For the rest, I have shown, in
discussing the constitution of value (Chapter II., % 2): 1, how
the net product can never exceed the difference resulting from
inequality of the means of production; 2, how the profit which
society reaps from each new invention is incomparably greater
than that of its originator. As these points have been exhausted
once for all, I will not go over them again; I will simply
remark that, by industrial progress, the net product of the
ingenious tends steadily to decrease, while, on the other hand,
their comfort increases, as the concentric layers which make up
the trunk of a tree become thinner as the tree grows and as they
are farther removed from the centre.
By the side of net product, the natural reward of the laborer, I
have pointed out as one of the happiest effects of monopoly the
CAPITALIZATION of values, from which is born another sort of
profit,--namely, INTEREST, or the hire of capital. As for
RENT, although it is often confounded with interest, and
although, in ordinary language, it is included with profit and
interest under the common expression REVENUE, it is a different
thing from interest; it is a consequence, not of monopoly, but of
property; it depends on a special theory.
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