Sunday, February 10, 2013
Industrial Ruling Class founded in the impoverishment of others
Industrial Ruling Class founded in the impoverishment of others - Benjamin Franklin
"A
people spread thro’ the whole tract of country on this side the
Mississipi, and secured by Canada in our hands [versus the French],
would probably for some centuries find employment in agriculture, and
thereby free us at home effectually from our fears of American
manufactures. Unprejudic’d men well know that all the penal and
prohibitory laws that ever were thought on, will not be sufficient to
prevent manufactures in a country whose inhabitants surpass the number
that can subsist by the husbandry of it. That this will be the case in
America soon, if our people remain confined within the mountains, and
almost as soon should it be unsafe for them to live beyond, tho’ the
country be ceded to us, no man acquainted with political and commercial
history can doubt. ...
Manufactures (wage workers) are founded in poverty.
It is the multitude of poor without land in a country, and who must work for others at low wages or starve, that enables undertakers to carry on a manufacture, and afford it cheap enough to prevent the importation of the same kind from abroad, and to bear the expence of its own exportation.
But no man who can have a piece of land of his own, sufficient by his labour to subsist his family in plenty, is poor enough to be a manufacturer and work for a master.
Hence while there is land enough in America for our people, there can never be manufactures to any amount or value. It is a striking observation of a very able pen, that the natural livelihood of the thin inhabitants of a forest country, is hunting; that of a greater number, pasturage; that of a middling population, agriculture; and that of the greatest, manufactures; which last must subsist the bulk of the people in a full country, or they must be subsisted by charity, or perish." - Benjamin Franklin
Manufactures (wage workers) are founded in poverty.
It is the multitude of poor without land in a country, and who must work for others at low wages or starve, that enables undertakers to carry on a manufacture, and afford it cheap enough to prevent the importation of the same kind from abroad, and to bear the expence of its own exportation.
But no man who can have a piece of land of his own, sufficient by his labour to subsist his family in plenty, is poor enough to be a manufacturer and work for a master.
Hence while there is land enough in America for our people, there can never be manufactures to any amount or value. It is a striking observation of a very able pen, that the natural livelihood of the thin inhabitants of a forest country, is hunting; that of a greater number, pasturage; that of a middling population, agriculture; and that of the greatest, manufactures; which last must subsist the bulk of the people in a full country, or they must be subsisted by charity, or perish." - Benjamin Franklin
