laborer
in its operation.

When the tools are complicated and require the skill of many, the
makers of the machine are usually different persons from the laborers
who operate it. In this case the payment of all must come from the
finished product. Those who constructed the machine and those who
operate it must be paid by the consumers.

If the shoe plant is built and operated, then from the shoes produced
must come the payment for all. The workmen who built the plant and the
engines and machinery for the manufacture of the different parts of
the shoe, must be paid by the consumer of shoes. The workmen who built
the plant must be as fully compensated as those who operate it, but
being compensated, they have no claim for recompensation for the same
work. To be paid again they must build a new plant. The operators must
be compensated for every shoe they make, but they can not reclaim
payment over and over again. To receive more pay they must make more
shoes.

Both classes of laborers have a right to full compensation for all the
labor performed. Neither party has a right to demand a second payment
for the same labor.

It would be manifestly as unjust for the constructors of the plant to
compel the operators to pay them over and over again, as it would be
for the operators of the machine, having supplied the community with
shoes, to demand payment over and over without making another shoe.
The shoes will wear out, so will the machines. It is as unreasonable
for the first class of laborers to compel the operators of their
machinery to keep the same in repair, as for the operators to compel
their customers to keep their shoes in perfect condition. For the
first laborers to receive a new payment they must build a new plant,
and for the operators to receive a new payment they must make new
shoes.

The confusion of ideas comes in when there intervenes a third party
between these two classes of laborers. This third party meets the
demands of the class of laborers who build the plant and machines,
from hoarded wealth, and then exacts payment from those who operate
it. This is then called productive capital, but it is no more
productive than the money in the bank vault. The producing, so called,
is but the exacting of a part of that which the operators produce. It
is the exacting of payment that never pays. The operators are
compelled to be forever buying, yet the plant is never bought. The
capitalist is forever selling, ye