CO-OPERATION. 13 



a fraud, viewed by itself, it is 2i fetich, the bead and wampum 

 traffic of savage barter, an ancient prejudice for bits of yellow 

 dross, an antiquated superstition that only the precious metals 

 were wealth. 



Unit of 3Iecisure. — It then, the real dollar is a labor dollar, 

 what is its unit of measure? Plainly, it must be measured by 

 its duration and intensity, with time as the unit of measure. 

 While there are many kinds of employment, there is but one 

 kind of labor, differing only in degree, so that quality, or inten- 

 sity, can be measured by quantitiy, or duration. An hour of 

 severe labor would therefore count two of ordinary labor, or 

 100 per cent, above /)ar. The labor, by common consent, stand- 

 ing at par, would be that of agriculture. For, it is this which 

 establishes the first price, it is this in which seven tenths of 

 the people are engaged and upon which the subsistence of all 

 depends. 



violatio:n^s of equity. 



RENT, interest, profit and taxes are the four great thieves 

 of history. Rent is the monopoly of land, interest the 

 monopoly of money, profit the monopoly of trade, and govern- 

 ment the monopoly of the monopolies. 



RENT. 



Under equity, we found price rested on labor. Now what 

 is land, so much dirt void of all improvements, that it should 

 bear a price? It existed before Adam, it will continue to 

 exist after Adam's descendants have passed away. 



Price Absurd. — How can there be a price put on that which 

 costs nothing'^ It cannot be cancelled by labor. No labor 

 price can be set upon it. There is not so good a title to it as 

 there was under a l)lack skin, for it did cost some labor to 

 raise a slave. To put a price on land, without any labor title, 

 is to deny all property in labor, to eontiscate it. it is blasplie- 

 my; for it denies the equal paternity of nature, of air, light, 

 water, sun, from the nadir to the zenith! It is inhuman, for it 



