“_A chacun selon son travail_, To each man according to his work,
that's my way of looking at it. Go by that motto and things will soon
come right.”
I heard this said, with great emphasis, by Pierre Nigaud to some of his
mates as I entered the workshop. I went there every month to collect
the contributions to a Provident Insurance Club, to which several of
the men belonged. Pierre was on the whole an industrious as well as
clever workman, and had joined the club readily, as he thought it right
to save something for his wife and children, and to provide for a rainy
day, as the saying is.
I had observed, however, that Pierre on the last occasion when I saw
him was less frank than he used to be, and did not hand over his money
with the same cheerful goodwill as formerly. What was the cause I did
not know, but he soon made it plain. He had been listening to some
plausible people, or reading some shallow treatises that made him
discontented with his lot.
“I was just saying when you came in,” he began, “_A chacun selon son
travail_, To each man according to his work. Don't you think that a
good motto?”
“Well, it sounds good, but it depends how you apply it, and what you
are talking about.”
“I was talking, I and my mates, about the great inequality among
people. Riches are distributed in a very strange and, I say, unjust
fashion. Is it not unjust that, while so many poor fellows have to work
hard to gain a few pence a day, there are wealthy Nabobs who haul in
gold by shovelfuls? I read in a paper the other day that the English
Duke of Westminster has an income of twenty millions of francs, which
brings him at least 50,000 francs a day!”
“Quite true, and he is far from being the most wealthy man you might
name, I believe the Californian Mackay has about seventy millions of
income. Rothschild, of Frankfort, left more than a milliard. Astor
and Vanderbilt, of New York, and other millionaires on both sides the
ocean, have untold wealth.”
“There, you see,” said Pierre; “and what appears to me the worst
wrong of all is that these huge incomes belong to people who do next
to nothing, while poverty is oftenest the lot of those who work and
toil the hardest. I call this downright injustice. _A chacun selon son
travail._ The riches ought to be with those that work. That's my way of
looking at it.”
“All right, Pierre,” said I; “there is a good deal of truth in what you
say. It is quite true that in regard to the distribution of wealth, as
in regard to many other things, this world is far from being perfect.
But do you think that if you had the re-arrangement of society, and the
redistribution of riches, you could proceed on some other and better
plan?”
“Certainly. I believe, without any presumption, that I could,” said
Pierre. “What seems to me difficult is not to make things better, but
to make them any worse than they are now!”
One of the workmen here said that nothing was simpler than to take the
surplus wealth of these rich men, and divide it amongst the deserving
poor.
“That plan is just a little too simple,” I remarked. “All the millions
of a Rothschild would go a very little way, if divided among the
population of Paris alone, and we should soon have to resort to other
schemes to redress the ever-renewed inequalities. No; no; what I want
Pierre to show us is some better system of society, and he thinks he
has the key to the problem in his favorite motto, _A chacun selon son
travail_. But just let me remind you that in ancient times there was
a king of Spain who was a bit of an astronomer; and looking at the
heavens, and wondering at the complicated movements of the stars, he
said that if he had been consulted in the matter he could have made a
much better and simpler arrangement. Your purpose is not so ambitious
and presumptuous as his, for the heavens are the work of the Almighty,
who has imposed upon Nature certain fixed laws; whereas the laws of
society are the work of men, and men are liable to err. Let us then
hear what improvement you can suggest in the laws and usages which
regulate the distribution of wealth.”
Pierre was somewhat taken aback, for he felt that the existing
arrangements of society were very complex, and it was not easy to
determine where the reform should begin.
“Well,” said I, “let us suppose that a number of persons were set on
shore upon an island, where none had any rights or property beyond the
others. Let us suppose that there are as yet no laws, that there is no
government, no past history: all are free and equal, and you have full
power to organise the distribution of wealth in this new society, and
to decide what is to be the share of each. Come now, you have a _carte
blanche_, let us hear what you would do.”
“Well,” said Pierre, “I should begin by deciding that every one was to
do what he would and what he could, and that every one should keep what
he was able by his work and industry to obtain. _A chacun selon son
travail_: behold my fundamental rule!”
“It is an excellent rule,” I said, “and I do not think any one could
find a better. It appears to me to be just, and also eminently
practical, for it would stimulate every one to produce by his industry
as much as he could. I see by this that you are no advocate of
Communism.”
“Certainly not,” said Pierre. “Communism is a very good thing in a
family, where every one exerts himself to work for those he loves, and
accepts without murmur his share of work, certain that the mother, or
whoever is housekeeper, manages the common purse with thrift, and in
the interest of all. But in a large society, I do not think that men
are equally willing to exert themselves for those whom they have no
knowledge of and no special attachment to. Besides, in Communism under
the State, the manager holding the purse strings would be no other than
the Government, and I would not have confidence in its management being
wise and economical.”
“I quite agree with you. But let us return to your plan. After
establishing your principle, “to each one the produce of his labor,”
what would you do then?”
“Nothing at all; every one would then stand on his own bottom. He that
works well would have sufficient, and he who did no work would have
nothing.”
“You do not imagine,” I observed, “that you would obtain equality by
these conditions? Since every one has to take his part in the work, it
is evident that these parts will be small or great, according as each
is industrious or not. You would soon come to have in your new society
the rich and the poor.”
“Well, perhaps; but at all events there would be none too rich or too
poor.”
“How do you know that? Here are two families: in one the habits of
work, of order, of economy, are hereditary; the other is given, from
father to son, to idleness, improvidence, and dissipation. The distance
that separates these families, small at first, must go on increasing,
till in the natural course of things, sooner or later, there would come
to be the same inequality as between Rothschild and a beggar. It would
only be a question of time.”
Pierre's companions, who were listening attentively to the discussion,
here murmured assent, or what would correspond to the “Hear, hear!” of
more formal debates. Pierre, however, merely remarked that this result
might seem opposed to his views, but that he nevertheless accepted it;
“because,” said he, “in this case the inequality of riches would at
least be the result of work and of the efforts of each worker. There
would be no injustice.”
“Pardon me, Pierre, but I think that your motto is still causing you
to cherish some illusions. Let me show you my way of looking at it. _A
chacun selon son travail_, you say, To every one the product of his
own industry. But what is the proprietor to do with the product of his
labor? He will no doubt sell all that is over and above what he needs
for his own use, and the price of what is sold will form his income.
But the price of things depends on a variety of conditions independent
of our personal labor and our own will; such for instance, as the
vicissitudes of seasons and the variations of the markets. Out of a
difference of ten francs in the price of wine may result the fortune
or the ruin of a proprietor, and that proves nothing as to his having
himself labored well or ill. The revenue or net profit is rarely in
exact proportion to the labor bestowed, in farming or vine-growing or
any other industry. What we call chance will always play its part in
the affairs of this world, and in the new world which you are planning
you cannot hinder Fortune from dispensing her favors in an unequal
fashion; it is not without reason that she is represented with a
bandage over her eyes!”
“Ah, bah!” exclaimed Pierre; “you disconcert me with your suppositions.
What do you want? I firmly believe that in my colony, as everywhere,
there will be good and bad luck, but while the chances are equal for
all, and there is no place for wrong-doing or trickery, I console
myself. At least you will admit that my principle, _A chacun le produit
de son travail_, will have this good result, that it will render
impossible the existence of rich idle people who pass their life in
doing nothing.”
“Are you quite sure of that, Pierre? If any one after working ten or
twenty years has produced enough property to suffice for his wants
during the remainder of his days, do you pretend to hinder him from
spending in his own way, in idleness if he pleases, what he had amassed
by his labors?”
“Certainly not, because such a one would be living on the product of
his own toil. Let a man rest in the evening after having worked hard
in the morning, and let him live in ease in his old age after having
produced enough by the toil of his youth; I see no harm in that. I
have no wish to condemn the members of my colony to forced labor in
perpetuity. The only idlers that I wish to exclude are those who live
without ever having worked at all or produced anything—the _rentiers_,
as they call them, or idle people, who live on their income, or the
interest of their money.”
“Stop now, Pierre; do you admit that a man who has obtained anything by
his labor has the right to do what he pleases with it?”
“Assuredly.”
“Here is a man who has made a loaf of bread. You admit his right to
eat it all if he is hungry, or to set part of it aside if he has not
appetite at the time for all of it, or even to throw some of it away,
as he pleases.”
“Yes, it is a consequence of my principle, _A chacun le produit de son
travail_. He who creates wealth has the right to dispose of it as he
pleases. But what has that to do with your argument?”
“Just this. If he who produces a thing can do what he pleases with
it, he can surely give it where he pleases. If, then, it suits me to
make every day a loaf for you, and to give it to you; still more, if
it pleases me to give to you out of my property or to bequeath to you
after my death enough bread, or, what comes to the same thing, enough
money to support you during your life, you will have acquired the
means of walking about with your hands in your pockets like an idle
gentleman. You will, in fact, have become a _rentier_.”
Never,” said Pierre, “never. If I allowed such parasites to exist in my
new society it would be no better than the old.”
“Then don't talk any more about your motto, _A chacun le produit de
son travail_. If you adopt this principle you must adopt also its
consequences, whether you like them or not. If, according to your
system, you admit to every one the right of disposing of the fruit of
his labor, you must admit the right to receive as well as to give.
Where the worker is master of his own property it depends on him
whether he will create a _rentier_, and you cannot prevent him except
by decreeing that he is incapable of disposing of what belongs to
him. Beware of what must happen otherwise. If in your new society you
prevented parents from giving or leaving to their children the property
they have amassed, there would be risk of their amassing far less or
of dissipating what they had already been able to accumulate by their
industry and thrift, which would be a great loss for all. We must
allow, in fact, and it is to the honor of human nature, that there are
very many in this world who work more and save more for their children
and for others rather than for themselves.”
“Well, sir, if in my new society there must eventually be rich
and poor, workers and non-workers: if the portion of each is not
necessarily proportioned to their labor then how, I wish to know, would
this new society which I have taken such trouble to plan and organise,
how would it differ from the society in which we now live?”
“In nothing at all, my good friend, and this it just what I wished to
demonstrate to you. You see that the world in which we live is, after
all, not so badly organised, seeing that the new one which you have
tried to create on better principles, as you imagined, turns out, at
the end of the account, to be an exact reproduction of the existing
system.”—_Leisure Hour._