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13 - The Collectivest Wages System - The Conquest of Bread · Philosophy and Faith

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  Speaker 1: Chapter thirteen, the collectivist wages system. It is our opinion
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  Speaker 1: that collectivists commit a twofold error in their plans for
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  Speaker 1: the reconstruction of society. While speaking of abolishing capitalist rule,
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  Speaker 1: they intend, nevertheless to retain two institutions which are the
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  Speaker 1: very basis of this rule, representative government in the wages system.
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  Speaker 1: As regards so called representative government, we have often spoken
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  Speaker 1: about it. It is absolutely incomprehensible to us that intelligent
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  Speaker 1: men and such are not wanting in the collectivist party
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  Speaker 1: can remain partisans of national or municipal parliaments, after all
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  Speaker 1: the lessons history has given them in France, in England,
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  Speaker 1: in Germany, or in the United States. While we see
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  Speaker 1: parliamentary rule breaking up and from all sides, criticism of
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  Speaker 1: this rule growing louder, not only of its resis results,
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  Speaker 1: but also of its principles. How is it that revolutionary
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  Speaker 1: socialists defend a system already condemned to die, built up
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  Speaker 1: by the middle classes to hold their own against royalty
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  Speaker 1: sanctioning and at the same time strengthening their sway over
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  Speaker 1: the workers. Parliamentary rule is pre eminently a middle class rule.
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  Speaker 1: The upholders of this system have never seriously affirmed that
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  Speaker 1: a parliament or a municipal council represent a nation or
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  Speaker 1: a city. The most intelligent among them know that this
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  Speaker 1: is impossible. The middle class has simply used the parliamentary
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  Speaker 1: system to raise a barrier between itself and royalty without
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  Speaker 1: giving the people liberty. But gradually, as the people become
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  Speaker 1: conscious of their interests, and the variety of their interests multiply,
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  Speaker 1: the system can no longer work. Therefore, democrats of all
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  Speaker 1: countries vainly imagine palliatives. The referendum mistried and found to
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  Speaker 1: be a failure. Proportional representation is spoken of, so is
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  Speaker 1: representation of minorities and other parliamentary utopias. In a word,
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  Speaker 1: they strive to find what is not to be found,
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  Speaker 1: and they are compelled to recognize that they are in
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  Speaker 1: a wrong way, and confidence in a representative government disappears.
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  Speaker 1: It is the same with the wages system, for after
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  Speaker 1: having proclaimed the abolition of private property and the possession
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  Speaker 1: in common of all means of production, how can they
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  Speaker 1: uphold the wages system in any form. It is nevertheless
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  Speaker 1: what collectivists are doing when they recommend labor checks. It
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  Speaker 1: is easy to understand why the early English socialists came
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  Speaker 1: to the system of labor checks. They simply tried to
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  Speaker 1: make capital and labor agree. They repudiated the idea of
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  Speaker 1: violently laying hands on capitalist property. It is also easily
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  Speaker 1: understood why Prudon took up the idea later on. In
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  Speaker 1: his mutualist system. He tried to make capital less offensive,
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  Speaker 1: notwithstanding the retaining of private property, which he detested from
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  Speaker 1: the bottom of his heart, but which he believed to
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  Speaker 1: be necessary to guarantee individuals against the state. Neither is
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  Speaker 1: it astonishing that certain economists, more or less bourgeois, admit
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  Speaker 1: labor checks. They care little whether the worker is paid
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  Speaker 1: in labor notes or in coin stamped with the effigy
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  Speaker 1: of the republic or the empire. They only care to
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  Speaker 1: say from destruction individual ownership of dwelling houses, of land,
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  Speaker 1: of factories. In any case, that of dwelling houses and
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  Speaker 1: the capital that is necessary for manufacturing and labor notes
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  Speaker 1: would just answer the purpose of upholding this private property.
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  Speaker 1: As long as labor notes can be exchanged for jewels
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  Speaker 1: or carriages, the owner of the house will willingly accept
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  Speaker 1: them for rent. And as long as dwelling houses, fields
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  Speaker 1: and factories belong to isolated owners. Men will have to
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  Speaker 1: pay them in one way or another for being allowed
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  Speaker 1: to work in the fields or factories, or for living
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  Speaker 1: in the houses. The owners will accept to be paid
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  Speaker 1: by the workers in gold, in paper money, or in
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  Speaker 1: checks exchangeable for all sorts of commodities. But how can
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  Speaker 1: we defend labor notes this new form of wagedom when
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  Speaker 1: we admit that all houses, fields and factories will no
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  Speaker 1: longer be private property, and that they will belong to
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  Speaker 1: the commune or the nation. Let us closely examine this
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  Speaker 1: system of remuneration for work done preached by French, German,
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  Speaker 1: English and Italian collectivists. Spanish anarchists who still call themselves collectivists,
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  Speaker 1: imply by collectivism the possession in common of all instruments
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  Speaker 1: of production and the quote liberty of each group to
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  Speaker 1: divide the produce as they think fit, according to communists
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  Speaker 1: or any other principles. And it amounts to this. Everybody
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  Speaker 1: works in field, factory, school, hospital, et cetera. The working
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  Speaker 1: day is fixed by the state which owns lands, factories, roads,
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  Speaker 1: et cetera. Every work day is paid for with a
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  Speaker 1: labor note, which is inscribed with these words eight hours work.
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  Speaker 1: With this check, the worker can procure all sorts of
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  Speaker 1: merchandise in the stores owned by the state or by
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  Speaker 1: diverse corporations. The check is divisible, so that you can
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  Speaker 1: buy an hour's work worth of meat, ten minutes worth
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  Speaker 1: of matches, or half an hour of tobacco. After the
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  Speaker 1: collectivist Revolution, instead of saying two pence worth of soap,
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  Speaker 1: we shall say five minutes worth of soap. Most collectivists,
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  Speaker 1: true to the distinction laid down by middle class economists
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  Speaker 1: and by marks between qualified work and simple work, tell
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  Speaker 1: us moreover that qualified or professional work must be paid
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  Speaker 1: a certain quantity more than simple work. Thus an hour
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  Speaker 1: work of a doctor will have to be considered as
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  Speaker 1: equivalent to two or three hours work of a hospital nurse,
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  Speaker 1: or to three hours work.
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  Speaker 2: Of a navvy.
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  Speaker 1: Professional or qualified work will be a multiple of simple works,
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  Speaker 1: says the collectivists Groanland, because this kind of work needs
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  Speaker 1: a more or less long apprenticeship. Other collectivists, such as
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  Speaker 1: the French Marxists, do not make this distinction.
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  Speaker 2: They proclaim equality of wages.
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  Speaker 1: The doctor, the schoolmaster, and the professor will be paid
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  Speaker 1: in labor checks at the same rate as the navvy
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  Speaker 1: eight hours visiting the sick in a hospital will be
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  Speaker 1: worth the same as eight hours spent in earthworks or
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  Speaker 1: else in minds in factories, some make a greater concession.
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  Speaker 1: They admit that disagreeable or unhealthy works such as sewerage,
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  Speaker 1: could be paid for at a higher rate than agreeable work.
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  Speaker 1: One hour's work of a sewerman would be worth they say,
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  Speaker 1: two hours of a professor's work. Let us add that
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  Speaker 1: certain collectivists admit of corporations paying a lump sum for
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  Speaker 1: work done. Thus, the corporation would say, here are a
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  Speaker 1: hundred tons of steel. A hundred workmen were required to
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  Speaker 1: produce them, and it took them ten days, their work
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  Speaker 1: day being an eight hour day, it has taken them
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  Speaker 1: eight thousand working hours to produce a hundred tons of
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  Speaker 1: steel eight hours a ton. For this, the state would
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  Speaker 1: pay them eight thousand labor notes of one hour each,
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  Speaker 1: and these eight thousand checks would be divided among the
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  Speaker 1: members of the iron works, as they themselves thought proper.
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  Speaker 1: On the other hand, a hundred miners, having taken twenty
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  Speaker 1: days to extract eight thousand tons of coal, coal would
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  Speaker 1: be worth two hours a ton in the sixteen thousand
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  Speaker 1: checks of one hour each received by the guild of
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  Speaker 1: miners would be divided among their members according to their
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  Speaker 1: own appreciation. If the miners protested and said that a
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  Speaker 1: ton of steel should only cost six hours work instead
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  Speaker 1: of eight, if the professor wished to have his day
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  Speaker 1: paid twice more than the nurse, than the state would
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  Speaker 1: interfere and would settle their differences.
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  Speaker 2: Such is, in a few words.
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  Speaker 1: The organization collectivists wish to see a rise out of
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  Speaker 1: the social revolution. As we see, their principles are collective
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  Speaker 1: property of the instruments of production, and remuneration to each
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  Speaker 1: according to the time spent in producing, while taking into
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  Speaker 1: account the productivity of his labor. As to the political system,
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  Speaker 1: it would be parliamentarianism, modified by positive instructions given to
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  Speaker 1: those elected by the referendum, a vote taken by nose
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  Speaker 1: or eyes by the nation. Let us own that this
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  Speaker 1: system appears to us unrealizable. Collectivists begin by proclaiming a
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  Speaker 1: revolutionary principle, the abolition of private property. Then they deny
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  Speaker 1: it no sooner than proclaimed by upholding an organization of
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  Speaker 1: production and consumption that originated in private property. Claim a
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  Speaker 1: revolutionary principle and ignore the consequences that this principle will
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  Speaker 1: inevitably bring about. They forget that the very fact of
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  Speaker 1: abolishing individual property and the instruments of work land, factories,
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  Speaker 1: road capital must launch society into absolutely new channels. Must
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  Speaker 1: completely overthrow the present system of production, both in its
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  Speaker 1: aim as well as in its means. Must modify daily
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  Speaker 1: relations between individuals. As soon as land, machinery, and all
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  Speaker 1: other instruments of production are considered common property, they say,
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  Speaker 1: no private property, and immediately after strive to maintain private
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  Speaker 1: property in its daily manifestations. You shall be a commune.
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  Speaker 1: As far as regards production, fields, tools, machinery, All that
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  Speaker 1: has been invented up till now, factories, railways, harbours, mines, etc.
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  Speaker 2: Are all yours.
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  Speaker 1: Not the slightest distinction will be made concerning the share
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  Speaker 1: of each in this collective property. But from tomorrow you
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  Speaker 1: will minutely debate the share you are going to take
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  Speaker 1: in the creation of new machinery, in the digging of
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  Speaker 1: new minds. You will carefully weigh what part of the
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  Speaker 1: new produce belongs to you. You will count your minutes
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  Speaker 1: of work, and you will take care that a minute
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  Speaker 1: of your neighbors cannot buy more than yours, and as
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  Speaker 1: an hour measures nothing. As in some factories a worker
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  Speaker 1: can see to six power looms at a time, while
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  Speaker 1: in another he tends only two. You will weigh the
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  Speaker 1: muscular force, the brain energy, and the nervous energy you
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  Speaker 1: have expended. You will accurately calculate the years of apprenticeship
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  Speaker 1: in order to apprize the amount each will contribute to
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  Speaker 1: future production. And this after having declared that you do
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  Speaker 1: not take into account his share in past production. Well
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  Speaker 1: for us, it is evident that a society cannot be
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  Speaker 1: based on two absolutely opposed principles, two principles that contradict
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  Speaker 1: one another continually. Nation or a commune that would have
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  Speaker 1: such an organization would be compelled to revert to private
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  Speaker 1: property in the instruments of production, or to transform itself
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  Speaker 1: immediately into a communist society. We have said that certain
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  Speaker 1: collectivist writers desire that a distinction should be made between
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  Speaker 1: qualified or professional work and simple work. They pretend that
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  Speaker 1: an hour's work of an engineer, an architect, or a
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  Speaker 1: doctor must be considered as two or three hours work
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  Speaker 1: of a blacksmith, a mason, or a hospital nurse, and
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  Speaker 1: the same distinction must be made between all sorts of trades,
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  Speaker 1: necessitating a more or less long apprenticeship in the simple
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  Speaker 1: toil of day laborers.
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  Speaker 2: Well.
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  Speaker 1: To establish this distinction would be to maintain all the
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  Speaker 1: inequalities of present society. It would mean fixing a dividing
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  Speaker 1: line from the beginning between the workers and those who
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  Speaker 1: pretend to govern them. It would mean dividing society into
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  Speaker 1: two very distinct classes, the aristocracy of knowledge above the
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  Speaker 1: horny handed lower orders, the ones doomed to serve the other,
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  Speaker 1: the one working with its hands to feed and clothe
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  Speaker 1: those who, profiting by their leisure, study how to govern
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  Speaker 1: their phosphorers. It would mean reviving one of the distinct
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  Speaker 1: peculiarities of present society and giving it the sanction of
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  Speaker 1: the social revolution. It would mean setting up as a
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  Speaker 1: principle an abuse already condemned in our ancient, crumbling society.
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  Speaker 1: We know the answer we shall get. They will speak
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  Speaker 1: of scientific socialism. They will quote bourgeois economists in Marks
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  Speaker 1: two to prove that a scale of wages has its
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  Speaker 1: rays on deetra, as the labor force of the engineer
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  Speaker 1: will have cost more to society than the labor force
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  Speaker 1: of the navvy. In fact, have not economists tried to
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  Speaker 1: prove to us that if an engineer is paid twenty
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  Speaker 1: times more than a navvy, it is because the necessary
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  Speaker 1: outlay to make an engineer is greater than the necessary
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  Speaker 1: to make a navvy, And has not Marx asserted that
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  Speaker 1: the same distinction is equally logical between two branches of
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  Speaker 1: manual labor. He could not conclude otherwise, having on his
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  Speaker 1: own account, taken at Ricardo's theory of value and upheld
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  Speaker 1: that goods are exchange in proportion to the quantity of
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  Speaker 1: work socially necessary for their production.
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  Speaker 2: But we know what to think of this.
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  Speaker 1: We know that if engineers, scientists, or doctors are paid
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  Speaker 1: ten or one hundred times more than a laborer, and
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  Speaker 1: that a weaver earns three times more than an agricultural
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  Speaker 1: laborer and ten times more than a girl in a
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  Speaker 1: match factory, it is not by reason of their cost
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  Speaker 1: of production, but by reason of a monopoly of education
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  Speaker 1: or a monopoly of industry. Engineers, scientists, and doctors merely
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  Speaker 1: exploit their capital their diplomas, as middle class employers exploit
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  Speaker 1: a factory, or as nobles used to exploit their titles
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  Speaker 1: of nobility. As to the employer who pays an engineer
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  Speaker 1: twenty times more than a laborer, it is simply due
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  Speaker 1: to personal interest.
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  Speaker 2: If the engineer can.
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  Speaker 1: Economize four thousand pounds a year on the cost of production,
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  Speaker 1: the employer pays him eight hundred pounds. And if the
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  Speaker 1: employer has a foreman who saves four hundred pounds on
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  Speaker 1: the work by cleverly sweating workmen, he gladly gives him
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  Speaker 1: eighty pounds or a hundred twenty pounds a year. He
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  Speaker 1: parts with an extra forty pounds when he expects to
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  Speaker 1: gain four hundred by it. And this is the essence
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  Speaker 1: of the capitalist system. The same differences obtain among diverse
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: manual trades. Let them, therefore not talk to us of
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  Speaker 1: the cost of production, which raises the cost of skilled labor,
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  Speaker 1: and tell us that a student who has gaily spent
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  Speaker 1: his youth in a university has a right to a
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  Speaker 1: wage ten times greater than the son of a miner
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  Speaker 1: who has grown pale in a mine since the age
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  Speaker 1: of eleven, or that a weaver has a right to
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  Speaker 1: a wage three or four times greater than that of
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: an agricultural laborer. The of teaching a weaver his work
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  Speaker 1: is not four times greater than the cost of teaching
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  Speaker 1: a peasant his The weaver simply benefits by the advantages
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  Speaker 1: his industry reaps. In Europe in comparison with countries that
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: have as yet no industries. Nobody has ever calculated the
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: cost of production. And if a loafer costs far more
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  Speaker 1: to society than a worker, it remains to be seen
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  Speaker 1: whether a robust day laborer does not cost more to
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: society than a skilled artisan. When we have taken into
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: account infant mortality among the poor, the ravages of anemia
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: and premature deaths, could they, for example, make us believe
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  Speaker 1: that the one shilling three pence paid to a Paris workman,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: the three pence paid to an Avern peasant girl who
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  Speaker 1: grows blind at lace making, or the one shilling eight
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  Speaker 1: pence paid to the peasant represent their cost of production.
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  Speaker 1: We know full well that people work for less, but
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  Speaker 1: we also know that that they do so exclusively because
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: thanks to our wonderful organization, they would die of hunger
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  Speaker 1: did they not accept these mock wages for us. The
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  Speaker 1: scale of remuneration is a complex result of taxes, of
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: governmental tutelage, of capitalist monopoly. In a word, of state
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: and capital. Therefore we say that all wage theories have
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: been invented after the event to justify injustices at present existing,
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  Speaker 1: and that we need not take them into consideration.
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  Speaker 2: Neither will they.
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  Speaker 1: Fail to tell us that the collective at scale of
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  Speaker 1: wages would be an improvement.
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  Speaker 2: It would be better, so they.
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  Speaker 1: Say, to see certain artisans receiving a wage two or
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: three times higher than common laborers than to see a
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: minister receiving in a day what a workman cannot earn
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  Speaker 1: in a year. It would be a great step toward
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: equality for us. This step would be the reverse of progress.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: To make a distinction between simple and professional work in
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: a new society would result in the Revolutions sanctioning and
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  Speaker 1: recognizing as a principle a brutal fact we submit to nowadays,
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  Speaker 1: but that we nevertheless find unjust. It would mean imitating
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  Speaker 1: those gentlemen of the French Assembly who proclaimed August fourth,
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  Speaker 1: seventeen eighty nine the abolition of feudal rights, but who
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: on August eighth sanctioned these same rights by imposing dues
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: on the peasants to compensate the noblemen, placing these dues
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: under the projection of the revolution, it would mean imitating
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: the Russian government, which proclaimed at the time of the
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: emancipation of the serfs that the land should henceforth belong
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  Speaker 1: to the nobility, while formerly the lands were considered belonging
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: to the serfs.
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  Speaker 2: Or else.
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  Speaker 1: To take a better known example, when the Commune of
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: eighteen seventy one decided to pay members of the commune
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: council twelve shillings sixpence a day, while the federates on
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: the ramparts received only one shilling threepence, this decision was
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: hailed as an act of superior democratic equality. In reality,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: a commune only ratified the former inequality between functionary and
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: soldier government and governed. Coming from an opportunist Chamber of Deputies,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: such a decision would have appeared admirable, but the commune
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: doomed her revolutionary principles because she failed to put them
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: into practice. Under our existing social system, when a minister
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: gets paid four thousand pounds a year, while a workman
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: must content himself with forty pounds or less. When a
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: foreman is paid two or three times more than a workman,
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  Speaker 1: and among workmen there is every gradation from eight shillings
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  Speaker 1: a day down to the peasant girls three pence.
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  Speaker 2: We disapprove of the high salary of the.
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  Speaker 1: Minister, as well as of the difference between the eight
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  Speaker 1: shillings of the workmen and the three pence of the
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: poor woman.
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  Speaker 2: And we say down with.
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  Speaker 1: The privileges of education as well as with those of birth.
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  Speaker 1: We are anarchists precisely because these privileges revolt us. They
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  Speaker 1: revolt us already in this authoritarian society. Could we endure
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: them in a society that began by proclaiming equality. That
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: is why some collectivists, understanding the impossibility of maintaining a
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: scale of wages in a society inspired by the breath
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  Speaker 1: of the revolution, hasten to proclaim equality of wage.
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  Speaker 2: But they meet with.
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  Speaker 1: New difficulties, and their equality of wages becomes the same
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  Speaker 1: unrealizable utopia as a scale of wages of other collectivists.
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  Speaker 1: A society, having taken possession of all social wealth, having
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  Speaker 1: boldly proclaimed the right of all to this wealth, whatever
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: share they may have taken in producing it, will be
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: compelled to abandon any system of wages, whether in currency
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: or labor notes. The collectivists say to each according to
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: his deeds, or in other terms, according to his share
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  Speaker 1: of services rendered to society. They think it expedient to
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: put this principle into practice as soon as the social
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Revolution will have made all instruments of production common property.
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  Speaker 1: But we think that if the social Revolution had the
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: misfortune of proclaiming such a principle, it would mean its
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  Speaker 1: necessary failure. It would mean leaving the social problem which
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: past centuries have burdened us with unsolved. In fact, in
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: a society like ours, in which the more a man works,
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  Speaker 1: the less he has remunerated. This principle, at first site
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: may appear to be a yearning for justice, but it
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: is really only the perpetuation of past injustice.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: It was by.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Virtue of this principle that waged and began to end
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: in the glaring inequalities in all the abominations of present society.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Because from the moment work done was apprized in currency
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: or in any other form of wage, the day it
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: was agreed upon that man would only receive the wage
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: he could secure to himself, the whole history of state
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: aided capitalist society was as good as written, it germinated
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: in this principle. Shall we then return to our starting
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: point and go through the same evolution again. Our theorists
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: desire it, but fortunately it is impossible the revolution will
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: be communist. If not, it will be drowned in blood
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: and have to be begun over again. Services render to society,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: be they work in factory or field or mental, services
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: cannot be valued in money. There can be no exact
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: measure of value of what has been wrongly termed exchange value,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: nor of use value with regard to production. If two
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: individuals work for the community five hours a day, ye're
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: in year out a different work which is equally agreeable
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: to them. We may say that on the whole their
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: labor is equivalent, But we cannot divide their work and
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: say that the result of any particular day, hour or
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: minute of work of the one is worth the result
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: of a minute or hour of the other. We may
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: roughly say that the man who, during his lifetime has
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: deprived himself of leisure during ten hours a day has
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: given far more to society than the one who has
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: only deprived himself of leisure during five hours a day,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: or who has not deprived himself at all. But we
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: cannot take what he has done during two hours and
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: say that the yield is worth twice as much as
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: the yield of another individual working only one hour, and
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: remunerate him in proportion. It would be disregarding all that
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: is complex in industry and agriculture, in the whole life
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: of present society. It would be ignoring to what extent
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: all individual work is the result of past and present
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: labor of society as a whole. It would mean believing
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: ourselves to be living in the stone age, whereas we
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: are living in an age of steel. If you enter
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: a coal mine, you will see a man in charge
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: of a huge machine that raises and lowers a cage.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: In his hands.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: He holds a lever that stops and reverses the course
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: of the machine. He lowers it, and the cage turns back.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: In the twinkling of an eye, he raises it. He
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: lowers it again with a giddy swiftness all attention. He follows,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: with his eyes fixed on the wall, an indicator that
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: shows him on a small scale at which point of
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: the shaft the cage is at each second of its progress.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: As soon as the indicator has reached a certain level,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: he suddenly stops. The course of the cage. Not a
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: yard higher nor lower than the required spot, and no
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: sooner have the colliers I loaded their coal wagons and
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: pushed empty ones instead than he reverses the lever and
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: again sends the cage back into space. During eight or
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: ten consecutive hours, he must pay the closest attention. Should
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: his brain relax for a moment, the cage would inevitably
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: strike against the gear, break its wheels, snap the rope
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: crush men, and obstruct work in the mine. Should he
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: waste three seconds at each touch of the lever, in
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: our modern, perfected minds, the extraction would be reduced from
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: twenty to fifty tons a day. Is it he who
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: is of greatest use in the mine? Or is it
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: perhaps the boy who signals to him from below to
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: raise the cage. Is it the miner at the bottom
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: of the shaft, who risks his life every instant, and
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: who will some day be killed by fire damp? Or
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: is it the engineer who would lose the layer of coal,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: and who would cause the miners to dig on rock
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: by a simple mistake in his calculations? And lastly, is
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: it the mine owner who has put all his capital
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: into the mine, and who has, perhaps contrary to expert
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: advice asserted that excellent coal would be found there. All
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: the miners engaged in this mine contribute to the extraction
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: of coal in proportion to their strength, their energy, their knowledge,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: their intelligence, and their skill. And we may say that
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: all have the right to live, to satisfy their needs
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: and even their whims, when the necessaries of life have
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: been secured for all. But how can we apprize their work?
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: And moreover, is the coal they have extracted the the work?
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Is it not also the work of men who have
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: built the railway leading to the mine, and the roads
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: that radiate from all its stations. Is it not also
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: the work of those that have tilled and sown in
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: the fields, extracted iron cut woods in the forests, built
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: the machines that burn coal, and so on? No distinction
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: can be drawn between the work of each man. Measuring
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: the work by its results leads us to absurdity. Dividing
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: and measuring them by hours spent on the work also
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: leads us to absurdity. One thing remains. Put the needs
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: above the works, and first of all, recognize the right
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: to live and later on to the comforts of life
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: for all those who take their share in production, But
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: take any other branch of human activity, take the manifestations
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: of life as a whole, which one of us can
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: claim the higher remuneration for his work? Is it the
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: doctor who has found out the illness? Or the nurse
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: who has brought about recovery by her hygienic care. Is
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: it the inventor of the first steam engine? Or the
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: boy who, one day, getting tired of pulling the rope
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: that formerly opened the valve to let steam enter under
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: the piston, tied the rope to the lever of the
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: machine without suspecting that he had invented the essential mechanical
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: part of all modern machinery, the automatic valve. Is it
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: the inventor of the locomotive or the workmen of Newcastle
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: who suggested replacing the stones formerly laid under the rails
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: by wooden sleepers, as the stones for want of elasticity
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: cause the trains to derail? Is it the engineer on
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: the locomotive, the signalmen who can stop trains, the switchmen
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: who transfers a train from one line to another. To
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: whom do we owe the Transatlantic cable? Is it to
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: the engineer who obstinately affirmed that the cable would transmit
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: messages when learned electricians declared it to be impossible. Is
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: it to Maury the scientists who advised that thick cables
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: should be set aside for others as thin as canes?
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Or else do those volunteers come from nobody knows where,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: who spent their days and nights on deck? My minutely
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: examining every yard of the cable, and remove the nails
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: that the stockholders of steamship Company is stupidly caused to
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: be driven into the non conducting wrapper of the cable
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: so as to make it unserviceable. And in a wider sphere,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: the true sphere of life, with its joys, its sufferings,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: and its accidents. Cannot each one of us recall some
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: one who has rendered him so great a service that
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: we should be indignant if its equivalent in coin were mentioned.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: The service may have been but a word, nothing but
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: a word spoken at the right time, or else it
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: may have been months and years of devotion. And are
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: we going to apprize these incalculable services in labor notes
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: the works of each but human society would not exist
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: for more than two consecutive generations if every one did
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: not give infinitely more than that for which he is
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: paid in coin, in checks, or in civic rewards. The
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: race would soon become extinct if mothers did not sacrifice
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: their lives to take care of their children, if men
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: did not give all the time without demanding an equivalent,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: if men did not give just to those from whom they.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Expect no reward.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: If middle class society is decaying, if we have got
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: into a blind alley from which we cannot emerge without
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: attacking past institutions with torch and hatchet, it is precisely
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: because we have calculated too much. It is because we
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: have let ourselves be influenced into giving only to receive.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: It is because we have aimed at turning society into
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: a commercial company based on debit and credit. Collectivists know this.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: They vaguely understand that a society could not exist if
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: it carried out the principle of each according to his deeds.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: They have a notion that necessaries. We do not speak
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: of whims. The needs of the individual do not always
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: correspond to his works. Thus to Pape tells us, thus
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: to pay, He tells us. The principle, the eminently individualist
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: principle would however, be tempered by social intervention for the
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: education of children and young persons, including maintenance and lodging,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: and by the social organization for assisting the infirm and
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: the sick, for retreats for aged workers, et cetera. They
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: understand that a man of forty, father of three children,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: has other needs than the young man of twenty. They
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: know that the woman who suckles her infant and spends
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: sleepless nights at its bedside cannot do as much work
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: as the man who has slept peacefully. They seem to
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: take in that men and women worn out, maybe by
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: dint of overwork for society, may be incapable of doing
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: as much work as those who have spent their time
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: leisurely and pocketed their labor notes in the privileged career
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: of state functionaries. They are eager to temper their principle.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: They say, society will not fail to maintain and bring
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: up its children, to help both aged and infirm, without doubt,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: needs will be the measure of the costs that society
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: will burden itself with to temper the principle of deeds
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: charity charity always Christian charity organized by the state. This
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: time they believe in improving asylums for foundlings, in affecting
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: old age and sick insurances, so as to temper their principle.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: But they cannot yet throw aside the idea of wounding
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: first and healing afterwards. Thus, after having denied communism, after
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: having laughed at their ease at the formula to each
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: according to his needs, these great economists discover that they
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: have forgotten something, the needs of the producers, which they
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: now admit. Only it is for the state to estimate them,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: for the state to verify if the needs or not
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: disproportionate to the work, the state will dole out charity. Thence,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: to the English poor law in the workhouse is but
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: a step.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: There is but a degree.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Because even this stepmother of a society against whom we
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: are in revolt, has also been compelled to temper her
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: individualist principles. She too has had to make concessions in
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: a communist direction, and under the same form of charity. Poverty,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: we have said elsewhere, was the primary cause of wealth.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: It was poverty that created the first capitalists, because before
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: accumulating surplus value of which we hear so much, men
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: had to be sufficiently destitute to consent to sell their
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: labor so as to not die of hunger. It was
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: poverty that made capitalists, and if the number of poorer
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: rapidly increased during the Middle Ages, it was due to
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: the invasions and wars that followed the founding of states,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: and to the increase of riches resulting from the exploitation
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: of the East that tore the bonds asunder which once
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: united agrarian and urban communities, and taught them to proclaim
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: the principle of wages so dear to exploiters, instead of
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: the solidarity they formerly practiced. And it is this principle
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: that is to spring from a revolution which men dare
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: to call by the name of social revolution, a name
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: so clear to the starved, the oppressed, and the sufferers
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: it can never be. For the day on which old
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: institutions will fall under the proletarian acts, voices will call bread, shelter,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: ease for all, and those voices will be listened to.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: The people will say, let us begin by allaying our
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: thirst for life, for happiness, for liberty that we have
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: never quenched. And when we shall have tasted of this joy,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: we will set to work to demolish the last vestiges
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: of middle class rule, its morality drawn from account books,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: its debit and credit philosophy, its mind in yours institutions.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: In demolishing, we shall build, as prudence said, and we
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: shall build in the name of communism and anarchy. End
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: of Chapter thirteen.