Page:Proletarian and Petit-Bourgeois (1912?).pdf/41

Rh the issue did not originally represent value invested—is being recognized in court decisions, in the decisions of railroad commissions, and in the attitude of industry toward income. Thus there has been effected a reversal in the relation between property claims and the claims of labor. Time was when property shouldered the give and take—the profits of industry. If there was a lean year, profits were small. They were larger in fat years. The man invested his money, took the risk involved, and was paid for it.

At present, labor shoulders the give and take of prosperous and adverse years. When times are bad, men are laid off. Orders decrease, and part-time automatically ensues. Meanwhile the snipping of coupons sounds at regular, unvaried intervals, and the book in which dividend checks are drawn is busy four times every year.

Modern business practice has wielded an immense influence in the direction of property permanence. A thousand dollars, once invested, is virtually immortal, unless it is stolen, or disposed of in some extra legal way. Depreciation, amortization, insurance and special surplus-fund charges throw around income earning property a large guarantee of safety. Any failure in the perpetuity of the property values is due to inadvertence or impotence in the property interests. For centuries the thought and effort of the business world have been directed toward the increasing permanence of property rights.

The efforts of the propertied interests have been exerted to good purpose. The public mind, the laws and constitutions, the forms of judicial practice—in short, all of the social forces that were of advantage have been bent to the guarantee of property income permanence.

Granted the continuance of the present system of property, the student trembles to think of the task in store for the toiler of the future. Each year, besides producing wealth in sufficient quantities to provide for himself and his family, he must devote a large portion of his