production, it is necessary for all purposes of intelligible
discussion to distinguish them by different names.

The word "labour" being appropriated by common custom to the
manual task-work of the majority, some other technical word must
be found to designate the directive faculties as applied to
productive industry. The word here chosen, in default of a
better, is "ability."

Ability, then, being the faculty which directs labour, by what
means does it give effect to its directions?

It gives effect to its directions by means of its control of
capital, in the form of wage-capital.

Ability, using wage-capital as its implement of direction, gives
rise to fixed capital, in the form of the elaborate implements
of modern production, which are the material embodiments of the
knowledge, ingenuity, and energy of the highest minds.


CHAPTER V

REPUDIATION OF MARX BY MODERN SOCIALISTS.
THEIR RECOGNITION OF DIRECTIVE ABILITY

The more educated socialists of to-day, when the matter is put
plainly before them, admit that the argument of the preceding
chapters is correct, and repudiate the doctrine of Marx that
"labour" is the sole producer.