Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/526

508 In other words, according to Shakespeare, as well as according to political economy and common sense, however brilliant may be the imagination of the poet or inventor, he has no property in his ideas or imaginings until he has reduced them through labor to an actuality. And then the value of the actuality produced for the purpose of exchange or sale, provided there is a copyright or a patent to prevent use without compensation, will be just in proportion to the effectiveness or desirability of the labor exerted upon or embodied in it. The standard for measuring the value of the work of a Shakespeare, a James Watt, and a street sweeper is one and the same.

Again, an annuity, like a bank stock, is a right to receive property, the result of previously accumulated labor, and its transfer by sale or bequest is simply a transfer of an equitable right; and a right of this character, in turn, is not property, but a title to pre-existing property. So, also, in respect to franchises, which, although often spoken of and regarded as property, are clearly nothing but rights. Thus, for example, a franchise of a railroad is simply a right to operate a road in a particular manner; and a legislature can not and does not create a railroad by creating or granting a franchise. At the same time, the value of a physical actuality may undoubtedly be increased by a franchise which gives a right to use such actuality in a particular way. A monopoly, also, like a franchise, is valuable, but its value consists in the fact that it gives to certain persons privileges that are taken from others, and the making of a monopoly no more creates property than does the making of a franchise.

Some persons, whose opinions are worthy of respect, have raised a point in discussing this question, that there is a distinction to be recognized between property and capital; and that both in law and political economy the latter does not necessarily conform to the definition that has been here given to the former. But can there be such a thing as capital which does not represent a physical actuality in the sense of embodied labor? Capital is the interest of a person in embodied labor over and above his debts, or his interest in legal or equitable rights to embodied labor, and can have no value, and is merely imaginary, except it has the right, title, or power to command embodied labor, or to exercise dominion over property the result of labor. All that we labor and toil for is embodied labor. We will not give our labor for the "baseless fabric of a vision," or our accumulated labor for the dreamy creations of a Berkeley or the imaginary castles of poets, except so far as they make them manifest in material forms or writings.

By some, also, the forces of Nature are regarded as property; but