XII. THE TWO APHORISMS
Modern moralists who oppose the maxim, ‹Chacun pour tous, tous pour chacun›, to the old proverb, ‹Chacun pour soi, chacun chez soi›, have formed a very incomplete, and for that reason a very false, and, I would add, a very melancholy idea of Society.
Let us eliminate, in the first place, from these two celebrated sayings what is superfluous. ‹All for each› is a redundancy, introduced from love of antithesis, for it is expressly included in ‹each for all›. As regards the saying ‹chacun chez soi›, the idea has no direct relation with the others; but, as it is of great importance in Political Economy, we shall make it hereafter the subject of inquiry.
It remains for us to consider the assumed opposition between these two members of the adages we have quoted, namely, ‹each for all›—‹each for himself›. The one, it is said, expresses the sympathetic principle, the other the individualist or selfish principle. The first unites, the second divides.
Now, if we refer exclusively to the motive which determines the effort, the opposition is incontestable. But I maintain that if we consider the aggregate of human efforts in their results, the case is different. Examine Society, as it actually exists, obeying, as regards services which are capable of remuneration, the individualist or selfish principle; and you will be at once convinced that every man in working ‹for himself› is in fact working ‹for all›. This is beyond doubt. If the reader of these lines exercises a profession or trade, I entreat him for a moment to turn his regards upon himself; and I would ask him whether all his labours have not the satisfaction of others for their object, and, on the other hand, whether it is not to the exertions of others that he himself owes all his satisfactions.
It is evident that they who assert that ‹each for himself› and ‹each› [p340] ‹for all› are contradictory, conceive that an incompatibility exists between individualism and association. They think that ‹each for himself› implies isolation, or a tendency to isolation; that personal interest divides men, in place of uniting them, and that this principle tends to the ‹chacun chez soi›, that is to say, to the absence of all social relations.
In taking this view, I repeat, they form a false, because incomplete idea of society. Even when moved only by personal interest, men seek to draw nearer each other, to combine their efforts, to unite their forces, to work for one another, to render reciprocal services, to ‹associate›. It would not be correct to say that they act in this way in spite of self-interest; they do so in obedience to self-interest. They ‹associate› because they find their account in it. If they did not find it for their advantage, they would not associate. Individualism, then, or a regard to personal interest, performs the work which the sentimentalists of our day would confide to Fraternity, to self-sacrifice, or some other motive opposed to self-love. And this just establishes the conclusion at which we never fail to arrive—that Providence has provided for the social state much better than the men can who call themselves its prophets. For of two things one; either union is injurious to individuality, or it is advantageous to it. If it injures it, what are the Socialist gentlemen to do, how can they manage, and what rational motive can they have to bring about a state of things which is hurtful to everybody? If, on the contrary, union is advantageous, it will be brought about by the action of personal interest, which is the strongest, the most permanent, the most uniform, the most universal, of all motives, let men say what they will.
Just look at how the thing actually works in practice. A ‹squatter› goes away to clear a field in the ‹Far West›. Not a day passes without his experiencing the difficulties which isolation creates. A second squatter now makes his way to the desert. Where does he pitch his tent? Does he retire ‹naturally› to a distance from the first? No; he draws near to him ‹naturally›—and why? Because he knows all the advantages that men derive, with equal exertion, from the very circumstance of proximity. He knows that on various occasions they can accommodate each other by lending and borrowing tools and instruments, by uniting their action, by conquering difficulties insurmountable by individual exertion, by creating reciprocally a market for produce, by interchanging their views and opinions, and by providing for their common safety. A third, a fourth, a fifth squatter penetrates into [p341] the desert, and is invariably attracted by the smoke of the first settlements. Other people will then step in with larger capital, knowing that they will find hands there ready to be set to work. A colony is formed. They change somewhat the mode of culture; they form a path to the highway, by which the mail passes; they import and export; construct a church, a school-house, etc., etc. In a word, the power of the colonists is augmented by the very fact of their proximity, and to such a degree as to exceed, to an incalculable extent, the sum of their isolated and individual forces; and this is the motive which has attracted them towards each other.
But it may be said that ‹every man for himself› is a frigid maxim, which all the reasoning and paradoxes in the world cannot render otherwise than repugnant; that it smells of egotism a mile off, and that egotism is more than an evil in society, being itself the source of most other evils.
Now, listen a little, if you please.
If the maxim ‹every man for himself› is understood in this sense, that it is to regulate all our thoughts, acts, and relations, that we are to find it at the root of all our family and domestic affections, as fathers, sons, brothers, husbands, friends, citizens, or rather that it is to repress and to extinguish these affections, then I admit that it is frightful, horrible, and such, that were there one man upon the earth heartless enough to make it the rule of his conduct, that man dared not even proclaim it in theory.
But will the Socialists, in the teeth of fact and experience, always refuse to admit that there are two orders of human relations—one dependent on the sympathetic principle, and which we leave to the domain of morals,—another springing from self-interest, and regulating transactions between men who know nothing of each other, and owe each other nothing but justice,—transactions regulated by voluntary covenants freely adjusted? Covenants of this last species are precisely those which come within the domain of Political Economy. It is, in truth, no more possible to base commercial transactions on the principle of sympathy, than it is to base family and friendly relations on self-interest. To the Socialists I shall never cease to address this remonstrance: You wish to mix up two things which cannot be confounded. If you were fools enough to wish to confound them, you have not the power to do it. The blacksmith, the carpenter, and the labourer, who exhaust their strength in rude avocations, may be excellent fathers, admirable sons; they may have the moral sense thoroughly developed, and carry in their breasts hearts of large and expansive sympathy. [p342] In spite of all that, you will never persuade them to labour from morning to night with the sweat of their brow, and impose upon themselves the hardest privations, upon a mere principle of devotion to their fellow-men. Your sentimental lectures on this subject are, and always will be, powerless. If, unfortunately, they could mislead a few operatives, they would just make so many dupes. Let the merchant set to work to sell his wares on the principle of Fraternity, and I venture to predict that, in less than a month, he will see himself and his children reduced to beggary.
Providence has done well, then, in giving to the social state very different guarantees. Taking man as we find him,—sensibility and individuality, benevolence and self-love being inseparable,—we cannot hope, we cannot desire to see the motive of personal interest universally eradicated—nor can we understand how it could be. And yet nothing short of this would be necessary in order to restore the equilibrium of human relations; for if you break this mainspring of action only in certain chosen spirits, you create two classes,—scoundrels whom you thus tempt to make victims of their fellow-men—and the virtuous, for whom the part of victims is reserved.
Seeing, then, that as regards labour and exchanges, the principle ‹each for himself› must inevitably have the predominance as a motive of action, the marvellous and admirable thing is, that the Author of all should have made use of that principle in order to realize, in the social order, the maxim of the advocates of Fraternity, ‹each for all›. In His skilful hand the obstacle has become the instrument. The general interest has been intrusted to personal interest, and the one has become infallible because the other is indestructible. To me it would seem that, in presence of these wondrous results, the constructors of artificial societies might, without any excess of humility, acknowledge that, as regards organization, the Divine Architect has far surpassed them.
Remark, too, that in the natural order of society, the principle of ‹each for all›, based upon the principle of ‹each for himself›, is much more complete, much more absolute, much more personal, than it would be in the Socialist and Communist point of view. Not only do we work for all, but we cannot realize a single step of progress without its being profitable to the Community at large. (See chapter x., and ‹ante›, chapter xi.) The order of things has been so marvellously arranged, that when we have invented a new process, or discovered the liberality of nature in any department—some new source of fertility in the soil, or some new mode of [p343] action in one of the laws of the physical world,—the profit is ours temporarily, transiently, so long as to prove just as a recompense, and useful as an encouragement,—after which the advantage escapes from our grasp, in spite of all our efforts to retain it. From individual it becomes social, and falls for ever into the domain of the common and the gratuitous. And while we thus impart the fruits of our progress to our fellow-men, we ourselves become participators in the progress which other men have achieved.
In short, by the rule ‹each for himself›, individual efforts, reinforced and invigorated, act in the direction of ‹each for all›, and every partial step of progress brings a thousand times more to society, in gratuitous utility, than it has brought to its inventor in direct profits.
With the maxim ‹each for all› no one would act exclusively ‹for himself›. What producer would take it into his head to double his labour in order to add a thirty-millionth part to his wages?
It may be said, then, why refute the Socialist aphorism? What harm can it do? Undoubtedly it will not introduce into workshops, counting-rooms, warehouses, nor establish in fairs and markets, the principle of self-sacrifice. But then it will either tend to nothing, and then we may let it sleep in peace, or it will bend somewhat that stiffness of the egotistical principle, which, excluding all sympathy, has scarcely right to claim any.
What is false is always dangerous. It is always a dangerous thing to represent as detestable and pernicious an eternal and universal principle which God has evidently destined to the conservation and advancement of the human race; a principle, I allow, as far as motive is concerned, which does not come home to our heart, but which, when viewed with reference to its results, astonishes and satisfies the mind; a principle, moreover, which leaves the field perfectly free to the action of those more elevated motives which God has implanted in the heart of man.
But, then, what happens? The Socialist public adopts only one-half the Socialist maxim—the last half, ‹all for each›. They continue as before to work ‹each for himself›, but they require, over and above, that all should work for them.
It must be so. When dreamers desired to change the grand mainspring of human exertion, by substituting fraternity for individualism, they found it necessary to invent a hypocritical contradiction. They set themselves to call out to the masses,—“Stifle self-love in your hearts and follow us; you will be rewarded for it [p344] by unbounded wealth and enjoyment.” When men try to parody the Gospel, they should come to a Gospel conclusion. Self-denial implies sacrifice and pain—self-devotion means, “Take the lowest seat, be poor, and suffer voluntarily.” But under pretence of abnegation to promise enjoyment; to exhibit wealth and prosperity behind the pretended sacrifice; to combat a passion which they brand with the name of egotism by addressing themselves to the grossest and most material tendencies;—this is not only to render homage to the indestructible vitality of the principle they desire to overthrow, but to exalt it to the highest point while declaiming against it; it is to double the forces of the enemy, instead of conquering him; to substitute unjust covetousness for legitimate individualism; and, in spite of all the artifice of a mystical jargon, to excite the grossest sensualism. Let avarice answer this appeal.[69]
And is that not the position in which we now are? What is the universal cry among all ranks and classes? ‹All for each.› In pronouncing the word ‹each›, we are thinking of ourselves, and what we ask is to have a share which we have not merited, in the fruits of other men’s labour. In other words, we systematize spoliation. No doubt, spoliation, simple and naked, is so unjust that we repudiate it; but, by dint of the maxim ‹all for each›, we allay the scruples of conscience. We impose upon others the ‹duty› of working for us, and we arrogate to ourselves the ‹right› to enjoy the fruits of other men’s labour. We summon the State, the law, to impose the pretended ‹duty›, to protect the pretended ‹right›, and we arrive at the whimsical result of robbing one another in the sacred name of Fraternity. We live at other men’s expense, and attribute heroism to the sacrifice. What an odd, strange thing the human mind is! and how subtle is covetousness! It is not enough that each of us should endeavour to increase his share at the expense of his fellows, it is not enough that we should desire to profit by labour that we have not performed; we persuade ourselves that in acting thus we are displaying a sublime example of self-sacrifice. We almost go the length of comparing ourselves to the primitive Christians, and yet we blind ourselves so far as not to see that the sacrifices which make us weep in fond admiration [p345] of our own virtue, are sacrifices which we do not make, but which, on the contrary, we exact.[70]
It is worth observing the manner in which this mystification is effected.
Steal! Oh fy, that is mean—besides it leads to the hulks, for the law forbids it. But if the law authorized it, and lent its aid, would not that be very convenient? . . . . What a happy thought! . . . .
No time is lost in soliciting from the law some trifling privilege, a small monopoly, and as it may cost some pains to protect it, the State is asked to take it under its charge. The State and the law come to an understanding to realize exactly that which it was their business to prevent or to punish. By degrees the taste for monopolies gains ground. No class but desires a monopoly. ‹All for each›, they cry; we desire also to appear as philanthropists, and show that we understand solidarity.
It happens that the privileged classes, in thus robbing each other, lose at least as much by the exactions to which they are subject, as they gain by the contributions which they levy. Besides, the great body of the working classes, to whom no monopolies can be accorded, suffer from them until they can endure it no longer. They rise up, and cover the streets with barricades and blood; and then we must come to a reckoning with them.
What is their demand? Do they require the abolition of the abuses, privileges, monopolies, and restrictions under which they suffer? Not at all. They also are imbued with philanthropy. They have been told that the celebrated apophthegm ‹all for each› is the solution of the social problem. They have had it demonstrated to them over and over again that monopoly (which in reality is only a theft) is nevertheless quite moral if sanctioned by law. Then they demand . . . . What? . . . . Monopolies! They also summon the State to supply them with education, employment, credit, assistance, at the expense of the people. What a strange illusion! and how long will it last? We can very well conceive how all the higher classes, beginning with the highest, can come to demand favours and privileges. Below them there is a great popular mass upon whom the burden falls. But that the people, when once conquerors, should take it into their heads to enter into the privileged class, and create monopolies for themselves at their own expense; that they should enlarge the area of abuses in order to live upon them; that they should not [p346] see that there is nothing below them to support those acts of injustice: this is one of the most astonishing phenomena of our age, or of any age.
What has been the consequence? By pursuing this course, Society has been brought to the verge of shipwreck. Men became alarmed, and with reason. The people soon lost their power, and the old spread of abuses has been provisionally resumed.
The lesson, however, has not been quite lost upon the higher classes. They find that it is necessary to do justice to the working class. They ardently desire to succeed in this, not only because their own security depends upon it, but impelled, as we must acknowledge, by a spirit of equity. Of this I am thoroughly convinced, that the wealthier classes desire nothing more than to discover the solution of the great problem. I am satisfied that if we were to ask the greater part of our wealthy citizens to give up a considerable portion of their fortune in order to secure the future happiness and contentment of the people, they would cheerfully make the sacrifice. They anxiously seek the means of coming (according to the consecrated phrase) ‹to the assistance of the labouring classes›. But for that end on what plan have they fallen! . . Still the communism of monopolies; a mitigated communism, however, and which they hope to subject to prudential regulation. That is all—they go no farther. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [p347]
XIII. RENT.[71]
If, with an increase in the value of land, a corresponding augmentation took place in the value of the products of the soil, I could understand the opposition which the theory I have explained in the present work (chap. ix.) has encountered. It might be argued, “that in proportion as civilisation is developed the condition of the labourer becomes worse in comparison with that of the proprietor. This may be an inevitable necessity, but assuredly it is not a law of harmony.”
Happily it is not so. In general those circumstances which cause an augmentation of the value of land diminish at the same time the price of landed produce. . . . . Let me explain this by an example.
Suppose a field worth £100 situated ten leagues from a town. A road is made which passes near this field, and opens up a market for its produce. The field immediately becomes worth £150. The proprietor having by this means acquired facilities for improvement and for a more varied culture, then increases the value of the land, and it comes to be worth £200.
The value of the field is now doubled. Let us examine this added value—both as regards the question of justice and as regards the utility which accrues, not to the proprietor, but to the consumers of the neighbouring town.
As far as concerns the increase of value arising from ameliorations which the proprietor has made at his own cost, there can be no question. The capital he has expended follows the law of all capital.
I venture to say the same thing of the capital expended in [p348] forming the road. The operation is more circuitous, but the result is the same.
In point of fact, the proprietor has contributed to the public expenditure in proportion to the value of his field. For many years he contributed to works of general utility executed in more remote parts of the country, and at length a road has been made in a direction which is profitable to him. The gross amount of taxes which he has paid may be compared to shares taken in a Government enterprise, and the annual augmentation of rent which he derives from the formation of this new road may be compared to ‹dividends› upon these shares.
Will it be said that a proprietor may pay taxes for ever, without receiving anything in return? . . . . But this just comes back to the case we have already put. The amelioration, although effected by the complex and somewhat questionable process of taxation, may be considered as made by the proprietor at his own cost, in proportion to the partial advantage he derives from it.
I have put the case of a road. I might have cited any other instance of Government intervention. Security, for example, contributes to give value to land, like capital, or labour. But who pays for this security? The proprietor, the capitalist, the labourer.
If the State expends its revenue judiciously, the value expended will reappear and be replaced, in some form or other, in the hands of the proprietor, the capitalist, or the labourer. In the case of the proprietor, it must take the form of an increase in the value of his land. If, on the other hand, the State expends its revenue injudiciously, it is a misfortune. The tax is lost; and that is the taxpayer’s look-out. In that case, there is no augmentation of the value of the land, but that is no fault of the proprietor.
But for the produce of the soil thus augmented in value, by the action of Government and by individual industry, do the consumers of the neighbouring town pay an enhanced price? In other words, does the interest of the £100 become a charge on each quarter of wheat which the field produces? If we paid formerly £15 for it, shall we now be obliged to pay more than £15? That is an interesting question, seeing that justice and the universal harmony of interests depend on its solution.
I answer boldly, ‹No›.
No doubt the proprietor will now get £5 more (I assume the rate of interest to be 5 per cent.); but he gets this addition at the expense of nobody. On the contrary, the purchaser will derive a still greater profit. [p349]
The field we have supposed having been formerly at a distance from the market, was made to produce little, and on account of the difficulty of transit what was sent to market sold at a high price. Now, production is stimulated, and transport made cheaper, a greater quantity of wheat comes to market, and comes there at less cost, and is sold cheaper. Whilst yielding the proprietor a total profit of £5, its purchaser, as we have already said, may realize a still greater profit.
In short, an economy of power has been realized. For whose benefit? For the benefit of both of the contracting parties. According to what law is this gain distributed? According to the law which we have described in the case of capital, seeing that this augmentation of value is itself capital.
When capital increases, the portion falling to the proprietor or capitalist increases in absolute value and diminishes in relative value; while the portion falling to the labourer (or consumer) increases both in absolute and relative value. . . . .
Observe how this takes place. In proportion as civilisation advances, lands which are situated near populous centres rise in value. Productions of an inferior kind in such places give way to productions of a superior description. First of all, pasture gives way to cereal crops, then cereal crops give way to market gardening. Products are brought from a greater distance at less cost, so that (and this in point of fact is incontestable) meat, bread, vegetables, even flowers, are sold in such places cheaper than in neighbourhoods less advanced, although manual labour costs more. . . . . . .
LE CLOS-VOUGEOT.[72]
. . . . ‹Services are exchanged for services.› Frequently services prepared beforehand are exchanged for present or future services.
The value of services is determined not by the labour they exact or have exacted, but by the labour which they save.
Now, in point of fact, human labour goes on constantly improving in efficiency.
From these premises we may deduce a phenomenon which is very important in social economy, which is, that ‹in general› anterior labour loses in exchange with present labour.
Twenty years ago I manufactured a commodity which cost me [p350] 100 days’ labour. I propose an exchange, and I say to the purchaser, Give me in exchange a thing which cost you also 100 days’ labour. Probably he will be in a situation to make this reply, That great progress has been made in twenty years. What you ask 100 days’ labour for can be made now in 70 days. I don’t measure your service by the time it has cost you, but by the service it renders me. That service is equal only to 70 days’ labour, for in that time I can render it to myself, or find one who will render it to me.
The consequence is that the value of capital goes on continually deteriorating, and that anterior labour and capital are not so much favoured as superficial economists believe.
Apart from tear and wear, there is no machine a little old but loses value, for the single reason that better machines of the same kind are made nowadays.
The same thing holds in regard to land. There are few soils, to bring which into their present state of culture and fertility, has not cost more labour than would be necessary now with our more effective modern appliances.
This is what happens in the ‹usual› case, but not ‹necessarily› so.
Anterior labour may, at the present day, render greater services than it did formerly. This is rare, but it sometimes happens. For example, I store up wine which cost me twenty days’ labour to produce. Had I sold it immediately, my labour would have yielded me a certain remuneration. I have preserved my wine; it has improved; the succeeding vintage has failed; in short, the price has risen, and my remuneration is greater. Why? Because I render a greater amount of service—my customers would have greater difficulty in procuring themselves such wine than I myself experienced—I satisfy a want which has become greater, more felt, etc. . . . .
This is a consideration which must always be looked to.
There are a thousand of us. Each has his piece of land, and clears it. Some time elapses, and we sell it. Now it so happens that out of 1000 there are 998 who never receive as many days’ present labour in exchange for their land as it cost them formerly; and this just because the anterior labour, which was of a ruder and less efficient description, does not render as great an amount of service comparatively as present labour. But there are two of the proprietors whose labour has been more intelligent, or, if you will, more successful. When they bring their land to market, they find that it is capable of rendering service which cannot be rivalled. Every man says to himself, It would cost me a great [p351] deal to render this service to myself, therefore I must pay well for it, for I am quite certain that it would cost me more to obtain what I am in quest of by my own exertions.
This is just the case of the celebrated vineyard, the Clos-Vougeot, and it is the same case as that of the man who finds a diamond, or possesses a fine voice, or other personal advantages or peculiarities, etc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
* * * * *
In my neighbourhood there is much uncultivated land. A stranger asks, Why not cultivate this field? Because the soil is bad. But here, alongside of it, you have another of the same quality which is cultivated. To this objection the native has no answer.
Was he wrong in the first answer he gave, namely, ‹It is bad›?
No. The reason which induces him not to clear new fields is not that they are bad, for there are excellent fields which also remain uncultivated. His reason is that it would cost him more to bring this field into the same state of cultivation as the adjoining field which is cultivated, than to buy the latter.
Now, to any thinking man this proves incontestably that the field has no intrinsic value.
(Illustrate this idea by considering it in various points of view.)[73] [p352]
MONEY.[74]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CREDIT.[75]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
XIV. WAGES
Men are always anxiously on the outlook for something fixed. We meet sometimes with restless and unquiet spirits who have a craving for risk and adventure. But, taking mankind in the gross, we may safely affirm that what they desire is to be tranquil as regards their future, to know what they have to count upon, and be enabled to make their arrangements beforehand. To be convinced how precious fixity is in their eyes, we have only to observe how very anxious men are to obtain for themselves Government employments. Nor is this on account of the honour which such places confer, for there are many of these situations where the work is not of a very elevated description, consisting in watching and vexing their fellow-citizens, and prying into their affairs. Such places, however, are not the less sought after—and why? Because they confer an assured position. Who has not heard a father speak [p353] thus of his son: “I am soliciting for him a place as a candidate or supernumerary in such or such a Government office. It is a pity, no doubt, that so costly an education is required—an education which might have ensured his success in a more brilliant career. As a public functionary he will not get rich, but he is certain to live. He will always have bread. Four or five years hence he will begin to receive a salary of thirty pounds a year, which will rise by degrees to a hundred and twenty or a hundred and sixty. After thirty years’ service he will be entitled to retire. His livelihood then is secured, and he must learn to live upon a small income,” etc.
Fixity, then, has for most men an irresistible attraction.
And yet, when we consider the nature of man, and of his occupations, fixity would seem to be incompatible with them.
Go back in imagination to the origin of human society, and you will have difficulty in comprehending how men can ever succeed in obtaining from the community a fixed, assured, and constant quantity of the means of subsistence. Yet this is one of those phenomena which strike us less because we have them constantly before our eyes. We have public functionaries who receive fixed salaries; proprietors who can count beforehand on their revenues; men of fortune who can calculate on their dividends; workmen who earn every day the same wages. Apart from the consideration of money, which is only employed to facilitate exchanges and estimates of value, we perceive that what is fixed is the quantity of the means of subsistence, the value of the satisfactions received by the various classes of workmen. Now, I maintain that this fixity, which by degrees extends to all men and all departments of industry, is a miracle of civilisation, and a marvellous effect of that social state which, in our day, is so madly decried.
For, let us go back to a primitive social state, and suppose a nation of hunters, or fishers, or shepherds, or warriors, or agriculturists, to be told, “In proportion as you advance on the road of progress, you will know more and more beforehand what amount of enjoyment will be secured to you for each year,” they would not believe us. They would reply, “That must always depend on something which eludes calculation,—the inconstancy of the seasons, etc.” The truth is, they could form no idea of the ingenious efforts by means of which men have succeeded in establishing a sort of mutual assurance between all places and all times.
Now, this mutual assurance against all the risks and chances of the future is entirely dependent on a branch of human science which I shall denominate ‹experimental statistics›. This department [p354] of science, depending as it does upon experience, admits of indefinite progress, and consequently the fixity of which we have spoken also admits of indefinite progress. That fixity is favoured by two circumstances which are permanent in their operation: ‹1st›, Men desire it. ‹2dly›, They acquire every day greater facilities for realizing it.
Before showing how this fixity is established in human transactions, in which it is little thought of, let us first of all see how it operates in a transaction of which it is the special object. The reader will, in this way, comprehend what I mean by experimental statistics.
A number of men have each a house. One of these houses happens to be burnt down and its owner is ruined. All the rest immediately take alarm, and each says to himself, “The same thing may happen to me.” We cannot be surprised, then, that these proprietors should unite and divide the risk of such accidents as much as possible, by establishing a mutual assurance against fire. The bargain is very simple—here is its formula: “If the house of one of us is burnt down, the rest will club to make good the loss to the man who is burnt out.”
By this means each proprietor acquires a double security; in the first instance he must take a small share in all losses of this nature; but then he is assured that he will never himself be obliged to suffer the whole loss arising from any such misfortune.
In reality, and if we extend the calculation over a great number of years, we see that the proprietor makes, so to speak, a bargain with himself. He sets aside a sufficient fund to repair the misfortunes which may afterwards befall him.
This is ‹association›. Indeed it is to arrangements of this nature that the Socialists give exclusively the name of ‹association›. Whenever speculation intervenes, association, as they think, disappears. It is improved and perfected, as I think, and as we shall afterwards see.
What has led the proprietors to associate, to enter into this mutual assurance, is the love of fixity, of security. They prefer known risks to risks which are unknown, a multitude of small risks to one great one.
Their design, however, has not yet been completely attained, and there is still much uncertainty in their position. Each of them may say, “If accidents are multiplied, my ‹quota› will become insupportable. In any case, I should like to know beforehand, and to have insured in the same way my furniture, my merchandise, etc.” [p355]
It would seem that such inconveniences belong to the nature of things, and that it is impossible for men to get rid of them. After each step of progress we are tempted to think that all has been accomplished. How, indeed, can we elude this ‹uncertainty›, which depends upon accidents still unknown to us?
But mutual assurance has developed in the social state an experimental knowledge, namely, the average annual proportion between the values lost by accident and the values assured.
Having made all the necessary calculations, a company or an individual says to the proprietors, “In entering into a mutual assurance, you have wished to purchase freedom from anxiety, and the indeterminate quota which you reserve annually to cover accidents is the price which you pay for this immunity. But if you do not know what this price is beforehand, your tranquillity is never perfect. I now propose to you, therefore, another expedient. In consideration of a ‹fixed annual premium› which you shall pay me, I take upon myself all your chances of accidents. I will insure you all, and here is the capital which will guarantee the fulfilment of my engagement.”
The proprietors accept the proposal, even although this fixed premium should amount to somewhat more than the sum which their mutual assurance cost them; for their object is not so much to save a few shillings as to obtain perfect repose and freedom from anxiety.
At this point the Socialists pretend that the principle of association is destroyed. For my part, I think it is improved, and on the road to other improvements to which I can see no limits.
But, say the Socialists, the assured have no longer any mutual tie. They no longer see each other and come to a common understanding. Intermediary parasites have come among them, and the proof that the proprietors are now paying more than is required to cover accidents is to be found in the fact, that the insurers obtain large profits.
It is not difficult to answer this objection.
First of all, association exists, but under another form. The premium contributed by the assured is still the fund which is to make good the losses. The assured have found the means of remaining in the association without taking part in its business. This is evidently an advantage to each of them, seeing that the design they have in view is nevertheless attained; and the possibility of remaining in the association whilst they have their [p356] independence of movement and free use of their faculties restored to them, is just the characteristic of social progress.
As regards the profit obtained by the intermediate party, it is easily explained and justified. The assured remain associated for the purpose of repairing accidents and making good what is lost. But a company has stepped in which offers them the following advantages: ‹1st›, It takes away whatever of uncertainty remained in the position of the assured; ‹2dly›, It frees them from all care and trouble in connexion with accidents. These are ‹services›, and the rule is, service for service. The proof that the intervention of the company is a service possessed of value is to be found in the fact that it is freely accepted and paid for. The Socialists only make themselves ridiculous when they declaim against such middlemen. Do they intrude themselves into commercial transactions by force? Have they any other means of introducing themselves and their services than by saying to the parties with whom they deal, “I will cost you some trouble, but I will save you more?” How, then, can they be called parasites or even intermediaries?
I affirm, moreover, that association thus transformed is on the direct road of progress in every sense.
In fact, companies which expect to realize profits proportioned to the extent of their business, promote insurances. To aid them in this they have agents in all quarters, they establish credits, they devise a thousand combinations to increase the number of the assured—in other words, of the ‹associated› parties. They undertake a multitude of risks which were unknown to the primitive mutual insurance associations. In short, association is extended progressively to a greater number of men and things. In proportion as this development takes place, the companies find they can lower their prices; they are even forced by competition to do so. And here we again get a glimpse of the great law, that profit soon escapes from the hands of the producer to settle in those of the consumer.
Nor is this all: companies insure each other by reassurances, so that, with a view to providing for losses, which is the principal object in view, a thousand associations scattered over England, France, Germany, and America, are melted into one grand and unique association. And what is the result? If a house is burnt down at Bordeaux, Paris, or elsewhere, the proprietors of the whole world, English, Belgians, Germans, Spaniards, club together and repair the disaster.
This is an example of the degree of power, universality, and perfection, which may be reached by means of free and voluntary [p357] association. But to attain this they must be left free to manage their own business. Now, what happened when the Socialists, those great partisans of association, were in power? Their chief business was to threaten association in every form, and principally association for insurance. And why? Just because, in order to render itself more universal, it adopted those expedients which left each of its members in a state of independence. How little these unfortunate Socialists understand the social mechanism! They would bring us back to the rude and primitive forms which association assumed when society was in its infancy, and they would suppress all progress under the pretext that it has departed from these forms.
We shall see, by-and-by, that from the same prejudices, the same ignorance, arise their incessant declamations against ‹interest›. The ‹interest› and ‹wages› are ‹fixed›, and, consequently, improved forms of remuneration for the use of labour and capital.
The wages-system [‹salariat›] has been peculiarly the butt of the Socialists. They have almost gone the length of representing it as a modified, and not greatly modified, system of slavery and thraldom. At all events, they see in it only a bargain which is one-sided and leonine, founded on liberty merely in appearance, an oppression of the weak by the strong, or the tyranny of capital over labour.
Continually wrangling about new institutions to be founded, the Socialists display in their common hatred of existing institutions, and especially of the system of remuneration by wages, a striking unanimity. If they cannot attain unity as to the new social organization to be established, they are at least marvellously united in calumniating, decrying, running down, hating, and making hated, everything which actually exists. I have assigned the reason for this elsewhere.[76]
Much unfortunately takes place which is beyond the domain of philosophical discussion; and the Socialist propaganda, seconded by an ignorant and cowardly press, which, without avowing Socialism, seeks for popularity in fashionable declamations, has succeeded in instilling hatred of the wages-system into the minds of the very people who live by wages. Workmen have become disgusted with this form of remuneration. It appears to them unjust, humiliating, and odious. They think it brands them with the mark of servitude. They desire to participate on another principle in the distribution of wealth. Hence they have fallen passionately in love with the most extravagant Utopias. They had but one [p358] step to take, and they have taken it. When the revolution of February broke out, the grand object of the working classes was to get rid of wages. Upon the means of accomplishing this they consulted their oracles; but when these oracles did not remain mute, they followed the usual mode by giving obscure utterances, in which the word which predominated was ‹association›, as if ‹association› and ‹wages› were incompatible. Then the workmen would try all the forms of this liberty-giving association; and, to impart to it greater attraction, they were pleased to invest it with all the charms of Solidarity, and attributed to it all the merits of Fraternity. For the moment, one would have been led to believe that the human heart itself had been about to undergo a grand transformation, and to throw off the yoke of self-interest, in order to give place to the principle of sympathy. By a singular contradiction, they hoped from association to reap at once all the glory of self-sacrifice, and material profits of hitherto unheard-of amount. They fell down before the statue of Fortune, prayed, and decreed to themselves the glory of martyrdom. It seemed as if these workmen, thus misled, and on the point of being seduced into a career of injustice, felt it necessary to shut their eyes to their true position, to glorify the methods of spoliation which had been taught them by their apostles, and place them covered with a veil in the sanctuary of a new revelation. Never, perhaps, had so many and such dangerous errors, so many and such gross contradictions, found their way before into the human brain.
Let us inquire, then, what wages really are, and consider their origin, form, and effects. Let us trace the subject to its foundation, and make sure whether, in the development of humanity, wages constitute retrogression or progress—whether in receiving wages there be anything humiliating or degrading, or which can in any degree be allied with slavery.
Services are exchanged for services, labour, efforts, pains, cares, natural or acquired ability,—these are what we give and receive. What we confer on one another is satisfaction or enjoyment. What determines the exchange is the common advantage, and its measure is the free appreciation of reciprocal services. The various combinations to which human transactions give rise have necessitated a voluminous economic vocabulary; but the words, Profits, Interest, Wages, although indicating shades of difference, do not change the nature and foundation of things. We have still the ‹do ut des›, or rather the ‹facio ut facias›, which constitutes the basis of the whole economic evolution.[77] [p359]
The class which lives by wages forms no exception to this law. Examine the subject attentively. Do these men render services? Unquestionably they do. Are services rendered to them? Undoubtedly they are. Are these services exchanged freely and voluntarily? Do we perceive in this kind of transaction any appearance of fraud or violence? It is at this point, perhaps, that the grievances of the workman begin. They don’t go the length of pretending that they are deprived of their liberty, but they assert that this liberty is merely nominal and a mockery, because the man whose necessities force the determination is not really free. It remains for us to inquire, then, whether the defect of liberty thus understood does not belong to the situation of the workman rather than to the mode of his remuneration.
When one man enters into the service of another, his remuneration may consist in a part of the work produced, or in a determinate wage. In either case he must bargain for this part of the product—for it may be greater or less,—or for this wage—for it may be higher or lower. If the man is in a state of absolute destitution, if he cannot wait, if he acts on the spur of urgent necessity, he must submit, and cannot get rid of the other’s exactions. But you will observe that it is not the form of remuneration which gives rise to this dependence. Whether he runs the risk of the enterprise by stipulating for a share of the product, or bargains for a fixed remuneration whether the other gain or lose, it is his precarious situation which gives him an inferior position in the discussion which precedes the arrangement. Those innovators who have represented association to the working classes as an infallible remedy have misled them, and are themselves mistaken. They can convince themselves of this by observing attentively the circumstances in cases where the indigent workman receives part of the product in place of wages. There are assuredly no men in the country worse off than fishermen or vine-dressers, although they have the satisfaction of enjoying all the benefits which the Socialists denominate, exclusively, ‹association›.
But before proceeding to inquire into the circumstances which influence the quota of wages, I must define, or rather describe, the nature of the transaction.
Men have a tendency—which is natural, and, therefore, advantageous, moral, universal, indestructible—to desire security with reference to the means of subsistence, to seek fixity, and avoid uncertainty.
However, in the early stages of society uncertainty reigns supreme, and it has frequently astonished me that Political [p360] Economy has failed to mark the great and happy efforts which have been made to restrain this uncertainty within narrower and narrower limits.
Take the case of a tribe of hunters, or a nomad people, or a colony newly founded,—is there a single man who can say with certainty what to-morrow’s labour will be worth? Would there not even seem to be an incompatibility between the two ideas, and that nothing can be of a more causal nature than the result of labour, whether applied to the chase, to fishing, or to agriculture?
It will be difficult, then, to find, in an infant society, anything which resembles stipends, salaries, wages, revenues, rents, interest, assurance, etc., which are all things which have been invented in order to give more and more fixity to personal situations, to get quit, to a greater and greater degree, of that feeling so painful to men of uncertainty with reference to the means of subsistence.
The progress which has been made in this direction is indeed admirable, although custom has so familiarized us with this phenomenon that we fail to attend to it. In fact, since the results of labour, and consequently the enjoyments of mankind, may be so profoundly modified by events, by unforeseen circumstances, by the caprices of nature, the uncertainty of the seasons, and accidents of every kind, we may ask how it comes to pass that so great a number of men find themselves set free for a time, and some of them for life, by means of rents, salaries, and retiring pensions, from this species of ‹eventuality›, of uncertainty, which would seem to be essentially part of our nature.
The efficient cause, the motive power of this beautiful evolution of the human race, is the tendency of all men towards competency and material prosperity, of which Fixity is so essential a part. The means consist in the substitution of a fixed unconditional bargain for one dependent merely on appreciable chances, or the gradual abandonment of that primitive form of association which consists in committing all the parties concerned irrevocably to all the risks and chances of the enterprise; in other words, the improvement of association. It is singular, at least, that all our great modern reformers exhibit association to us as destroyed by the very element which improves and perfects it.
In order that men should consent to take upon themselves, unconditionally, risks which fall naturally on others, it is necessary that a species of knowledge, which I have called ‹experimental statistics›, should have made some progress; for experience alone can place them in a situation to appreciate these risks, at least [p361] approximately, and consequently to appreciate the ‹value of the service› rendered in securing them against such risks. This is the reason why the bargains and transactions of rude and ignorant nations admit no stipulations of this nature, and hence, as I have said, uncertainty exercises over such people uncontrolled power. Were a savage, grown old, and having laid up some stock of game, to take a young hunter into his service, he would not give him fixed wages, but a share in the produce of the chase. How, indeed, could either of them, from the known infer the unknown? The teachings of past experience do not permit them to insure the future beforehand.
In times of barbarism and inexperience, men, no doubt, ‹associate›, for we have demonstrated that otherwise they could not exist; but association can assume among them only that primitive and elementary form which the Socialists represent as the only one which can secure our future safety.
When two men have long worked on together, encountering equal risks, there at length comes a time when, from experience, they can estimate and appreciate the value of these risks, and one of them consents to take the entire risk upon his own shoulders, in consideration of a fixed recompense.
This arrangement is undoubtedly a step of progress, and it is shown to be so by the very fact that it has been effected freely and voluntarily by the two parties, who would not have entered into it had it not been felt to be for their mutual benefit. It is easy to see in what the benefit consists. The one party gains by obtaining the exclusive management of an undertaking of which he takes all the risks upon himself; the other by obtaining that fixity of position which is so much desired. And society at large must be benefited by having an enterprise, formerly subjected to two minds and two wills, henceforth conducted with unity of views and unity of action.
But although association is modified in this way, it by no means follows that it is dissolved. The co-operation of the two men is continued, although the mode of dividing the product of their enterprise has been changed. Association is not vitiated by an innovation voluntarily agreed to, and which satisfies all parties.
The co-operation of anterior labour and present labour is always, or almost always, required in order to realize new means of satisfaction and enjoyment. Capital and labour, in uniting in a common undertaking, are, in the first instance, forced to undertake each its share of the risk; and this continues until the value of the risk can be experimentally estimated. Then two tendencies, which are [p362] alike natural to the human heart, manifest themselves—I mean the tendencies towards ‹unity of direction› and ‹fixity of situation›. Capital then says to labour: “Experience has taught us that your eventual profit amounts, on an average, to so much. If you wish it, I will ensure you this amount, and take charge of the operation, taking upon myself the chances of profit or loss.”
Labour may possibly answer: “This proposal suits me very well. Sometimes I earned twenty pounds a year; sometimes I earn sixty. These fluctuations are very inconvenient, for they hinder me from regulating uniformly my own expenditure and that of my family. It is an advantage to me to get rid of this uncertainty, and to receive a fixed recompense of forty pounds.”
By this arrangement the terms of the contract will be changed. They will continue to ‹unite their efforts›, and to ‹share the proceeds›, and consequently the association will not be dissolved; but it will be modified in this way, that the capitalist will take all the risks with the compensation of all the extraordinary profits, whilst the labourer will be secured the advantages of fixity. Such is the origin of Wages.
The agreement may take place in the reverse way. Frequently the person who undertakes a commercial enterprise says to the capitalist: “Hitherto we have worked together, sharing the risks. Now that we are in a situation to appreciate these risks, I propose to make a fixed bargain. You have invested a thousand pounds in the undertaking, for which one year you receive twenty-five pounds, another year seventy-five. If you agree to it, I will give you fifty pounds, or 5 per cent. per annum, and free you from all risk, on condition that I have henceforth the entire management of the concern.”
The capitalist will probably answer: “Since, with great and troublesome fluctuations, I receive, on an average, only fifty pounds per annum, I should much prefer to have that sum regularly assured to me. I shall, therefore, allow my capital to remain in the concern, but I am to be exempted from all risk. My activity and intelligence will now be free to engage in some other undertaking.”
This is an advantage in a social, as well as an individual point of view.
We see that men are constantly in quest of a fixed and stable position, and that there is an incessant effort to diminish and circumscribe on all sides the element of uncertainty. Where two men participate in a common risk, this risk, having a substantive existence, cannot be annihilated; but the tendency is for one of [p363] them to take that risk upon himself. If the capitalist undertakes the risk, the labourer’s remuneration is fixed under the name of ‹wages›. If the labourer runs the chances of profit or loss, then the remuneration of the capitalist is fixed under the name of ‹interest›.
And as capital is nothing else than human services, we may say that ‹capital› and ‹labour› are two words which in reality express one and the same idea; and, consequently, the same thing may be said of ‹interest› and ‹wages›. Thus, where false science never fails to find antagonism, true science ever finds identity.
Considered, then, with reference to their origin, nature, and form, ‹wages› have in them nothing degrading or humiliating any more than ‹interest› has. Both constitute the return for present and anterior labour derived from the results of a common enterprise. Only it almost always happens that one of the two associates agrees to take upon himself the risk. If it be the present labour which claims a uniform remuneration, the chances of profit are given up in consideration of wages. If it be the anterior labour which claims a fixed return, the capitalist gives up his eventual chance of profits for a determinate rate of ‹interest›.
For my own part, I am convinced that this new stipulation which is ingrafted on the primitive form of association, far from destroying it, improves and perfects it. I have no doubt of this, when I consider that such a stipulation takes its rise from a felt want, from the natural desire of all men for stability; and, moreover, that it satisfies all parties, without injury, but, on the contrary, by serving the interests of the public.
Modern reformers, who, under pretence of having invented association, desire to bring it back to its primitive and rudimentary forms, ought to tell us in what respect these ‹fixed bargains› are opposed to justice or equity, in what respect they are prejudicial to progress, and on what principle they wish to interdict them. They ought also to tell us why, if such stipulations bear the stamp of barbarism, they are constantly and more and more mixed up with that association which is represented as the perfection of human society.
In my opinion, such stipulations are among the most marvellous manifestations, as they are among the most powerful springs, of progress. They are at once the perfection and reward of a past and very ancient civilisation, and the starting-point of a new and unlimited career of future civilisation. Had society adhered to that primitive form of association which saddles all the parties interested with a share of the risks of an enterprise, ninety-nine [p364] out of every hundred of such enterprises never would have been undertaken. The man who at the present day participates in a score of enterprises would have been tied down for ever to one. Unity of design and of will would have been wanting in all commercial operations; and mankind would never have tasted that precious good which is perhaps the source of genius—stability.
The ‹wages-system› [‹salariat›], then, takes its rise in a natural and indestructible tendency. Observe, however, that it satisfies men’s desires but imperfectly. It renders the remuneration of workmen more uniform, more equal, and brings it nearer to an average; but there is one thing which it cannot do, and which their admission to a participation in profits and risks could not accomplish, namely, to ensure them employment.
And here I cannot help remarking how powerful the feeling is to which I have made reference throughout the whole of this chapter, and the very existence of which our modern reformers do not seem even to suspect,—I mean men’s aversion to uncertainty. It is exactly this very feeling which has made it so easy for Socialist declaimers to create such a hatred on the part of the working classes to receive their remuneration in the shape of wages.
We can conceive three phases in the condition of the labourer: the predominance of uncertainty; the predominance of stability; and an intermediate state, from which uncertainty is partly excluded, but not sufficiently so to give place to fixity and stability.
What the working classes do not sufficiently understand is, that the association which the Socialists preach up to them is the infancy of society, the period when men are groping their way, the time of quick transitions and fluctuations, of alternations of plethora and atrophy—in a word, the period when absolute uncertainty reigns supreme. The wages-system, on the contrary, forms the intermediate link between uncertainty and fixity.
Now, the working classes, being far as yet from feeling themselves in a state of stability, place their hopes—like all men ill at ease—on a certain change of position. This is the reason why it has been an easy task for Socialism to impose upon them by the use of the grand term ‹association›. The working classes fancy themselves pushed forward when they are in reality falling behind.
Yes, these unfortunate people are falling back to the primitive and rudimentary stage of the social movement; for what is the association now so loudly preached up to them but the subjection of all to all risks and contingencies? This is inevitable in times of ignorance, since fixed bargains presuppose some progress at [p365] least in experimental statistics. But the doctrine now inculcated is nothing else than a pure and simple revival of the reign of uncertainty.
The workmen who were enthusiasts for association when they knew it only in theory, were enchanted when the revolution of February seemed to render possible its practical adoption.
At that period many employers of labour, either infected with the universal infatuation, or giving way to their fears, offered to substitute a participation in the returns for payment by wages. But the workmen did not much fancy this solidarity of risk. They understood very well what was offered them; for in case the enterprise turned out a losing concern, they would have had no remuneration of any kind,—which to them was death.
We saw then what would not have been to the credit of our working classes, had the blame not lain with the pretended reformers, in whom, unhappily, they placed confidence. The working classes demanded a sort of bastard association in which the rate of wages was to be maintained, and in which they were to be entitled to a share of the profits without being subject to any of the losses.
The workmen would probably never of themselves have thought of putting forward such pretensions. There is in human nature a fund of good sense and a feeling of justice to which such barefaced iniquity is repugnant. To corrupt man’s heart, you must begin by depraving his intellect.
This is what the leaders of the Socialist school did not fail to do; and with this fact before us I am frequently asked whether their intentions were not perverse. I am always inclined to respect men’s motives; but it is exceedingly difficult, under such circumstances, to exculpate the Socialist chiefs.
After having, by the unjust and persevering declamations with which their books are filled, irritated the working classes against their employers, after having persuaded them that they were in a state of war, in which everything is fair against the enemy, they enveloped the ultimatum of the workmen in scientific subtleties, and even in clouds of mysticism. They figured an abstract being called Society, which owed to each of its members a ‹minimum›, that is to say, an assured means of subsistence. “You have, then, a right,” they told the workmen, “to demand a fixed wage.” In this way they began by satisfying the natural desire of men for stability. Then they proceeded to teach them that, independently of wages, the workmen should have a share in the profits; and when asked whether he was also to bear his share of the losses, [p366] their answer was, that in virtue of State intervention and the guarantee of the taxpayer, they had invented a system of universal industry, protected from all loss. By this means they removed all the remaining scruples of the unfortunate workmen; and when the revolution of February broke out we saw them, as I have said, disposed to make three stipulations:—
‹1st›, Continuance of wages; ‹2d›, Participation in profits; ‹3d›, Immunity from losses.
It may be said, perhaps, that these stipulations were neither so unjust nor so impossible as they appeared, seeing that they are introduced in many enterprises, having reference to newspapers, railways, etc.
I answer that there is something truly puerile in allowing oneself to be duped by high-sounding names applied to very trivial things. A little candour will at once convince us that this participation in profits, which some concerns allow to their workmen receiving wages, does not constitute association, nor merit that title, nor is it a great revolution introduced into the relations of two classes of society. It is only an ingenious and useful encouragement given to workmen receiving wages, under a form which is not exactly new, although it has been represented as an adhesion to Socialism. Employers who, in adopting this custom, devote a tenth, a twentieth, or a hundredth part of their profits, when they have any, to this ‹largesse› bestowed on their workmen, may make a great noise about it, and proclaim themselves the generous renovators of the social order; but it is really unworthy of occupying more of our time at present, and I return to my argument.
The system of payment by wages, then, was a step of progress. In the first instance, anterior labour and present labour were associated together with common risks, in common enterprises, the circle of which, in such circumstances, must have been very limited. If society had not discovered other combinations, no important work could ever have been undertaken. Men would have remained hunters and fishers, and there might have been perhaps some rude attempts at agriculture.
Afterwards, in obedience to the double feeling which prompts us to seek stability, and, at the same time, retain the direction of those operations of which we must encounter the risks, the two associates, without putting an end to the association, seek to supersede the joint hazard by a fixed bargain, and agree that one of them should give the other a fixed remuneration, and take [p367] upon himself the whole risk, along with the exclusive direction of the enterprise. When this fixity applies to the anterior labour, or capital, it is called ‹interest›; when it applies to the present labour, it is called ‹wages›.
But, as I have already said, wages serve only imperfectly to constitute a state of stability for a certain class of men, or of security in regard to the means of subsistence. It is one step, and a very marked one, towards the realization of this benefit, and so difficult that at first sight we should have thought it impossible; but it does not effect its entire realization.
And it is perhaps worthy of remark in passing, that fixity of situation, stability, resembles in one respect all the great results of which mankind are in pursuit. We are always approximating to such results, but we never fully attain them. For the very reason that stability is a good, a benefit, we must always be making efforts more and more to extend its domain; but it is not in our nature ever to obtain complete possession of it. We may even go the length of saying that to obtain such possession would not be desirable for man in his present state. Absolute good of whatever kind would put an end to all desire, all effort, all combination, all thought, all foresight, all virtue. Perfection excludes the notion of perfectibility.
The working classes having then, with the lapse of time and the progress of civilisation, reached the improved system of payment by wages, have not stopped short at that point, or relaxed their efforts to realize stability.
No doubt wages come in with certainty at the conclusion of the day’s work; but when circumstances—as, for example, an industrial crisis, or a protracted illness—have interrupted work, the wages are interrupted also. What, then, is the workman to do? Are he and his wife and children to be deprived of food?
He has but one resource, and that is, to save, while employed, the means of supplying his wants in sickness and old age.
But, in the individual case, who can estimate beforehand the comparative length of time in which he has to assist, or be assisted?
What cannot be done in the individual case may be found more practicable with reference to the masses in virtue of ‹the law of averages›. The tribute paid by the workman while employed to provide for his support in periods of stoppage answers the purpose much more effectually, and with much more irregularity and certainty, when it is centralized by association, than when it is abandoned to individual chances. [p368]
Hence the origin of ‹Friendly Societies›—admirable institutions which benevolence had given birth to long before the name of Socialism was ever heard of. It would be difficult to say who was their inventor. The true inventor, I believe, was the felt want of some such institutions—the desire of men for something fixed, the restless active instinct which leads us to remove the obstacles which mankind encounter in their progress towards stability.
I have myself seen friendly societies rise up spontaneously, more than five-and-twenty years ago, among the most destitute labourers and artisans of the poorest villages in the department of the Landes.
The obvious design of these societies is to equalize enjoyments, and to spread and distribute over all periods of life the wages earned in days of health and prosperity. In all localities in which they exist, these societies have conferred immense benefits. The contributors are sustained by a feeling of security, a feeling the most precious and consolatory which can enter the heart of man in his pilgrimage here below. Moreover, they feel their reciprocal dependence and their usefulness to each other. They see at what point the prosperity or adversity of each individual, or of each profession, becomes the prosperity or adversity of all.
They meet together on certain occasions for religious worship, as provided by their rules; and then they are called to exercise over each other that vigilant surveillance so proper to inspire self-respect, which is the first and most difficult step in the march of civilisation.
What has hitherto ensured the success of these societies,—a success which has been slow, indeed, like everything which concerns the masses,—is liberty: of this there can be no doubt.
The natural danger which they encounter is the removal of the sense of responsibility. It is never without creating great dangers and great difficulties for the future, that we set an individual free from the consequences of his own acts.[78]
Were all our citizens to say, “We will club together to assist those who cannot work, or who cannot find employment,” we should fear to see developed to a dangerous extent man’s natural tendency to idleness; we should fear that the laborious would soon become the dupes of the slothful. Mutual assistance, then, implies mutual surveillance, without which the common fund would soon be exhausted. This reciprocal surveillance is for such association a necessary guarantee of existence—a security for each contributor that he shall not be made to play the part of dupe; [p369] and it constitutes besides the true morality of the institution. By this means we see drunkenness and debauchery gradually disappear; for what right could that man have to assistance from the common fund who has brought disease and want of employment upon himself by his own vicious habits? It is this surveillance which re-establishes that responsibility which the association might otherwise tend to enfeeble.
Now, in order that this surveillance should operate beneficially, friendly societies must be free and select, and have the control of their own rules, as well as of their own funds. It is necessary also that they should be able to suit their rules to the requirements of each locality.
Suppose Government to interfere, it is easy to see the part which it would play. Its first business would be to lay hold of all these funds, under the pretence of centralizing them; and to give a colour to the proceeding, it would promise to enlarge the funds from resources taken from the taxpayer. “Is it not,” it would be said, “very natural and very just that the State should contribute to so great, so generous, so philanthropic, so humane a work?” This is the first injustice—to introduce the element of force into the society, and, along with the contributions, to obtrude citizens who have no right to a share of the fund. And then, under pretence of unity, of solidarity, the State would set itself to fuse all these associations into one, subject to the same rules.
But, I would ask, what will become of the morality of the institution when its funds are augmented by taxation; when no one except a Government official has an interest to defend the common stock; when every one, instead of feeling it his duty to prevent abuses, will take pleasure in favouring them; when all mutual surveillance has ceased; and when to feign disease would only be to play off a good trick on the Government? The Government, to do it justice, is well disposed to defend itself; but being no longer able to avail itself of private action, it must necessarily substitute official action. It will name examiners, controllers, inspectors. Countless formalities will be interposed between want and assistance. In short, what was originally an admirable institution will be transformed into a mere department of police.
The State will, in the first instance, perceive only the advantage of swelling the mob of its creatures, of multiplying the places at its disposal, and of extending its patronage and electioneering influence. It will not remark that in arrogating to itself a new function, it has assumed a new responsibility,—a responsibility [p370] which I venture to designate as fearful. For what must the immediate consequence be? The working classes will no longer regard the common fund as a property which they administer and keep up, and the limits of which are the limits of their rights. They will soon accustom themselves to regard assistance in cases of sickness or want of employment, not as proceeding from a limited fund prepared by their own foresight, but as a debt due to them by society. Its resources will appear to them unbounded, and they will never be contented with their share. The State will find itself under the necessity of demanding constant additions to the budget. Encountering opposition in that, the Government will find itself involved in inextricable difficulties. Abuses will go on increasing, which, year after year, they will shrink from reforming, until an explosion comes at last. And then it will be found that we have to deal with a population which can no longer act for itself, which expects everything from a minister or a prefect, even subsistence, and whose ideas are so far perverted as to have lost all rational notions of Right, Property, Liberty, or Justice.
Such are some of the reasons which alarmed me, I confess, when I saw lately that a Commission of the Legislative Assembly had been charged to prepare a project of law on friendly societies. It struck me that the hour of their destruction was approaching, and it afflicted me the more that I had thought a great future was in store for them, could we only preserve them in the bracing air of liberty. Is it then, I would ask, so very difficult a thing to leave men to make a trial, to feel their way, to make a choice, to find themselves mistaken, to rectify their mistakes, to inform themselves, to act in concert, to manage their own property and their own interests, to act for themselves on their own proper risk and peril, and on their own responsibility? Is it not evident that this is the way to make them really men? Shall we never cease to begin with the fatal hypothesis that all governors are guardians, and the governed only children?
I maintain that, left to the vigilance of the parties interested, our Friendly Societies have before them a great future, and I require no other proof of this than what has taken place on the other side of the Channel.
“In England, individual foresight has not waited for Government impulse to organize a powerful and reciprocal association between the working classes. For a long period, ‹free› associations, administering their own affairs, have been founded in all the principal towns of Great Britain,” etc. . . . . [p371]
“The total number of these associations for the United Kingdom amounts to 33,223, including not less than 3,052,000 individuals—one-half of the adult population of Great Britain.” . . . .
“This great confederation of the working classes, this institution of effective and practical fraternity, rests on the most solid basis. Their revenue is five millions sterling, and their accumulated capital amounts to eleven millions and two hundred thousand pounds.”
“It is upon this fund that the contributors draw when out of employment. We are astonished to see how England rallies from the immense and profound perturbations which her gigantic industry experiences from time to time, and almost periodically—and the explanation of the phenomenon is to a great extent to be found in the facts now stated.”
“Mr Roebuck wished, on account of the great importance of the question, that the Government ‹would assume the initiative› by taking the question into its own hands. . . . This was opposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.”
“Where individual interests are sufficient for their own free government, power, in England, judges it useless to interpose its action. It watches from above to see that all goes on regularly; but it leaves to every man the merit of his exertions, and the care of administering his affairs, according to his own notions and convenience. It is to this independence of her citizens that England assuredly owes a portion of her greatness as a nation.”[79]
It might have been added that it is to that independence also that the citizens owe their experience and personal worth. To that independence, too, the English Government owes its relative freedom from responsibility, and consequently its stability.
Among the institutions which may take their rise from Friendly Societies, when they shall have made that advance which has scarcely yet been begun, I should give the first place, on account of their social importance, to the labourer’s ‹Caisse de Retraite›.[80]
There are persons who treat such an institution as a chimera. Such people, no doubt, pretend to be acquainted with the extreme limits as regards Stability, beyond which the human race is not permitted to go. I would ask them a few simple questions: If they had never known anything beyond the social state of those barbarous tribes who live by hunting and fishing, would they have been able to anticipate the existence, I do not say of our present [p372] land revenues, of Government funds, and fixed salaries, but even of the system of payment by wages, which is the first step towards fixity in the condition of the poorest classes? And then, if they had never seen anything beyond this wages-system, as it exists in countries which have not yet displayed the spirit of association, would they have ventured to predict the destinies reserved for ‹Friendly Societies› as we find them at work in our own day in England? Do they imagine that these first steps of progress were more easy than it is for us to establish ‹Caisses de Retraite›? Is this third step more difficult to take than the other two?
For myself, I see clearly that mankind thirsts after stability. I see them, century after century, adding to their incomplete conquests, for the benefit of one class or another, and this by marvellous processes, which would seem to be much above individual invention, and I confess that I dare not venture to predict at what point men will stop short on the road of progress.
One thing is certain, that these ‹Caisses de Retraite› are universally, unanimously, ardently desired by all our workmen; and very naturally so.
I have frequently interrogated them, and I have always found that the great pain and grief of their existence is not the severity of their work, nor the smallness of their wages, nor even the irritation which the spectacle of inequality is calculated to excite. No, what affects them, discourages them, pains them, tortures them, is their uncertainty as regards the future. Whatever profession we may belong to, whether we are public functionaries, or men of independent fortune, or landed proprietors, or merchants, physicians, lawyers, soldiers, magistrates, we enjoy without perceiving it, consequently without acknowledging it, the progress which has been realized by Society—so that we cannot comprehend the torture of uncertainty. Let us place ourselves, then, in the situation of a workman, of an artisan who, on getting up every morning, is haunted by such thoughts as these: “I am young and robust; I work on, and sometimes harder than my neighbours, and have less leisure than they. And yet I have difficulty in providing for the modest wants of myself and of my wife and children. But what will become of me, what will become of them, when old age or disease shall have palsied my arm? To provide for those days of helplessness by saving from my wages would require self-control and prudence almost superhuman. Yet in spite of sickness, I have the prospect of enjoying happiness by means of a Friendly Society. Old age, however, is not an eventuality; it will come inevitably and without fail. Every day I feel its approach; it will soon [p373] overtake me; and then, after a life of honest labour, what prospect have I before me? For myself the garret, the hospital, or the jail; fur my wife, beggary; for my daughter, worse still. Oh, for some social institution which would compel me even by force, while still young, to secure a provision for old age!”
Such are the thoughts, feebly as I have expressed them, which every day, and every night, and every hour, haunt the terror-stricken imaginations of vast numbers of our fellow-men. And when a problem presents itself under such conditions, you may be very sure that it is not insoluble.
If in their efforts to impart more stability to their future, the working classes have disseminated alarm among the other classes of society, it has arisen from their having given to these efforts a false, dangerous, and unjust direction. Their first idea, according to French custom, has been to attack the treasury; to found the ‹Caisses de Retraite› on the contributions of the taxpayer, and to bring into play the State and the Law, that is to say, to secure all the profits of spoliation without incurring the dangers, or bearing the shame of it.
It is not from this quarter of the social horizon that the institutions so much desired by the working classes may be expected to come. The ‹Caisse de Retraite›, in order that its origin may be in keeping with its end and design, and to ensure its being useful, solid, and respectable, must proceed from the working classes themselves, must be the fruit of their exertions, their energy, their sagacity, their experience, their foresight. It must be supported by their contributions, and fed and nourished by their sacrifices. All they have to ask from Government is liberty of action and repression of fraud.
But has the time come when a ‹Caisse de Retraite› for the working classes is possible? I think it has. In order that an institution which brings new stability to the interests of a class should be established, a certain amount of anterior progress is necessary. It is necessary that a certain stage of civilisation should have been reached by the Society in the midst of which such an institution is to be established, a healthful atmosphere must be prepared for it. If I am not mistaken, it is to friendly societies, with the material resources which they create, and the spirit of association, the experience, the foresight, and the sense of dignity which they infuse into the working classes, that we are to owe the establishment of those kindred institutions which provide for the old age of the workman.
For if you observe what is going on in England, you will be [p374] satisfied that all such things are bound up together and depend upon each other, and that one step of progress, in order to be attainable, must be preceded by another step of progress.
In England all the adults to whom it is an object to join benefit societies have done so of their own accord; and that is a point of very great importance, seeing that operations of this kind require to be conducted on a great scale, and according to the law of averages.
These societies are possessed of large accumulated capitals, and have, besides, considerable annual revenues.
We cannot help thinking that, with the advance of civilisation, the prodigious sums which these societies now require to pay to their members will become proportionally smaller and smaller.
Good health is one of the benefits which civilisation develops. The healing art makes progress; machinery performs the harder and more painful part of labour; longevity increases. All these causes tend to lessen the calls on such associations.
A still more decisive and infallible symptom is the disappearance of great commercial crises in England. Such convulsions have had their origin sometimes in sudden manias with which the English are now and then seized for enterprises which are more than hazardous, and which entail a great loss of capital; sometimes they arise from great fluctuations in the price of food, the consequence of restrictive laws, for it is evident that when the price of bread and butcher’s meat is very high, all the resources of the people are absorbed in the purchase of necessaries, and other branches of trade languish, and a stoppage of manufactures is the inevitable result.
The first of these causes is now disappearing under the teachings of experience and public discussion; and we can already foresee that the English nation, which in former days threw itself into American loans, Mexican mines, and railway schemes with such sheep-like credulity, will now be much less a dupe than others to Californian illusions.
What shall I say of Free Trade, the triumph of which is due to Mr Cobden, not to Sir Robert Peel;—for the apostle would always have called forth a statesman, but the statesman could not have dispensed with the apostle. Here, then, we have a new power ushered into the world, which I hope will go far to do away with commercial stoppages and convulsions. Restriction has the admitted tendency and effect of placing many of the manufactures of the country, and, consequently, part of its population, in a precarious situation. As those piled-up waves which a transient force keeps for a moment above the level of the sea have a [p375] constant tendency to descend, so factitious industries, surrounded on every side by victorious competition, have a constant tendency to collapse. A modification in a single article of a single home or foreign tariff may bring ruin to them; and then comes a crisis. The variations in the price of a commodity, moreover, are much greater when you limit the field of competition. Surround a department, or a district, with custom-houses, and you render the fluctuation of prices much more marked. Liberty acts on the principle of insurance. In different countries, and in successive years, it compensates bad harvests by good ones. It sustains prices thus brought back to the average. It is a levelling and equalizing force. It contributes to stability, and it combats instability which is the great source of convulsions and stoppages. There is no exaggeration in asserting that the first fruit of Mr Cobden’s work will be to lessen many of those dangers which gave rise, in England, to friendly societies.
Mr Cobden has undertaken another task which will have a not less beneficial influence on the stability of the labourer’s lot, and I doubt not he will succeed in it; for good service in the cause of truth is always triumphant. I refer to his efforts for the suppression of war, or, what is the same thing, for the infusion of the spirit of peace into that public opinion by which the question of peace or war comes always to be decided. War constitutes always the greatest disturbing force to which a nation can be subjected in its industry, in its commerce, in the disposal of its capital, even in its tastes. Consequently, it is a powerful cause of derangement and uneasiness to those classes who have difficulty in changing their employment. The more, of course, this disturbing force is lessened, the less onerous will the burdens be which fall upon benefit societies.
On the other hand, by dint of progress, by the mere lapse of time, the resources of these societies will be extended; and a day will come when they can undertake something more decisive—with a view to lessen the instability which is inherent in human affairs. These societies might then be transformed into ‹Caisses de Retraite›, or institutions for old age, and this will undoubtedly happen, since it is the ardent and universal desire of the working classes that it should be so.
And it is worthy of remark, that while material circumstances thus pave the way for such a transformation, moral circumstances arising from the influence of these very societies tend in the same direction. These societies develop among the working classes habits, qualities, and virtues, the possession and diffusion of which [p376] are in this respect an essential preliminary. When we examine the matter closely, we must be convinced that the creation of such societies presupposes a very advanced stage of civilisation. They are at once its effect and its reward. They could, in fact, have no existence if men had not been previously in the habit of meeting, of acting in concert, and of managing in common their own affairs; they could not exist if men were prone to vices which induce premature old age; nor could they exist were the working classes brought to think that everything is fair as against the public, and that a common fund is the object at which every one intent on fraud may legitimately take aim.
In order that the establishment of ‹Caisses de Retraite› should not give rise to discord and misunderstanding, the working classes should be made to feel that they must depend upon nobody but themselves; that the common fund must be voluntarily created by those who are to have the benefit of it; and that it is supremely unjust and anti-social to call for co-operation from other classes, who are to have no share in the advantage, and who can only be made to concur by means of the tax-gatherer, that is to say, by means of force. Now, we have not yet got that length—so far from it that the frequent appeals to the State show us but too plainly what are the hopes and pretensions of the working classes. They think that their benefit society should be fed and alimented by State subventions like that for public functionaries. And thus it is that one abuse always gives rise to another.
But if these ‹Caisses de Retraite› are to be maintained exclusively by the parties interested, may it not be said that they exist already, seeing that life assurance companies present combinations which enable every workman to provide for the future by the sacrifice of the present?
I have dwelt at great length upon friendly societies and ‹Caisses de Retraite›, although these institutions are only indirectly connected with the subject of this chapter. I have given way to the desire to exhibit mankind marching gradually on to the conquest of stability, or rather (for stability implies something stationary), emerging victorious from their struggle with ‹uncertainty›—uncertainty, that standing menace which mars all the enjoyments of life, that sword of Damocles which seems so fatally suspended over the human destinies. That this menace may be progressively and indefinitely rendered less formidable by reducing to an average the risks and chances of all times, of all places, and of all men, is certainly one of the most admirable social harmonies which can be presented to the view of the philosophic economist. [p377]
We must not, however, conclude that this victory depends upon these two institutions, the establishment of which may be more or less accidental. No; did experience even demonstrate these institutions to be impracticable, the human race would not the less find its way to fixity. It is enough to know that uncertainty is an evil, in order to be assured that it will be incessantly, and, sooner or later, successfully, combated; for such is the law of our nature.
If, as we have seen, the system of remunerating labour by wages is, as regards stability, a more advanced form of association between capital and labour, it still leaves too much room for the uncertain. As long as he continues to work, the labourer knows on what he has to depend. But how long will he have employment, and how long will he be fit for work? This is what he is ignorant of, and, as regards his future, it places before him a fearful problem for solution. The uncertainty which affects the capitalist is different. With him it is not a question of life or death. “I shall always derive an interest from my means; but will that interest be higher or lower?” That is the question which affects capital or anterior labour.
Sentimental philanthropists who see in this a frightful inequality which they desire to get rid of by artificial, sometimes by unjust and violent, means, do not consider that after all we cannot change the nature of things. Anterior labour must necessarily have more security than present labour, simply for this reason, that products already created must always present more certain resources than products which are yet to be created; that services already rendered, received, and estimated, present a more solid foundation for the future than services which are still in the state of supply. If you are not surprised that of two fishermen, the one who, having long laboured and saved, possesses lines, nets, boats, and some previous supply of fish, is more at ease as regards his future than the other who has absolutely nothing but his willingness to take part in the work, why should you be astonished that the social order presents to a certain extent the same differences? In order to justify the envy, the jealousy, the absolute spitefulness with which the labourer regards the capitalist, it would be necessary to conclude that the relative stability of the one is caused by the instability of the other. But it is the reverse which is true. It is precisely the capital which pre-exists in the hands of one man which is the guarantee of the wages of another, however insufficient that guarantee may appear. But for that capital, the uncertainty of the labourer would be still greater and more striking. Would the [p378] increase, and the extension to all, of that uncertainty be any advantage to the labourer?
Two men run equal risks, which we may represent, for each, as equal to 40. One of them succeeds so well, by his labour and his foresight, that he reduces the risks which affect him to 10. Those of his companion from the same cause, and in consequence of a mysterious solidarity, are reduced, not to 10, but to 20. What can be more just than that the man who has the greater merit should reap the greater reward? What more admirable than that the other should profit by the virtues of his neighbour? Now, this is just what philanthropy repudiates under the pretext that such an order of things is opposed to equality.
Suppose that one fine day the old fisherman should thus address his companion: “You have neither boat, nor nets, nor any instrument to fish with, except your hands, and you are likely to make but a poor business of it. You have no stock of provisions, and it is poor work to fish with an empty stomach. Come along with me—it is your interest as well as mine. It is yours, for I will give you a share of the fish which we take, and, whatever the quantity be, it will at least be greater than the produce of your isolated exertions. It is my interest also, for the additional quantity caught with your assistance will be greater than the share I will have to give you. In short, the union of your labour with my labour and capital, as compared with their isolated action, will produce a ‹surplus›, and it is the division of this surplus which explains how association may be of advantage to both of us.”
They proceed in this way in the first instance; but afterwards the young fisher will prefer to receive every day a fixed quantity of fish. His uncertain and fluctuating profits are thus converted into wages, without the advantages of association being destroyed, and, by stronger reason, without the association itself being dissolved.
And it is in such circumstances as these that the pretended philanthropy of the Socialists comes to declaim against the tyranny of boats and nets, against the situation, naturally less uncertain, of him who possesses them, and who has come to possess them just because he has constructed them in order to obviate this uncertainty! It is in such circumstances that they endeavour to persuade the destitute young fisherman that he is the victim of his ‹voluntary› arrangement with the old fisherman, and that he ought instantly to return to his state of isolation!
To assert that the future of the capitalist is less uncertain than [p379] that of the workman, is just to assert that the man who already possesses is in a better situation than the man who does not yet possess. It is so, and it must be so, for it is for this very reason that men aspire to possess.
The tendency, then, is for men to cease being workmen in receipt of wages in order to become capitalists. This progress is in conformity with human nature. What workman does not desire to have tools of his own, a stock of his own, a warehouse, a workshop, a field, a dwelling-house, of his own? What workman but aspires to become an employer? Who is not delighted to command after having long obeyed? Do the great laws of the economic world, does the natural play of the social organs, favour or oppose this tendency? This is the last question which we shall examine in connexion with the subject of wages.
Can its solution be attended with any doubt?
Let us revert once more to the necessary evolution of production: gratuitous utility substituting itself incessantly for onerous utility; human efforts constantly diminishing in relation to each result, and, when rendered disposable, embarking in new enterprises; every hour’s labour corresponding to an always increasing amount of enjoyment. How, from these premises, can we fail to deduce a progressive increase of ‹useful efforts› to be distributed, consequently a sustained amelioration of the labourer’s condition, consequently, also, an endless increase and progression of that amelioration?
For here the effect having become a cause, we see progress not only advance, but become accelerated by its advance; ‹vires acquirere eundo›. In point of fact, from century to century accumulation becomes more easy, as the remuneration of labour becomes more ample. Then accumulation increases capital, increases the demand for labour, and causes an elevation of wages. This rise of wages, in its turn, facilitates accumulation and the transformation of the paid labourer into a capitalist. Between the remuneration of labour and the accumulation of capital, then, there is a constant action and reaction, which is always favourable to the labouring class, always tending to relieve that class from the yoke of urgent necessity.
It may be said, perhaps, that I have brought together here all that can dazzle the hopes of the working classes, and that I have concealed all that could cause them discouragement. If there are tendencies towards equality, it may be said, there are also tendencies towards inequality. Why do you not analyze the whole, in order to explain the true situation of the labouring classes, and [p380] thus bring science into accord with the melancholy facts to which it seems to shut its eyes? You show us gratuitous utility substituted for onerous utility, the gifts of God falling more and more into the domain of community, and, by that very fact, human labour obtaining a continually increasing recompense. From this increase of remuneration you deduce an increased facility of accumulation, and from this facility of accumulation a new increase of remuneration, leading to new and still more abundant accumulations, and so on ‹ad infinitum›. It may be that this system is as logical as it is optimist; it may be that we are not in a situation to oppose to it a scientific refutation. But where are the facts which confirm it? Where do we find realized this emancipation from paid labour? Is it in the great centres of manufactures? Is it among the agricultural labourers? And if your theoretical predictions are not accomplished, is not this the reason, that alongside the economic laws which you invoke, there are other laws which act in an opposite direction, and of which you say nothing. For instance, why do you tell us nothing of that competition which takes place among workmen, and which forces them to accept of lower wages; of that urgent want of the necessaries of life which presses upon the labourer, and obliges him to submit to the conditions of the capitalist, so that, in fact, it is the most destitute, famished, isolated, and consequently the most clamant and exacting workman who fixes the rate of wages for all? And if, in spite of so many obstacles, the condition of our unfortunate fellow-citizens comes to be improved, why do you not show us that law of population which steps in with its fatal action, multiplying the multitude, stirring up competition, increasing the supply of labour, deciding the controversy in favour of the capitalist, and reducing the workman to receive, for twelve or sixteen hours’ labour, only ‹what is indispensable› (that, forsooth, is the consecrated phrase) ‹to the maintenance of life›?
If I have not touched upon all these phases of the question, the reason is, that it is scarcely possible to include everything within the limits of a single chapter. I have already explained the general law of Competition, and we have seen that that law is far from furnishing any class, especially the poorer class, with serious reasons for discouragement. I shall, by-and-by, explain the law of Population, which will be found, I hope, in its general effects, not more severe. It is not my fault if each great solution—such, for example, as the future of a whole class of men—cannot be educed from one isolated economic law, and consequently from [p381] one chapter of this work, but must be educed from the aggregate of these laws, or from the work taken as a whole.
And here I must remind the reader of a distinction, which is by no means a subtlety, that when we have to do with an effect, we must take good care not to attribute it to the action of general and providential laws, if, on the contrary, it be found to proceed from a violation of these very laws.
I by no means ignore the calamities which, under all forms,—excessive labour, insufficient wages, uncertainty as to the future, a feeling of inferiority,—bear hard upon those of our fellow-citizens who have not yet been able, by the acquisition of Property, to raise themselves to a higher and more comfortable condition. But, then, we must acknowledge that uncertainty, destitution, and ignorance constitute the starting-point of the whole human race; and this being so, the question, it seems to me, is to discover,—‹1st›, If the general providential laws do not tend to relieve all classes from the weight of this triple yoke; ‹2dly›, If the conquests already secured by the more advanced classes do not constitute a facility prepared beforehand for the classes which yet lag behind. If the answer to these questions be in the affirmative, we may conclude that the social harmony is established, and that the ways of Providence are vindicated, if, indeed, they needed vindication.
Man being endowed with discretion and free will, the beneficent laws of Providence can profit him only while he conforms himself to their operation; and although I affirm that man’s nature is perfectible, I must not be understood to assert that he makes progress when he misunderstands or violates these laws. Thus, I maintain that transactions which are natural, free, voluntary, and exempt from fraud or violence, have in themselves a principle of progress for all. But that is not to affirm that progress is inevitable, and must spring from war, monopoly, or imposture. I maintain that wages have a tendency to rise, that this rise facilitates saving, and that saving, in its turn, raises wages. But if the class which lives by wages, in consequence of habits of dissipation and debauchery, neutralize at the outset this cause of progressive effects, I do not say that those effects will exhibit themselves in the same way, for the contrary is implied in my affirmation.
In order to bring the scientific deduction to the test of facts, we must take two epochs; for example, 1750 and 1850.
We must first of all establish what, at these two periods, was the proportion of ‹prolétaires› to ‹propriétaires›—of the men who live by wages without having any realized property, to the men in the actual possession of property. We shall find, I presume, that for [p382] a century the number of people who possess some resources has much increased relatively to the number of those who are in possession of no resources whatever.
We must then discover the specific situation of each of these two classes, which we cannot do otherwise than by observing the enjoyments and satisfactions which they possess; and very probably we shall find that in our day they derive a greater amount of real satisfaction and enjoyment, the one from accumulated labour, the other from present labour, than was possible in the middle of the last century.
If the respective and relative progress of these classes, especially of the working class, has not been what we could wish, we must then inquire whether it has not been more or less retarded by acts of injustice and violence, by errors, by passions—in a word, by faults incident to mankind, by contingent causes which we cannot confound with what are called the great and constant laws of the social economy. Have we not, for example, had wars and revolutions which might have been avoided? And have not these atrocities, in the first instance, absorbed and afterwards dissipated an incalculable amount of capital, consequently diminished the funds for the payment of wages, and retarded the emancipation of the working classes? Have they not diverted capital from its legitimate employment, seeking to derive from it, not enjoyment, but destruction? Have we not had monopolies, privileges, and unequal taxation? Have we not had absurd expenditure, ridiculous fashions, and a loss of power, which can be attributed only to puerile tastes and prejudices?
And what has been the consequence?
There are general laws to which man may conform himself, or which he may violate.
If it be incontestable that Frenchmen, during the last hundred years, have frequently run counter to the natural order of social development; if we cannot forbear to attribute to incessant wars, to periodical revolutions, to acts of injustice, to monopolies, to dissipation, to follies of all kinds, a fearful sacrifice of the power of capital and of labour;
And if, on the other hand, in spite of all this, which is undeniable, we can establish another fact—namely, that during this same period of a hundred years the class possessed of property has been recruited from the labouring class, and that both have at the same time had at their command a greater amount of satisfaction and enjoyment—do we not, by rigorous deduction, arrive at this conclusion, namely, that, [p383]
‹The general laws of the social world are in harmony, and that they tend in all respects to the improvement of the human race?›
For since, after a period of a hundred years, during which these laws have been so frequently and so deeply violated, men find themselves in a more advanced state of comfort and well-being, the action of these laws must be beneficent, and sufficiently so even to compensate the action of disturbing causes.
How indeed could it be otherwise? Is there not something equivocal, or rather redundant, in the expression, ‹beneficent general laws›? How can general laws be other than beneficent? When God placed in man’s heart an irresistible impulse to what is good, and, to enable him to discern it, imparted to him sufficient light to enable him to rectify his errors, from that moment He decreed that the human race was perfectible, and that, in spite of many errors, difficulties, deceptions, oppressions, and oscillations, mankind should still march onwards on the road of progress. This onward march, while error, deception, and oppression are absent, is precisely what we denominate the general laws of the social order. Errors and oppressions are what I call the violation of these laws, or disturbing causes. It is not possible, then, to doubt that the one should be beneficent, and the other the reverse, unless we go the length of doubting whether disturbing causes may not act in a manner more regular and permanent than general laws. Now that conclusion would contradict the premises. Our intelligence, which may be deceived, can rectify its errors, and it is evident that, the social world being constituted as it is, error might sooner or later be checked by Responsibility, and that, sooner or later, oppression must be destroyed by Solidarity. Whence it follows that disturbing causes are not in their nature permanent, and it is for that reason that the laws which countervail the action of such disturbances merit the name of General laws.
In order to conform ourselves to general laws, it is necessary to be acquainted with them. Allow me then to enlarge a little on the relations, so ill understood, of the capitalist and the labourer.
Capital and labour are indispensable to one another. Perpetually confronting each other, their adjustment constitutes one of the most important and most interesting subjects which can come under the observation of the economist. And it is a solemn consideration that erroneous notions and superficial observations on this subject, if they become popular, may give rise to inveterate heartburnings, struggles, and bloodshed.
Now, I express my deliberate conviction when I say that for [p384] some years the public mind has been saturated with the falsest theories on this subject. We have been told that free and voluntary transactions between the capitalist and the labourer lead, not accidentally, but necessarily, to monopoly for the capitalist, and oppression for the labourer; from which the obvious conclusion is, that liberty ought everywhere to be put down and stifled; for, I repeat, that when men have accused liberty of engendering monopoly, they have pretended not only to assert a fact, but to establish a law. In support of this thesis they have appealed to the action of machinery and of competition. M. de Sismondi was, I believe, the founder, and M. Buret the propagator, of these unhappy doctrines, although the latter has stated his conclusions very timidly, and the former has not ventured to state any conclusion at all. But bolder spirits have succeeded them, who, after trumpeting their hatred to capitalists and men of property, after having got the masses to accept as an incontestable axiom the discovery that ‹liberty leads inevitably to monopoly›, have, whether designedly or not, induced the people to raise their hands against this accursed liberty.[81] Four days of a sanguinary struggle brought emancipation, without restoring confidence; for do we not constantly discover the hand of the State (obedient in this to vulgar prejudices) ever ready to interpose in the relations of capital and labour?
We have already deduced the action of competition from our theory of value, and we shall do the same thing as regards the effects of machinery.[82] We must limit ourselves in this place to an exposition of some general ideas upon the subject of the reciprocal relations of the capitalist and the labourer.
The fact with which our pessimist reformers are much struck in the outset is, that the capitalists are richer than the workmen, and obtain a greater amount of satisfactions and enjoyments; whence it results that they appropriate to themselves a greater, and consequently an unjust, share of the product elaborated by their joint exertions. It is in this direction that their statistics, more or less impartial, professing to explain the condition of the working classes, tend.
These gentlemen forget that absolute poverty and destitution is the inevitable starting-point of the human race, and that men continue inevitably in this state until they have acquired something for themselves, or have had something acquired for them by others. [p385] To remark, in the gross, that capitalists are better off than mere workmen, is simply to assert that those who have something, have more than those who have nothing.
The questions which the workman ought to ask himself are not, “Does my labour give me much? Does it give me little? Does it give me as much as it gives to another? Does it give me what I desire?” The questions he should ask himself are these: “Does my labour give me less because I employ it in the service of the capitalist? Would it give me more if I worked in a state of isolation, or if I associated my labour with that of other workmen as destitute as myself? I am ill situated, but would I be better off were there no such thing as capital in the world? If the part which I obtain in consequence of my arrangement with capital is greater than what I would obtain without that arrangement, what reason have I to complain? And then, according to what laws would our respective shares go on increasing or diminishing were transactions free? If it be of the nature of these transactions to allow me, in proportion as the total product to be divided increases, to obtain a continually increasing proportion of the excess (c. vii., p. 212), then in place of breathing hatred against capital, ought I not to treat it as a friend? If it be indisputably established that the presence of capital is favourable to my interests, and that its absence would be death to me, am I very prudent or well-advised in calumniating it, frightening it away, and forcing its dissipation or flight?” In the discussion which precedes the bargain, an inequality of situation is constantly alleged, because capital can afford to wait, but labour cannot. The one upon which the greatest pressure bears must give way to the other, so that the capitalist in reality fixes the rate of wages.
Undoubtedly, looking at the surface of things, he who has created a stock, and who in consequence of this foresight can wait on, has the advantage in the bargain. Taking even an isolated transaction, the man who says, ‹Do ut facias›, is not in such a hurry to come to a conclusion as the man who replies, ‹Facio ut des›. For, when a man can say ‹do›, he possesses something to give; and when he possesses something to give, he can wait.[83]
We must not, however, lose sight of this, that value has the same principle, whether it resides in the service or in the product. If one of the parties says ‹do›, in place of ‹facio›, it is because he has had the foresight to execute the ‹facio› beforehand. In reality, it is the service on both sides which is the measure of the value. Now, [p386] if delay for present labour is a suffering, for anterior labour it is a loss. We must not then suppose that a man who says ‹do›, the capitalist, will amuse himself (above all if we consider the aggregate of his transactions) by deferring the bargain. In point of fact, do we see much capital idle for this reason? Do many manufacturers stop their mills, or shipowners delay their voyages, or agriculturists defer their harvests, on purpose to depreciate wages, and get hold of their workmen by means of famine?
But without denying that the position of the capitalists in relation to the workman is favourable in this respect, is there not something else to be considered with reference to their arrangements? For instance, is it not a circumstance quite in favour of ‹present labour› that ‹accumulated labour› loses value by mere lapse of time? I have elsewhere alluded to this phenomenon. But it is important to solicit the reader’s attention again to it in this place, seeing how great an influence it has upon the remuneration of present labour.
That which in my opinion renders Adam Smith’s theory, that ‹value comes from labour›, false, or at least incomplete, is that this theory assigns to value only one element, whilst, being a relation, it has necessarily two. Besides, if value springs exclusively from labour, and represents it, it would be proportionate to that labour, which is contrary to all observed facts.
No; value comes from service received and rendered; and the service depends as much, if not more, on the pains saved to the man who receives it, as upon the pains taken by the man who renders it. In this respect the most common facts confirm our reasoning. When I purchase a product, I may indeed ask myself, “How long time has it taken to make it?” And this undoubtedly is one of the elements of my estimate of its value. But again, and above all, I ask, “How long time would it take me to make it? How long time have I taken to make the thing which is asked from me in exchange?” When I purchase a service, I not only ask how much it will cost another to render that service to me, but how much it would cost me to render that service to myself.
These personal questions, and the answers which they call forth, are such essential elements in every estimate of value, that they most frequently determine it.
Try to purchase a diamond which has been found by chance. The seller will transfer to you very little labour, but he will ask from you a great deal. Why, then, should you consent to this? Because you take into account the labour which it saves you, the [p387] labour which you would be obliged to undergo in order to satisfy by any other means your desire to possess a diamond.
When an exchange, then, takes place between ‹anterior labour› and ‹present labour›, it is not at all on the footing of their intensity or duration, but on that of their value, that is to say, of the service which they render, and their relative utility. If the capitalist shall say, “Here is a product which cost me formerly ten hours’ labour;” and if the labourer be in a situation to reply, “I can produce the same thing in five hours,” the capitalist would be forced to give up the difference; for, I repeat, that it does not concern the present acquirer of a commodity to ask how much labour it formerly cost to produce it. What concerns him is to know what labour it will save him now, what service he is to expect from it.
A capitalist, in a general sense, is a man who, having foreseen that such or such a service would be in demand, has prepared beforehand to satisfy this demand by incorporating the value in a commodity.
When labour has been thus expended by anticipation, in expectation of future remuneration, we cannot tell whether, on a definite future day, it will render exactly the same service, or save the same pains, or preserve, consequently, a uniform value. We cannot even hazard a probable conjecture as to this. The commodity may be very ‹recherché›, very difficult to procure in any other way; it may come to render services which will be better appreciated, or appreciated by more people; it may acquire an increasing value with time,—in other words, it may exchange for a continually increasing proportion of present labour. Thus it is not impossible that such a product, a diamond for example, a violin of Stradivarius, a picture of Raphaël, a vine-plant from the Château-Laffitte, may come to exchange for a thousand times more labour than they cost. In fact it just comes to this, that the anterior labour is well remunerated in these cases, because it renders a great amount of service.
The contrary may also happen. A commodity which has cost four hours’ labour may come to exchange for one which has cost only three hours’ labour of equal intensity.
But—and this appears to me extremely important as regards the interests of the working classes, of those classes who aspire so ardently to get rid of their present state of uncertainty—although the two alternatives we have stated are both possible, and each may be realized in its turn, although accumulated labour may sometimes gain, and sometimes lose value, in [p388] relation to present labour, the first alternative, nevertheless, is so rare as to be considered accidental and exceptional; while the second is the result of a general law which is inherent in the very organization of man. That man, with all his intellectual and experimental acquisitions, is of a progressive nature, is at least industrially speaking (for, in a moral point of view, the assertion might be disputed) beyond doubt. It is beyond doubt that the greater part of those commodities which exacted formerly a given amount of labour, exact at the present day a less amount, in consequence of improvements in machinery and the gratuitous intervention of natural forces; and we may assert without hesitation, that in each period of ten years, for example, a given quantity of labour will accomplish, in the majority of cases, greater results than the same quantity of labour could have accomplished in the preceding decennial period.
What is the conclusion to be drawn from this? Obviously, that anterior labour goes on constantly deteriorating in value relatively to present labour; that in every act of exchange it becomes necessary to give, of the first a greater number of hours than you receive of the second; and this without any injustice, but simply to maintain the equivalence of services. This is a consequence which progress forces upon us.
You say to me, “Here is a machine; it was made ten years ago, but it is still new. It cost 1000 days’ work to make it. I will give it to you in exchange for an equal number of days’ labour.” To this I reply, “Within the last ten years so many new tools have been invented, and so many new processes discovered, that I can now construct, or, what comes to the same thing, get constructed for me, an equally good machine, with an expenditure of only 600 days’ labour. I will not, therefore, give you more than 600 for yours.” “But I should in this way lose 400 days’ labour.” “No,” I reply; “for 6 days’ work now are worth 10 formerly. At all events, what you offer me for 1000 I can now procure for 600.” This ends the debate; if the lapse of time has deteriorated the value of your labour, there is no reason why I should bear the loss.
Again you say to me, “Here is a field. In order to bring it to its present state of productiveness, I and my ancestors have expended 1000 days’ labour. They were unacquainted, no doubt, with the use of axe, and saw, and spade, and did all by muscular exertion. But no matter; give me first of all 1000 of your days’ work, as an equivalent for the 1000 which I give to you, and then add 300 as the value of the productive power of the soil, and you [p389] shall have the field.” I answer, “I will not give you 1300, or even 1000, days’ labour for it; and here are my reasons: There are on the surface of the globe an indefinite number of productive powers which are destitute of value. We are now accustomed to handle spade, and axe, and saw, and plough, and employ many other means of abridging labour, and rendering it more productive; so that, with 600 days’ work, I can either bring an uncultivated field into the state in which yours is, or (which comes absolutely to the same thing as far as I am concerned) ‹I can procure myself, by an act of exchange, all the advantages which you reap from your field›. I will give you, then, 600 days, and no more.” “In that case, not only should I have no profit from the pretended value of the productive powers of the soil; I should not even be reimbursed for the actual labour which I and my ancestors have devoted to the cultivation of this field. Is it not strange that I should be accused by Ricardo of selling the powers of nature; by Senior of intercepting the gifts of God; by all the Economists of being a monopolist; by Proudhon of being a robber; while in reality I am only a dupe?” You are no more a dupe than a monopolist. You receive the equivalent of what you give; and it is neither natural, nor just, nor possible, that rude labour performed with the hand centuries ago should exchange, day for day, against the more intelligent and productive labour of the present time.
Thus we see that by an admirable effect of the social mechanism, when anterior and present labour are brought into juxtaposition, and when the business is to know in what proportion the joint product of both is to be divided, the specific superiority of the one and of the other is taken into account; and they participate in the distribution according to the relative services which they render. In exceptional cases it may happen that this superiority is on the side of anterior labour. But in the great majority of cases it is otherwise; and the nature of man and the law of progress cause the superiority to be manifested on the side of present labour. Progress is advanced by the latter; and the deterioration falls upon capital.
Independently of this result, which shows how vain and hollow the declamations of our modern reformers on the pretended ‹tyranny of capital› are, there is another consideration still more fitted to extinguish in the hearts of the working classes that factitious hatred of other classes, which it has been attempted but with too much success to light up.
The consideration I refer to is this:
Capital, however far it may carry its pretensions, and however [p390] successful it may be in its endeavours to ensure the triumph of these pretensions, can never place labour in a worse situation than it would occupy in a state of isolation. In other words, capital is always more favourable to labour by its presence than by its absence.
Let us revert to the example which I gave a little ago.
Two men live by fishing. One of them has nets, lines, a boat, and some provisions to enable him to wait for the fruit of his labour. The other has nothing but his personal exertions. It is their interest to associate.[84] Whatever may be the terms on which they agree to share the produce, the condition of either of these two fishermen, whether the rich one or the poor one, never can be made worse, and for this obvious reason, that the moment either of them finds association disadvantageous as compared with isolation, he may return to isolation.
In savage as in pastoral, in agricultural as in industrial life, the relations of capital and labour are always represented by this example.
The absence of capital is a limit which is always within the power of labour. If the pretensions of capital go the length of rendering joint action less profitable for labour than isolated action, labour can take refuge in isolation, an asylum always open (except in a state of slavery) to voluntary association found to be disadvantageous. Labour can always say to capital, Rather than work jointly on the conditions which you offer me, I prefer to work alone.
It may be objected that this resource is illusory and ridiculous, that to labour isolated action is forbidden by a radical impossibility, and that to dispense with tools and instruments would be fatal to it.
This is no doubt true; but it just confirms the truth of my assertion, that even if capital carries its exactions to an extreme limit, it still benefits labour by the very fact of its being associated with it. Labour can be brought into a worse condition than the worst association only when all association ceases and capital retires. Cease, then, apostles of misfortune, to cry out against the tyranny of capital, since you allow that its action is always—in a greater or less degree, no doubt, but always—beneficent. Singular tyranny, whose power is beneficial to all those who desire to feel its effects, and is hurtful only when withdrawn.
But the objector may still insist that, although this might be so in the earlier stages of society, capital has at the present day [p391] invaded everything. It occupies every post, it lays hold of every field. The working man has no longer either air, or space, or soil to put his foot on, or stone to lay his head on, without the permission of capital. He is subject to its inexorable law, and you would afford him no refuge but isolation, which you admit is death!
All this displays a deplorable confusion of ideas, and a total ignorance of the social economy.
If, as has been said, capital has possessed itself of all the forces of nature, of all lands, of all space, I would ask for whose profit? For the profit of the capitalist, no doubt. But then, how does it happen that a simple workman, who has nothing but his muscular powers, can obtain in France, in England, in Belgium, a thousand, a million times greater amount of satisfaction and enjoyment than he could have reaped in a state of isolation,—not on the social hypothesis which you repudiate, but on that other hypothesis which you cherish and cling to, that which presupposes capital to have been guilty of no usurpation.
I shall continue to entertain this view of the subject, until your new science can give a better account of it; for I am convinced I have assigned valid reasons for the conclusion at which I have arrived.—(Chapter vii.)
Take the first workman you meet with on the streets of Paris. Find out the amount of his earnings and the amount of enjoyments he can procure himself, and when you have fired off both against that monster, capital, I will step in, and thus address the workman:
We are about to annihilate capital and all its works; and I am going to place you in the midst of a hundred thousand acres of the most fertile land, which I shall give you in full property and possession, with everything above and below ground. You will not be elbowed by any capitalist. You will have the full enjoyment of the four natural rights of hunting, fishing, reaping the fruits, and pasturing the land. True, you will have no capital; for if you had, you would be in precisely the situation you censure in the case of others. But you will no longer have reason to complain of landlordism, capitalism, individualism, usurers, stockjobbers, bankers, monopolists. The land will be absolutely and entirely yours. Think if you would like to accept this position.
This workman would, no doubt, imagine at first that he had obtained the fortune of a monarch. On reflection, however, he would probably say: Well, let us calculate. Even when a man possesses a hundred thousand acres of land, he must live. Now, how does the ‹bread› account stand in the two situations? At [p392] present I earn half-a-crown a day. At the present price of corn I can have three bushels a week, just as if I myself sowed and reaped. Were I proprietor of a hundred thousand acres of land, at the utmost I could not, without capital, produce three bushels of corn in two years, and in the interim I might, die of famine. . . . . I shall, therefore, stick to my wages.
The truth is, we do not consider sufficiently the progress which the human race must have made, to be able even to maintain the wretched existence of our workmen.[85] . . . . . . . . . . . .
* * * * *
Amelioration of the labourer’s lot found in wages themselves and in the natural laws by which wages are regulated.
‹1st›, The labourer tends to rise to the rank of a capitalist and employer.
‹2d›, Wages tend to rise.
‹Corollary.›—The transition from the state of a paid workman to that of an employer becomes constantly less desirable, and more easy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [p393]
XV. SAVING
‹To save› is not to accumulate quantities of corn, of game, or of crown-pieces. This hoarding-up of material and consumable commodities, which must necessarily from its nature be restrained within narrow bounds, represents only ‹the saving› of man in a state of isolation. All that we have hitherto said of value, of services, of relative wealth, shows us that, socially, saving, although it proceeds from the same source, develops itself differently and assumes another character.
‹To save› is to interpose voluntarily an interval between the time when we render services to society and the time when we receive back from society equivalent services. A man, for example, may every day, from the time he is twenty until he is sixty, render to his neighbours professional services equal to four, and demand from them services only equal to three. In that case he reserves the power of drawing upon society in his old age, and when he can no longer work, for payment of the remaining fourth of his forty years’ labour.
The circumstance that he has received and accumulated through a succession of years notes of acknowledgment consisting of bills of exchange, promissory notes, bank notes, money, is quite secondary, and belongs only to the form of the transaction. It has relation only to the means of execution. It changes neither the nature nor the consequences of saving. The illusion to which the intervention of money gives rise in this respect is not the less an illusion, although we are almost always the dupes of it.
In fact, it is with difficulty that we can avoid believing that the man who saves withdraws from circulation a certain amount of value, and, in consequence, does a certain amount of harm to society.
And here we encounter one of those apparent contradictions [p394] which are at war with logic, one of those barriers which would seem to oppose an insurmountable obstacle to progress, one of those dissonances which gives us pain by appearing to call in question the Divine power and will.
On the one hand, we know that the human race can only extend itself, raise itself, improve itself, acquire leisure, stability, and, by consequence, intellectual development and moral culture, by the abundant creation and persevering accumulation of capital. It is this rapid augmentation of capital on which depends the demand for labour, the elevation of wages, and, consequently, the progress of men towards equality.
But, on the other hand, ‹to save› is not the opposite of ‹to spend›, and if the man who spends gives a fillip to industry and additional employment to labour, does the man who saves not do exactly the reverse? If every one set himself to economize as much as possible, we should see labour languish in the same proportion, and if all could be saved, we should have no fund for the employment of labour.
In such circumstances, what advice can we give? And what solid basis can political economy offer to morals, when we appear to be able to educe from the former only this contradictory and melancholy alternative:—
“‹If you do not save›, capital will not be replaced, but dissipated, the labouring class will be multiplied, while the fund for their remuneration will remain stationary; they will enter into competition with each other, and offer their services at a lower rate; wages will be depressed, and society will, in this respect, be on the decline. It will be on the decline also in another respect, for unless you save you will be without bread in your old age; you can no longer set your son out in the world, give a portion to your daughter, or enlarge your trade,” etc.
“‹If you do save›, you diminish the fund for wages, you injure a great number of your fellow-citizens, you strike a blow at labour, which is the universal creator of human satisfactions, and you lower, consequently, the general level of humanity.”
Now these frightful contradictions disappear before the explanation which we have given of saving—an explanation founded upon the ideas to which our inquiries on the subject of value conducted us.
Services are exchanged for services.
Value is the appreciation of two services compared with each other.
In this view, ‹to save› is to have rendered a service, and allow time [p395] for receiving the equivalent service, or, in other words, to interpose an interval of time between the service rendered and the service received.
Now, in what respect can a man do injury to society or to labour who merely abstains from drawing upon society for a service to which he has right? I can exact the value which is due to me upon the instant, or I may delay exacting it for a year. In that case I give society a year’s respite. During that interval, labour is carried on, and services are exchanged, just as if I did not exist. I have not by this means caused any disturbance. On the contrary, I have added one satisfaction more to the enjoyments of my fellow-citizens, and they possess it for a year gratuitously.
Gratuitously is not the word, for I must go on to describe the phenomenon.
The interval of time which separates the two services exchanged is itself the subject of a bargain, of an exchange, for it is possessed of ‹value›. It is the origin and explanation of ‹interest›.
A man, for instance, renders a present service. His wish is to receive the equivalent service only ten years hence. Here, then, is a value of which he refuses himself the immediate enjoyment. Now, it is of the nature of ‹value› to be able to assume all possible forms. With a determinate value, we are sure to obtain any imaginable service, whether productive or unproductive, of an equal value. He who delays for ten years to call in a debt, not only delays an enjoyment, but he delays the possibility of further production. It is on this account that he will meet with people in the world who are disposed to bargain for this delay. They will say to him: “You are entitled to receive immediately a certain value. It suits you to delay receiving it for ten years. Now, for these ten years, make over your right to me, place me in your room and stead. I shall receive for you the amount for which you are a creditor. I will employ it during these ten years in a productive enterprise, and repay you at the end of that time. By this means you will render me a ‹service›, and as every service has a value, which we estimate by comparing it with another service, we have only to estimate this service which I solicit from you, and so fix its ‹value›. This point being discussed and arranged, I shall have to repay you at the end of the ten years, not only the value of the service for which you are a creditor, but the value likewise of the service which you are about to render me.”
It is the value of this temporary transference of values saved which we denominate ‹interest›.
For the same reason that a third party may desire that we [p396] should transfer to him, ‹for an onerous consideration›, the enjoyment of a value saved, the original debtor may also desire to enter into the same bargain. In both cases this is called ‹asking for credit›. To give credit is to give time for the acquittance of a debt, of a value; it is to deprive oneself of the enjoyment of that value in favour of another, it is to render a service, it is to acquire a title to an equivalent service.
But to revert to the economic effects of saving, now that we are acquainted with all the details of the phenomenon, it is very evident that it does no injury to general activity or to labour. Even when the man who economizes realizes his economy, and, in exchange for services rendered, receives hard cash, and hoards it, he does no harm to society, seeing that he has not been able to withdraw that amount of value from society without restoring to it equivalent values. I must add, however, that such hoarding is improbable and exceptional, inasmuch as it is detrimental to the personal interests of the man who would practise it. Money in the hands of such a man may be supposed to say this: “He who possesses me has rendered services to society, and has not been paid for them. I have been put into his hands to serve him as a warrant; I am at once an acknowledgment, a promise, and a guarantee. The moment he wills it, he can, by exhibiting and restoring me, receive back from society the services for which he is a creditor.”
Now this man is in no hurry. Does it follow that he will continue to hoard his money? No; for we have seen that the lapse of time which separates two services exchanged becomes itself the subject of a commercial transaction. If the man who saves intends to remain ten years without drawing upon society for the services that are owing to him, his interest is to substitute a representative, in order to add to the value for which he is a creditor the value of this special service. Saving, then, implies in no shape actual hoarding.
Let moralists be no longer arrested by this consideration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [p397]
XVI. POPULATION
I have been longing to enter upon the subject of this chapter, were it for no other purpose than to have an opportunity of vindicating Malthus from the violent attacks which have been made upon him. It is scarcely credible that a set of writers of no reputation or ability, and whose ignorance is transparent in every page of their works, should, by echoing one another’s opinions, have succeeded in lowering in public estimation a grave, conscientious, and philanthropic author; representing as absurd a theory which at all events deserves to be studied with serious attention.
It may be that I do not myself adopt all the opinions of Malthus. Every question has two phases: and I believe that Malthus may have fixed his regards too exclusively upon the sombre side. In my own economical studies and inquiries, I have been so frequently led to the conclusion, that ‹whatever is the work of Providence is good›, that when logic has seemed to force me to a different conclusion, I have been inclined to distrust my logic. I am aware that this faith in final causes is not unattended with danger to the mind of an inquirer. But this will not prevent me from acknowledging that there is a vast amount of truth in the admirable work of this economist, or from rendering homage to that ardent love of mankind by which every line of it is inspired.
Malthus, whose knowledge of the social economy was profound, had a clear view of all the ingenious mechanism with which nature has provided the human race to assure its onward march on the road of progress. And yet he believed that human progress might find itself entirely paralyzed by one principle, namely, the principle of Population. In contemplating the world, he gave way to the melancholy reflection, that “God appears to have taken great care of the species, and very little of the individual. In fact, as regards a certain class of animated beings, we see them endowed with a [p398] fecundity so prolific, a power of multiplication so extraordinary, a profusion of germs so superabundant, that the destiny of the species would seem undoubtedly well assured, while that of the individuals of the species appears very precarious; for the whole of these germs cannot be brought to life and maturity. They must either fail to live, or must die prematurely.”
“Man makes no exception to this law.” [It is surprising that this should shock the Socialists, who have never done telling us that general must take precedence of individual right.] “This much is certain, that God has secured the continuance of the human race by providing it with a great power of reproduction. The numbers of mankind, then, would come naturally, but for prudence and foresight, to exceed what the earth could maintain. But man is endued with foresight, and it is his reason and his will which can alone interpose a check to this fatal progression.”
Setting out from these premises, which you may dispute if you will, but which Malthus regarded as incontestable, he attached necessarily the highest value to the exercise of foresight. For there was no alternative;—man must either restrain voluntarily this excessive multiplication, or else he must become subject, like all the other species of living creatures, to the operation of positive or repressive checks.
Malthus, then, believed that he could never urge men too strongly to the exercise of foresight. His very philanthropy engaged him to exhibit in strong relief the fatal consequences of imprudent reproduction, in order to put men upon their guard. He said to them: If you multiply inconsiderately, you cannot avoid the chastisement which awaits you in some form or other, and always in a hideous form—famine, war, pestilence, etc. Benevolence, charity, poor-laws, and all other expedients are but ineffectual remedies.
In his ardour, Malthus allowed an expression to escape him, which, when separated from the rest of his system, and from the sentiment which dictated it, may appear harsh. It occurred in the first edition of his work, which was then only a brochure, and has since become a book of four volumes. It was represented to him that his meaning in this objectionable passage might give rise to erroneous interpretations. He immediately suppressed it, and it has never since reappeared in any of the numerous editions of his Essay on Population.
But Mr Godwin, one of his opponents, had quoted this suppressed passage, and the consequence was, that M. de Sismondi (a man who, with the best intentions in the world, has done much [p399] mischief) reproduced this unlucky sentence. The Socialists instantly laid hold of it, and on this they proceeded to try, condemn, and execute Malthus. Truly, they were much indebted to Sismondi’s learning, for they had never themselves read either Malthus or Godwin.
The Socialists have thus represented an unguarded passage, which Malthus himself had suppressed, as the basis of his system. They repeat it ‹ad nauseam›. In a little 18mo volume, M. Pierre Leroux reproduced it at least forty times, and it forms the stock-in-trade of all our declamatory second-rate reformers.
The most celebrated and the most vigorous of that school of writers having written an article against Malthus, I happened one day to converse with him, and cited some opinions expressed in the Essay on Population. I thought I perceived that he was not acquainted with the work. I remarked to him, “You who have refuted Malthus, have you not read his book from beginning to end?” “I have not read it at all,” he replied. “His whole system is to be found in one page, and is condensed in the famous ‘arithmetical and geometrical progressions’—that is enough for me.” “It seems to me,” I said, “that you are jesting with the public, with Malthus, with truth, with conscience, and with yourself.”
This is the way that opinions obtain currency with us. Fifty ignorant people repeat in chorus something spiteful and absurd, put forward by one more ignorant than themselves, and if it happens to have the least connexion with the fashionable opinions or passions of the hour, it is at once received as an axiom.
Science, however, it must be allowed, cannot enter on the solution of a problem with the settled intention of establishing a foregone conclusion, however consolatory. What should we think of a man who should sit down to the study of physiology, resolved beforehand to demonstrate that God has not willed that mankind should be afflicted with diseases? Were one physiologist to found a system on such a basis as this, and another to controvert it by an appeal to facts, the former would most likely fly into a rage, and tax his opponent with ‹impiety›; but it is difficult to believe that he would go the length of accusing his opponent himself of being the author of diseases.
This, however, is what has happened to Malthus. In a work founded on facts and figures, he explained a law which has given great offence to our optimists; and in their anxiety to ignore the existence of this law, they have attacked Malthus with rancorous virulence and flagrant bad faith, as if he had himself deliberately [p400] thrown in the way of mankind those obstacles which flowed, as he thought, from the principle of population. It would surely have been more philosophical to have proved simply that Malthus was mistaken, and that his pretended law had in reality no existence.
Population, we must allow, is one of a numerous class of subjects which serve to remind us that man has frequently left him only a choice of evils. Whatever may have been its design, suffering: has entered into the plan of Providence. Let us not, then, seek for harmony in the absence of evil, but in the tendency of evil to bring us back to what is good, and in the gradual contraction of its own domain. God has indued us with free will. It is necessary that we should ‹learn›,—which is a long and difficult process,—and then it is necessary that we should ‹act› on the knowledge thus acquired, which is not much less difficult. In this way we shall gradually emancipate ourselves from suffering, but without ever altogether escaping from it; for even when we succeed completely in eluding chastisement, we have still to exercise the painful effort of foresight. In freeing ourselves from the one, we must submit ourselves to the other.
It is of no use to rebel against this order of things; for it envelopes us; it is the atmosphere in which we live and breathe; and it is with this alternative of restriction or prevention before us, which we cannot get rid of, and cannot lose sight of, that we proceed, with Malthus, to enter upon the problem of population. On this great question I shall first of all assume the function of a mere reporter, and then give you my own views. If the laws of population can be comprised in a short aphorism, it will be a happy thing for the advancement and diffusion of the science. But if, from the number and the shifting nature of the postulates, we find that these laws refuse to be shut up in a brief and rigorous formula, we must acquiesce. Prolix exactitude is better than delusive brevity.
* * * * *
We have seen that progress consists in causing natural forces to co-operate more and more towards the satisfaction of our wants, so that, at each successive epoch, the same amount of utility is obtained, whilst to society is left either more leisure, or a greater amount of disposable labour, to be applied to the acquisition of new enjoyments.
On the other hand, we have demonstrated that every fresh conquest we thus gain over nature, after having for a time brought additional profit to the inventor, never fails to become, by the [p401] operation of the law of competition, the common and gratuitous patrimony of mankind at large.
From these premises we should conclude that human happiness must be enlarged, and, at the same time, rapidly equalized. That it has not been so in reality, however, is a point beyond all dispute. There are in the world multitudes of unfortunate people, whose wretchedness has not been caused by their own misdeeds.
How are we to account for this?
I believe it is owing to a multiplicity of causes. One of them is called ‹spoliation›, or, if you will, ‹injustice›. Economists have referred to it only incidentally, as implying some error, some false scientific notion. Engaged in the explanation of general laws, it is not their business, they think, to concern themselves with those laws, when they are not in operation or violated. Spoliation, however, has borne, and still bears, too prominent a share in human affairs to permit even economists to throw it aside as a consideration unworthy of being taken into account. What we have to do with here is not accidental thefts, petty larcenies, or isolated crimes. War, slavery, priestly impostures, privileges, monopolies, restrictions, abuses of taxation,—these are the more salient manifestations of spoliation. It is easy to see what influence disturbing forces of such magnitude must have exercised, and must still exercise by their presence, or the deep traces they have left behind them, on the inequality of conditions; and it will be our business hereafter to estimate the vast extent of their effects.
But another cause which retards progress, and, above all, which hinders its extension to all classes, is, as some authors think, the principle of population.
And no doubt, if in proportion as wealth increases, the number of people among whom that wealth is to be divided increases also, and more rapidly, absolute wealth may be greater, and individual wealth less.
If, moreover, there be one species of services which everybody can render, like the services which require only muscular exertion, and if it be just the class whose business it is to render such services, the worst paid of all, which multiplies with the greatest rapidity, we must conclude that labour creates for itself a fatal competition. The lowest class will never benefit by progress, if that class increases faster than it can spread and distribute itself.
You see, then, how important the principle of population is.
Malthus has reduced the principle to this formula: [p402]
‹Population has a tendency to keep on a level with the means of subsistence.›
I cannot help remarking in passing that it is surprising that the honour and responsibility of enunciating this principle, be it true or false, should have been ascribed to Malthus. No writer on such subjects since the days of Aristotle but has proclaimed it, and frequently in the very same words.[86]
It is impossible to look around us on the aggregate of animated beings without being convinced beyond doubt that nature has been more engrossed with the care of species than of individuals.
The precautions which nature has taken to ensure the perpetuity of races are remarkable; and among these precautions, a very noticeable one is the profusion of germs or seeds. This superabundance appears to be calculated in an inverse ratio to the sensibility, intelligence, and power with which each species is endowed, to enable it to resist destruction.
Thus, in the vegetable kingdom, the means of reproduction, by seeds, cuttings, etc., which a single plant can furnish, are countless. One elm (were all its seeds to take root) might give birth in a single year to a million of trees. Why should this not actually happen? Because all the seeds have not the benefit of the conditions which vegetable life exacts, namely, space and nourishment. They are destroyed; and as plants are destitute of sensibility, nature has spared neither the means of reproduction nor those of destruction.
Animals, too, whose life is of a type akin to vegetable life, reproduce themselves in immense numbers. Who has not wondered that oysters, for instance, could multiply sufficiently to supply the enormous consumption of them?
As we advance in the scale of animal life, we find that the means of reproduction has been bestowed by nature with greater parsimony.
Vertebrated animals, especially the larger species, do not multiply so quickly as others. The cow goes nine months, produces only [p403] one calf, and must suckle it for some time. Yet even among cattle the reproductive power surpasses what might be thought absolutely necessary. In rich countries, such as England, France, and Switzerland, the number of animals of this description increases notwithstanding the enormous destruction of them; and had we boundless pastures and prairies, there can be no doubt that we might have both a still greater destruction and more rapid reproduction of them. I should say that if nourishment and space were not limited, we might have in a few years ten times more oxen and cows, even if we consumed ten times more meat. The reproductive power of cattle, then, even laying aside the extraneous consideration of the limitation of space and nourishment, is far from being fully developed.
It is certain that the reproductive faculty in the human species is less powerful than in any other, and it ought to be so. Man, in the superior situation in which nature has placed him, as regards intelligence and sympathy, ought not to be exposed to destruction in the same degree as the inferior animals. But we are not to suppose that ‹physically› he escapes from that law in virtue of which all species have the faculty of multiplying to a greater extent than space and nourishment permit.
I say ‹physically›, because I am speaking here only of the physiological law.
There is a wide difference between the ‹physiological power› of multiplying and ‹actual› multiplication.
The one is an absolute organic power when freed from all obstacle and all limitation ‹ab extra›—the other is the effective resulting force of this power combined with the aggregate of all the resistance which limits and restrains it. Thus the power of multiplication of the poppy may be a million a year, perhaps; but in a field of poppies the actual reproduction may be stationary or even decrease.
It is this physiological law that Malthus essayed to reduce to a formula. He inquired in what period of time a given number of men would double, ‹if their space and food were unlimited›.
We can see beforehand that as this hypothesis of the ‹complete satisfaction of all wants› is never realized in practice, the ‹theoretic› period must necessarily be shorter than any period of ‹actual› doubling which has ever been observed.
Observation, in fact, gives very different results for different countries. According to the results obtained by M. Moreau de Jonnès, taking for basis the actual increase of population, the period of doubling would require—in Turkey, 555 years; in [p404] Switzerland, 227; in France, 138; in Spain, 106; in Holland, 100; in Germany, 76; in Russia and in England, 43; and in the United States of America, 25 years, deducting the contingent furnished by immigration.
Now, what is the reason of such enormous differences? We have no reason to think that they are the result of physiological causes. Swiss women are as well formed and as prolific as American women.
We must conclude, then, that the absolute generative power is restrained by external obstacles. And what proves this beyond doubt is, that it is manifested as soon as circumstances occur to remove these obstacles. Thus an improved agriculture, new manufactures, some new source of local wealth, leads invariably in that locality to an increase of population. In the same way, when a scourge like a plague, or a famine, or war, destroys a great part of the population, we immediately find that multiplication is more rapidly developed.
When an increase of population, then, is retarded, or stops, we find that space and nourishment are awanting, or likely to be so; that it has encountered an obstacle, or is scared by one.
This phenomenon, the announcement of which has brought down so much abuse on Malthus, appears in truth beyond the reach of doubt.
If you put a thousand mice into a cage, with only as much provision as is necessary for their daily sustenance, their number, in spite of the acknowledged fecundity of the species, can never exceed a thousand, or if it do, there will be privation and there will be suffering,—both tending to reduce the number. In this case it would be correct to say that an external cause limits, not the power of fecundity, but the result of fecundity. There would assuredly be an antagonism between the physiological tendency and the restraining force, and the result would be that the number would be stationary. To prove this, increase gradually the provision until you double it, and you will very soon find two thousand mice in the cage.
And what is the answer which is made to Malthus? He is met with the very ‹fact› upon which his theory is founded. The proof, it is said, that the power of reproduction in man is not indefinite, is that in certain countries the population is stationary. If the law of progression were true, if population doubled every twenty-five years, France, which had thirty millions of inhabitants in 1820, would now have more than sixty millions.
Is this logical? [p405]
I begin by proving that the population of France has increased only a fifth in twenty-five years, whilst in other countries it has doubled. I seek for the cause of this; and I find it in the deficiency of space and sustenance. I find that in the existing state of cultivation, population, and national manners and habits, there is a difficulty in creating with sufficient rapidity subsistence for generations that might be born, or for maintaining those that are actually born. I assert that the means of subsistence cannot be doubled—at least that they are not doubled—in France every twenty-five years. This is exactly the aggregate of those negative forces which restrain, as I think, the physiological power—and you bring forward this slowness of multiplication in order to prove that this physiological power has no existence. Such a mode of discussing the question is mere trifling.
Is the argument against the geometrical progression of Malthus more conclusive? Malthus has nowhere asserted that, ‹in point of fact›, population increases according to a geometrical progression. He alleges, on the contrary, that ‹the fact› is not so, and the subject of his inquiry has reference to the obstacles which hinder it. The progression is brought forward merely as a formula of the ‹organic› power of multiplication.
Seeking to discover in what time a given population can double itself, ‹on the assumption that all its wants are supplied›, he fixed this period at twenty-five years. He so fixed it, because direct observation had shown him that this state of things actually existed among a people, who, although very far from fulfilling all the conditions of his hypothesis, came nearer the conditions he had assumed than any other—namely, the people of America. This period once found, and the question having always reference to the ‹virtual› power of propagation, he lays it down that population ‹has a tendency to increase› in a geometrical progression.
This is denied; but the denial is in the teeth of evidence. It may be said, indeed, that the period of doubling may not be everywhere twenty-five years; that it may be thirty, forty, or fifty years; that it varies in different countries and races. All this is fair subject of discussion; but granting this, it certainly cannot be said that, on the hypothesis assumed, the progression is not geometrical. If, in fact, a hundred couples produce two hundred in a given time, why may not two hundred produce four hundred in an equal time?
Because, say the opponents of the theory, multiplication will be restrained.
This is just what Malthus has said. [p406]
But by what means will multiplication be restrained?
Malthus points out two general obstacles to indefinite multiplication, which he has denominated the ‹preventive› and ‹repressive checks›.
As population can be kept down below the level of its physiological tendency only by a diminution of the number of births, or an increase of the number of deaths, the nomenclature of Malthus is undoubtedly correct.
Moreover, when the conditions as regards space and nourishment are such that population cannot go beyond a certain figure, it is evident that the destructive check has more power, in proportion as the preventive check has less. To allege that the number of births may increase without an increase in the number of deaths, while the means of subsistence are stationary, would be to fall into a manifest contradiction.
Nor is it less evident, ‹à priori›, and independently of other grave economic considerations, that in such a situation voluntary self-restraint is preferable to forced repression.
As far as we have yet gone, then, the theory of Malthus is in all respects incontestable.
He was wrong, perhaps, in adopting this period of twenty-five years as the limit of human fecundity, although it holds good in the United States. I am convinced that in assuming this period he wished to avoid the imputation of exaggeration, or of dealing in pure abstractions. “How can they pretend,” he may have thought, “that I give too much latitude to ‹the possible› if I found my principle on what ‹actually› takes place?” He did not consider that by mixing up in this way the ‹virtual› and the ‹real›, and representing as the measure of ‹the law of multiplication›, without reference to ‹the law of limitation›, a period which is the result of ‹facts governed by both laws›, he should expose himself to be misunderstood. This is what has actually happened. His geometrical and arithmetical progressions have been laughed at; he has been reproached for taking the United States as a type of the rest of the world; in a word, the confusion he has given rise to by mixing up these two distinct laws, has been seized upon to confute the one by the other.
When we seek to discover the abstract power of propagation, we must put aside for the moment all consideration of the physical and moral checks arising from deficiency of space, food, or comfortable circumstances. But the question once proposed in these terms, it is quite superfluous to attempt an exact solution. This power, in the human race, as in all organized existences, surpasses, [p407] in an enormous proportion, all the phenomena of rapid multiplication that we have observed in the past, or can ever observe in the future. Take wheat, for example: allowing five stalks for every seed, and five grains for every stalk, one grain has the virtual power of producing four hundred millions of grains in five years. Or take the canine race, and suppose four puppies to each litter, and six years of fecundity, we shall find that one couple may in twelve years produce eight millions of cubs.
As regards the human race, assuming sixteen as the age of puberty, and fecundity to cease at thirty, each couple might give birth to eight children. It is making a large deduction to reduce this number to one-half on account of premature deaths, since we are reasoning on the supposition of absolute comfort and all wants satisfied, which greatly limits the amount of mortality. However, let us state the premises in this way, and they give us in twenty-five years 2—4—8—16—32—64—128—256—512, etc.; in short, two millions in two centuries.
If we make the calculation on the basis adopted by Euler, the period of doubling will be twelve years and a half. Eight such periods will make exactly a century, and the increase in that space of time will be as 512:2.
At no era, and in no country, have we ever observed the numbers of the human race increase with this frightful rapidity. According to the book of Genesis, the Hebrews who entered Egypt amounted to seventy couples;[87] and we find from the book of Numbers that when Moses numbered the people, two centuries afterwards, they amounted to six hundred thousand men above twenty-one years of age,[88] which supposes a population of two millions at least. From this we may infer that the period of doubling was fourteen years. Statistical tables can scarcely be admitted to control biblical facts. Shall we say that six hundred thousand men “able to go to war” supposes a population larger than two millions, and infer from that a period of doubling less than Euler has calculated? In that case, we should cast doubt either on the census of Moses or on the calculations of Euler. All that we contend for is, that it should not be pretended that the Hebrews multiplied with greater rapidity than it is possible to multiply.
After this example, which is probably that in which ‹actual› fecundity approximates most nearly to ‹virtual› fecundity, we have [p408] the case of the United States of America, where we know that the population doubles in less than twenty-five years.
It is unnecessary to pursue such researches further. It is sufficient to know that in our species, as in all, the organic power of multiplication is superior to the actual multiplication. Moreover, it would involve a contradiction to assert that the actual surpasses the virtual.
Alongside of this absolute power, which it is unnecessary to determine more exactly, and which we may safely regard as uniform, there exists, as we have said, another force, which limits, compresses, suspends, to a certain extent, the action of the first, and opposes to it obstacles of different kinds, varying with times and places, with the occupations, the manners, the laws, or the religion of different nations.
I denominate this second force ‹the law of limitation›; and it is evident that the progress of population in each country, and in each class, is the result of the combined action of these two laws.
But in what does this law of limitation consist? We may say in a very general way that the propagation of life is restrained or prevented by the difficulty of sustaining life. This idea, which we have already expressed in the terms of the formula of Malthus, it is of importance to develop farther, for it is the essential part of our subject.[89]
Organized existences, which are indued with life, but without feeling, are entirely passive in this struggle between the two principles. As regards vegetables, it is strictly true that the number of each species is limited by the means of subsistence. The profusion of germs is infinite, but the resources of space and territorial fertility are not so. These germs injure or destroy one another; they fail to grow, or they take root and come to maturity only to the extent that the soil allows of. Animals are endued with feeling, but they would seem in general to be destitute of foresight. They breed, increase, and multiply without regard to the fate of their offspring. Death, premature death, alone limits their multiplication, and maintains the equilibrium between their numbers and their means of subsistence.
M. de Lamennais, in his inimitable language, thus addresses the people:—
“There is room enough in the world for all, and God has made it fertile enough to supply the wants of all.” And, further on, he says,—“The Author of the universe has not assigned a worse [p409] condition to man than to the inferior animals. Are not all invited to the rich banquet of nature? Is one alone excluded?” And, again, he adds,—“Plants extend their roots from one field to another, in a soil which nourishes them all, and all grow there in peace; none of them absorbs the sap of another.”
In all this we see only fallacious declamation, which serves as the basis of dangerous conclusions; and we cannot help regretting that an eloquence so admirable should be devoted to giving popular currency to the most fatal of errors.
It is not true that no plant robs another of its sap, and that all extend their roots in the soil without injury. Hundreds of millions of vegetable germs fall every year upon the ground, derive from it a beginning of vitality, and then die stifled by plants stronger, ranker, hardier than themselves. It is not true that all animals which are born are invited to the banquet of nature, and that none of them is excluded. Wild beasts devour one another; and of domestic animals man destroys a countless number. Nothing, in fact, is better calculated than this to show the existence and relations of these two principles—that of multiplication and that of limitation. Why have we in this country so many oxen and sheep, notwithstanding the havoc we make? Why are there so few bears and wolves, although we slaughter far fewer of them, and they are so organized as to be capable of multiplying much faster? The reason is, that man prepares subsistence for the one class of animals, and takes it away from the other class. As regards each, he so arranges the law of limitation as to leave more or less latitude to the law of increase.
Thus, as regards both vegetables and animals, the limiting force appears only in one form, that of ‹destruction›. But man is indued with reason and foresight, and this new element modifies, and even changes, the mode of action of this force, so far as he is concerned.
Undoubtedly, in as far as he is a being provided with material organs, or, to speak plainly, in as far as he is an animal, the law of limitation, in the form of destruction, applies to him. It is impossible that the numbers of men can exceed their means of subsistence; for to assert that more men existed than had the means of existing, would imply a contradiction. If, then, his reason and foresight are lulled asleep, he becomes a vegetable, he becomes a brute. In that case, he will inevitably multiply in virtue of the great physiological law which governs all organized nature; and, in that case, it is equally inevitable that he should perish in virtue of that law of limitation the action of which he has ignored. [p410]
But if he exercise foresight, this second law comes within the sphere of his will. He modifies and directs it. It is, in fact, no longer the same law. It is no longer a blind, but an intelligent force; it is no longer a mere natural, it has become a social law. Man is the centre in which these two principles, matter and intelligence, meet, unite, and are blended; he belongs exclusively neither to the one nor to the other. As regards the human race, the ‹law of limitation› is manifested in both its aspects, and maintains population at the necessary level by the double action of foresight and destruction.
These two actions are not of uniform intensity. On the contrary, the one is enlarged in proportion as the other is restrained. The thing to be accomplished, the point to be reached is limitation; and it is so more or less by means of ‹repression›, or by means of ‹prevention›, according as man is brutish or spiritual, according as he is more allied to matter or to mind, according as he has in him more of vegetative or of moral life. The law may be external to him, or internal, but it must exist somewhere.
We do not form a just idea of the vast domain of foresight, which the translator of Malthus has much circumscribed, by giving currency to that vague and inadequate expression, ‹moral restraint› [‹contrainte morale›], which he has still farther limited by the definition he has given of it, namely, “The virtue which consists in not marrying, when one has not the means of ‹maintaining› a family, and yet living in chastity.” The obstacles which intelligent human society opposes to possible multiplication take many other forms besides that of moral restraint thus defined. What means, for example, the pure and holy ignorance of early life, the only ignorance which it is criminal to dissipate, which every one respects, and over which the timid mother watches as over hidden treasure? What means the modesty which succeeds that ignorance, that mysterious defence of the young female, which intimidates whilst it enchants her lover, and prolongs, while it embellishes, the innocent season of courtship? The veil which is thus interposed at first between ignorance and truth, and then between truth and happiness, is a marvellous thing, and in aught save this would be absurd. What means that power of opinion which imposes such severe laws on the relations of the sexes, stigmatizes the slightest transgression of those laws, and visits it not only on the erring feebleness which succumbs, but, from generation to generation, on the unhappy offspring? What mean that sensitive honour, that rigid reserve, so generally admired even by those who have cast it off, those institutions, those [p411] restraints of etiquette, those precautions of all sorts—if they are not the action of that ‹law of limitation› manifested in an intelligent, moral, and ‹preventive› shape—in a shape, consequently, which is peculiar to man?
Let these barriers be once overturned—let mankind, in what regards the sexes, be no longer concerned either with etiquette or with fortune, or with the future, or with opinion, or with manners—let men lower themselves to the rank of vegetables or animals,—can we doubt that for the former, as for the latter, the power of multiplication would act with a force to necessitate the instant intervention of the ‹law of limitation›, manifested under such circumstances in a physical, brutal, and ‹repressive› shape; that is to say, by the action of indigence, disease, and death?
It is impossible to deny that, but for foresight and moral considerations, marriage would, in most cases, be contracted at an early age, or immediately after puberty. If we fix this age at sixteen, and if the registers of a given country show that marriages on an average, do not take place before four-and-twenty, we have then eight years deducted by ‹the law of limitation›, in its moral and preventive form, from the action of the law of multiplication; and if we add to this figure the necessary allowance for those who never marry, we shall be convinced that the Creator has not degraded man to the level of the beasts that perish, but, on the contrary, has given him the power to transform the ‹repressive› into the ‹preventive› limitation.
It is singular enough that the spiritualist school and the materialist school should have, as it were, changed sides on this great question: the former fulminating against foresight, and endeavouring to set up the principle of animal nature; the latter exalting the moral part of man, and enforcing the dominion of reason over passion and appetite.
The truth is, the subject is not rightly understood. Let a father consult the most orthodox clergyman he can find as to the management of his family, the counsels he will receive are just those which science has exalted into ‹principles›, and which, as such, the clergyman might probably repudiate. “Keep your daughter in strict seclusion,” the old minister will say; “conceal from her as much as you can the seductions of the world; cultivate, as you would a precious flower, that holy ignorance, that heavenly modesty, which are at once her charm and her defence. Wait until an eligible match presents itself; and labour in the meantime to secure her an adequate fortune. Consider that a poor and improvident marriage brings along with it much suffering and many dangers. Recall [p412] those old proverbs which embody the wisdom of nations, and which assure us that comfortable circumstances constitute the surest guarantee of union and domestic peace. Why be in a hurry? Would you have your daughter at five-and-twenty burdened with a family which she cannot maintain and educate suitably to your rank in life? Would you have her husband, feeling the inadequacy of his income to support his family, fall into affliction and despair, and finally, perhaps, betake himself to riot and debauchery? The subject which now occupies you is the most important which can come under your consideration. Weigh it well and maturely; and avoid precipitation,” etc.
Suppose that the father, borrowing the language of M. de Lamennais, should reply: “In the beginning God addressed to all men the command to increase and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it. And yet you would persuade a young woman to live single, renounce family ties, and give up and abandon the chaste happiness of married life, and the holy joys of maternity; and all this for no better reason than a sordid fear of poverty.” Think you the old clergyman would have no reply to this?
God, he might say, has not commanded man to increase and multiply without discretion and without prudence; to act with as little regard to the future as the inferior animals. He has not indued man with reason, in order that he may cease to use it in the most solemn and important circumstances. He has commanded man, no doubt, to increase, but in order to increase he must live, and in order to live he must have the means of living. In the command to increase, therefore, there is implied another command, namely, to prepare for his offspring the means of subsistence. Religion has not placed celibacy in the catalogue of crimes. So far from that, she has ranked it as a virtue, which she honours and sanctifies. We must not think that we violate the commandment of God when we are preparing to fulfil it with prudence, and with a view to the future good, happiness, and dignity of our family.
Now this reasoning, or reasoning of a similar kind, which we hear repeated every day, and which regulates the conduct of every moral and enlightened family, what is it but the application of a general doctrine to particular cases? Or rather, what is that doctrine, but the generalization of reasoning which applies to every particular case? The spiritualist who repudiates, on principle, the intervention of preventive limitation, is like the natural philosopher who should say to us, “Act in every case as if gravity existed, but don’t admit gravitation in theory.” [p413]
In our observations hitherto we have followed the theory of Malthus; but there is one attribute of humanity to which it seems to me that most of our authors have not assigned that importance which it merits, and which plays an important part in the phenomena relative to population, resolves many of the problems to which this great question has given rise, and gives birth in the mind of the philanthropist to a confidence and serenity which false science had banished; this attribute, which is comprised, indeed, in the notions of reason and foresight, is man’s ‹perfectibility›. Man is perfectible; he is susceptible of amelioration and of deterioration; and if, in a strict sense, he can remain stationary, he can also mount and descend without limit the endless ladder of civilisation. This holds true not only of individuals, but of families, nations, and races.
It is from not having taken into account all the power of this progressive principle, that Malthus has landed us in those discouraging consequences which have rendered his theory generally repulsive.
For, regarding the ‹preventive check›, in a somewhat ascetic and not very attractive light, he could hardly attribute much force to it. Hence he concludes that it is the ‹repressive› check which generally operates; in other words, vice, poverty, war, crime, etc.
This, as I think, is an error; and we are about to see that the ‹limitative› force presents itself not only in the shape of an effort of chastity, an act of self-control, but also, and above all, as a condition of happiness, an instructive movement which prevents men from degrading themselves and their families.
Population, it has been said, tends to keep on a level with the means of subsistence. I should say that, for this expression ‹means of subsistence›, formerly in universal use, J. B. Say has substituted another which is much more correct, namely, ‹means of existence›. At first sight it would seem that subsistence alone enters into the question, but it is not so. ‹Man does not live by bread alone›, and a reference to facts shows us clearly that population is arrested, or retarded, when the aggregate of all the means of existence, including clothing, lodging, and other things which climate or even habit renders necessary, come to be awanting.
We should say, then, that population tends to keep on a level with the ‹means of existence›.
But do these means constitute something which is fixed, absolute, and uniform? Certainly not. In proportion as civilisation advances, the range of man’s wants is enlarged, having regard even to simple ‹subsistence›. Regarded as a perfectible being the ‹means of [p414] existence›, among which we comprehend the satisfaction of moral and intellectual, as well as physical wants, admit of as many degrees as there are degrees in civilisation itself, in other words, of infinite degrees. Undoubtedly, there is an inferior limit—to appease hunger, to shelter oneself from cold to some extent, is one condition of life, and this limit we may perceive among American savages or European paupers. But a superior limit I know not—in fact, there is none. Natural wants satisfied, others spring up, which are factitious at first, if you will, but which habit renders natural in their turn, and, after these, others still, and so on without assignable limit.
At each step, then, which man takes on the road of civilisation, his wants embrace a wider and more extended circle, and the ‹means of existence›, the point where the laws of ‹multiplication› and ‹limitation› meet, is removed and elevated. For although man is susceptible of deterioration as well as of improvement, he aspires after the one and shuns the other. His efforts all tend to maintain the rank he has gained, and to rise still higher; and ‹habit›, which has been so well called a second nature, performs the part of the valves of our arterial system, by checking every retrograde tendency. It is very natural, then, that the intelligent and moral control which man exercises over his own multiplication should partake of the nature of these efforts to rise, and be combined and mixed up with his progressive tendencies.
The consequences which result from this organization are numerous. We shall confine ourselves to pointing out a few of them. First of all, we admit with the Economists that population and the means of existence come to an equilibrium; but the last of these terms being infinitely flexible, and varying with civilisation and habits, we cannot admit that in comparing nations and classes, population is proportionate to ‹production›, as J. B. Say[90] affirms, or to ‹income›, as is represented by M. de Sismondi. And then every advancing step of culture implies greater foresight, and the moral and preventive check comes to neutralize the repressive one more and more as civilisation is realized in society at large, or in one or other of its sections. Hence it follows that each step of progress tends to a new step in the same direction, ‹vires acquirit eundo›; seeing that better circumstances and greater foresight engender one another in indefinite succession. For the same reason, when men, from whatever cause, follow a retrograde course, narrower circumstances and want of foresight become reciprocally cause and effect, [p415] and retrogression and decay would have no limit had society not been indued with that curative force, that ‹vis medicatrix›, which Providence has vouchsafed to all organized bodies. Observe, too, that at each step of this retrograde movement, the action of the law of limitation in its destructive form becomes at once more painful and more apparent. At first, it is only deterioration and sinking in the social scale; then it is poverty, famine, disorder, war, death;—painful but infallible teachers.
I should like to pause here to show how well this theory explains facts, and how well facts in their turn justify the theory. When, in the case of a nation or a class, the means of existence have descended to that inferior limit at which they come to be confounded with the means of pure subsistence, as in China, in Ireland, and among the lowest and poorest class of every country, the smallest oscillations of population, or of the supply of food, are tantamount to death. In this respect facts confirm the scientific induction. Famine has not for a long period visited Europe, and we attribute the absence of this scourge to a multitude of causes. The most general of these causes undoubtedly is, that the ‹means of existence›, by reason of social progress, have risen far above the ‹means of mere subsistence›. When years of scarcity come, we are thus enabled to give up many enjoyments before encroaching on the first necessaries of life. Not so in such countries as China or Ireland, where men have nothing in the world but a little rice or a few potatoes. When the rice or potato crops fail, they have absolutely no means of purchasing other food.
A third consequence of human perfectibility we must notice here, because it tends to modify the doctrine of Malthus in its most afflicting phase. The formula which we have attributed to that economist is, that “Population tends to keep on a level with the means of subsistence.” We should say that he has gone much farther, and that his true formula, that from which he has drawn his most distressing conclusions, is this: “Population tends ‹to go beyond› the means of subsistence.” Had Malthus by this simply meant to say that in the human race the power of propagating life is superior to the power of sustaining life, there could have been no controversy. But this is not what he means. He affirms that, taking into account absolute fecundity on the one hand, and, on the other, limitation, as manifested in the two forms, repressive and preventive, the result is still the tendency of population to go beyond the means of subsistence.[91] This holds true of every species [p416] of living creatures, except the human race. Man is an intelligent being, and can make an unlimited use of the preventive check. He is perfectible, seeks after improvement, and shuns deterioration. Progress is his normal state, and progress presupposes a more and more enlightened exercise of the preventive check; and then ‹the means of existence increase more rapidly than population›. This effect not only flows from the principle of perfectibility, but is confirmed by ‹fact›, since on all sides the range of satisfactions is extended. Were it true, as Malthus asserts, that along with every addition to the means of subsistence there is a still greater addition to the population, the misery of our race would be fatally—inevitably—progressive; society would begin with civilisation and end with barbarism. The contrary is the fact; and we must conclude that the law of limitation has had sufficient force to restrain the multiplication of men, and keep it below the multiplication of products.
It may be seen from what has been said how vast and how difficult the question of population is. We may regret, no doubt, that a precise formula has not been given to it, and we regret still more that we find ourselves unable to propose one. But we may see how repugnant the narrow limits of a dogmatic axiom are to such a subject. It is a vain endeavour to try to express, in the form of an inflexible equation, the relations of data so essentially variable. Allow me to recapitulate these data.
(1.) ‹The law of increase or multiplication.›—The absolute, virtual, physiological power which resides in the human race to propagate life, apart from the consideration of the difficulty of sustaining life. This first datum, the only one susceptible of anything like precision, is the only one in which precision is superfluous; for what matters it where the superior limit of multiplication is placed in the hypothesis, if it can never be attained in the actual condition of man, which is to sustain life with the sweat of his brow.
(2.) There is a ‹limit›, then, to the law of multiplication. What is that limit? The means of existence, it is replied. But what are the means of existence? The aggregate of satisfactions or enjoyments, which cannot be exactly defined. They vary with times, places, races, ranks, manners, opinions, habits, and consequently the limit we are in search of is shifted or displaced.
(3.) Last of all, it may be asked, in what consists the force which [p417] restrains population within this limit, which is itself movable? As far as man is concerned, it is twofold: a force which ‹represses›, and a force which ‹prevents›. Now, the action of the first, incapable as it is in itself of being accurately measured, is, moreover, entirely subordinated to the action of the second, which depends on the degree of civilisation, on the power and prevalence of habits, on the tendency of political and religious institutions, on the organization of property, of labour, of family relations, etc. Between the law of multiplication and the law of limitation, then, it is impossible to establish an equation from which could be deduced the actual population. In algebra ‹a› and ‹b› represent determinate quantities which are numbered and measured, and of which we can fix the proportions; but ‹means of existence›, ‹moral government of the will›, ‹inevitable action of mortality›, these are the three data of the problem of population, data which are flexible in themselves, and which partake somewhat, moreover, of the astonishing flexibility of the subject to which they have reference—man—that being whom Montaigne describes as so fluctuating and so variable. It is not surprising, then, that in desiring to give to this equation a precision of which it is incapable, economists have rather divided men’s minds than brought them into unison, and this because there is not one of the terms of their formulas which is not open to a multitude of objections, both in reasoning and in fact.
We shall now proceed to say something on the practical application of the doctrine of population, for application not only elucidates doctrine, but is the true fruit of the tree of science.
Labour, as we have said, is the only subject of exchange. In order to obtain utility (unless the utility which nature gives us gratuitously), we must be at the pains to produce it, or remunerate another who takes the pains for us. Man creates, and can create, nothing; he arranges, disposes, or transports things for a useful purpose; he cannot do this without exertion, and the result of this exertion becomes his property. If he gives away his property, he has right to recompense, in the shape of a service which is judged equivalent after free discussion. Such is the principle of value, of remuneration, of exchange—a principle which is not the less true because it is simple. Into what we denominate ‹products›, there enter divers degrees of ‹natural utility›, and divers degrees of ‹artificial utility›; the latter, which alone implies labour, is alone the subject of human bargains and transactions; and without questioning in the least the celebrated and suggestive formula of J. B. Say, that “products are exchanged for products,” I esteem it more [p418] rigorously scientific to say that ‹labour is exchanged for labour›, or, better still, that ‹services are exchanged for services›.
It must not be inferred from this, however, that quantities of labour are exchanged for each other in the ratio of their duration or of their intensity; or that the man who transfers to another an hour’s labour, or even the man who labours with the greatest intensity, who, as it were, pushes the needle of the dynamometer up to 100 degrees, can always stipulate for an equal effort in return. ‹Duration› and ‹intensity› are, no doubt, two of the elements taken into account in the appreciation of labour; but they are not the only ones; for we must consider, besides, that labour may be more or less repugnant, dangerous, difficult, intelligent, that it may imply more or less foresight, and may even be more or less successful. When transactions are free, and property completely secured, each has entire control over his own labour, and, consequently, need only dispose of it at his own price. The limit to his compliance is the point at which it is more advantageous to reserve his labour than to exchange it; the limit to his exactions is the point at which the other party to the bargain finds it his interest not to make the exchange.
There are in Society as many ‹strata›, if I may use the expression, as there are degrees in the scale of remuneration. The worst remunerated of all labour is that which approximates most nearly to brute force. This is an arrangement of Providence which is just, useful, and inevitable. The mere manual labourer soon reaches that ‹limit to his exactions› of which I have just spoken, for everybody can perform this kind of muscular automatic labour; and the ‹limit to his compliance› is also soon reached, for he is incapable of the intelligent labour which his own wants require. ‹Duration› and ‹intensity›, which are attributes of matter, are the sole elements of the remuneration of this species of unskilled material labour; and that is the reason why it is usually paid ‹by the day›. All industrial progress consists in this, namely, in replacing in each product a certain amount of ‹artificial›, and, consequently, ‹onerous utility›, by the same amount of ‹natural›, and, therefore, ‹gratuitous utility›. Hence it follows that if there be one class of society more interested than another in free competition, it is the labouring class. What would be the fate of these men if natural agents, and new processes and instruments of production, were not brought continually, by means of competition, to confer ‹gratuitously›, on all, the results of their co-operation? The mere day-labourer knows not how to make available in the production of the commodities he has occasion for, heat, gravitation, or elasticity; [p419] nor can he discover the processes, nor does he possess the instruments, by which these forces are rendered useful. When such discoveries are new, the labour of inventors, who are men of the highest intelligence, is well remunerated; in other words, that labour is the equivalent of a large amount of rude unskilled labour; or, again, to change the expression, his product is ‹dear›. But competition interposes, the product falls in price, the co-operation of natural agents is no longer profitable to the producer, but to the consumer, and the labour which has made them available approximates, as regards remuneration, to that labour which is estimated by mere duration. Thus, the common fund of gratuitous wealth goes on constantly increasing. Products of every kind tend, day after day, to become again invested,—and they are in reality invested,—with that condition of ‹gratuitousness› which characterizes our supply of air, and light, and water. The general level of humanity thus continues to rise, and to equalize itself; and, apart from the operation of the law of population, the lowest class of society is that whose amelioration is virtually the most rapid. We have said, apart from the operation of the law of population; and this brings us back to the subject we are now examining.
Figure to yourself a basin into which an orifice which is constantly enlarging admits a constantly increasing supply of water. If we look only to this circumstance, we conclude that the level of the water in the basin is continually rising. But if the sides of the basin are flexible, and capable of contracting and expanding, it is evident that the height of the water will depend on the manner in which this new circumstance is combined with the other. The level of the water will sink, however great may be the supply running into the basin, if the capacity of the basin itself is enlarged still more rapidly. It will rise, if the circle of the reservoir is enlarged only proportionally and very slowly, higher still if it remain fixed, and highest of all if it is narrowed or contracted.
This is a picture of the social class whose destinies we are now considering, and which constitutes, it must be allowed, the great mass of mankind. The water which comes into the basin through the elastic orifice represents their remuneration, or the objects fitted to supply their wants and to sustain life. The flexibility of the sides of the basin represents the movement of population. It is certain[92] that the means of existence overtake our population in a constantly increasing progression, but then it is equally certain that their numbers may increase in a still superior progression. The life of this class, then, will be more or less happy, more or less [p420] comfortable, according as the law of limitation, in its moral, intelligent, and preventive form, shall circumscribe, to a greater or less extent, the absolute law of multiplication. There is a limit to the increase of the numbers of the working class. That limit is the point at which the progressive fund of remuneration becomes insufficient for their maintenance. But there is no limit to their possible amelioration, because of the two elements which constitute it, the one, wealth, is constantly increasing, and the other, population, is under their own control.
What we have just said with reference to the lowest social grade, the class of mere manual labourers, is applicable also to each of the superior grades, when classified in relation to one another, in an inverse proportion, so to speak, to the rudeness and materiality of their occupations. Taking each class simply by itself, all are subjected to the same general laws. In all there is a struggle between the physiological power of multiplication, and the moral power of limitation. The only respect in which one class differs from another is with reference to the point where these two forces meet, the height to which the limit between the two laws may be raised by remuneration or be fixed by the habits of the labourers—this limit we have denominated the ‹means of existence›.
But if we consider the various classes, no longer each by itself, but in their reciprocal relations, I think we can discern the influence of two principles acting in an inverse sense, and this without doubt is the explanation of the actual condition of mankind. We have shown how all the economic phenomena, and especially the law of competition, tend to an equality of conditions. Theoretically this appears to us incontestable. Seeing that no natural advantage, no ingenious process, none of the instruments by which such processes are made available, can remain permanently with producers, as such; and seeing that the results of such natural advantages or discoveries, by an irresistible law of Providence, tend to become the common, gratuitous, and, consequently, equal, patrimony of all men, it is evident that the poorest class is the one which derives the greatest ‹relative› profit from this admirable arrangement of the laws of the social economy. Just as the poor man is as liberally treated as the rich man with reference to the air he breathes, in the same way he becomes equal to the rich man, as regards all that portion of the value of commodities which progress is constantly annihilating. Essentially, then, the human race has a very marked tendency towards ‹equality›. I do not speak of a tendency of aspiration, but a tendency of realization. And yet equality is not realized, or is realized so slowly, that in comparing two distant [p421] epochs we are scarcely sensible of the progress. Indeed we are so little sensible of it, that many able men deny it altogether, although in this they are certainly mistaken. Now, what is the cause which retards this fusion of classes on a common and progressive level?
In searching for the cause we need not, I think, look farther than the various degrees of ‹foresight› which each class exercises as regards the increase of population. The law of limitation, as has been already said, in as far as it is ‹moral› and ‹preventive›, we have under our own control. Man, as we have also said, is perfectible, and in proportion to his progress in improvement, he pays a more intelligent regard to this law. The superior classes, then, in proportion as they are more enlightened, are led to make greater exertions, and submit to greater sacrifices, in order to maintain their respective numbers on a level with the means of existence which their position in society demands.
Were we sufficiently far advanced in statistics, we should probably have this theoretical deduction converted into certainty, and have it proved by fact that marriages are less hasty and precocious among the higher than among the lower classes of society. If it be so, it is easy to see that in the general market, to which all classes bring their respective services, and in which labour of every kind is the subject of exchange, unskilled labour will be supplied in greater abundance than skilled labour; and this explains the continuance of that inequality of conditions, which so many, and such powerful, causes of another kind tend constantly to efface.
The theory which we have now briefly explained leads us to the practical conclusion that the best forms of philanthropy, the best social institutions, are those which, while acting in accordance with the Providential plan, as revealed to us by the social harmonies—I mean the plan of progressive equality—shall cause to descend among all ranks of society, and especially the lowest ranks, knowledge, discretion, morality, and foresight.
I say institutions, because, in fact, foresight results as much from the necessities of position as from resolutions purely intellectual. There are certain organizations of property, or, I should rather say, of industry, which are more favourable than others to what economists call a knowledge of the market, and, consequently, to ‹foresight›. It seems certain, for example, that ‹métayage› is much more efficacious than ‹fermage›[93] (the latter necessitating [p422] the employment of day labourers) in interposing a preventive obstacle to the exuberance of population among the lower classes. A family of ‹métayers› is in a much more likely situation than a family of day-labourers to experience the inconveniences of hasty marriages and improvident multiplication.
I have also used the expression, “forms of philanthropy.” In fact, almsgiving may effect a local and present good, but its influence must be limited even where it is not prejudicial to the happiness of the labouring classes; for it does not develop, but, on the contrary, may paralyze, that virtue which is most fitted to elevate the condition of the labourer, namely, ‹foresight›. To disseminate sound ideas, and, above all, to induce those habits which mark a certain degree of self-respect, is the greatest and most permanent good which we can confer upon the lower orders.
The ‹means of existence›, we cannot too often repeat, do not constitute a fixed quantity; they depend upon the state of manners, of opinion, and of habits. Whatever rank a man holds in the social scale, he has as much repugnance to descend from the position to which he has been accustomed as can be felt by men of an inferior grade. Perhaps there is even greater suffering in the mind of the aristocrat, the noble scions of whose house are lost among the ‹bourgeoisie›, than in that of the citizen whose sons become manual labourers, or in that of manual labourers whose children are reduced to pauperism. The ‹habit›, then, of enjoying a certain amount of material prosperity and a certain rank in life, is the strongest stimulant to the exercise of foresight; and if the working classes shall once raise themselves to the possession of a higher amount of enjoyment, and be unwilling again to descend in the social scale, then, in order to maintain themselves in that position, and preserve wages in keeping with their new habits, they must employ the infallible means of preventive limitation.
It is for this reason that I regard as one of the finest manifestations of philanthropy the resolution which appears to have been taken in England by many of the proprietors and manufacturers, to pull down cottages of mud and thatch, and substitute for them brick houses, neat, spacious, well lighted, well aired, and conveniently furnished. Were such a measure to become general, it [p423] would elevate the tone of the working classes. It would convert into real wants what are nowadays regarded as comparative luxuries; it would raise that limit which we have denominated the ‹means of existence›, and, by consequence, the ‹standard of remuneration›, from its present low rate. And why not? The lower orders in civilized countries are much above the lower orders among savages. They have raised themselves so far; and why should they not raise themselves still more?
We must not, however, deceive ourselves on this subject; progress can be but very slow, since to some extent it must be ‹general›. In certain parts of the world it might perhaps be realized rapidly if the people exercised no influence over each other; but this is not so. There is a great law of solidarity for the human race, in progress as well as in deterioration. If in England, for example, the condition of the working classes were sensibly improved, in consequence of a general rise of wages, French industry would have more chances of surpassing its rival, and by its advance would moderate the progressive movement manifested on the other side of the Channel. It would seem that, beyond certain limits, Providence has not designed that one people should rise above another. And thus, in the great aggregate of human society, as in its most minute details, we always find that admirable and inflexible forces tend to confer, in the long-run, on the masses, individual or collective advantages, and to bring back all temporary manifestations of superiority to a common level, which, like that of the ocean when the tide flows, is always equalizing itself and always advancing.
To conclude, perfectibility, which is the distinctive characteristic of man, being given, and the action of competition and the law of limitation being known, the fate of the human race, as regards its worldly destinies, may be thus summed up:—‹1st›, Simultaneous elevation of all the social ranks, or of the general level of humanity; ‹2d›, Indefinite approximation of conditions, and successive annihilation of the distances which separate classes, as far as consistent with absolute justice; ‹3d›, Relative diminution of the numbers of the lowest and highest orders, and extension of intermediate classes. It may be said that these laws must lead to absolute equality. No more than the constant approximation of asymptotical lines can finally load to their junction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
* * * * *
This chapter, the greater part of which was written in 1846, does not perhaps express with sufficient clearness the author’s opposition to the ideas of Malthus. [p424]
Bastiat explains here very clearly the unperceived and naturally preventive action of individual motive,—the progressive desire for happiness, the ambition of men to better their condition; and the habit which causes each to regard the competence he has gained as a necessity,—‹an inferior limit of the means of existence›, below which no one would willingly see his family reduced. But this is in some measure the negative view of the law. It only shows that in every society founded upon the institutions of property and family, population ceases to be a ‹danger›.
It remains to be shown that ‹population is in itself a force›, and to prove the necessary increase of productive power which results from the density of population. This, as the author has himself said (p. 113), is the important element neglected by Malthus, and which discloses harmony, where Malthus discovered discordance.
From the premises indicated in the chapter ‹on Exchange›, premises which he proposed to himself to develop in treating of population, the conclusion which Bastiat wished to draw was decidedly anti-Malthusian. We find it stated in one of the last notes which he wrote, and he recommends its being insisted on:—
“In the chapter on Exchange it has been demonstrated that, in a state of isolation, man’s wants surpass his faculties, and that, in the social state, his faculties surpass his wants.
“This excess of faculties over wants proceeds from exchange, which is—association of efforts—separation of occupations.
“Thence an action and a reaction of causes and effects, in a circle of progress which is infinite.
“The superiority of faculties over wants, creating for each generation an excess of wealth, permits it to rear a more numerous offspring. A generation more numerous implies a better and more marked separation of occupations, and a new degree of superiority given to faculties over wants.
“This exhibits an admirable harmony.
“Thus, at a given epoch, the general aggregate of wants being represented by 100, and that of faculties by 110, the excess of 10 is thus divided,—5, for example, goes to the amelioration of men’s condition, to the provoking of wants of a more elevated character, to the development of self-respect, etc.,—and 5 to the augmentation of their numbers.
“The wants of the second generation are 110,—namely, 5 more in quantity, and 5 more in quality.
“But for that very reason (for the double reason of the more complete physical, intellectual, and moral development, and of the greater density of population, which renders production more easy), the faculties have also increased in power. They will be represented, for example, by the figures 120 or 130.
“New excess, new division, etc.
“And let us not fear the ‹trop plein›. The elevation of wants, which is nothing else than the sentiment of dignity, is a natural limit. . . . .”
«Editor.» [p425]