Page:Alexander Jonas - Reporter and Socialist (1885).djvu/39

 probably know that in all cases when capitalists are asked to give the exact amount of wages and profits, they prefer to give big figures in regard to the former, and low figures in regard to the latter. Therefore, we may safely assume that the Census shows the condition of workmen to be better than it really is, and it makes the capitalists appear to pocket less profits than they actually do.

I agree with you in regard to the inaccuracy of statements of capitalists in regard to their property, a fact that everybody will admit who, in times gone by when the law relating to income tax was in force, has studied the statements of rich men when the assessors of the tax department made their annual visits for the purpose of ascertaining the value of the personal property of these men.

Exactly. Yet, let us consider the figures of the Census to be correct, and make them the basis for our investigation. But, before we proceed any further, we shall consider the question of the risk the capitalist takes when he invests his capital in any enterprise. You made the remark that the capitalist's big profit should be accorded to him to insure him against any possible losses. This seems to be the correct thing if you consider one individual manufacturer, but not the entire branch of industry to which his factory belongs. For, while of the 2,000 manufacturers of agricultural implements several hundreds went into bankruptcy, the aggregate profit of the entire branch amounted to immensely more than the aggregate of the losses would figure up; and that profit was created solely by the labor of the wage-workers employed in that branch. Consequently, if under the present system of capitalistic, and for the masses of the people, detrimental system of production, the individual speculator pockets the profit accruing from the production of his individual concern under the pretense that he must secure himself against possible losses, such claim may be allowed as long as that system prevails. But we desire to abolish it and to replace it by a system of national, co-operative, or better social production, where the profits will be used not for the benefit of a few individuals but for the good of the whole commonwealth. And under such a system no bank-