The one important distinction between the two factors of production is that in a free society, ownership of the human factor, labor, cannot be concentrated while ownership of the non-human factor, capital, can be.

Most of us owe instead of own. And the less the economy needs our labor, the less able we are to "save" our way to capital ownership.

If we functionally define a capitalist household as one that receives at least half of the annual income it spends on consumption in the form of return on invested capital, less than 1 percent of United States households are capitalists.

While no inference is intended here, it is worth noting, in connection with Milton Friedman's comment that "Kelso just turned Marx upside down," that it is not necessarily amiss to turn a fellow upside down if that in fact straightens out his thinking.

The poor lack money. They lack money because they do not know the secret of productive wealth. They know it is possible to be old, unemployed, uneducated, lazy - even halt, deaf, dumb, and blind-and still be excessively rich. But you have to be in on the secret, and the poor by definition are not.

But would the young do any better under the same circumstances? Will they do any better when their turns come? The answer is that youth would not and cannot, given the financial and economic framework within which the elders are operating. While the moral convictions of individuals are important in the long run, it is institutions that determine the immediate course of events - particularly the institutions of finance.

Political power without economic power is sterile.