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08 - Ways and Means - The Conquest of Bread - Peter Kropotkin · The Philosophy Insights Collection

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Chapter eight, Ways and Means, Part One. If a society, a
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city, or a territory were to guarantee the necessaries of life to its inhabitants,
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and we shall see how the conception of the necessaries of life can be
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so extended as to include luxuries, it would be compelled to take possession of
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what is absolutely needed for production. That is to say, land, machinery,
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factories, means of transport, et cetera. Capital in the hands of
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private owners would be expropriated and returned to the community. The great harm done
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by bourgeois society, as we have already mentioned, is not only that capitalist
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sees a large share of the profits of each industrial and commercial enterprise, thus
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enabling them to live without working, but that all production has taken a wrong
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direction, as it is not carried on with a view to securing well being
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to all. For this reason we condemn it. Moreover, it is impossible
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to carry on mercantile production in everybody's interest. To wish it would be to
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expect the capitalists to go beyond his province and to fulfill duties that he can
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and not fulfill, without ceasing to be what he is. A private manufacturer.
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Seeking his own enrichment. Capitalist organization, based on the personal interest of
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each individual trader, has given all that could be expected of it to society.
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It has increased the productive force of work. The capitalist, profiting by
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the revolution, affected an industry, by steam, by the sudden development of
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chemistry and machinery, and by other inventions of our century, has endeavored in
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his own interest to increase the yield of work, and in a great measure
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he has succeeded. But to attribute other duties to him would be unreasonable.
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For example, to expect that he should use the superior yield of work in
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the interests of society as a whole would be to ask philanthropy and charity of
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him, and capitalist enterprise cannot be based on charity. It now remains for
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society to extend this greater productivity, which is limited to certain industries, and
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to apply it to the general good. But it is evident that to guarantee
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well being to all, society must take back possession of all means of production.
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Economists, as is their wont will not fail to remind us of the
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comparative well being of a certain category of young, robust workmen skilled in certain
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special branches of industry. It is always this minority that is pointed out to
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us with pride. But is this well being, which is the exclusive right
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of a few secure tomorrow? Maybe negligence, improvidence, or the greed of
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their employers will deprive these privileged men of their work, and they will pay
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for the period of comfort they have enjoyed with months and years of poverty or
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destitution. How many important industries woven goods, iron, sugar, et cetera.
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Without mentioning short lived trades have we not seen decline or come to a
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standstill, alternately on account of speculations or in consequence of natural displacement of work,
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and lastly from the effects of competition due to capitalists themselves. If the
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chief weaving and mechanical industries had to pass through such a crisis as they have
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passed through in eighteen eighty six, we hardly need mention the small trades,
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all of which come periodically to a standstill. What two shall we say to
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the price which is paid for the relative well being of certain category is of
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workmen. Unfortunately, it is paid for by the ruin of agriculture, the
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shameless exploitation of peasants, the misery of the masses in comparison with the feeble
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minority of workers who enjoy a certain comfort. How many millions of human beings
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live from hand to mouth without a secure wage, ready to go wherever they
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are wanted. How many peasants work fourteen hours a day for poor pittance.
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Capital depopulates the country, exploits the colonies, and the countries where industries are
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but little developed, dooms the immense majority of workmen to remain without technical education,
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to remain mediocre even in their own trade. This is not merely accidental.
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It is a necessity of the capitalist system. In order to remunerate certain
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classes of workmen, peasants must become the beast of burden of society. The
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country must be deserted for the town small trades must agglomerate in the foul suburbs
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of large cities and manufacture a thousand things of little value for next to nothing,
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so as to bring the goods of the greater industries within reach of buyers
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with small salaries. That bad cloth may sell. Garments are made for ill
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paid workers by tailors who are satisfied with the starvation wage. Eastern lands,
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in a backward state are exploited by the West in order that, under the
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capitalist system, workers in a few privileged industries may obtain certain limited comforts of
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life. The evil of the present system is therefore not that the surplus value
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of production goes to the capitalist as Robertus and Mark said, thus narrowing the
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socialist conception and the general view of the capitalist system. The surplus value itself
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is but a consequence of deeper causes. The evil lies in the possibility of
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a surplus value existing instead of a simple surplus not consumed by each generation.
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Four. That a surplus value should exist means that men, women and children
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are compelled by hunger to sell their labor for a small part of what this
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labor produces, and above all, of what their labor is capable of producing.
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But this evil will last as long as the instruments of production belong to
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a few, as long as men are compelled to pay tribute to property holders
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for the right of cultivating land or putting machinery into action, and the property
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holder is free to produce what bids fair to bring him in the greatest profits
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rather than the greatest amount of useful commodities. Well being can only be temporarily
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guaranteed to a very few, and is only to be bought by the poverty
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of a section of society. It is not sufficient to distribute the profits realized
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by trade in equal parts if at the same time thousands of other workers are
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exploited. It is a case of producing the greatest amount of goods necessary to
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the well being of all with the least possible waste of human energy. This
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cannot be the aim of a private owner, and this is why society as
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a whole, taking this view of production as its ideal, will be compelled
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to expropriate all that enhances well being while producing wealth. It will have to
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take possession of land, factories, mines, means of communication, etc.
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And besides, it will have to study what products will promote general well being,
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as well as the ways and means of production. Two How many hours
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a day will man have to work to produce nourishing food, a comfortable home,
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and necessary clothing for his family. The question has often preoccupied socialists,
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and they generally came to the conclusion that four or five hours a day would
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suffice on condition. Be it well understood that all men work. At the
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end of last century, Benjamin Franklin fixed the limit at five hours. And
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if the need of comfort is greater now, the power of production has augmented
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two and far more rapidly. In speaking of agriculture, further on, we
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shall see what the earth can be made to yield to man when he cultivates
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it scientifically, instead of throwing seed haphazard in a badly plowed soil, as
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he mostly does today. In the great farms of Western America, some of
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which cover thirty square miles but have a poorer soil than the manured soil of
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civilized countries, only ten to fifteen English bushels per English acre are obtained,
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that is to say, half the yield of European farms or of American farms
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in Eastern States. And nevertheless, thanks the machines which enable two men to
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plow four English acres a day, one hundred men can produce in a year
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all that is necessary to deliver the bread of ten thousand people at their homes
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during a whole year. Thus, it would suffice for a man to work
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under the same conditions for thirty hours, say six half days of five hours
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each, to have bread for a whole year, and to work thirty half
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days to guarantee the same to a family of five people. We shall also
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prove, by results obtained nowadays, that if we had recourse to intensive agriculture,
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less than six half day's work could procure bread, meat, vegetables,
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and even luxurious fruit for a whole family. And again, if we study
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the cost of workmen's dwellings built in large towns today, we can ascertain that
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to obtain in a large English city a detached little house as they are built
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for workmen, from fourteen hundred to eighteen hundred, half day's work of five
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hours would be sufficient, as a house of that kind last fifty years at
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least. It follows that twenty eight to thirty six half day's work a year
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could provide well furnished, healthy quarters with all necessary comfort for a family,
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whereas when hiring the same apartment from an employer, a workman pays seventy five
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to one hundred days work per year. Mark that these figures represent the maximum
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of what a house costs in England today, being given the defective organization of
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our societies. In Belgium, workmen cities have been built far cheaper. Taking
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everything into consideration, we are justified in affirming that in a well organized society,
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thirty or forty half day's work a year will suffice to guarantee a perfectly
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comfortable home. There now remains clothing, the exact value of which is almost
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impossible to fix because the profits realized by a swarm of middlemen cannot be estimated.
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Let us take cloth, for example, and add up all the deductions
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made by landowners, sheep owners, wool merchants and all their intermediate agents than
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by railway companies, mill owners, weavers, dealers in ready made clothes,
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sellers and commission agents, and you will get idea of what is paid to
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a whole swarm of capitalists for each article of clothing. That is why it
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is perfectly impossible to say how many days work in overcoat that you pay three
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or four pounds in a large London shop represents. What is certain is that
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with present machinery they no doubt managed to manufacture an incredible amount of goods.
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A few examples will suffice. Thus, in the United States, in seven
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hundred and fifty one cotton mills for spinning and weaving, one hundred and seventy
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five thousand men and women produce two billion, thirty three million yards of cotton
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goods, besides a great quantity of thread. On the average, more than
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twelve thousand yards of cotton goods alone are obtained by a three hundred days work
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of nine and a half hours each, say forty yards of cotton in ten
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hours. Admitting that a family needs two hundred yards a year at most,
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this would be equivalent to fifty hours work, say ten half days of five
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hours each. And we should have thread besides, that is to say,
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cotton to sow with and thread to weave cloth with, so as to manufacture
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a woolen stuffs mixed with cotton. As to the results obtained by weaving alone,
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the official statistics of the United States teach us that in eighteen seventy,
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if workmen worked thirteen to fourteen hours a day, they made ten thousand yards
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of white cotton goods in a year. Thirteen years later, in eighteen eighty
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six, they wove thirty thousand yards by working only fifty five hours a week.
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Even in printed cotton goods they obtained weaving and printing included thirty two thousand
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yards in two thousand, six hundred seventy hours of work a year, say
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about twelve yards an hour. Thus, to have your two hundred yards of
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white printed cotton goods, seventeen hours of work a year would suffice. It
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is necessary to remark that raw material reaches these factories in about the same state
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as it comes from the fields, and that the transformations gone through by the
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piece before it is converted into goods are completed in the course of these seventeen
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hours. But to buy these two hundred yards from the tradesman, a well
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paid workman must give at the very least ten to fifteen days work of ten
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hours each, say one hundred to one hundred fifty hours. Find as to
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the English peasant, he would have to toil for a month or a little
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more to obtain this luxury. By this example, we already see that by
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working fifty half days per year in a well organized society, we could dress
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better than the lower middle classes today. But with all this we have only
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required sixty half day's work of five hours each to obtain the fruits of the
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earth, forty for housing and fifty for clothing, which only makes half a
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year's work, as the year consists of three hundred working days. If we
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deduct holidays, there remains still one hundred and fifty half day's work which could
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be made use of for other necessaries of life, wine, sugar, coffee,
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tea, furniture, transport, et cetera, et cetera. It is
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evident that these calculations are only approximate, but they can also be proved in
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another way. When we take into account how many in the so called civilized
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nations produced nothing, how many work at harmful trades doomed to disappear, and
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lastly, how many are useless middlemen. We see that in each nation the
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number of real producers could be doubled, and if instead of every ten men,
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twenty were occupied in producing useful commodities, and if society took the trouble
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to economize human energy, those twenty people would only have to work five hours
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a day without production decreasing, and it would suffice to reduce the waste of
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human energy at the service of wealthy families or of those administrations that have one
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official to every ten inhabitants, and to utilize those forces to augment the productivity
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of the nation, to limit work to four or even to three hours,
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on the condition that we should be satisfied with present production. After studying all
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these facts together, we may arrive then at the following conclusion. Imagine a
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society comprising a few million inhabitants engage in in agriculture and a great variety of
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industries Paris, for example, with the department of Senewas, Suppose that in
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this society all children learn to work with their hands as well as with their
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brains. Admit that all adults save women, engaged in the education of their
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children, find themselves to work five hours a day from the age of twenty
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or twenty two to forty five or fifty, and they follow occupations they have
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chosen in any one branch of human work considered necessary. Such a society could,
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in return guarantee well being to all its members, that is to say,
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a more substance financial well being than that enjoyed today by the middle classes.
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And moreover, each worker belonging to this society would have at his disposal
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at least five hours a day which he could devote to science, art,
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and individual needs, which do not come under the category of necessities, but
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will probably do so later on, when men's productivity will have augmented and those
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objects will no longer appear luxurious or inaccessible. End of Chapter eight,