To establish his
communistic
edifice, he lowered all citizens
to the stature of the smallest.
to the stature of the smallest.
Proudhon - What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government
In a short time, the soil is thoroughly changed; the
mellowed earth waits only for the seed. That done, the proprietor pays
his laborers, who, on going away, return him their thanks, and grieve
that the happy days which they have spent with him are over.
Others follow this example, always with the same success. Then, these
installed, the rest disperse,--each one returns to his grubbing. But,
while grubbing, it is necessary to live. While they have been clearing
away for their neighbor, they have done no clearing for themselves. One
year's seed-time and harvest is already gone. They had calculated that
in lending their labor they could not but gain, since they would save
their own provisions; and, while living better, would get still more
money. False calculation! they have created for another the means
wherewith to produce, and have created nothing for themselves. The
difficulties of clearing remain the same; their clothing wears out,
their provisions give out; soon their purse becomes empty for the profit
of the individual for whom they have worked, and who alone can furnish
the provisions which they need, since he alone is in a position to
produce them. Then, when the poor grubber has exhausted his resources,
the man with the provisions (like the wolf in the fable, who scents his
victim from afar) again comes forward. One he offers to employ again by
the day; from another he offers to buy at a favorable price a piece of
his bad land, which is not, and never can be, of any use to him: that
is, he uses the labor of one man to cultivate the field of another
for his own benefit. So that at the end of twenty years, of thirty
individuals originally equal in point of wealth, five or six have
become proprietors of the whole district, while the rest have been
philanthropically dispossessed!
In this century of bourgeoisie morality, in which I have had the honor
to be born, the moral sense is so debased that I should not be at all
surprised if I were asked, by many a worthy proprietor, what I see
in this that is unjust and illegitimate? Debased creature! galvanized
corpse! how can I expect to convince you, if you cannot tell robbery
when I show it to you? A man, by soft and insinuating words, discovers
the secret of taxing others that he may establish himself; then, once
enriched by their united efforts, he refuses, on the very conditions
which he himself dictated, to advance the well-being of those who made
his fortune for him: and you ask how such conduct is fraudulent! Under
the pretext that he has paid his laborers, that he owes them nothing
more, that he has nothing to gain by putting himself at the service of
others, while his own occupations claim his attention,--he refuses, I
say, to aid others in getting a foothold, as he was aided in getting his
own; and when, in the impotence of their isolation, these poor laborers
are compelled to sell their birthright, he--this ungrateful proprietor,
this knavish upstart--stands ready to put the finishing touch to their
deprivation and their ruin. And you think that just? Take care!
I read in your startled countenance the reproach of a guilty conscience,
much more clearly than the innocent astonishment of involuntary
ignorance.
"The capitalist," they say, "has paid the laborers their DAILY WAGES. "
To be accurate, it must be said that the capitalist has paid as many
times one day's wage as he has employed laborers each day,--which is not
at all the same thing. For he has paid nothing for that immense
power which results from the union and harmony of laborers, and
the convergence and simultaneousness of their efforts. Two hundred
grenadiers stood the obelisk of Luxor upon its base in a few hours; do
you suppose that one man could have accomplished the same task in two
hundred days? Nevertheless, on the books of the capitalist, the amount
of wages paid would have been the same. Well, a desert to prepare for
cultivation, a house to build, a factory to run,--all these are
obelisks to erect, mountains to move. The smallest fortune, the most
insignificant establishment, the setting in motion of the lowest
industry, demand the concurrence of so many different kinds of labor and
skill, that one man could not possibly execute the whole of them. It
is astonishing that the economists never have called attention to this
fact. Strike a balance, then, between the capitalist's receipts and his
payments.
The laborer needs a salary which will enable him to live while he works;
for unless he consumes, he cannot produce. Whoever employs a man owes
him maintenance and support, or wages enough to procure the same.
That is the first thing to be done in all production. I admit, for the
moment, that in this respect the capitalist has discharged his duty.
It is necessary that the laborer should find in his production, in
addition to his present support, a guarantee of his future support;
otherwise the source of production would dry up, and his productive
capacity would become exhausted: in other words, the labor accomplished
must give birth perpetually to new labor--such is the universal law of
reproduction. In this way, the proprietor of a farm finds: 1. In his
crops, means, not only of supporting himself and his family, but of
maintaining and improving his capital, of feeding his live-stock--in a
word, means of new labor and continual reproduction; 2. In his ownership
of a productive agency, a permanent basis of cultivation and labor.
But he who lends his services,--what is his basis of cultivation?
The proprietor's presumed need of him, and the unwarranted supposition
that he wishes to employ him. Just as the commoner once held his land by
the munificence and condescension of the lord, so to-day the working-man
holds his labor by the condescension and necessities of the master
and proprietor: that is what is called possession by a precarious [15]
title. But this precarious condition is an injustice, for it implies
an inequality in the bargain. The laborer's wages exceed but little his
running expenses, and do not assure him wages for to-morrow; while the
capitalist finds in the instrument produced by the laborer a pledge of
independence and security for the future.
Now, this reproductive leaven--this eternal germ of life,
this preparation of the land and manufacture of implements for
production--constitutes the debt of the capitalist to the producer,
which he never pays; and it is this fraudulent denial which causes the
poverty of the laborer, the luxury of idleness, and the inequality of
conditions. This it is, above all other things, which has been so fitly
named the exploitation of man by man.
One of three things must be done. Either the laborer must be given a
portion of the product in addition to his wages; or the employer must
render the laborer an equivalent in productive service; or else he
must pledge himself to employ him for ever. Division of the product,
reciprocity of service, or guarantee of perpetual labor,--from the
adoption of one of these courses the capitalist cannot escape. But it
is evident that he cannot satisfy the second and third of these
conditions--he can neither put himself at the service of the thousands
of working-men, who, directly or indirectly, have aided him in
establishing himself, nor employ them all for ever. He has no other
course left him, then, but a division of the property. But if the
property is divided, all conditions will be equal--there will be no more
large capitalists or large proprietors.
Consequently, when M. Ch. Comte--following out his hypothesis--shows
us his capitalist acquiring one after another the products of his
employees' labor, he sinks deeper and deeper into the mire; and, as his
argument does not change, our reply of course remains the same.
"Other laborers are employed in building: some quarry the stone, others
transport it, others cut it, and still others put it in place. Each
of them adds a certain value to the material which passes through his
hands; and this value, the product of his labor, is his property. He
sells it, as fast as he creates it, to the proprietor of the building,
who pays him for it in food and wages. "
_Divide et impera_--divide, and you shall command; divide, and you
shall grow rich; divide, and you shall deceive men, you shall daze their
minds, you shall mock at justice! Separate laborers from each other,
perhaps each one's daily wage exceeds the value of each individual's
product; but that is not the question under consideration. A force of
one thousand men working twenty days has been paid the same wages that
one would be paid for working fifty-five years; but this force of
one thousand has done in twenty days what a single man could not have
accomplished, though he had labored for a million centuries. Is the
exchange an equitable one? Once more, no; when you have paid all the
individual forces, the collective force still remains to be paid.
Consequently, there remains always a right of collective property which
you have not acquired, and which you enjoy unjustly.
Admit that twenty days' wages suffice to feed, lodge, and clothe this
multitude for twenty days: thrown out of employment at the end of that
time, what will become of them, if, as fast as they create, they abandon
their creations to the proprietors who will soon discharge them? While
the proprietor, firm in his position (thanks to the aid of all the
laborers), dwells in security, and fears no lack of labor or bread,
the laborer's only dependence is upon the benevolence of this same
proprietor, to whom he has sold and surrendered his liberty. If, then,
the proprietor, shielding himself behind his comfort and his rights,
refuses to employ the laborer, how can the laborer live? He has ploughed
an excellent field, and cannot sow it; he has built an elegant and
commodious house, and cannot live in it; he has produced all, and can
enjoy nothing.
Labor leads us to equality. Every step that we take brings us nearer to
it; and if laborers had equal strength, diligence, and industry, clearly
their fortunes would be equal also. Indeed, if, as is pretended,--and
as we have admitted,--the laborer is proprietor of the value which he
creates, it follows:--
1. That the laborer acquires at the expense of the idle proprietor;
2. That all production being necessarily collective, the laborer is
entitled to a share of the products and profits commensurate with his
labor;
3. That all accumulated capital being social property, no one can be its
exclusive proprietor.
These inferences are unavoidable; these alone would suffice to
revolutionize our whole economical system, and change our institutions
and our laws. Why do the very persons, who laid down this principle, now
refuse to be guided by it? Why do the Says, the Comtes, the Hennequins,
and others--after having said that property is born of labor--seek to
fix it by occupation and prescription?
But let us leave these sophists to their contradictions and blindness.
The good sense of the people will do justice to their equivocations.
Let us make haste to enlighten it, and show it the true path. Equality
approaches; already between it and us but a short distance intervenes:
to-morrow even this distance will have been traversed.
% 6. --That in Society all Wages are Equal.
When the St. Simonians, the Fourierists, and, in general, all who in our
day are connected with social economy and reform, inscribe upon their
banner,--
"TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS CAPACITY, TO EACH CAPACITY ACCORDING TO ITS
RESULTS" (St. Simon);
"TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS CAPITAL, HIS LABOR, AND HIS SKILL"
(Fourier),--
they mean--although they do not say so in so many words--that the
products of Nature procured by labor and industry are a reward, a palm,
a crown offered to all kinds of preeminence and superiority. They regard
the land as an immense arena in which prizes are contended for,--no
longer, it is true, with lances and swords, by force and by treachery;
but by acquired wealth, by knowledge, talent, and by virtue itself. In
a word, they mean--and everybody agrees with them--that the greatest
capacity is entitled to the greatest reward; and, to use the
mercantile phraseology,--which has, at least, the merit of being
straightforward,--that salaries must be governed by capacity and its
results.
The disciples of these two self-styled reformers cannot deny that such
is their thought; for, in doing so, they would contradict their
official interpretations, and would destroy the unity of their systems.
Furthermore, such a denial on their part is not to be feared. The
two sects glory in laying down as a principle inequality of
conditions,--reasoning from Nature, who, they say, intended the
inequality of capacities. They boast only of one thing; namely, that
their political system is so perfect, that the social inequalities
always correspond with the natural inequalities. They no more trouble
themselves to inquire whether inequality of conditions--I mean of
salaries--is possible, than they do to fix a measure of capacity. [1]
[1] In St. Simon's system, the St. -Simonian priest determines the
capacity of each by virtue of his pontifical infallibility, in imitation
of the Roman Church: in Fourier's, the ranks and merits are decided by
vote, in imitation of the constitutional regime.
Clearly, the great man is an object of ridicule to the reader; he did
not mean to tell his secret.
"To each according to his capacity, to each capacity according to its
results. "
"To each according to his capital, his labor, and his skill. "
Since the death of St. Simon and Fourier, not one among their numerous
disciples has attempted to give to the public a scientific demonstration
of this grand maxim; and I would wager a hundred to one that no
Fourierist even suspects that this biform aphorism is susceptible of two
interpretations.
"To each according to his capacity, to each capacity according to its
results. "
"To each according to his capital, his labor, and his skill. "
This proposition, taken, as they say, _in sensu obvio_--in the sense
usually attributed to it--is false, absurd, unjust, contradictory,
hostile to liberty, friendly to tyranny, anti-social, and was unluckily
framed under the express influence of the property idea.
And, first, CAPITAL must be crossed off the list of elements which are
entitled to a reward. The Fourierists--as far as I have been able to
learn from a few of their pamphlets--deny the right of occupancy, and
recognize no basis of property save labor. Starting with a like premise,
they would have seen--had they reasoned upon the matter--that capital is
a source of production to its proprietor only by virtue of the right of
occupancy, and that this production is therefore illegitimate. Indeed,
if labor is the sole basis of property, I cease to be proprietor of my
field as soon as I receive rent for it from another. This we have
shown beyond all cavil. It is the same with all capital; so that to put
capital in an enterprise, is, by the law's decision, to exchange it
for an equivalent sum in products. I will not enter again upon this
now useless discussion, since I propose, in the following chapter, to
exhaust the subject of PRODUCTION BY CAPITAL.
Thus, capital can be exchanged, but cannot be a source of income.
LABOR and SKILL remain; or, as St. Simon puts it, RESULTS and
CAPACITIES. I will examine them successively.
Should wages be governed by labor? In other words, is it just that
he who does the most should get the most? I beg the reader to pay the
closest attention to this point.
To solve the problem with one stroke, we have only to ask ourselves
the following question: "Is labor a CONDITION or a STRUGGLE? " The reply
seems plain.
God said to man, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,"--that
is, thou shalt produce thy own bread: with more or less ease, according
to thy skill in directing and combining thy efforts, thou shalt labor.
God did not say, "Thou shalt quarrel with thy neighbor for thy bread;"
but, "Thou shalt labor by the side of thy neighbor, and ye shall dwell
together in harmony. " Let us develop the meaning of this law, the
extreme simplicity of which renders it liable to misconstruction.
In labor, two things must be noticed and distinguished: ASSOCIATION and
AVAILABLE MATERIAL.
In so far as laborers are associated, they are equal; and it involves a
contradiction to say that one should be paid more than another. For,
as the product of one laborer can be paid for only in the product of
another laborer, if the two products are unequal, the remainder--or the
difference between the greater and the smaller--will not be acquired
by society; and, therefore, not being exchanged, will not affect the
equality of wages. There will result, it is true, in favor of the
stronger laborer a natural inequality, but not a social inequality; no
one having suffered by his strength and productive energy. In a word,
society exchanges only equal products--that is, rewards no labor save
that performed for her benefit; consequently, she pays all laborers
equally: with what they produce outside of her sphere she has no more to
do, than with the difference in their voices and their hair.
I seem to be positing the principle of inequality: the reverse of this
is the truth. The total amount of labor which can be performed for
society (that is, of labor susceptible of exchange), being, within a
given space, as much greater as the laborers are more numerous, and as
the task assigned to each is less in magnitude,--it follows that natural
inequality neutralizes itself in proportion as association extends, and
as the quantity of consumable values produced thereby increases. So that
in society the only thing which could bring back the inequality of labor
would be the right of occupancy,--the right of property.
Now, suppose that this daily social task consists in the ploughing,
hoeing, or reaping of two square decameters, and that the average time
required to accomplish it is seven hours: one laborer will finish it in
six hours, another will require eight; the majority, however, will work
seven. But provided each one furnishes the quantity of labor demanded of
him, whatever be the time he employs, they are entitled to equal wages.
Shall the laborer who is capable of finishing his task in six hours have
the right, on the ground of superior strength and activity, to usurp
the task of the less skilful laborer, and thus rob him of his labor and
bread? Who dares maintain such a proposition? He who finishes before the
others may rest, if he chooses; he may devote himself to useful exercise
and labors for the maintenance of his strength, and the culture of his
mind, and the pleasure of his life. This he can do without injury to any
one: but let him confine himself to services which affect him solely.
Vigor, genius, diligence, and all the personal advantages which result
therefrom, are the work of Nature and, to a certain extent, of the
individual; society awards them the esteem which they merit: but the
wages which it pays them is measured, not by their power, but by their
production. Now, the product of each is limited by the right of all.
If the soil were infinite in extent, and the amount of available
material were exhaustless, even then we could not accept this maxim,--TO
EACH ACCORDING TO HIS LABOR. And why? Because society, I repeat,
whatever be the number of its subjects, is forced to pay them all the
same wages, since she pays them only in their own products. Only, on the
hypothesis just made, inasmuch as the strong cannot be prevented from
using all their advantages, the inconveniences of natural inequality
would reappear in the very bosom of social equality. But the land,
considering the productive power of its inhabitants and their ability to
multiply, is very limited; further, by the immense variety of products
and the extreme division of labor, the social task is made easy of
accomplishment. Now, through this limitation of things producible, and
through the ease of producing them, the law of absolute equality takes
effect.
Yes, life is a struggle. But this struggle is not between man and
man--it is between man and Nature; and it is each one's duty to take
his share in it. If, in the struggle, the strong come to the aid of the
weak, their kindness deserves praise and love; but their aid must be
accepted as a free gift,--not imposed by force, nor offered at a
price. All have the same career before them, neither too long nor too
difficult; whoever finishes it finds his reward at the end: it is not
necessary to get there first.
In printing-offices, where the laborers usually work by the job, the
compositor receives so much per thousand letters set; the pressman so
much per thousand sheets printed. There, as elsewhere, inequalities
of talent and skill are to be found. When there is no prospect of dull
times (for printing and typesetting, like all other trades, sometimes
come to a stand-still), every one is free to work his hardest, and exert
his faculties to the utmost: he who does more gets more; he who does
less gets less. When business slackens, compositors and pressmen divide
up their labor; all monopolists are detested as no better than robbers
or traitors.
There is a philosophy in the action of these printers, to which
neither economists nor legists have ever risen. If our legislators had
introduced into their codes the principle of distributive justice
which governs printing-offices; if they had observed the popular
instincts,--not for the sake of servile imitation, but in order to
reform and generalize them,--long ere this liberty and equality would
have been established on an immovable basis, and we should not now
be disputing about the right of property and the necessity of social
distinctions.
It has been calculated that if labor were equally shared by the whole
number of able-bodied individuals, the average working-day of each
individual, in France, would not exceed five hours. This being so, how
can we presume to talk of the inequality of laborers? It is the LABOR of
Robert Macaire that causes inequality.
The principle, TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS LABOR, interpreted to mean, WHO
WORKS MOST SHOULD RECEIVE MOST, is based, therefore, on two palpable
errors: one, an error in economy, that in the labor of society tasks
must necessarily be unequal; the other, an error in physics, that there
is no limit to the amount of producible things.
"But," it will be said, "suppose there are some people who wish to
perform only half of their task? ". . . Is that very embarrassing? Probably
they are satisfied with half of their salary. Paid according to the
labor that they had performed, of what could they complain? and what
injury would they do to others? In this sense, it is fair to apply the
maxim,--TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS RESULTS. It is the law of equality
itself.
Further, numerous difficulties, relative to the police system and the
organization of industry, might be raised here. I will reply to them all
with this one sentence,--that they must all be solved by the principle
of equality. Thus, some one might observe, "Here is a task which cannot
be postponed without detriment to production. Ought society to suffer
from the negligence of a few? and will she not venture--out of respect
for the right of labor--to assure with her own hands the product which
they refuse her? In such a case, to whom will the salary belong? "
To society; who will be allowed to perform the labor, either herself, or
through her representatives, but always in such a way that the general
equality shall never be violated, and that only the idler shall be
punished for his idleness. Further, if society may not use excessive
severity towards her lazy members, she has a right, in self-defence, to
guard against abuses.
But every industry needs--they will add--leaders, instructors,
superintendents, &c. Will these be engaged in the general task? No;
since their task is to lead, instruct, and superintend. But they must be
chosen from the laborers by the laborers themselves, and must fulfil
the conditions of eligibility. It is the same with all public functions,
whether of administration or instruction.
Then, article first of the universal constitution will be:--
"The limited quantity of available material proves the necessity of
dividing the labor among the whole number of laborers. The capacity,
given to all, of accomplishing a social task,--that is, an equal
task,--and the impossibility of paying one laborer save in the products
of another, justify the equality of wages. "
% 7. --That Inequality of Powers is the Necessary Condition of Equality
of Fortunes.
It is objected,--and this objection constitutes the second part of the
St. Simonian, and the third part of the Fourierstic, maxims,--
"That all kinds of labor cannot be executed with equal ease. Some
require great superiority of skill and intelligence; and on this
superiority is based the price. The artist, the savant, the poet, the
statesman, are esteemed only because of their excellence; and this
excellence destroys all similitude between them and other men: in the
presence of these heights of science and genius the law of equality
disappears. Now, if equality is not absolute, there is no equality.
From the poet we descend to the novelist; from the sculptor to the
stonecutter; from the architect to the mason; from the chemist to the
cook, &c. Capacities are classified and subdivided into orders, genera,
and species. The extremes of talent are connected by intermediate
talents. Humanity is a vast hierarchy, in which the individual estimates
himself by comparison, and fixes his price by the value placed upon his
product by the public. "
This objection always has seemed a formidable one. It is the
stumbling-block of the economists, as well as of the defenders of
equality. It has led the former into egregious blunders, and has caused
the latter to utter incredible platitudes. Gracchus Babeuf wished all
superiority to be STRINGENTLY REPRESSED, and even PERSECUTED AS A SOCIAL
CALAMITY.
To establish his communistic edifice, he lowered all citizens
to the stature of the smallest. Ignorant eclectics have been known to
object to the inequality of knowledge, and I should not be surprised if
some one should yet rebel against the inequality of virtue. Aristotle
was banished, Socrates drank the hemlock, Epaminondas was called to
account, for having proved superior in intelligence and virtue to some
dissolute and foolish demagogues. Such follies will be re-enacted, so
long as the inequality of fortunes justifies a populace, blinded and
oppressed by the wealthy, in fearing the elevation of new tyrants to
power.
Nothing seems more unnatural than that which we examine too closely, and
often nothing seems less like the truth than the truth itself. On the
other hand, according to J. J. Rousseau, "it takes a great deal of
philosophy to enable us to observe once what we see every day;" and,
according to d'Alembert, "the ordinary truths of life make but little
impression on men, unless their attention is especially called to them. "
The father of the school of economists (Say), from whom I borrow these
two quotations, might have profited by them; but he who laughs at the
blind should wear spectacles, and he who notices him is near-sighted.
Strange! that which has frightened so many minds is not, after all,
an objection to equality--it is the very condition on which equality
exists! . . .
Natural inequality the condition of equality of fortunes! . . . What
a paradox! . . . I repeat my assertion, that no one may think I have
blundered--inequality of powers is the sine qua non of equality of
fortunes.
There are two things to be considered in society--FUNCTIONS and
RELATIONS.
I. FUNCTIONS. Every laborer is supposed to be capable of performing the
task assigned to him; or, to use a common expression, "every workman
must know his trade. " The workman equal to his work,--there is an
equation between functionary and function.
In society, functions are not alike; there must be, then, different
capacities. Further,--certain functions demand greater intelligence
and powers; then there are people of superior mind and talent. For
the performance of work necessarily involves a workman: from the need
springs the idea, and the idea makes the producer. We only know what our
senses long for and our intelligence demands; we have no keen desire
for things of which we cannot conceive, and the greater our powers of
conception, the greater our capabilities of production.
Thus, functions arising from needs, needs from desires, and desires
from spontaneous perception and imagination, the same intelligence which
imagines can also produce; consequently, no labor is superior to the
laborer. In a word, if the function calls out the functionary, it is
because the functionary exists before the function.
Let us admire Nature's economy. With regard to these various needs which
she has given us, and which the isolated man cannot satisfy unaided,
Nature has granted to the race a power refused to the individual. This
gives rise to the principle of the DIVISION OF LABOR,--a principle
founded on the SPECIALITY OF VOCATIONS.
The satisfaction of some needs demands of man continual creation;
while others can, by the labor of a single individual, be satisfied for
millions of men through thousands of centuries. For example, the need of
clothing and food requires perpetual reproduction; while a knowledge
of the system of the universe may be acquired for ever by two or
three highly-gifted men. The perpetual current of rivers supports our
commerce, and runs our machinery; but the sun, alone in the midst of
space, gives light to the whole world. Nature, who might create
Platos and Virgils, Newtons and Cuviers, as she creates husbandmen and
shepherds, does not see fit to do so; choosing rather to proportion the
rarity of genius to the duration of its products, and to balance the
number of capacities by the competency of each one of them.
I do not inquire here whether the distance which separates one man from
another, in point of talent and intelligence, arises from the deplorable
condition of civilization, nor whether that which is now called the
INEQUALITY OF POWERS would be in an ideal society any thing more than
a DIVERSITY OF POWERS. I take the worst view of the matter; and, that
I may not be accused of tergiversation and evasion of difficulties, I
acknowledge all the inequalities that any one can desire. [16]
Certain philosophers, in love with the levelling idea, maintain that all
minds are equal, and that all differences are the result of education.
I am no believer, I confess, in this doctrine; which, even if it were
true, would lead to a result directly opposite to that desired. For, if
capacities are equal, whatever be the degree of their power (as no one
can be coerced), there are functions deemed coarse, low, and degrading,
which deserve higher pay,--a result no less repugnant to equality than
to the principle, TO EACH CAPACITY ACCORDING TO ITS RESULTS. Give me,
on the contrary, a society in which every kind of talent bears a proper
numerical relation to the needs of the society, and which demands from
each producer only that which his special function requires him to
produce; and, without impairing in the least the hierarchy of functions,
I will deduce the equality of fortunes.
This is my second point.
II. RELATIONS. In considering the element of labor, I have shown that in
the same class of productive services, the capacity to perform a social
task being possessed by all, no inequality of reward can be based upon
an inequality of individual powers. However, it is but fair to say that
certain capacities seem quite incapable of certain services; so that, if
human industry were entirely confined to one class of products, numerous
incapacities would arise, and, consequently, the greatest social
inequality. But every body sees, without any hint from me, that the
variety of industries avoids this difficulty; so clear is this that
I shall not stop to discuss it. We have only to prove, then, that
functions are equal to each other; just as laborers, who perform the
same function, are equal to each other.
Property makes man a eunuch, and then reproaches him for being nothing
but dry wood, a decaying tree.
Are you astonished that I refuse to genius, to knowledge, to
courage,--in a word, to all the excellences admired by the world,--the
homage of dignities, the distinctions of power and wealth? It is not I
who refuse it: it is economy, it is justice, it is liberty. Liberty! for
the first time in this discussion I appeal to her. Let her rise in her
own defence, and achieve her victory.
Every transaction ending in an exchange of products or services may be
designated as a COMMERCIAL OPERATION.
Whoever says commerce, says exchange of equal values; for, if the values
are not equal, and the injured party perceives it, he will not consent
to the exchange, and there will be no commerce.
Commerce exists only among free men. Transactions may be effected
between other people by violence or fraud, but there is no commerce.
A free man is one who enjoys the use of his reason and his faculties;
who is neither blinded by passion, nor hindered or driven by oppression,
nor deceived by erroneous opinions.
So, in every exchange, there is a moral obligation that neither of the
contracting parties shall gain at the expense of the other; that is,
that, to be legitimate and true, commerce must be exempt from all
inequality. This is the first condition of commerce. Its second
condition is, that it be voluntary; that is, that the parties act freely
and openly.
I define, then, commerce or exchange as an act of society.
The negro who sells his wife for a knife, his children for some bits
of glass, and finally himself for a bottle of brandy, is not free. The
dealer in human flesh, with whom he negotiates, is not his associate; he
is his enemy.
The civilized laborer who bakes a loaf that he may eat a slice of bread,
who builds a palace that he may sleep in a stable, who weaves rich
fabrics that he may dress in rags, who produces every thing that he may
dispense with every thing,--is not free. His employer, not becoming
his associate in the exchange of salaries or services which takes place
between them, is his enemy.
The soldier who serves his country through fear instead of through love
is not free; his comrades and his officers, the ministers or organs of
military justice, are all his enemies.
The peasant who hires land, the manufacturer who borrows capital, the
tax-payer who pays tolls, duties, patent and license fees, personal and
property taxes, &c. , and the deputy who votes for them,--all act
neither intelligently nor freely. Their enemies are the proprietors, the
capitalists, the government.
Give men liberty, enlighten their minds that they may know the meaning
of their contracts, and you will see the most perfect equality in
exchanges without regard to superiority of talent and knowledge; and
you will admit that in commercial affairs, that is, in the sphere of
society, the word superiority is void of sense.
Let Homer sing his verse. I listen to this sublime genius in comparison
with whom I, a simple herdsman, an humble farmer, am as nothing. What,
indeed,--if product is to be compared with product,--are my cheeses and
my beans in the presence of his "Iliad"? But, if Homer wishes to take
from me all that I possess, and make me his slave in return for his
inimitable poem, I will give up the pleasure of his lays, and dismiss
him. I can do without his "Iliad," and wait, if necessary, for the
"AEneid. "
Homer cannot live twenty-four hours without my products. Let him accept,
then, the little that I have to offer; and then his muse may instruct,
encourage, and console me.
"What! do you say that such should be the condition of one who sings of
gods and men? Alms, with the humiliation and suffering which they bring
with them! --what barbarous generosity! ". . . Do not get excited, I beg
of you. Property makes of a poet either a Croesus or a beggar; only
equality knows how to honor and to praise him. What is its duty? To
regulate the right of the singer and the duty of the listener. Now,
notice this point, which is a very important one in the solution of this
question: both are free, the one to sell, the other to buy. Henceforth
their respective pretensions go for nothing; and the estimate, whether
fair or unfair, that they place, the one upon his verse, the other
upon his liberality, can have no influence upon the conditions of the
contract. We must no longer, in making our bargains, weigh talent; we
must consider products only.
In order that the bard of Achilles may get his due reward, he must first
make himself wanted: that done, the exchange of his verse for a fee of
any kind, being a free act, must be at the same time a just act; that
is, the poet's fee must be equal to his product. Now, what is the value
of this product?
Let us suppose, in the first place, that this "Iliad"--this chef-d'
oeuvre that is to be equitably rewarded--is really above price, that we
do not know how to appraise it. If the public, who are free to purchase
it, refuse to do so, it is clear that, the poem being unexchangeable,
its intrinsic value will not be diminished; but that its exchangeable
value, or its productive utility, will be reduced to zero, will be
nothing at all. Then we must seek the amount of wages to be paid between
infinity on the one hand and nothing on the other, at an equal distance
from each, since all rights and liberties are entitled to equal respect;
in other words, it is not the intrinsic value, but the relative value,
of the thing sold that needs to be fixed. The question grows simpler:
what is this relative value? To what reward does a poem like the "Iliad"
entitle its author?
The first business of political economy, after fixing its definitions,
was the solution of this problem; now, not only has it not been solved,
but it has been declared insoluble. According to the economists,
the relative or exchangeable value of things cannot be absolutely
determined; it necessarily varies.
"The value of a thing," says Say, "is a positive quantity, but only for
a given moment. It is its nature to perpetually vary, to change from one
point to another. Nothing can fix it absolutely, because it is based
on needs and means of production which vary with every moment. These
variations complicate economical phenomena, and often render them very
difficult of observation and solution. I know no remedy for this; it is
not in our power to change the nature of things. "
Elsewhere Say says, and repeats, that value being based on utility, and
utility depending entirely on our needs, whims, customs, &c. , value
is as variable as opinion. Now, political economy being the science
of values, of their production, distribution, exchange, and
consumption,--if exchangeable value cannot be absolutely determined,
how is political economy possible? How can it be a science? How can two
economists look each other in the face without laughing? How dare they
insult metaphysicians and psychologists? What! that fool of a Descartes
imagined that philosophy needed an immovable base--an _aliquid
inconcussum_--on which the edifice of science might be built, and he was
simple enough to search for it! And the Hermes of economy, Trismegistus
Say, devoting half a volume to the amplification of that solemn text,
_political economy is a science_, has the courage to affirm immediately
afterwards that this science cannot determine its object,--which is
equivalent to saying that it is without a principle or foundation! He
does not know, then, the illustrious Say, the nature of a science; or
rather, he knows nothing of the subject which he discusses.
Say's example has borne its fruits. Political economy, as it exists at
present, resembles ontology: discussing effects and causes, it knows
nothing, explains nothing, decides nothing. The ideas honored with the
name of economic laws are nothing more than a few trifling generalities,
to which the economists thought to give an appearance of depth by
clothing them in high-sounding words. As for the attempts that have been
made by the economists to solve social problems, all that can be said
of them is, that, if a glimmer of sense occasionally appears in their
lucubrations, they immediately fall back into absurdity. For twenty-five
years political economy, like a heavy fog, has weighed upon France,
checking the efforts of the mind, and setting limits to liberty.
Has every creation of industry a venal, absolute, unchangeable, and
consequently legitimate and true value? --Yes.
Can every product of man be exchanged for some other product of
man? --Yes, again.
How many nails is a pair of shoes worth?
If we can solve this appalling problem, we shall have the key of the
social system for which humanity has been searching for six thousand
years. In the presence of this problem, the economist recoils confused;
the peasant who can neither read nor write replies without hesitation:
"As many as can be made in the same time, and with the same expense. "
The absolute value of a thing, then, is its cost in time and expense.
How much is a diamond worth which costs only the labor of picking it
up? --Nothing; it is not a product of man. How much will it be worth when
cut and mounted? --The time and expense which it has cost the laborer.
Why, then, is it sold at so high a price? --Because men are not free.
Society must regulate the exchange and distribution of the rarest
things, as it does that of the most common ones, in such a way that each
may share in the enjoyment of them. What, then, is that value which is
based upon opinion? --Delusion, injustice, and robbery.
By this rule, it is easy to reconcile every body. If the mean term,
which we are searching for, between an infinite value and no value at
all is expressed in the case of every product, by the amount of time and
expense which the product cost, a poem which has cost its author thirty
years of labor and an outlay of ten thousand francs in journeys, books,
&c. , must be paid for by the ordinary wages received by a laborer during
thirty years, PLUS ten thousand francs indemnity for expense incurred.
Suppose the whole amount to be fifty thousand francs; if the society
which gets the benefit of the production include a million of men, my
share of the debt is five centimes.
This gives rise to a few observations.
1. The same product, at different times and in different places, may
cost more or less of time and outlay; in this view, it is true that
value is a variable quantity. But this variation is not that of the
economists, who place in their list of the causes of the variation of
values, not only the means of production, but taste, caprice, fashion,
and opinion. In short, the true value of a thing is invariable in its
algebraic expression, although it may vary in its monetary expression.
2. The price of every product in demand should be its cost in time and
outlay--neither more nor less: every product not in demand is a loss to
the producer--a commercial non-value.
3. The ignorance of the principle of evaluation, and the difficulty
under many circumstances of applying it, is the source of commercial
fraud, and one of the most potent causes of the inequality of fortunes.
4. To reward certain industries and pay for certain products, a society
is needed which corresponds in size with the rarity of talents, the
costliness of the products, and the variety of the arts and sciences.
If, for example, a society of fifty farmers can support a schoolmaster,
it requires one hundred for a shoemaker, one hundred and fifty for a
blacksmith, two hundred for a tailor, &c. If the number of farmers rises
to one thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand, &c. , as fast as
their number increases, that of the functionaries which are earliest
required must increase in the same proportion; so that the highest
functions become possible only in the most powerful societies. [17] That
is the peculiar feature of capacities; the character of genius, the seal
of its glory, cannot arise and develop itself, except in the bosom of
a great nation. But this physiological condition, necessary to the
existence of genius, adds nothing to its social rights: far from
that,--the delay in its appearance proves that, in economical and
civil affairs, the loftiest intelligence must submit to the equality
of possessions; an equality which is anterior to it, and of which it
constitutes the crown.
This is severe on our pride, but it is an inexorable truth. And here
psychology comes to the aid of social economy, giving us to understand
that talent and material recompense have no common measure; that, in
this respect, the condition of all producers is equal: consequently,
that all comparison between them, and all distinction in fortunes, is
impossible.
_ _In fact, every work coming from the hands of man--compared with the
raw material of which it is composed--is beyond price. In this respect,
the distance is as great between a pair of wooden shoes and the trunk of
a walnut-tree, as between a statue by Scopas and a block of marble.
The genius of the simplest mechanic exerts as much influence over the
materials which he uses, as does the mind of a Newton over the inert
spheres whose distances, volumes, and revolutions he calculates. You ask
for talent and genius a corresponding degree of honor and reward. Fix
for me the value of a wood-cutter's talent, and I will fix that of
Homer. If any thing can reward intelligence, it is intelligence itself.
That is what happens, when various classes of producers pay to each
other a reciprocal tribute of admiration and praise. But if they
contemplate an exchange of products with a view to satisfying mutual
needs, this exchange must be effected in accordance with a system of
economy which is indifferent to considerations of talent and genius, and
whose laws are deduced, not from vague and meaningless admiration, but
from a just balance between DEBIT and CREDIT; in short, from commercial
accounts.
Now, that no one may imagine that the liberty of buying and selling
is the sole basis of the equality of wages, and that society's sole
protection against superiority of talent lies in a certain force of
inertia which has nothing in common with right, I shall proceed to
explain why all capacities are entitled to the same reward, and why a
corresponding difference in wages would be an injustice. I shall prove
that the obligation to stoop to the social level is inherent in talent;
and on this very superiority of genius I will found the equality of
fortunes. I have just given the negative argument in favor of rewarding
all capacities alike; I will now give the direct and positive argument.
Listen, first, to the economist: it is always pleasant to see how he
reasons, and how he understands justice. Without him, moreover, without
his amusing blunders and his wonderful arguments, we should learn
nothing. Equality, so odious to the economist, owes every thing to
political economy.
"When the parents of a physician [the text says a lawyer, which is
not so good an example] have expended on his education forty thousand
francs, this sum may be regarded as so much capital invested in his
head. It is therefore permissible to consider it as yielding an annual
income of four thousand francs. If the physician earns thirty thousand,
there remains an income of twenty-six thousand francs due to the
personal talents given him by Nature. This natural capital, then, if we
assume ten per cent. as the rate of interest, amounts to two hundred
and sixty thousand francs; and the capital given him by his parents, in
defraying the expenses of his education, to forty thousand francs. The
union of these two kinds of capital constitutes his fortune. "--Say:
Complete Course, &c.
Say divides the fortune of the physician into two parts: one is composed
of the capital which went to pay for his education, the other represents
his personal talents. This division is just; it is in conformity with
the nature of things; it is universally admitted; it serves as the
major premise of that grand argument which establishes the inequality of
capacities. I accept this premise without qualification; let us look at
the consequences.
1. Say CREDITS the physician with forty thousand francs,--the cost of
his education. This amount should be entered upon the DEBIT side of the
account. For, although this expense was incurred for him, it was not
incurred by him. Then, instead of appropriating these forty thousand
francs, the physician should add them to the price of his product, and
repay them to those who are entitled to them. Notice, further, that
Say speaks of INCOME instead of REIMBURSEMENT; reasoning on the false
principle of the productivity of capital. The expense of educating a
talent is a debt contracted by this talent. From the very fact of its
existence, it becomes a debtor to an amount equal to the cost of its
production. This is so true and simple that, if the education of some
one child in a family has cost double or triple that of its brothers,
the latter are entitled to a proportional amount of the property
previous to its division. There is no difficulty about this in the case
of guardianship, when the estate is administered in the name of the
minors.
mellowed earth waits only for the seed. That done, the proprietor pays
his laborers, who, on going away, return him their thanks, and grieve
that the happy days which they have spent with him are over.
Others follow this example, always with the same success. Then, these
installed, the rest disperse,--each one returns to his grubbing. But,
while grubbing, it is necessary to live. While they have been clearing
away for their neighbor, they have done no clearing for themselves. One
year's seed-time and harvest is already gone. They had calculated that
in lending their labor they could not but gain, since they would save
their own provisions; and, while living better, would get still more
money. False calculation! they have created for another the means
wherewith to produce, and have created nothing for themselves. The
difficulties of clearing remain the same; their clothing wears out,
their provisions give out; soon their purse becomes empty for the profit
of the individual for whom they have worked, and who alone can furnish
the provisions which they need, since he alone is in a position to
produce them. Then, when the poor grubber has exhausted his resources,
the man with the provisions (like the wolf in the fable, who scents his
victim from afar) again comes forward. One he offers to employ again by
the day; from another he offers to buy at a favorable price a piece of
his bad land, which is not, and never can be, of any use to him: that
is, he uses the labor of one man to cultivate the field of another
for his own benefit. So that at the end of twenty years, of thirty
individuals originally equal in point of wealth, five or six have
become proprietors of the whole district, while the rest have been
philanthropically dispossessed!
In this century of bourgeoisie morality, in which I have had the honor
to be born, the moral sense is so debased that I should not be at all
surprised if I were asked, by many a worthy proprietor, what I see
in this that is unjust and illegitimate? Debased creature! galvanized
corpse! how can I expect to convince you, if you cannot tell robbery
when I show it to you? A man, by soft and insinuating words, discovers
the secret of taxing others that he may establish himself; then, once
enriched by their united efforts, he refuses, on the very conditions
which he himself dictated, to advance the well-being of those who made
his fortune for him: and you ask how such conduct is fraudulent! Under
the pretext that he has paid his laborers, that he owes them nothing
more, that he has nothing to gain by putting himself at the service of
others, while his own occupations claim his attention,--he refuses, I
say, to aid others in getting a foothold, as he was aided in getting his
own; and when, in the impotence of their isolation, these poor laborers
are compelled to sell their birthright, he--this ungrateful proprietor,
this knavish upstart--stands ready to put the finishing touch to their
deprivation and their ruin. And you think that just? Take care!
I read in your startled countenance the reproach of a guilty conscience,
much more clearly than the innocent astonishment of involuntary
ignorance.
"The capitalist," they say, "has paid the laborers their DAILY WAGES. "
To be accurate, it must be said that the capitalist has paid as many
times one day's wage as he has employed laborers each day,--which is not
at all the same thing. For he has paid nothing for that immense
power which results from the union and harmony of laborers, and
the convergence and simultaneousness of their efforts. Two hundred
grenadiers stood the obelisk of Luxor upon its base in a few hours; do
you suppose that one man could have accomplished the same task in two
hundred days? Nevertheless, on the books of the capitalist, the amount
of wages paid would have been the same. Well, a desert to prepare for
cultivation, a house to build, a factory to run,--all these are
obelisks to erect, mountains to move. The smallest fortune, the most
insignificant establishment, the setting in motion of the lowest
industry, demand the concurrence of so many different kinds of labor and
skill, that one man could not possibly execute the whole of them. It
is astonishing that the economists never have called attention to this
fact. Strike a balance, then, between the capitalist's receipts and his
payments.
The laborer needs a salary which will enable him to live while he works;
for unless he consumes, he cannot produce. Whoever employs a man owes
him maintenance and support, or wages enough to procure the same.
That is the first thing to be done in all production. I admit, for the
moment, that in this respect the capitalist has discharged his duty.
It is necessary that the laborer should find in his production, in
addition to his present support, a guarantee of his future support;
otherwise the source of production would dry up, and his productive
capacity would become exhausted: in other words, the labor accomplished
must give birth perpetually to new labor--such is the universal law of
reproduction. In this way, the proprietor of a farm finds: 1. In his
crops, means, not only of supporting himself and his family, but of
maintaining and improving his capital, of feeding his live-stock--in a
word, means of new labor and continual reproduction; 2. In his ownership
of a productive agency, a permanent basis of cultivation and labor.
But he who lends his services,--what is his basis of cultivation?
The proprietor's presumed need of him, and the unwarranted supposition
that he wishes to employ him. Just as the commoner once held his land by
the munificence and condescension of the lord, so to-day the working-man
holds his labor by the condescension and necessities of the master
and proprietor: that is what is called possession by a precarious [15]
title. But this precarious condition is an injustice, for it implies
an inequality in the bargain. The laborer's wages exceed but little his
running expenses, and do not assure him wages for to-morrow; while the
capitalist finds in the instrument produced by the laborer a pledge of
independence and security for the future.
Now, this reproductive leaven--this eternal germ of life,
this preparation of the land and manufacture of implements for
production--constitutes the debt of the capitalist to the producer,
which he never pays; and it is this fraudulent denial which causes the
poverty of the laborer, the luxury of idleness, and the inequality of
conditions. This it is, above all other things, which has been so fitly
named the exploitation of man by man.
One of three things must be done. Either the laborer must be given a
portion of the product in addition to his wages; or the employer must
render the laborer an equivalent in productive service; or else he
must pledge himself to employ him for ever. Division of the product,
reciprocity of service, or guarantee of perpetual labor,--from the
adoption of one of these courses the capitalist cannot escape. But it
is evident that he cannot satisfy the second and third of these
conditions--he can neither put himself at the service of the thousands
of working-men, who, directly or indirectly, have aided him in
establishing himself, nor employ them all for ever. He has no other
course left him, then, but a division of the property. But if the
property is divided, all conditions will be equal--there will be no more
large capitalists or large proprietors.
Consequently, when M. Ch. Comte--following out his hypothesis--shows
us his capitalist acquiring one after another the products of his
employees' labor, he sinks deeper and deeper into the mire; and, as his
argument does not change, our reply of course remains the same.
"Other laborers are employed in building: some quarry the stone, others
transport it, others cut it, and still others put it in place. Each
of them adds a certain value to the material which passes through his
hands; and this value, the product of his labor, is his property. He
sells it, as fast as he creates it, to the proprietor of the building,
who pays him for it in food and wages. "
_Divide et impera_--divide, and you shall command; divide, and you
shall grow rich; divide, and you shall deceive men, you shall daze their
minds, you shall mock at justice! Separate laborers from each other,
perhaps each one's daily wage exceeds the value of each individual's
product; but that is not the question under consideration. A force of
one thousand men working twenty days has been paid the same wages that
one would be paid for working fifty-five years; but this force of
one thousand has done in twenty days what a single man could not have
accomplished, though he had labored for a million centuries. Is the
exchange an equitable one? Once more, no; when you have paid all the
individual forces, the collective force still remains to be paid.
Consequently, there remains always a right of collective property which
you have not acquired, and which you enjoy unjustly.
Admit that twenty days' wages suffice to feed, lodge, and clothe this
multitude for twenty days: thrown out of employment at the end of that
time, what will become of them, if, as fast as they create, they abandon
their creations to the proprietors who will soon discharge them? While
the proprietor, firm in his position (thanks to the aid of all the
laborers), dwells in security, and fears no lack of labor or bread,
the laborer's only dependence is upon the benevolence of this same
proprietor, to whom he has sold and surrendered his liberty. If, then,
the proprietor, shielding himself behind his comfort and his rights,
refuses to employ the laborer, how can the laborer live? He has ploughed
an excellent field, and cannot sow it; he has built an elegant and
commodious house, and cannot live in it; he has produced all, and can
enjoy nothing.
Labor leads us to equality. Every step that we take brings us nearer to
it; and if laborers had equal strength, diligence, and industry, clearly
their fortunes would be equal also. Indeed, if, as is pretended,--and
as we have admitted,--the laborer is proprietor of the value which he
creates, it follows:--
1. That the laborer acquires at the expense of the idle proprietor;
2. That all production being necessarily collective, the laborer is
entitled to a share of the products and profits commensurate with his
labor;
3. That all accumulated capital being social property, no one can be its
exclusive proprietor.
These inferences are unavoidable; these alone would suffice to
revolutionize our whole economical system, and change our institutions
and our laws. Why do the very persons, who laid down this principle, now
refuse to be guided by it? Why do the Says, the Comtes, the Hennequins,
and others--after having said that property is born of labor--seek to
fix it by occupation and prescription?
But let us leave these sophists to their contradictions and blindness.
The good sense of the people will do justice to their equivocations.
Let us make haste to enlighten it, and show it the true path. Equality
approaches; already between it and us but a short distance intervenes:
to-morrow even this distance will have been traversed.
% 6. --That in Society all Wages are Equal.
When the St. Simonians, the Fourierists, and, in general, all who in our
day are connected with social economy and reform, inscribe upon their
banner,--
"TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS CAPACITY, TO EACH CAPACITY ACCORDING TO ITS
RESULTS" (St. Simon);
"TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS CAPITAL, HIS LABOR, AND HIS SKILL"
(Fourier),--
they mean--although they do not say so in so many words--that the
products of Nature procured by labor and industry are a reward, a palm,
a crown offered to all kinds of preeminence and superiority. They regard
the land as an immense arena in which prizes are contended for,--no
longer, it is true, with lances and swords, by force and by treachery;
but by acquired wealth, by knowledge, talent, and by virtue itself. In
a word, they mean--and everybody agrees with them--that the greatest
capacity is entitled to the greatest reward; and, to use the
mercantile phraseology,--which has, at least, the merit of being
straightforward,--that salaries must be governed by capacity and its
results.
The disciples of these two self-styled reformers cannot deny that such
is their thought; for, in doing so, they would contradict their
official interpretations, and would destroy the unity of their systems.
Furthermore, such a denial on their part is not to be feared. The
two sects glory in laying down as a principle inequality of
conditions,--reasoning from Nature, who, they say, intended the
inequality of capacities. They boast only of one thing; namely, that
their political system is so perfect, that the social inequalities
always correspond with the natural inequalities. They no more trouble
themselves to inquire whether inequality of conditions--I mean of
salaries--is possible, than they do to fix a measure of capacity. [1]
[1] In St. Simon's system, the St. -Simonian priest determines the
capacity of each by virtue of his pontifical infallibility, in imitation
of the Roman Church: in Fourier's, the ranks and merits are decided by
vote, in imitation of the constitutional regime.
Clearly, the great man is an object of ridicule to the reader; he did
not mean to tell his secret.
"To each according to his capacity, to each capacity according to its
results. "
"To each according to his capital, his labor, and his skill. "
Since the death of St. Simon and Fourier, not one among their numerous
disciples has attempted to give to the public a scientific demonstration
of this grand maxim; and I would wager a hundred to one that no
Fourierist even suspects that this biform aphorism is susceptible of two
interpretations.
"To each according to his capacity, to each capacity according to its
results. "
"To each according to his capital, his labor, and his skill. "
This proposition, taken, as they say, _in sensu obvio_--in the sense
usually attributed to it--is false, absurd, unjust, contradictory,
hostile to liberty, friendly to tyranny, anti-social, and was unluckily
framed under the express influence of the property idea.
And, first, CAPITAL must be crossed off the list of elements which are
entitled to a reward. The Fourierists--as far as I have been able to
learn from a few of their pamphlets--deny the right of occupancy, and
recognize no basis of property save labor. Starting with a like premise,
they would have seen--had they reasoned upon the matter--that capital is
a source of production to its proprietor only by virtue of the right of
occupancy, and that this production is therefore illegitimate. Indeed,
if labor is the sole basis of property, I cease to be proprietor of my
field as soon as I receive rent for it from another. This we have
shown beyond all cavil. It is the same with all capital; so that to put
capital in an enterprise, is, by the law's decision, to exchange it
for an equivalent sum in products. I will not enter again upon this
now useless discussion, since I propose, in the following chapter, to
exhaust the subject of PRODUCTION BY CAPITAL.
Thus, capital can be exchanged, but cannot be a source of income.
LABOR and SKILL remain; or, as St. Simon puts it, RESULTS and
CAPACITIES. I will examine them successively.
Should wages be governed by labor? In other words, is it just that
he who does the most should get the most? I beg the reader to pay the
closest attention to this point.
To solve the problem with one stroke, we have only to ask ourselves
the following question: "Is labor a CONDITION or a STRUGGLE? " The reply
seems plain.
God said to man, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,"--that
is, thou shalt produce thy own bread: with more or less ease, according
to thy skill in directing and combining thy efforts, thou shalt labor.
God did not say, "Thou shalt quarrel with thy neighbor for thy bread;"
but, "Thou shalt labor by the side of thy neighbor, and ye shall dwell
together in harmony. " Let us develop the meaning of this law, the
extreme simplicity of which renders it liable to misconstruction.
In labor, two things must be noticed and distinguished: ASSOCIATION and
AVAILABLE MATERIAL.
In so far as laborers are associated, they are equal; and it involves a
contradiction to say that one should be paid more than another. For,
as the product of one laborer can be paid for only in the product of
another laborer, if the two products are unequal, the remainder--or the
difference between the greater and the smaller--will not be acquired
by society; and, therefore, not being exchanged, will not affect the
equality of wages. There will result, it is true, in favor of the
stronger laborer a natural inequality, but not a social inequality; no
one having suffered by his strength and productive energy. In a word,
society exchanges only equal products--that is, rewards no labor save
that performed for her benefit; consequently, she pays all laborers
equally: with what they produce outside of her sphere she has no more to
do, than with the difference in their voices and their hair.
I seem to be positing the principle of inequality: the reverse of this
is the truth. The total amount of labor which can be performed for
society (that is, of labor susceptible of exchange), being, within a
given space, as much greater as the laborers are more numerous, and as
the task assigned to each is less in magnitude,--it follows that natural
inequality neutralizes itself in proportion as association extends, and
as the quantity of consumable values produced thereby increases. So that
in society the only thing which could bring back the inequality of labor
would be the right of occupancy,--the right of property.
Now, suppose that this daily social task consists in the ploughing,
hoeing, or reaping of two square decameters, and that the average time
required to accomplish it is seven hours: one laborer will finish it in
six hours, another will require eight; the majority, however, will work
seven. But provided each one furnishes the quantity of labor demanded of
him, whatever be the time he employs, they are entitled to equal wages.
Shall the laborer who is capable of finishing his task in six hours have
the right, on the ground of superior strength and activity, to usurp
the task of the less skilful laborer, and thus rob him of his labor and
bread? Who dares maintain such a proposition? He who finishes before the
others may rest, if he chooses; he may devote himself to useful exercise
and labors for the maintenance of his strength, and the culture of his
mind, and the pleasure of his life. This he can do without injury to any
one: but let him confine himself to services which affect him solely.
Vigor, genius, diligence, and all the personal advantages which result
therefrom, are the work of Nature and, to a certain extent, of the
individual; society awards them the esteem which they merit: but the
wages which it pays them is measured, not by their power, but by their
production. Now, the product of each is limited by the right of all.
If the soil were infinite in extent, and the amount of available
material were exhaustless, even then we could not accept this maxim,--TO
EACH ACCORDING TO HIS LABOR. And why? Because society, I repeat,
whatever be the number of its subjects, is forced to pay them all the
same wages, since she pays them only in their own products. Only, on the
hypothesis just made, inasmuch as the strong cannot be prevented from
using all their advantages, the inconveniences of natural inequality
would reappear in the very bosom of social equality. But the land,
considering the productive power of its inhabitants and their ability to
multiply, is very limited; further, by the immense variety of products
and the extreme division of labor, the social task is made easy of
accomplishment. Now, through this limitation of things producible, and
through the ease of producing them, the law of absolute equality takes
effect.
Yes, life is a struggle. But this struggle is not between man and
man--it is between man and Nature; and it is each one's duty to take
his share in it. If, in the struggle, the strong come to the aid of the
weak, their kindness deserves praise and love; but their aid must be
accepted as a free gift,--not imposed by force, nor offered at a
price. All have the same career before them, neither too long nor too
difficult; whoever finishes it finds his reward at the end: it is not
necessary to get there first.
In printing-offices, where the laborers usually work by the job, the
compositor receives so much per thousand letters set; the pressman so
much per thousand sheets printed. There, as elsewhere, inequalities
of talent and skill are to be found. When there is no prospect of dull
times (for printing and typesetting, like all other trades, sometimes
come to a stand-still), every one is free to work his hardest, and exert
his faculties to the utmost: he who does more gets more; he who does
less gets less. When business slackens, compositors and pressmen divide
up their labor; all monopolists are detested as no better than robbers
or traitors.
There is a philosophy in the action of these printers, to which
neither economists nor legists have ever risen. If our legislators had
introduced into their codes the principle of distributive justice
which governs printing-offices; if they had observed the popular
instincts,--not for the sake of servile imitation, but in order to
reform and generalize them,--long ere this liberty and equality would
have been established on an immovable basis, and we should not now
be disputing about the right of property and the necessity of social
distinctions.
It has been calculated that if labor were equally shared by the whole
number of able-bodied individuals, the average working-day of each
individual, in France, would not exceed five hours. This being so, how
can we presume to talk of the inequality of laborers? It is the LABOR of
Robert Macaire that causes inequality.
The principle, TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS LABOR, interpreted to mean, WHO
WORKS MOST SHOULD RECEIVE MOST, is based, therefore, on two palpable
errors: one, an error in economy, that in the labor of society tasks
must necessarily be unequal; the other, an error in physics, that there
is no limit to the amount of producible things.
"But," it will be said, "suppose there are some people who wish to
perform only half of their task? ". . . Is that very embarrassing? Probably
they are satisfied with half of their salary. Paid according to the
labor that they had performed, of what could they complain? and what
injury would they do to others? In this sense, it is fair to apply the
maxim,--TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS RESULTS. It is the law of equality
itself.
Further, numerous difficulties, relative to the police system and the
organization of industry, might be raised here. I will reply to them all
with this one sentence,--that they must all be solved by the principle
of equality. Thus, some one might observe, "Here is a task which cannot
be postponed without detriment to production. Ought society to suffer
from the negligence of a few? and will she not venture--out of respect
for the right of labor--to assure with her own hands the product which
they refuse her? In such a case, to whom will the salary belong? "
To society; who will be allowed to perform the labor, either herself, or
through her representatives, but always in such a way that the general
equality shall never be violated, and that only the idler shall be
punished for his idleness. Further, if society may not use excessive
severity towards her lazy members, she has a right, in self-defence, to
guard against abuses.
But every industry needs--they will add--leaders, instructors,
superintendents, &c. Will these be engaged in the general task? No;
since their task is to lead, instruct, and superintend. But they must be
chosen from the laborers by the laborers themselves, and must fulfil
the conditions of eligibility. It is the same with all public functions,
whether of administration or instruction.
Then, article first of the universal constitution will be:--
"The limited quantity of available material proves the necessity of
dividing the labor among the whole number of laborers. The capacity,
given to all, of accomplishing a social task,--that is, an equal
task,--and the impossibility of paying one laborer save in the products
of another, justify the equality of wages. "
% 7. --That Inequality of Powers is the Necessary Condition of Equality
of Fortunes.
It is objected,--and this objection constitutes the second part of the
St. Simonian, and the third part of the Fourierstic, maxims,--
"That all kinds of labor cannot be executed with equal ease. Some
require great superiority of skill and intelligence; and on this
superiority is based the price. The artist, the savant, the poet, the
statesman, are esteemed only because of their excellence; and this
excellence destroys all similitude between them and other men: in the
presence of these heights of science and genius the law of equality
disappears. Now, if equality is not absolute, there is no equality.
From the poet we descend to the novelist; from the sculptor to the
stonecutter; from the architect to the mason; from the chemist to the
cook, &c. Capacities are classified and subdivided into orders, genera,
and species. The extremes of talent are connected by intermediate
talents. Humanity is a vast hierarchy, in which the individual estimates
himself by comparison, and fixes his price by the value placed upon his
product by the public. "
This objection always has seemed a formidable one. It is the
stumbling-block of the economists, as well as of the defenders of
equality. It has led the former into egregious blunders, and has caused
the latter to utter incredible platitudes. Gracchus Babeuf wished all
superiority to be STRINGENTLY REPRESSED, and even PERSECUTED AS A SOCIAL
CALAMITY.
To establish his communistic edifice, he lowered all citizens
to the stature of the smallest. Ignorant eclectics have been known to
object to the inequality of knowledge, and I should not be surprised if
some one should yet rebel against the inequality of virtue. Aristotle
was banished, Socrates drank the hemlock, Epaminondas was called to
account, for having proved superior in intelligence and virtue to some
dissolute and foolish demagogues. Such follies will be re-enacted, so
long as the inequality of fortunes justifies a populace, blinded and
oppressed by the wealthy, in fearing the elevation of new tyrants to
power.
Nothing seems more unnatural than that which we examine too closely, and
often nothing seems less like the truth than the truth itself. On the
other hand, according to J. J. Rousseau, "it takes a great deal of
philosophy to enable us to observe once what we see every day;" and,
according to d'Alembert, "the ordinary truths of life make but little
impression on men, unless their attention is especially called to them. "
The father of the school of economists (Say), from whom I borrow these
two quotations, might have profited by them; but he who laughs at the
blind should wear spectacles, and he who notices him is near-sighted.
Strange! that which has frightened so many minds is not, after all,
an objection to equality--it is the very condition on which equality
exists! . . .
Natural inequality the condition of equality of fortunes! . . . What
a paradox! . . . I repeat my assertion, that no one may think I have
blundered--inequality of powers is the sine qua non of equality of
fortunes.
There are two things to be considered in society--FUNCTIONS and
RELATIONS.
I. FUNCTIONS. Every laborer is supposed to be capable of performing the
task assigned to him; or, to use a common expression, "every workman
must know his trade. " The workman equal to his work,--there is an
equation between functionary and function.
In society, functions are not alike; there must be, then, different
capacities. Further,--certain functions demand greater intelligence
and powers; then there are people of superior mind and talent. For
the performance of work necessarily involves a workman: from the need
springs the idea, and the idea makes the producer. We only know what our
senses long for and our intelligence demands; we have no keen desire
for things of which we cannot conceive, and the greater our powers of
conception, the greater our capabilities of production.
Thus, functions arising from needs, needs from desires, and desires
from spontaneous perception and imagination, the same intelligence which
imagines can also produce; consequently, no labor is superior to the
laborer. In a word, if the function calls out the functionary, it is
because the functionary exists before the function.
Let us admire Nature's economy. With regard to these various needs which
she has given us, and which the isolated man cannot satisfy unaided,
Nature has granted to the race a power refused to the individual. This
gives rise to the principle of the DIVISION OF LABOR,--a principle
founded on the SPECIALITY OF VOCATIONS.
The satisfaction of some needs demands of man continual creation;
while others can, by the labor of a single individual, be satisfied for
millions of men through thousands of centuries. For example, the need of
clothing and food requires perpetual reproduction; while a knowledge
of the system of the universe may be acquired for ever by two or
three highly-gifted men. The perpetual current of rivers supports our
commerce, and runs our machinery; but the sun, alone in the midst of
space, gives light to the whole world. Nature, who might create
Platos and Virgils, Newtons and Cuviers, as she creates husbandmen and
shepherds, does not see fit to do so; choosing rather to proportion the
rarity of genius to the duration of its products, and to balance the
number of capacities by the competency of each one of them.
I do not inquire here whether the distance which separates one man from
another, in point of talent and intelligence, arises from the deplorable
condition of civilization, nor whether that which is now called the
INEQUALITY OF POWERS would be in an ideal society any thing more than
a DIVERSITY OF POWERS. I take the worst view of the matter; and, that
I may not be accused of tergiversation and evasion of difficulties, I
acknowledge all the inequalities that any one can desire. [16]
Certain philosophers, in love with the levelling idea, maintain that all
minds are equal, and that all differences are the result of education.
I am no believer, I confess, in this doctrine; which, even if it were
true, would lead to a result directly opposite to that desired. For, if
capacities are equal, whatever be the degree of their power (as no one
can be coerced), there are functions deemed coarse, low, and degrading,
which deserve higher pay,--a result no less repugnant to equality than
to the principle, TO EACH CAPACITY ACCORDING TO ITS RESULTS. Give me,
on the contrary, a society in which every kind of talent bears a proper
numerical relation to the needs of the society, and which demands from
each producer only that which his special function requires him to
produce; and, without impairing in the least the hierarchy of functions,
I will deduce the equality of fortunes.
This is my second point.
II. RELATIONS. In considering the element of labor, I have shown that in
the same class of productive services, the capacity to perform a social
task being possessed by all, no inequality of reward can be based upon
an inequality of individual powers. However, it is but fair to say that
certain capacities seem quite incapable of certain services; so that, if
human industry were entirely confined to one class of products, numerous
incapacities would arise, and, consequently, the greatest social
inequality. But every body sees, without any hint from me, that the
variety of industries avoids this difficulty; so clear is this that
I shall not stop to discuss it. We have only to prove, then, that
functions are equal to each other; just as laborers, who perform the
same function, are equal to each other.
Property makes man a eunuch, and then reproaches him for being nothing
but dry wood, a decaying tree.
Are you astonished that I refuse to genius, to knowledge, to
courage,--in a word, to all the excellences admired by the world,--the
homage of dignities, the distinctions of power and wealth? It is not I
who refuse it: it is economy, it is justice, it is liberty. Liberty! for
the first time in this discussion I appeal to her. Let her rise in her
own defence, and achieve her victory.
Every transaction ending in an exchange of products or services may be
designated as a COMMERCIAL OPERATION.
Whoever says commerce, says exchange of equal values; for, if the values
are not equal, and the injured party perceives it, he will not consent
to the exchange, and there will be no commerce.
Commerce exists only among free men. Transactions may be effected
between other people by violence or fraud, but there is no commerce.
A free man is one who enjoys the use of his reason and his faculties;
who is neither blinded by passion, nor hindered or driven by oppression,
nor deceived by erroneous opinions.
So, in every exchange, there is a moral obligation that neither of the
contracting parties shall gain at the expense of the other; that is,
that, to be legitimate and true, commerce must be exempt from all
inequality. This is the first condition of commerce. Its second
condition is, that it be voluntary; that is, that the parties act freely
and openly.
I define, then, commerce or exchange as an act of society.
The negro who sells his wife for a knife, his children for some bits
of glass, and finally himself for a bottle of brandy, is not free. The
dealer in human flesh, with whom he negotiates, is not his associate; he
is his enemy.
The civilized laborer who bakes a loaf that he may eat a slice of bread,
who builds a palace that he may sleep in a stable, who weaves rich
fabrics that he may dress in rags, who produces every thing that he may
dispense with every thing,--is not free. His employer, not becoming
his associate in the exchange of salaries or services which takes place
between them, is his enemy.
The soldier who serves his country through fear instead of through love
is not free; his comrades and his officers, the ministers or organs of
military justice, are all his enemies.
The peasant who hires land, the manufacturer who borrows capital, the
tax-payer who pays tolls, duties, patent and license fees, personal and
property taxes, &c. , and the deputy who votes for them,--all act
neither intelligently nor freely. Their enemies are the proprietors, the
capitalists, the government.
Give men liberty, enlighten their minds that they may know the meaning
of their contracts, and you will see the most perfect equality in
exchanges without regard to superiority of talent and knowledge; and
you will admit that in commercial affairs, that is, in the sphere of
society, the word superiority is void of sense.
Let Homer sing his verse. I listen to this sublime genius in comparison
with whom I, a simple herdsman, an humble farmer, am as nothing. What,
indeed,--if product is to be compared with product,--are my cheeses and
my beans in the presence of his "Iliad"? But, if Homer wishes to take
from me all that I possess, and make me his slave in return for his
inimitable poem, I will give up the pleasure of his lays, and dismiss
him. I can do without his "Iliad," and wait, if necessary, for the
"AEneid. "
Homer cannot live twenty-four hours without my products. Let him accept,
then, the little that I have to offer; and then his muse may instruct,
encourage, and console me.
"What! do you say that such should be the condition of one who sings of
gods and men? Alms, with the humiliation and suffering which they bring
with them! --what barbarous generosity! ". . . Do not get excited, I beg
of you. Property makes of a poet either a Croesus or a beggar; only
equality knows how to honor and to praise him. What is its duty? To
regulate the right of the singer and the duty of the listener. Now,
notice this point, which is a very important one in the solution of this
question: both are free, the one to sell, the other to buy. Henceforth
their respective pretensions go for nothing; and the estimate, whether
fair or unfair, that they place, the one upon his verse, the other
upon his liberality, can have no influence upon the conditions of the
contract. We must no longer, in making our bargains, weigh talent; we
must consider products only.
In order that the bard of Achilles may get his due reward, he must first
make himself wanted: that done, the exchange of his verse for a fee of
any kind, being a free act, must be at the same time a just act; that
is, the poet's fee must be equal to his product. Now, what is the value
of this product?
Let us suppose, in the first place, that this "Iliad"--this chef-d'
oeuvre that is to be equitably rewarded--is really above price, that we
do not know how to appraise it. If the public, who are free to purchase
it, refuse to do so, it is clear that, the poem being unexchangeable,
its intrinsic value will not be diminished; but that its exchangeable
value, or its productive utility, will be reduced to zero, will be
nothing at all. Then we must seek the amount of wages to be paid between
infinity on the one hand and nothing on the other, at an equal distance
from each, since all rights and liberties are entitled to equal respect;
in other words, it is not the intrinsic value, but the relative value,
of the thing sold that needs to be fixed. The question grows simpler:
what is this relative value? To what reward does a poem like the "Iliad"
entitle its author?
The first business of political economy, after fixing its definitions,
was the solution of this problem; now, not only has it not been solved,
but it has been declared insoluble. According to the economists,
the relative or exchangeable value of things cannot be absolutely
determined; it necessarily varies.
"The value of a thing," says Say, "is a positive quantity, but only for
a given moment. It is its nature to perpetually vary, to change from one
point to another. Nothing can fix it absolutely, because it is based
on needs and means of production which vary with every moment. These
variations complicate economical phenomena, and often render them very
difficult of observation and solution. I know no remedy for this; it is
not in our power to change the nature of things. "
Elsewhere Say says, and repeats, that value being based on utility, and
utility depending entirely on our needs, whims, customs, &c. , value
is as variable as opinion. Now, political economy being the science
of values, of their production, distribution, exchange, and
consumption,--if exchangeable value cannot be absolutely determined,
how is political economy possible? How can it be a science? How can two
economists look each other in the face without laughing? How dare they
insult metaphysicians and psychologists? What! that fool of a Descartes
imagined that philosophy needed an immovable base--an _aliquid
inconcussum_--on which the edifice of science might be built, and he was
simple enough to search for it! And the Hermes of economy, Trismegistus
Say, devoting half a volume to the amplification of that solemn text,
_political economy is a science_, has the courage to affirm immediately
afterwards that this science cannot determine its object,--which is
equivalent to saying that it is without a principle or foundation! He
does not know, then, the illustrious Say, the nature of a science; or
rather, he knows nothing of the subject which he discusses.
Say's example has borne its fruits. Political economy, as it exists at
present, resembles ontology: discussing effects and causes, it knows
nothing, explains nothing, decides nothing. The ideas honored with the
name of economic laws are nothing more than a few trifling generalities,
to which the economists thought to give an appearance of depth by
clothing them in high-sounding words. As for the attempts that have been
made by the economists to solve social problems, all that can be said
of them is, that, if a glimmer of sense occasionally appears in their
lucubrations, they immediately fall back into absurdity. For twenty-five
years political economy, like a heavy fog, has weighed upon France,
checking the efforts of the mind, and setting limits to liberty.
Has every creation of industry a venal, absolute, unchangeable, and
consequently legitimate and true value? --Yes.
Can every product of man be exchanged for some other product of
man? --Yes, again.
How many nails is a pair of shoes worth?
If we can solve this appalling problem, we shall have the key of the
social system for which humanity has been searching for six thousand
years. In the presence of this problem, the economist recoils confused;
the peasant who can neither read nor write replies without hesitation:
"As many as can be made in the same time, and with the same expense. "
The absolute value of a thing, then, is its cost in time and expense.
How much is a diamond worth which costs only the labor of picking it
up? --Nothing; it is not a product of man. How much will it be worth when
cut and mounted? --The time and expense which it has cost the laborer.
Why, then, is it sold at so high a price? --Because men are not free.
Society must regulate the exchange and distribution of the rarest
things, as it does that of the most common ones, in such a way that each
may share in the enjoyment of them. What, then, is that value which is
based upon opinion? --Delusion, injustice, and robbery.
By this rule, it is easy to reconcile every body. If the mean term,
which we are searching for, between an infinite value and no value at
all is expressed in the case of every product, by the amount of time and
expense which the product cost, a poem which has cost its author thirty
years of labor and an outlay of ten thousand francs in journeys, books,
&c. , must be paid for by the ordinary wages received by a laborer during
thirty years, PLUS ten thousand francs indemnity for expense incurred.
Suppose the whole amount to be fifty thousand francs; if the society
which gets the benefit of the production include a million of men, my
share of the debt is five centimes.
This gives rise to a few observations.
1. The same product, at different times and in different places, may
cost more or less of time and outlay; in this view, it is true that
value is a variable quantity. But this variation is not that of the
economists, who place in their list of the causes of the variation of
values, not only the means of production, but taste, caprice, fashion,
and opinion. In short, the true value of a thing is invariable in its
algebraic expression, although it may vary in its monetary expression.
2. The price of every product in demand should be its cost in time and
outlay--neither more nor less: every product not in demand is a loss to
the producer--a commercial non-value.
3. The ignorance of the principle of evaluation, and the difficulty
under many circumstances of applying it, is the source of commercial
fraud, and one of the most potent causes of the inequality of fortunes.
4. To reward certain industries and pay for certain products, a society
is needed which corresponds in size with the rarity of talents, the
costliness of the products, and the variety of the arts and sciences.
If, for example, a society of fifty farmers can support a schoolmaster,
it requires one hundred for a shoemaker, one hundred and fifty for a
blacksmith, two hundred for a tailor, &c. If the number of farmers rises
to one thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand, &c. , as fast as
their number increases, that of the functionaries which are earliest
required must increase in the same proportion; so that the highest
functions become possible only in the most powerful societies. [17] That
is the peculiar feature of capacities; the character of genius, the seal
of its glory, cannot arise and develop itself, except in the bosom of
a great nation. But this physiological condition, necessary to the
existence of genius, adds nothing to its social rights: far from
that,--the delay in its appearance proves that, in economical and
civil affairs, the loftiest intelligence must submit to the equality
of possessions; an equality which is anterior to it, and of which it
constitutes the crown.
This is severe on our pride, but it is an inexorable truth. And here
psychology comes to the aid of social economy, giving us to understand
that talent and material recompense have no common measure; that, in
this respect, the condition of all producers is equal: consequently,
that all comparison between them, and all distinction in fortunes, is
impossible.
_ _In fact, every work coming from the hands of man--compared with the
raw material of which it is composed--is beyond price. In this respect,
the distance is as great between a pair of wooden shoes and the trunk of
a walnut-tree, as between a statue by Scopas and a block of marble.
The genius of the simplest mechanic exerts as much influence over the
materials which he uses, as does the mind of a Newton over the inert
spheres whose distances, volumes, and revolutions he calculates. You ask
for talent and genius a corresponding degree of honor and reward. Fix
for me the value of a wood-cutter's talent, and I will fix that of
Homer. If any thing can reward intelligence, it is intelligence itself.
That is what happens, when various classes of producers pay to each
other a reciprocal tribute of admiration and praise. But if they
contemplate an exchange of products with a view to satisfying mutual
needs, this exchange must be effected in accordance with a system of
economy which is indifferent to considerations of talent and genius, and
whose laws are deduced, not from vague and meaningless admiration, but
from a just balance between DEBIT and CREDIT; in short, from commercial
accounts.
Now, that no one may imagine that the liberty of buying and selling
is the sole basis of the equality of wages, and that society's sole
protection against superiority of talent lies in a certain force of
inertia which has nothing in common with right, I shall proceed to
explain why all capacities are entitled to the same reward, and why a
corresponding difference in wages would be an injustice. I shall prove
that the obligation to stoop to the social level is inherent in talent;
and on this very superiority of genius I will found the equality of
fortunes. I have just given the negative argument in favor of rewarding
all capacities alike; I will now give the direct and positive argument.
Listen, first, to the economist: it is always pleasant to see how he
reasons, and how he understands justice. Without him, moreover, without
his amusing blunders and his wonderful arguments, we should learn
nothing. Equality, so odious to the economist, owes every thing to
political economy.
"When the parents of a physician [the text says a lawyer, which is
not so good an example] have expended on his education forty thousand
francs, this sum may be regarded as so much capital invested in his
head. It is therefore permissible to consider it as yielding an annual
income of four thousand francs. If the physician earns thirty thousand,
there remains an income of twenty-six thousand francs due to the
personal talents given him by Nature. This natural capital, then, if we
assume ten per cent. as the rate of interest, amounts to two hundred
and sixty thousand francs; and the capital given him by his parents, in
defraying the expenses of his education, to forty thousand francs. The
union of these two kinds of capital constitutes his fortune. "--Say:
Complete Course, &c.
Say divides the fortune of the physician into two parts: one is composed
of the capital which went to pay for his education, the other represents
his personal talents. This division is just; it is in conformity with
the nature of things; it is universally admitted; it serves as the
major premise of that grand argument which establishes the inequality of
capacities. I accept this premise without qualification; let us look at
the consequences.
1. Say CREDITS the physician with forty thousand francs,--the cost of
his education. This amount should be entered upon the DEBIT side of the
account. For, although this expense was incurred for him, it was not
incurred by him. Then, instead of appropriating these forty thousand
francs, the physician should add them to the price of his product, and
repay them to those who are entitled to them. Notice, further, that
Say speaks of INCOME instead of REIMBURSEMENT; reasoning on the false
principle of the productivity of capital. The expense of educating a
talent is a debt contracted by this talent. From the very fact of its
existence, it becomes a debtor to an amount equal to the cost of its
production. This is so true and simple that, if the education of some
one child in a family has cost double or triple that of its brothers,
the latter are entitled to a proportional amount of the property
previous to its division. There is no difficulty about this in the case
of guardianship, when the estate is administered in the name of the
minors.
