capital

69:5.15Though cap­i­tal has tended to lib­er­ate man, it has greatly com­pli­cated his so­cial and in­dus­trial or­ga­ni­za­tion. The abuse of cap­i­tal by un­fair cap­i­tal­ists does not de­stroy the fact that it is the ba­sis of mod­ern in­dus­trial so­ci­ety. Through cap­i­tal and in­ven­tion the pres­ent gen­er­a­tion en­joys a higher de­gree of free­dom than any that ever pre­ceded it on earth. This is placed on rec­ord as a fact and not in jus­ti­fi­ca­tion of the many mis­uses of cap­i­tal by thought­less and self­ish cus­to­di­ans.

81:5.5So­ci­ety thus be­comes a co-op­er­a­tive scheme for se­cur­ing civil free­dom through in­sti­tu­tions, eco­nomic free­dom through cap­i­tal and in­ven­tion, so­cial lib­erty through cul­ture, and free­dom from vi­o­lence through po­lice reg­u­la­tion.

69:9.31. The fam­ily. Man not only craves to ac­cu­mu­late prop­erty; he de­sires to be­queath his cap­i­tal goods to his progeny. But in early com­mu­nal so­ci­ety a man’s cap­i­tal was ei­ther im­me­di­ately con­sumed or dis­tributed among the group at his death. There was no in­her­i­tance of prop­erty—the in­her­i­tance tax was one hun­dred per cent. The later cap­i­tal-ac­cu­mu­la­tion and prop­erty-in­her­i­tance mores were a dis­tinct so­cial ad­vance. And this is true not­with­stand­ing the sub­se­quent gross abuses at­ten­dant upon the mis­use of cap­i­tal.

69:5.1Cap­i­tal is la­bor ap­plied as a re­nun­ci­a­tion of the pres­ent in fa­vor of the fu­ture. Sav­ings rep­re­sent a form of main­te­nance and sur­vival in­sur­ance. Food hoard­ing de­vel­oped self-con­trol and cre­ated the first prob­lems of cap­i­tal and la­bor. The man who had food, pro­vided he could pro­tect it from rob­bers, had a dis­tinct ad­van­tage over the man who had no food.

69:5.41. Hunger—as­so­ci­ated with fore­sight. Food sav­ing and preser­va­tion meant power and com­fort for those who pos­sessed suf­fi­cient fore­sight thus to pro­vide for fu­ture needs. Food stor­age was ad­e­quate in­sur­ance against famine and dis­as­ter. And the en­tire body of prim­i­tive mores was re­ally de­signed to help man sub­or­di­nate the pres­ent to the fu­ture.

69:5.52. Love of fam­ily—de­sire to pro­vide for their wants. Cap­i­tal rep­re­sents the sav­ing of prop­erty in spite of the pres­sure of the wants of to­day in or­der to in­sure against the de­mands of the fu­ture. A part of this fu­ture need may have to do with one’s pos­ter­ity.

69:5.2The early banker was the val­or­ous man of the tribe. He held the group trea­sures on de­posit, while the en­tire clan would de­fend his hut in event of at­tack. Thus the ac­cu­mu­la­tion of in­di­vid­ual cap­i­tal and group wealth im­me­di­ately led to mil­i­tary or­ga­ni­za­tion. At first such pre­cau­tions were de­signed to de­fend prop­erty against for­eign raiders, but later on it be­came the cus­tom to keep the mil­i­tary or­ga­ni­za­tion in prac­tice by in­au­gu­rat­ing raids on the prop­erty and wealth of neigh­bor­ing tribes.

68:5.7Pas­toral liv­ing af­forded fur­ther re­lief from food slav­ery; man learned to live on the in­ter­est of his cap­i­tal, the in­crease in his flocks; and this pro­vided more leisure for cul­ture and prog­ress.

69:5.3The ba­sic urges which led to the ac­cu­mu­la­tion of cap­i­tal were:

69:5.63. Van­ity—long­ing to dis­play one’s prop­erty ac­cu­mu­la­tions. Ex­tra cloth­ing was one of the first badges of dis­tinc­tion. Col­lec­tion van­ity early ap­pealed to the pride of man.

69:5.74. Po­si­tion—ea­ger­ness to buy so­cial and po­lit­i­cal pres­tige. There early sprang up a com­mer­cial­ized no­bil­ity, ad­mis­sion to which de­pended on the per­for­mance of some spe­cial ser­vice to roy­alty or was granted frankly for the pay­ment of money.

69:5.85. Power—the crav­ing to be mas­ter. Trea­sure lend­ing was car­ried on as a means of en­slave­ment, one hun­dred per cent a year be­ing the loan rate of these an­cient times. The mon­eylen­ders made them­selves kings by cre­at­ing a stand­ing army of debtors. Bond ser­vants were among the ear­li­est form of prop­erty to be ac­cu­mu­lated, and in olden days debt slav­ery ex­tended even to the con­trol of the body af­ter death.

69:5.96. Fear of the ghosts of the dead—priest fees for pro­tec­tion. Men early be­gan to give death pres­ents to the priests with a view to hav­ing their prop­erty used to fa­cil­i­tate their prog­ress through the next life. The priest­hoods thus be­came very rich; they were chief among an­cient cap­i­tal­ists.

69:5.107. Sex urge—the de­sire to buy one or more wives. Man’s first form of trad­ing was woman ex­change; it long pre­ceded horse trad­ing. But never did the barter in sex slaves ad­vance so­ci­ety; such traf­fic was and is a racial dis­grace, for at one and the same time it hin­dered the de­vel­op­ment of fam­ily life and pol­luted the bi­o­logic fit­ness of su­pe­rior peo­ples.

69:5.118. Nu­mer­ous forms of self-grat­i­fi­ca­tion. Some sought wealth be­cause it con­ferred power; oth­ers toiled for prop­erty be­cause it meant ease. Early man (and some later-day ones) tended to squan­der his re­sources on lux­ury. In­tox­i­cants and drugs in­trigued the prim­i­tive races.