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 TOITS 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.
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 Ihave 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, Icease 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, RESULTSand 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.
