stice. If, then, we correct and limit the
definitions, and if we test the assumptions, we shall find out whether
there is anything to discuss about the relations of "labor and
capital," and, if anything, what it is.

Let us first examine the terms.

1. Labor means properly _toil_, irksome exertion, expenditure of
productive energy.

2. The term is used, secondly, by a figure of speech, and in a
collective sense, to designate the body of _persons_ who, having
neither capital nor land, come into the industrial organization
offering productive services in exchange for means of subsistence.
These persons are united by community of interest into a group, or
class, or interest, and, when interests come to be adjusted, the
interests of this group will undoubtedly be limited by those of other
groups.

3. The term labor is used, thirdly, in a more restricted, very popular
and current, but very ill-defined way, to designate a limited sub-group
among those who live by contributing productive efforts to the work of
society. Every one is a laborer who is not a person of leisure. Public
men, or other workers, if any, who labor but receive no pay, might be
excluded from the category, and we should immediately pass, by such a
restriction, from a broad and philosophical to a technical definition
of the labor class. But merchants, bankers, professional men, and all
whose labor is, to an important degree, mental as well as manual, are
excluded from this third use of the term labor. The result is, that the
word is used, in a sense at once loosely popular and strictly
technical, to designate a group of laborers who separate their
interests from those of other laborers. Whether farmers are included
under "labor" in this third sense or not I have not been able to
determine. It seems that they are or are not, as the interest of the
disputants may require.

1. Capital is any _product_ of labor which is used to assist
production.

2. This term also is used, by a figure of speech, and in a collective
sense, for the _persons_ who possess capital, and who come into the
industrial organization to get their living by using capital for
profit. To do this they need to exchange capital for productive
services. These persons constitute an interest, group, or class,
although they are not united by any such community of interest as
laborers, and, in the adjustment of interests, the interests of the
owners of capital must be limited by the interest