'And yet the answer lies close at hand. _It is true that in the exploiting system of society the creditor does not derive the slightest advantage from the increase in production which the debtor effects by means of the creditor's savings; on the other hand, in the system of society based upon social freedom and justice both creditor and debtor are equally advantaged._ Where, as with us, every increase in production must be equably distributed among all, the problem as to how the saver profits from the employment of his capital solves itself. The machinist or the weaver, whose tax, for example, is applied to the purchase or improvement of agricultural machines, derives, with us, exactly the same advantage from this as does the agriculturist; for, thanks to our institutions, the increase of profit effected in any locality is immediately distributed over all localities and all kinds of production.
'If anyone would ask what right a community based upon the free self-control of the individual, and strongly antagonistic to Communism, has to coerce its members to exercise thrift, the answer is that such coercion is in reality not employed. The tax out of which the capitalisation is effected is paid by everyone only in proportion to the work he does. No one is coerced to labour, but in proportion as a man does labour he makes use of capital. What is required of him is merely an amount proportional to what he makes use of. Thus both justice and the right of self-control are satisfied in every point.
'You see, it is exactly the same with interest as with the undertaker's gains and with ground-rent: the guaranteed right of association saves the worker from the necessity of handing over a part of the proceeds of his production to a third person under any plea whatever. Interest disappears of itself, just like profit and rent, for the sole but sufficient reason that the freely associated worker is his own capitalist, as well as his own undertaker and landlord. Or, if one will put it so, _interest, profit, and rent remain, but they are not separated from wages, with which they combine to form a single and indivisible return for labour_.'
And with this, good-night for the present.