- How to secure a just distribution of the great advantages from improved machinery, new inventions and new discoveries, is a problem that is engaging the best thought of many of the wise and good. That the present distribution is inequitable and unfair; that it gives the capitalist an undue advantage over the laborer; that it aggravates the difference in conditions, seems generally admitted.
An improved machine, owned by a capitalist, enables one man to do the work that formerly required ten. One man is employed and the nine are in competition for his place and there is no advance over the wages before the machine was introduced. The owner of the machine secures the gain. His wealth is greatly increased while the laborer plods on with his old wages. With the new machine the one man produces what ten men did before, but the product of the nine are credited to the machine and becomes the capitalist's gain.
( a ) The falsehood on which this claim rests must be seen and rejected before the evil can be overcome; that the machine is productive. It is but