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04 - Expropiation - The Conquest of Bread · Philosophy and Faith

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Speaker 1: Chapter four, Expropriation, Part one, it is told of Rothschild that,
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Speaker 1: seeing his fortune threatened by the Revolution of eighteen forty eight,
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Speaker 1: he hit upon the following stratagem. I am quite willing
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Speaker 1: to admit, said he, that my fortune has been accumulated
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Speaker 1: at the expense of others. But if it were divided
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Speaker 1: tomorrow among the millions of Europe, the share of each
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Speaker 1: would only amount to five shillings. Very well, then I
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Speaker 1: undertake to render to each his five shillings if he
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Speaker 1: asked me for it. Having given due publicity to his promise,
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Speaker 1: our millionaire proceeded, as usual to stroll quietly through the
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Speaker 1: streets of frankfort Three or four passive eyes asked for
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Speaker 1: their five shillings, which he dispersed with a sardonic smile.
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Speaker 1: His stratagem succeeded, and the family of the millionaire is
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Speaker 1: still in possession of his wealth. It is in much
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Speaker 1: the same fashion that the shrewd heads among the middle
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Speaker 1: classes reason when they say, ah, expropriation, I know what
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Speaker 1: that means. You take all the overcoats and lay them
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Speaker 1: in a heap, and everyone is free to help himself
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Speaker 1: and fight for the best. But such jests are irrelevant
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Speaker 1: as well as flippant. What we want is not a
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Speaker 1: redistribution of overcoats, although it must be said that even
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Speaker 1: in such a case, the shivering folk would see advantage
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Speaker 1: in it. Nor do we want to divide up the
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Speaker 1: wealth of the Rothschilds. What we do want is so
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Speaker 1: to arrange things, that every human being born into the
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Speaker 1: world shall be insured the opportunity, in the first instance,
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Speaker 1: of learning some useful occupation and of becoming skilled in it. Next,
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Speaker 1: that he shall be free to work at his trade
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Speaker 1: without asking leave of master or owner, and without handing
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Speaker 1: over to landlord or capitalists the lion's share of what
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Speaker 1: he produces, as to the wealth held by the Rothschilds
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Speaker 1: or the Vanderbilts. It will serve us to organize our
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Speaker 1: system of communal production. The day when the laborer may
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Speaker 1: chill the ground without paying away half of what he produces.
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Speaker 1: The day when the machines necessary to prepare the soil
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Speaker 1: for rich harvests are at the free disposal of the cultivators.
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Speaker 1: The day when the workers in the factories produces for
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Speaker 1: the community and not the monopolist. That day will see
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Speaker 1: the workers clothed and fed, and there will be no
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Speaker 1: more Rothschilds or other exploiters. No one will then have
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Speaker 1: to sell his working power for a wage that only
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Speaker 1: represents a fraction of what he produces. So far, so good,
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Speaker 1: say our critics. But you will have Rothschilds coming in
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Speaker 1: from outside. How are you to prevent a person from
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Speaker 1: amassing millions in China and then settling amongst you. How
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Speaker 1: are you going to prevent such a one from surrounding
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Speaker 1: himself with lackeys and wage slaves, from exploiting them and
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Speaker 1: enriching himself at their expense. You cannot bring about a
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Speaker 1: revolution all over the world at the same time. Well, then,
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Speaker 1: are you going to establish custom houses on your frontiers
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Speaker 1: to search all who enter your country and confiscate the
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Speaker 1: money they bring with them? Anarchist policemen firing on travelers
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Speaker 1: would be a fine spectacle. But at the root of
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Speaker 1: this argument there is a great error. Those who propound
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Speaker 1: it have never paused to inquire whence comes the fortune
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Speaker 1: of the rich. A little thought would, however, suffice to
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Speaker 1: show them that these fortunes have their beginning in the
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Speaker 1: poverty of the poor. When there are no longer any
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Speaker 1: destitute there will no longer be any rich to exploit them.
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Speaker 1: Let us glance for a moment at the Middle Ages,
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Speaker 1: when great fortunes began to spring up. A feutile baron
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Speaker 1: seizes on a fertile valley. But as long as the
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Speaker 1: fertile valley is empty of folk, our baron is not rich.
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Speaker 1: His land brings him in nothing. He might as well
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Speaker 1: possess a property on the moon. What does our baron
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Speaker 1: due to enrich himself. He looks out for peasants for
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Speaker 1: poor peasants. If every peasant farmer had a piece of
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Speaker 1: land free from rent and taxes, if he had, in
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Speaker 1: addition the tools and the stock necessary for farm labor,
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Speaker 1: who would plow the land of the baron? Everyone would
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Speaker 1: look after his own. But there are thousands of destitute persons,
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Speaker 1: ruined by wars, or drought or pestilence. They have neither
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Speaker 1: horse nor plow. Iron was costly in the Middle Ages,
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Speaker 1: and a drought horse still more so. All these destitute
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Speaker 1: creatures are trying to better their conditions. One day they
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Speaker 1: see on the road at the confines of our baron's
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Speaker 1: estate a notice board indicating by certain signs adapted to
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Speaker 1: their comprehension that the laborer who is willing to settle
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Speaker 1: on this estate will receive the tools and materials to
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Speaker 1: build his cottage and sow his fields, and a portion
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Speaker 1: of the land rent free for a certain number of years.
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Speaker 1: The number of years is represented by so many crosses
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Speaker 1: on the sign board, and the peasant understands the meaning
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Speaker 1: of these crosses. So the poor wretches swarm over the
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Speaker 1: baron's lands, making roads, draining marshes, building villages. In nine
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Speaker 1: years he begins to tax them. Five years later he
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Speaker 1: increases the rent, then he doubles it. The peasant accepts
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Speaker 1: these new conditions because he cannot find better ones elsewhere,
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Speaker 1: And little by little, the aid of laws made by
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Speaker 1: the barons, the poverty of the peasant becomes the source
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Speaker 1: of the landlord's wealth. And it is not only the
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Speaker 1: lord of the manor who preys upon him. A whole
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Speaker 1: host of usurers swooped down upon the villages, multiplying as
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Speaker 1: the wretchedness of the peasants increases. That is how things
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Speaker 1: went in the Middle Ages, And today is it not
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Speaker 1: still the same thing? If there were free lands which
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Speaker 1: the peasant could cultivate if he pleased would he pay
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Speaker 1: for fifty pounds to some chapel of a duke for
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Speaker 1: condescending to sell him a scrap? Would he burden himself
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Speaker 1: with the lease which absorbed a third of the produce?
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Speaker 1: Would he, on the mataie system, consent to give half
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Speaker 1: of his harvest to the landowner? But he has nothing,
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Speaker 1: so he will accept any conditions if only he can
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Speaker 1: keep body and soul together while he tills the soil
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Speaker 1: and enriches the landlord. So, in the nineteenth century, just
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Speaker 1: as the Middle Ages, the poverty of the peasant is
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Speaker 1: a source of wealth to the landed proprietor Part two.
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Speaker 1: The landlord owes his riches to the poverty of the peasant,
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Speaker 1: and the wealth of the capitalists comes from the same source.
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Speaker 1: Take the case of a citizen of the middle class
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Speaker 1: who somehow or other finds himself in possession of twenty
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Speaker 1: thousand pounds. He could, of course spend his money at
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Speaker 1: the rate of two thousand pounds a year, a mere
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Speaker 1: bagatel in these days of fantastic senseless luxury, but then
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Speaker 1: he would have nothing left at the end of ten years. So,
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Speaker 1: being a practical person who prefers to keep his fortune
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Speaker 1: intact and win for himself a snug little annual income
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Speaker 1: as well. This is very easy in our society for
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Speaker 1: the good reason that the towns and villages swarm with
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Speaker 1: workers who have not the wherewithal to live for a
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Speaker 1: month or even a fortnight. So our worthy citizen starts
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Speaker 1: a factory, the banks hasten to lend him another twenty
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Speaker 1: thousand pounds, especially if he has a reputation for business ability,
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Speaker 1: and with his found sum he can command the labor
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Speaker 1: of five hundred hands. If all the men and women
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Speaker 1: in the countryside had their daily bread sure and their
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Speaker 1: daily needs already satisfied, who would work for our capitalist
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Speaker 1: at a wage of half a crown a day, while
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Speaker 1: the commodities one produces in a day selling the market
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Speaker 1: for a crown or more. Unhappily, we know it all
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Speaker 1: too well. The poor quarters of our towns and the
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Speaker 1: neighboring villages are full of needy wretches whose children clamor
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Speaker 1: for bread. So before the factory is well finished, the
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Speaker 1: workers hasten to often themselves. Where a hundred are required,
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Speaker 1: three hundred besieged the doors. From the time his mill
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Speaker 1: is started. The owner, if he only has average business
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Speaker 1: capacity will clear forty towns a year out of each
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Speaker 1: mill hand he employs. He is thus able to lay
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Speaker 1: by a snug little fortune. And if he chooses a
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Speaker 1: lucrative trade and has business talents, he will soon increase
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Speaker 1: his income by doubling the number of men he exploits,
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Speaker 1: and so he becomes a personage of importance. He can
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Speaker 1: afford to give dinners to other persons, to the local magnets,
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Speaker 1: the civic, legal, political dignitaries. With his money, he can
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Speaker 1: marry money. By and by he may pick and use
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Speaker 1: places for his children, and later on perhaps get something
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Speaker 1: good from the government, a contract for the army or
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Speaker 1: for the police. His gold breeds gold till at last
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Speaker 1: a war, or even a rumor of a war, or
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Speaker 1: a speculation on the stock exchange gives him great opportunity.
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Speaker 1: Nine tenths of the great fortunes in the United States
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Speaker 1: are as Henry George has shown in The Social Problems,
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Speaker 1: the result of knavery on a large scale, assisted by
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Speaker 1: the state. In Europe, nine tenths of the fortunes made
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Speaker 1: in our monarchies and republics have the same origin. There
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Speaker 1: are not two ways of becoming a millionaire. This is
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Speaker 1: the secret of wealth. Find the starving and destitute, pay
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Speaker 1: them half a crown, and make produce five shillings worth
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Speaker 1: in a day a mass of fortune by these means,
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Speaker 1: and then increase it by some lucky hit made with
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Speaker 1: the help of the state. Need we go on to
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Speaker 1: speak of small fortunes attributed by economists to forethought and frugality,
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Speaker 1: when we know that mere saving in itself brings in
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Speaker 1: nothing so long as the pence saved are not used
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Speaker 1: to exploit the fabishing. Take a shoemaker, for instance. Grant
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Speaker 1: that his work is well paid, that he has plenty
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Speaker 1: of custom, and that by dint of strict frugality, he
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Speaker 1: contrives to lay by from eighteen pence to two shillings
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Speaker 1: a day, perhaps two pounds a month. Grant that our
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Speaker 1: shoemaker is never ill, that he does not half starve
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Speaker 1: himself in spite of his passion for economy, That he
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Speaker 1: does not marry, or that he has no children, that
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Speaker 1: he does not die of consumption. Suppose anything and everything
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Speaker 1: you please well, at the age of fifty, he will
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Speaker 1: not have scraped together eight hundred pounds, and he will
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Speaker 1: not have enough to live on during his old age,
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Speaker 1: when he is past work. Assuredly, this is not how
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Speaker 1: great fortunes are made. But suppose our shoemaker, as soon
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Speaker 1: as he is laid by a few pence fifthly conveys
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Speaker 1: them to the savings bank, and that the savings bank
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Speaker 1: lends them to the capitalist, who is just about to
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Speaker 1: employ labor i e. To exploit the poor. Then our
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Speaker 1: shoemaker takes an apprentice, the child of some poor wretch,
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Speaker 1: who will think himself lucky. In five years time his
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Speaker 1: son had learned the trade and is able to earn
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Speaker 1: his living. Meanwhile, our shoemaker does not lose by him,
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Speaker 1: and his trade is brisk. He soon takes a second,
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Speaker 1: and then a third apprentice. By and by he will
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Speaker 1: take two or three working men poor wretches, thankful to
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Speaker 1: receive half a crown a day for work that is
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Speaker 1: worth five shillings. And if our shoemaker is in luck,
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Speaker 1: that is to say, if he is keen enough, mean enough,
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Speaker 1: his working men and apprentices will bring him in nearly
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Speaker 1: one pound a day over and above the product of
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Speaker 1: his own toil. He can then enlarge his business. He
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Speaker 1: will gradually become rich and no longer have any need
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Speaker 1: to stint himself in the necessities of life, he will
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Speaker 1: leave a snug little fortune to his son. That is
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Speaker 1: what people call being economical and having frugal, temperate habits.
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Speaker 1: At bottom, it is nothing more nor less than grinding
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Speaker 1: the face of the poor. Commerce seems an exception to
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Speaker 1: this rule. Such a man, we are told, buys tea
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Speaker 1: in China, brings it to France, and realizes a prophet
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Speaker 1: of thirty percent on his original outlay. He has exploited nobody. Nevertheless,
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Speaker 1: the case is analogist. If our merchant has carried his
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Speaker 1: bales on his back, well and good. In early medieval times,
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Speaker 1: this was exactly how foreign trade was conducted, and so
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Speaker 1: no one reached such giddy heights of fortune as in
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Speaker 1: our days. Very few and very hardily earned were the
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Speaker 1: gold coins which the medieval merchant gained from a long
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Speaker 1: and dangerous voyage. It was less the love of money
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Speaker 1: than the thirst of travel and adventure that inspired his undertakings. Nowadays,
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Speaker 1: the method is simpler. A merchant who has some capital
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Speaker 1: need not stir from his desk to become wealthy. He
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Speaker 1: telegraphs to an agent telling him to buy a hundred
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Speaker 1: tons of tea he freights a ship, and in a
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Speaker 1: few weeks, in three months, if it is a shailing ship,
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Speaker 1: the vessel brings him his cargo. He does not even
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Speaker 1: take the risks of the voyage, for his tea and
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Speaker 1: his vessel are insured. And if he has expended four
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Speaker 1: thousand pounds, he will receive more than five thousand, that
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Speaker 1: is to say, if he has not attempted to speculate
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Speaker 1: in some novel commodities, in which case he runs a
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Speaker 1: chance of either doubling his fortune or losing it altogether. Now,
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Speaker 1: how could he find men willing to cross the sea
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Speaker 1: to travel to China a bat, to endure hardship and
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Speaker 1: slavish toil, and to risk their lives for a miserable pittance.
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Speaker 1: How could he find doc laborers willing the load and
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Speaker 1: unload his ships for starvation wages? How because they are
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Speaker 1: needy and starving, go to the sea ports, visit the
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Speaker 1: cook shops and taverns on the caves. Look at these
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Speaker 1: men who have come to hire themselves, crowding round the
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Speaker 1: dock gades, which they besiege from early dawn, hoping to
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Speaker 1: be allowed to work on the vessel. Look at these
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Speaker 1: sailors happy to be hired for a long voyage. After
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Speaker 1: weeks and months of waiting all their lives long, they
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Speaker 1: have gone to the sea in ships, and they will
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Speaker 1: sail another still until they have perished in the waves.
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Speaker 1: Enter their home. Look at their wives and children in
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Speaker 1: rags living. One knows not how till the father returns,
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Speaker 1: and you will have the answer to the question. Multiply examine,
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Speaker 1: choose them. Where you will consider the origin of all fortunes,
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Speaker 1: large or small, whether arising out of commerce, finance, manufactures,
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Speaker 1: or the land. Everywhere you will find that the wealth
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Speaker 1: of the wealthy springs from the poverty at the poor.
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Speaker 1: This is why an anarchist society need not fear the
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Speaker 1: advent of a rothschild, who would settle in its myth.
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Speaker 1: If every member of the community knows that after a
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Speaker 1: few hours of productive toil, he will have a right
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Speaker 1: to all the pleasures as civilization procures into those deeper
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Speaker 1: sources of enjoyment which art and science offer to all
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Speaker 1: who seek them. He will not sell his strength for
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Speaker 1: a starvation wage. Not one will volunteer to work for
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Speaker 1: the enrichment of your rothschild. His guineas will be only
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Speaker 1: so many pieces of metal useful for various purposes, but
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Speaker 1: incapable of breeding more. In answering the above objection, we
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Speaker 1: have at the same time indicated the scope of our experts.
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Speaker 1: It must apply to everything that enables any man, be
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Speaker 1: he financier, mill owner, or landlord, to appropriate the product
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Speaker 1: of others toil. Our formula is simple and comprehensive. We
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Speaker 1: do not want to rob any one of his coat,
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Speaker 1: but we wish to give to the workers all those
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Speaker 1: things the lack of which make them fall as easy
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Speaker 1: prey to the exploiter. And we will do our utmost
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Speaker 1: that none shall lack aught, and that not a single
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Speaker 1: man shall be forced to sell the strength of his
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Speaker 1: right arm to obtain a bare subsistence for himself and
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Speaker 1: his babes. This is what we mean when we talk
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Speaker 1: of expropriation. This will be our duty during the revolution
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Speaker 1: for whose coming we look not two hundred years hence,
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Speaker 1: but soon, very soon. Part three. The ideas of anarchism
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Speaker 1: in general and of expropriation in particular, find much more
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Speaker 1: soonpathy than we are apt to imagine, among mens of
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Speaker 1: intelligent character, and those for whom idleness is not the
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Speaker 1: supreme ideal. Still, our friends, offen Wana. Take care you
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Speaker 1: do not go too far. Humanity cannot be changed in
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Speaker 1: a day, so do not be in too great a
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Speaker 1: hurry with your schemes of expropriation and anarchy, or you
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Speaker 1: will be in danger of achieving no permanent results. Now,
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Speaker 1: what we fear with regard to expropriation is exactly the contrary.
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Speaker 1: We are afraid of not going far enough, of carrying
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Speaker 1: out expropriation on too small a scale to be lasting.
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Speaker 1: We would not have the revolutionary impulse arrested in big
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Speaker 1: career to exhaust itself in half measures which would content
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Speaker 1: no one, and, while producing a tremendous confusion in society,
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Speaker 1: as stopping its customary activities, would have no vital power,
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Speaker 1: would merely spread general discontent and inevitably prepare the way
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Speaker 1: for the triumph of reaction. There are, in fact, in
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Speaker 1: a modern state, established relations which it is practically impossible
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Speaker 1: to modify if one attacks them only in detail. There
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Speaker 1: are wheels within wheels in our economic organization. The machinery
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Speaker 1: is so complex and interdependent that no one part can
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Speaker 1: be modified without disturbing the whole. This becomes clear as
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Speaker 1: soon as an attempt is made to expropriate anything. Let
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Speaker 1: us suppose that in a certain country a limited form
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Speaker 1: of expropriation is effected. For example, that, as it has
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Speaker 1: been suggested more than once, only the property of the
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Speaker 1: great landlords is socialized, whilst the factories are left untouched.
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Speaker 1: Or that in a certain city, house property is taken
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Speaker 1: over by the commune, but everything else is left in
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Speaker 1: private ownership, Or that in some manufacturing center the factories
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Speaker 1: are communalized the land is not interfered with the same
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Speaker 1: result would follow in each case a terrible shattering of
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Speaker 1: the industrial system. Without the means of reorganizing it on
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Speaker 1: new lines, industry and finance would be at a dead lack.
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Speaker 1: Yet a return to the first principles of justice would
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Speaker 1: not have been achieved, and society would find itself powerless
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Speaker 1: to construct a harmonious whole. If agriculture could free itself
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Speaker 1: from great landowners, while industries still remained the bond slave
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Speaker 1: of the capitalist, the merchant, and the banker, nothing would
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Speaker 1: be accomplished. The peasant suffers to day not only in
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Speaker 1: having to pay rent to the landlord. He is oppressed
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Speaker 1: on all hands by existing conditions. He is exploited by
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Speaker 1: the tradesman who makes him pay half a crown for
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Speaker 1: a spade, which, measured by the labor spent on it,
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Speaker 1: is not worth more than a sixpence. He is taxed
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Speaker 1: by the state, who cannot do without its formidable hierarchy
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Speaker 1: of officials, and finds it necessary to maintain an expensive
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Speaker 1: army because the traders of all nations are perpetually fighting
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Speaker 1: for the markets, and any day a little coral arising
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Speaker 1: from the exploitation of some part of Asia or Africa
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Speaker 1: may result in war. Then again, the peasants suffer from
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Speaker 1: the dispopulation of country places. The young people are attracted
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Speaker 1: to the large manufacturing towns by debate of high wages
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Speaker 1: paid temporarily by the producers of articles of luxury, or
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Speaker 1: by the attractions of more stirring life. The artificial protection
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Speaker 1: of industry, the industrial exploitation of foreign countries, the prevalence
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Speaker 1: of stock jobbing, the difficulty of improving the soil, and
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Speaker 1: the machinery of production. All these agencies combine nowadays to
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Speaker 1: work against agriculture, which is burdened not only by rent
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Speaker 1: but by the whole complex of conditions in a society
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Speaker 1: based on exploitation. Thus, even if the expropriation of land
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Speaker 1: were accomplished, and everyone were free to till the soil
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Speaker 1: and cultivated to the best advantage without paying rent. Agriculture,
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Speaker 1: even though it should enjoy, which can by no means
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Speaker 1: be taken for granted, a momentary prosperity, would soon fall
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Speaker 1: back into the sloughs in which it would find itself today.
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Speaker 1: The whole thing would have to be begun over again,
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Speaker 1: with increased difficulties. The same holds true of industry. Take
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Speaker 1: the converse case. Instead of turning the agricultural laborers into
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Speaker 1: peasant proprietors, make over the factories to those who work
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Speaker 1: in them. Abolish the master manufacturers, but leave the landlord
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Speaker 1: his land, the banker his money, the merchant his exchange.
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Speaker 1: Maintain the swarm of idlers who live on the toil
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Speaker 1: of the workmen, the thousand and one middlemen, the state,
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Speaker 1: with its numberless officials. An industry would come to a standstill,
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Speaker 1: finding no purchaser in the mass of peasants who would
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Speaker 1: remain poor, not possessing the raw material, and unable to
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Speaker 1: export their produce, partly on to the stoppage of trade.
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Speaker 1: Is still more so because industry spread all over the world,
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Speaker 1: The manufacturers would feel unable to struggle, and thousands of
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Speaker 1: workers would be thrown upon the street. These starving crowds
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Speaker 1: would be ready and willing to submit to the first
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Speaker 1: schemer who came to exploit them. They would even consent
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Speaker 1: to return to the old slavery, if only under promise
22:21
Speaker 1: of work. Or finally, suppose you oust the landlords and
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Speaker 1: hand over the mills and factories to the workers without
22:30
Speaker 1: interfering with the swarms of middle men who drained the
22:33
Speaker 1: product of our manufacturers and speculate in corn and flour,
22:37
Speaker 1: meat and groceries in our great centers of commerce. Then
22:42
Speaker 1: as soon as exchanges arrest it, the great cities are
22:45
Speaker 1: left without bread, and others find no buyers for their
22:48
Speaker 1: articles of luxury. A terrible counter revolution will take place,
22:53
Speaker 1: a counter revolution treading upon the slains, sweeping the town
22:56
Speaker 1: and villages were shot and shell there would be prescription,
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Speaker 1: panic flight, tend all the terrors of the guillotine, as
23:04
Speaker 1: it was in France in eighteen fifteen, eighteen forty eight
23:08
Speaker 1: and eighteen seventy one. All is interdependent. In a civilized society.
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Speaker 1: It is impossible to reform any one thing without altering
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Speaker 1: the whole. Therefore, on the day we strike at private property,
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Speaker 1: under any one of its forms, territorial or industrial, we
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Speaker 1: shall be obligated to attack them all. The very success
23:30
Speaker 1: of the revolution will demand it. Besides, we could not
23:34
Speaker 1: if we would confine ourselves to a partial expropriation. Once
23:38
Speaker 1: the principle of the divine right of property is shaken,
23:42
Speaker 1: no amount of theorizing will prevent its overthrow. Here by
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Speaker 1: the slaves of the toil, there by the slaves of
23:48
Speaker 1: the machine. If a great town, Paris, for example, were
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Speaker 1: to confine itself to taking possession of the dwelling houses
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Speaker 1: of the factories, it would be forced all so to
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Speaker 1: deny the right of the bankers to levy upon the
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Speaker 1: commune attacks amounting to two million pounds in the form
24:05
Speaker 1: of interest for former loans. The great city would be
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Speaker 1: obliged to put it self in touch with the rural districts,
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Speaker 1: and its influence would inevitably urge the peasants to free
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Speaker 1: themselves from the landowner. It would be necessary to communalize
24:19
Speaker 1: the railways that the citizens might get food and work,
24:23
Speaker 1: and lastly, to prevent the waste of supplies and to
24:26
Speaker 1: guard against the trust of corn speculators, like those to
24:29
Speaker 1: whom the Commune of seventeen ninety three fell a prey.
24:33
Speaker 1: It would have to place in the hands of the
24:34
Speaker 1: city the works of stocking its warehouse with commodities and
24:38
Speaker 1: apportioning the produce. Nevertheless, some socialists still seek to establish
24:44
Speaker 1: a distinction. Of course, they say, the soil, the mines,
24:48
Speaker 1: the mills, and manufactures must be expropriated. These are the
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Speaker 1: instruments of production, and it is right we should consider
24:55
Speaker 1: them public property. But articles of consumption, food, clothes, anddwellings
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Speaker 1: should remain private property. Popular common sense has got the
25:04
Speaker 1: better of this subtle distinction. We are not savages who
25:08
Speaker 1: can live in the woods without other shelter than the branches.
25:11
Speaker 1: The civilized man needs a roof, a room, a hearth,
25:14
Speaker 1: and a bed. It is true that the bed, the room,
25:18
Speaker 1: and the house is a home of idleness for the
25:20
Speaker 1: non producer. But for the worker, a room properly heated
25:23
Speaker 1: and lighted is as much an instrument of production as
25:26
Speaker 1: the tool of the machine. It is the place where
25:29
Speaker 1: the nerves and sinews gather strength for the work of
25:31
Speaker 1: the morrow. The rest of the workmen is the daily
25:34
Speaker 1: repairing of the machine. The same argument applies even more
25:38
Speaker 1: obviously to food. The so called economists of whom we
25:42
Speaker 1: speak would hardly deny that the coal burnt in a
25:44
Speaker 1: machine is as necessary to produce as the raw material itself.
25:49
Speaker 1: How then, can food without which the human machine could
25:52
Speaker 1: do no work be excluded from the list of things
25:55
Speaker 1: indispensable to the producer? Can this be a relic of
26:00
Speaker 1: religious metaphysics. The rich man's feast is indeed a matter
26:04
Speaker 1: of luxury, but the food of the worker is just
26:06
Speaker 1: as much a part of production as the fuel burnt
26:08
Speaker 1: by the steam engine. The same with clothing. If the
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Speaker 1: economist who draws this distinction between articles of production and
26:16
Speaker 1: of consumption dress themselves in the fashion of New Guinea,
26:19
Speaker 1: we could understand their objection. But men who could not
26:22
Speaker 1: write a word without a shirt on their back are
26:24
Speaker 1: not in a position to draw such a hard and
26:26
Speaker 1: fast line between their shirt and their pen. And though
26:30
Speaker 1: the dainty gowns of their dames must certainly rank as
26:32
Speaker 1: objects of luxury, there is nevertheless a certain quantity of linen, cotton,
26:36
Speaker 1: and woolen stuff which is a necessity of life to
26:39
Speaker 1: the producer. The shirt ensoes in which he goes to
26:42
Speaker 1: his work, his cap and the jacket he slips on
26:45
Speaker 1: after the day's toil is over. These are as necessary
26:49
Speaker 1: to him as a hammer to the anvil. Whether we
26:52
Speaker 1: like it or not, this is what the people mean
26:54
Speaker 1: by a revolution. As soon as they have made a
26:58
Speaker 1: clean sweep of the government, they will seek first of
27:00
Speaker 1: all to insure to themselves decent dwellings, in sufficient food
27:04
Speaker 1: and clothes, free of capitalist rent. And the people will
27:07
Speaker 1: be right. The method of the people will be much
27:10
Speaker 1: more in accordance with science than those of the economists,
27:13
Speaker 1: who draw so many distinctions between instruments of production and
27:17
Speaker 1: articles of consumption. The people who understand that this is
27:20
Speaker 1: just the point where the revolution ought to begin, and
27:24
Speaker 1: they will lay the foundations of the only economic science
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Speaker 1: worthy of the name, a science which might be called
27:30
Speaker 1: the study of the need of humanity and of the
27:32
Speaker 1: economic means to satisfy them. End of Chapter four