Let us see now how Competition acts:—

Man, under the influence of self-interest, is always, and

necessarily, on the outlook for such circumstances as may give the

greatest ‹value› to his services. He is not long in discovering that,

as regards the gifts of God, he may be favoured in three ways:

1. He may appropriate to his own exclusive use these gifts

themselves; or,

2. He may alone know the ‹process› by which they can be made useful;

or,

3. He alone may possess the ‹instrument› by means of which their

co-operation in the work of production can be secured.

In any of these cases, he gives ‹little› of his own labour in

exchange for ‹much› of the labour of other men. His services have a

high relative ‹value›, and we are led to believe that this excess

of value resides in the natural agent. If it were so, this value

would not be subject to fall. Now, what proves that the value is in

the service is, that we find Competition diminishing both value and

service simultaneously.

1. Natural agents—the gifts of God—are not distributed uniformly

over the different countries of the world. What an infinite variety

of vegetable productions are spread over the wide range [p294]

extending from the region of the pine to the region of the palm

tree! Here the soil is more productive, there the heat is more

vivifying. In one quarter we meet with stone, in another with lime,

in another with iron, copper, or coal. Water-power is not to be

found everywhere, nor can we everywhere avail ourselves to an equal

extent of the power of the winds. Distance, from the objects we find

essential, of itself makes a vast difference in the obstacles which

our efforts encounter. Even the human faculties vary in some measure

with climate and races.

It is easy to see that, but for the law of Competition, this

inequality in the distribution of the gifts of God would lead to a

corresponding inequality in the condition of men.

Whoever happened to have within reach a natural advantage would

profit by it, but his fellow-men would not. He would not permit

other men to participate in it through his instrumentality, without

stipulating an excessive remuneration, the amount of which he

would have the power of fixing arbitrarily. He could attach to his

services any value he pleased. We have seen that the extreme limits

between which it must be determined are, the ‹pains taken› by the

man who renders the service and the ‹pains saved› to the man who

receives it. Competition alone hinders its being always raised to

the maximum. The inhabitant of the tropics, for example, would say

to the European—“Thanks to the sun’s rays, I can, with labour

‹equal to ten›, procure a given quantity of sugar, coffee, cocoa, or

cotton, whilst you, obliged in your cold climate to have recourse

to hot-houses, stoves, and shelter, cannot obtain the same quantity

but with labour equal ‹to a hundred›. You wish to obtain my coffee,

sugar, or cotton, and you would not be sorry were I to take into

account in the transaction only the pains which I have taken, the

labour I have expended. But what I regard principally is the pains,

the labour, I have saved you; for, aware that that is the limit

of your resistance, I make it the limit of my exaction. As what I

produce with an amount of labour equal to ‹ten›, you could produce

only with labour equal to ‹a hundred›, were I to demand in exchange

for my sugar a commodity which cost you labour equal to 101, you

would certainly refuse; but all that I ask is labour equal to 99.

You may higgle and look gruff for a little, but you will come to my

terms; for at this rate you have still an advantage by the exchange.

You think these terms unfair; but, after all, it is not to you but

to me that God has vouchsafed the advantage of a higher temperature.

I know that I am in a position to take advantage of this gift of

Providence, by depriving you of it unless you pay me a tax, for

[p295] I have no competitors. Here, then, are my sugar, my cocoa, my

coffee, my cotton—take them on the conditions I impose—or raise them

for yourself—or do without them.”

It is true that the European might hold to the inhabitant of the

tropics some such language as this: “Turn over your soil, dig pits,

search for iron and coal, and felicitate yourself if you find any;

for if not, it is my determination to push my exactions to an extreme

also. God has vouchsafed to us both precious gifts. We appropriate as

much of them as we require, but we will not suffer others to touch

them without paying us a tax.”

Even if things took place in this way, scientific exactness would

not allow us to attribute to natural agents that Value which resides

only in ‹services›. But the error would be harmless, for the result

would be absolutely the same. Services would still be exchanged

against services, but they would exhibit no tendency to conform

to efforts, or labour, as a measure. The gifts of God would be

‹personal› privileges, not ‹common› benefits; and we might perhaps

have some reason to complain that the Author of things had treated

us in a way so incurably unequal. Should we, then, be brethren?

Could we regard ourselves as the children of a common Father? The

absence of Competition, that is to say of Liberty, would in the first

instance be an insuperable bar to Equality. The absence of Equality

would exclude all idea of Fraternity—and nothing of the republican

motto[64] would then be left.

But let Competition be introduced, and we shall see it instantly

present an insuperable barrier to all such leonine bargains, to

all such forestalling of the gifts of God, to all such revolting

pretensions in the appreciation of services, to all such inequalities

with efforts exchanged.

And let us remark, first of all, that Competition acts forcibly,

called forth as it is by these very inequalities. Labour betakes

itself instinctively to the quarter where it is best remunerated,

and never fails to put an end to this exceptional advantage, so that

Inequality is only a spur which urges us on in spite of ourselves

towards Equality. It is in truth one of the most beautiful ‹final

intentions› observable in the social mechanism. Infinite Goodness,

which manifests beneficence everywhere, would seem to have made

choice of the avaricious producer in order to effect an equitable

distribution among all; and truly it is a marvellous sight this, of

self-interest realizing continually what it ever desires to avoid.

Man, as a producer, is necessarily, inevitably, attracted by [p296]

excessive returns, which he thus reduces to the ordinary rate. He

pursues his own interest; and without knowing it, without wishing it,

without seeking it, he promotes the general good.

Thus, to recur to our former example, the inhabitant of the tropics,

trafficking in the gifts of God, realizes an excessive remuneration,

and by that very means brings down upon himself Competition.

Human labour exerts itself in proportion to the magnitude of the

inequality, if I may use the expression, and never rests until that

inequality is effaced. Under the action of Competition, we see the

tropical labour, which was ‹equal to ten›, exchanged successively for

European labour equal to 80, 50, 40, 20, and finally to 10. Under

the empire of the natural laws of society, there is no reason why

this should not take place; that is to say, there is no reason why

services exchanged should not be measured by the labour performed,

the pains taken,—the gifts of God on both sides being gratuitous and

into the bargain. We have only to consider, in order to appreciate

and bless the revolution which is thus effected. In the first

instance, the labour undergone on both sides is equal, and this

satisfies the human mind, which always desires justice. Then what

has become of the gift of God? Attend to this, reader. No one has

been deprived of it. In this respect we have not allowed ourselves

to be imposed upon by the clamours of the tropical producer. The

Brazilian, in as far as he is himself a consumer of sugar, or cotton,

or coffee, never ceases to profit by the sun’s rays—his good fortune

does not cease to aid him in the work of production. What he has

lost is only the unjust power of levying a tax upon the consumption

of the inhabitants of Europe. The beneficence of Providence, because

‹gratuitous›, has become, as it ought to become, ‹common›; for

‹common› and ‹gratuitous› are in reality the same thing.

The gift of God has become common—and the reader will observe that I

avail myself here of a special fact to elucidate a phenomenon which

is universal—this gift, I say, has become common to all. This is not

declamation, but the expression of a truth which is demonstrable. Why

has this beautiful phenomenon been misunderstood? Because community

is realized under the form of ‹value annihilated›, and the mind

with difficulty lays hold of negations. But I ask, Is it not true

that when, in order to obtain a certain quantity of sugar, coffee,

or cotton, I give only one-tenth of the labour which I should find

it necessary to expend in producing the commodity myself, and this

because the Brazilian sun performs the other nine-tenths of the

work,—Is it not true, I say, that in that case I still exchange

labour for labour, and [p297] really and truly obtain, over and

above the Brazilian labour, and into the bargain, the co-operation of

the climate of the tropics? Can I not affirm with rigorous exactitude

that I have become, that all men have become, in the same way as the

Indians and Americans, that is to say gratuitously, participators in

the liberality of nature, so far as the commodities in question are

concerned?

England possesses productive coal mines. That is no doubt a great

‹local› advantage, more especially if we suppose, as I shall do for

the sake of argument, that the Continent possesses no coal mines.

Apart from the consideration of exchange, the advantage which this

gives to the people of England is the possession of fuel in greater

abundance than other nations,—fuel obtained with less labour, and

at less expense of useful time. As soon as exchange comes into

operation—keeping out of view Competition—the exclusive possession of

these mines enables the people of England to demand a considerable

remuneration, and to set a high price upon their labour. Not being in

a situation to perform this labour ourselves, or procure what we want

from another quarter, we have no alternative but to submit. English

labour devoted to this description of work will be well remunerated;

in other words, coal will be dear, and the bounty of nature may be

considered as conferred on the people of one nation, and not on

mankind at large.

But this state of things cannot last; for a great natural and social

law is opposed to it—Competition. For the very reason that this

species of labour is largely remunerated in England, it will be in

great demand there, for men are always in quest of high remuneration.

The number of miners will increase, both in consequence of the

sons of miners devoting themselves to their fathers’ trade, and in

consequence of men transferring their industry to mining from other

departments. They will offer to work for a smaller recompense, and

their remuneration will go on diminishing until it reach the ‹normal

rate›, or the rate generally given in the country for analogous work.

This means that the price of English coal will fall in France; that

a given amount of French labour will procure a greater and greater

quantity of English coal, or rather of English labour incorporated

and worked up in coal; and, finally (and this is what I pray you to

remark), that the gift which nature would appear to have bestowed

upon England has in reality been conferred on the whole human

race. The coal of Newcastle is brought within the reach of all men

‹gratuitously›, as far as the mere material is concerned. This is

neither a paradox nor an exaggeration,—it is brought within their

reach like the [p298] water of the brook, on the single condition

of going to fetch it, or remunerating those who undertake that

labour for us. When we purchase coal, it is not the coal that we

pay for, but the labour necessary to extract it and transport it.

All that we do is to give a corresponding amount of labour which

we have worked up or incorporated in wine or in silk. So true is

it that the liberality of nature has been extended to France, that

the labour which we refund is not greater than that which it would

have been necessary to undergo had the deposit of coal been in

France. Competition has established equality between the two nations

as far as coal is concerned, except as regards the inevitable and

inconsiderable difference resulting from distance and carriage.

I have given two examples, and, to render the phenomenon more

striking, I have selected international transactions, which are

effected on a great scale. I fear I may thus have diverted the

reader’s attention from the same phenomena acting incessantly around

us in our every-day transactions. Let him take in his hand the

most familiar objects, a glass, a nail, a loaf, a piece of cloth,

a book. Let him meditate on such ordinary products, and reflect

how great an amount of gratuitous utility would never but for

Competition have become ‹common› for humanity at large, although

remaining gratuitous for the producer. He will find that, thanks to

Competition, in purchasing his loaf he pays nothing for the action

of the sun, nothing for the rain, nothing for the frost, nothing for

the laws of vegetable physiology, nothing even for the powers of

the soil, despite all that has been said on that subject; nothing

for the law of gravitation set to work by the miller; nothing for

the law of combustion set to work by the baker; nothing for the

horse-power set to work by the carrier; that he pays only for the

services rendered, the pains taken, by human agents; and let him

reflect that, but for Competition, he must have paid, over and above,

a tax for the intervention of all these natural agents; that that

tax would have had no other limit than the difficulty which he might

himself have experienced in procuring the loaf by his own efforts,

and that consequently a whole life would not have been sufficient to

supply the remuneration which would have been demanded of him. Let

him think farther, that he does not make use of a single commodity

which might not give rise to the same reflections, and that these

reflections apply not to him only, but to all mankind, and he will

then comprehend the radical error of those socialist theories which,

looking only at the surface of things, the epidermis of society, have

been set up with so much levity against Competition, in other words,

against human Liberty. He will then regard [p299] Competition, which

preserves to the gifts of nature, unequally distributed, their common

and gratuitous character, as the principle of a just and natural

equalization; he will admire it as the force which holds in check

the egotism of individual interest, with which at the same time it

is so artistically combined as to serve both as a curb to avarice

and a spur to exertion; and he will bless it as a most striking

manifestation of God’s impartial solicitude for the good of all His

creatures.

From what has been said, we may deduce the solution of one of the

problems which have been most keenly controverted, namely, that of

free trade as between nation and nation. If it be true, as seems to

me incontestable, that Competition leads the various countries of

the globe to exchange with one another nothing else than labour,

exertion more and more equalized, and to transfer at the same time

reciprocally, and ‹into the bargain›, the natural advantages that

each possesses; how blind and absurd must those men be who exclude

foreign products by legislative measures, under the pretext that they

are cheap, and have little value in proportion to their aggregate

utility; that is to say, precisely because they include a large

proportion of gratuitous utility!

I have said, and I repeat it, that I have confidence in a theory when

I find it in accordance with universal practice. Now, it is certain

that countries would effect many exchanges with each other were they

not interdicted ‹by force›. It requires the bayonet to prevent them;

and for that reason it is wrong to prevent them.

2. Another circumstance places certain men in a favourable and

exceptional situation as regards remuneration—I mean the personal and

exclusive knowledge of the ‹processes› by means of which ‹natural

agents› can alone be appropriated. What we term invention is a

conquest by human genius; and these beautiful and pacific conquests,

which are, in the first instance, a source of wealth for those who

achieve them, become by-and-by, under the action of Competition, the

‹common and gratuitous› patrimony of all.

The forces of nature belong indeed to all. Gravitation, for instance,

is common property; it surrounds us, pervades us, commands us. And

yet were there but one mode of making gravitation co-operate towards

a useful and determinate result, and but one man acquainted with

that mode, this man might set a high price upon his work, or refuse

to work except in exchange for a very high remuneration. His demands

would have no limit [p300] until they reached the point at which

the consumers must make greater sacrifices than the old processes

entailed upon them. He may have contrived, for example, to annihilate

nine-tenths of the labour necessary to produce a certain commodity,

‹x›. But ‹x› has at present a current market-price determined by

the labour which its production by the ordinary methods exacts. The

inventor sells ‹x› at the market-price; in other words, his labour

receives a recompense ten times higher than that of his rivals. This

is the first phase of the invention.

So far we discover nothing unjust or unfair. It is just and equitable

that the man who makes the world acquainted with a useful process

should be rewarded for it;—‹A chacun selon sa capacité›.

Observe, too, that as yet mankind, with the exception of the

inventor, have gained nothing unless virtually, and in perspective,

so to speak, since in order to procure the commodity ‹x›, each

acquirer must make a sacrifice equal to the former cost.

Now, however, the invention enters its second phase—that of

‹imitation›. Excessive remuneration awakens covetousness. The new

process is more generally adopted; the price of the commodity ‹x›

continues to fall, and the remuneration goes on diminishing in

proportion as the imitation becomes more distant in date from the

original invention, that is to say, in proportion as it becomes more

easy, and for that reason less meritorious. Surely there is nothing

in all this that cannot be avowed by a legislation the most advanced

and the most impartial.

At length the invention reaches its third phase, its final stage,

that of universal ‹diffusion›, when it becomes ‹common› and

‹gratuitous›. The cycle has been completed when Competition has

brought back the remuneration of the producers of ‹x› to the general

and normal rate yielded by all analogous work. Then the nine-tenths

of the labour, which by the hypothesis we supposed to be saved by the

invention, become an acquisition to mankind at large. The utility of

the commodity ‹x› remains the same; but nine-tenths of that commodity

are now the product of gravitation, a force which was formerly

common to all in principle, but has now become common to all in this

special application. So true is this, that all the consumers of that

commodity throughout the world may now acquire it with one-tenth

of the labour which it formerly cost. The surplus labour has been

entirely annihilated by the new process.

If we consider that there is no human invention which has not

described this circle, that ‹x› is here an algebraical sign which

represents corn, clothing, books, ships,—in the production of

which an [p301] incalculable amount of Labour or Value has been

annihilated, by the plough, the spinning-jenny, the printing-press,

and the sail; that this observation is applicable to the humblest of

tools as well as to the most complicated mechanism, to the nail, the

wedge, the lever, as well as to the steam-engine and the electric

telegraph, we shall come, I trust, to understand the solution of

this grand problem of human society, ‹that an amount of utility and

enjoyment, always greater, and more and more equally distributed,

comes to remunerate each determinate quantity of human labour›.

3. I have shown how Competition brings into the domain of the ‹common

and gratuitous› both ‹natural agents› and the ‹processes› by which

they are made operative. It remains to show that Competition executes

the same function with reference to the instruments by means of which

we set these agents to work. It is not enough that there should exist

in nature a force, such as heat, light, gravitation, electricity;

it is not enough that intelligence conceives the means of making

that force available;—there must be ‹instruments› to realize this

conception of the mind, and ‹provisions› to maintain those who devote

themselves to it during the operation.

As regards remuneration, there is a third circumstance which favours

a man, or a class of men, namely, the possession of ‹Capital›.

The man who has in his hands the tools necessary for labour, the

materials to work upon, and the provisions for his subsistence during

the operation, is in a situation to determine his own remuneration.

The principle of this is equitable, for capital is only anterior

labour which has not yet been remunerated. The capitalist is in a

good position to impose terms; but observe that, even when free from

Competition, there is a limit which his demands never can exceed—this

limit is the point at which his remuneration would absorb all the

advantages of the service which he renders. In these circumstances,

it is unreasonable to talk, as is so often done, of the ‹tyranny of

capital›, seeing that even in the most extreme cases neither its

presence nor its absence can injure the condition of the labourer.

Like the inhabitant of the tropics, who has an intensity of heat at

his disposal which nature has denied to colder regions—or like the

inventor, who possesses the secret of a process unknown to other

men—all that the capitalist can say is: “Would you profit by my

labour—I set such a price upon it; if you find it too high, do as you

have done hitherto—do without it.”

But Competition takes place among capitalists. Tools, materials, and

provisions, contribute to the creation of utilities only [p302]

when employed. There is an emulation, then, among capitalists to

find employment for their capital. All that this emulation forces

them to abate from the extreme demand, of which I have just assigned

the limits, resolving itself into a reduction of the price of the

commodity, is so much clear profit, so much ‹gratuitous› gain, for

the consumer, that is to say, for mankind.

This gain, however, can clearly never be ‹absolutely gratuitous›;

for, since capital represents labour, that capital must always

possess in itself the principle of remuneration.

Transactions relative to Capital are subject to the universal law

of exchanges; and exchanges take place only because there is an

advantage for the two contracting parties in effecting them,—an

advantage which has no doubt a tendency to be equalized, but which

accidentally may be greater for the one than for the other. There is

a limit to the remuneration of capital, beyond which limit no one

will consent to borrow it. This limit is the minimum of service for

the borrower. In the same way, there is a limit beyond which no one

will consent to lend, and this limit is the minimum of remuneration

for the lender. This is self-evident. If the requirements of one

of the contracting parties are pushed so far as to reduce to zero

the benefit to be derived by the other from the transaction, the

loan becomes impossible. The remuneration of capital oscillates

between these two extreme terms, pressed towards the maximum by the

Competition of borrowers, brought back towards the minimum by the

Competition of lenders; so that, by a necessity which is in harmony

with justice, it rises when capital is scarce, and falls when it is

abundant.

Many Economists imagine that the number of borrowers increases more

rapidly than it is possible to create capital to lend to them, whence

it would follow that the natural tendency of interest is to rise.

The ‹fact› is decidedly the other way, and on all sides accordingly

we perceive civilisation lowering the return for capital. This

return, it is said, is 30 or 40 per cent. at Rome, 20 per cent. in

Brazil, 10 per cent. in Algeria, 8 per cent. in Spain, 6 per cent. in

Italy, 5 per cent. in Germany, 4 per cent. in France, 3 per cent. in

England, and still less in Holland. Now all that part of the return

for capital which is annihilated by progress, although lost to the

capitalist, is not lost to mankind. If interest, originally at 40 per

cent., is reduced to 2 per cent., all commodities will be freed from

38 parts in 40 of this element of cost. They will reach the consumer

freed from this charge to the extent of nineteen-twentieths. This is

a force which, like ‹natural agents›, like expeditive ‹processes›,

resolves itself into ‹abundance›, ‹equalization›, [p303] and,

finally, into an elevation of the general level of the human race.

* * * * *

I have still to say a few words on the Competition of labourer with

labourer,—a subject which in these days has given rise to so much

sentimental declamation. But have we not already exhausted this

subject? I have shown that, owing to the action of Competition, men

cannot long receive an exceptional remuneration for the co-operation

of ‹natural forces›, for their acquaintance with new ‹processes›,

or for the possession of ‹instruments› by means of which they avail

themselves of these forces. This proves that efforts have a tendency

to be exchanged on a footing of equality, or, in other words, that

value tends to become proportionate to labour. Then I do not see

what can justly be termed the Competition of labourers; still less

do I see how it can injure their condition, since in this point of

view workmen are themselves the consumers. The working class means

everybody, and it is precisely this vast community which reaps

ultimately the benefits of Competition, and all the advantage of

values successively annihilated by progress.

The evolution is this: Services are exchanged against services,

values against values. When a man (or a class) appropriates a

natural agent or a new process, his demands are regulated, not by

the labour which he undergoes, but by the labour which he saves to

others. He presses his exactions to the extreme limit, without ever

being able to injure the condition of others. He sets the greatest

possible value on his services. But gradually, by the operation of

Competition, this value tends to become proportioned to the labour

performed; so that the evolution is brought to a conclusion when

equal labour is exchanged for equal labour, both serving as the

vehicle of an ever-increasing amount of gratuitous utility, to the

benefit of the community at large. In such circumstances, to assert

that Competition can be injurious to the labourer, would be to fall

into a palpable contradiction.

And yet this is constantly asserted, and constantly believed; and

why? Because by the word labourer is understood not the great

labouring community, but a particular class. You divide the community

into two classes. On one side you place all those who are possessed

of capital, who live wholly or partly on anterior labour, or by

intellectual labour, or the proceeds of taxation; on the other, you

place those who have nothing but their hands, who live by wages,

or—to use the consecrated expression—the ‹prolétaires›. You look to

the relative position of these two classes, [p304] and you ask if,

in that relative position, the Competition which takes place among

those who live by wages is not fatal to them?

The situation of men of this last class, it is said, is essentially

precarious. As they receive their wages from day to day, they live

from hand to mouth. In the discussion which, under a free régime,

precedes every bargain, they cannot wait; they must find work for

to-morrow on any terms, under pain of death. If this be not strictly

true of them all, it is at least true of many of them, and that

is enough to depress the entire class; for those who are the most

pressed and the poorest capitulate first, and establish the general

rate of wages. The result is, that wages tend to fall to the lowest

rate which is compatible with bare subsistence—and in this state of

things, the occurrence of the least excess of Competition among the

labourers is a veritable calamity, for, as regards them, the question

is not one of diminished prosperity, but of simple existence.

Undoubtedly there is much that is true, much that is too true, ‹in

fact›, in this description. To deny the sufferings and wretchedness

of that class of men who bear so material a part in the business of

production, would be to shut our eyes to the light of day. It is, in

fact, this deplorable condition of a great number of our brethren

which forms the subject of what has been justly called the ‹social

problem›; for although other classes of society are visited also

with disquietudes, sufferings, sudden changes of fortune, commercial

crises, and economic convulsions, it may nevertheless be said with

truth that ‹liberty› would be accepted as a solution of the problem,

did mere liberty not appear powerless to cure that rankling sore

which we denominate Pauperism.

And although it is here, pre-eminently, that the social problem lies,

the reader will not expect that I should enter upon it in this place.

Its solution, please God, may be the result of the entire work, but

it clearly cannot be the result of a single chapter.

I am at present engaged in the exposition of general laws, which I

believe to be harmonious; and I trust the reader will now begin to be

convinced that these laws exist, and that their action tends towards

community, and consequently towards equality. But I have not denied

that the action of these laws is profoundly troubled by disturbing

causes. If, then, we now encounter inequality as a stubborn ‹fact›,

how can we be in circumstances to form a judgment regarding it until

we have first of all investigated the regular laws of the social

order, and the causes which disturb the action of these laws? [p305]

On the other hand, I have ignored neither the existence of evil nor

its mission. I have ventured to assert, that ‹free-will› having been

vouchsafed to man, it is not necessary to confine the term ‹harmony›

to an aggregate from which evil should be excluded; for free-will

implies error, at least possible error, and error is evil. Social

harmony, like everything which concerns man, is relative. Evil

is a necessary part of the machinery destined to overcome error,

ignorance, injustice, by bringing into play two great laws of our

nature—responsibility and solidarity.

Now, taking pauperism as an existing fact, are we to impute it to the

natural laws which govern the social order,—or to human institutions

which act in a sense contrary to these laws,—or, finally, to the

people themselves, who are the victims, and who, by their errors and

their faults, have brought down this severe chastisement on their own

heads?

In other words, does pauperism exist by providential destination,—or,

on the contrary, by what remains of the artificial in our political

organization,—or as a personal retribution? Fatality, Injustice,

Responsibility—to which of these three causes must we attribute this

frightful sore?

I hesitate not to assert that it cannot be the result of the natural

laws which have hitherto been the subject of our investigations,

seeing that these laws all tend to equalization by amelioration; that

is to say, to bring all men to one and the same level, which level is

continually rising. This, then, is not the place to seek a solution

of the problem of pauperism.

At present, if we would consider specially that class of labourers

who execute the most material portion of the work of production, and

who, in general, having no interest in the profits, live upon a fixed

remuneration called ‹wages›, the question we have to investigate

is this: Apart from the consideration of good or bad economic

institutions—apart from the consideration of the evils which the men

who live by wages [the ‹prolétaires›] bring upon themselves by their

faults—what is, as regards them, the proper effect of Competition?

For this class, as for all, the operation of Competition is twofold.

They feel it both as buyers and as sellers of services. The error

of those who write upon these subjects is never to look but at one

side of the question, like natural philosophers, who, if they took

into account only centrifugal force, would never cease to believe and

to prophesy that all was over with us. Grant their false datum, and

you will see with what irrefragable logic they conduct you to this

sinister conclusion. The same may be said of the [p306] lamentations

which the Socialists found upon the exclusive consideration of

centrifugal Competition, if I may be allowed the expression. They

forget to take into account centripetal Competition; and that is

sufficient to reduce their doctrines to puerile declamation. They

forget that the workman, when he presents himself in the market with

the wages he has earned, becomes a centre towards which innumerable

branches of industry tend, and that he profits then by that universal

Competition of which all trades complain in their turn.

It is true that the labourer, when he regards himself as a producer,

as the person who supplies labour or services, complains also of

Competition. Grant, then, that Competition benefits him on one side,

while it pinches him on the other, the question comes to be, Is the

balance favourable or unfavourable—or is there compensation?

I must have explained myself very obscurely if the reader does not

see that in the play of this marvellous mechanism, the action of

Competition, apparently antagonistic, tends to the singular and

consoling result, that there is a balance which is favourable to all

at the same time; caused by gratuitous Utility continually enlarging

the circle of production, and falling continually into the domain

of Community. Now, that which becomes common is profitable to all

without hurting any one; we may even say—for this is mathematically

certain—is profitable to each in proportion to his previous poverty.

It is this portion of ‹gratuitous› utility, forced by Competition

to become ‹common›, which causes the tendency of value to become

proportioned to labour, to the evident benefit of the labourer. This,

too, renders evident the social solution which I have pressed so much

on the attention of the reader, and which is only concealed by the

illusions of habit,—for a determinate amount of labour each receives

an amount of satisfactions which tends to be increased and equalized.

Moreover, the condition of the labourer does not depend upon one

economic law, but upon all. To become acquainted with that condition,

to discover the prospects and the future of the labourer, this is

Political Economy; for what other object could that science have in

view? . . . But I am wrong—we have still spoliators. What causes the

equivalence of services? Liberty. What impairs that equivalence?

Oppression. Such is the circle we have still to traverse.

As regards the condition of that class of labourers who execute the

more immediate work of production, it cannot be appreciated until

we are in a situation to discover in what manner the law of [p307]

Competition is combined with that of Wages and Population, and also

with the disturbing effects of unequal taxes and monopolies.

I shall add but a few words on the subject of Competition. It is

very clear that it has no natural tendency to diminish the amount of

the enjoyments which are distributed over society. Does Competition

tend to make this distribution unequal? If there be anything evident

in the world, it is that after having, if I may so express myself,

attached to each service, to each value, a larger proportion of

utility, Competition labours incessantly to level the services

themselves, to render them proportional to efforts. Is Competition

not the spur which urges men into profitable branches of industry,

and urges them out of those which are unprofitable? Its proper

action, then, is to realize equality more and more, by elevating the

social level.

Let us not misunderstand each other, however, on this word equality.

It does not imply that all men are to have the same remuneration, but

that they are to have a remuneration proportioned to the quantity,

and even to the quality of their efforts.

A multitude of circumstances contribute to render the remuneration

of labour unequal (I speak here only of free labour, subject to

Competition); but if we look at it more narrowly, we shall find that

this fancied inequality, almost always just and necessary, is in

reality nothing else than substantial equality.

‹Cæteris paribus›, there are larger profits in those trades which are

attended with danger than in those which are not so; in those which

require a lengthened apprenticeship, and expensive training long

unremunerated—which imply the patient exercise of certain domestic

virtues—than in those where mere muscular exertion is sufficient; in

professions which demand a cultivated mind and refined taste, than

in trades which require mere brute force. Is not all this just? Now,

‹Competition› establishes necessarily these distinctions—and society

has no need of the assistance of Fourier or Louis Blanc in the matter.

Of all these circumstances, that which operates in the greatest

number of cases is the inequality of instruction. Now here, as

everywhere else, we find Competition exerting its twofold action,

levelling classes, and elevating society.

If we suppose society to be composed of two layers or strata,

placed one above another, in one of which the intelligent principle

prevails, and in the other the principle of brute force; and if

we study the natural relations of these two layers, we shall

easily discover a force of attraction in the one, and a force of

aspiration in the other, which co-operate towards their fusion.

The very inequality [p308] of profits breathes into the inferior

ranks an inextinguishable ardour to mount to the region of ease

and leisure; and this ardour is seconded by the superior knowledge

which distinguishes the higher classes. The methods of teaching are

improved; books fall in price; instruction is acquired in less time,

and at a smaller cost; science, formerly monopolized by a class or a

caste, and veiled in a dead language, or sealed up in hieroglyphics,

is written and printed in the vulgar tongue; it pervades the

atmosphere, if I may use the expression, and is breathed as freely as

the air of heaven.

Nor is this all. At the same time that an education more universal

and more equal brings the two classes of society into closer

approximation, some very important economic phenomena, which are

connected with the great law of Competition, come to aid and

accelerate their fusion. The progress of the mechanical arts

diminishes continually the proportion of manual labour. The division

of labour, by simplifying and separating each of the operations

which concur in a productive result, brings within the reach of

all, branches of industry which could formerly be engaged in only

by a few. Moreover, a great many employments which required at the

outset much knowledge and varied acquirements, fall, by the mere

lapse of time, into ‹routine›, and come within the sphere of action

of classes generally the least instructed, as has happened in the

case of agriculture. Agricultural processes, which in ancient times

procured to their discoverers the honours of an apotheosis, are now

inherited and almost monopolized by the rudest of men; and to such a

degree, that this important branch of human industry is, so to speak,

entirely withdrawn from the ‹well-educated› classes.

From the preceding observations it is possible that a false

conclusion may be drawn. It may be said—“We perceive, indeed, that

Competition lowers remuneration in all countries, in all departments

of industry, in all ranks, and levels, ‹by reducing›, it; but in that

case the wages of unskilled labour, of physical exertion, must become

the type, the standard, of all remuneration.”

I must have been misunderstood, if you have not perceived that

‹Competition›, which labours to bring down all excessive remuneration

towards an average more and more uniform, raises ‹necessarily› this

average. I grant that it pinches men in their capacity of producers,

but in so doing it ameliorates the condition of the human race

in the only way in which it can reasonably be elevated, namely,

by an increase of material prosperity, ease, leisure, moral and

intellectual improvement, in a word, by enlarging ‹consumption›.

[p309]

Will it be said that, in point of fact, mankind have not made the

progress that this theory seems to imply?

I answer, in the first place, that in modern society Competition

is far from occupying the sphere of its natural action. Our laws

run counter to it, at least in as great a degree as they favour its

action; and when it is asked whether the inequality of conditions is

owing to its presence or its absence, it is sufficient to look at

the men who make the greatest figure among us, and dazzle us by the

display of their scandalous wealth, in order to assure ourselves that

inequality, so far as it is artificial and unjust, has for foundation

conquests, monopolies, restrictions, privileged offices, functions,

and places, ministerial trafficking, public borrowing,—all things

with which Competition has nothing to do.

Moreover, I believe we have overlooked the real progress which

mankind have made since the very recent epoch to which we must

assign the partial enfranchisement of labour. It has been justly

said that much philosophy is needed in order to discern facts which

are continually passing before us. We are not astonished at what an

honest and laborious family of the working class daily consumes,

because habit has made us familiar with this strange phenomenon. If,

however, we compare the comfortable circumstances in which such a

family finds itself, with the condition in which it would be placed

under a social order which excluded Competition—if statisticians,

armed with an instrument of sufficient precision, could measure,

as with a dynamometer, the relation of a working man’s labour to

his enjoyments at two different periods, we should acknowledge that

liberty, restrained as it still is, has accomplished in his favour

a prodigy which its very permanency hinders us from remarking. The

contingent of human efforts which, in relation to a given result, has

been annihilated, is truly incalculable. Time was when the artisan’s

day’s labour would not have sufficed to procure him the most trumpery

almanac. At the present day, for a halfpenny, or the fiftieth

part of his day’s wages, he can obtain a gazette containing the

matter of a volume. The same might be said of clothing, locomotion,

carriage, lighting, and a multitude of other satisfactions. To what

is this result owing? To this, that an enormous proportion of human

labour, which had formerly to be paid for, has been handed over

to be performed by the gratuitous forces of nature. It is a value

annihilated, and to be no longer recompensed. Under the action of

Competition, it has been replaced by common and gratuitous utility.

And it is worthy of remark, that when, in consequence of progress,

the price of any commodity comes to fall, [p310] the labour ‹saved›

to the poor purchaser in obtaining it is always ‹proportionally›

greater than the labour saved to the rich purchaser. That is

demonstrable.

In fine, this constantly increasing current of utilities which labour

pours into all the veins of the body politic, and which Competition

distributes, is not all summed up in an accession of wealth. It is

absorbed, in great part, by the stream of advancing numbers. It

resolves itself into an increase of population, according to laws

which have an intimate affinity with the subject which now engages

us, and which will be explained in another chapter.

Let us now stop for a moment and take a rapid glance at the ground

over which we have just travelled.

Man has wants which are unlimited—desires which are insatiable. In

order to provide for them he has materials and agents which are

furnished to him by nature—faculties, instruments, all things which

‹labour› sets in motion. Labour is the resource which has been most

equally distributed to all. Each man seeks instinctively, and of

necessity, to avail himself to the utmost of the co-operation of

natural forces, of talents natural and acquired, and of capital, in

order that the result of this co-operation may be a greater amount

of utilities produced, or, what comes to the same thing, a greater

amount of satisfactions acquired. Thus, the more active co-operation

of natural agents, the indefinite development of intelligence,

the progressive increase of capital, give rise to this phenomenon

(which at first sight seems strange)—that a given quantity of labour

furnishes an always increasing amount of utilities, and that each

man can, without despoiling anyone, obtain a mass of consumable

commodities out of all proportion to what his own efforts could have

realized.

But this phenomenon, which is the result of the divine harmony which

Providence has established in the mechanism of society, would have

been detrimental to society, by introducing the germ of indefinite

inequality, had there not been combined with it a harmony no less

admirable, namely, Competition, which is one of the branches of the

great law of human ‹solidarity›.

In fact, were it possible for an individual, a family, a class, a

nation, possessed of certain natural advantages, of an important

discovery in manufactures, or of the instruments of production in the

shape of accumulated capital, to be set permanently free from the law

of Competition, it is evident that this individual, this family, this

nation, would have for ever the monopoly of an exceptionally high

remuneration, at the expense of mankind at large. In what situation

should we be if the inhabitants of the tropical [p311] regions,

set free from all rivalry with each other, could exact from us, in

exchange for their sugar, their coffee, their cotton, their spices,

not the equivalent of labour equal to their own, but an amount of

labour equal to what we must ourselves undergo in order to produce

these commodities under our inclement skies? What an incalculable

distance would separate the various conditions of men, if the race

of Cadmus alone could read, if the direct descendants of Triptolemus

alone could handle the plough, if printing were confined to the

family of Gutenberg, cotton-spinning to the children of Arkwright,

and if the posterity of Watt could alone work the steam engine!

Providence has not ordered things thus, but, on the contrary, has

placed in the social machine a spring whose power is only less

surprising than its simplicity—a spring by the operation of which all

productive power, all superiority in manufacturing processes, in a

word, all exclusive advantages, slip from the hands of the producer,

having remained there, in the shape of exceptional remuneration, only

long enough to excite his zeal, and come at length to enlarge the

common and gratuitous patrimony of mankind, and resolve themselves

into individual enjoyments always progressive, and more and more

equally distributed—this spring is ‹Competition›. We have already

seen its economical effects—and it now remains for us to take a rapid

survey of its moral and political consequences. I shall confine

myself to the more important of these.

Superficial thinkers have accused Competition of introducing

‹antagonism› among men. This is true and inevitable, if we consider

men only in the capacity of producers, but, regarded from another

point of view, as consumers, the matter appears in a very different

light. You then see this very Competition binding together

individuals, families, classes, nations, and races, in the bonds of

universal fraternity.

Seeing that the advantages which appear at first to be the property

of certain individuals become, by an admirable law of Divine

beneficence, the common patrimony of all; seeing that the ‹natural

advantages› of situation, of fertility, of temperature, of mineral

riches, and even of manufacturing aptitude, slip in a short time from

the hands of producers, by reason of their competition with each

other, and turn exclusively to the profit of consumers, it follows

that there is no country which is not interested in the advancement

and prosperity of all other countries. Every step of progress made in

the East is wealth in perspective for the West. Fuel discovered in

the South warms the men of the North. Great Britain makes progress

in her spinning mills; [p312] but her capitalists do not alone reap

the profit, for the interest of money does not rise; nor do her

operatives, for the wages of labour remain the same. In the long-run,

it is the Russian, the Frenchman, the Spaniard; in a word, it is

the human race, who obtain equal satisfactions at a less expense of

labour, or, what comes to the same thing, superior satisfactions with

equal labour.

I have spoken only of the advantages—I might say as much of the

disadvantages—which affect certain nations and certain regions.

The peculiar action of Competition is to render general what was

before exclusive. It acts exactly on the principle of ‹Insurance›.

A scourge visits the fields of the agriculturist, and the consumers

of the bread are the sufferers. An unjust tax is laid upon the vines

of France, and this means dear ‹wine› for all wine-drinkers. Thus,

advantages and disadvantages, which have any permanence, only glance

upon individuals, classes, or nations. Their providential destination

in the long-run is to affect humanity at large, and elevate or

lower the condition of mankind. Hence to envy a certain people the

fertility of their soil, or the beauty of their harbours and rivers,

or the warmth of their sun, is to overlook the advantages in which

we are called to participate. It is to contemn the abundance which

is offered to us. It is to regret the labour which is saved to us.

Hence national jealousies are not only perverse feelings;—they are

absurd. To hurt others is to injure ourselves. To place obstacles in

the way of others—tariffs, wars, or workmen’s strikes—is to obstruct

our own progress. Hence bad passions have their chastisement, just

as generous sentiments have their reward. The inevitable sanction of

an exact distributive justice addresses itself to men’s interests,

enlightens opinion, proclaims and establishes among men these maxims

of eternal truth: that the useful is one of the aspects of the just;

that Liberty is the fairest of social Harmonies; and that Honesty is

the best Policy.

Christianity has introduced into the world the grand principle of

human fraternity. It addresses itself to our hearts, our feelings,

our noble instincts. Political Economy recommends the same principle

to our cool judgment; and, exhibiting the connexion of effects

with their causes, reconciles in consoling harmony the vigilant

calculations of interest with the inspirations of the sublimest

morality.

A second consequence which flows from this doctrine is, that society

is truly a ‹Community›. Messieurs Owen and Cabet may save themselves

the trouble of seeking the solution of the great [p313] ‹Communist›

problem—it is found already—it results not from their arbitrary

combinations, but from the organization given by God to man, and

to society. Natural forces, expeditive processes, instruments of

production, everything is ‹common› among men, or has a tendency to

become so, everything ‹except pains›, labour, individual effort.

There is, and there can be, but one ‹inequality›—an inequality which

Communists the most absolute must admit,—that which results from

the inequality of efforts. These efforts are what are exchanged for

one another at a price bargained for. All the utility which nature,

and the genius of ages, and human foresight, have implanted in the

commodities exchanged, we obtain ‹into the bargain›. Reciprocal

remunerations have reference only to reciprocal efforts, whether

actual under the name of Labour, or preparatory under the name

of Capital. Here then is Community in the strictest sense of the

word, unless we are to pretend that the personal share of enjoyment

should be equal, although the quota of labour furnished is not so,

which indeed would be the most iniquitous, the most monstrous, of

inequalities,—I will add, the most fatal; for it would not destroy

Competition—it would only give it a retrograde action. We should

still compete, but the Competition would be a rivalry of idleness,

stupidity, and improvidence.

In fine, the doctrine—so simple, and, as we think, so true—which

we have just developed, takes the great principle of human

‹perfectibility› out of the domain of declamation, and transfers

it to that of rigorous demonstration. This internal motive, which

is never at rest in the bosom of the individual, but stirs him up

to improve his condition, gives rise to the progress of art, which

is nothing else than the progressive co-operation of forces, which

from their nature call for no remuneration. To Competition is owing

the concession to the community of advantages at first individually

obtained. The intensity of the labour required for the production of

each given result goes on continually diminishing, to the advantage

of the human race, which thus sees the circle of its enjoyments and

its leisure enlarging from one generation to another, whilst the

level of its physical, intellectual, and moral improvement is raised;

and by this arrangement, so worthy of our study and of our profound

admiration, we behold mankind recovering the position they had lost.

Let me not be misunderstood, however. I do not say that all

fraternity, all community, all perfectibility, are comprised and

included in Competition. I say only that Competition is allied and

combined with these three great social dogmas—that it forms part

[p314] of them, that it exhibits them, that it is one of the most

powerful agents of their realization.

I have endeavoured to describe the general effects of Competition,

and consequently its benefits, for it would be impious to suppose

that any great law of nature should be at once hurtful and

permanent; but I am far from denying that the action of Competition

is accompanied with many hardships and sufferings. It appears to

me that the theory which has just been developed explains at once

those sufferings, and the inevitable complaints to which they give

rise. Since the work of Competition consists in ‹levelling›, it must

necessarily run counter to all who proudly attempt to rise above

the general level. Each producer, in order to obtain the highest

price for his labour, endeavours, as we have seen, to retain as long

as possible the exclusive use of an ‹agent›, a ‹process›, or an

‹instrument›, of production. Now the proper mission and result of

Competition being to withdraw this exclusive use from the individual,

in order to make it ‹common› property, it is natural that all

men, in their capacity of producers, should unite in a concert of

maledictions against ‹Competition›. They cannot reconcile themselves

to Competition otherwise than by taking into account their interests

as consumers, and regarding themselves, not as members of a coterie

or a corporation, but as men.

Political Economy, we must say, has not yet exerted herself

sufficiently to dissipate this fatal illusion, which has been the

source of so much heartburning, calamity, and irritation, and of so

many wars. This science, from a preference not very philosophical,

has exhausted her efforts in analyzing the phenomena of production.

The very nomenclature of the science, in fact, convenient as it

is, is not in harmony with its object. Agriculture, manufactures,

commerce, may be an excellent classification, when the object is

to describe the ‹processes› of art; but that description, however

essential in technology, has little connexion with social economy;—I

should even say that it is positively dangerous. When we have classed

men as agriculturists, manufacturers, and merchants, of what can we

speak but of their class interests, of those special interests to

which Competition is antagonistic, and which are placed in opposition

to the general good? It is not for the sake of agriculturists that

agriculture exists, of manufacturers that we have manufactures, or of

merchants that we have exchanges, but in order that men should have

at their disposal the greatest amount of commodities of every kind.

‹Consumption›, its laws, what favours it, and renders it equitable

and moral—that is the interest which is truly social, and which truly

affects the human [p315] race. It is the interest of the consumer

which constitutes the real object of Political Economy, and upon

which the science should concentrate its clearest lights. This, in

truth, forms the bond which unites classes, nations, races—it is the

principle and explanation of human fraternity. It is with regret,

then, that we see Economists expending their talents and sagacity on

the anatomy of production, and throwing into the fag-end of their

books, or into supplementary chapters, a few common-places on the

phenomena of consumption. Have we not even seen a justly celebrated

professor suppressing entirely that branch of the science, confining

himself to the ‹means›, without ever speaking of the ‹result›,

and banishing from his course everything in connexion with the

‹consumption of wealth›, as pertaining, in his opinion, to morals

rather than to Political Economy? Can we be surprised that men are

more struck with the inconveniences of Competition than with its

advantages, since the former affect them specially as producers,—in

which character they are constantly considered and talked of; while

the latter affect them only in their capacity of consumers,—a

capacity which is altogether disregarded and overlooked?

I repeat that I do not deny or ignore, on the contrary I deplore

as much as any one can, the sufferings attendant on Competition;

but is this any reason for shutting our eyes to its advantages? And

it is all the more consoling to observe these advantages, inasmuch

as I believe Competition, like all the great laws of nature, to

be indestructible. Had it been otherwise, it would assuredly have

succumbed to the universal resistance which all the men who have ever

co-operated in the production of commodities since the beginning

of the world have offered to it, and more especially it would have

perished under the ‹levée en masse› of our modern reformers. But if

they have been foolish enough to attempt its destruction, they have

not been strong enough to effect it.

And what progressive principle, I would ask, is to be found in the

world, the beneficent action of which is not mingled, especially in

the beginning, with suffering and misery? The massing together of

human beings in vast agglomerations is favourable to boldness and

independence of thought, but it frequently sets private life free

from the wholesome restraint of public opinion, and gives shelter to

debauchery and crime. Wealth and leisure united give birth to mental

cultivation, but they also give birth to pride and luxury among the

rich, and to irritation and covetousness among the poor. The art of

printing brings home knowledge and truth to all ranks of society,

but it has brought also afflicting doubt and subversive error.

Political liberty has unchained [p316] tempests and revolutions,

and has modified the simple manners of primitive nations, to such a

decree as to induce thinking men to ask themselves whether they would

not have preferred tranquillity under the cold shade of despotism.

Christianity herself has cast the noble seed of love and charity into

a soil saturated with the blood of martyrs.

Why has it entered into the designs of Infinite Goodness and Justice

that the happiness of one region or of one era should be purchased at

the expense of the sufferings of another region or of another era?

What is the Divine purpose which is concealed under this great law

of ‹solidarity›, of which Competition is only one of the mysterious

aspects? Human science cannot answer. What we do know is this, that

good always goes on increasing, and that evil goes on diminishing.

From the beginning of the social state, such as conquest had made

it, when there existed only masters and slaves, and the inequality

of conditions was extreme, the work of Competition in approximating

ranks, fortunes, intelligences, could not be accomplished without

inflicting individual hardships, the intensity of which, however,

as the work proceeded, has gone on diminishing, like the vibrations

of sound and the oscillations of the pendulum. To the sufferings

yet in reserve for them, men learn every day to oppose two powerful

remedies—namely, ‹foresight›, which is the fruit of knowledge and

experience; and ‹association›, which is organized foresight.

* * * * *

In the first part of this work—alas! too hastily written—I have

endeavoured to keep the reader’s attention fixed upon the line of

demarcation, always flexible, but always marked, which separates the

two regions of the economic world—natural co-operation, and human

labour—the bounty of God, and the work of man—the gratuitous, and

the onerous—that which in exchange is remunerated, and that which

is transferred without remuneration—aggregate utility, and the

fractional and supplementary utility which constitutes value—absolute

wealth, and relative wealth—the co-operation of chemical or

mechanical forces, constrained to aid production by the instruments

which render them available, and the just recompense of the labour

which has created these instruments themselves—Community and Property.

It is not enough to mark these two orders of phenomena which are

so essentially different, it is necessary also to describe their

relations, and, if I may so express myself, their harmonious

evolutions. I have essayed to explain how the business of Property

consists in conquering utility for the human race, and, casting it

[p317] into the domain of Community, to move on to new conquests—so

that each given effort, and consequently the aggregate of efforts,

should continually be delivering over to mankind satisfactions which

are always increasing. Human services exchanged, while preserving

their relative value, become the vehicle of an always increasing

proportion of utility which is gratuitous, and, therefore, common;

and in this consists progress. The possessors of value, then,

whatever form it assumes, far from usurping and monopolizing the

gifts of God, multiply these gifts, without causing them to lose the

character which Providence has affixed to them, of being—Gratuitous.

In proportion as the satisfactions which are handed over by progress

to the charge of nature fall by that very fact into the domain of

Community, they become ‹equal›—it being impossible for us even to

conceive inequality except in the domain of human services, which are

compared, appreciated, and ‹estimated› with a view to an exchange;

whence it follows that Equality among men is necessarily progressive.

It is so, likewise, in another respect, the action of Competition

having for its inevitable result to level and equalize the services

themselves, and to bring their recompense more and more into

proportion with their merit.

Let us now throw a glance back on the ground over which we have

passed.

By the light of the theory, the foundation of which has been laid in

the present volume, we shall have to investigate:

The relations of man with the Economic phenomena, in his capacity of

producer, and in his character of consumer;

The law of Rent;

That of Wages;

That of Credit;

That of Taxation, which, introducing us into the domain of Politics,

properly so called, will lead us to compare those services which are

private and voluntary with those which are public and compulsory;

The law of Population.

We shall then be in a situation to solve some practical problems

which are still disputed—Free-trade, Machinery, Luxury, Leisure,

Association, Organization of Labour, etc.

I hesitate not to say, that the result of this exposition may be

expressed beforehand in these terms: ‹The constant approximation

of all men towards a level which is always rising›—in other terms:

‹Improvement and Equalization›; in a single word, «Harmony».

Such is the definitive result of the arrangements of Providence—of

[p318] the great laws of nature—when they act without impediment,

when we regard them as they are in themselves, and apart from any

disturbance of their action by error and violence. On beholding this

Harmony, the Economist may well exclaim, like the astronomer who

regards the planetary movements, or the physiologist who contemplates

the structure and arrangement of the human organs—‹Digitus Dei est

hic!›

But man is a free agent, and consequently fallible. He is subject

to ignorance and to passion. His will, which is liable to err,

enters as an element into the play of the economic laws. He may

misunderstand them, forget them, divert them from their purpose. As

the physiologist, after admiring the infinite wisdom displayed in

the structure and relations of our organs and viscera, studies these

organs likewise in their abnormal state when sickly and diseased,

we shall have to penetrate into a new world—the world of social

Disturbances.

We shall pave the way for this new study by some considerations on

man himself. It would be impossible for us to give an account of

‹social evil›, of its origin, its effects, its design—of the limits,

always more and more contracted, within which it is shut up by its

own action (which constitutes what I might almost venture to call

a harmonic dissonance), did we not extend our investigation to the

necessary consequences of Free-Will, to the errors of Self-Interest,

which are constantly corrected, and to the great laws of human

Responsibility and Solidarity.

We have seen the germ of all the ‹social Harmonies› included in these

two principles—«Property», «Liberty». We shall see that all ‹social

Dissonances› are only the development of these two antagonistic

principles—«Spoliation», «Oppression».

The words Property and Liberty, in fact, express only two aspects

of the same idea. In an economical point of view, Liberty is allied

to the act of production—Property to the things produced. And since

Value has its foundation in the human act, we may conclude that

Liberty implies and includes Property. The same relation exists

between Oppression and Spoliation.

Liberty! here at length we have the principle of harmony. Oppression!

here we have the principle of dissonance. The struggle of these two

powers fills the annals of the human race.

And as the design of Oppression is to effect an unjust appropriation,

as it resolves itself into and is summed up in spoliation, it is

Spoliation that must form the subject of our inquiry.

Man comes into this world bound to the yoke of Want, which is pain.

[p319]

He cannot escape from it but by subjecting himself to the yoke of

Labour, which is pain also.

He has, then, only a choice of pains, and he detests pain.

This is the reason why he looks around him, and if he sees that

his fellow-man has accumulated wealth, he conceives the thought of

appropriating it. Hence comes false property, or Spoliation.

Spoliation! here we have a new element in the economy of society.

From the day when it first made its appearance in the world down to

the day when it shall have completely disappeared, if that day ever

come, this element has affected and will affect profoundly the whole

social mechanism; it will disturb, and to the extent of rendering

them no longer recognisable, those laws of social harmony which we

have endeavoured to discover and describe.

Our duty, then, will not have been accomplished until we have

completed the monography of Spoliation.

It may be imagined that we have here to do with an accidental

and exceptional fact, a transient derangement unworthy of the

investigations of science.

But in truth it is not so. On the contrary, Spoliation, in the

traditions of families, in the history of nations, in the occupations

of individuals, in the physical and intellectual energies of classes,

in the schemes and designs of governments, occupies nearly as

prominent a place as Property itself.

No; Spoliation is not an ephemeral scourge, affecting accidentally

the social mechanism, and which economical science may disregard as

exceptional.

The sentence pronounced upon man in the beginning was, ‹In the sweat

of thy brow shalt thou eat bread›. Whence it appears that effort and

satisfaction are indissolubly united, and that the one must be always

the recompense of the other. But on all sides we find man revolting

against this law, and saying to his brother, Thine be the labour, and

mine the fruit of that labour.

Repair to the hut of the savage hunter, or to the tent of the nomad

shepherd, and what spectacle meets your eyes? The wife, lank, pale,

disfigured, affrighted, prematurely old, bears the whole burden of

the household cares, while the man lounges in idleness. What idea can

we form of family Harmonies? The idea has disappeared, for Strength

here throws upon Feebleness the weight of labour. And how many ages

of civilizing effort will be needed to raise the wife from this state

of frightful degradation?

Spoliation, in its most brutal form, armed with torch and sword,

[p320] fills the annals of the world. Of what names is history made

up? Cyrus, Sesostris, Alexander, Scipio, Cæsar, Attila, Tamerlane,

Mahomet, Pizarro, William the Conqueror—pure Spoliation from

beginning to end in the shape of Conquest. Hers are the laurels, the

monuments, the statues, the triumphal arches, the song of the poet,

the intoxicating enthusiasm of the fair!

The Conqueror soon finds that he can turn his victories to more

profitable account than by putting to death the vanquished; and

Slavery covers the earth. Down to our own times, all over the world

this has been the form in which societies have existed, bringing with

it hates, resistance, internal struggles, and revolutions. And what

is Slavery but organized oppression—organized for the purpose of

Spoliation?

But Spoliation not only arms Force against Feebleness—she turns

Intelligence against Credulity. What hard-working people in the

world has escaped being sweated by sacerdotal theocracies, Egyptian

priests, Greek oracles, Roman auguries, Gallic druids, Indian

brahmins, muftis, ulemas, bonzes, monks, ministers, mountebanks,

sorcerers, soothsayers,—spoliators of all garbs and of all

denominations. Assuming this guise, Spoliation places the fulcrum

of her lever in heaven, and sacrilegiously prides herself on the

complicity of the gods! She enslaves not men’s limbs only, but their

souls. She knows how to impress the iron of slavery as well upon the

conscience of Séide[65] as upon the forehead of Spartacus—realizing

what would seem impossible—Mental Slavery.

Mental Slavery! what a frightful association of words! O Liberty! we

have seen thee hunted from country to country, crushed by conquest,

groaning under slavery, insulted in courts, banished from the

schools, laughed at in saloons, misunderstood in workshops, denounced

in churches. It seems thou shouldst find in thought an inviolable

refuge. But if thou art to surrender in this thy last asylum, what

becomes of the hopes of ages, and of what value is human existence?

At length, however, the progressive nature of man causes Spoliation

to develop in the society in which it exists, resistance which

paralyzes its force, and knowledge which unveils its impostures.

But Spoliation does not confess herself conquered for all that; she

only becomes more crafty, and, enveloping herself in the forms of

government and in a system of checks and counterpoises, she gives

birth to Politics, long a prolific resource. We then see her usurping

the liberty of citizens, the better to get hold of their wealth,

[p321] and draining away their wealth to possess herself more

surely of their liberty. Private activity passes into the domain of

public activity. Everything is transacted through functionaries,

and an unintelligent and meddling bureaucracy overspreads the land.

The public treasury becomes a vast reservoir into which labourers

pour their savings, to be immediately distributed among placemen.

Transactions are no longer regulated by free bargaining and

discussion, and the ‹mutuality of services› disappears.

In this state of things the true notion of Property is extinguished,

and every one appeals to the Law to give his services a factitious

value.

We enter then upon the era of privileges. Spoliation, ever

improving in subtilty, fortifies herself in Monopoly, and takes

refuge behind Restrictions. She displaces the natural current of

exchanges, and sends capital into artificial channels, and with

capital, labour—and with labour, population. She gets painfully

produced in the North what is produced with facility in the South;

creates precarious classes and branches of industry; substitutes

for the gratuitous forces of nature the onerous fatigues of labour;

cherishes establishments which can sustain no rivalry, and invokes

against competitors the employment of force; provokes international

jealousies; flatters patriotic arrogance; and invents ingenious

theories, which make auxiliaries of her own dupes. She constantly

renders imminent industrial crises and bankruptcies, shakes to its

foundation all confidence in the future, all faith in liberty, all

consciousness of what is just. At length, when science exposes

her misdeeds, she stirs up against science her own victims, by

proclaiming a Utopia! and ignores not only the science which places

obstacles in her path, but the very idea of any possible science, by

this crowning sentence of scepticism—There are no principles!

Under the pressure of suffering, at length the masses rise, and

overturn everything which is above them. Government, taxes,

legislation, everything is at their mercy, and you imagine perhaps

that there is now an end to the reign of Spoliation;—that the

mutuality of services is about to be established on the only possible

or even imaginable basis—Liberty. Undeceive yourself. The fatal idea,

alas! has permeated the masses, that Property has no other origin, no

other sanction, no other legitimacy, no other foundation, than Law;

and then the masses set to work legislatively to rob one another.

Suffering from the wounds which have been inflicted upon them, they

undertake to cure each of their members by conceding to him the

right to oppress his neighbour, and call [p322] this Solidarity

and Fraternity. “You have produced—I have not produced—we are

‹solidaires›—let us divide.” “You have something—I have nothing—we

are brethren—let us share.” It will be our duty then to examine

the improper use which has been made in these latter days of the

terms association, organization, labour, ‹gratuité du crédit›, etc.

We shall have to subject them to this test—Do they imply Liberty

or Oppression? In other words, are they in unison with the great

Economical laws, or are they disturbances of those laws?

Spoliation is a phenomenon too universal, too persistent, to permit

us to attribute to it a character purely accidental. In this, as in

many other matters, we cannot separate the study of natural laws from

the study of their Perturbations.

But, it may be said, if spoliation enters necessarily into the play

of the social mechanism as a ‹dissonance›, how can you venture to

assert the Harmony of the Economic laws?

I must repeat here what I have said in another place, namely, that

in all which concerns man, a being who is only ‹perfectible› because

he is ‹imperfect›, Harmony consists, not in the absolute absence of

‹evil›, but in its gradual diminution. The social body, like the

human body, is provided with a curative force, a ‹vis medicatrix›,

the laws and infallible power of which it is impossible to study

without again exclaiming, ‹Digitus Dei est hic›. [p323]

XI.

PRODUCER—CONSUMER.

If the level of the human race is not continually rising, man is not

a perfectible being.

If the social tendency is not a constant approximation of all men

towards this progressive elevation, the economic laws are not

harmonious.

Now, how can the level of humanity be rising, if each given

quantity of labour does not yield a constantly increasing amount

of enjoyments, a phenomenon which can be explained only by the

transformation of onerous into gratuitous utility.

And, on the other hand, how can this utility, having become

gratuitous, bring men nearer and nearer to a common level, if the

utility has not at the same time itself become common?

Here, then, we discover the essential law of social harmony.

I should have been pleased had the language of Political Economy

furnished me with two words other than the terms ‹production› and

‹consumption›, to designate services which are rendered and received.

These terms savour too much of materiality. There are evidently

services, like those of the clergyman, the professor, the soldier,

the artist, which tend to the furtherance of morality, education,

security, taste, which have nothing in common with mechanical or

manufacturing industry, except this, that the end to be attained is

‹satisfaction› or enjoyment.

The terms I have referred to are those generally employed, and I

have no wish to become a neologist. But let it be understood that by

‹production› I mean what confers utility, and by ‹consumption› the

enjoyment to which that utility gives rise.

Let the protectionist school—which is in reality a phase of

Communism—believe that in employing the terms ‹producer› and

‹consumer› we are not absurd enough to wish to represent the human

race as divided into two distinct classes, the one engaged [p324]

exclusively in the work of producing, the other exclusively in that

of consuming. The naturalist divides the human race into whites

and blacks, or into men and women, and the economist, forsooth, is

not to classify them as producers and consumers, because, as the

protectionist gentlemen sagely remark, ‹producer and consumer make

but one person›!

Why, it is for the very reason that they do make but one that each

individual comes to be considered by the science of Political Economy

in this double capacity. Our business is not to divide the human

race into two classes, but to study man under two very different

aspects. If the protectionists were to forbid grammarians to employ

the pronouns ‹I› and ‹thou›, on the pretext that every man is in

turn ‹the person speaking› and ‹the person spoken to›, it would be

a sufficient answer to say, that although it be perfectly true that

we cannot place all the tongues on one side, and all the ears on the

other, since every man has both ears and a tongue, it by no means

follows that, with reference to each proposition enunciated, the

tongue does not pertain to one man and the ear to another. In the

same way, ‹with reference to every service›, the man who renders it

is quite distinct from the man who receives it. The producer and

consumer are always set opposite each other, so much so that they

have always a controversy.

The very people who object to our studying mankind under the double

aspect of producers and consumers have no difficulty in making this

distinction when they address themselves to legislative assemblies.

We then find them demanding monopoly or freedom of trade, according

as the matter in dispute refers to a commodity which they sell, or a

commodity which they purchase.

Without dwelling longer, then, on this preliminary exception taken by

the protectionists, let us acknowledge that in the social order the

separation of employments causes each man to occupy two situations,

sufficiently distinct to render their action and relations worthy of

our study.

In general, we devote ourselves to some special trade, profession, or

career, and it is not from that particular source that we expect to

derive our satisfactions. We render and receive services; we supply

and demand values; we make purchases and sales; we work for others,

and others work for us; in short, we are ‹producers and consumers›.

According as we present ourselves in the market in one or other of

these capacities, we carry thither a spirit which is very different,

or rather, I should say, very opposite. Suppose, for example, that

corn is the subject of the transaction. The same man has very [p325]

different views when he goes to market as a purchaser, from what

he has when he goes there as a seller. As a purchaser, he desires

abundance; as a seller, scarcity. In either case, these desires

may be traced to the same source—personal interest; but as to sell

or buy, to give or to receive, to supply or to demand, are acts as

opposite as possible, they cannot but give rise, and from the same

motive, to opposite desires.

Antagonistic desires cannot at one and the same time coincide with

the general good.

In another work,[66] I have endeavoured to show that the wishes or

desires of men in their capacity of consumers are those which are

in harmony with the public interest; and it cannot be otherwise.

For seeing that enjoyment is the end and design of labour, and that

the labour is determined only by the obstacle to be overcome, it is

evident that labour is in this sense an ‹evil›, and that everything

should tend to diminish it; that enjoyment is a ‹good›, and that

everything should tend to increase it.

And here presents itself the great, the perpetual, the deplorable

illusion which springs from the erroneous definition of ‹value›, and

from confounding value with ‹utility›.

Value being simply a relation, is of as much greater importance to

each individual as it is of less importance to society at large.

What renders service to the masses is utility alone; and value is not

at all the measure of it.

What renders service to the individual is still only utility. But

value is the measure of it; for, with each determinate value, he

obtains from society the utility of his choice, in the proportion of

that value.

If we regard man as an isolated being, it is as clear as day that

consumption, and not production, is the essential thing; for

consumption to a certain extent implies labour, but labour does not

imply consumption.

The separation of employments has led certain economists to measure

the general prosperity, not by consumption, but by labour. And by

following these economists we have come to this strange subversion of

principle, to favour labour at the expense of its results.

The reasoning has been this: The more difficulties are overcome the

better. Then augment the difficulties to be conquered.

The error of this reasoning is manifest.

No doubt, a certain amount of difficulties being given, it is

fortunate that a certain quantity of labour also given should [p326]

surmount as many of these difficulties as possible. But to diminish

the power of the labourer or augment that of the difficulties, in

order to increase value, is positively monstrous.

An individual member of society is interested in this, that his

services, while preserving even the same degree of utility, should

increase in value. Suppose his desires in this respect to be

realized, it is easy to perceive what will happen. He is better off,

but his brethren are worse off, seeing that the total amount of

utility has not been increased.

We cannot then reason from particulars to generals, and say: Pursue

such measures as in their result will satisfy the desire which all

individuals entertain to see the value of their services augmented.

Value being a relation, we should have accomplished nothing if the

increase in all departments were proportionate to the anterior value;

if it were arbitrary and unequal for different services, we should

have done nothing but introduce injustice into the distribution of

utilities.

It is of the nature of every bargain or mercantile transaction to

give rise to a ‹debate›. But by using this word debate, shall I not

bring down upon myself all the sentimental schools which are nowadays

so numerous? ‹Debate› implies ‹antagonism›, it will be said. You

admit, then, that antagonism is the natural state of society. Here

again I have to break another lance; for in this country economic

science is so little understood, that one cannot make use of a word

without raising up an opponent.

I have been justly reproached for using the phrase that “Between

the seller and buyer there exists a radical antagonism.” The word

‹antagonism›, when strengthened by the word ‹radical›, implies much

more than I meant to express. It would seem to imply a permanent

opposition of interests, consequently an indestructible social

dissonance; while what I wished to indicate was merely that transient

debate or discussion which precedes every commercial transaction, and

which is inherent in the very idea of a bargain.

As long as, to the regret of the sentimental utopiast, there shall

remain a vestige of liberty in the world, buyers and sellers will

discuss their interests, and higgle about prices; nor will the

social laws cease to be harmonious on that account. Is it possible

to conceive that the man who ‹offers› and the man who ‹demands› a

service should meet each other in the market without having for the

moment a different idea of its ‹value›? Is that to set the world on

fire? Must all commercial transactions, all exchanges, all barter,

all liberty, be banished from this earth, or are we to allow each of

[p327] the contracting parties to defend his position, and urge and

put forward his motives? It is this very free debate or discussion

which gives rise to the equivalence of services and the equity of

transactions. By what other means can our system-makers ensure this

equity which is so desirable? Would they by legislation trammel the

liberty of one of the parties only? Then the one must be in the power

of the other. Would they take away from both the liberty of managing

their own affairs, under the pretext that they ought henceforth

to buy and sell on the principle of fraternity? Let me tell the

Socialists that it is here their absurdity becomes apparent, for,

in the long-run, these interests must be regulated and adjusted. Is

the discussion to be inverted, the purchaser taking the part of the

seller and ‹vice versa›? Such transactions would be very diverting,

we must allow. “Please, sir, give me only 10 francs for this cloth.”

“What say you? I will give you 20 for it.” “But, my good sir, it

is worth nothing—it is out of fashion—it will be worn out in a

fortnight,” says the merchant. “It is of the best quality, and will

last two winters,” replies the customer. “Very well, sir, to please

you, I will add 5 francs—this is all the length that fraternity will

allow me to go.” “It is against my Socialist principles to pay less

than 20 francs, but we must learn to make sacrifices, and I agree.”

Thus this whimsical transaction will just arrive at the ordinary

result, and our system-makers will regret to see accursed liberty

still surviving, although turned upside down and engendering a new

antagonism.

That is not what we want, say the ‹organisateurs›; what we desire

is liberty. Then, what would you be at? for services must still

be exchanged, and conditions adjusted. We expect that the care of

adjusting them should be left to us. I suspected as much. . . . . .

Fraternity! bond of brotherhood, sacred flame kindled by heaven in

man’s soul, how has thy name been abused! In thy name all freedom

has been stifled. In thy name a new despotism, such as the world had

never before seen, has been erected; and we are at length driven to

fear that the very name of fraternity, after being thus sullied, and

having served as the rallying cry of so many incapables, the mask of

so much ambition, and proud contempt of human dignity, should end by

losing altogether its grand and noble significance.

Let us no longer, then, aim at overturning everything, domineering

over everything and everybody, and withdrawing all—men and

things—from the operation of natural laws. Let us leave the world

as God has made it. Let us, poor scribblers, not imagine [p328]

ourselves anything else than observers, more or less exact, of what

is passing around us. Let us no longer render ourselves ridiculous

by pretending to change human nature, as if we were ourselves beyond

humanity and its errors and weaknesses. Let us leave producers and

consumers to take care of their own interests, and to arrange and

adjust these interests by honest and peaceful conventions. Let us

confine ourselves to the observation of relations, and the effects

to which they give rise. This is precisely what I am about to do,

keeping always in view this general law, which I apprehend to be the

law of human society, namely, the gradual equalization of individuals

and of classes, combined with general progress.

A line no more resembles a force or a velocity, than it does a value

or a utility. Mathematicians, nevertheless, make use of diagrams; and

why should not the economist do the same?

We have values which are equal, values the mutual relations of which

are known as the half, the quarter, double, triple, etc. There is

nothing to prevent our representing these differences by lines of

various lengths.

But the same thing does not hold with reference to ‹utility›. General

utility, as we have seen, may be resolved into gratuitous utility

and onerous utility, the former due to the action of nature, the

latter the result of human labour. This last being capable of being

estimated and measured, may be represented by a line of determinate

length; but the other is not susceptible of estimation or of

measurement. No doubt in the production of a measure of wheat, of a

cask of wine, of an ox, of a stone of wool, a ton of coals, a bundle

of faggots, nature does much. But we have no means of measuring this

natural co-operation of forces, most of which are unknown to us, and

which have been in operation since the beginning of time. Nor have we

any interest in doing so. We may represent gratuitous utility, then,

by an indefinite line.

Now, let there be two products, the ‹value› of the one being double

that of the other, they may be represented by these lines:—

I A B

................————————————————————

I C D

................——————————

IB, ID, represent the total product, general utility, what satisfies

man’s wants, absolute wealth. [p329]

IA, IC, the co-operation of nature, gratuitous utility, the part

which belongs to the domain of community.

AB, CD, human service, onerous utility, ‹value›, relative wealth,

the part which belongs to the domain of property.

I need not say that AB, which you may suppose, if you will, to

represent a house, a piece of furniture, a book, a song sung by Jenny

Lind, a horse, a bale of cloth, a consultation of physicians, etc.,

will exchange for twice CD, and that the two men who effect the

exchange will give into the bargain, and without even being aware of

it, the one, once IA, the other twice IC.

Man is so constituted that his constant endeavour is to diminish the

proportion of effort to result, to substitute the action of nature

for his own action; in a word, to accomplish more with less. This is

the constant aim of his skill, his intelligence, and his energy.

Let us suppose then that John, the producer of IB, discovers a

process by means of which he accomplishes his work with one-half the

labour which it formerly cost him, taking everything into account,

even the construction of the instrument by means of which he avails

himself of the co-operation of nature.

As long as he preserves his secret, we shall have no change in the

figures we have given above; AB and CD will represent the same

values, the same relations; for John alone of all the world being

acquainted with the improved process, he will turn it exclusively to

his own profit and advantage. He will take his ease for half the day,

or else he will make, each day, twice the quantity of IB, and his

labour will be better remunerated. The discovery he has made is for

the good of mankind, but mankind in this case is represented by one

man.

And here let us remark, in passing, how fallacious is the axiom of

the English Economists that ‹value comes from labour›, if thereby

it is intended to represent ‹value› and ‹labour› as proportionate.

Here we have the labour diminished by one-half, and yet no change

in the value. This is what constantly happens, and why? Because the

service is the same. Before as after the discovery, as long as it

is a secret, he who gives or transfers IB renders the same service.

But things will no longer be in the same position when Peter, the

producer of ID, is enabled to say, “You ask me for two hours of my

labour in exchange for one hour of yours; but I have found out your

process, and if you set so high a price on your service, I shall

serve myself.”

Now this day must necessarily come. A process once realized [p330]

is not long a mystery. Then the value of the product IB will fall by

one-half, and we shall have these two figures.

I A A´ B

.................................————————————

I C D

.................................————————————

AA´ represent value annihilated, relative wealth which has

disappeared, property become common, utility formerly onerous, now

gratuitous.

For, as regards John, who here represents the producer, he is

reinstated in his former condition. With the same effort which it

cost him formerly to produce IB, he can now produce twice as much. In

order to obtain twice ID, we see him constrained to give twice IB, or

what IB represents, be it furniture, books, houses, or what it may.

Who profits by all this? Clearly Peter, the producer of ID, who here

represents consumers in general, including John himself. If, in fact,

John desires to consume his own product, he profits by the saving of

time represented by the suppression of AA´. As regards Peter, that

is to say as regards consumers in general, they can now purchase IB

with half the expenditure of time, effort, labour, value, compared

with what it would have cost them before the intervention of natural

forces. These forces, then, are gratuitous, and, moreover, common.

Since I have ventured to illustrate my argument by geometrical

figures, perhaps I may be permitted to give another example, and I

shall be happy if by this method—somewhat whimsical, I allow, as

applied to Political Economy—I can render more intelligible to the

reader the phenomena which I wish to describe.

As a producer, or as a consumer, every man may be considered as a

centre from whence radiate the services which he renders, and to

which tend the services which he receives in exchange.

Suppose then that there is placed at A (Fig. 1) a producer, a

copyist, for example, or transcriber of manuscripts, who here

represents all producers, or production in general. He furnishes to

society four manuscripts. If at the present moment the ‹value› of

each of these manuscripts is equal to 15, he renders services equal

to 60, and receives an equal value, variously spread over a multitude

of services. To simplify the demonstration, I suppose only [p331]

four of them, proceeding from four points of the circumference BCDE.

[Illustration: «Fig. 1.»

Value produced = 60

Value received = 60

Utility produced = 4]

[Illustration: «Fig. 2.»

Value produced = 60

Value received = 60

Utility produced = 6]

This man, we now suppose, discovers the art of printing. He can

thenceforth produce in 40 hours what formerly would have cost him

60. Admit that competition forces him to reduce proportionally the

price of his books, and that in place of being worth 15, they are now

worth only 10. But then in place of four our workman can now produce

six books. On the other hand, the fund of remuneration proceeding

from the circumference, amounting to 60, has not changed. There is

remuneration for six books, worth 10 each, just as there was formerly

remuneration for four manuscripts, each worth 15.

This, let me remark briefly, is what is always lost sight of in

discussing the question of machinery, of free-trade, and of progress

in general. Men see the labour set free and rendered disposable by

the expeditive process, and they become alarmed. They do not see that

a corresponding proportion of remuneration is rendered disposable

also by the same circumstance.

The new transactions we have supposed are represented by Fig. 2,

where we see radiate from the centre A, a total value of 60, spread

over six books, in place of four manuscripts. From the circumference

still proceeds a value, equal to 60, necessary now as formerly, to

make up the balance.

Who then has gained by the change? As regards ‹value›, no one. As

regards real wealth, positive satisfactions, the countless body

of consumers ranged round the circumference. Each of them can now

purchase a book with an amount of labour reduced by one-third. But

the consumers are the human race. For observe that [p332] A himself,

if he gains nothing in his capacity of producer,—if he is obliged,

as formerly, to perform 60 hours’ labour in order to obtain the old

remuneration,—nevertheless, in as far as he is a consumer of books,

gains exactly as others do. Like them, if he desires to read, he can

procure this enjoyment with an economy of labour equal to one-third.

But if, in his character of producer, he finds himself at length

deprived of the profit of his own inventions, by competition, where

in that case is his compensation?

His compensation consists, ‹1st›, in this, that as long as he was

able to preserve his secret, he continued to sell 15 of what he

produced at the cost of 10; ‹2dly›, In this, that he obtains books

for his own use at a smaller cost, and thus participates in the

advantages he has procured for society. But, ‹3dly›, His compensation

consists above all in this, that just in the same way as he has been

forced to impart to his fellow-men the benefit of his own progress,

he benefits by the progress of his fellow-men.

[Illustration: «Fig. 3.»]

Just as the progress accomplished by A has profited B, C, D, E, the

progress realized by B, C, D, E has profited A. By turns A finds

himself at the centre and at the circumference of universal industry,

for he is by turns producer and consumer. If B, for example, is a

cotton-spinner who has introduced improved machinery, the profit will

redound to A as well as to C, D. If C is a mariner who has replaced

the oar by the sail, the economy of labour will profit B, A, E.