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02 - Well-Being for All - The Conquest of Bread · Philosophy and Faith

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  Speaker 1: Chapter two, Well Being for All, Part one. Well Being
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  Speaker 1: for all is not a dream. It is possible, realizable,
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  Speaker 1: owing to all that our ancestors have done to increase
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  Speaker 1: our powers of production. We know, indeed, that the producers,
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  Speaker 1: although they constitute hardly one third of the inhabitants of
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  Speaker 1: civilized countries, even now produce such quantities of goods that
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  Speaker 1: a certain degree of comfort could be brought to every hearth.
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  Speaker 1: We know further that if all those who squandered today
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  Speaker 1: the fruits of others toil were forced to employ their
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  Speaker 1: leisure and useful work, our wealth would increase in proportion
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  Speaker 1: to the number of producers. And more finally, we know that,
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  Speaker 1: contrary to the theory enunciated by Malthus, the oracle of
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  Speaker 1: middle class economics, the productive powers of the human race
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  Speaker 1: increase at a much more rapid ratio than its powers
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  Speaker 1: of reproduction. The more thickly men are crowded on the soil,
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  Speaker 1: the more rapid is the growth of their wealth creating power. Thus,
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  Speaker 1: although the population of England has only increased from eighteen
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  Speaker 1: forty four to eighteen ninety by sixty two percent, its
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  Speaker 1: production has grown, to say the least, at double that rate.
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  Speaker 1: To wit by one hundred and thirty percent. In France,
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  Speaker 1: where the population has grown more slowly, the increase in
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  Speaker 1: production is nevertheless very rapid, notwithstanding the crises through which
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  Speaker 1: agriculture is frequently passing, notwithstanding state interference, the blood tax, conscription,
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  Speaker 1: and speculative commerce and finance, the production of wheat in
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  Speaker 1: France has increased fourfold, an industrial production more than tenfold
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  Speaker 1: in the course of the last eighty years. In the
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  Speaker 1: United States, the progress is still more striking. In spite
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  Speaker 1: of immigration, or rather precisely because of the influx of
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  Speaker 1: surplus European labor, the United States have multiplied their wealth tenfold. However,
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  Speaker 1: these figures give yet a very faint idea of what
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  Speaker 1: our wealth might become under better conditions. For alongside of
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  Speaker 1: the rapid development of our wealth producing powers, we have
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  Speaker 1: an overwhelming increase in the ranks of the idlers and middlemen.
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  Speaker 1: Instead of capital gradually concentrating itself in a few hands,
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  Speaker 1: so that it would only be necessary for the community
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  Speaker 1: to dispossess a few more millionaires and enter upon its
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  Speaker 1: lawful heritage. Instead of this socialist forecast proving true, the
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  Speaker 1: exact reverse is coming to pass. The swarm of parasites
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  Speaker 1: is ever increasing. In France, there are not ten actual
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  Speaker 1: producers to every thirty inhabitants. The whole agricultural wealth of
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  Speaker 1: the country is the work of less than seven millions
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  Speaker 1: of men. And in the two great industries mining, in
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  Speaker 1: the textile trade, you will find that the workers number
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  Speaker 1: less than two and one half millions. But the exploiters
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  Speaker 1: of labor, how many are they? In England, exclusive of
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  Speaker 1: Scotland and Ireland, only one million workers men, women and
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  Speaker 1: children are employed in all the textile trades. Rather more
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  Speaker 1: than half a million work the mines, rather less than
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  Speaker 1: half a million till the ground. And the statisticians have
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  Speaker 1: to exaggerate all the figures in order to establish a
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  Speaker 1: maximum of eight million producers to twenty six million inhabitants.
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  Speaker 1: Strictly speaking, the creators of the goods exported from Britain
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  Speaker 1: to all the ends of the earth comprise only from
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  Speaker 1: six to seven million workers. And what is the sum
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  Speaker 1: of the shareholders and middlemen who levy the first fruits
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  Speaker 1: of labor from far and near, and heap up unearned
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  Speaker 1: gains by thrusting themselves between the producer and the consumer,
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  Speaker 1: paying the former not a fifth, nay not a twentieth
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  Speaker 1: of the price they exact from the latter. Nor is
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  Speaker 1: this all. Those who withhold capital constantly reduce the output
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  Speaker 1: by restraining production. We need not speak of the cartloads
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  Speaker 1: of oysters thrown into the sea to prevent a dainty
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  Speaker 1: hitherto reserved for the rich, from becoming a food for
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  Speaker 1: the people. We need not speak of the thousand and
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  Speaker 1: one luxuries, stuffs, foods, et cetera, et cetera, treated it
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  Speaker 1: after the same fashion as the oysters. It is enough
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  Speaker 1: to remember the way in which the production of the
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  Speaker 1: most necessary things is limited. Legions of miners are ready
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  Speaker 1: and willing to dig out coal every day and send
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  Speaker 1: it to those who are shivering with cold, but too
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  Speaker 1: often a third or even two thirds of their number
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  Speaker 1: are forbidden to work more than three days a week,
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  Speaker 1: because forsooth the price of coal must be kept up.
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  Speaker 1: Thousands of weavers are forbidden to work the looms, though
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  Speaker 1: their wives and children go in rags, and though three
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  Speaker 1: quarters of the population of Europe have no clothing worthy
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  Speaker 1: the name. Hundreds of blast furnaces, thousands of factories periodically
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  Speaker 1: stand idle. Others only work halftime and in every civilized
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  Speaker 1: nation there is a permanent population of about two million
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  Speaker 1: individuals who ask only for work, but to whom work
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  Speaker 1: is denied. How gladly would these millions of men set
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  Speaker 1: to work to reclaim wastelands or to transform ill cultivated
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  Speaker 1: land into fertile fields rich in harvests. A year of
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  Speaker 1: well directed toil would suffice to multiply five fold the
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  Speaker 1: produce of dry lands in the south of France, which
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  Speaker 1: now yield only about eight bushels of wheat per acre.
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  Speaker 1: But these men, who would be happy to become hardy
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  Speaker 1: pioneers in so many branches of wealth producing activity, must
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  Speaker 1: stay their hands, because the owners of the soil, the mines,
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  Speaker 1: and the factories prefer to invest their capital stolen in
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  Speaker 1: the first place from the community in Turkish or Egyptian bonds,
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  Speaker 1: or in Patagonian gold mines, and so make Egyptian fellaws,
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  Speaker 1: Italian exiles and Chinese coolies their wage slaves. So much
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  Speaker 1: for the direct and deliberate limitation of production, but there
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  Speaker 1: is also limitation indirect and not a set purpose, which
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  Speaker 1: consists in spending human toil on objects absolutely useless or
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  Speaker 1: destined only to satisfy the dull vanity of the rich.
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  Speaker 1: It is impossible to reckon in figures the extent to
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  Speaker 1: which wealth is restricted, indirectly, the extent to which energy
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  Speaker 1: is squandered that might have served to produce, and above all,
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  Speaker 1: to prepare the machinery necessary to production. It is enough
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  Speaker 1: to cite the immense sums spent by Europe in armaments
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  Speaker 1: for the sole purpose of acquiring control of the markets,
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  Speaker 1: and so forcing her own commercial standards on neighboring territories
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  Speaker 1: and making exploitation easier at home. The millions paid every
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  Speaker 1: year to officials of all sorts, whose function is to
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  Speaker 1: maintain the rights of minorities, the right, that is, of
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  Speaker 1: a few rich men to manipulate the economic activities of
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  Speaker 1: the nation. The millions spent on judges, prisons, policemen, and
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  Speaker 1: all the paraphernalia of so called justice spent to no purpose,
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  Speaker 1: because we know that every alleviation, however slight of the
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  Speaker 1: wretchedness of our great cities, is followed by a very
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  Speaker 1: considerable diminution of crime. Lastly, the millions spent on propagating
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  Speaker 1: pernicious doctrine by means of the press and news cooked
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  Speaker 1: in the interest of this or that party, of this politician,
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  Speaker 1: or of that company of exploiters. But over and above
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  Speaker 1: this we must take into account all the labor that
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  Speaker 1: goes to sheer waste in keeping up the stables, the kennels,
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  Speaker 1: and the retinue of the rich, for instance, in pandering
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  Speaker 1: to the caprices of society and to the depraved taste
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  Speaker 1: of the fashionable mob. In forcing the consumer, on the
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  Speaker 1: one hand, to buy what he does not need, or
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  Speaker 1: foisting an inferior article upon him by means of puffery,
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  Speaker 1: and in producing, on the other hand, wares which are
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  Speaker 1: absolutely injurious but profitable to the manufacturer. What is squandered
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  Speaker 1: in this manner would be enough to double our real wealth,
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  Speaker 1: or so to plenish our mills and factories with machinery
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  Speaker 1: that they would soon flood the shops with all that
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  Speaker 1: is now lacking to two thirds of the nation. Under
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  Speaker 1: our present system, a full quarter of the producers in
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  Speaker 1: every nation are forced to be idle for three or
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  Speaker 1: four months in the year, and the labor for another quarter,
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  Speaker 1: if not of the half, has no better results than
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  Speaker 1: the amusement of the rich or the exploitation of the public. Thus,
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  Speaker 1: if we consider, on the one hand, the rapidity with
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  Speaker 1: which civilized nations augment their powers of production, and on
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  Speaker 1: the other hand, the limits set to that production, be
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  Speaker 1: it directly or indirectly, by existing conditions. One cannot but
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  Speaker 1: conclude that an economic system a trifle more enlightened would
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  Speaker 1: permit them to heap up in a few years so
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  Speaker 1: many useful products that they would be constrained to cry. Enough.
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  Speaker 1: We have enough coal and bread and raiment. Let us
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  Speaker 1: rest and consider how best to use our powers, how
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  Speaker 1: best to employ our leisure. No Plenty for all is
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  Speaker 1: not a dream, though it was a dream indeed in
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  Speaker 1: those old days, when man, for all his pains, could
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  Speaker 1: hardly win a bushel of wheat from an acre of land,
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  Speaker 1: and had to fashion by hand all the implements he
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  Speaker 1: used in agriculture and industry. Now it is no longer
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  Speaker 1: a dream, because man has invented a motor, which, with
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  Speaker 1: a little iron and a few pounds of coal, gives
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  Speaker 1: him the mastery of a creature, strong and docile as
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  Speaker 1: a horse, and capable of setting the most complicated machinery
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  Speaker 1: in motion. But if plenty for all is to become
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  Speaker 1: a reality, this immense capital, cities, houses, pastures, arable lands, factories, highways,
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  Speaker 1: education must cease to be regarded as private property for
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  Speaker 1: the monopolists to dispose of at his pleasure. This rich endowment,
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  Speaker 1: painfully won, builded, fashioned, or invented by our ancestors, must
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  Speaker 1: become common property, so that the collective interests of men
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  Speaker 1: may gain from it the greatest good for all. There
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  Speaker 1: must be expropriation, the well being of all. The end
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  Speaker 1: expropriation the means Part two expropriation. Such, then, is the
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  Speaker 1: problem which history is put before the men of the
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  Speaker 1: twentieth century, the return to communism in all that ministers
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  Speaker 1: to the well being of man. But this problem cannot
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  Speaker 1: be solved by means of legislation. No one imagines that
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  Speaker 1: the poor, no less than the rich, understand that neither
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  Speaker 1: the existing governments nor any which might arise out of
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  Speaker 1: the possible political changes, would be capable of finding a solution.
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  Speaker 1: We feel the necessity of a social revves. Rich and
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  Speaker 1: poor alike recognize that this revolution is imminent, that it
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  Speaker 1: may break out in a very few years. A great
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  Speaker 1: change in thought has been accomplished during the last half
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  Speaker 1: of the nineteenth century, but suppressed as it was, by
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  Speaker 1: the property classes and denied its natural development. This new
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  Speaker 1: spirit must break now its bonds by violence and realize
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  Speaker 1: itself in a revolution. Whence comes the revolution? And how
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  Speaker 1: will it announce its coming? None can answer these questions.
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  Speaker 1: The future is hidden, but those who watch and think
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  Speaker 1: do not misinterpret the signs. Workers and exploiters, revolutionists and conservatives,
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  Speaker 1: thinkers and men of action, all feel that the revolution
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  Speaker 1: is at our doors. Well, what are we to do
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  Speaker 1: when the thunderbolt has fallen? We have all been studying
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  Speaker 1: the dramatic side of revolution so much, and the practical
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  Speaker 1: work of revolution so little, that we are apt to
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  Speaker 1: see only the stage effects, so to speak, of these
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  Speaker 1: great movements, the fight of the first days, the barricades.
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  Speaker 1: But this fight, this first skirmish, is soon ended, and
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  Speaker 1: it is only after the overthrow of the old concent institution,
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  Speaker 1: that the real work of revolution can be said to begin.
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  Speaker 1: A feat and powerless, attacked on all sides, the old
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  Speaker 1: rulers are soon swept away by the breath of insurrection.
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  Speaker 1: In a few days, the middle class monarchy of eighteen
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  Speaker 1: forty eight was no more, And while Louis Philippe was
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  Speaker 1: making good his escape in a cab, Paris had already
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  Speaker 1: forgotten her citizen king. The government of Tierre disappeared on
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  Speaker 1: the eighteenth of March eighteen seventy one in a few hours,
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  Speaker 1: leaving Paris mistress of her destinies. Yet eighteen forty eight
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  Speaker 1: and eighteen seventy one were only insurrections. Before a popular revolution,
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  Speaker 1: the masters of the old order disappear with a surprising rapidity.
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  Speaker 1: Its upholders fly the country to plot in safety elsewhere
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  Speaker 1: and to devise measures for their return. The former government
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  Speaker 1: having disappeared, the army, hesitating before the tide of popular opinion,
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  Speaker 1: no longer obeys its commanders, who have also prudently decamped.
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  Speaker 1: The troops stand by without interfering or join the rebels.
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  Speaker 1: The police, standing at ease, are uncertain whether to belabour
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  Speaker 1: the crowd or to cry long live the Commune. While
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  Speaker 1: some retire to their quarters to await the pleasure of
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  Speaker 1: the new government. Wealthy citizens pack their trunks and betake
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  Speaker 1: themselves to places of safety. The people remain. This is
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  Speaker 1: how a revolution is ushered in. In several large towns,
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  Speaker 1: the commune is proclaimed. In the streets wander thousands of men, who,
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  Speaker 1: in the evening crowd into improvised clubs, asking what shall
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  Speaker 1: we do, and ardently discuss public affairs in which all
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  Speaker 1: take an interest. Those who yesterday were most indifferent are
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  Speaker 1: perhaps the most zealous. Everywhere there is plenty of good
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  Speaker 1: will and a keen desire to make victory certain. It
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  Speaker 1: is a time of supreme devotion. The people are ready
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  Speaker 1: to go forward. All this is splendid, sublime. But still
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  Speaker 1: it is not a revolution. Nay, it is only now
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  Speaker 1: that the work of the revolutionists begins. Doubtless the thirst
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  Speaker 1: for vengeance will be satisfied. The Watrans and the Thomises
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  Speaker 1: will pay the penalty of their unpopularity. But that is
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  Speaker 1: only an incident of the struggle, and not a revolution.
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  Speaker 1: Socialist politicians, radicals, neglected geniuses of journalism, stump orators, middle
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  Speaker 1: class citizens and workmen hurry to the town hall, to
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  Speaker 1: the government offices and take possession of the vacant seats.
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  Speaker 1: Some rejoice their hearts with galoon, admire themselves in ministerial mirrors,
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  Speaker 1: and study to give orders with an air of importance
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  Speaker 1: appropriate to their new position. They must have a red
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  Speaker 1: sash and embroidered cap, and magisterial gestures to impress their
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  Speaker 1: comrades of the office or the workshop. Others bury themselves
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  Speaker 1: in official papers, trying with the best of wills to
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: make head or tail of them. They indict laws and
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  Speaker 1: issue high flown worded decrees that nobody takes the trouble
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  Speaker 1: to carry out. Because the revolution has come to give
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: themselves an authority which is lacking, they seek the sanction
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  Speaker 1: of old forms of government. They take the names of
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  Speaker 1: provisional government, Committee of Public Safety, mayor governor of the
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  Speaker 1: town hall, Commissioner of public Will, and what not. Elected
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  Speaker 1: or acclaimed, they assemble in boards or in communal councils.
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  Speaker 1: These bodies include men of ten or twenty different schools, which,
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  Speaker 1: if not exactly private chapels, are at least so many
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  Speaker 1: sects which represent as many ways of regarding the scope,
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  Speaker 1: the bearing, and the goal of the revolution. Possibilists, collectivists, radicals, Jacobins,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: blanquists are thrust together and waste time in wordy warfare.
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  Speaker 1: Honest men come into contact with ambitious ones whose only
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  Speaker 1: dream is power and who spurn the crowd. Whence they
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: sprung coming together with diametrically opposed views, they are forced
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  Speaker 1: to form arbitrary alliances in order to create majorities that
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: can but last a day wrangling, calling each other reactionaries, authoritarians,
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  Speaker 1: and rascals, incapable of coming to an understanding on any
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  Speaker 1: serious measure, dragged into discussions about trifles, producing nothing better
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: than bombastic proclamations, yet taking themselves seriously unwitting that the
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: real strength of the movement is in the streets. All
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  Speaker 1: this may please those who like the theater, but it
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  Speaker 1: is not revolution. Nothing yet has been accomplished. Meanwhile, the
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  Speaker 1: people suffer. The factories are idle, the workshops closed. Industry
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  Speaker 1: is at a standstill. The worker does not even earn
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  Speaker 1: the meager wage which was his before food goes up
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  Speaker 1: in price. With that heroic devotion which has always characterized them,
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  Speaker 1: and which in great crises reaches the sublime, the people
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  Speaker 1: wait patiently. We place these three months of one at
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  Speaker 1: the service of the republic, they said in eighteen forty eight,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: while their representatives and the gentlemen of the new government,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: down to the meanest jack in office, received their salary regularly.
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  Speaker 1: The people suffer with the childlike faith, with the good
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: humor of the masses who believe in their leaders. They
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: think that yonder in the House, in the town Hall,
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  Speaker 1: in the Committee of Public Safety, their welfare is being considered,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: but yonder they are discussing everything under the sun, except
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: the welfare of the people. In seventeen ninety three, while
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: famine ravaged France and crippled the Revolution, whilst the people
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: were reduced to the depths of misery, whilst the champ
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: A lay Say were lying with luxurious carriages where women
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: displayed their jewels and splendor, bros Pierre was urging the
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Jacobins to discuss his treatise on the English Constitution. While
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: the worker was suffering in eighteen forty eight from the
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: general stoppage of trade, the provisional government in the House
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: were wrangling over military pensions in prison labor, without troubling
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: how the people were to live during this crisis, And
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: could one cast a reproach at the Paris Commune, which
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: was born beneath the Prussian cannon and lasted only seventy days.
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  Speaker 1: It would be for this same error, this failure to
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: understand that the revolution could not triumph unless those who
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: fought on its side were fed that on fifteen pence
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: a day, a man cannot fight on the ramparts and
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: at the same time support a family. The people suffer,
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  Speaker 1: and say how to find the way out of these difficulties?
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  Speaker 1: Part three. It seems to us that there is only
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: one answer to this question. We must recognize and loudly
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: proclaim that everyone, whatever his grade, in the old society,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: whether strong or weak, capable or incapable, has been for
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: everything the right to live, and that society is bound
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  Speaker 1: to share amongst all, without exception, the means of existence
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  Speaker 1: at its disposal. We must acknowledge this, and proclaim it aloud,
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  Speaker 1: and act up to it. It must be so contrived
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  Speaker 1: that from the first day of the revolution the worker
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  Speaker 1: shall know that a new era is opening before him.
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  Speaker 1: That henceforward none need crouch under the bridges with palaces
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  Speaker 1: hard by, none need fast in the midst of food,
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  Speaker 1: none need perish with cold near shops full of firs.
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  Speaker 1: That all is for all in practice as well as
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  Speaker 1: in theory, And that at last, for the first time
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  Speaker 1: in history, a revolution has been accomplished which considers the
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: needs of the people before schooling them in their duties.
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  Speaker 1: This cannot be brought about by acts of parliament, but
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: only by taking immediate and effective possession of all that
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: is necessary to ensure the well being of all. This
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: is the only really scientific way of going to work,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: the only way to be understood and desired by the
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  Speaker 1: mass of the people. We must take possession in the
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  Speaker 1: name of the people of the granary, the shops full
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  Speaker 1: of clothing, and the dwelling houses. Nothing must be wasted.
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  Speaker 1: We must organize without delay to feed the hungry, to
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  Speaker 1: satisfy all wants, to meet all needs, to produce, not
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  Speaker 1: for the special benefit of this one or that one,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: but to ensure that society as a whole will live
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  Speaker 1: and grow. Enough of ambiguous words like the right to
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  Speaker 1: work with which the people were misled in eighteen forty eight,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: and which are still used to mislead them, let us
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  Speaker 1: have the courage to recognize that well being for all,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: henceforward possible must be realized when the workers claim the
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: right to work. In eighteen forty eight, national and municipal
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: workshops were organized, and workmen were sent to drudge there
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: at a rate of one shilling eight pence a day.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: When they asked that labor should be organized, the reply
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: was patient's friends, the government will see to it. Meantime,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Here is your one shilling eight pence, rest, now, brave
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: toiler after your lifelong struggle for food. Meantime, the cannons
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: were trained, the reserves called out, and the workers themselves
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: disorganized by the many methods well known to the middle classes,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: till one fine day they were told to go and
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: colonize Africa or be shot down. Very different will be
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: the result if the workers claim the right to well being.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: In claiming that right, they claim the right to possess
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: the wealth of the community, to take the houses to
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: dwell in according to the needs of each family, to
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: seize the stores of food, and learn the meaning of
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: plenty after having known famine too well. They proclaim the
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: right to all wealth, fruit of the labor of past
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: and present generations, and learned by its means, to enjoy
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: those higher pleasures of art and science, too long monopolized
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: by the middle classes. And while asserting their right to
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: live in comfort, they assert what is still more important,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: their right to decide for themselves what this comfort shall be,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: what must be produced to ensure it, and what discarded
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: as no longer of value. The right to well being
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: means the possibility of living like human beings, and of
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: bringing up children to be members of a society better
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: than ours. Whilst the right to work only means the
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: right to be always a wage slave, a drudge ruled
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: over and exploited by the middle class of the future,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: the right to well being is the social revolution. The
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: right to work means nothing but the treadmill of commercialism.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: It is high time for the worker to assert his
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: right to the common inheritance and to enter into possession.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter two