Capitalists And National Prosperity

All this is, of course, trite, but it leads up to a point of more importance, viz., why it is that the fortunes of the capitalist class should be so much more bound up and identified with the fortunes of the nation as a whole than those of the other classes. The answer is, that it is from the Powers of Nature that the accumulating surplus of wealth which gives nations their status and credit comes - and not from the hands, backs, and shoulders of men. And it is the capitalist class, it must be remembered, which owns the machines and processes which make this surplus - not the working classes. Without the machines, indeed, these would, if left to rely on their own resources, "eat their heads off," however great their numbers might be; and, moreover, not one in ten thousand of them could invent a machine, or part of one, if they tried.

The Power Of Capital Over National Credit

It is true that the Capitalist for the most part exploits and skins the Inventor on whom he is dependent for the machines and processes by which he is enabled to add to the surplus of wealth of the world; and that the greatly successful inventor, who is one in a million, may come from any class. Still, as things are at present, it is the capitalist class which represents the new inventions and processes, without which no nation can hold its own in the race for wealth; and hence it is that Capital, which brings to both the machines, which in turn capture and enchain the Powers of Nature, which in their turn, again, give a surplus of wealth to a nation over and above the labour spent on them; it is Capital that in the end, through this accumulating surplus, gives a nation its financial credit and status among the other nations. In other words, it is its Capital - and not the number of its inhabitants, nor the natural riches of its undeveloped soil or mines - which gives a nation the power of exploiting the wealth of other nations in every deal between them. For just as gold is the crown and ultimate object of all hearts, as being the sole final representative of wealth, and so discounts all other commodities in any exchange between them; so, too, does Capital, the representative of gold, take a share off all other commodities in building up the wealth of nations. It can command the ownership and services of every wealth-producing machine, but no wealth-producing machine can be sure of commanding it.

Capital Omnipotent. Europe's Share Of The World's Trade

If, then, we take Mr. Schooling's estimate that two-thirds of the trade of the world is done by Europe, while only one-third is done by all the world beside - and that, too, in spite of the fact that from time immemorial neither the number of its inhabitants nor the potential riches either of its soil or mines are a tithe of that of the rest of the world - we shall not go wrong if we conclude that it is the Capital of Europe which has done it, under the guidance of science, invention, and knowledge applied to the arts of life. But this Capital had to be accumulated by Europe first; and how this was done we have now to see.

Conquest Of Machinery. Reasons For Trade Monopoly Of The West

In general terms we may say that it was because they had got the gods - the Machines, viz., which evoke the wealth-producing Powers of Nature - on their side; for these are the big battalions which in the end conquer in Trade, as in War; the mere Workers, like the opposing camps of Greeks and Trojans, being "much of a muchness" without their aid. It is not because the Eastern and Southern nations of the world have been denied the wealth-producing Powers of Nature which characterise its Northern and Western divisions, that little Europe has managed to capture two-thirds of the trade of the world. On the contrary, as I have said, they have been more richly endowed by Nature with mines, and fruits, and fertile soils, than Europe. It is rather because men are led by their imaginations the world over, and not by their mere stomachs, that they will sacrifice all they have above what is necessary for the mere sustenance of life for what will give them those symbols of distinction, honour, and prestige among their fellows, which they so dearly prize; and that among rude tribes, primitive peoples, and the great mass of mankind everywhere, these symbols are the products of Machinery - cheap gewgaws, ornaments for the person, coloured calicoes, flashy jewellery, and what not - turned out by the gross with the smallest expenditure of labour; and for which whole cargoes of natural products - corn, wine, figs, bananas, oranges, tea, coffee, and all that ministers to the bodily appetite - will be given, to feed the starving, swelling millions of the European slums.