{"product_id":"2940012661272","title":"DEMERARA - A Tale","description":"Proofed and corrected from the scanned original edition.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*****\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSUMMARY.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis volume, like the last, enlarges on principles already laid down. It treats of the respective values of different \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ekinds of labour, and of a particular mode of investing capital. The truths illustrated may be arranged as follows.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProperty is held by conventional, not natural right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs the agreement to hold man in property never took place between the parties concerned, i. e., is not conventional, Man has no right to hold Man in property.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLaw, i. e., the sanctioned agreement of the parties concerned, secures property.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhere the parties are not agreed, therefore, law does not secure property.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhere one of the parties under the law is held as property by another party, the law injures the one or the other as often as they are opposed. Moreover, its very protection injures the protected party,— as when a rebellious slave is \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ehanged.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHuman labour is more valuable than brute labour, only because actuated by reason; for human strength is inferior to brute strength.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe origin of labour, human and brute, is the Will.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Reason of slaves is not subjected to exercise. nor their will to more than a few weak motives.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe labour of slaves is therefore less valuable than that of brutes, inasmuch as their strength is inferior; and less \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003evaluable than that of free labourers, inasmuch as their Reason and Will are feeble and alienated.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFree and slave labour are equally owned by the capitalist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhere the labourer is not held as capital, the capitalist pays for labour only.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhere the labourer is held as capital, the capitalist not only pays a much higher price for an equal quantity of labour, \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ebut also for waste, negligence, and theft, on the part of the labourer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCapital is thus sunk, which ought to be reproduced.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs the supply of slave-labour does not rise and fall with the wants of the capitalist, like that of free labour, he employs his occasional surplus on works which could be better done by brute labour or machinery.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy rejecting brute labour, he refuses facilities for convertible husbandry, and for improving the labour of his slaves by giving them animal food.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy rejecting machinery, he declines the most direct and complete method of saving labour.\u003cbr\u003eThus, again, capital is sunk which ought to be reproduced.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn order to make up for this loss of capital to slave owners, bounties and prohibitions are granted in their behalf by government; the waste committed by certain capitalists abroad, being thus paid for out of the earnings of those at home.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSugar being the production especially protected, every thing is sacrificed by planters to the growth of sugar. the land is exhausted by perpetual cropping, the least possible portion of it is tilled for food, the slaves are worn out by overwork, and their numbers decrease in proportion to the scantiness of their food, and the oppressiveness of their \u003cbr\u003etoil.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen the soil is so far exhausted as to place its owner out of reach of the sugar-bounties, more food is raised, less toil is inflicted, and the slave population increases.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLegislative protection, therefore, not only taxes the people at home, but promotes ruin, misery, and death, in the protected colonies.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA free trade in sugar would banish slavery altogether, since competition must induce an economy of labour and capital; \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ei.e., a substitution of free for slave labour.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLet us see, then, what is the responsibility of the legislature in this matter.\u003cbr\u003eThe slave system inflicts an incalculable amount of human suffering, for the sake of making a wholesale waste of labour and capital.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSince the slave system is only supported by legislative protection, the legislature is responsible for the misery caused \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eby direct infliction, and for the injury indirectly occasioned by the waste of labour and capital.","brand":"Leila's Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47145434120432,"sku":"2940012661272","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012661272_p0.jpg?v=1763571013","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012661272","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}