This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1927 edition. Excerpt: … in that gold, neither has an Edison any valid claim to property in any secret of nature he discovers. Its utility (capacity) does not depend in the slightest degree upon anything he does. The sole contribution of the discoverer was the work of discovery. Upon this basis, compensation for the work of discovery, whole continents have been claimed; gold and other mines are now claimed. And all such claims are just as valid as, and no more so than the claims of the Edisons. The increased power of production (that is, the ability to get more from nature with the same exertion) is not drawn from the work put in by the discoverer but from the material or force of nature discovered. To which of these has the person making the discovery a natural, equitable claim? The answer is clearly given in the definition of wealth every singletaxer has accepted; namely, human work. Such claims ignore the fact that the energy which contributes the difference is not exerted by the worker who made the tools, but comes from the resources worked upon. This is self-evident when we consider that the result comes from equal effort, and that the whole claim rests on the showing that such results can be obtained from equal effort. The discoverer or inventor virtually says: Because I show you how you can get twice as much from the same amount of work I am entitled to a share of the result. Either exchange must be on the basis of work for work or of results for results. It is on the latter now, and that is why the tendency is to concentrate the ownership of results into the possession of the few. It requires nothing but plain common sense–the sense common to all sane adult human beings–to see that the only equitable basis for exchange is work for work. And if exchange…
