Does Capitalism Inevitably Produce Inequalities?

[The Magistrate]

98. Indeed, Sir

When a man says he loves his wife, he loves his daughter, and he loves a good hamburger, he had better mean different things in each instance, and the fact that some confusion could arise over a single word serving so many meanings indicates a degree of discomfort with some elements of meaning that word conveys.

A similar thing occurs with the word property. It is used to mean everything from the books on my shelves to a tradesman's tools to ten thousand acres of land and a piece of paper entitling the person who holds it to the money value created by the work of a thousand laborers in a year. Clearly all these are very different things, but by blurring the difference between them, by using the same word to denote the most meager suit of personal effects with a controlling share in a great industrial enterprise, people are tricked into imagining they share an interest with the magnate, and are as threatened as he by measures that would curb his rapacity and greed.