All industrial, commercial and financial combinations are governed by chance: speculation thus involves some level of risk. The reward from the transaction is therefore two-fold: for the newly created utility there is the reward for a service and a speculative gain for the risk assumed. This second part, the jobbery, is the object of abuse: sought for its own sake, irrespective of any service supplied, this remuneration of risk can be classified as a game or even as a fraud. Speculation is thus the art of becoming rich “without working, capital, trade or genius.” Proudhon did not imagine risk being.
