Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/103

 labour could produce by itself would be berries off the trees, roots out of the ground, and perhaps birds and beasts that the labourer might or might not be lucky enough to kill with his own hands. This could hardly be called production. It is simply taking what Nature provides. As soon as labour wants to produce in earnest, in the modern sense of the word, it has to provide itself with some sort of tool or weapon; that is to say, it has to work for some time without receiving any reward, in order that it may work more efficiently in the future. As soon as it has done so, it becomes a capitalist. Mr. Macdonald rightly pointed out that an axe is capital; as soon as our labourer has fashioned himself an axe, he has, in fact, become a capitalist. If he manufactures his own capital the interest on that capital then goes to himself. If he employs others with it, does he then rob those others?

Let us consider how the whole process works out by going back to the solitary man on the island whom we imagined in an earlier chapter. We saw that in order to fish more easily Crusoe made himself an axe, and then built himself a boat. He was then able to get a larger catch of fish, and so appropriated to himself the reward of his labour whenever he went fishing,