But to this the common objection is raised, that it is impossible to
make industrial interests common, on account of the necessary
differences in labour: that there must be caste in industry. This was
the reply that the king made to the people who wanted a political
republic; of course it will be the reply that the privileged classes
will make to those who want an industrial republic. You know how
fallacious the objection has been politically. The king deprived of his
crown has not been compelled to sleep with the scavenger. It will prove
equally as fallacious industrially. The money and railroad kings will
not have to live with the men who do the rough work of the industrial
public, unless they choose to do so, any more than they do now. The
foundation stones of a house always remain at the bottom, covered up in
the dirt; nevertheless, they are even more important to the safety of
the house than any upper part. So it will be in the industrial structure
when it shall be erected. There will always be Vanderbilts, Stewarts,
Fields and Fultons—the agents of the people industrially, as there are
now presidents, governors and mayors—agents of the people politically.
And do you not see how perfectly this corresponds to the teachings of
Jesus when He said: “Let him who would be greatest among you be the
servant of all,” and with this falls the objection of the aristocrat to
the industrial republic, as utterly untenable.
The real inspiration of this objection, however, springs from quite
another source. Those who make it know that with the coming of
industrial organisation, the power which money has to increase will
fall, and make it impossible for anybody to live without labour. Money
has no rightful power to increase. Its origin and sphere distinctly
forbid the power, as can be clearly shown. The theory that money is
wealth is false. It came to be accepted from the fact that valuable
things have been used as money.
Wealth is the product of labour; is anything that labour produces or
gathers. But the functions of money are representative wholly. Money
takes the place of wealth for the time—stands for it. Here is the
fallacy of a specie basis for money: specie is wealth, and can be made a
basis for the issue of money, but the error consists in making a
distinction against other kinds of wealth which would be equally as
good. Anything that has value may properly be made a basis for the issue
of a currency.
If we trace the origin of money, all this will be made plain. At the
basis of all questions relating to wealth and money, lie the
elements—the land, the water, the air—and these are the free gifts of
God to man. None have the right to dispossess others of their natural
inheritance in these elements. The right to life carries along with it
the right to the use of so much of each of these elements as is
necessary to support it. No one has a natural right to more than this.
Hence, men have no more right to seize upon the land and deprive others
of its use, or part with it to others for a consideration, than they
have to bottle the air for the same purpose. There can be no ownership
of the elements; no ownership of the land any more than of the air or
water. Pretended ownership is another name for a usurpation. But the
elements, unused, are valueless. Labour applied to them yields results,
and these are valuable, consequently wealth; the net results after
subsisting the people are the accumulated wealth of the world, and there
is no other wealth.