e corporations do not ruin the citizens with their
own money but only with money borrowed on their credit--as if the one
were not identical with the other.

The objections to municipal enterprise on a Socialist basis are
twofold:

(1) That it increases the rates and the municipal debt, and therefore
the rent of houses and lodgings;

(2) That it is, on the whole, unprofitable, being undertaken without
due regard to sound finance, efficiency, and economy.

Socialists intend to "tax the rich out of existence." Therefore they
endeavour to increase as much as possible not only the Imperial
taxation but also the rates. Owners of house property are used to a
certain income. If the rates are put up, they put up the rent.
Therefore every increase in the rates leads, as a rule, automatically
to an equivalent increase in the rent. The fact that a rise in the
rates leads to a rise in the rent of houses and lodgings, and that the
Socialist policy of waste and squander falls therefore most heavily
not on the capitalist but on the working man, is boldly denied.
"Generally speaking, the reduction of rates is of no benefit whatever
to the working class. Rates are levied upon property.--Q. Do not the
working class pay the rates and taxes? A. No. Rates and taxes are paid
out of the surplus value taken from the workers by their exploiters.
As already explained, the return to the workers, their wages, is
determined by their cost of subsistence, regulated by competition in
the labour market; consequently they have nothing wherewith to pay
taxes, and whether these be high or low, or whoever has to pay them
directly, the position of the worker remains the same. He gets, on the
average, his subsistence, that is all."[677]

Unfortunately, many working men know to their cost that the arguments
given above are absolutely untrue. Whilst their wages have remained
stationary, their expenditure for rent has greatly increased owing to
municipal enterprise carried on by Socialists regardless of expense,
which has greatly increased rates. At West Ham "Local government was
to be carried on in a way regardless of expense, and under the
compounding system the vast majority of the electors were not to
realise that there were such things as rates at all. One member of the
Socialist party publicly declared that it did not matter to the
working men of the borough how high the rates were. But the 'people'
got to see in course of time that there were drawba