If the wages of the workingmen were the same in all pursuits, the deficit caused by the proprietor's tax would be felt equally everywhere; but also the cause of the evil would be so apparent, that it would soon be discovered and suppressed.But, as there is the same inequality of wages (from that of the scavenger up to that of the minister of state) as of property, robbery continually rebounds from the stronger to the weaker; so that, since the laborer finds his hardships increase as he descends in the social scale, the lowest class of people are literally stripped naked and eaten alive by the others.
The laboring people can buy neither the cloth which they weave, nor the furniture which they manufacture, nor the metal which they forge, nor the jewels which they cut, nor the prints which they engrave.They can procure neither the wheat which they plant, nor the wine which they grow, nor the flesh of the animals which they raise.They are allowed neither to dwell in the houses which they build, nor to attend the plays which their labor supports, nor to enjoy the rest which their body requires.
And why? Because the right of increase does not permit these things to be sold at the cost-price, which is all that laborers can afford to pay.On the signs of those magnificent warehouses which he in his poverty admires, the laborer reads in large letters: "This is thy work, and thou shalt not have it." _Sic vos non vobis_!
Every manufacturer who employs one thousand laborers, and gains from them daily one sou each, is slowly pushing them into a state of misery.Every man who makes a profit has entered into a conspiracy with famine.But the whole nation has not even this labor, by means of which property starves it.And why? Because the workers are forced by the insufficiency of their wages to monopolize labor; and because, before being destroyed by dearth, they destroy each other by competition.Let us pursue this truth no further.
If the laborer's wages will not purchase his product, it follows that the product is not made for the producer.For whom, then, is it intended? For the richer consumer; that is, for only a fraction of society.But when the whole society labors, it produces for the whole society.If, then, only a part of society consumes, sooner or later a part of society will be idle.Now, idleness is death, as well for the laborer as for the proprietor.
This conclusion is inevitable.
The most distressing spectacle imaginable is the sight of producers resisting and struggling against this mathematical necessity, this power of figures to which their prejudices blind them.
If one hundred thousand printers can furnish reading-matter enough for thirty-four millions of men, and if the price of books is so high that only one-third of that number can afford to buy them, it is clear that these one hundred thousand printers will produce three times as much as the booksellers can sell.That the products of the laborers may never exceed the demands of the consumers, the laborers must either rest two days out of three, or, separating into three groups, relieve each other three times a week, month, or quarter; that is, during two-thirds of their life they must not live.But industry, under the influence of property, does not proceed with such regularity.It endeavors to produce a great deal in a short time, because the greater the amount of products, and the shorter the time of production, the less each product costs.As soon as a demand begins to be felt, the factories fill up, and everybody goes to work.Then business is lively, and both governors and governed rejoice.But the more they work to-day, the more idle will they be hereafter; the more they laugh, the more they shall weep.Under the rule of property, the flowers of industry are woven into none but funeral wreaths.The laborer digs his own grave.
If the factory stops running, the manufacturer has to pay interest on his capital the same as before.He naturally tries, then, to continue production by lessening expenses.Then comes the lowering of wages; the introduction of machinery; the employment of women and children to do the work of men; bad workmen, and wretched work.They still produce, because the decreased cost creates a larger market; but they do not produce long, because, the cheapness being due to the quantity and rapidity of production, the productive power tends more than ever to outstrip consumption.It is when laborers, whose wages are scarcely sufficient to support them from one day to another, are thrown out of work, that the consequences of the principle of property become most frightful.They have not been able to economize, they have made no savings, they have accumulated no capital whatever to support them even one day more.Today the factory is closed.To-morrow the people starve in the streets.
Day after tomorrow they will either die in the hospital, or eat in the jail.
And still new misfortunes come to complicate this terrible situation.In consequence of the cessation of business, and the extreme cheapness of merchandise, the manufacturer finds it impossible to pay the interest on his borrowed capital; whereupon his frightened creditors hasten to withdraw their funds.
Production is suspended, and labor comes to a standstill.Then people are astonished to see capital desert commerce, and throw itself upon the Stock Exchange; and I once heard M.Blanqui bitterly lamenting the blind ignorance of capitalists.The cause of this movement of capital is very simple; but for that very reason an economist could not understand it, or rather must not explain it.The cause lies solely in COMPETITION.
