Money! Then what is money?
It is answered, money represents labour. I meet educated people who even
assert that money represents labour performed by those who possess it. I
confess that I myself formerly shared this opinion, although I did not
very clearly understand it. But now it became necessary for me to learn
thoroughly what money is.
In order to do so, I addressed myself to science. Science says that
money in itself is neither unjust nor pernicious; that money is the
natural result of the conditions of social life, and is indispensable,
first, for convenience of exchange; secondly, as a measure of value;
thirdly, for saving; and fourthly, for payments.
The fact that when I have in my pocket three rubles to spare, which I am
not in need of, I have only to whistle and in every civilized town I can
obtain a hundred people ready for these three rubles to do the worst,
most disgusting, and humiliating act I require, it is said, comes not
from money, but from the very complicated conditions of the economical
life of nations!
The dominion of one man over others does not come from money, but from
the circumstance that a workingman does not receive the full value of
his labour; and the fact that he does not get the full value of his
labour depends upon the nature of capital, rent, and wages, and upon
complicated connections between the distribution and consumption of
wealth.
In plain language, it means that people who have money may twist round
their finger those who have none. But science says that this is an
illusion; that in every kind of production three factors take
part,--land, savings of labour (capital), and labour, and that the
dominion of the few over the many proceeds from the various connections
between these factors of production, because the two first factors, land
and capital, are not in the hands of working people; and from this fact
and from the various combinations which result from it this domination
proceeds.
Whence comes the great power of money, which strikes us all with a sense
of its injustice and cruelty? Why is one man, by the means of money, to
have dominion over others? Science says, "It comes from the division of
the factors of production, and from the consequent combinations which
oppress the worker."
This answer has always appeared to me to be strange, not only because it
leaves one part of the question unnoticed (namely, the significance of
money), but also because of the division of the factors of production,
which to an unprejudiced man will always appear artificial and out of
touch with reality. Science asserts that in every production three
agents come into operation,--land, capital and labour; and along with
this division it is understood that property (or its value in money) is
naturally divided among those who possess one of these agents; thus,
rent (the value of the ground) belongs to the land-owner; interest
belongs to the capitalist; and wages to the worker.
Is this really so?
First, is it true that in every production only three agencies operate?
Now, while I am writing proceeds the production of hay around me. Of
what is this production composed? I am told of the land which produces
the grass; of capital (scythes, rakes, pitch-forks, carts which are
necessary for the housing of the hay); and of labour. But I see that
this is not true. Besides the land, there is the sun and rain; and, in
addition, social order, which has been keeping these meadows from any
damage which might be caused by letting stray cattle graze upon them,
the skill of workmen, their knowledge of language, and many other
agencies of production,--which, for some unknown reason, are not taken
into consideration by political economy.
The power of the sun is as necessary as the land, even more. I may
mention the instances when men (in a town, for example), assume the
right to keep out the sun from others by means of walls or trees. Why,
then, is the sun not included among the factors of production?
Rain is another means as necessary as the ground itself. The air too. I
can imagine men without water and pure air because other men had assumed
to themselves the right to monopolise these essential necessaries of
all. Public security is likewise a necessary element. Food and dress for
workmen are similar factors in production; this is even recognized by
some economists. Education, the knowledge of language which creates the
possibility to apply work, is likewise an agent. I could fill a volume
by enumerating such combinations, not mentioned by science.
Why, then, are three only to be chosen, and laid as a foundation for the
science of political economy? Sunshine and water equally with the earth
are factors in production, so with the food and clothes of the workers,
and the transmission of knowledge. All may be taken as distinct factors
in production. Simply because the right of men to enjoy the rays of the
sun, rain, food, language, and audience, are challenged only on rare
occasions; but the use of land and of the instruments of labour are
constantly challenged in society.
This is the true foundation; and the division of the factors of
production into three, is quite arbitrary, and is not involved in the
nature of things. But it may perhaps be urged that this division is so
suitable to man, that wherever economic relationships are formed these
three factors appear at once and alone.
Let us see whether this is really so.
First of all, I look at what is around me,--at Russian colonists, of
whom millions have for ages existed. They come to a land, settle
themselves on it, and begin to work; and it does not enter the mind of
any of them that a man who does not use the land can have any claim to
it,--and the land does not assert any rights of its own. On the
contrary, the colonists conscientiously recognize the communism of the
land and the right of every one of them to plough and to mow wherever he
likes.
For cultivation, for gardening, for building houses, the colonists
obtain various implements of labour: nor does it enter the mind of any
of them that these instruments of labour may be allowed to bring profit
in themselves, and the capital does not assert any rights of its own. On
the contrary, the colonists consciously recognize among themselves that
all interest for tools, or borrowed corn or capital, is unjust.
They work upon a free land, labour with their own tools, or with those
borrowed without interest, each for himself, or all together, for common
business; and in such a community, it is impossible to prove either the
existence of rent, interest accruing from capital, or remuneration for
labour.
In referring to such a community I am not indulging my fancy but
describing what has always taken place, not only among Russian
colonists, but everywhere, as long as human nature is not sinned
against.
I am describing what appears to everyone to be natural and rational. Men
settle on land, and each member undertakes the business which suits him,
and, having procured the necessary tools, does his own work.
If these men find it more convenient to work together, they form a
workmen's association. But neither in separate households, nor in
associations, will separate agents of production appear till men
artificially and forcibly divide them. There will be simply labour and
the necessary conditions of labour,--the sun which warms all, the air
which they breathe, water which they drink, land on which they labour,
clothes on the body, food in the stomach, stakes, shovels, ploughs,
machines with which they work. And it is evident that neither the rays
of the sun, nor the clothes on the body, nor the stakes, nor the spade,
nor the plough, with which each man works, nor the machines with which
they labour in the workmen's association, can belong to anyone else than
those who enjoy the rays of the sun, breathe the air, drink the water,
eat the bread, clothe their bodies, and labour with the spade or with
the machines, because all these are necessary only for those who use
them. And when men act thus, we see they act rationally.
Therefore, observing all the economic conditions created among men, I do
not see that division into three is natural. I see, on the contrary,
that it is neither natural nor rational.
But perhaps the setting apart of these three does not occur in primitive
societies, only when the population increases and cultivation begins to
develop it is unavoidable. And we cannot but recognise the fact that
this division has occurred in European society.
Let us see whether it is really so.
We are told that in European society this division of agencies has been;
that is, that one man possesses land, another accomplished the
instruments of labour, and the third is without land and instruments.
We have grown so accustomed to this assertion that we are no longer
struck by the strangeness of it. But in this assertion lies an inner
contradiction. The conception of a labouring man, includes the land on
which he lives and the tools with which he works. If he did not live on
the land and had no tools he would not be a labourer. A workman deprived
of land and tools never existed and never can exist. There cannot be a
bootmaker without a house for his work built on land, without water,
air, and tools to work with.
If the peasant has no land, horse, water or scythe; if the bootmaker is
without a house, water, or awl, then that means that some one has driven
him from the ground, or taken it from him, and has cheated him out of
his scythe, cart, horse, or awl; but it does not in any way mean that
there can be country labourers without scythes or bootmakers without
tools.
As you cannot think of a fisherman on dry land without fishing
implements, unless you imagine him driven away from the water by some
one who has taken his fishing implements from him; so also you cannot
picture a workman without land on which to live, and without tools for
his trade, unless somebody has driven him from the former, or robbed him
of the latter.
There may be men who are hunted from one place to another, and who,
having been robbed, are compelled perforce to work for another man and
make things necessary for themselves, but this does not mean that such
is the nature of production. It means only that in such case, the
natural conditions of production are violated.
But if we are to consider as factors of production all of which a
workman may be deprived by force, why not count among these the claim on
the person of a slave? Why not count claims on the rain and the rays of
the sun?
One man might build a wall and so keep the sun from his neighbour;
another might come who would turn the course of a river through his own
pond and so contaminate its water; or claim a fellow-being as his own
property. But none of these claims, although enforced by violence, can
be recognised as a basis. It is therefore as wrong to accept the
artificial rights to land and tools as separate factors in production,
as to recognise as such the invented rights to use sunshine, air, water,
or the person of another.
There may be men who claim the land and the tools of a workman, as there
were men who claimed the persons of others, and as there may be men who
assert their rights to the exclusive use of the rays of the sun, or of
water and air. There may be men who drive away a workman from place to
place, taking from him by force the products of his labour as they are
produced, and the very instruments of its production, who compel him to
work, not for himself, but for his master, as in the factories;--all
this is possible; but the conception of a workman without land and tools
is still an impossibility, as much as that a man can willingly become
the property of another, notwithstanding men have claimed other men for
many generations.
And as the claim of property in the person of another cannot deprive a
slave of his innate right to seek his own welfare and not that of his
master; so, too, the claim to the exclusive possession of land and the
tools of others cannot deprive the labourer of his inherent rights as a
man to live on the land and to work with his own tools, or with communal
tools, as he thinks most useful for himself.
All that science can say in examining the present economic question, is
this: that in Europe certain claims to the land and the tools of workmen
are made, in consequence of which, for some of these workmen (but by no
means for all of them), the proper conditions of production are
violated, so that they are deprived of land and implements of labour and
compelled to work with the tools of others. But it is certainly not
established that this accidental violation of the law of production is
the fundamental law itself.
In saying that this separate consideration of the factors is the
fundamental law of production, the economist is doing the very thing a
zoölogist would do, if on seeing a great many siskins with their wings
cut, and kept in little cages, he should assert that this was the
essential condition of the life of birds, and that their life is
composed of such conditions.
However many siskins there may be, kept in paste-board houses, with
their wings cut, a zoölogist cannot say that these, and a tiny pail of
water running up rails, are the conditions of the birds' lives. And
however great the number of workpeople there may be, driven from place
to place, and deprived of their productions as well as their tools, the
natural right of man to live on the land, and to work with his own
tools, is essential to him, and so it will remain forever.
Of course there are some who lay claim to the land and to the tools of
workmen, just as in former ages there were some who laid claim to the
persons of others; but there can be no real division of men into lords
and slaves--as they wanted to establish in the ancient world--any more
than there can be any real division in the agents of production (land
and capital, etc.), as the economists are trying to establish.
These unlawful claims on the liberty of other men, science calls "the
natural conditions of production." Instead of taking its fundamental
principles from the natural properties of human societies, science took
them from a special case; and desiring to justify this case, it
recognized the right of some men to the land on which other men earn
their living, and to the tools with which others again work; in other
words, it recognized as a right something which had never existed, and
cannot exist, and which is in itself a contradiction, because the claim
of the man to the land on which he does not labour, is in essence
nothing else than the right to use the land which he does not use; the
claim on the tools of others is nothing else than the assumption of a
right to work with implements with which a man does not work.
Science, by dividing the factors of production, declares that the
natural condition of a workman--that is, of a man in the true sense of
the word--is the unnatural condition in which he lives at present, just
as in ancient times, by the division of men into citizens and slaves, it
was asserted that the unnatural condition of slavery was the natural
condition of life.
This very division, which science has accepted only for the purpose of
justifying the existing injustice, and the recognition of this division
as the foundation of all its inquiries, is responsible for the fact that
science vainly tries to explain existing phenomena and, denying the
clearest and plainest answers to the questions that arise, gives answers
which have absolutely no meaning in them.
The question of economic science is this: What is the cause of the fact
that some men, by means of money, acquire an imaginary right to land and
capital, and may make slaves of those who have no money? The answer
which presents itself to common sense is, that it is the result of
money, the nature of which is to enslave men.
But economic science denies this, and says: This arises, not from the
nature of money, but from the fact that some men have land and capital,
and others have neither.
We ask: Why do persons who possess land and capital oppress those who
possess neither? And we are answered: Because they possess land and
capital.
But this is just what we are inquiring about. Is not deprivation of land
and tools enforced slavery? And the answer is like saying, "A remedy is
narcotic because its effects are narcotic." Life does not cease to put
this essential question, and even science herself notices and tries to
answer it, but does not succeed, because, starting from her own
fundamental principles, she only turns herself round in a vicious
circle.
In order to give itself a satisfactory answer to the question, science
must first of all deny that wrong division of the agents of production,
and cease to acknowledge the result of the phenomena as being their
cause; and she must seek, first the more obvious, and then the remoter,
causes of those phenomena which constitute the matter questioned.
Science must answer the question, Why are some men deprived of land and
tools while others possess both? or, Why is it that lands and tools are
taken from the people who labour on the land and work with the tools?
And as soon as economic science puts this question to herself she will
get new ideas which will transform all the previous ideas of sham
science,--which has been moving in an unalterable circle of
propositions,--that the miserable condition of the workers proceeds from
the fact that they are miserable.
To simple-minded persons it must seem unquestionable that the obvious
reason of the oppression of some men by others is money. But science,
denying this, says that money is only a medium of exchange, which has no
connection with slavery of men.
Let us see whether it is so or not.