CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION
I
Looking at society and its political organization from a different
standpoint than that of all the authoritarian schools--for we start from
a free individual to reach a free society, instead of beginning by the
State to come down to the individual--we follow the same method in
economic questions. We study the needs of the individuals, and the means
by which they satisfy them, before discussing Production, Exchange,
Taxation, Government, and so on. At first sight the difference may
appear trifling, but in reality it upsets all the canons of official
Political Economy.
If you open the works of any economist you will find that he begins with
PRODUCTION, _i. e._, by the analysis of the means employed nowadays for
the creation of wealth: division of labour, the factory, its machinery,
the accumulation of capital. From Adam Smith to Marx, all have proceeded
along these lines. Only in the latter parts of their books do they treat
of CONSUMPTION, that is to say, of the means resorted to in our present
Society to satisfy the needs of the individuals; and even there they
confine themselves to explaining how riches _are_ divided among those
who vie with one another for their possession.
Perhaps you will say this is logical. Before satisfying needs you must
create the wherewithal to satisfy them. But, before producing anything,
must you not feel the need of it? Was it not necessity that first drove
man to hunt, to raise cattle, to cultivate land, to make implements, and
later on to invent machinery? Is it not the study of the needs that
should govern production? To say the least, it would therefore be quite
as logical to begin by considering the needs, and afterwards to discuss
how production is, and ought to be, organized, in order to satisfy these
needs.
This is precisely what we mean to do.
But as soon as we look at Political Economy from this point of view, it
entirely changes its aspect. It ceases to be a simple description of
facts, and becomes a _science_, and we may define this science as: "_The
study of the needs of mankind, and the means of satisfying them with the
least possible waste of human energy_". Its true name should be,
_Physiology of Society_. It constitutes a parallel science to the
physiology of plants and animals, which is the study of the needs of
plants and animals, and of the most advantageous ways of satisfying
them. In the series of sociological sciences, the economy of human
societies takes the place, occupied in the series of biological sciences
by the physiology of organic bodies.
We say, here are human beings, united in a society. All of them feel the
need of living in healthy houses. The savage's hut no longer satisfies
them; they require a more or less comfortable solid shelter. The
question is, then: whether, taking the present capacity of men for
production, every man can have a house of his own? and what is hindering
him from having it?
And as soon as we ask _this_ question, we see that every family in
Europe could perfectly well have a comfortable house, such as are built
in England, in Belgium, or in Pullman City, or else an equivalent set of
rooms. A certain number of days' work would suffice to build a pretty
little airy house, well fitted up and lighted by electricity.
But nine-tenths of Europeans have never possessed a healthy house,
because at all times common people have had to work day after day to
satisfy the needs of their rulers, and have never had the necessary
leisure or money to build, or to have built, the home of their dreams.
And they can have no houses, and will inhabit hovels as long as present
conditions remain unchanged.
It is thus seen that our method is quite contrary to that of the
economists, who immortalize the so-called _laws_ of production, and,
reckoning up the number of houses built every year, demonstrate by
statistics, that as the number of the new-built houses _is_ too small to
meet all demands, nine-tenths of Europeans _must_ live in hovels.
Let us pass on to food. After having enumerated the benefits accruing
from the division of labour, economists tell us the division of labour
requires that some men should work at agriculture and others at
manufacture. Farmers producing so much, factories so much, exchange
being carried on in such a way, they analyze the sale, the profit, the
net gain or the surplus value, the wages, the taxes, banking, and so on.
But after having followed them so far, we are none the wiser, and if we
ask them: "How is it that millions of human beings are in want of bread,
when every family could grow sufficient wheat to feed ten, twenty, and
even a hundred people annually?" they answer us by droning the same
anthem--division of labour, wages, surplus value, capital,
etc.--arriving at the same conclusion, that production is insufficient
to satisfy all needs; a conclusion which, if true, does not answer the
question: "Can or cannot man by his labour produce the bread he needs?
And if he cannot, what is it that hinders him?"
Here are 350 million Europeans. They need so much bread, so much meat,
wine, milk, eggs, and butter every year. They need so many houses, so
much clothing. This is the minimum of their needs. Can they produce all
this? and if they can, will sufficient leisure be left them for art,
science, and amusement?--in a word, for everything that is not comprised
in the category of absolute necessities? If the answer is in the
affirmative,--What hinders them going ahead? What must they do to remove
the obstacles? Is it time that is needed to achieve such a result? Let
them take it! But let us not lose sight of the aim of production--the
satisfaction of the needs of all.
If the most imperious needs of man remain unsatisfied now,--What must we
do to increase the productivity of our work? But is there no other
cause? Might it not be that production, having lost sight of the _needs_
of man, has strayed in an absolutely wrong direction, and that its
organization is at fault? And as we can prove that such is the case, let
us see how to reorganize production so as to really satisfy all needs.
This seems to us the only right way of facing things. The only way that
would allow of Political Economy becoming a science--the Science of
Social Physiology.
It is evident that so long as science treats of production, as _it is_
carried on at present by civilized nations, by Hindoo communes, or by
savages, it can hardly state facts otherwise than the economists state
them now; that is to say, as a simple _descriptive_ chapter, analogous
to the descriptive chapters of Zoology and Botany. But if this chapter
were written so as to throw some light on the economy of the energy that
is necessary to satisfy human needs, the chapter would gain in
precision, as well as in descriptive value. It would clearly show the
frightful waste of human energy under the present system, and it would
prove that as long as this system exists, the needs of humanity will
never be satisfied.
The point of view, we see, would be entirely changed. Behind the loom
that weaves so many yards of cloth, behind the steel-plate perforator,
and behind the safe in which dividends are hoarded, we should see man,
the artisan of production, more often than not excluded from the feast
he has prepared for others. We should also understand that the
standpoint being wrong, the so-called "laws" of value and exchange are
but a very false explanation of events, as they happen nowadays; and
that things will come to pass very differently when production is
organized in such a manner as to meet all needs of society.
II
There is not one single principle of Political Economy that does not
change its aspect if you look at it from our point of view.
Take, for instance, over-production, a word which every day re-echoes in
our ears. Is there a single economist, academician, or candidate for
academical honours, who has not supported arguments, proving that
economic crises are due to over-production--that at a given moment more
cotton, more cloth, more watches are produced than are needed! Have we
not, all of us, thundered against the rapacity of the capitalists who
are obstinately bent on producing more than can possibly be consumed!
However, on careful examination all these reasonings prove unsound. In
fact, Is there one single commodity among those in universal use which
is produced in greater quantity than need be. Examine one by one all
commodities sent out by countries exporting on a large scale, and you
will see that nearly all are produced in _insufficient_ quantities for
the inhabitants of the countries exporting them.
It is not a surplus of wheat that the Russian peasant sends to Europe.
The most plentiful harvests of wheat and rye in European Russia only
yield _enough_ for the population. And as a rule, the peasant deprives
himself of what he actually needs when he sells his wheat or rye to pay
rent and taxes.
It is not a surplus of coal that England sends to the four corners of
the globe, because only three-quarters of a ton, per head of population,
annually, remains for home domestic consumption, and millions of
Englishmen are deprived of fire in the winter, or have only just enough
to boil a few vegetables. In fact, setting aside useless luxuries, there
is in England, which exports more than any other country, one single
commodity in universal use--cottons--whose production is sufficiently
great to _perhaps_ exceed the needs of the community. Yet when we look
upon the rags that pass for wearing apparel worn by over a third of the
inhabitants of the United Kingdom, we are led to ask ourselves whether
the cottons exported would not, on the whole, suit the _real_ needs of
the population?
As a rule it is not a surplus that is exported, though it may have been
so originally. The fable of the barefooted shoemaker is as true of
nations as it was formerly of individual artisans. We export the
_necessary_ commodities. And we do so, because the workmen cannot buy
with their wages what they have produced, _and pay besides the rent and
interest to the capitalist and the banker_.
Not only does the ever-growing need of comfort remain unsatisfied, but
the strict necessities of life are often wanting. Therefore, "surplus
production" does _not_ exist, at least not in the sense given to it by
the theorists of Political Economy.
Taking another point--all economists tell us that there is a well-proved
law: "Man produces more than he consumes." After he has lived on the
proceeds of his toil, there remains a surplus. Thus, a family of
cultivators produces enough to feed several families, and so forth.
For us, this oft-repeated sentence has no sense. If it meant that each
generation leaves something to future generations, it would be true;
thus, for example, a farmer plants a tree that will live, maybe, for
thirty, forty, or a hundred years, and whose fruits will still be
gathered by the farmer's grandchildren. Or he clears a few acres of
virgin soil, and we say that the heritage of future generations has been
increased by that much. Roads, bridges, canals, his house and his
furniture are so much wealth bequeathed to succeeding generations.
But this is not what is meant. We are told that the cultivator produces
more than he _need_ consume. Rather should they say that, the State
having always taken from him a large share of his produce for taxes, the
priest for tithe, and the landlord for rent, a whole class of men has
been created, who formerly consumed what they produced--save what was
set aside for unforeseen accidents, or expenses incurred in
afforestation, roads, etc.--but who to-day are compelled to live very
poorly, from hand to mouth, the remainder having been taken from them by
the State, the landlord, the priest, and the usurer.
Therefore we prefer to say: The agricultural labourer, the industrial
worker and so on _consume less than they produce_,--because they are
_compelled_ to sell most of the produce of their labour and to be
satisfied with but a small portion of it.
Let us also observe that if the needs of the individual are taken as the
starting-point of our political economy, we cannot fail to reach
Communism, an organization which enables us to satisfy all needs in the
most thorough and economical way. While if we start from our present
method of production, and aim at gain and surplus value, without asking
whether our production corresponds to the satisfaction of needs, we
necessarily arrive at Capitalism, or at most at Collectivism--both being
but two different forms of the present wages' system.
In fact, when we consider the needs of the individual and of society,
and the means which man has resorted to in order to satisfy them during
his varied phases of development, we see at once the necessity of
systematizing our efforts, instead of producing haphazard as we do
nowadays. It becomes evident that the appropriation by a few of all
riches not consumed, and transmitted from one generation to another, is
not in the general interest. And we see as a fact that owing to these
methods the needs of three-quarters of society are _not_ satisfied, so
that the present waste of human strength in useless things is only the
more criminal.
We discover, moreover, that the most advantageous use of all commodities
would be, for each of them, to go, first, for satisfying those needs
which are the most pressing: that, in other words, the so-called "value
in use" of a commodity does not depend on a simple whim, as has often
been affirmed, but on the satisfaction it brings to _real_ needs.
Communism--that is to say, an organization which would correspond to a
view of Consumption, Production, and Exchange, taken as a
whole--therefore becomes the logical consequence of such a comprehension
of things--the only one, in our opinion, that is really scientific.
A society that will satisfy the needs of all, and which will know how to
organize production to answer to this aim will also have to make a clean
sweep of several prejudices concerning industry, and first of all the
theory often preached by economists--_The Division of Labour_
theory--which we are going to discuss in the next chapter.