Page:Alexander Jonas - Reporter and Socialist (1885).djvu/59

 tion anything about consumption, or how the products of labor are to be used. You just said that these products are the property of the commonwealth as far as they have not become private property. Then, there is to be private property in the society as proposed by you, or even private capital?

The term private capital is, as we consider it, a self-contradiction. Capital means anything bearing interest, rent, or better it brings to its owner what others have made. No such thing will be known under the socialistic system of the future. But, there will be private property.. Everybody will be at liberty to do what he pleases with the orders for any kind of products or enjoyments—to-day such orders are called "money"—he may be entitled to for his labor. There will be those who-will spend their income for eating, drinking, clothing and other necessaries and comforts of life, while others will be saving in this respect and use part of their wages to buy books, pictures, etc.; and again others will use their sayings for the purpose of traveling, studying, etc. The organization of the communists will guarantee to everyone the possibility of an existence free from restraint as far as individual preferences do not injure the welfare of the whole.

And you mean to say that under the communistic system there will be no one living upon the labor of others while being an idler himself?

Under no circumstances; for, how could it be?

Take, for instance, two families with an average income of $1,800 per annum, that is to say, they receive orders to the amount of that sum for the labor they have performed. One of these families lives quite economically and saving, and their expenses amount to not more than $800 per annum, while the other family spends every cent of their income. After five or six years the economical family has saved orders to the amount of $6,000. Could not they use that sum somehow for the purpose of depriving others of the fruit of their labor?

If you would only explain how they would do it? What in the world should that saving family do with that $6000? In order to get at the fruit of the labor of other people