Functional socialism

CHAPTER X CAPT TAT I

Tue modern conception of capital, expressing itself universally in terms of money, is too remote from reality, too fantastic, to warrant critical acceptance. The astronomical figures upon which modern Capitalism bases its claims are, on serious examination, found to be an aggregation of false and evanescent values. The fact that most capital values to-day are founded on earning capacity, and not upon any rational or fixed relation to assets, effectually destroys current valuations as a reliable guide to any future compensation when commercial values are absorbed in functional use. It has not yet dawned upon the vast majority of Socialists that capital, as now understood, disappears with the capitalist system. The stupendous amount, expressed in currency, now debited to capital account can have no economic relation to the values created by a functional society from which capital charges have been eliminated. It is the simple truth that our industrial power, released from capital or financial control, is, in any given period—say a year—fully equal to what we call capital expenditure by the issue of