PREFACE. 



UNDER the name of profits, rent, interest upon 

 capital, surplus value, and the like, economists 

 have eagerly discussed the benefits which the 

 owners of land or capital, or some privileged 

 nations, can derive, either from the under-paid 

 work of the wage-labourer, or from the inferior 

 position of one class of the community towards 

 another class, or from the inferior economical 

 development of one nation towards another 

 nation. These profits being shared in a very 

 unequal proportion between the different indivi- 

 duals, classes and nations engaged in production, 

 considerable pains were taken to study the 

 present apportionment of the benefits, and its 

 economical and moral consequences, as well as 

 the changes in the present economical organisa- 

 tion of society which might bring about a more 

 equitable distribution of a rapidly accumulating 

 wealth. It is upon questions relating to the 

 right to that increment of wealth that the hottest 

 battles are now fought between economists of 

 different schools. 



In the meantime the great question "What 

 have we to produce, and how ? " necessarily 



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