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on the exchanges of goods than before; money is more in demand, and will be loaned out on interest only. This is the reason why all the established religions forbid the taking of interest. The Hindu, Mosaic, Christian, and Mahometan religions were all founded at a time, or in countries when and where land could not be sold; money then was not capital, it was considered unfair to loan it on interest, or at a high rate of it. All lenders on interest were styled usurers, harpies, robbers of the needy. But when, at a later epoch, land became private property and was sold and mortgaged, Hindus, Jews, Christians, and Mahometans (and the clergy foremost) disregarded their religious teachings, and by allowing interest the laws created capital. 3. But this system of capitalism once inaugurated, every kind of speculation, however immoral was admitted, and could not without inconsistency, ever again be stopped by laws. The owner of some capital could now borrow on credit so as to double or treble his investments in merchandise and his profits accruing therefrom, while the disinherited laborer enjoyed little or no credit at all. A crafty speculator could now buy up lands, food, raiment, or any kind of wares needed by the poor, and sell them at great profits which allowed him to double his capital and his credit within a very short period. Small capitals could now be united into gigantic capitals with corresponding credit, and undertake monopolistic enterprises which bore unheard of rates of returns, all from the unpaid labor of the workers. Real estate now rose to prices and assumed (in the fancy of the people) values of an almost ridiculous amount. We will not waste our space with a description of the gambling operations practiced at the Bourse, in which—though every nine gamblers may loose their capital to one big swindler—the loss is always in the end borne by the working people, the only producers, payers of interest, and taxes. We will only analyze how it is that most real estate has a most unreal, a fictitious value, and thus becomes the basis of all capitalism.
It is but natural that fertile lands should be considered more useful than barren ones, a location near a sea harbor more valuable than one in a neighborhood which is remote from all communications, because in the former case human labor can produce more value, within a given time, than in the latter. But this natural difference in the valuation of lands will not be very great, never at the rate of a thousand-fold or more. On the contrary, we find it to be an invariable law (in capitalistic times) that the price of the land increases with the population, and in new countries nearly twice as quick as the population (in the United States, from the first census of
