it. All these wares — machinery, cotton and Labor — are now takeii to the cotton mill, where our men w ith money may, if they think fit, look on while Labor spins and weaves the cotton into cloth, using up in that process a certain small por- tion of the machinery and factory. Everybody now knows, that this cloth is not made for the personal use of these mon- eyed men or their families — and we shall see in another chap- ter that this fact is a truly distinguishing mark ol the era we are living in — but that it is manufactured wholly for other peo- ple whom these men never saw or heard of. This cloth is made for the express purpose of being taken into and disposed of in the market of the world. For there, all wares, from guano to gold, from rags to silk, have one quality in com- mon ; that of possessing value. Now, please mark that nothing can so effectually kill our cause as the successful impeachment of the answer we shall give to the question : What is value? or the deductions we sliall draw from it. Our explanation of what this '"surplus" is and what Capital is, hinges on this question, which is, indeed, '• Vidce mere'''' — the *Mnotheridea" of Socialism. We shall, there- fore, suspend our sketch of the present mode of production, in order first to answer it. But mark n«;ain, our exposition of ''value" is none other than that of David Jkicardo. Socialists regard Kicardo as tlie last political economist v/ho made any substantial addition to the science ; the one who, in regard to value and wages, ad- vanced it to its highest plane. And it was only alter the sup- THE PROFIT SYSTEM, 17 porters of the present social order found out. what use could be made of his teachings, that Bastiat and his disciples came to their succor and tried to impugn these teachings. We build on IMcardo as our foundation. U'o the question then. Bj"^ "' value '' we mean vahie in ex- change; we do not mean value in use. or utility, or, what seems to us a more luminous name, and what Locke called it: worth. The worth or utility of shoes is their capacity to i^ro- tect the feet; their vaUie is what they will fetch in the mar- ket. Their vahie is their relation to other wares, in some way or other; is another name for equivalence. But relation in what way? Not relation of worths. Worth, or utility, is undoubtedly presupposed, but it does not deter- mine the vahie. That will be seen from the following illus- trations : The reason why a man wants to purchase a pair of shoes, is that he needs them, that they are useful, that they possess "• worth" to him. But their usefulness is not at all the reason why he paj's ,f2.00 for them He does not pay twenty times as much for tlieni as for a ten cent loaf of bread, because they are twenty times as useful to him. Why not ? Because the two " worths" or two useful- nesses are just as incomj>aral)le as a pound of butter and a peck of apples would be. Agahi, a loaf of bread is "worth" infinitely more to a man who hus not eaten anything for forty- eight hours than to one who Just comes from a hearty dinner; j'et the former can buy tiie loaf just as cheaply as the latter. Value, then, is no relation of *• wortiis." of usefulnesses. Nor h:is money anything to do with determining values. Wares would have value, the same as the\' have now, if all money of all kinds were suddenly annihilated. In order to eliminate that disturbing factor: money, w^e shall suppose an exchange of goods for goods — pure barter. Assume, then, a shoemaker to exchange one pair of boots for a coat, another similar pair for a table, a third pair for one hundred pounds of bread, a fourth pair for forty bushels of coal, and a fifth pah- for a book. All these articles are said to be equal in value. 18 THE riiOFIT SYSTEM. But equality presupposes comparison. We only compare sueli articles with each other that are similar. In what re- spect, then, are the above articles similar, except that of be- ing useful, which we saw was no point ot comparison? They are dissimilar in regard to the material, out of which they are made and the purposes for which they are made. They are, oil the other hand, similar in this respect that they haA'^e been produced by human labor, working on natural products, which, again, have been won by hu- man labor. Th;'y have, then, this property in common, that they have sprung from Nature, and contain in them a certain amount of liuman labor. Labor is their father and Nature is their mother. Nature, liowever. performs her work gratuitously. It must, then, be human labor which gives these various articles their value. That is, also, the teaching of Ricardo. He lays it down as a fundamental principle, that the exchange values of wares the supply of which may be indefinitely increased, (as is the case with these articles we enumerated) depend, exclusively, on the quantities of labor, necessarily required to produce them and bring them to market, in all states of society. In an- other place he says: " In all cases, wares rise in value, be- cause more labor is expended." These various articles, however, have not only vnlue; they were supposed to have equal value, consequently they must contain an equal amount of human labor. And so it is. These amounts are first measured by the time devoted to pro- duce these articles. Thus, it is easy enough to say, how much bakenng labor is coniained in the bread; how much tailoring labor in the coat tfec. These various labors, however, are very different in kind, you will say. Undoubtedly. But the difference consists simply in being more or less comi)licated. It takes, simply, more time to learn the one than the other. The most complicated kind of work can always be reduced to ordinary unskilled la- bor, may always be considered as nuiltiplied common labor. Thus digging is easier to learn than type setting. There is con- THE PKOFIT SYSTEM, 19 tallied in every hour's work of the carpenter a part of the time he devoted to l^ariiin^^ hi< trade. This is still more apjjarent iu the literal y labor contained in a book. Years ma} be requi- Bite for tlie preliminary work, months or even years maj' have to be devoted to special studies, while the mere writing of tlio manuscript may take but a few months. One hour of writing may thus, be equivalent to twelve, or many more, hours of common labor. In this coniitiction Ricardo very pertinently remarks ''I am not inattentive to the difficulty of comparing one hour's labor in one employment with the same duration of labor in another. But the estimation of different qualities of Labor comes soon to be adjusted in the market with suincient precision for all practical purposes " But we are not yet ready to define what Value is. Suppose one man required twice as much time to make a pair of boots as Is usually required, and suppose he should then want from the tailor two coats in exchange, instead of one, he probably would gel some such answer as this : '• I don't care how long time it takes you to make such a pair of boots. I know, that on an average, an average shoemaker can make them in half that time, and therefore your labor is of no more value." Value is not then determined by the time which this or that worker may need. Again. Suppose tomoiTOw a machine is invented and geuer- ally introduced which will make t vo pair of boots in the s ime time that now is required for one pair Then the Value will be reduced one-half. We. then, define Value as : the quantitij of common human labor ^ measured by time^ which on an averaqe is requisite, hij the implements generally used, to produce a giitn commodity. We should now go on with our illustration and state the de- duction which Socialists draw from the definition just given, were it not for some misunderstandings that veiy likely al- ready have ariseii in many a reader's mind. Thus, one. may object: Suppose I find a diamond in the highway. Its value is, certainly, far above the trouble of pick- ing it up. Does not this show that Bastiat's definition of Val- 20 THE TROFIT SYSTEM. ne: that its measure is '■'• the service done to tlie buyer, in sav- ing hiiJi a certain amount of ctTort,"' is the more correct one. We answer: Teopk; are not in the liabit of finding dia- monds in the hiiihways. If tliey wei'c. diamonds wonhl soon be as cheap as pebbh's. Diamonds will come to the tinder dear enough, if he were to seek them in Hindostan or Brazil, where they are usually found. Kemember that the average amount of labor is a part of our definition. A word more in regard to that theory of *•' service," which so many reformers in our country have got into their heads without knowing to whom they owe it. Bastiat it was who invented that term in order to get over the ai)parent mischief Ricardo's theory worked; who expressly selected it because its meaning was equivocal. Its efficacy lies entirely in the shift- ing uses of an ambiguous term. Bastiat's definition really an)Ounts to saying, that the value of a railroad-ticket from Boston to Worcester is measured hy the time, trouble and ex- pense which 1 may "save" in not walking or driving that dis- tance! Why, our progress depends on exactly the reverse! On this, that values of articlesbecome constantly less and less in proportion to the trouble I should have to undergo in produc- ing them by my own efforts I So that, finally, values and troub- les of mine bear no relation at all to each other. Agidn, we shall, of course, be charged with having disre- garded the law of Demand and Supply. Aiid yet. we distinct- ly mentioned, that we. so far, only spoke of articles that may be indefinitely increased. Wares, that cannot be thus increased, like rare pictures and wines, and other wares in times of scarci- ty, have what is called, a '^ monopoly value," that is, their val- ue is not measured by the labor contained — crystalizod — in theii> at all, but by Demand and Supply, exclusively. And even with regard to wares that may be indefinitely increased (the vast majority of all wares) we, with iricardo, do not deny that '-there are accidental and temporary deviations of the actual market from their primary, and natural price." That which we lay stress upon is, that the labor expended on wares measures, and js, their primary and natural value. Labor expended constitutes, so to speak, their /erei value. Do- THE PROFIT SYSTEM. 21 niana and Supply have, as to those wares, simply the effect of niiikiiig their price (that is. tlieir value expressed in money — ill gold and silver) vibrate, now a little above, now a little be- low that level value of theirs; exactly as the wind raises and depresses the waves in lespect to the level of the sea. We claim, then : — First, in the words of Ricardo : ''Nature by the aid of machinery adds to utilities (to ••' Worths'") by making society richer; but the assistance which it affords, adds nothing to Values, but always makes the latter fall." And, on the other hand, that Human Labor and Scarcity create all Values. But since it is evident, that Scarcity cannot cre- ate anything real, we must conclude that the Values which are due to it, are unreal ones ; and that it is human Labor alone that creates all real values. [This of course, does not imply, that there is not much Labor which does not create any Values at all.] So it is not only now, but so it has always been. So it will always be under any industrial system. We can now return to our sketch. We left the manager hav- ing taken the cotton cloth into the world's market for sale. Suppose one hundred hours of common labor (that is, the un- skilled labor to which, as we have seen, all skilled labor can be ultimately reduced) necessary, under the prevailing mode of production, to make this cloth, and another hundred hours of common labor requisite to produce the bales of cotton and that part of the machinery which has been used up, then the value of the finished cotton cloth is two hundred hours of common labor. That is. they will exchange with that amount of labor crystallized in any other ware. Suppose they are ex- changed (disregarding for the moment the oscillating influ- ence of Demand and Supply) for an amount of gold, embody Ing two hundred hoin-s of common labor. That gold is thcL taken to the office of our company. But, since equal amounts of labor are exchanged, why dr these moneyed. men engage in this operation? Do they do it for fun? Not a bit of it. We have now arrived at the Social- ist deductiou which is drawn from our definition of value, 22 THE PROFIT SYSTEM. and which made it so important, that it should be thoroughly understood. Our moneyed men first deduct from that heap of gold lying before them th