A Critical Examination of Socialism (Library of Conservative Thought) [Hardcover]

William Hurrell Mallock (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1989 | ISBN-10: 0887382649 | ISBN-13: 978-0887382642

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV THE ERRORS OF MARX, CONTINUED. CAPITAL AS THE IMPLEMENT OF ABILITY Two kinds of human effort being thus involved in modern production, it is necessary for all purposes of intelligible discussion to distinguish them by different names. The word "labor" being appropriated by common custom to the manual task-work of the majority, some other technical word must be found to designate the directive faculties as applied to productive industry. The word here chosen, in default of a better, is "ability." Ability, then, being the faculty which directs labor, by what means does it give effect to its directions ? It gives effect to its directions by means of its control of capital, in the form of wage-capital. Ability, using wage-capital as its implement of direction, gives rise to fixed capital, in the form of the elaborate implements of modern production, which are the material embodiments of the knowledge, ingenuity, and energy of the highest minds. The human activities and faculties, then, which are involved in the production of modern wealth, are not, as Marx says—and as the orthodox economists said, whom he rightly calls his masters, and as their followers still say—of one kind—namely, those embodied in the individual task-work of the individual, to which Marx, Ricardo, and Mill alikegive the name of "labor"; they are of two kinds. And this, indeed, the earlier economists recognized, as we may see by Mill's casual admission that the progress of industrial effort depends before all things on thought and the advance of knowledge. But they recognized the fact in a general way only. How thought and knowledge affected the industrial process they made no attempt to explain, otherwise than by comprehending them on occasion under the common name of labor, which t...

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 328 pages
• Publisher: Transaction Publishers (January 1, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0887382649
• ISBN-13: 978-0887382642
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,818,733 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Good read!, July 3, 2011

By 

M. Baldanza (Brazil) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Critical Examination of Socialism (Kindle Edition)

This is a very good Kindle edition. The book is also very good although with a not so easy to understand language. The message is sharp and uptodated to our present state of things.