Latest / Philosophy and Faith / 05 - Food - The Conquest of Bread

Transcript

05 - Food - The Conquest of Bread · Philosophy and Faith

0:00
Speaker 1: Chapter five Food Part one. If the coming revolution is
0:06
Speaker 1: to be a social revolution, it will be distinguished from
0:09
Speaker 1: all former uprising not only by its aim but also
0:12
Speaker 1: by its methods. To attain a new end, new means
0:16
Speaker 1: are required. The three great popular movements which we have
0:19
Speaker 1: seen in France during the last hundred years differ from
0:22
Speaker 1: each other in many ways, but they have one common feature.
0:27
Speaker 1: In each case, the people strove to overturn the old
0:29
Speaker 1: regime and spent their heart's blood for the cause. Then,
0:33
Speaker 1: after having borne the brunt of the battle, they sank
0:36
Speaker 1: again into obscurity. A government composed of men more or
0:40
Speaker 1: less honest, was form and undertook to organize the Republic
0:43
Speaker 1: in seventeen ninety three, Labour in eighteen forty eight, and
0:46
Speaker 1: the Free Commune in eighteen seventy one. Imbued with Jacobin ideas,
0:51
Speaker 1: this government occupied itself first of all with political questions
0:55
Speaker 1: such as the reorganization of the machinery of government, the
0:58
Speaker 1: purifying of the ministry, the separation of church and state,
1:02
Speaker 1: civic liberty, and such matters. It is true the workmen's
1:06
Speaker 1: clubs kept an eye on the members of the new
1:08
Speaker 1: government and often opposed their ideas. On them. But even
1:11
Speaker 1: in these clubs, whether the leaders belonged to the middle
1:14
Speaker 1: or to the working classes, it was always the middle
1:16
Speaker 1: class ideas which prevailed. They discussed various political questions at
1:20
Speaker 1: great length, but forgot to discuss the question of bread.
1:24
Speaker 1: Great ideas sprang up at such times, ideas that have
1:27
Speaker 1: moved the world. Words were spoken which still stir our
1:30
Speaker 1: hearts at the interval of the century, But the people
1:34
Speaker 1: were starving in the slums. From the very commencement of
1:37
Speaker 1: the revolution. Industry inevitably came to a stop. The circulation
1:41
Speaker 1: of produce was checked, and the capital concealed itself. The master,
1:46
Speaker 1: the employer had nothing to fear at such times. He
1:49
Speaker 1: battened on his dividends, if indeed he did not speculate
1:52
Speaker 1: on the wretchedness around. But the wagejourner was reduced to
1:55
Speaker 1: live from hand to mouth, want knocked at the door.
1:59
Speaker 1: Famine was a broad Inna the land. Such famine has
2:01
Speaker 1: hardly been seen under the old regime. The Girondis are
2:05
Speaker 1: starving us, was to cry of the workmen's quarters in
2:07
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety three, and thereupon the Girondis were guillotined and
2:11
Speaker 1: full powers were given to the mountain and to the commune.
2:15
Speaker 1: The commune indeed concerned itself with the question of bread,
2:18
Speaker 1: and made heroic efforts to feed Paris at Lyons Fouchet
2:22
Speaker 1: and Colo de Ebois established city granaries, but the sums
2:26
Speaker 1: spent on filling them were woefully insufficient. The town councils
2:29
Speaker 1: made great efforts to procure corn, the bakers who hoarded
2:33
Speaker 1: flour were hanged, and still the people lacked bread. Then
2:36
Speaker 1: they turned on the royalist conspirators and laid the blame
2:39
Speaker 1: at their door. They guiltied a dozen or fifteen a
2:42
Speaker 1: day servants and duchesses alike, especially servants for the duchess
2:47
Speaker 1: had gone to coblans. But if they had guilty one
2:49
Speaker 1: hundred dukes in viscounts every day, it would have been
2:52
Speaker 1: equally hopeless. The want only grew, for the wage earner
2:57
Speaker 1: cannot live without his wage, and the wage was not
2:59
Speaker 1: forth coming. What difference could a thousand corpses more or
3:03
Speaker 1: less make to him? Then the people began to grow weary.
3:06
Speaker 1: So much for your vaunted revolution. You were more wretched
3:09
Speaker 1: than ever before, whispered the reactionary in the ears of
3:12
Speaker 1: the worker, and little by little. The rich took courage,
3:16
Speaker 1: emerged from their hiding places and flaunted their luxury in
3:19
Speaker 1: the face of the starving multitude. They dressed up like
3:22
Speaker 1: scented bops and said to the workers, come, enough of
3:25
Speaker 1: this foolery, what have you gained by rebellion? Sick at heart,
3:28
Speaker 1: his patience at an end, the revolutionary had to at
3:31
Speaker 1: least admit to himself that the cause was lost. Once more,
3:35
Speaker 1: he retreated into his hovel and awaited the worst. Then
3:38
Speaker 1: the reaction proudly asserted itself and accomplished a politic stroke.
3:43
Speaker 1: The revolution dead, nothing remained but to trample its corpse underfoot.
3:46
Speaker 1: The white terror began. Blood flowed like water, the guiltine
3:50
Speaker 1: was never idle, The prisons were crowded, while the pageant
3:53
Speaker 1: of rank and fashion resumed its old course and went
3:56
Speaker 1: on as merrily as before. This picture is typical of
3:59
Speaker 1: all a revolutions. In eighteen forty eight, the workers of
4:02
Speaker 1: Paris placed three months of starvation at the service of
4:05
Speaker 1: the Republic, and then, having riched the limits of their powers,
4:09
Speaker 1: they made one last desperate effort, an effort which was
4:12
Speaker 1: drowned in blood. In eighteen seventy one, the Commune perished
4:16
Speaker 1: for lack of combatants. It had taken measures for the
4:18
Speaker 1: separation of church and state, but it neglected at last
4:22
Speaker 1: until too late, to take measures for providing people with bread.
4:25
Speaker 1: And so it came to pass in Paris that the
4:27
Speaker 1: elegance and fine gentlemen could spurn the confederates and bid
4:31
Speaker 1: them to go sell their lives for a miserable pittance,
4:34
Speaker 1: and leave their betters to feast at their ease in
4:37
Speaker 1: fashionable restaurants. At last the commune saw its mistake and
4:41
Speaker 1: open communal kitchens, but it was too late. The days
4:44
Speaker 1: were already numbered, and the troops of Versailles were on
4:47
Speaker 1: the ramparts bread. It is bred that the revolution needs.
4:51
Speaker 1: Let others spend their time in issuing pompous proclamations and
4:54
Speaker 1: decorating themselves lavishly with official gold place and in talking
4:58
Speaker 1: about political liberty. Be it ours to see, from the
5:02
Speaker 1: first day of the revolution to the last, in all
5:05
Speaker 1: provinces fighting for freedom, that there is not a single
5:08
Speaker 1: man who locks bread, not a single woman compelled to
5:11
Speaker 1: stand with the wearful crowd outside the bake house door,
5:14
Speaker 1: that a happily coarse loaf may be thrown to her
5:16
Speaker 1: in charity, not a single child pining for want of food.
5:20
Speaker 1: It has always been the middle class idea to harangue
5:22
Speaker 1: about great principles, great lives. Rather, the idea of the
5:27
Speaker 1: people will be to provide bread for all. And while
5:30
Speaker 1: middle class citizens and workmen infested with middle class ideas
5:33
Speaker 1: admire their own rhetoric in the talking shops, and practical
5:37
Speaker 1: people are engaged in endless discussions on forms of government,
5:40
Speaker 1: we the utopian dreamers, we shall have to consider the
5:44
Speaker 1: question of daily bread. We have the temerity to declare
5:47
Speaker 1: that all have a right to bread, that there is
5:50
Speaker 1: bread enough for all, and that with the watchword of
5:54
Speaker 1: bread for all, the revolution will triumph. Part two. That
5:59
Speaker 1: we are utopians is well known. So utopian are we
6:02
Speaker 1: that we go the length of believing that the revolution
6:05
Speaker 1: can and ought to assure shelter, food, and clothes to all,
6:09
Speaker 1: an idea extremely displeasing to middle class citizens, whatever their
6:13
Speaker 1: party color, for they are quite alive to the fact
6:15
Speaker 1: that it is not easy to keep the upper hand
6:17
Speaker 1: of a people whose hunger is satisfied. All the same,
6:20
Speaker 1: we maintain our contention. Bread must be found for the
6:23
Speaker 1: people of the revolution, and the question of bread must
6:26
Speaker 1: take precedence of all other questions. If it is settled
6:30
Speaker 1: in the interests of the people, the revolution will be
6:32
Speaker 1: on the right road. For in solving the question of bread,
6:35
Speaker 1: we must accept the principles of equality, which will force
6:38
Speaker 1: itself upon us to the exclusion of every other solution.
6:42
Speaker 1: It is certain that the coming revolution, like in that
6:46
Speaker 1: respect to the revolution of eighteen forty eight, will burst
6:49
Speaker 1: upon us in the middle of a great industrial crisis.
6:51
Speaker 1: Things have been seething for half a century now and
6:54
Speaker 1: can only go from bad to worse. Everything tends that way,
6:57
Speaker 1: new nations entering the lists of international trade and fighting
7:01
Speaker 1: for possession of the world's markets, wars, taxes, ever increasing
7:05
Speaker 1: natural debts, the insecurity of the morrow, and huge colonial
7:09
Speaker 1: undertakings in every corner of the globe. There are a
7:12
Speaker 1: million of unemployed workers in Europe at this moment. It
7:15
Speaker 1: will still be worse when a revolution has burst upon
7:17
Speaker 1: us and spread like fire laid to the train of grundpowder.
7:21
Speaker 1: The number of outer works will be doubled as soon
7:23
Speaker 1: as barricades are erected in Europe and the United States.
7:27
Speaker 1: What is to be done to provide these multitudes with bread?
7:30
Speaker 1: We do not know whether the folk who call themselves
7:32
Speaker 1: practical people have ever asked themselves this question in all
7:35
Speaker 1: its nakedness. But we do know that they wish to
7:38
Speaker 1: maintain the wage system, and we must therefore expect to
7:41
Speaker 1: have national workshops and public works vaunted as a mean
7:45
Speaker 1: of giving food to the unemployed. Because national workshops were
7:49
Speaker 1: open in seventeen eighty nine and in seventeen ninety three,
7:52
Speaker 1: because the same means were resorted to in eighteen forty eight,
7:56
Speaker 1: because Napoleon the Third succeeded in contenting the Parisian Prolatinisa
8:00
Speaker 1: for eighteen years by giving them public works, which cost
8:03
Speaker 1: Paris today its dead of eighty million pounds and its
8:06
Speaker 1: municipal tax of three or four pounds. Ahead because this
8:10
Speaker 1: excellent method of taming the beast was customary in Rome
8:13
Speaker 1: and even in Egypt four thousand years ago, and lastly,
8:16
Speaker 1: because despots, kings and emperors have always employed the ruse
8:20
Speaker 1: of throwing a scrap of food to the people to
8:22
Speaker 1: gain time to snatch up the whip, it is natural
8:25
Speaker 1: that the practical men should extol this method of perpetuating
8:28
Speaker 1: the wage system. What need to rack our brains when
8:31
Speaker 1: we have the time honored method of the Pharaohs at
8:33
Speaker 1: our disposal. Yet should the revolution be so misguided as
8:37
Speaker 1: to start on this path, it would be lost. In
8:40
Speaker 1: eighteen forty eight, when the National workshops were opened on
8:42
Speaker 1: February twenty seventh, they unemployed at Paris numbered only eight hundred.
8:47
Speaker 1: A fortnight later they had already increased of forty nine thousand.
8:50
Speaker 1: They would soon have been one hundred thousand, without counting
8:53
Speaker 1: those who crowded in from the provinces. Yet at that
8:56
Speaker 1: time trade and manufacturers in France only employed half as
8:59
Speaker 1: many hands as today, and we know that in the
9:03
Speaker 1: time of revolution, exchange and industry suffer most from the
9:06
Speaker 1: general upheaval. To realize this, we have only to think
9:10
Speaker 1: for a moment of the number of workmen whose labor
9:12
Speaker 1: depends directly or indirectly upon export trade, or of the
9:16
Speaker 1: number of hands employed in producing luxuries whose consumers are
9:19
Speaker 1: the middle class minority. A revolution in Europe means the
9:23
Speaker 1: unavoidable stoppage of at least half the factories and workshops.
9:27
Speaker 1: It means millions of workers and their families thrown on
9:29
Speaker 1: the streets, and our practical men would seek to avert
9:33
Speaker 1: this truly terrible situation by means of national relief works,
9:37
Speaker 1: that is to say, by means of new industries created
9:40
Speaker 1: on the spot to give work to the unemployed. It
9:43
Speaker 1: is evident, as Prodan has already pointed out, that the
9:46
Speaker 1: smallest attack upon property will bring in its train the
9:49
Speaker 1: complete disorganization of the system based on private enterprise and
9:52
Speaker 1: wage labor. Society itself will be forced to take production
9:56
Speaker 1: in hand in its entirety, and to reorganize it to
9:59
Speaker 1: meet the needs of a whole people. But this cannot
10:01
Speaker 1: be accomplished in a day or a month. It must
10:04
Speaker 1: take a certain time thus to reorganize the system of production,
10:07
Speaker 1: and during this time millions of men will be deprived
10:10
Speaker 1: of the means of subsistence. What then is to be done?
10:14
Speaker 1: There is only one really practical solution of the problem.
10:17
Speaker 1: Boldly to face the great tasks which awaits us, and
10:20
Speaker 1: instead of trying to patch up a situation which we
10:22
Speaker 1: ourselves have made untenable, to proceed to reorganize the production
10:26
Speaker 1: on a new basis. Thus, the really practical force of action,
10:30
Speaker 1: in our view, would be that the people should take
10:33
Speaker 1: immediate possession of all the food of the insurgent districts,
10:36
Speaker 1: keeping strict account of it all that none might be wasted,
10:39
Speaker 1: and that by the aid of these accumulated resources, everyone
10:43
Speaker 1: might be able to tide over the crisis. During that time,
10:46
Speaker 1: an agreement would have to be made with the factory workers,
10:49
Speaker 1: the necessary raw materials given them, and the means of
10:52
Speaker 1: subsistence assured to them, while they work to supply the
10:55
Speaker 1: needs of the agriculture population. For we must not forget
10:58
Speaker 1: that while France weaves silks and satin and sedck, the
11:00
Speaker 1: wives of German financiers, the Empress of Russia and the
11:03
Speaker 1: Queen of the Sandwich Islands, and while Paris fashions wonderful
11:07
Speaker 1: trinkets and playthings for rich folk all the world over,
11:10
Speaker 1: two thirds of the French peasantry have not proper lamps
11:13
Speaker 1: to give them light, or the implements necessary for modern agriculture. Lastly,
11:17
Speaker 1: unproductive land, of which there is plenty, would have to
11:20
Speaker 1: be turned to the best advantage. Poor soils, enriched and
11:23
Speaker 1: rich soils, which yet under the prison system, do not
11:26
Speaker 1: yield a quarter, no nor a tenth of what they
11:29
Speaker 1: might produce submitted to intensive culture and tilled with as
11:34
Speaker 1: much care as a market garden or a flower pot.
11:37
Speaker 1: It is impossible to imagine any other practical solution of
11:40
Speaker 1: the problem, and whether we like it or not, sheer
11:43
Speaker 1: force of circumstances will bring it to pass. Par Three.
11:49
Speaker 1: The most prominent characteristic of capitalism is the wage system,
11:53
Speaker 1: which in brief amounts to this. A man or group
11:56
Speaker 1: of men possessing the necessary capital starts some industrial enterprise.
12:00
Speaker 1: He undertakes to supply the factory or workshops with raw material,
12:04
Speaker 1: to organize production, to pay the employees of fixed wage,
12:08
Speaker 1: and lastly to pocket the surf plus value or profits,
12:11
Speaker 1: under pretext of recouping himself for managing the concern, for
12:15
Speaker 1: running the risk it may involve, and for the fluctuations
12:18
Speaker 1: of price in the market value of the wares. To
12:21
Speaker 1: preserve the system, those who now monopolize capital would be
12:24
Speaker 1: ready to make certain concessions to share, for example, a
12:27
Speaker 1: part of the profits with the workers, or rather to
12:30
Speaker 1: establish a sliding scale which would oblige them to raise
12:33
Speaker 1: wages when prices were high. In brief, they would consent
12:36
Speaker 1: to certain sacrifices on condition that they were still allowed
12:39
Speaker 1: to direct industry and to take its first fruits. Collectivism,
12:43
Speaker 1: as we know, does not abolish wages. Though it introduces
12:46
Speaker 1: considerable modifications into the existing order of things, it only
12:50
Speaker 1: substitutes the state, that is to say, representative government, national
12:54
Speaker 1: or local for the individual employer of labour. Under collectivism,
12:59
Speaker 1: it is the representatives of the nation or of the district,
13:02
Speaker 1: and their deputies and officials who are to have the
13:05
Speaker 1: control of industry. It is they who reserve to themselves
13:08
Speaker 1: the right of employing the surplus of production in the
13:11
Speaker 1: interest of all. Moreover, collectivism draws a very subtle, but
13:16
Speaker 1: very far reaching distinction between the work of the laborer
13:19
Speaker 1: and of the man who has learned a craft. Unskilled labor,
13:23
Speaker 1: in the eyes of the collectivists is simple labor, while
13:26
Speaker 1: the work of the craftsmen, the mechanic, the engineer, the
13:29
Speaker 1: man of science, et cetera, is what Marx calls complex labor,
13:34
Speaker 1: and is entitled to a higher wage. But laborers and craftsmen,
13:37
Speaker 1: weavers and men of science are all wage servants of
13:40
Speaker 1: the state, all officials, as we have said lately, to
13:44
Speaker 1: gild the pill. The coming revolution can render no greater
13:49
Speaker 1: service to humanity than to make the wage system in
13:52
Speaker 1: all its forms and a possibility, and to render communism,
13:55
Speaker 1: which is the negation of waste slavery. The only possible
13:59
Speaker 1: solution for even omitting that the collectivist modification of the
14:03
Speaker 1: present system, as possible if introduced gradually during a period
14:07
Speaker 1: of prosperity and peace, though for my part I question
14:11
Speaker 1: its practicability even under such conditions, it would become impossible
14:15
Speaker 1: in a period of revolution, when the need of feeding
14:17
Speaker 1: hungry millions springs up for the first call to arms.
14:21
Speaker 1: A political revolution can be accomplished without shaking the foundations
14:25
Speaker 1: of industry, but a revolution where the people lay hands
14:28
Speaker 1: upon property will inevitably paralyze exchange and production. Millions of
14:32
Speaker 1: public money would not suffice for wages to the millions
14:35
Speaker 1: of outer works. This point cannot be too much assistant
14:39
Speaker 1: upon the reorganization of industry on a new basis, and
14:43
Speaker 1: we shall presently show how tremendous this problem is. Cannot
14:46
Speaker 1: be accomplished in a few days. Nor, on the other hand,
14:49
Speaker 1: will the people submit to be half starved for years
14:52
Speaker 1: in order to oblige theorists who uphold the wage system
14:55
Speaker 1: to tide over the period of stress. They will demand
14:58
Speaker 1: what they have always demanded. In such case, communization of supplies,
15:02
Speaker 1: the giving of rations, it will be vain to preach patients.
15:07
Speaker 1: The people will be patient no longer, and if food
15:09
Speaker 1: is not put in common, they will plunder the bakeries.
15:14
Speaker 1: If the people are not strong enough to carry all
15:16
Speaker 1: before them, they will be shot down to give collectivism
15:19
Speaker 1: a fair field for experiment. To this end, order must
15:23
Speaker 1: be retained at any price, order, discipline, obedience, and as
15:27
Speaker 1: the capitalists will soon realize that when the people are
15:30
Speaker 1: shot down by those who call themselves revolutionists, the revolution
15:34
Speaker 1: itself will become hateful in the eyes of the masses,
15:37
Speaker 1: and they will certainly lend their support to the champions
15:39
Speaker 1: of order, even though they are collectivists. In such a
15:43
Speaker 1: line of conduct, the capitalists will see a means of
15:46
Speaker 1: hereafter crushing the collectivists in their turn. If order is
15:49
Speaker 1: established in this fashion, the consequences are easy to foresee.
15:53
Speaker 1: Not content with shooting down the marauders, the faction of
15:56
Speaker 1: order will search out the ringleaders of the mob. They
15:59
Speaker 1: will set up again law courts and reinstate the hangman.
16:02
Speaker 1: The most ardent revolutionists will be sent to the scaffold.
16:05
Speaker 1: I'll be seventeen ninety three over again. Do not let
16:09
Speaker 1: us forget how reaction triumphed in the last century. First
16:12
Speaker 1: the Abeltist the badmen were guillotine those whom Mignier was,
16:16
Speaker 1: the memory of the struggle fresh upon him, still called anarchists.
16:20
Speaker 1: The Dantonists soon follow them, and when the Party of
16:23
Speaker 1: Robespierre had guillotined these revolutionaries, they in turn had to
16:27
Speaker 1: mount the scaffold. Whereupon the people, sick of bloodshed and
16:31
Speaker 1: seeing the revolution lost, thrrupt the sponge and let the
16:35
Speaker 1: reactionaries do their worst. If order is restored, we say,
16:41
Speaker 1: the social democrats will hang the anarchists. The fabia will
16:45
Speaker 1: hang the social Democrats, and will in their turn be
16:48
Speaker 1: hanged by the reactionaries, and the revolution will come to
16:52
Speaker 1: an end. But everything confirms us in the belief that
16:55
Speaker 1: the energy of the people will carry them far enough,
16:58
Speaker 1: and that when the revolution takes place, the idea of
17:01
Speaker 1: anarchist communism will have gained ground. It is not an
17:06
Speaker 1: artificial idea. The people themselves have breathed it in our ear,
17:10
Speaker 1: and the number of communists is ever increasing as the
17:13
Speaker 1: impossibility of any other solution becomes more and more evident.
17:18
Speaker 1: And if the impetus of the people is strong enough,
17:20
Speaker 1: affairs will take a very different turn. Instead of plundering
17:23
Speaker 1: the baker's shops one day and starving the next, the
17:26
Speaker 1: people of the insurgent cities will take possession of the warehouses,
17:30
Speaker 1: the cattle markets, in fact, of all the provision stores,
17:33
Speaker 1: and of all the food to be had. The well
17:36
Speaker 1: intentioned citizens, men and women both will form themselves into
17:39
Speaker 1: bands of volunteers and address themselves to the task of
17:43
Speaker 1: making a rough general inventory of the contents of each
17:46
Speaker 1: shop and warehouse. In twenty four hours, the revolted town
17:50
Speaker 1: or district will know what Paris has not found out
17:52
Speaker 1: yet in spite of its statistical committees, and what it
17:55
Speaker 1: never did find out during the siege, the quantity of
17:58
Speaker 1: provisions it contains. In forty eight hours, millions of copies
18:02
Speaker 1: will be printed of the tables giving it sufficiently exact
18:05
Speaker 1: amounts of the available food, the places where it is stored,
18:08
Speaker 1: and the means of distribution. In every block of houses,
18:12
Speaker 1: in every street, in every town. Ward bands of volunteers
18:16
Speaker 1: will have been organized. These commissariat volunteers will work in
18:20
Speaker 1: unison and keep in touch with each other. If only
18:23
Speaker 1: the Jacquobin Banetts the Knuckan in the way, if only
18:26
Speaker 1: the self styled scientific theorists did not thrust themselves into
18:30
Speaker 1: darkened council, or rather let them expound their muddle headed
18:34
Speaker 1: theories as much as they like, provided they have no authority,
18:38
Speaker 1: no power. And that admirable spirit of organization inherent in
18:43
Speaker 1: the people above all, in every social grade of the
18:46
Speaker 1: French nation, but which they have so seldom been allowed
18:49
Speaker 1: to exercise, will initiate even in so huge a city
18:52
Speaker 1: as Paris, and in the midst of a revolution an
18:55
Speaker 1: immense guild of free workers ready to furnish to each
18:58
Speaker 1: and all in the necessary food. Give the people a
19:01
Speaker 1: free hand, and in ten days the food service will
19:04
Speaker 1: be conducted with admirable regularity. Only those who have never
19:08
Speaker 1: seen the people hard at work, only those who have
19:10
Speaker 1: passed their lives buried among documents, can doubt it. Speak
19:14
Speaker 1: of the organizing genius of the great misunderstood the people
19:18
Speaker 1: to those who have seen it in Paris in the
19:19
Speaker 1: days of the barricades, or in London during the Great
19:22
Speaker 1: Doctor Strike, when half a million starving folk had to
19:25
Speaker 1: be fed, and they will tell you how superior it
19:28
Speaker 1: is to the official netness of bubbledom. And even supposing
19:32
Speaker 1: we have to endure a certain amount of discomfort and
19:34
Speaker 1: confusion for a fortnight or a month. Surely that would
19:37
Speaker 1: not matter very much. For the mass of people. It
19:40
Speaker 1: would still be an improvement on their former condition. And besides,
19:44
Speaker 1: in times of revolution, one can dine contentedly enough on
19:48
Speaker 1: a bit of bread and cheese while eagerly discussing events.
19:51
Speaker 1: In any case, a system which springs up spontaneously under
19:54
Speaker 1: stress of immediate need will be infinitely preferable to anything
19:58
Speaker 1: invented between four walls by a high bound theorist sitting
20:01
Speaker 1: on any number of committees. Part four. The people of
20:06
Speaker 1: the great towns will be driven, by force of circumstances
20:09
Speaker 1: to take possession of all the provisions, beginning with the
20:12
Speaker 1: barest necessaries, and gradually extending communism to other things, in
20:17
Speaker 1: order to satisfy the needs of all the citizens. The
20:20
Speaker 1: sooner it is done, the better. The sooner it is done,
20:23
Speaker 1: the less misery there will be, and the less strife.
20:26
Speaker 1: But upon what basis must society be organized in order
20:29
Speaker 1: that all may share and share alike? This is the
20:32
Speaker 1: question that meets us at the outset. We answer that
20:36
Speaker 1: there are no two ways of it. There is only
20:38
Speaker 1: one way in which communism can be established equitably only
20:42
Speaker 1: one way we satisfies their instincts of justice and is
20:45
Speaker 1: at the same time practical, namely, the system already adopted
20:49
Speaker 1: of the agrarian communes of Europe. Take for example, a
20:52
Speaker 1: peasant commune, no matter where, even in France, where the
20:55
Speaker 1: Jacobins have done their best to destroy all communal usage.
20:59
Speaker 1: If the commune possesses woods and copses, then so long
21:03
Speaker 1: as there is plenty wood for all, everyone can take
21:05
Speaker 1: as much as he wants, without other let or hindrance
21:09
Speaker 1: than the public opinion of his neighbors. As to the
21:11
Speaker 1: timber trees, which are always scarce, they have to be
21:15
Speaker 1: carefully apportioned. The same with the communal pasture land, And
21:18
Speaker 1: while there is enough and to spare, no limit is
21:21
Speaker 1: to put on what the cattle of each homestead may consume,
21:24
Speaker 1: nor to the number of beasts raising upon the pastures.
21:28
Speaker 1: Rasy grounds are not divided, nor is the fodder duled
21:31
Speaker 1: out unless there is scarcity. All the Swiss communes, and
21:35
Speaker 1: many of those in France and Germany too, wherever there
21:39
Speaker 1: is communal pasture land, practice the system, and in the
21:42
Speaker 1: countries of Eastern Europe where there are great forests and
21:45
Speaker 1: no scarcity of land. We find the peasants belling the
21:48
Speaker 1: trees as they need them, and cultivating as much as
21:51
Speaker 1: the soil as they require, without any thought a limiting
21:54
Speaker 1: each man's share of timber or of land. But the
21:57
Speaker 1: timber will be divided and the land parceled out to
22:00
Speaker 1: each household according to its needs, as soon as either
22:03
Speaker 1: becomes scarce, as is already the case in Russia. In
22:07
Speaker 1: a word, the system is this, no stint or limit
22:10
Speaker 1: to what the community possesses in abundance, but equal sharing
22:14
Speaker 1: and dividing of those commodities which are scarce or apt
22:17
Speaker 1: to run short. Of the three hundred and fifty millions
22:19
Speaker 1: who inhabit Europe, two hundred millions still follow the system
22:23
Speaker 1: of natural communism. It is the fact worth remarking that
22:27
Speaker 1: the same system prevails in the great towns in the
22:29
Speaker 1: distribution of one commodity, at least which is found in abundance.
22:33
Speaker 1: The water is supplied to each house as long as
22:36
Speaker 1: there is no fear of the supply running short. No
22:39
Speaker 1: water company thinks of checking the consumption of the water
22:42
Speaker 1: in each house. Take what you please, but during the
22:45
Speaker 1: great drafts, if there is any fear of supply failing?
22:48
Speaker 1: The water companies know that all they have to do
22:50
Speaker 1: is to make known the fact by means of a
22:53
Speaker 1: short advertisement in the papers, and the citizens will reduce
22:56
Speaker 1: their consumption of water and not let it run to waste.
22:59
Speaker 1: But if if the water were actually scarce, what would
23:01
Speaker 1: be done? Recourse would be had in a system of rations.
23:05
Speaker 1: Such a measure is so natural, so inherent in common sense.
23:09
Speaker 1: The Paris twice asked to be put on rations during
23:12
Speaker 1: the two sieges which it underwent in eighteen seventy one?
23:16
Speaker 1: Is it necessary to go into details to prepare tables
23:19
Speaker 1: showing how the distribution of rations may work to prove
23:23
Speaker 1: that it is just and equitable, infinite more just and
23:26
Speaker 1: equitable than in an existing state of things. All these
23:29
Speaker 1: tables and details will not serve to convince those of
23:32
Speaker 1: the middle classes, nor alas those of the workers tainted
23:36
Speaker 1: with middle class prejudices, who regard the people as a
23:39
Speaker 1: mob of savages ready to fall upon and devour each other. Directly,
23:44
Speaker 1: the government ceases to direct affairs, But those only who
23:47
Speaker 1: have never seen the people resolve and act on their
23:50
Speaker 1: own initiative could doubt for a moment that if the
23:53
Speaker 1: masses were masters of the situation, they would distribute rations
23:57
Speaker 1: to each and all his strictest accordance with just and equity.
24:02
Speaker 1: If you were to give utterance in any gathering of
24:04
Speaker 1: people to the opinion that delicacies, game and such like
24:08
Speaker 1: should be reserved for the fasidious palates of aristocratic idlers,
24:13
Speaker 1: and black bread given to the sick in the hospitals,
24:16
Speaker 1: you would be hissed. But say, at the same gathering,
24:19
Speaker 1: preach at the street corners and in the marketplaces, that
24:22
Speaker 1: the most tempting delicacies ought to be kept for the
24:25
Speaker 1: sick and the feeble, especially for the sick. Say that
24:28
Speaker 1: if there are only five braces of partridge in the
24:30
Speaker 1: entire city, in only one case of sherry wine, they
24:34
Speaker 1: should go to the sick people and the convalescence. Say
24:37
Speaker 1: that after the sick come the children. For them, the
24:41
Speaker 1: milk of the cows and goats should be reserved. If
24:43
Speaker 1: there is not enough for all, to the children and
24:46
Speaker 1: the aged the last piece of meat, and to the
24:49
Speaker 1: strong man dry bread. If the community be reduced to
24:52
Speaker 1: that extremity, say in a word that if this or
24:56
Speaker 1: that article of consumption runs short and has to be
24:59
Speaker 1: duled out to those who have the most need, most
25:02
Speaker 1: should be given. Say that, and see if you do
25:05
Speaker 1: not meet with universal agreement. The man who is full
25:09
Speaker 1: fed does not understand this, but the people do understand
25:12
Speaker 1: and have always understood it. And even the child of luxury,
25:16
Speaker 1: if he is thrown on the street and comes into
25:18
Speaker 1: contact with the masses, even he will learn to understand.
25:22
Speaker 1: The theorists for whom the soldier's uniform and the barrack
25:26
Speaker 1: mess table are civilization's last word, would like no doubt
25:29
Speaker 1: to start a regime of national kitchens and spartan broth.
25:33
Speaker 1: They would point out the advantages thereby gained the economy
25:37
Speaker 1: in fuel and food if such huge kitchens were established,
25:41
Speaker 1: where every one could come for their rations of soup
25:43
Speaker 1: and bread and vegetables. We do not question these advantages.
25:47
Speaker 1: We are well aware that important economies have already been
25:51
Speaker 1: achieved in this direction, as for instance, when the handmail
25:55
Speaker 1: or quorn and the beggar's oven attached to each house
25:58
Speaker 1: were abandoned, we can see perfectly well that it would
26:01
Speaker 1: be more economical to cook broth or a hundred families
26:04
Speaker 1: at once instead of lighting a hundred separate fires. We know, besides,
26:10
Speaker 1: that there are a thousand ways of doing up potatoes,
26:13
Speaker 1: but that cooked in one huge pot for a hundred families,
26:16
Speaker 1: they would be just as good. We know, in fact,
26:20
Speaker 1: that variety in cooking being a matter of the seasoning
26:22
Speaker 1: introduced by each cook or housewife, the cooking together of
26:26
Speaker 1: a hundredweight of potatoes would not prevent each cook or
26:28
Speaker 1: housewife from dressing and serving them in any way she pleased.
26:32
Speaker 1: And we know that stock made from meat can be
26:35
Speaker 1: converted into a hundred different soups to suit a hundred
26:37
Speaker 1: different tastes. But though we are quite aware of these facts,
26:41
Speaker 1: we still maintain that no one has a right to
26:43
Speaker 1: force the housewife to take her potatoes from the communal
26:46
Speaker 1: kitchen ready cooked, if she prefers to cook them herself
26:49
Speaker 1: in her own pot on our own fire. And above all,
26:52
Speaker 1: we should wish that each one to be free to
26:54
Speaker 1: take his meals with his family, or with his friends,
26:57
Speaker 1: or even in a restaurant if so it seemed good him. Naturally,
27:01
Speaker 1: large public kitchens will spring up to take the place
27:04
Speaker 1: of the restaurants where people are poisoned. Nowadays, already the
27:08
Speaker 1: Parisian housewife gets the stalk for her soup from the
27:11
Speaker 1: butcher and transforms it into whatever soup she likes. And
27:15
Speaker 1: the London housekeepers know that they can have a joint roasted,
27:19
Speaker 1: or an apple or rhubarb tart baked at the baker's
27:22
Speaker 1: for a trifling sum, thus economizing time and fuel. And
27:26
Speaker 1: when the communal kitchen, the common bakehouse of the future
27:30
Speaker 1: is established and the people can get their food cooked
27:33
Speaker 1: without the risk of being cheated or poisoned, the custom
27:36
Speaker 1: will no doubt become general of going to the communal
27:38
Speaker 1: kitchen for the fundamental parts of the meal, leaving the
27:42
Speaker 1: last touches to be added as individual taste shall suggest.
27:46
Speaker 1: But to make a hard and fast rule of this,
27:48
Speaker 1: to make a duty of taking home our food ready cooked,
27:51
Speaker 1: that would be as repungent to our modern minds as
27:54
Speaker 1: the ideas of the covent of the barrack, morbid ideas
27:57
Speaker 1: born in brains warp by tyranny superstition. Who will have
28:02
Speaker 1: the right to the food of the commune will assuredly
28:04
Speaker 1: be the first question which we shall have to ask ourselves.
28:08
Speaker 1: Every township will answer for itself, and we are convinced
28:11
Speaker 1: that the answers will all be dictated by the sentiment
28:14
Speaker 1: of justice until labour is reorganized. As long as the
28:18
Speaker 1: disturbed period lasts, and while it is impossible to distinguish
28:22
Speaker 1: between inveterate idlers and genuine workers thrown out of work,
28:26
Speaker 1: the available food ought to be shared by all without exception.
28:31
Speaker 1: Those who have been enemies to the new order will
28:34
Speaker 1: hasten of their own accord to rid the commune of
28:36
Speaker 1: their presence. But it seems to us that the masses
28:40
Speaker 1: of the people, which have always been magnanimous and have
28:43
Speaker 1: nothing of vindictiveness in their disposition, will be ready to
28:46
Speaker 1: share their bread with all who remain with them, conquered
28:50
Speaker 1: and conquerors alike. It will be no loss to the
28:53
Speaker 1: revolution to be inspired by such an idea. And when
28:56
Speaker 1: the work is set a going again, the antagonists of
28:59
Speaker 1: yesterday will stand side by side in the same workshops.
29:03
Speaker 1: A society where work is free will have nothing to
29:05
Speaker 1: fear from idlers. But provisions will run short in a month.
29:09
Speaker 1: Our critics at once exclaim so much the better, say we,
29:13
Speaker 1: it will prove that, for the first time on record,
29:16
Speaker 1: the people have had enough to eat. As to the
29:18
Speaker 1: question of obtaining fresh supplies, we shall discuss the means
29:22
Speaker 1: in our next chapter. End of chapter five,