I cannot, without being guilty of tiresome repetition, discuss this question with M. Considérant in all its bearings. If I demonstrate, that what he terms uncreated capital is no capital at all; that what he terms the additional value of the soil, is not an additional value, but the total value; he must acknowledge that his argument has fallen to pieces, and, with it, all his complaints of the way in which mankind have judged it proper to live since the days of Adam. But this controversy would oblige me to repeat all that I have already said upon the essentially and indelibly gratuitous character of natural agents.

I shall only remark, that if M. Considérant speaks in behalf of the non-proprietary class, he is so very accommodating that they may think themselves betrayed. What! proprietors have usurped the soil, and all the miracles of vegetation which it displays! they have usurped the sun, the rain, the dew, oxygen, hydrogen, and azote, so far at least as these co-operate in the production of agricultural products—and you ask them to assure to the man who has no property, as a compensation, at least as much of the means of subsistence, in exchange for a given exertion of activity, as that exertion could have procured him in the primitive and savage state!

But do you not see that landed property has not waited for your injunctions in order to be a million times more generous? for to what is your demand limited?

In the primitive state, your four rights of fishing, hunting, gathering the fruits, and pasturing, maintain in existence, or rather in a state of vegetation, amid all the horrors of destitution, nearly one man to the square league of territory. The usurpation of the [p280] land will then be legitimate, according to you, when those who have been guilty of that usurpation support one man for every square league, exacting from him at the same time as much activity as is displayed by a Huron or an Iroquois. Pray remark, that France consists of only thirty thousand square leagues; that consequently, if its whole territory supports thirty thousand inhabitants in that condition of existence which the savage state affords, you renounce in behalf of the non-proprietary class all farther demands upon property. Now, there are thirty millions of Frenchmen who have not an inch of land, and among the number we meet with many—the president of the republic, ministers, magistrates, bankers, merchants, notaries, advocates, physicians, brokers, soldiers, sailors, professors, journalists, etc.—who would certainly not be disposed to exchange their condition for that of an Ioway. Landed property, then, must do much more for us than you exact from it. You demand from it the Right to Employment, up to a certain point—that is to say, until it yields to the masses—and in exchange for a given amount of labour, too—as much subsistence as they could earn in a state of barbarism. Landed property does much more than that—it gives more than the Right to employment—it gives Employment itself, and did it only clear the land-tax, it would do a hundred times more than you ask it to do.

I find to my great regret that I have not yet done with landed property and its value. I have still to state, and to refute, in as few words as possible, an objection which is specious and even formidable.

It is said,

“Your theory is contradicted by facts. Undoubtedly, as long as there is in a country abundance of uncultivated land, the existence of such land will of itself hinder the cultivated land from acquiring an undue value. It is also beyond doubt, that even when all the land has passed into the appropriated domain, if neighbouring nations have extensive tracts ready for the plough, freedom of trade is sufficient to restrain the value of landed property within just limits. In these two cases it would seem that the Price of land can only represent the capital advanced, and the Rent of land the interest of that capital. Whence we must conclude, as you do, that the proper action of the soil and the intervention of natural agents, going for nothing, and not influencing the value of the crops, remain gratuitous, and therefore common. All this is specious. We may have difficulty in discovering the error, and yet this reasoning is erroneous. In order to be convinced of it, it [p281] is sufficient to point to the fact, that there are in France cultivated lands which are worth from 100 francs to 6000 francs the hectare, an enormous difference, which is much easier explained by the difference of fertility than by the difference of the anterior labour applied to these lands. It is vain to deny, then, that fertility has its own value, for not a sale takes place which does not attest it. Every one who purchases a land estate examines its quality, and pays for it accordingly. If, of two properties which lie alongside each other, the one consists of a rich alluvium, and the other of barren sand, the first is surely of more value than the second, although both may have absorbed the same capital, and to say truth, the purchaser gives himself no trouble on that score. His attention is fixed upon the future, and not upon the past. What he looks at is not what the land has cost, but what it will yield, and he knows that its yield will be in proportion to its fertility. Then this fertility has a proper and intrinsic value which is independent of all human labour. To maintain the contrary is to endeavour to base the legitimacy of individual appropriation on a subtilty, or rather on a paradox.”

Let us inquire, then, what is the true foundation of the value of land.

I pray the reader not to forget that this question is of grave importance at the present moment. Hitherto it has been neglected or glossed over by Economists, as a question of mere curiosity. The legitimacy of individual appropriation was not formerly contested, but this is no longer the case. Theories which have obtained but too much success have created doubts in the minds of our best thinkers on the institution of property. And upon what do the authors of these theories found their complaints? Why, exactly upon the assertion contained in the objection which I have just explained—upon the fact, unfortunately admitted by all schools, that the soil, by reason of its fertility, possesses an inherent value communicated to it by nature and not by human means. Now value is not transferred gratuitously. The very word excludes the idea of gratuitousness. We say to the proprietor, then—you demand from me a value which is the fruit of my labour, and you offer me in exchange a value which is not the fruit of your labour, or of any labour, but of the liberality of nature.

Be assured that this would be a fearful complaint were it well founded. It did not originate with Messieurs Considérant and Proudhon. We find it in the works of Smith, of Ricardo, of Senior, of all the Economists without exception, not as a theory [p282] merely, but as a subject of complaint. These authors have not only attributed to the soil an extra-human value, they have boldly deduced the consequence, and branded landed property as a privilege, a monopoly, a usurpation. No doubt, after thus branding it, they have defended it on the plea of necessity. But what does such a defence amount to, but an error of reasoning which the Communist logicians have lost no time in rectifying?

It is not, then, to indulge an unhappy love for subtilties that I enter on this delicate subject. I should have wished to save both the reader and myself the ennui which even now I feel hovering over the conclusion of this chapter.

The answer to the objection now under consideration is to be found in the theory of Value, explained in the fifth chapter of this work. I there said that value does not essentially imply labour; still less is it necessarily proportionate to labour. I have shown that the foundation of value is not so much the pains taken by the person who transfers it as the pains saved to the person who receives it; and it is for that reason that I have made it to reside in something which embraces these two elements—in service. I have said that a person may render a great service with very little effort, or that with a great effort one may render a very trifling service. The sole result is, that labour does not obtain necessarily a remuneration which is always in proportion to its intensity, in the case either of man in an isolated condition, or of man in the social state.

Value is determined by a bargain between two contracting parties. In making that bargain, each has his own views. You offer to sell me corn. What matters it to me the time and pains it may have cost you to produce it? What I am concerned about is the time and pains it would have cost me to procure it from another quarter. The knowledge you have of my situation may render you more or less exacting; the knowledge I have of yours may render me more or less anxious to make the purchase. There is no necessary measure, then, of the recompense which you are to derive from your labour. That depends upon the circumstances, and the value which these circumstances confer upon the two services which we are desirous to exchange. By-and-by we shall call attention to an external force called Competition, whose mission is to regulate values, and render them more and more proportional to efforts. Still this proportion is not of the essence of value, seeing that the proportion is established under the pressure of a contingent fact.

Keeping this in view, I maintain that the value of land arises, fluctuates, and is determined, like that of gold, iron, water, the [p283] lawyer’s advice, the physician’s consultation, the singer’s or dancer’s performance, the artist’s picture—in short, like all other values; that it is subject to no exceptional laws; that it constitutes a property the same in origin, the same in nature, and as legitimate, as any other property. But it does not at all follow, as you must now see, that, of two exertions of labour applied to the soil, one should not be much better remunerated than the other.

Let us revert again to that industry, the most simple of all, and the best fitted to show us the delicate point which separates the onerous labour of man from the gratuitous co-operation of nature. I allude to the humble industry of the water-carrier.

A man procures and brings home a barrel of water. Does he become possessed of a value necessarily proportionate to his labour? In that case, the value would be independent of the service the water may render. Nay more, it would be fixed; for the labour, once over, is no longer susceptible of increase or diminution.

Well, the day after he procures and brings home this barrel of water, it may lose its value, if, for example, it has rained during the night. In that case every one is provided—the water can render no service, and is no longer wanted. In economic language, it has ceased to be in demand.

On the other hand, it may acquire considerable value, if extraordinary wants, unforeseen and pressing, come to manifest themselves.

What is the consequence? that man, working for the future, is not exactly aware beforehand what value the future will attach to his labour. Value incorporated in a material object will be higher or lower, according as it renders more or less service, or, to express it more clearly, human labour, which is the source of value, receives according to circumstances a higher or lower remuneration. Such eventualities are an exercise for foresight, and foresight also has a right to remuneration.

But what connexion is there, I would ask, between these fluctuations of value, between these variations in the recompense of labour, and that marvellous natural industry, those admirable physical laws, which without our participation have brought the water of the ocean to the spring? Because the value of this barrel of water varies according to circumstances, are we to conclude that nature charges sometimes more, sometimes less, sometimes nothing at all, for evaporation, for carrying the clouds from the ocean to the mountains, for freezing, melting, and the whole of that admirable industry which supplies the spring? [p284]

It is exactly the same thing in the case of agricultural products.

The value of the soil, or rather of the capital applied to the soil, is made up not of one element but of two. It depends not only on the labour which has been employed, but also on the ability which society possesses to remunerate that labour—on Demand as well as on Supply.

Take the case of a field. Not a year passes, perhaps, in which there is not some labour bestowed upon it, the effects of which are permanent, and of course an increase of value is the result.

Roads of access, besides, are improved and made more direct, the security of person and property becomes more complete, markets are extended, population increases in number and in wealth—different systems of culture are introduced, and a new career is opened to intelligence and skill; the effect of this change of medium, of this general prosperity, being to confer additional value on both the present and the anterior labour, and consequently on the field.

There is here no injustice, no exception in favour of landed property. No species of labour, from that of the banker to that of the day-labourer, fails to exhibit the same phenomenon. No one fails to see his remuneration improved by the improvement of the society in which his work is carried on. This action and reaction of the prosperity of each on the prosperity of all, and vice versa, is the very law of value. So false is the conclusion which imputes to the soil and its productive powers an imaginary value, that intellectual labour, professions and trades which have no connexion with matter or the co-operation of physical laws, enjoy the same advantage, which in fact is not exceptional but universal. The lawyer, the physician, the professor, the artist, the poet, receive a higher remuneration for an equal amount of labour, in proportion as the town or country to which they belong increases in wealth and prosperity, in proportion as the taste or demand for their services becomes more generally diffused, in proportion as the public is more able and more willing to remunerate them. The acquisition of clients and customers is regulated by this principle. It is still more apparent in the case of the Basque Giant and Tom Thumb, who lived by the simple exhibition of their exceptional stature, and reap a much better harvest, from the curiosity of the numerous and wealthy crowds of our large towns, than from that of a few poor and straggling villagers. In this case, demand not only enhances value, it creates it. Why, then, should we think it exceptional or unjust that demand should also exert an influence on the value of land and of agricultural products? [p285]

Is it alleged that land may thus attain an exaggerated value? They who say so have never reflected on the immense amount of labour which arable land has absorbed. I dare affirm, that there is not a field in this country which is worth what it has cost, which could be exchanged for as much labour as has been expended in bringing it to its present state of productiveness. If this observation is well founded, it is conclusive. It frees landed property from the slightest taint of injustice. For this reason, I shall return to the subject when I come to examine Ricardo’s theory of Rent, and I shall show that we must apply to agricultural capital the law which I have stated in these terms: In proportion as capital increases, products are divided between capitalists or proprietors and labourers, in such a way that the relative share of the former goes on continually diminishing, although their absolute share is increased, whilst the share of the latter is increased both absolutely and relatively.

The illusion which has induced men to believe that the productive powers of the soil have an independent value, because they possess Utility, has led to many errors and catastrophes. It has driven them frequently to the premature establishment of colonies, the history of which is nothing else than a lamentable martyrology. They have reasoned in this way: In our own country we can obtain value only by labour, and when we have done our work, we have obtained a value which is only proportionate to our labour. If we emigrate to Guiana, to the banks of the Mississippi, to Australia, to Africa, we shall obtain possession of vast territories, uncultivated but fertile; and our reward will be, that we shall become possessed not of the value we have created, but also of the inherent and independent value of the land we may reclaim. They set out, and a cruel experience soon confirms the truth of the theory which I am now explaining. They labour, they clear, they exhaust themselves; they are exposed to privations, to sufferings, to diseases; and then if they wish to dispose of the land which they have rendered fit for production, they cannot obtain for it what it has cost them, and they are forced to acknowledge that value is of human creation. I defy you to give me an instance of the establishment of a colony which has not at the beginning been attended with disaster.

The association, attributing this disaster to the cheapness of land, raised its price to 12s. an acre. But, adds Carey, from whom I borrow this quotation, the real cause was, that the labourers, being persuaded that land possesses an inherent value, apart from the labour bestowed on it, were anxious to exercise “the power of appropriation,” to which the power to demand Rent is attributed.

What follows supplies us with an argument still more conclusive:

Thus the land which was sold by the company at 12s.—upon which the settlers had bestowed much labour and money—was disposed of by them at one shilling! What then became of the value of the natural and indestructible productive powers of the soil?62

I feel that the vast and important subject of the Value of Land has not been exhausted in this chapter, written by snatches and amid many distractions. I shall return to it hereafter; but in the meantime I cannot resist submitting one observation to my readers, and more especially to Economists.

The illustrious savants who have done so much to advance the science, whose lives and writings breathe benevolence and philanthropy, and who have disclosed to us, at least in a certain aspect, and within the limits of their researches, the true solution of the social problem—the Quesnays, the Turgots, the Smiths, the Malthuses, the Says—have not however escaped, I do not say from refutation, for that is always legitimate, but from calumny, disparagement, and insult. To attack their writings, and even their motives, has become fashionable. It may be said, perhaps, that in this chapter I am furnishing arms to their detractors, and truly the moment would be ill chosen for me to turn against those whom I candidly acknowledge as my initiators, my masters, and my guides.

But supreme homage is, after all, due to Truth, or what I regard as Truth. No book was ever written without some admixture of error. Now, a single error in Political Economy, if we press it, torture it, deduce from it rigorously its logical consequences, involves all kinds of errors—in fact, lands us in chaos. There never was a book from which we could not extract one proposition, isolated, incomplete, false, including consequently a whole world [p287] of errors and confusion. In my conscience, I believe that the definition which the Economists have given of the word Value is of this number. We have just seen that this definition has led them to cast a serious doubt on the legitimacy of property in land, and, by consequence, in capital; and they have only been stopped short on this fatal road by an inconsistency. This inconsistency has saved them. They have resumed their march on the road of Truth; and their error, if it be one, is, in their works, an isolated blot. Then the Socialists have come to lay hold of this false definition, not to refute it, but to adopt it, strengthen it, make it the foundation of their propaganda, and deduce from it all its consequences. Hence has arisen in our day an imminent social danger; and it is for that reason that I have thought it my duty to be explicit on this subject, and trace the erroneous theory to its source. If you conclude that I have separated myself from my masters Smith and Say, from my friends Blanqui and Garnier, because, by an oversight in their learned and admirable works, they have made, as I think, an erroneous application of the word value; if you conclude from this that I have no longer faith in Political Economy and Political Economists, I can only protest, and appeal to the very title of the present volume. [p288]

X.
COMPETITION.

There is not in the whole vocabulary of Political Economy a word which has roused the fury of modern reformers so much as the word Competition, which, in order to render it the more odious, they never fail to couple with the epithet anarchical.

What is the meaning of anarchical competition? I really don’t know. What could we substitute for it? I am equally ignorant.

I hear people, indeed, calling out Organization! Association! What does that mean? Let us come to an understanding, once for all. I desire to know what sort of authority these writers intend to exercise over me, and all other living men; for I acknowledge only one species of authority, that of reason, if indeed they have it on their side. Is it their wish then to deprive me of the right of exercising my judgment on what concerns my own subsistence? Is their object to take from me the power of comparing the services which I render with those which I receive? Do they mean that I should act under the influence of restraint, exerted over me by them and not by my own intelligence? If they leave me my liberty, Competition remains. If they deprive me of freedom, I am their slave. Association will be free and voluntary, they say. Be it so. But then each group of associates will, as regards all other groups, be just what individuals now are in relation to each other, and we shall still have Competition. The association will be integral. A good joke truly. What! Anarchical Competition is now desolating society, and we must wait for a remedy, until, by dint of your persuasion, all the nations of the earth—Frenchmen, Englishmen, Chinese, Japanese, Caffres, Hottentots, Laplanders, Cossacks, Patagonians—make up their minds to unite in one of the forms of association which you have devised? Why, this is just to avow that competition is indestructible; and will you venture to say that a phenomenon which [p289] is indestructible, and consequently providential, can be mischievous?

After all, what is Competition? Is it a thing which exists and is self-acting like the cholera? No, Competition is only the absence of constraint. In what concerns my own interest, I desire to choose for myself, not that another should choose for me, or in spite of me—that is all. And if any one pretends to substitute his judgment for mine in what concerns me, I should ask to substitute mine for his in what concerns him. What guarantee have we that things would go on better in this way? It is evident that Competition is Liberty. To take away the liberty of acting is to destroy the possibility, and consequently the power, of choosing, of judging, of comparing; it is to annihilate intelligence, to annihilate thought, to annihilate man. From whatever quarter they set out, to this point all modern reformers tend—to ameliorate society they begin by annihilating the individual, under the pretext that all evils come from this source—as if all good did not come from it too.

We have seen that services are exchanged for services. In reality, every man comes into the world charged with the responsibility of providing for his satisfactions by his efforts. When another man saves us an effort, we ought to save him an effort in return. He imparts to us a satisfaction resulting from his effort; we ought to do the same for him.

But who is to make the comparison? for between these efforts, these pains, these services exchanged, there is necessarily a comparison to be made, in order to arrive at equivalence, at justice;—unless indeed injustice, inequality, chance, is to be our rule, which would just be another way of putting human intelligence hors de cause. We must, then, have a judge; and who is this judge to be? Is it not quite natural that in every case wants should be judged of by those who experience them, satisfactions by those who seek them, efforts by those who exchange them? And is it seriously proposed to substitute for this universal vigilance of the parties interested, a social authority (suppose that of the reformer himself), charged with determining in all parts of the world the delicate conditions of these countless acts of interchange? Do you not see that this would be to set up the most fallible, the most universal, the most arbitrary, the most inquisitorial, the most insupportable—we are fortunately able to add, the most impossible—of all despotisms ever conceived in the brain of pasha or mufti?

It is sufficient to know that Competition is nothing else than [p290] the absence of an arbitrary authority as judge of exchanges, in order to be satisfied that it is indestructible. Illegitimate force may no doubt restrain, counteract, trammel the liberty of exchanging, as it may the liberty of walking; but it can annihilate neither the one nor the other without annihilating man. This being so, it remains for us to inquire whether Competition tends to the happiness or misery of mankind; a question which amounts to this,—Is the human race naturally progressive, or are its tendencies fatally retrograde?

I hesitate not to say that Competition, which, indeed, we might denominate Liberty, despite the repulsion which it excites, despite the declamations to which it has given rise, is a law which is democratical in its essence. Of all the laws to which Providence has confided the progress of human society, it is the most progressive, levelling, and communautaire. It is this law which brings successively into the common domain the use and enjoyment of commodities which nature has accorded gratuitously only to certain countries. It is this law, again, which brings into the common domain all the conquests which the genius of each age bequeaths to succeeding generations, leaving them only supplementary labours to execute, which last they continue to exchange with one another, without succeeding, as they desire, in obtaining a recompense for the co-operation of natural agents; and if these labours, as happens always in the beginning, possess a value which is not proportionate to their intensity, it is still Competition which, by its incessant but unperceived action, restores an equilibrium which is sanctioned by justice, and which is more exact than any that the fallible sagacity of a human magistracy could by possibility establish. Far from Competition leading to inequality, as has been erroneously alleged, we may assert that all factitious inequality is imputable to its absence; and if the gulf between the Grand Lama and a Paria is more profound than that which separates the President from an artisan of the United States, the reason is this, that Competition (or Liberty), which is curbed and put down in Asia, is not so in America. This is the reason why, whilst the Socialists see in Competition the source of all that is evil, we trace to the attacks which have been made upon it the disturbance of all that is good. Although this great law has been misunderstood by the Socialists and their adepts; although it is frequently harsh in its operation, no law is more fertile in social harmonies, more beneficent in general results; no law attests more brilliantly the measureless superiority of the designs of God over the vain and powerless combinations of men. [p291]

I must here remind the reader of that singular but unquestionable result of the social order to which I have already invited his attention,63 and which the power of habit hides too frequently from our view. It is this, that the sum total of satisfactions which falls to each member of society is much superior to those which he could procure for himself by his own efforts. In other words, there is an evident disproportion between our consumption and our labour. This phenomenon, which all of us can easily verify, if we turn our regards upon ourselves, ought, it seems to me, to inspire some gratitude to society, to which we owe it.

We come into this world destitute of everything, tormented with numerous wants, and provided with nothing but faculties to enable us to struggle against them. A priori, it would seem that all we could expect would be to obtain satisfactions proportionate to our labour. If we obtain more, infinitely more, to what do we owe the excess? Precisely to that natural organization against which we are constantly declaiming, when we are not engaged in seeking to subvert it.

In itself the phenomenon is truly extraordinary. That certain men consume more than they produce is easily explained, if in one way or other they usurp the rights of other people—if they receive services without rendering them. But how can that be true of all men at the same time? How happens it that, after having exchanged their services without constraint, without spoliation, upon a footing of equivalence, each man can say to himself with truth, I consume in a day more than I could produce in a century?

The reader has seen that the additional element which resolves the problem is the co-operation of natural agents, constantly becoming more and more effective in the work of production; it is gratuitous utility falling continually into the domain of Community; it is the labour of heat and of cold, of light, of gravitation, of affinity, of elasticity, coming progressively to be added to the labour of man, diminishing the value of services by rendering them more easy.

I must have but feebly explained the theory of value if the reader imagines that value diminishes immediately and of its own accord, by the simple fact of the co-operation of natural forces, and the relief thereby afforded to human labour. It is not so; for then we might say with the English Economists that value is proportional to labour. The man who is aided by a natural and gratuitous force renders his services more easily; but he does not [p292] on that account renounce voluntarily any portion whatever of his accustomed remuneration. To induce him to do that, external coercion—pressure from without—severe but not unjust pressure—is necessary. It is Competition which exerts this pressure. As long as Competition does not intervene, as long as the man who has availed himself of a natural agent preserves his secret, that natural agent is gratuitous, but it is not yet common. The victory has been gained, but to the profit only of a single man, or a single class. It is not yet a benefit to mankind at large. No change has yet taken place, except that one description of services, although partly relieved from the pain of muscular exertion, still exacts all its former remuneration. We have, on the one hand, a man who exacts from all his fellows the same amount of labour as formerly, although he offers them a limited amount of his own labour in return. On the other, we have mankind at large, who are still obliged to make the same sacrifice of time and of labour in order to obtain a product now realized in part by nature.

Were things to remain in this state, a principle of indefinite inequality would be introduced into the world with every new invention. Not only could we not say that value is proportional to labour; we could not even say that value tends to become proportional to labour. All that we have said in the preceding chapters about gratuitous utility and progressive community would be chimerical. It would not be true that services are exchanged against services, in such a way that the gifts of God are transferred gratuitously from one man to another, down to the ultimate recipient, who is the consumer. Each would continue to be paid, not only for his labour, but for the natural forces which he had once succeeded in setting to work; in a word, society would be constituted on the principle of universal Monopoly, in place of on the principle of progressive Community.

But it is not so. God, who has bestowed on all His creatures heat, light, gravitation, air, water, the soil, the marvels of vegetable life, electricity, and countless other benefits which it is beyond my power to enumerate,—God, who has placed in the human breast the feeling of personal interest, which, like a magnet, attracts everything to itself,—God, I say, has placed also in the bosom of society another spring of action, which He has charged with the care of preserving to His benefits their original destination, which was, that they should be gratuitous and common. This spring of action is Competition.

Thus, Personal Interest is that irrepressible force belonging to the individual which urges us on to progress and discovery, which [p293] spurs us on to exertion, but leads also to monopoly. Competition is that force belonging to the species which is not less irrepressible, and which snatches progress, as it is realized, from individual hands, and makes it the common inheritance of the great family of mankind. These two forces, in each of which, considered individually, we might find something to blame, thus constitute social Harmony, by the play of their combinations, when regarded in conjunction.

And we may remark, in passing, that we ought not to be at all surprised that the individual interests of men, considered as producers, should from the beginning have risen up against Competition, should have rebuked it, and sought to destroy it—calling in for this purpose the assistance of force, fraud, privilege, sophistry, monopoly, restriction, legislative protection, etc. The morality of the means shows us clearly enough the morality of the end. But the astonishing and melancholy thing is, that science herself—false science, it is true—propagated with so much zeal by the socialist schools, in the name of philanthropy, equality, and fraternity, should have espoused the cause of Individualism, in its narrowest and most exclusive manifestation, and should have deserted the cause of humanity.

Let us see now how Competition acts:—

Man, under the influence of self-interest, is always, and necessarily, on the outlook for such circumstances as may give the greatest value to his services. He is not long in discovering that, as regards the gifts of God, he may be favoured in three ways:

1. He may appropriate to his own exclusive use these gifts themselves; or,

2. He may alone know the process by which they can be made useful; or,

3. He alone may possess the instrument by means of which their co-operation in the work of production can be secured.

In any of these cases, he gives little of his own labour in exchange for much of the labour of other men. His services have a high relative value, and we are led to believe that this excess of value resides in the natural agent. If it were so, this value would not be subject to fall. Now, what proves that the value is in the service is, that we find Competition diminishing both value and service simultaneously.

1. Natural agents—the gifts of God—are not distributed uniformly over the different countries of the world. What an infinite variety of vegetable productions are spread over the wide range [p294] extending from the region of the pine to the region of the palm tree! Here the soil is more productive, there the heat is more vivifying. In one quarter we meet with stone, in another with lime, in another with iron, copper, or coal. Water-power is not to be found everywhere, nor can we everywhere avail ourselves to an equal extent of the power of the winds. Distance, from the objects we find essential, of itself makes a vast difference in the obstacles which our efforts encounter. Even the human faculties vary in some measure with climate and races.

It is easy to see that, but for the law of Competition, this inequality in the distribution of the gifts of God would lead to a corresponding inequality in the condition of men.

Whoever happened to have within reach a natural advantage would profit by it, but his fellow-men would not. He would not permit other men to participate in it through his instrumentality, without stipulating an excessive remuneration, the amount of which he would have the power of fixing arbitrarily. He could attach to his services any value he pleased. We have seen that the extreme limits between which it must be determined are, the pains taken by the man who renders the service and the pains saved to the man who receives it. Competition alone hinders its being always raised to the maximum. The inhabitant of the tropics, for example, would say to the European—“Thanks to the sun’s rays, I can, with labour equal to ten, procure a given quantity of sugar, coffee, cocoa, or cotton, whilst you, obliged in your cold climate to have recourse to hot-houses, stoves, and shelter, cannot obtain the same quantity but with labour equal to a hundred. You wish to obtain my coffee, sugar, or cotton, and you would not be sorry were I to take into account in the transaction only the pains which I have taken, the labour I have expended. But what I regard principally is the pains, the labour, I have saved you; for, aware that that is the limit of your resistance, I make it the limit of my exaction. As what I produce with an amount of labour equal to ten, you could produce only with labour equal to a hundred, were I to demand in exchange for my sugar a commodity which cost you labour equal to 101, you would certainly refuse; but all that I ask is labour equal to 99. You may higgle and look gruff for a little, but you will come to my terms; for at this rate you have still an advantage by the exchange. You think these terms unfair; but, after all, it is not to you but to me that God has vouchsafed the advantage of a higher temperature. I know that I am in a position to take advantage of this gift of Providence, by depriving you of it unless you pay me a tax, for [p295] I have no competitors. Here, then, are my sugar, my cocoa, my coffee, my cotton—take them on the conditions I impose—or raise them for yourself—or do without them.”

It is true that the European might hold to the inhabitant of the tropics some such language as this: “Turn over your soil, dig pits, search for iron and coal, and felicitate yourself if you find any; for if not, it is my determination to push my exactions to an extreme also. God has vouchsafed to us both precious gifts. We appropriate as much of them as we require, but we will not suffer others to touch them without paying us a tax.”

Even if things took place in this way, scientific exactness would not allow us to attribute to natural agents that Value which resides only in services. But the error would be harmless, for the result would be absolutely the same. Services would still be exchanged against services, but they would exhibit no tendency to conform to efforts, or labour, as a measure. The gifts of God would be personal privileges, not common benefits; and we might perhaps have some reason to complain that the Author of things had treated us in a way so incurably unequal. Should we, then, be brethren? Could we regard ourselves as the children of a common Father? The absence of Competition, that is to say of Liberty, would in the first instance be an insuperable bar to Equality. The absence of Equality would exclude all idea of Fraternity—and nothing of the republican motto64 would then be left.

But let Competition be introduced, and we shall see it instantly present an insuperable barrier to all such leonine bargains, to all such forestalling of the gifts of God, to all such revolting pretensions in the appreciation of services, to all such inequalities with efforts exchanged.

And let us remark, first of all, that Competition acts forcibly, called forth as it is by these very inequalities. Labour betakes itself instinctively to the quarter where it is best remunerated, and never fails to put an end to this exceptional advantage, so that Inequality is only a spur which urges us on in spite of ourselves towards Equality. It is in truth one of the most beautiful final intentions observable in the social mechanism. Infinite Goodness, which manifests beneficence everywhere, would seem to have made choice of the avaricious producer in order to effect an equitable distribution among all; and truly it is a marvellous sight this, of self-interest realizing continually what it ever desires to avoid. Man, as a producer, is necessarily, inevitably, attracted by [p296] excessive returns, which he thus reduces to the ordinary rate. He pursues his own interest; and without knowing it, without wishing it, without seeking it, he promotes the general good.

Thus, to recur to our former example, the inhabitant of the tropics, trafficking in the gifts of God, realizes an excessive remuneration, and by that very means brings down upon himself Competition. Human labour exerts itself in proportion to the magnitude of the inequality, if I may use the expression, and never rests until that inequality is effaced. Under the action of Competition, we see the tropical labour, which was equal to ten, exchanged successively for European labour equal to 80, 50, 40, 20, and finally to 10. Under the empire of the natural laws of society, there is no reason why this should not take place; that is to say, there is no reason why services exchanged should not be measured by the labour performed, the pains taken,—the gifts of God on both sides being gratuitous and into the bargain. We have only to consider, in order to appreciate and bless the revolution which is thus effected. In the first instance, the labour undergone on both sides is equal, and this satisfies the human mind, which always desires justice. Then what has become of the gift of God? Attend to this, reader. No one has been deprived of it. In this respect we have not allowed ourselves to be imposed upon by the clamours of the tropical producer. The Brazilian, in as far as he is himself a consumer of sugar, or cotton, or coffee, never ceases to profit by the sun’s rays—his good fortune does not cease to aid him in the work of production. What he has lost is only the unjust power of levying a tax upon the consumption of the inhabitants of Europe. The beneficence of Providence, because gratuitous, has become, as it ought to become, common; for common and gratuitous are in reality the same thing.

The gift of God has become common—and the reader will observe that I avail myself here of a special fact to elucidate a phenomenon which is universal—this gift, I say, has become common to all. This is not declamation, but the expression of a truth which is demonstrable. Why has this beautiful phenomenon been misunderstood? Because community is realized under the form of value annihilated, and the mind with difficulty lays hold of negations. But I ask, Is it not true that when, in order to obtain a certain quantity of sugar, coffee, or cotton, I give only one-tenth of the labour which I should find it necessary to expend in producing the commodity myself, and this because the Brazilian sun performs the other nine-tenths of the work,—Is it not true, I say, that in that case I still exchange labour for labour, and [p297] really and truly obtain, over and above the Brazilian labour, and into the bargain, the co-operation of the climate of the tropics? Can I not affirm with rigorous exactitude that I have become, that all men have become, in the same way as the Indians and Americans, that is to say gratuitously, participators in the liberality of nature, so far as the commodities in question are concerned?

England possesses productive coal mines. That is no doubt a great local advantage, more especially if we suppose, as I shall do for the sake of argument, that the Continent possesses no coal mines. Apart from the consideration of exchange, the advantage which this gives to the people of England is the possession of fuel in greater abundance than other nations,—fuel obtained with less labour, and at less expense of useful time. As soon as exchange comes into operation—keeping out of view Competition—the exclusive possession of these mines enables the people of England to demand a considerable remuneration, and to set a high price upon their labour. Not being in a situation to perform this labour ourselves, or procure what we want from another quarter, we have no alternative but to submit. English labour devoted to this description of work will be well remunerated; in other words, coal will be dear, and the bounty of nature may be considered as conferred on the people of one nation, and not on mankind at large.

But this state of things cannot last; for a great natural and social law is opposed to it—Competition. For the very reason that this species of labour is largely remunerated in England, it will be in great demand there, for men are always in quest of high remuneration. The number of miners will increase, both in consequence of the sons of miners devoting themselves to their fathers’ trade, and in consequence of men transferring their industry to mining from other departments. They will offer to work for a smaller recompense, and their remuneration will go on diminishing until it reach the normal rate, or the rate generally given in the country for analogous work. This means that the price of English coal will fall in France; that a given amount of French labour will procure a greater and greater quantity of English coal, or rather of English labour incorporated and worked up in coal; and, finally (and this is what I pray you to remark), that the gift which nature would appear to have bestowed upon England has in reality been conferred on the whole human race. The coal of Newcastle is brought within the reach of all men gratuitously, as far as the mere material is concerned. This is neither a paradox nor an exaggeration,—it is brought within their reach like the [p298] water of the brook, on the single condition of going to fetch it, or remunerating those who undertake that labour for us. When we purchase coal, it is not the coal that we pay for, but the labour necessary to extract it and transport it. All that we do is to give a corresponding amount of labour which we have worked up or incorporated in wine or in silk. So true is it that the liberality of nature has been extended to France, that the labour which we refund is not greater than that which it would have been necessary to undergo had the deposit of coal been in France. Competition has established equality between the two nations as far as coal is concerned, except as regards the inevitable and inconsiderable difference resulting from distance and carriage.

I have given two examples, and, to render the phenomenon more striking, I have selected international transactions, which are effected on a great scale. I fear I may thus have diverted the reader’s attention from the same phenomena acting incessantly around us in our every-day transactions. Let him take in his hand the most familiar objects, a glass, a nail, a loaf, a piece of cloth, a book. Let him meditate on such ordinary products, and reflect how great an amount of gratuitous utility would never but for Competition have become common for humanity at large, although remaining gratuitous for the producer. He will find that, thanks to Competition, in purchasing his loaf he pays nothing for the action of the sun, nothing for the rain, nothing for the frost, nothing for the laws of vegetable physiology, nothing even for the powers of the soil, despite all that has been said on that subject; nothing for the law of gravitation set to work by the miller; nothing for the law of combustion set to work by the baker; nothing for the horse-power set to work by the carrier; that he pays only for the services rendered, the pains taken, by human agents; and let him reflect that, but for Competition, he must have paid, over and above, a tax for the intervention of all these natural agents; that that tax would have had no other limit than the difficulty which he might himself have experienced in procuring the loaf by his own efforts, and that consequently a whole life would not have been sufficient to supply the remuneration which would have been demanded of him. Let him think farther, that he does not make use of a single commodity which might not give rise to the same reflections, and that these reflections apply not to him only, but to all mankind, and he will then comprehend the radical error of those socialist theories which, looking only at the surface of things, the epidermis of society, have been set up with so much levity against Competition, in other words, against human Liberty. He will then regard [p299] Competition, which preserves to the gifts of nature, unequally distributed, their common and gratuitous character, as the principle of a just and natural equalization; he will admire it as the force which holds in check the egotism of individual interest, with which at the same time it is so artistically combined as to serve both as a curb to avarice and a spur to exertion; and he will bless it as a most striking manifestation of God’s impartial solicitude for the good of all His creatures.

From what has been said, we may deduce the solution of one of the problems which have been most keenly controverted, namely, that of free trade as between nation and nation. If it be true, as seems to me incontestable, that Competition leads the various countries of the globe to exchange with one another nothing else than labour, exertion more and more equalized, and to transfer at the same time reciprocally, and into the bargain, the natural advantages that each possesses; how blind and absurd must those men be who exclude foreign products by legislative measures, under the pretext that they are cheap, and have little value in proportion to their aggregate utility; that is to say, precisely because they include a large proportion of gratuitous utility!

I have said, and I repeat it, that I have confidence in a theory when I find it in accordance with universal practice. Now, it is certain that countries would effect many exchanges with each other were they not interdicted by force. It requires the bayonet to prevent them; and for that reason it is wrong to prevent them.

2. Another circumstance places certain men in a favourable and exceptional situation as regards remuneration—I mean the personal and exclusive knowledge of the processes by means of which natural agents can alone be appropriated. What we term invention is a conquest by human genius; and these beautiful and pacific conquests, which are, in the first instance, a source of wealth for those who achieve them, become by-and-by, under the action of Competition, the common and gratuitous patrimony of all.

The forces of nature belong indeed to all. Gravitation, for instance, is common property; it surrounds us, pervades us, commands us. And yet were there but one mode of making gravitation co-operate towards a useful and determinate result, and but one man acquainted with that mode, this man might set a high price upon his work, or refuse to work except in exchange for a very high remuneration. His demands would have no limit [p300] until they reached the point at which the consumers must make greater sacrifices than the old processes entailed upon them. He may have contrived, for example, to annihilate nine-tenths of the labour necessary to produce a certain commodity, x. But x has at present a current market-price determined by the labour which its production by the ordinary methods exacts. The inventor sells x at the market-price; in other words, his labour receives a recompense ten times higher than that of his rivals. This is the first phase of the invention.

So far we discover nothing unjust or unfair. It is just and equitable that the man who makes the world acquainted with a useful process should be rewarded for it;—A chacun selon sa capacité.

Observe, too, that as yet mankind, with the exception of the inventor, have gained nothing unless virtually, and in perspective, so to speak, since in order to procure the commodity x, each acquirer must make a sacrifice equal to the former cost.

Now, however, the invention enters its second phase—that of imitation. Excessive remuneration awakens covetousness. The new process is more generally adopted; the price of the commodity x continues to fall, and the remuneration goes on diminishing in proportion as the imitation becomes more distant in date from the original invention, that is to say, in proportion as it becomes more easy, and for that reason less meritorious. Surely there is nothing in all this that cannot be avowed by a legislation the most advanced and the most impartial.

At length the invention reaches its third phase, its final stage, that of universal diffusion, when it becomes common and gratuitous. The cycle has been completed when Competition has brought back the remuneration of the producers of x to the general and normal rate yielded by all analogous work. Then the nine-tenths of the labour, which by the hypothesis we supposed to be saved by the invention, become an acquisition to mankind at large. The utility of the commodity x remains the same; but nine-tenths of that commodity are now the product of gravitation, a force which was formerly common to all in principle, but has now become common to all in this special application. So true is this, that all the consumers of that commodity throughout the world may now acquire it with one-tenth of the labour which it formerly cost. The surplus labour has been entirely annihilated by the new process.

If we consider that there is no human invention which has not described this circle, that x is here an algebraical sign which represents corn, clothing, books, ships,—in the production of which an [p301] incalculable amount of Labour or Value has been annihilated, by the plough, the spinning-jenny, the printing-press, and the sail; that this observation is applicable to the humblest of tools as well as to the most complicated mechanism, to the nail, the wedge, the lever, as well as to the steam-engine and the electric telegraph, we shall come, I trust, to understand the solution of this grand problem of human society, that an amount of utility and enjoyment, always greater, and more and more equally distributed, comes to remunerate each determinate quantity of human labour.

3. I have shown how Competition brings into the domain of the common and gratuitous both natural agents and the processes by which they are made operative. It remains to show that Competition executes the same function with reference to the instruments by means of which we set these agents to work. It is not enough that there should exist in nature a force, such as heat, light, gravitation, electricity; it is not enough that intelligence conceives the means of making that force available;—there must be instruments to realize this conception of the mind, and provisions to maintain those who devote themselves to it during the operation.

As regards remuneration, there is a third circumstance which favours a man, or a class of men, namely, the possession of Capital. The man who has in his hands the tools necessary for labour, the materials to work upon, and the provisions for his subsistence during the operation, is in a situation to determine his own remuneration. The principle of this is equitable, for capital is only anterior labour which has not yet been remunerated. The capitalist is in a good position to impose terms; but observe that, even when free from Competition, there is a limit which his demands never can exceed—this limit is the point at which his remuneration would absorb all the advantages of the service which he renders. In these circumstances, it is unreasonable to talk, as is so often done, of the tyranny of capital, seeing that even in the most extreme cases neither its presence nor its absence can injure the condition of the labourer. Like the inhabitant of the tropics, who has an intensity of heat at his disposal which nature has denied to colder regions—or like the inventor, who possesses the secret of a process unknown to other men—all that the capitalist can say is: “Would you profit by my labour—I set such a price upon it; if you find it too high, do as you have done hitherto—do without it.”

But Competition takes place among capitalists. Tools, materials, and provisions, contribute to the creation of utilities only [p302] when employed. There is an emulation, then, among capitalists to find employment for their capital. All that this emulation forces them to abate from the extreme demand, of which I have just assigned the limits, resolving itself into a reduction of the price of the commodity, is so much clear profit, so much gratuitous gain, for the consumer, that is to say, for mankind.

This gain, however, can clearly never be absolutely gratuitous; for, since capital represents labour, that capital must always possess in itself the principle of remuneration.

Transactions relative to Capital are subject to the universal law of exchanges; and exchanges take place only because there is an advantage for the two contracting parties in effecting them,—an advantage which has no doubt a tendency to be equalized, but which accidentally may be greater for the one than for the other. There is a limit to the remuneration of capital, beyond which limit no one will consent to borrow it. This limit is the minimum of service for the borrower. In the same way, there is a limit beyond which no one will consent to lend, and this limit is the minimum of remuneration for the lender. This is self-evident. If the requirements of one of the contracting parties are pushed so far as to reduce to zero the benefit to be derived by the other from the transaction, the loan becomes impossible. The remuneration of capital oscillates between these two extreme terms, pressed towards the maximum by the Competition of borrowers, brought back towards the minimum by the Competition of lenders; so that, by a necessity which is in harmony with justice, it rises when capital is scarce, and falls when it is abundant.

Many Economists imagine that the number of borrowers increases more rapidly than it is possible to create capital to lend to them, whence it would follow that the natural tendency of interest is to rise. The fact is decidedly the other way, and on all sides accordingly we perceive civilisation lowering the return for capital. This return, it is said, is 30 or 40 per cent. at Rome, 20 per cent. in Brazil, 10 per cent. in Algeria, 8 per cent. in Spain, 6 per cent. in Italy, 5 per cent. in Germany, 4 per cent. in France, 3 per cent. in England, and still less in Holland. Now all that part of the return for capital which is annihilated by progress, although lost to the capitalist, is not lost to mankind. If interest, originally at 40 per cent., is reduced to 2 per cent., all commodities will be freed from 38 parts in 40 of this element of cost. They will reach the consumer freed from this charge to the extent of nineteen-twentieths. This is a force which, like natural agents, like expeditive processes, resolves itself into abundance, equalization, [p303] and, finally, into an elevation of the general level of the human race.

I have still to say a few words on the Competition of labourer with labourer,—a subject which in these days has given rise to so much sentimental declamation. But have we not already exhausted this subject? I have shown that, owing to the action of Competition, men cannot long receive an exceptional remuneration for the co-operation of natural forces, for their acquaintance with new processes, or for the possession of instruments by means of which they avail themselves of these forces. This proves that efforts have a tendency to be exchanged on a footing of equality, or, in other words, that value tends to become proportionate to labour. Then I do not see what can justly be termed the Competition of labourers; still less do I see how it can injure their condition, since in this point of view workmen are themselves the consumers. The working class means everybody, and it is precisely this vast community which reaps ultimately the benefits of Competition, and all the advantage of values successively annihilated by progress.

The evolution is this: Services are exchanged against services, values against values. When a man (or a class) appropriates a natural agent or a new process, his demands are regulated, not by the labour which he undergoes, but by the labour which he saves to others. He presses his exactions to the extreme limit, without ever being able to injure the condition of others. He sets the greatest possible value on his services. But gradually, by the operation of Competition, this value tends to become proportioned to the labour performed; so that the evolution is brought to a conclusion when equal labour is exchanged for equal labour, both serving as the vehicle of an ever-increasing amount of gratuitous utility, to the benefit of the community at large. In such circumstances, to assert that Competition can be injurious to the labourer, would be to fall into a palpable contradiction.

And yet this is constantly asserted, and constantly believed; and why? Because by the word labourer is understood not the great labouring community, but a particular class. You divide the community into two classes. On one side you place all those who are possessed of capital, who live wholly or partly on anterior labour, or by intellectual labour, or the proceeds of taxation; on the other, you place those who have nothing but their hands, who live by wages, or—to use the consecrated expression—the prolétaires. You look to the relative position of these two classes, [p304] and you ask if, in that relative position, the Competition which takes place among those who live by wages is not fatal to them?

The situation of men of this last class, it is said, is essentially precarious. As they receive their wages from day to day, they live from hand to mouth. In the discussion which, under a free régime, precedes every bargain, they cannot wait; they must find work for to-morrow on any terms, under pain of death. If this be not strictly true of them all, it is at least true of many of them, and that is enough to depress the entire class; for those who are the most pressed and the poorest capitulate first, and establish the general rate of wages. The result is, that wages tend to fall to the lowest rate which is compatible with bare subsistence—and in this state of things, the occurrence of the least excess of Competition among the labourers is a veritable calamity, for, as regards them, the question is not one of diminished prosperity, but of simple existence.

Undoubtedly there is much that is true, much that is too true, in fact, in this description. To deny the sufferings and wretchedness of that class of men who bear so material a part in the business of production, would be to shut our eyes to the light of day. It is, in fact, this deplorable condition of a great number of our brethren which forms the subject of what has been justly called the social problem; for although other classes of society are visited also with disquietudes, sufferings, sudden changes of fortune, commercial crises, and economic convulsions, it may nevertheless be said with truth that liberty would be accepted as a solution of the problem, did mere liberty not appear powerless to cure that rankling sore which we denominate Pauperism.

And although it is here, pre-eminently, that the social problem lies, the reader will not expect that I should enter upon it in this place. Its solution, please God, may be the result of the entire work, but it clearly cannot be the result of a single chapter.

I am at present engaged in the exposition of general laws, which I believe to be harmonious; and I trust the reader will now begin to be convinced that these laws exist, and that their action tends towards community, and consequently towards equality. But I have not denied that the action of these laws is profoundly troubled by disturbing causes. If, then, we now encounter inequality as a stubborn fact, how can we be in circumstances to form a judgment regarding it until we have first of all investigated the regular laws of the social order, and the causes which disturb the action of these laws? [p305]

On the other hand, I have ignored neither the existence of evil nor its mission. I have ventured to assert, that free-will having been vouchsafed to man, it is not necessary to confine the term harmony to an aggregate from which evil should be excluded; for free-will implies error, at least possible error, and error is evil. Social harmony, like everything which concerns man, is relative. Evil is a necessary part of the machinery destined to overcome error, ignorance, injustice, by bringing into play two great laws of our nature—responsibility and solidarity.

Now, taking pauperism as an existing fact, are we to impute it to the natural laws which govern the social order,—or to human institutions which act in a sense contrary to these laws,—or, finally, to the people themselves, who are the victims, and who, by their errors and their faults, have brought down this severe chastisement on their own heads?

In other words, does pauperism exist by providential destination,—or, on the contrary, by what remains of the artificial in our political organization,—or as a personal retribution? Fatality, Injustice, Responsibility—to which of these three causes must we attribute this frightful sore?

I hesitate not to assert that it cannot be the result of the natural laws which have hitherto been the subject of our investigations, seeing that these laws all tend to equalization by amelioration; that is to say, to bring all men to one and the same level, which level is continually rising. This, then, is not the place to seek a solution of the problem of pauperism.

At present, if we would consider specially that class of labourers who execute the most material portion of the work of production, and who, in general, having no interest in the profits, live upon a fixed remuneration called wages, the question we have to investigate is this: Apart from the consideration of good or bad economic institutions—apart from the consideration of the evils which the men who live by wages [the prolétaires] bring upon themselves by their faults—what is, as regards them, the proper effect of Competition?

For this class, as for all, the operation of Competition is twofold. They feel it both as buyers and as sellers of services. The error of those who write upon these subjects is never to look but at one side of the question, like natural philosophers, who, if they took into account only centrifugal force, would never cease to believe and to prophesy that all was over with us. Grant their false datum, and you will see with what irrefragable logic they conduct you to this sinister conclusion. The same may be said of the [p306] lamentations which the Socialists found upon the exclusive consideration of centrifugal Competition, if I may be allowed the expression. They forget to take into account centripetal Competition; and that is sufficient to reduce their doctrines to puerile declamation. They forget that the workman, when he presents himself in the market with the wages he has earned, becomes a centre towards which innumerable branches of industry tend, and that he profits then by that universal Competition of which all trades complain in their turn.

It is true that the labourer, when he regards himself as a producer, as the person who supplies labour or services, complains also of Competition. Grant, then, that Competition benefits him on one side, while it pinches him on the other, the question comes to be, Is the balance favourable or unfavourable—or is there compensation?

I must have explained myself very obscurely if the reader does not see that in the play of this marvellous mechanism, the action of Competition, apparently antagonistic, tends to the singular and consoling result, that there is a balance which is favourable to all at the same time; caused by gratuitous Utility continually enlarging the circle of production, and falling continually into the domain of Community. Now, that which becomes common is profitable to all without hurting any one; we may even say—for this is mathematically certain—is profitable to each in proportion to his previous poverty. It is this portion of gratuitous utility, forced by Competition to become common, which causes the tendency of value to become proportioned to labour, to the evident benefit of the labourer. This, too, renders evident the social solution which I have pressed so much on the attention of the reader, and which is only concealed by the illusions of habit,—for a determinate amount of labour each receives an amount of satisfactions which tends to be increased and equalized.