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diff --git a/old/52984-0.txt b/old/52984-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 9f8d395..0000000 --- a/old/52984-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3994 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Right to be Lazy, by Paul Lafargue - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Right to be Lazy - and Other Studies - -Author: Paul Lafargue - -Translator: Charles H. Kerr - -Release Date: September 5, 2016 [EBook #52984] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIGHT TO BE LAZY *** - - - - -Produced by Turgut Dincer, Christian Boissonnas and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net -(This file was produced from images generously made -available by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - THE - RIGHT TO BE LAZY - - AND OTHER STUDIES - - BY - PAUL LAFARGUE - - Translated by CHARLES H. KERR - - - CHICAGO - CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY - - - - - Copyright, 1907 - - BY CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY - -[Illustration: Printer's stamp.] - - - - -PREFACE - - -M. Thiers, at a private session of the commission on primary education -of 1849, said: "I wish to make the influence of the clergy all-powerful -because I count upon it to propagate that good philosophy which teaches -man that he is here below to suffer, and not that other philosophy -which on the contrary bids man to enjoy." M. Thiers was stating -the ethics of the capitalist class, whose fierce egoism and narrow -intelligence he incarnated. - -The Bourgeoisie, when it was struggling against the nobility sustained -by the clergy, hoisted the flag of free thought and atheism; but once -triumphant, it changed its tone and manner and today it uses religion -to support its economic and political supremacy. In the fifteenth and -sixteenth centuries, it had joyfully taken up the pagan tradition and -glorified the flesh and its passions, reproved by Christianity; in our -days, gorged with goods and with pleasures, it denies the teachings of -its thinkers like Rabelais and Diderot, and preaches abstinence to the -wage-workers. Capitalist ethics, a pitiful parody on Christian ethics, -strikes with its anathema the flesh of the laborer; its ideal is to -reduce the producer to the smallest number of needs, to suppress his -joys and his passions and to condemn him to play the part of a machine -turning out work without respite and without thanks. - -The revolutionary socialists must take up again the battle fought by -the philosophers and pamphleteers of the bourgeoisie; they must march -up to the assault of the ethics and the social theories of capitalism; -they must demolish in the heads of the class which they call to action -the prejudices sown in them by the ruling class; they must proclaim in -the faces of the hypocrites of all ethical systems that the earth shall -cease to be the vale of tears for the laborer; that in the communist -society of the future, which we shall establish "peaceably if we may, -forcibly if we must," the impulses of men will be given a free rein, -for "all these impulses are by nature good, we have nothing to avoid -but their misuse and their excesses,[1]" and they will not be avoided -except by their mutual counter-balancing, balancing, by the harmonious -development of the human organism, for as Dr. Beddoe says, "It is -only when a race reaches its maximum of physical development, that it -arrives at its highest point of energy and moral vigor.[2]" Such was -also the opinion of the great naturalist Charles Darwin.[3] - -This refutation of the "Right to Work" which I am republishing with -some additional notes appeared in the weekly "Egalité", 1880, second -series. - - P. L. - - _Sainte-Pélagie Prison_, 1883. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] Descartes. "Les Passions de l'âme." - -[2] Doctor Beddoe. "Memoirs of the Anthropological Society." - -[3] Charles Darwin. "Descent of Man." - - - - -TABLE OF CONTENTS - - - Page - - THE RIGHT TO BE LAZY— - - I. A Disastrous Dogma 9 - - II. Blessings of Work 14 - - III. The Consequences of Over-Production 30 - - IV. New Songs to New Music 48 - - Appendix 57 - - SOCIALISM AND THE INTELLECTUALS 63 - - THE BANKRUPTCY OF CAPITALISM 105 - - THE WOMAN QUESTION 111 - - THE SOCIALIST IDEAL 139 - - THE RIGHTS OF THE HORSE AND THE RIGHTS OF MAN 157 - - - - -THE RIGHT TO BE LAZY - - Let us be lazy in everything, except in loving and drinking, except - in being lazy. - —Lessing. - - - - -I. - -A DISASTROUS DOGMA. - - -A strange delusion possesses the working classes of the nations where -capitalist civilization holds its sway. This delusion drags in its -train the individual and social woes which for two centuries have -tortured sad humanity. This delusion is the love of work, the furious -passion for work, pushed even to the exhaustion of the vital force -of the individual and his progeny. Instead of opposing this mental -aberration, the priests, the economists and the moralists have cast a -sacred halo over work. Blind and finite men, they have wished to be -wiser than their God; weak and contemptible men, they have presumed -to rehabilitate what their God had cursed. I, who do not profess to be -a Christian, an economist or a moralist, I appeal from their judgement -to that of their God; from the preachings of their religious, economics -or free-thought ethics, to the frightful consequences of work in -capitalist society. - -In capitalist society work is the cause of all intellectual degeneracy, -of all organic deformity. Compare the thorough-bred in Rothschild's -stables, served by a retinue of bipeds, with the heavy brute of the -Norman farms which plows the earth, carts the manure, hauls the crops. -Look at the noble savage whom the missionaries of trade and the traders -of religion have not yet corrupted with Christianity, syphilis and the -dogma of work, and then look at our miserable slaves of machines.[4] - -When, in our civilized Europe, we would find a trace of the native -beauty of man, we must go seek it in the nations where economic -prejudices have not yet uprooted the hatred of work. Spain, which, -alas, is degenerating, may still boast of possessing fewer factories -than we have of prisons and barracks; but the artist rejoices in his -admiration of the hardy Andalusian, brown as his native chestnuts, -straight and flexible as a steel rod; and the heart leaps at hearing -the beggar, superbly draped in his ragged _capa_, parleying on terms -of equality with the duke of Ossuna. For the Spaniard, in whom the -primitive animal has not been atrophied, work is the worst sort of -slavery.[5] The Greeks in their era of greatness had only contempt for -work: their slaves alone were permitted to labor: the free man knew -only exercises for the body and mind. And so it was in this era that -men like Aristotle, Phidias, Aristophanes moved and breathed among the -people; it was the time when a handful of heroes at Marathon crushed -the hordes of Asia, soon to be subdued by Alexander. The philosophers -of antiquity taught contempt for work, that degradation of the free -man, the poets sang of idleness, that gift from the Gods: - -O Melibae Deus nobis haec otia fecit.[6] - -Jesus, in his sermon on the Mount, preached idleness: "Consider the -lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they -spin: and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not -arrayed like one of these." Jehovah the bearded and angry god, gave his -worshipers the supreme example of ideal laziness; after six days of -work, he rests for all eternity. - -On the other hand, what are the races for which work is an organic -necessity? The Auvergnians; the Scotch, those Auvergnians of the -British Isles; the Galicians, those Auvergnians of Spain; the -Pomeranians, those Auvergnians of Germany; the Chinese, those -Auvergnians of Asia. In our society, which are the classes that love -work for work's sake? The peasant proprietors, the little shop-keepers; -the former bent double over their fields, the latter crouched in their -shops, burrow like the mole in his subterranean passage and never stand -up to look at nature leisurely. - -And meanwhile the proletariat, the great class embracing all the -producers of civilized nations, the class which in freeing itself will -free humanity from servile toil and will make of the human animal a -free being,—the proletariat, betraying its instincts, despising its -historic mission, has let itself be perverted by the dogma of work. -Rude and terrible has been its punishment. All its individual and -social woes are born of its passion for work. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[4] European explorers pause in wonder before the physical beauty and -the proud bearing of the men of primitive races, not soiled by what -Paeppig calls "the poisonous breath of civilization." Speaking of -the aborigines of the Oceanic Islands, Lord George Campbell writes: -"There is not a people in the world which strikes one more favorably -at first sight. Their smooth skin of a light copper tint, their hair -golden and curly, their beautiful and happy faces. In a word, their -whole person formed a new and splendid specimen of the 'genus homo'; -their physical appearance gave the impression of a race superior to -ours." The civilized men of ancient Rome, witness Caesar and Tacitus, -regarded with the same admiration the Germans of the communist tribes -which invaded the Roman empire. Following Tacitus, Salvien, the priest -of the fifth century who received the surname of master of the Bishops, -held up the barbarians as an example to civilized Christians: "We are -immodest before the barbarians, who are more chaste than we. Even -more the barbarians are wounded at our lack of modesty; the Goths do -not permit debauchees of their own nation to remain among them; alone -in the midst of them, by the sad privilege of their nationality and -their name, the Romans have the right to be impure. (Pederasty was -then the height of the fashion among both pagans and Christians.) The -oppressed fly to the barbarians to seek for mercy and a shelter." (De -Gubernatione Dei.) The old civilization and the rising Christianity -corrupted the barbarians of the ancient world, as the old Christianity -and the modern capitalist civilization are corrupting the savages of -the new world. - -M. F. LePlay, whose talent for observation must be recognized, even -if we reject his sociological conclusions, tainted with philanthropic -and Christian pharisaism, says in his book "Les Ouvriers Européens" -(1885): "The Propensity of the Bachkirs for laziness (the Bachkirs are -semi-nomadic shepherds of the Asiatic slope of the Ural mountains); -the leisure of nomadic life, the habit of meditation which this -engenders in the best endowed individuals.—all this often gives them a -distinction of manner, a fineness of intelligence and judgement which -is rarely to be observed on the same social level in a more developed -civilization.... The thing most repugnant to them is agricultural -labor: they will do anything rather than accept the trade of a farmer." -Agriculture is in fact the first example of servile labor in the -history of man. According to biblical tradition, the first criminal, -Cain, is a farmer. - -[5] The Spanish proverb says: Descanzar es salud. (Rest is healthful.) - -[6] O Melibaeus! a god has granted us this idleness. Virgil's Bucolics. -(See appendix.) - - - - -II. - -BLESSINGS OF WORK. - - -In 1770 at London, an anonymous pamphlet appeared under the title, -"An Essay on Trade and Commerce". It made some stir in its time. -The author, a great philanthropist, was indignant that "the factory -population of England had taken into its head the fixed idea that in -their quality of Englishmen all the individuals composing it have -by right of birth the privilege of being freer and more independent -than the laborers of any country in Europa. This idea may have its -usefulness for soldiers, since it stimulates their valor, but the -less the factory workers are imbued with it the better for themselves -and the state. Laborers ought never to look on themselves as -independent of their superiors. It is extremely dangerous to encourage -such infatuations in a commercial state like ours, where perhaps -seven-eighths of the population have little or no property. The cure -will not be complete until our industrial laborers are contented to -work six days for the same sum which they now earn in four." Thus, -nearly a century before Guizot, work was openly preached in London as -a curb to the noble passions of man. "The more my people work, the -less vices they will have", wrote Napoleon on May 5th, 1807, from -Osterod. "I am the authority ... and I should be disposed to order -that on Sunday after the hour of service be past, the shops be opened -and the laborers return to their work." To root out laziness and curb -the sentiments of pride and independence which arise from it, the -author of the "Essay on Trade" proposed to imprison the poor in ideal -"work-houses", which should become "houses of terror, where they should -work fourteen hours a day in such fashion that when meal time was -deducted there should remain twelve hours of work full and complete". - -Twelve hours of work a day, that is the ideal of the philanthropists -and moralists of the eighteenth century. How have we outdone this _nec -plus ultra_! Modern factories have become ideal houses of correction in -which the toiling masses are imprisoned, in which they are condemned -to compulsory work for twelve or fourteen hours, not the men only but -also women and children.[7] And to think that the sons of the heroes -of the Terror have allowed themselves to be degraded by the religion -of work, to the point of accepting, since 1848, as a revolutionary -conquest, the law limiting factory labor to twelve hours. They proclaim -as a revolutionary principle the Right to Work. Shame to the French -proletariat! Only slaves would have been capable of such baseness. -A Greek of the heroic times would have required twenty years of -capitalist civilization before he could have conceived such vileness. - -And if the miseries of compulsory work and the tortures of hunger have -descended upon the proletariat more in number than the locusts of the -Bible, it is because the proletariat itself invited them. This work, -which in June 1848 the laborers demanded with arms in their hands, -this they have imposed on their families; they have delivered up to -the barons of industry their wives and children. With their own hands -they have demolished their domestic hearths. With their own hands they -have dried up the milk of their wives. The unhappy women carrying -and nursing their babes have been obliged to go into the mines and -factories to bend their backs and exhaust their nerves. With their own -hands they have broken the life and the vigor of their children. Shame -on the proletarians! Where are those neighborly housewives told of -in our fables and in our old tales, bold and frank of speech, lovers -of Bacchus? Where are those buxom girls, always on the move, always -cooking, always singing, always spreading life, engendering life's joy, -giving painless birth to healthy and vigorous children?... Today we -have factory girls and women, pale drooping flowers, with impoverished -blood, with disordered stomachs, with languid limbs.... They have never -known the pleasure of a healthful passion, nor would they be capable -of telling of it merrily! And the children? Twelve hours of work -for children! O, misery. But not all the Jules Simon of the Academy -of Moral and Political Science, not all the Germinys of jesuitism -could have invented a vice more degrading to the intelligence of the -children, more corrupting of their instincts, more destructive of their -organism than work in the vitiated atmosphere of the capitalist factory. - -Our epoch has been called the century of work. It is in fact the -century of pain, misery and corruption. - -And all the while the philosophers, the bourgeois economists—from -the painfully confused August Comte to the ludicrously clear -Leroy-Beaulieu; the people of bourgeois literature—from the quackishly -romantic Victor Hugo to the artlessly grotesque Paul de Kock,—all have -intoned nauseating songs in honor of the god Progress, the eldest son -of Work. Listen to them and you would think that happiness was soon -to reign over the earth, that its coming was already perceived. They -rummaged in the dust of past centuries to bring back feudal miseries -to serve as a sombre contrast to the delights of the present times. -Have they wearied us, these satisfied people, yesterday pensioners at -the table of the nobility, today pen-valets of the capitalist class -and fatly paid? Have they reckoned us weary of the peasant, such as -La Bruyère described him? Well, here is the brilliant picture of -proletarian delights in the year of capitalist progress 1840, penned by -one of their own men, Dr. Villermé, member of the Institute, the same -who in 1848 was a member of that scientific society (Thiers, Cousin, -Passy, Blanqui, the academician, were in it), which disseminated among -the masses the nonsense of bourgeois economics and ethics. - -It is of manufacturing Alsace that Dr. Villermé speaks,—the Alsace -of Kestner and Dollfus, those flowers of industrial philanthropy and -republicanism. But before the doctor raises up before us his picture of -proletarian miseries, let us listen to an Alsatian manufacturer, Mr. -Th. Mieg, of the house of Dollfus, Mieg & Co., depicting the condition -of the old-time artisan: "At Mulhouse fifty years ago (in 1813, when -modern mechanical industry was just arising) the laborers were all -children of the soil, inhabiting the town and the surrounding villages, -and almost all owning a house and often a little field."[8] It was -the golden age of the laborer. But at that time Alsatian industry did -not deluge the world with its cottons, nor make millionaires out of -its Dollfus and Koechlin. But twenty-five years after, when Villermé -visited Alsace, the modern Minotaur, the capitalist workshop, had -conquered the country; in its insatiable appetite for human labor it -had dragged the workmen from their hearths, the better to wring them -and press out the labor which they contained. It was by thousands -that the workers flocked together at the signal of the steam whistle. -"A great number," says Villermé, "five thousand out of seventeen -thousand, were obliged by high rents to lodge in neighboring villages. -Some of them lived three or four miles from the factory where they -worked.[9] - -"At Mulhouse in Dornach, work began at five o'clock in the morning and -ended at eight o'clock in the evening, summer and winter. It was a -sight to watch them arrive each morning into the city and depart each -evening. Among them were a multitude of women, pale, often walking -bare-footed through the mud, and who for lack of umbrellas when the -rain or snow fell, wore their aprons or skirts turned up over their -heads. There was a still larger number of young children, equally -dirty, equally pale, covered with rags, greasy from the machine oil -which drops on them while they work. They were better protected from -the rain because their clothes shed water; but unlike the women just -mentioned, they did not carry their day's provisions in a basket, but -they carryed in their hands or hid under their clothing as best they -might, the morsel of bread which must serve them as food until time for -them to return home. - -Thus to the strain of an insufferably long day—at least fifteen -hours—is added for these wretches the fatigue of the painful daily -journeys. Consequently they reach home overwhelmed by the need of -sleep, and next day they rise before they are completely rested in -order to reach the factory by the opening time." - -Now, look at the holes in which were packed those who lodge in the -town: "I saw at Mulhouse in Dornach, and the neighboring houses, some -of those miserable lodgings where two families slept each in its corner -on straw thrown on the floor and kept in its place by two planks.... -This wretchedness among the laborers of the cotton industry in the -department of the upper Rhine is so extreme that it produces this sad -result, that while in the families of the manufacturers, merchants, -shop-keepers or factory superintendents, half of the children reach -their twenty-first year, this same half ceases to exist before the -lapse of two years in the families of weavers and cotton spinners." - -Speaking of the labor of the workshop, Villermé adds: "It is not a -work, a task, it is a torture and it is inflicted on children of six -to eight years. It is this long torture day after day which wastes -away the laborers in the cotton spinning factories". And as to the -duration of the work Villermé observes, that the convicts in prisons -work but ten hours, the slaves in the west Indies work but nine hours, -while there existed in France after its Revolution of 1789, which had -proclaimed the pompous Rights of Man "factories where the day was -sixteen hours, out of which the laborers were allowed only an hour and -a half for meals."[10] - -What a miserable abortion of the revolutionary principles of -the bourgeoisie! What woeful gifts from its god Progress! The -philanthropists hail as benefactors of humanity those who having done -nothing to become rich, give work to the poor. Far better were it to -scatter pestilence and to poison the springs than to erect a capitalist -factory in the midst of a rural population. Introduce factory work, -and farewell joy, health and liberty; farewell to all that makes life -beautiful and worth living.[11] - -And the economists go on repeating to the laborers, "Work, to increase -social wealth", and nevertheless an economist, Destutt de Tracy, -answers: "It is in poor nations that people are comfortable, in -rich nations they are ordinarily poor"; and his disciple Cherbuliez -continues: "The laborers themselves in co-operating toward the -accumulation of productive capital contribute to the event which sooner -or later must deprive them of a part of their wages". But deafened and -stupified by their own howlings, the economists answer: "Work, always -work, to create your prosperity", and in the name of Christian meekness -a priest of the Anglican Church, the Rev. Mr. Townshend, intones: Work, -work, night and day. By working you make your poverty increase and your -poverty releases us from imposing work upon you by force of law. The -legal imposition of work "gives too much trouble, requires too much -violence and makes too much noise. Hunger, on the contrary, is not only -a pressure which is peaceful, silent and incessant, but as it is the -most natural motive for work and industry, it also provokes to the -most powerful efforts." Work, work, proletarians, to increase social -wealth and your individual poverty; work, work, in order that becoming -poorer, you may have more reason to work and become miserable. Such is -the inexorable law of capitalist production. - -Because, lending ear to the fallacious words of the economists, the -proletarians have given themselves up body and soul to the vice of -work, they precipitate the whole of society into these industrial -crises of over-production which convulse the social organism. Then -because there is a plethora of merchandise and a dearth of purchasers, -the shops are closed and hunger scourges the working people with its -whip of a thousand lashes. The proletarians, brutalized by the dogma of -work, not understanding that the over-work which they have inflicted -upon themselves during the time of pretended prosperity is the cause of -their present misery, do not run to the granaries of wheat and cry: "We -are hungry, we wish to eat. True we have not a red cent, but beggars as -we are, it is we, nevertheless, who harvested the wheat and gathered -the grapes." They do not besiege the warehouse of Bonnet, or Jujurieux, -the inventor of industrial convents, and cry out: "M. Bonnet, here -are your working women, silk workers, spinners, weavers; they are -shivering pitifully under their patched cotton dresses, yet it is they -who have spun and woven the silk robes of the fashionable women of all -Christendom. The poor creatures working thirteen hours a day, had no -time to think of their toilet. Now, they are out of work and have time -to rustle in the silks they have made. Ever since they lost their milk -teeth they have devoted themselves to your fortune and have lived in -abstinence. Now they are at leisure and wish to enjoy a little of the -fruits of their labor. Come, M. Bonnet, give them your silks, M. Harmel -shall furnish his muslins, M. Pouyer-Quertier his calicos, M. Pinet his -boots for their dear little feet, cold and damp. Clad from top to toe -and gleeful, they will be delightful to look at. Come, no evasions, -you are a friend of humanity, are you not, and a Christian into the -bargain? Put at the disposal of your working girls the fortune they -have built up for you out of their flesh; you want to help business, -get your goods into circulation,—here are consumers ready at hand. -Give them unlimited credit. You are simply compelled to give credit -to merchants whom you do not know from Adam or Eve, who have given -you nothing, not even a glass of water. Your working women will pay -the debt the best they can. If at maturity they let their notes go to -protest, and if they have nothing to attach, you can demand that they -pay you in prayers. They will send you to paradise better than your -black-gowned priests steeped in tobacco." - -Instead of taking advantage of periods of crisis, for a general -distribution of their products and a universal holiday, the laborers, -perishing with hunger, go and beat their heads against the doors of the -workshops. With pale faces, emaciated bodies, pitiful speeches they -assail the manufacturers: "Good M. Chagot, sweet M. Schneider, give us -work, it is not hunger, but the passion for work which torments us". -And these wretches, who have scarcely the strength to stand upright, -sell twelve and fourteen hours of work twice as cheap as when they had -bread on the table. And the philanthropists of industry profit by their -lockouts to manufacture at lower cost. - -If industrial crises follow periods of over-work as inevitably as night -follows day, bringing after them lockouts and poverty without end, -they also lead to inevitable bankruptcy. So long as the manufacturer -has credit he gives free rein to the rage for work. He borrows, and -borrows again, to furnish raw material to his laborers, and goes on -producing without considering that the market is becoming satiated -and that if his goods don't happen to be sold, his notes will still -come due. At his wits' end, he implores the banker, he throws himself -at his feet, offering his blood, his honor. "A little gold will do my -business better", answers the Rothschild. "You have 20,000 pairs of -hose in your warehouse; they are worth 20c. I will take them at 4c." -The banker gets possession of the goods and sells them at 6c or 8c, -and pockets certain frisky dollars which owe nothing to anybody: but -the manufacturer has stepped back for a better leap. At last the crash -comes and the warehouses disgorge. Then so much merchandise is thrown -out of the window that you cannot imagine how it came in by the door. -Hundreds of millions are required to figure the value of the goods that -are destroyed. In the last century they were burned or thrown into the -water.[12] - -But before reaching this decision, the manufacturers travel the world -over in search of markets for the goods which are heaping up. They -force their government to annex Congo, to seize on Tonquin, to batter -down the Chinese Wall with cannon shots to make an outlet for their -cotton goods. In previous centuries it was a duel to the death between -France and England as to which should have the exclusive privilege of -selling to America and the Indies. Thousands of young and vigorous men -reddened the seas with their blood during the colonial wars of the -sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. - -There is a surplus of capital as well as of goods. The financiers no -longer know where to place it. Then they go among the happy nations who -are loafing in the sun smoking cigarettes and they lay down railroads, -erect factories and import the curse of work. And this exportation of -French capital ends one fine morning in diplomatic complications. In -Egypt, for example, France, England and Germany were on the point of -hairpulling to decide which usurers shall be paid first. Or it ends -with wars like that in Mexico where French soldiers are sent to play -the part of constables to collect bad debts.[13] - -These individual and social miseries, however great and innumerable -they may be, however eternal they appear, will vanish like hyenas -and jackals at the approach of the lion, when the proletariat shall -say "I will". But to arrive at the realization of its strength the -proletariat must trample under foot the prejudices of Christian ethics, -economic ethics and free-thought ethics. It must return to its natural -instincts, it must proclaim the Rights of Laziness, a thousand times -more noble and more sacred than the anaemic Rights of Man concocted by -the metaphysical lawyers of the bourgeois revolution. It must accustom -itself to working but three hours a day, reserving the rest of the day -and night for leisure and feasting. - -Thus far my task has been easy; I have had but to describe real evils -well known, alas, by all of us; but to convince the proletariat that -the ethics innoculated into it is wicked, that the unbridled work to -which it has given itself up for the last hundred years is the most -terrible scourge that has ever struck humanity, that work will become -a mere condiment to the pleasures of idleness, a beneficial exercise to -the human organism, a passion useful to the social organism only when -wisely regulated and limited to a maximum of three hours a day; this -is an arduous task beyond my strength. Only communist physiologists, -hygienists and economists could undertake it. In the following pages -I shall merely try to show that given the modern means of production -and their unlimited reproductive power it is necessary to curb the -extravagant passion of the laborers for work and to oblige them to -consume the goods which they produce. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[7] At the first Congress of Charities held at Brussels in 1857 one -of the richest manufacturers of Marquette, near Lille, M. Scrive, to -the plaudits of the members of the congress declared with the noble -satisfaction of a duty performed: "We have introduced certain methods -of diversion for the children. We teach them to sing during their work, -also to count while working. That distracts them and makes them accept -bravely "those twelve hours of labor which are necessary to procure -their means of existence." Twelve hours of labor, and such labor, -imposed on children less than twelve years old! The materialists will -always regret that there is no hell in which to confine these Christian -philanthropic murderers of childhood. - -[8] Speech delivered before the International Society of Practical -Studies in Social Economics, at Paris in May 1863, and published in the -French "Economist" of the same epoch. - -[9] Note that this was before the era of railroads and street cars. -(Translator.) - -[10] L. R. Villermé. Tableau de l'état physique et moral des ouvriers -dans les fabriques de coton, de laine et de soie (1840). It is not -because Dollfus, Koechlin and other Alsatian manufacturers were -republicans, patriots and protestant philanthropists that they treated -their laborers in this way, for Blanqui, the academician, Reybaud, the -prototype of Jerome Paturot, and Jules Simon, have observed the same -amenities for the working class among the very catholic and monarchical -manufacturers of Lille and Lyons. These are capitalist virtues which -harmonize delightfully with all political and religious convictions. - -[11] The Indians of the warlike tribes of Brazil kill their invalids -and old people; they show their affection for them by putting an end -to a life which is no longer enlivened by combats, feasts and dances. -All primitive peoples have given these proofs of affection to their -relatives: the Massagetae of the Caspian Sea (Herodotus), as well as -the Wens of Germany and the Celts of Gaul. In the churches of Sweden -even lately they preserved clubs called family clubs which served to -deliver parents from the sorrows of old age. How degenerate are the -modern proletarians to accept with patience the terrible miseries of -factory labor! - -[12] At the Industrial Congress held in Berlin in Jan. 21, 1879, the -losses in the iron industry of Germany during the last crisis were -estimated at $109,056,000. - -[13] M. Clemenceau's "Justice" said on April 6, 1880, in its financial -department: "We have heard this opinion maintained, that even without -pressure the billions of the war of 1870 would have been equally lost -for France, that is under the form of loans periodically put out to -balance the budgets of foreign countries; this is also our opinion." -The loss of English capital on loans of South American Republics is -estimated at a billion dollars. The French laborers not only produced -the billion dollars paid Bismarck, but they continued to pay interest -on the war indemnity to Ollivier, Girardin, Bazaine and other income -drawers, who brought on the war and the rout. Nevertheless they still -have one shred of consolation: these billions will not bring on a war -of reprisal. - - - - -III. - -THE CONSEQUENCES OF OVER-PRODUCTION. - - -A Greek poet of Cicero's time, Antiparos, thus sang of the invention -of the water-mill (for grinding grain), which was to free the slave -women and bring back the Golden Age: "Spare the arm which turns the -mill, O, millers, and sleep peacefully. Let the cock warn you in vain -that day is breaking. Demeter has imposed upon the nymphs the labor -of the slaves, and behold them leaping merrily over the wheel, and -behold the axle tree, shaken, turning with its spokes and making the -heavy rolling stone revolve. Let us live the life of our fathers, and -let us rejoice in idleness over the gifts that the goddess grants -us." Alas!, the leisure which the pagan poet announced has not come. -The blind, perverse and murderous passion for work transforms the -liberating machine into an instrument for the enslavement of free men. -Its productiveness impoverishes them. - -A good workingwoman makes with her needles only five meshes a minute, -while certain circular knitting machines make 30,000 in the same time. -Every minute of the machine is thus equivalent to a hundred hours of -the workingwomen's labor, or again, every minute of the machine's -labor, gives the workingwomen ten days of rest. What is true for the -knitting industry is more or less true for all industries reconstructed -by modern machinery. But what do we see? In proportion as the machine -is improved and performs man's work with an ever increasing rapidity -and exactness, the laborer, instead of prolonging his former rest -times, redoubles his ardor, as if he wished to rival the machine. O, -absurd and murderous competition! - -That the competition of man and the machine might have free course, -the proletarians have abolished wise laws which limited the labor -of the artisans of the ancient guilds; they have suppressed the -holidays.[14] Because the producers of that time worked but five -days out of seven, are we to believe the stories told by lying -economists, that they lived on nothing but air and fresh water? Not -so, they had leisure to taste the joys of earth, to make love and to -frolic, to banquet joyously in honor of the jovial god of idleness. -Gloomy England, immersed in protestantism, was then called "Merrie -England." Rabelais, Quevedo, Cervantes, and the unknown authors of the -romances make our mouths water with their pictures of those monumental -feasts[15] with which the men of that time regaled themselves between -two battles and two devastations, in which everything "went by the -barrel". Jordaens and the Flemish School have told the story of these -feasts in their delightful pictures. Where, O, where, are the sublime -gargantuan stomachs of those days; where are the sublime brains -encircling all human thought? We have indeed grown puny and degenerate. -Embalmed beef, potatoes, doctored wine and Prussian schnaps, -judiciously combined with compulsory labor have weakened our bodies and -narrowed our minds. And the times when man cramps his stomach and the -machine enlarges its output are the very times when the economists -preach to us the Malthusian theory, the religion of abstinence and the -dogma of work. Really it would be better to pluck out such tongues and -throw them to the dogs. - -Because the working class, with its simple good faith, has allowed -itself to be thus indoctrinated, because with its native impetuosity -it has blindly hurled itself into work and abstinence, the capitalist -class has found itself condemned to laziness and forced enjoyment, to -unproductiveness and over-consumption. But if the over-work of the -laborer bruises his flesh and tortures his nerves, it is also fertile -in griefs for the capitalist. - -The abstinence to which the productive class condemns itself obliges -the capitalists to devote themselves to the over-consumption of the -products turned out so riotously by the laborers. At the beginning -of capitalist production a century or two ago, the capitalist was a -steady man of reasonable and peaceable habits. He contented himself -with one wife or thereabouts. He drank only when he was thirsty and -ate only when he was hungry. He left to the lords and ladies of the -court the noble virtues of debauchery. Today every son of the newly -rich makes it incumbent upon himself to cultivate the disease for which -quicksilver is a specific in order to justify the labors imposed upon -the workmen in quicksilver mines; every capitalist crams himself with -capons stuffed with truffles and with the choicest brands of wine in -order to encourage the breeders of blooded poultry and the growers of -Bordelais. In this occupation the organism rapidly becomes shattered, -the hair falls out, the gums shrink away from the teeth, the body -becomes deformed, the stomach obtrudes abnormally, respiration becomes -difficult, the motions become labored, the joints become stiff, the -fingers knotted. Others, too feeble in body to endure the fatigues of -debauchery, but endowed with the bump of philanthropic discrimination, -dry up their brains over political economy, or juridical philosophy -in elaborating thick soporific books to employ the leisure hours -of compositors and pressmen. The women of fashion live a life of -martyrdom, in trying on and showing off the fairy-like toilets -which the seamstresses die in making. They shift like shuttles from -morning until night from one gown into another. For hours together -they give up their hollow heads to the artists in hair, who at any -cost insist on assuaging their passion for the construction of false -chignons. Bound in their corsets, pinched in their boots, décolletté -to make a coal-miner blush, they whirl around the whole night through -at their charity balls in order to pick up a few cents for poor -people,—sanctified souls! - -To fulfill his double social function of non-producer and -over-consumer, the capitalist was not only obliged to violate his -modest taste, to lose his laborious habits of two centuries ago and to -give himself up to unbounded luxury, spicy indigestibles and syphilitic -debauches, but also to withdraw from productive labor an enormous mass -of men in order to enlist them as his assistants. - -Here are a few figures to prove how colossal is this waste of -productive forces. According to the census of 1861, the population of -England and Wales comprised 20,066,244 persons, 9,776,259 male and -10,289,965 female. If we deduct those too old or too young to work, the -unproductive women, boys and girls, then the "ideological professions", -such as governors, policemen, clergy, magistrates, soldiers, -prostitutes, artists, scientists, etc., next the people exclusively -occupied with eating the labor of others under the form of land-rent, -interest, dividends, etc. ... there remains a total of eight million -individuals of both sexes and of every age, including the capitalists -who function in production, commerce, finance, etc. Out of these eight -millions the figures run: - - Agricultural laborers, including herdsmen, servants - and farmers' daughters living at home 1,098,261 - Factory Workers in cotton, wool, hemp, - linen silk, knitting 642,607 - Mine Workers 565,835 - Metal Workers (blast furnaces, rolling mills, etc.) 396,998 - Domestics 1,208,648 - -"If we add together the textile workers and the miners, we obtain -the figures of 1,208,442; if to the former we add the metal workers, -we have a total of 1,039,605 persons; that is to say, in each case a -number below that of the modern domestic slaves. Behold the magnificent -result of the capitalist exploitation of machines."[16] To this class -of domestics, the size of which indicates the stage attained by -capitalist civilization, must still be added the enormous class of -unfortunates devoted exclusively to satisfying the vain and expensive -tastes of the rich classes: diamond cutters, lace-makers, embroiderers, -binders of luxurious books, seamstresses employed on expensive gowns, -decorators of villas, etc.[17] - -Once settled down into absolute laziness and demoralized by enforced -enjoyment, the capitalist class in spite of the injury involved in -its new kind of life, adapted itself to it. Soon it began to look -upon any change with horror. The sight of the miserable conditions -of life resignedly accepted by the working class and the sight of -the organic degradation engendered by the depraved passion for work -increased its aversion for all compulsory labor and all restrictions -of its pleasures. It is precisely at that time that, without taking -into account the demoralization which the capitalist class had imposed -upon itself as a social duty, the proletarians took it into their -heads to inflict work on the capitalists. Artless as they were, they -took seriously the theories of work proclaimed by the economists and -moralists, and girded up their loins to inflict the practice of these -theories upon the capitalists. The proletariat hoisted the banner, "He -who will not work Neither shall he Eat". Lyons in 1831 rose up for -bullets or work. The federated laborers of March 1871 called their -uprising "The Revolution of Work". To these outbreaks of barbarous fury -destructive of all capitalist joy and laziness, the capitalists had -no other answer than ferocious repression, but they know that if they -have been able to repress these revolutionary explosions, they have -not drowned in the blood of these gigantic massacres the absurd idea -of the proletariat wishing to inflict work upon the idle and reputable -classes, and it is to avert this misfortune that they surround -themselves with guards, policemen, magistrates and jailors, supported -in laborious unproductiveness. There is no more room for illusion as -to the function of modern armies. They are permanently maintained only -to suppress the "enemy within". Thus the forts of Paris and Lyons -have not been built to defend the city against the foreigner, but to -crush it in case of revolt. And if an unanswerable example be called -for, we mention the army of Belgium, that paradise of capitalism. Its -neutrality is guaranteed by the European powers, and nevertheless its -army is one of the strongest in proportion to its population. The -glorious battlefields of the brave Belgian army are the plains of the -Borinage and of Charleroi. It is in the blood of the unarmed miners and -laborers that the Belgian officers temper their swords and win their -epaulets. The nations of Europe have not national armies but mercenary -armies. They protect the capitalists against the popular fury which -would condemn them to ten hours of mining or spinning. Again, while -compressing its own stomach the working class has developed abnormally -the stomach of the capitalist class, condemned to over-consumption. - -For alleviation of its painful labor the capitalist class has withdrawn -from the working class a mass of men far superior to those still -devoted to useful production and has condemned them in their turn to -unproductiveness and over-consumption. But this troop of useless mouths -in spite of its insatiable voracity, does not suffice to consume all -the goods which the laborers, brutalized by the dogma of work, produce -like madmen, without wishing to consume them and without even thinking -whether people will be found to consume them. - -Confronted with this double madness of the laborers killing themselves -with over-production and vegetating in abstinence, the great problem of -capitalist production is no longer to find producers and to multiply -their powers but to discover consumers, to excite their appetites and -create in them fictitious needs. Since the European laborers, shivering -with cold and hunger, refuse to wear the stuffs they weave, to drink -the wines from the vineyards they tend, the poor manufacturers in -their goodness of heart must run to the ends of the earth to find -people to wear the clothes and drink the wines: Europe exports every -year goods amounting to billions of dollars to the four corners of -the earth, to nations that have no need of them.[18] But the explored -continents are no longer vast enough. Virgin countries are needed. -European manufacturers dream night and day of Africa, of a lake in the -Saharan desert, of a railroad to the Soudan. They anxiously follow the -progress of Livingston, Stanley, Du Chaillu; they listen open-mouthed -to the marvelous tales of these brave travelers. What unknown wonders -are contained in the "dark continent"! Fields are sown with elephants' -teeth, rivers of cocoa-nut oil are dotted with gold, millions of -backsides, as bare as the faces of Dufaure and Girardin, are awaiting -cotton goods to teach them decency, and bottles of schnaps and bibles -from which they may learn the virtues of civilization. - -But all to no purpose: the over-fed capitalist, the servant class -greater in numbers than the productive class, the foreign and barbarous -nations, gorged with European goods; nothing, nothing can melt away -the mountains of products heaped up higher and more enormous than the -pyramids of Egypt. The productiveness of European laborers defies all -consumption, all waste. - -The manufacturers have lost their bearings and know not which way to -turn. They can no longer find the raw material to satisfy the lawless -depraved passion of their laborers for work. In our woolen districts -dirty and half rotten rags are raveled out to use in making certain -cloths sold under the name of renaissance, which have about the same -durability as the promises made to voters. At Lyons, instead of leaving -the silk fiber in its natural simplicity and suppleness, it is loaded -down with mineral salts, which while increasing its weight, make it -friable and far from durable. All our products are adulterated to aid -in their sale and shorten their life. Our epoch will be called the -"Age of adulteration" just as the first epochs of humanity received -the names of "The Age of Stone", "The Age of Bronze", from the -character of their production. Certain ignorant people accuse our pious -manufacturers of fraud, while in reality the thought which animates -them is to furnish work to their laborers, who cannot resign themselves -to living with their arms folded. These adulterations, whose sole -motive is a humanitarian sentiment, but which bring splendid profits -to the manufacturers who practice them, if they are disastrous for -the quality of the goods, if they are an inexhaustible source of -waste in human labor, nevertheless prove the ingenuous philanthropy -of the capitalists, and the horrible perversion of the laborers, who -to gratify their vice for work oblige the manufacturers to stifle the -cries of their conscience and to violate even the laws of commercial -honesty. - -And nevertheless, in spite of the over-production of goods, in spite of -the adulterations in manufacturing, the laborers encumber the market -in countless numbers imploring: Work! Work! Their superabundance ought -to compel them to bridle their passion; on the contrary it carries -it to the point of paroxysm. Let a chance for work present itself, -thither they rush; then they demand twelve, fourteen hours to glut -their appetite for work, and the next day they are again thrown out -on the pavement with no more food for their vice. Every year in -all industries lockouts occur with the regularity of the seasons. -Over-work, destructive of the organism, is succeeded by absolute rest -during two or four months, and when work ceases the pittance ceases. -Since the vice of work is diabolically attached to the heart of the -laborers, since its requirements stifle all the other instincts of -nature, since the quantity of work required by society is necessarily -limited by consumption and by the supply of raw materials, why devour -in six months the work of a whole year; why not distribute it uniformly -over the twelve months and force every workingman to content himself -with six or five hours a day throughout the year instead of getting -indigestion from twelve hours during six months? Once assured of their -daily portion of work, the laborers will no longer be jealous of each -other, no longer fight to snatch away work from each other's hands and -bread from each other's mouths, and then, not exhausted in body and -mind, they will begin to practice the virtues of laziness. - -Brutalized by their vice, the laborers have been unable to rise to the -conception of this fact, that to have work for all it is necessary -to apportion it like water on a ship in distress. Meanwhile certain -manufacturers in the name of capitalist exploitation have for a long -time demanded a legal limitation of the work day. Before the commission -of 1860 on professional education, one of the greatest manufacturers of -Alsace, M. Bourcart of Guebwiller, declared: "The day of twelve hours -is excessive and ought to be reduced to eleven, while work ought to -be stopped at two o'clock on Saturday. I advise the adoption of this -measure, although it may appear onerous at first sight. We have tried -it in our industrial establishments for four years and find ourselves -the better for it, while the average production, far from having -diminished, has increased." In his study of machines M. F. Passy quotes -the following letter from a great Belgian manufacturer M. Ottevaere: -"Our machines, although the same as those of the English spinning -mills, do not produce what they ought to produce or what those same -machines would produce in England, although the spinners there work two -hours a day less. We all work two good hours too much. I am convinced -that if we worked only eleven hours instead of thirteen we should have -the same product and we should consequently produce more economically." -Again, M. Leroy Beaulieu affirms that it is a remark of a great Belgian -manufacturer that the weeks in which a holiday falls result in a -product not less than ordinary weeks.[19] - -An aristocratic government has dared to do what a people, duped in -their simplicity by the moralists, never dared. Despising the lofty and -moral industrial considerations of the economists, who like the birds -of ill omen, croaked that to reduce by one hour the work in factories -was to decree the ruin of English industry, the government of England -has forbidden by a law strictly enforced to work more than ten hours a -day, and as before England remains the first industrial nation of the -world.[20] - -The experiment tried on so great a scale is on record; the experience -of certain intelligent capitalists is on record. They prove beyond a -doubt that to strengthen human production it is necessary to reduce -the hours of labor and multiply the pay days and feast days, yet the -French nation is not convinced. But if the miserable reduction of two -hours has increased English production by almost one-third in ten -years, what breathless speed would be given to French production -by a legal limitation of the working day to three hours. Cannot the -laborers understand that by over-working themselves they exhaust -their own strength and that of their progeny, that they are used up -and long before their time come to be incapable of any work at all, -that absorbed and brutalized by this single vice they are no longer -men but pieces of men, that they kill within themselves all beautiful -faculties, to leave nothing alive and flourishing except the furious -madness for work. Like Arcadian parrots, they repeat the lesson of -the economist: "Let us work, let us work to increase the national -wealth.' O, idiots, it is because you work too much that the industrial -equipment develops slowly. Stop braying and listen to an economist, -no other than M. L. Reybaud, whom we were fortunate enough to lose a -few months ago. "It is in general by the conditions of hand-work that -the revolution in methods of labor is regulated. As long as hand-work -furnishes its services at a low price, it is lavished, while efforts -are made to economize it when its services become more costly."[21] - -To force the capitalists to improve their machines of wood and iron -it is necessary to raise wages and diminish the working hours of -the machines of flesh and blood. Do you ask for proofs? They can -be furnished by the hundreds. In spinning, the self-acting mule was -invented and applied at Manchester because the spinners refused to -work such long hours as before. In America the machine is invading all -branches of farm production, from the making of butter to the weeding -of wheat. Why, because the American, free and lazy, would prefer a -thousand deaths to the bovine life of the French peasant. Plowing, so -painful and so crippling to the laborer in our glorious France, is in -the American West an agreeable open-air pastime, which he practices in -a sitting posture, smoking his pipe nonchalantly. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[14] Under the old regime, the laws of the church guaranteed the -laborer ninety rest days, fifty-two Sundays and thirty-eight holidays, -during which he was strictly forbidden to work. This was the great -crime of catholicism, the principal cause of the irreligion of the -industrial and commercial bourgeoisie: under the revolution, when once -it was in the saddle, it abolished the holidays and replaced the week -of seven days by that of ten, in order that the people might no longer -have more than one rest day out of the ten. It emancipated the laborers -from the yoke of the church in order the better to subjugate them under -the yoke of work. - -The hatred against the holidays does not appear until the modern -industrial and commercial bourgeoisie takes definite form, between the -fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Henry IV asked of the pope that they -be reduced. He refused because "one of the current heresies of the -day is regarding feasts" (Letters of Cardinal d'Ossat). But in 1666 -Perefixus, archbishop of Paris, suppressed seventeen of them in his -diocese. protestantism, which was the Christian religion adapted to -the new industrial and commercial needs of the bourgeoisie, was less -solicitous for the people's rest. It dethroned the saints in heaven in -order to abolish their feast days on earth. - -Religious reform and philosophical free thought were but pretexts which -permitted the jesuitical and rapacious bourgeoisie to pilfer the feast -days of the people. - -[15] These gigantic feasts lasted for weeks. Don Rodrigo de Lara wins -his bride by expelling the Moors from old Calatrava, and the Romancero -relates the story: - - Les bodas fueron en Burgos - Las tornabodas en Salas: - En bodas y tornabodas - Pasaron siete semanas - Tantas vienen de las gentes - Que no caben por las plazas - -(The wedding was at Bourges, the infaring at Salas. In the wedding and -the infaring seven weeks were spent. So many people came that the town -could not hold them...). - -The men of these seven-weeks weddings were the heroic soldiers of the -wars of independence. - -[16] Karl Marx's "Capital". - -[17] "The proportion in which the population of the country is employed -as domestics in the service of the wealthy class indicates its progress -in national wealth and civilization." (R. M. Martin, "Ireland Before -and After the Union," 1818). Gambetta, who has denied that there was -a social question ever since he ceased to be the poverty stricken -lawyer of the Café Procope, undoubtedly alluded to this ever-increasing -domestic class when he announced the advent of new social strata. - -[18] Two examples: The English government to satisfy the peasants of -India, who in spite of the periodical famines desolating their country -insist on cultivating poppies instead of rice or wheat, has been -obliged to undertake bloody wars in order to impose upon the Chinese -Government the free entry of Indian opium. The savages of Polynesia, -in spite of the mortality resulting from it are obliged to clothe -themselves in the English fashion in order to consume the products of -the Scotch distilleries and the Manchester cotton mills. - -[19] Paul Leroy-Beaulieu. La Question Ouvrière au XIX siècle, 1872. - -[20] It should be observed that this was written in 1883, since which -time the United States has taken the first rank. The soundness of -Lafargue's reasoning is confirmed by the fact that in this country the -hours of labor in the most important industries are even less than in -England. (Translator.) - -[21] Louis Reybaud. Le coton, son regime, ses problèmes (1863). - - - - -IV. - -NEW SONGS TO NEW MUSIC. - - -We have seen that by diminishing the hours of labor new mechanical -forces will be conquered for social production. Furthermore, by -obliging the laborers to consume their products the army of workers -will be immensely increased. The capitalist class once relieved from -its function of universal consumer will hasten to dismiss its train of -soldiers, magistrates, journalists, procurers, which it has withdrawn -from useful labor to help it in consuming and wasting. Then the labor -market will overflow. Then will be required an iron law to put a limit -on work. It will be impossible to find employment for that swarm of -former unproductives, more numerous than insect parasites, and after -them must be considered all those who provide for their needs and their -vain and expensive tastes. When there are no more lackeys and generals -to decorate, no more free and married prostitutes to be covered with -laces, no more cannons to bore, no more palaces to build, there will -be need of severe laws to compel the working women and workingmen who -have been employed on embroidered laces, iron workings, buildings, to -take the hygienic and calisthenic exercises requisite to re-establish -their health and improve their race. When once we begin to consume -European products at home instead of sending them to the devil, it will -be necessary that the sailors, dock handlers and the draymen sit down -and learn to twirl their thumbs. The happy Polynesians may then love -as they like without fearing the civilized Venus and the sermons of -European moralists. - -And that is not all: In order to find work for all the non-producers -of our present society, in order to leave room for the industrial -equipment to go on developing indefinitely, the working class will -be compelled, like the capitalist class, to do violence to its taste -for abstinence and to develop indefinitely its consuming capacities. -Instead of eating an ounce or two of gristly meat once a day, when it -eats any, it will eat juicy beefsteaks of a pound or two; instead of -drinking moderately of bad wine, it will become more orthodox than the -pope and will drink broad and deep bumpers of Bordeaux and Burgundy -without commercial baptism and will leave water to the beasts. - -The proletarians have taken into their heads to inflict upon the -capitalists ten hours of forge and factory; that is their great -mistake, because of social antagonisms and civil wars. Work ought to be -forbidden and not imposed. The Rothschilds and other capitalists should -be allowed to bring testimony to the fact that throughout their whole -lives they have been perfect vagabonds, and if they swear they wish to -continue to live as perfect vagabonds in spite of the general mania -for work, they should be pensioned and should receive every morning -at the city hall a five-dollar gold piece for their pocket money. -Social discords will vanish. Bond holders and capitalists will be first -to rally to the popular party, once convinced that far from wishing -them harm, its purpose is rather to relieve them of the labor of -over-consumption and waste, with which they have been overwhelmed since -their birth. As for the capitalists who are incapable of proving their -title to the name of vagabond, they will be allowed to follow their -instincts. There are plenty of disgusting occupations in which to place -them. Dufaure might be set at cleaning public closets, Gallifet[22] -might perform surgical operations on diseased horses and hogs. The -members of the amnesty commission might be sent to the stock yards to -pick out the oxen and the sheep to be slaughtered. The senators might -play the part of undertakers and lackeys in funeral processions. As for -the others, occupations could be found for them on a level with their -intelligence. Lorgeril and Broglie could cork champagne bottles, only -they would have to be muzzled as a precaution against intoxication. -Ferry, Freycinet and Tirard might destroy the bugs and vermin in the -departments of state and other public houses. It would, however, be -necessary to put the public funds out of the reach of the capitalists -out of due regard for their acquired habits. - -But vengeance, harsh and prolonged, will be heaped upon the moralists -who have perverted nature, the bigots, the canters, the hypocrites, -"and other such sects of men who disguise themselves like maskers -to deceive the world. For whilst they give the common people to -understand that they are busied about nothing but contemplation and -devotion in fastings and maceration of their sensuality,—and that only -to sustain and aliment the small frailty of their humanity,—it is so -far otherwise that on the contrary, God knows, what cheer they make; -et _Curios simulant, sed Bacchanalia vivunt_.[23] You may read it -in great letters, in the coloring of their red snouts, and gulching -bellies as big as a tun, unless it be when they perfume themselves with -sulphur."[24] On the days of great popular rejoicing, when instead -of swallowing dust as on the 15th of August and 14th of July under -capitalism, the communists and collectivists will eat, drink and dance -to their hearts' content, the members of the Academy, of moral and -political sciences, the priests with long robes and short, of the -economic, catholic, protestant, jewish, positivist and free-thought -church; the propagandists of Malthusianism, and of Christian, -altruistic, independent or dependent ethics, clothed in yellow, shall -be compelled to hold a candle until it burns their fingers, shall -starve in sight of tables loaded with meats, fruits and flowers and -shall agonize with thirst in sight of flowing hogsheads. Four times a -year with the changing seasons they shall be shut up like the knife -grinders' dogs in great wheels and condemned to grind wind for ten -hours. - -The lawyers and legislators shall suffer the same punishment. Under the -regime of idleness, to kill the time, which kills us second by second, -there will be shows and theatrical performances always and always. And -here we have the very work for our bourgeois legislators. We shall -organize them into traveling companies to go to the fairs and villages, -giving legislative exhibitions. The generals in riding boots, their -breasts brilliantly decorated with medals and crosses, shall go through -the streets and courts levying recruits among the good people. Gambetta -and his comrade Cassagnac shall tend door. Cassagnac, in full duelist -costume, rolling his eyes and twisting his mustache, spitting out -burning tow, shall threaten every one with his father's pistol[25] and -sink into a hole as soon as they show him Lullier's portrait. Gambetta -will discourse on foreign politics and on little Greece, who makes a -doctor of him and would set Europe on fire to pilfer Turkey; on great -Russia that stultifies him with the mincemeat she promises to make of -Prussia and who would fain see mischief brewing in the west of Europe -so as to feather her nest in the east and to strangle nihilism at home; -on Mr. Bismark who was good enough to allow him to pronounce himself on -the amnesty ... then uncovering his mountainous belly smeared over with -red and white and blue, the three national colors, he will beat the -tattoo on it, and enumerate the delicate little ortolans, the truffles -and the glasses of Margaux and Y'quem that it has gulped down to -encourage agriculture, and to keep his electors of Belleville in good -spirits. - -In the barracks the entertainment will open with the "Electoral Farce". - -In the presence of the voters with wooden heads and asses' ears, the -bourgeois candidates, dressed as clowns, will dance the dance of -political liberties, wiping themselves fore and aft with their freely -promising electoral programs, and talking with tears in their eyes -of the miseries of the people and with copper in their voices of the -glories of France. Then the heads of the voters will bray solidly in -chorus, hi han! hi han! - -Then will start the great play, "The Theft of the Nation's Goods." - -Capitalist France, an enormous female, hairy-faced and bald-headed, -fat, flabby, puffy and pale, with sunken eyes, sleepy and yawning, -is stretching herself out on a velvet couch. At her feet Industrial -Capitalism, a gigantic organism of iron, with an ape-like mask, is -mechanically devouring men, women and children, whose thrilling and -heart-rending cries fill the air; the bank with a marten's muzzle, -a hyena's body and harpy-hands, is nimbly flipping coins out of his -pocket. Hordes of miserable, emaciated proletarians in rags, escorted -by gendarmes with drawn sabers, pursued by furies lashing them with -whips of hunger, are bringing to the feet of capitalist France heaps -of merchandise, casks of wine, sacks of gold and wheat. Langlois, his -nether garment in one hand, the testament of Proudhon in the other and -the book of the national budget between his teeth, is encamped at the -head of the defenders of national property and is mounting guard. When -the laborers, beaten with gun stocks and pricked with bayonets, have -laid down their burdens, they are driven away and the door is opened -to the manufacturers, merchants and bankers. They hurl themselves pell -mell upon the heap, devouring cotton goods, sacks of wheat, ingots of -gold, emptying casks of wine. When they have devoured all they can, -they sink down, filthy and disgusting objects in their ordure and -vomitings. Then the thunder bursts forth, the earth shakes and opens, -Historic Destiny arises, with her iron foot she crushes the heads of -the capitalists, hiccoughing, staggering, falling, unable to flee. With -her broad hand she overthrows capitalist France, astounded and sweating -with fear. - - * * * * * - -If, uprooting from its heart the vice which dominates it and degrades -its nature, the working class were to arise in its terrible strength, -not to demand the Rights of Man, which are but the rights of capitalist -exploitation, not to demand the Right to Work which is but the right -to misery, but to forge a brazen law forbidding any man to work more -than three hours a day, the earth, the old earth, trembling with -joy would feel a new universe leaping within her. But how should we -ask a proletariat corrupted by capitalist ethics, to take a manly -resolution.... - -Like Christ, the doleful personification of ancient slavery, the men, -the women and the children of the proletariat have been climbing -painfully for a century up the hard Calvary of pain; for a century -compulsory toil has broken their bones, bruised their flesh, tortured -their nerves; for a century hunger has torn their entrails and their -brains. O Laziness, have pity on our long misery! O Laziness, mother of -the arts and noble virtues, be thou the balm of human anguish! - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[22] Gallifet was the general who was directly responsible for the -massacre of thousands of French workingmen at the closing days of the -Paris Commune. - -[23] They simulate Curius but live like Bacchanals. (Juvenal.) - -[24] Rabelais "Pantagruel," Book II. Chapter XXXIV. Translation of -Urquhart and Motteux. - -[25] Paul de Cassagnac, like his father, Granier, was prominent as a -conservative politician, journalist and duelist. - - - - -APPENDIX - - -Our moralists are very modest people. If they invented the dogma of -work, they still have doubts of its efficacy in tranquilizing the -soul, rejoicing the spirit, and maintaining the proper functioning of -the entrails and other organs. They wish to try its workings on the -populace, _in anima vili_, before turning it against the capitalists, -to excuse and authorize whose vices is their peculiar mission. - -But, you, three-for-a-cent philosophers, why thus cudgel your brains to -work out an ethics the practice of which you dare not counsel to your -masters? Your dogma of work, of which you are so proud, do you wish -to see it scoffed at, dishonored? Let us open the history of ancient -peoples and the writings of their philosophers and law givers. "I could -not affirm," says the father of history, Herodotus, "whether the Greeks -derived from the Egyptians the contempt which they have for work, -because I find the same contempt established among the Thracians, the -Cythians, the Persians, the Lydians; in a word, because among most -barbarians, those who learn mechanical arts and even their children are -regarded as the meanest of their citizens. All the Greeks have been -nurtured in this principle, particularly the Lacedaemonians."[26] - -"At Athens the citizens were veritable nobles who had to concern -themselves but with the defense and the administration of the -community, like the savage warriors from whom they descended. Since -they must thus have all their time free to watch over the interests -of the republic, with their mental and bodily strength, they laid all -labor upon the slaves. Likewise at Lacedaemon, even the women were -not allowed to spin or weave that they might not detract from their -nobility."[27] - -The Romans recognized but two noble and free professions, agriculture -and arms. All the citizens by right lived at the expense of the -treasury without being constrained to provide for their living by any -of the sordid arts (thus, they designated the trades), which rightfully -belonged to slaves. The elder Brutus to arouse the people, accused -Tarquin, the tyrant, of the special outrage of having converted free -citizens into artisans and masons.[28] - -The ancient philosophers had their disputes upon the origin of ideas -but they agreed when it came to the abhorrence of work. "Nature," -said Plato in his social utopia, his model republic, "Nature has -made no shoemaker nor smith. Such occupations degrade the people who -exercise them. Vile mercenaries, nameless wretches, who are by their -very condition excluded from political rights. As for the merchants -accustomed to lying and deceiving, they will be allowed in the city -only as a necessary evil. The citizen who shall have degraded himself -by the commerce of the shop shall be prosecuted for this offense. If he -is convicted, he shall be condemned to a year in prison; the punishment -shall be doubled for each repeated offense."[29] - -In his "Economics," Xenophon writes, "The people who give themselves -up to manual labor are never promoted to public offices, and with good -reason. The greater part of them, condemned to be seated the whole day -long, some even to endure the heat of the fire continually, cannot -fail to be changed in body, and it is almost inevitable that the mind -be affected." "What honorable thing can come out of a shop?" asks -Cicero. "What can commerce produce in the way of honor? Everything -called shop is unworthy of an honorable man. Merchants can gain no profit -without lying, and what is more shameful than falsehood? Again, we must -regard as something base and vile the trade of those who sell their -toil and industry, for whoever gives his labor for money sells himself -and puts himself in the rank of slaves."[30] - -Proletarians, brutalized by the dogma of work, listen to the voice of -these philosophers, which has been concealed from you with jealous -care: A citizen who gives his labor for money degrades himself to the -rank of slaves, he commits a crime which deserves years of imprisonment. - -Christian hypocrisy and capitalist utilitarianism had not perverted -these philosophers of the ancient republics. Speaking for free -men, they expressed their thought naively. Plato, Aristotle, those -intellectual giants, beside whom our latter day philosophers are but -pygmies, wish the citizens of their ideal republics to live in the -most complete leisure, for as Xenophon observed, "Work takes all the -time and with it one has no leisure for the republic and his friends." -According to Plutarch, the great claim of Lycurgus, wisest of men, to -the admiration of posterity, was that he had granted leisure to the -citizens of Sparta by forbidding to them any trade whatever. But our -moralists of Christianity and capitalism will answer, "These thinkers -and philosophers praised the institution of slavery." Perfectly true, -but could it have been otherwise, granted the economic and political -conditions of their epoch? War was the normal state of ancient -societies. The free man was obliged to devote his time to discussing -the affairs of state and watching over its defense. The trades were -then too primitive and clumsy for those practicing them to exercise -their birth-right of soldier and citizen; thus the philosophers and -law-givers, if they wished to have warriors and citizens in their -heroic republics, were obliged to tolerate slaves. But do not the -moralists and economists of capitalism praise wage labor, the modern -slavery; and to what men does the capitalist slavery give leisure? -To people like Rothschild, Schneider, and Madame Boucicaut, useless -and harmful slaves of their vices and of their domestic servants. -"The prejudice of slavery dominated the minds of Pythagoras and -Aristotle,"—this has been written disdainfully; and yet Aristotle -foresaw: "that if every tool could by itself execute its proper -function, as the masterpieces of Daedalus moved themselves or as the -tripods of Vulcan set themselves spontaneously at their sacred work; -if for example the shuttles of the weavers did their own weaving, the -foreman of the workshop would have no more need of helpers, nor the -master of slaves." - -Aristotle's dream is our reality. Our machines, with breath of -fire, with limbs of unwearying steel, with fruitfulness, wonderful -inexhaustible, accomplish by themselves with docility their sacred -labor. And nevertheless the genius of the great philosophers of -capitalism remains dominated by the prejudice of the wage system, -worst of slaveries. They do not yet understand that the machine is the -saviour of humanity, the god who shall redeem man from the sordidae -artes and from working for hire, the god who shall give him leisure and -liberty. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[26] Herodotus, Book II. - -[27] Biot. De L'abolition de L'esclavage ancien en Occident, 1840. - -[28] Livy, Book I. - -[29] Plato's "Republic," Book V. - -[30] Cicero's "De Officiis," I, 42. - - - - -SOCIALISM AND THE INTELLECTUALS - -ADDRESS DELIVERED AT PARIS MARCH 23, 1900, AT A MEETING CALLED BY THE -GROUP OF COLLECTIVIST STUDENTS ATTACHED TO THE PARTI OUVRIER FRANÇAIS. - - -Ladies and Gentlemen:—I am happy to deliver this address under the -presidency of Vaillant, because it is a pledge of the close and lasting -union between our two organizations, and because Vaillant is one of the -intellectuals of the socialist party; he is acknowledged to be the most -learned of French socialists and perhaps of European socialists, now -that Marx, Engels and Lavroff are no longer with us. - -The group of collectivist students which has organized this conference, -has been led to choose this subject, because French socialism has just -passed through a crisis which is not exactly one of growth, though -such it has been called, but which has been caused by the arrival -of a certain number of bourgeois intellectuals within the ranks of -the party. It is therefore interesting to examine the situation of -the intellectuals in capitalist society, their historic role since -the revolution of 1789, and the manner in which the bourgeoisie has -kept the promises it made them when it was struggling against the -aristocracy. - -The eighteenth century was the century of reason—everything, religion, -philosophy, science, politics, privileges of classes, of the state, -of municipalities, was submitted to its pitiless criticism. Never -in history has there been such a fermentation of ideas and such a -revolutionary preparation of men's minds. Mirabeau, who himself -played a great role in the ideological agitation, might well say in -the national assembly: "We have no time to think, but happily, we -have a supply of ideas." All that was needed was to realize them. -Capitalism, to reward the intellectuals who had labored with so much -enthusiasm for the coming of its revolution, promised them honors and -favors; intelligence and wisdom, as well as virtue, should be the -sole privileges of the society it was founding upon the ruins of the -old order. Promises cost it little; it announced to all men that it -brought them joy and happiness, with liberty, equality and fraternity, -which, although eternal principles, were now born for the first time. -Its social world was to be so new that even before the Republic was -proclaimed, Camille Desmoulins demanded that they begin a new era which -should date from the taking of the Bastile. - -I need not teach you what application capitalism has made of these -eternal principles which by way of cynical raillery, the Republic -carves on the lintels of her prisons, her penitentiaries, her barracks -and her halls of state.[31] I will only remind you that savage and -barbarous tribes, uncorrupted by civilization, living under the -regime of common property, without inscribing anywhere these eternal -principles, without even formulating them, practice them in a manner -more perfect than ever was dreamed of by the capitalists who discovered -them in 1789. - -It did not take long to determine the value of the promises of -capitalism; the very day it opened its political shop, it commenced -proceedings in bankruptcy. The constituent assembly, which formulated -the Rights of man and of the citizen and proclaimed equality before the -law, discussed and voted, in 1790, an electoral act which established -inequality before the law; no one was to be a voter but the "active -citizen," paying in money a direct tax equal to three days' labor, and -no one was to be eligible to office but the citizen paying a direct -tax of a "silver mark," about 55 francs. "But under the law of the -silver mark," clamored Loustallot, Desmoulins and the intellectualists -without real estate, "Jean Jacques Rousseau, whose 'Social Contract is -the bible of the revolution, would be capable neither of voting nor -of holding office." The electoral law deprived so many citizens of -political rights, that in the municipal elections of 1790, at Paris, -a city which counted about half a million inhabitants, there were but -12,000 voters, Bailly was chosen mayor by 10,000 votes. - -If the eternal principles were not new, it is also true that the -flattering promises made by the intellectuals had already begun to be -realized before the advent of capitalism to power. The church, which -is a theocratic democracy, opens her bosom to all. That they may -enter, all lay aside their titles and privileges, and all can aspire -to the highest positions; popes have risen from the lower ranks of -society. Sixtus Fifth had in his youth tended swine. The church of the -middle ages jealously attracted to herself the thinkers and men of -learning, although she respected the preference of those who wished to -remain laymen, but extended over them her protection and her favors; -she allowed them all boldness of thought, on the single condition of -keeping up the appearance of faith, and never leaving her enclosure -to lavish themselves upon the vulgar. Thus Copernicus might write and -dedicate to the pope his "treatise on the revolutions of the celestial -bodies," in which, contrary to the teaching of the Bible, he proves -that the earth turns around the sun. But Copernicus was a canon at -Frannbourg and he wrote in Latin. When a century later Galileo, who -was not identified with the clergy and who on the contrary sought the -protection of the secular authorities, professed publicly, at Venice -and Florence, the theories of Copernicus, the Vatican stretched out -its terrible hand over him and forced the illustrious old man to deny -his scientific belief. Even after the crisis of protestantism, the -church preserved its liberality toward the scientists who belonged -to it. Mersenne, a monk of the order of the Minimes, one of the -great geometers of the seventeenth century, a precursor and friend -of Descartes, corresponded freely with Hobbes, the father of modern -materialism; the notes of the French edition of "De Cive" contain -fragments of this correspondence. - -The church, in keeping up this liberal conduct, may have been animated -by a disinterested love of pure science, but what chiefly concerned -her was the interest of her dominancy; she wished to monopolize the -intellectuals and science, just as in the old theocratic Egypt the -priests had done to whom the Greek thinkers resorted in search of the -first elements of science and philosophy. - -It would be insulting capitalism to attribute to it a disinterested -love of science, which from its point of view has but one reason for -existence, that of utilizing natural forces to the enhancement of -its wealth. It cares nothing for pure speculation and it is by way -of self-defence that it allows its scientists to devote their mental -energy to theoretic researches instead of exhausting it on practical -applications. This contempt for pure speculation is shown under a -philosophic form in the positivism of Auguste Comte, who embodies so -well the narrowness of the groveling spirit of capitalism. - -But if science apart from its industrial applications does not interest -the bourgeoisie their solicitude for the intellectuals takes on none -of the forms which we saw in that of the church, and nowhere is their -indifference to them better shown than in the relative position of -material property and of intellectual property before the law. - -Material property, whatever its origin, is by capitalist law a thing -eternal; it is forever assured to its possessor; it is handed down from -father to son to the end of the centuries, and no civil or political -power may lay upon it a sacrilegious hand. We have lately seen a -characteristic example of this inviolability of material property. - -The keeper of the signal station at Durban transmitted to the Boers -heliographic dispatches informing them regarding the ships which -entered the harbor, the men, the horses and the munitions of war which -they transported. His treason brought him 125,000 francs, which, like -an intelligent capitalist, he deposited in the bank. The English -military authorities seized the traitor, condemned him and shot him, -but they respected his property so honorably acquired, and his widow -and son are now its legitimate possessors. The law, apart from certain -variations, being the same in all capitalist countries, things go on in -France as in England. No authority could lay hand on the property of -Bazaine, nor make De Lesseps, Cottu and their families disgorge the -millions artfully extracted from the "lambs" on Panama canal stock. - -This legal sanctity of property is a new thing, in France it dates -from the revolution of 1789. The old regime, which had small respect -for this sort of property, authorized the confiscation of the property -of those legally condemned, and the abolition of confiscation is one -of the first reforms demanded in the petitions of Paris and several -provincial cities to the states general. Capitalism, by forbidding the -confiscation of property obtained by fraudulent and infamous means, -proclaims that the source of its fortune is quite as fraudulent and -infamous as that of criminals and traitors. - -Capitalist law has none of these amenities for intellectual property. -Literary and artistic property such as the law protects at all has but -a precarious life, limited to the life of the author and a certain time -after his death—fifty years according to the latest legislation; that -time passed, it lapses into common property; for example, beginning -with March of this year, any publisher has the right to bring out for -his own profit the works of Balzac, the genius of romantic literature. - -Literary property, though a matter of interest to publishers, who -are certainly few in number, brings no benefit to the mass of the -capitalist class, but not so with property in inventions, which is of -prime importance to all the manufacturing and mercantile capitalists. -Consequently over it the law extends no protection. The inventor, if he -wishes to defend his intellectual property against capitalist pirates, -must begin by buying that right, taking out a patent, which he must -renew every year; on the day he misses a payment, his intellectual -property becomes the lawful prey of the robbers of capitalism. Even if -he pays, he can secure that right only for a time; in France, fourteen -years. And during these few years, not long enough generally to get -his invention fully introduced into practical industry, it is he, the -inventor, who at his own expense has to set in motion the machinery of -the law against the capitalist pirates who rob him. - -The trade-mark, which is a capitalistic property that never required -any intellectual effort, is on the contrary indefinitely protected by -law like material property. - -It is with reluctance that the capitalist class has granted the -inventor the right of defending his intellectual property, for by -virtue of its position as the ruling class it regards itself as -entitled to the fruits of intellectual labor as well as of manual -labor; just as the feudal lord asserted his right of possession over -the property of his serfs. The history of the inventors of our century -is the monstrous story of their spoliation by the capitalists; it is a -long and melancholy roll of martyrs. The inventor, by the very fact of -his genius, is condemned with his family to ruin and suffering. - -It is not only inventions requiring long and laborious study, heavy -outlay for their completion and long time for their introduction, that -plunge the inventor into the inferno of poverty; this is equally true -of inventions that are most simple, most immediately applicable and -most fertile in rich results. I will mention but one example: there -lately died at Paris in extreme poverty a man whose invention saves -millions of francs a year to the railroads and mining companies; -he had discovered a way to utilize the mountains of coal dust that -encumbered the neighborhood of wharfs and mines by converting it into -"briquettes," such as are today in common use for fuel. - -The capitalist bourgeoisie, the most revolutionary class that ever -oppressed human societies, cannot increase its wealth without -continuously revolutionizing the means of production, continuously -incorporating into its industrial equipment new applications of -mechanics, chemistry and physics. Its thirst for inventions is so -insatiable that it creates factories for inventions. Certain American -capitalists united in constructing for Edison at Menlo Park the most -wonderful laboratory in the world, and in putting at his disposal -trained scientists, chosen workmen, and the ordinary materials -necessary to make and keep on making inventions which the capitalists -patent, exploit or sell. Edison, who is himself a shrewd business man, -has taken care to secure for himself a part of the benefits brought by -the Menlo Park inventions. - -But not all inventors are able like Edison to dictate terms to the -capitalists who equip invention factories. The Thompson-Houston Company -at Paris and Siemens at London and Berlin,[32] in connection with -their plants for turning out electrical machinery, have laboratories -where ingenious men are kept busy searching out new applications of -electricity. At Frankfort the manufactory of aniline dyes, the largest -in the world, where anti-pyrine, that mineral quinine, was discovered, -keeps on its pay roll more than a hundred chemists to discover new -products of coal-tar. Each discovery is at once patented by the house, -which, by way of encouragement, gives a reward to the inventor. - -We may up to a certain point regard all factories and workshops -as laboratories for inventions, since a considerable number of -improvements in machinery have been devised by workmen in the course -of their work. The inventor having no money to patent and apply his -discovery, the employer takes out the patent in his own name, and in -accordance with the spirit of capitalist justice, it is he who reaps -all the benefit. When the government takes it into its head to rewards -talent, it is the employer who receives the decoration; the inventive -workman, who is not an intellectual, continues to revolve like the -other machines under the black and greasy number which distinguishes -him, and as in this capitalist world he must be content with little, he -consoles himself for his poverty by the reflection that his invention -is bringing wealth and honor to his employer. - -The capitalist class, which to increase its wealth is in pressing need -of inventions, is in even more imperative need of intellectuals to -supervise their application and to direct its industrial machinery. The -capitalists, before they equipped invention factories, had organized -factories to turn out intellectuals. Dollfus, Scherer-Kestner and -other employes of Alsace, the most intelligent, most philanthropic -and consequently the heaviest exploiters in France before the war, -had founded with their spare pennies at Mulhouse, schools of design, -of chemistry and of physics, where the brightest children of their -workmen were instructed gratis, in order that they might always have -at hand and at reasonable figure the intellectual capacities required -for carrying on their industries. Twenty years ago the directors of the -Mulhouse school persuaded the municipal council of Paris to establish -the city school of chemistry and physics. At the beginning, whether -it is still the case I do not know, the pupils were recruited in the -common schools, they received a higher education, gratis, a dinner at -noon at the school, and fifty francs a month to indemnify the parents -for the loss from the fact that their sons were not in the workshop. - -On the platform of the constituent assembly of 1790 the Marquis of -Foucault could declare that to be a laborer it was not necessary to -know how to read and write. The necessities of industrial production -compel the capitalist of today to speak in language altogether -different; his economic interests and not his love of humanity and -of science force him to encourage and to develop both elementary and -higher education. - -But the slave merchants of ancient Rome were, by the same title, -patrons of education. To the more intelligent of their human -merchandise they gave instruction in medicine, philosophy, Greek -literature, music, science, etc. The education of the slave enhanced -his market value. The slave who was an expert cook brought a better -figure than the slave doctor, philosopher or literator. In our days it -is still so; the big capitalists pay their chief cooks better than the -state pays the professors of liberal arts, even though they be members -of the Institute. But contrary to the practice of the Roman slave -merchants, our capitalist class lavishes instruction only in order to -depress the selling price of intellectual capacity. - -Greek mythology tells how Midas had the gift of turning everything -into gold; the capitalist class has a similar property, it transforms -everything that it touches into merchandise; it has done this for -intellectual capacities; chemists, engineers and Latin scholars are -bought like she-asses and guano. - -A voice: "And they buy deputies, too!" - -People who have no tallow nor veal nor socks to sell have their -conscience and their votes; when they are deputies, they are bought. - -When intellectual capacities become merchandise they have to be treated -like other merchandise, and they are. When there are many oysters in -the market the price of oysters goes down, but when the arrivals are -scarce the price goes up. When chemists and engineers are plenty on the -labor market, the price of inventors and of chemists goes down. Now -that the Central School and the School of Physics and Chemistry turn -out yearly upon the pavements of Paris chemists by the dozen, their -price has considerably gone down. Twenty years ago the capitalist paid -a chemist reasonably, he gave him $100 to $120 a month and engaged him -by the year. The employers whose regard for an employee is measured by -what they have to pay him, were full of politeness and consideration -for their chemists who cost so dear. But since they have been abundant, -their price has fallen to $40 and $30 a month; in the north they are -not engaged by the year but for the sugar season, which lasts three or -four months, at the end of which they are discharged with the workmen. -Go and shift for yourself, says the employer. Next fall when the beets -come I know I shall find chemists to superintend making them into -sugar. - -The chemists are not exceptional; you know only too well that in all -branches there is an over-production of intellectuals, and that when -a place is vacant, tens and hundreds offer themselves to fill it; and -it is this pressure which permits the capitalists to lower the price -of the intellectuals and to put it even below the wage of the manual -laborer. - -Poverty is harder for the intellectual than for the workingman; it -bruises him morally and physically. The workingman, enduring hardships -from childhood and knocking about the street and the shops, is -accustomed to enduring the troubles of life; the intellectual, brought -up in a hot-house, has the life bleached out of him by the shadow of -the college walls, his nervous system is over-developed and takes on an -unhealthy impressionability. What the workingman endures thoughtlessly -is to him a painful shock. The intellectual is wounded to the depths -of his moral being by the exigencies of a wage-worker's life. With the -same or even a higher wage the intellectual is in a worse economic -condition than the laborer, for the latter may dress as cheaply as he -likes, but the former, if only not to offend the eye of his employer -and his chiefs with whom he is brought in contact is obliged to dress -expensively and even elegantly. He must save on his food what he has -to spend on his clothing. - -The capitalists have degraded the intellectuals below the economic -level of the manual laborers. This is their reward for having so -magnificently prepared the way for the bourgeois revolution of the -eighteenth century. - -Jaures in his preface to the Socialist History of France says that -"the intellectual bourgeoisie, offended by a brutal and commercial -society and disenchanted with the bourgeois power, is rallying to the -support of socialism." Unfortunately nothing could be less exact. This -transformation of the intellectual faculties into merchandise, which -ought to have filled the intellectuals with wrath and indignation, -leaves them indifferent. Never would the free citizen of the ancient -republics of Athens and Rome have submitted to such degradation. The -free man who sells his work, says Cicero, lowers himself to the rank -of the slaves. Socrates and Plato were indignant against the Sophists -who required pay for their philosophic teaching, for to Socrates and -Plato thought was too noble a thing to be bought and sold like carrots -and shoes. Even the French clergy of 1789 resented as a mortal insult -the proposition to pay a salary for worship. But our intellectuals are -accustoming themselves to such degradation. - -Spurred on by the mercantile passion, they are never better satisfied -with themselves or with society than when they succeed in selling -their intellectual merchandise at a good price; they have even come -to the point of making its selling price the measure of its value. -Zola, who is one of the most distinguished representatives of literary -intellectualism, estimates the artistic value of a novel by the number -of editions sold. To sell their intellectual merchandise has become -in them such an all-absorbing principle that if one speaks to them of -socialism, before they inquire into its theories, they ask whether in -the socialistic society intellectual labor will be paid for and whether -it will be rewarded equally with manual labor. - -Imbeciles! they have eyes but they see not that it is the capitalist -bourgeoisie which establishes that degrading equality: and to increase -its wealth degrades intellectual labor to the point of paying it at a -lower rate than manual labor. - -We should have to put off the triumph of socialism not to the year -2,000 but to the end of the world if we had to wait upon the delicate, -shrinking and impressionable hesitancy of the intellectuals. The -history of the century is at hand to teach us just how much we have a -right to expect from these gentlemen. - -Since 1789 governments of the most diverse and opposed character have -succeeded each other in France; and always, without hesitation, the -intellectuals have hastened to offer their devoted services. I am not -merely speaking of those two-for-a-cent intellectuals who litter up -the newspapers, the parliaments and the economic associations; but I -mean the scientists, the university professors, the members of the -Institute; the higher they raise their heads, the lower they bow the -knee. - -Princes of science, who ought to have conversed on equal terms with -kings and emperors, have marketed their glory to buy offices and favors -from ephemeral ministers. Cuvier, one of the mightiest geniuses of the -modern era, whom the revolution took from the household of a nobleman -to make of him at twenty-five years one of the Museum professors, -Cuvier took the oath of allegiance and served with fidelity the -Republic, Napoleon, Louis XVIII, Charles X and Louis Philippe, the last -of whom created him a peer of France to reward him for his career of -servility. - -To devote one's self to all governments without distinction is not -enough. Pasteur placed his glorious name at the service of the -financiers, who placed him in the administrative council of the Credit -Foncier, side by side with Jules Simon, with dukes and counts, with -senators, deputies and ex-ministers, in order to entrap the "lambs." -When De Lesseps was equipping his colossal swindle of the Panama canal, -he enrolled the intellectuals of the Institute, of the French Academy, -of literature, of the clergy, of all the circles of higher life. - -It is not in the circle of the intellectuals, degraded by centuries -of capitalist oppression, that we must seek examples of civic courage -and moral dignity. They have not even the sense of professional -class-consciousness. At the time of the Dreyfus affair, a certain -minister discharged, as if he had been a mere prison guard, one of the -professors of chemistry in the Polytechnic school who had had the rare -courage to give public expression to his opinion. When in a factory the -employer dismisses a workman in too arbitrary a fashion, his comrades -grumble, and sometimes quit work, even though misery and hunger await -them in the street. - -All his colleagues in the Polytechnic school bowed their heads in -silence; each one crouched in self-regarding fear, and what is still -more characteristic, not a single partisan of Dreyfus in the Society -of the Rights of Man or in the ranks of the press raised a voice to -remind them of the idea of professional solidarity. The intellectuals, -who on all occasions display their transcendental ethics, have still a -long road to travel before they reach the moral plane of the working -class and of the socialist party. - -The scientists have not only sold themselves to the governments -and the financiers; they have also sold science itself to the -capitalist-bourgeoisie. When in the eighteenth century there was -need to prepare the minds of men for the revolution, by sapping the -ideologic foundations of aristocratic society, then science fulfilled -its sublime mission of freedom; it was revolutionary; it furiously -attacked Christianity and the intuitional philosophy. But when the -victorious bourgeoisie decided to base its new power on religion, it -commanded its scientists, its philosophers and its men of letters to -raise up what they had overthrown; they responded to the need with -enthusiasm. They reconstructed what they had demolished; they proved -by scientific, sentimental and romantic argument the existence of God -the father, of Jesus the son and of Mary the virgin mother. I do not -believe history offers a spectacle equal to that presented in the first -years of the nineteenth century by the philosophers, the scientists -and the literary men, who from revolutionaries and materialists -suddenly transformed themselves into reactionaries, intuitionalists and -catholics. - -This backward movement still continues; when Darwin published his -Origin of Species, which took away from God his role of creator in the -organic world, as Franklin had despoiled him of his thunderbolt, we -saw the scientists, big and little, university professors and members -of the Institute, enrolling themselves under the orders of Flourens, -who for his own part had at least his eighty years for an excuse, -that they might demolish the Darwinian theory, which was displeasing -to the government and hurtful to religious beliefs. The intellectuals -exhibited that painful spectacle in the fatherland of Lamark and of -Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, the creators of the evolution theory, which -Darwin completed and made proof against criticism. - -Today, now that the clerical anxiety is somewhat appeased, the -scientists venture to profess the evolution theory, which they never -opposed without a protest from their scientific conscience, but they -turn it against socialism so as to keep in the good graces of the -capitalists. Herbert Spencer, Haeckel and the greatest men in the -school of Darwinism demonstrate that the classification of individuals -into rich and poor, idlers and laborers, capitalists and wage-earners, -is the necessary result of the inevitable laws of nature, instead of -being the fulfillment of the will and the justice of God. Natural -selection, they say, which has differentiated the organs of the human -body, has forever fixed the ranks and the functions of the social body. -They have, through servility, even lost the logical spirit. They are -indignant against Aristotle because he, being unable to conceive of the -abolition of slavery, declared that the slave was marked off by nature; -but they fail to see that they are saying something equally monstrous -when they affirm that natural selection assigns to each one his place -in society. - -Thus it is no longer God or religion which condemn the workers to -wretchedness—it is science. Never was there an intellectual bankruptcy -more fraudulent. - -M. Brunetières, one of those intellectuals who do not feel their -degradation and who joyfully fulfill their servile task, was right when -he proclaimed the failure of science. He does not suspect how colossal -this bankruptcy is. - -Science, the great emancipator, that has tamed the powers of nature, -and might in so doing have freed man from toil to allow him to develop -freely his faculties of mind and body; science, become the slave of -capital, has done nothing but supply means for capitalists to increase -their wealth, and to intensify their exploitation of the working class. -Its most wonderful applications to industrial technique have brought to -the children, the women and the men of the working class nothing but -over-work and misery! - -The middle-class revolutionary party of 1789 cried out in horror and -indignation against the lords, who through the long summer nights -compelled their serfs to beat the ponds near their castles in order -to keep the frogs from croaking. What would they say if they saw what -we see? Improvements in lighting date from the capitalist period. At -the end of the last century Argant and Carcel invented the lamp with -a double current of air, at the beginning of this Chevreul invented -the stearic candle, then gas was discovered, then petroleum, then -the electric light, turning night into day. What benefits have these -scientific improvements in lighting brought to the workers? They have -enabled employers to impose night work upon millions of proletarians, -not in the midsummer nights and in the balmy air of the fields, but -through nights of summer and winter in the poisonous air of the -workshops and factories. The industrial applications of mechanics -and chemistry have transformed the happy and stimulating work of the -artisan into a torture which exhausts and kills the proletarian. - -When science subdued the forces of nature to the service of man, ought -she not to have given leisure to the workers that they might develop -themselves physically and intellectually; ought she not to have changed -the "vale of tears" into a dwelling place of peace and joy? I ask you, -has not science failed in her mission of emancipation? - -The obtuse capitalist himself is conscious of this failure; so he -directs his economists and his other intellectual domestics to prove to -the working class that it has never been so happy and that its lot goes -on improving. - -The economists, considering that to deserve the good graces of -the capitalists it was not enough to falsify economic facts, are -suppressing economic science, which is becoming dangerous for the -domination of capital. Ever since Adam Smith and Ricardo they go on -repeating the same errors regarding value, regarding the productivity -of the predatory and idle capitalist, compiling facts and arranging -statistics which guide the capitalists in their speculations; but they -dare not draw conclusions and build systems with the materials that -they have accumulated. When Ricardo wrote, the phenomena of modern -production were beginning their evolution, their communist tendencies -could not be perceived, one could then study them without taking sides -and could build up a science without fear of wounding the interests -of capital. But now that they have arrived at their full development -and show clearly their communal tendencies, the economists shut their -eyes that they may not see, and they wage war against the principles -established by Ricardo, which after having served as a basis for the -old bourgeois economy, have become the points of departure of the -Marxian economy. To take a whack at the socialist theories and put -themselves at the service of the financiers, like barkers and fakirs of -their bogus goods, are the intellectual functions of the economists. -Latterly the owners of silver mines have enlisted them to sing the -praises of bimetallism, while Cecil Rhodes, Barnato, Beit, Robbers & -Company called them in to boom the Transvaal gold mines. - -The intellectuals of art and literature, like the jesters of the old -feudal courts, are the entertainers of the class which pays them. To -satisfy the tastes of the capitalists and beguile their leisure—this -is their sole artistic aim. The men of letters are so well broken to -this servile duty that they do not understand the spirit of Molière, -their great ancestor, all the while that they adore the letter of his -works. Molière is the writer most written about in France; learned -men have devoted themselves to gathering up the scattered fragments -of his erratic and careless youth, to fixing the date and the hour -of the representations of his comedies; if they had unearthed an -authentic piece of excrement from him they would have set it in gold -and would kiss it devotedly, but the spirit of Molière escapes them. -You have read, as I have, many critical analyses of his dramas. Did -you ever find one of them which brought out in clear light the role of -this militant playwright, who more than a century before Beaumarchais -and before revolution, at Versailles, in the very court of the great -monarch, thrust at the nobility of the court and of the provinces, -attacked the church before which Descartes and the rest trembled, -hurled his jests at Aristotle, the unquestioned authority of La -Sorbonne, that secular church; who ridiculed the Pyrrhonism which the -neo-Kantians of our own days oppose to the materialist philosophy of -Marxian socialism, but which then was the weapon of the catholics, of -Pascal, of Huet, the bishop of Avranches, to strike and to overthrow -human reason, with its impudent desire or reaching knowledge by its -own strength. Pitiful, wretched reason, clamored these Kantians before -Kant, you can know nothing without the aid of faith! Molière is unique -in European literature, you must go back to the epoch of glorious -Athens to find his counterpart in Aristophanes. - -If the bourgeois critics timidly and unintelligently mention this side -of Molière, there is another of which their ignorance is complete. -Molière was the man of his class, the champion of the bourgeois class. -Like the socialists who say to the workers, "Break with the liberal -bourgeoisie, which deceives you when it does not slaughter you;" he -cried to the Georges Dandins and to the "bourgeois noblemen," "Avoid -the nobles like pests; they deceive you, mock you and rob you." - -The great capitalist bourgeoisie does not choose to work, either -with its hands or its brain; it chooses merely to drink, to eat, to -practice lewdness and to look dignified in its beastly and cumbersome -luxury; it does not even deign to occupy itself with politics; men like -Rothschild, De Lesseps, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Rockefeller, do not run -for office; they find it more economical to buy the deputies than the -voters, and more convenient to put their clerks into the ministries -than to take part in parliamentary struggles. The big capitalists -interest themselves only in the operations of the stock exchange, which -afford the delights of gambling; they dignify these by the pompous name -of "speculations,"—a word formerly reserved for the highest processes -of philosophical or mathematical thought. The capitalists are getting -themselves replaced in the supervision and management of the great -industrial and commercial enterprises by intellectuals, who carry -them on, and usually are well paid for doing so. These intellectuals -of industry and politics, the privileged portion of the wage class, -imagine that they are an integral part of the capitalist class, while -they are only its servants; on every occasion they take up its defense -against the working class, which finds in them its worst enemies. - -Intellectuals of this description can never be led into socialism; -their interests are too closely bound up with those of the capitalist -class for them to detach themselves and turn against it. But below -these favored few there is a swarming and famishing throng of -intellectuals whose lot grows worse in proportion to the increase of -their numbers. These intellectuals belong to socialism. They ought -to be already in our ranks. Their education ought to have given -them the necessary intelligence to deal with social problems, but it -is this very education which obstructs their hearing and keeps them -away from socialism. They think their education confers on them a -social privilege, that it will permit them to get through the world -by themselves, each making his own way in life by crowding out his -neighbor or standing on the shoulders of everyone else. They imagine -that their poverty is transitory and that they only need a stroke of -good luck to transform them into capitalists. Education, they think, -is the lucky number in the social lottery, and it will bring them -the grand prize. They do not perceive that this ticket given them -by the capitalist class is a fraud, that labor, whether manual or -intellectual, has no other chance than to earn its daily pittance, -that it has nothing to hope for but to be exploited, and that the more -capitalism goes on developing, the more do the chances of an individual -raising himself out of his class go on diminishing. - -And while they build castles in Spain, capital crushes them, as it has -crushed the small merchants and the small manufacturers, who thought -they, too, with free credit and a little luck, might become first-class -capitalists, whose names should be written in the Great Book of the -Public Debt. - -The intellectuals, in all that has to do with the understanding of -the social movement, do not rise above the intellectual level of -those little bourgeois who scoffed so fiercely at the bunglers of -1830 and who, after being ruined and merged in the proletariat, none -the less continue to detest socialism; to such a degree were their -heads perverted by the religion of property. The intellectuals, whose -brains are stuffed with all the prejudices of the bourgeois class, are -inferior to those little bourgeois of 1830 and 1848 who at least were -not afraid of gunpowder; they have not their spirit of combativeness, -they are true imbeciles,—if we restore to this word its original Latin -meaning of unsuited for war. Without resistance they endure rebuffs and -wrongs and they do not think of uniting, of organizing themselves to -defend their interests and give battle to capital on the economic field. - -The intellectual proletariat as we know it is a recent growth, it has -especially developed in the last forty years. When after the amnesty of -the condemned of the Commune, we began again the socialist propaganda, -believing that it would be easy to draw the intellectuals into the -movement we took up our dwelling in their cultured Latin quarter, -Guesde taking up his residence in the Rue de la Pitie, Vaillant in the -Rue Monge and I in the Boulevard de Port Royal. We became acquainted -with hundreds of young men, students of law, of medicines, of the -sciences, but you can count on your fingers those whom we brought into -the socialist camp. Our ideas attracted them one day, but the next day -the wind blew from another quarter and turned their heads. - -An honorable merchant of Bordeaux, a prominent member of the municipal -council, said in the time of the empire to my father, who was disturbed -over my socialism: - -"Friend Lafargue, you must let youth take its course; I was a socialist -when I studied at Paris, I was connected with the secret societies -and I took part in the movement for demanding of Louis Philippe the -pardon of Barbes." The young men of our age turn quickly, let them get -back to their homes and they develop prominent abdomens and become -reactionaries. - -We welcomed joyfully the entrance of Jaures into socialism; we thought -that the new form which he brought to our propaganda would make it -penetrate into circles that we had not been able to touch. He has -in fact made a decided impression on the university circle, and we -owe it in part to him that the nurslings of the Ecole Normale have -ideas regarding the social movement which are a little less absurd -and formless than those with which their learning and intelligence -have hitherto been contented. Lately, joining forces with the radical -politicians who had lost their working-class following, they have -invaded the socialist party. Their souls overflow with the purest -intentions; if their peaceful habits prevent them from throwing -themselves into the conflict, and if their lofty culture forbids them -to take their place in the ranks of the comrades, they nevertheless -condescend to instruct us in ethics, to polish off our ignorance, to -teach us how to think, to offer us such crumbs of science as we may be -able to digest, and to direct us; they modestly offer themselves to us -as leaders and schoolmasters. - -These intellectuals who have spent their youth in the university -that they might become experts on exercises, polishers of phrases, -philosophers or doctors, imagine one can improvise himself into a -master of the socialist theory by attending a single lecture or by the -careless reading of a single pamphlet. Naturalists who had felt the -need of painful research to learn the habits of mollusks or of the -polyps who live in a community on the coral banks, think that they know -enough to regulate human societies, and that by keeping their stand -on the first steps of the ascending ladder of animal life they can -the better discern the human ideal. The philosophers, the moralists, -the historians and the politicians have aims equally lofty; they bring -an abundant supply of ideas and a new method of action to replace the -imperfect theory and tactics which in all capitalist countries have -served to build up socialist parties strong in numbers, unity and -discipline. - -The class struggle is out of fashion, declare these professors of -socialism. Can a line of demarcation be drawn between classes? Do not -the working people have savings bank accounts of $20, $40 and $100, -bringing them 50 cents, $1.50 and $3.00 of interest yearly? Is it not -true that the directors and managers of mines, railroads and financial -houses are wage-workers, having their functions and duties in the -enterprises which they manage for the account of capitalists? The -argument is unanswerable, but by the same token there is no vegetable -kingdom nor animal kingdom because we can not separate them "with -an ax," as it were, for the reason that at their points of contact, -vegetables and animals merge into each other. There is no longer any -day or any night because the sun does not appear on the horizon at the -same moment all over the earth, and because it is day at the antipodes -while it is night here. - -The concentration of capital? A worn-out tune of 1850. The corporations -by their stocks and bonds parcel out property and distribute it among -all the citizens. How blinded we were by our sectarianism when we -thought that this new form of property, essentially capitalistic, -was enabling the financiers to plunge their thieving hands into the -smallest purses, to extract the last pieces of silver. - -The poverty of the working class! But it is diminishing and soon will -disappear through the constant increase of wages, while interest -on money is constantly diminishing; some fine day it will descend -to zero and the bourgeois will be overjoyed to offer their beloved -capital on the altar of socialism. That to-morrow or the day after -the capitalist will be forced to work, is the prediction of Mr. -Waldeck-Rousseau. And there are intellectuals whose condition grows -worse in proportion as capitalism develops, who are stultified by the -utterances of the employers to a point where they affirm that the -position of wage-workers is improving, and there are intellectuals -who assume to possess some knowledge of political economy, who affirm -that interest on money is rapidly diminishing. Could these reformers -of socialism perchance be ignorant that Adam Smith calculated at the -end of the eighteenth century that 3 per cent was the normal interest -of capital running no risk, and that the financiers of our own epoch -consider that it is still around 3 per cent that the interest rate -must fluctuate. If a few years ago this rate seemed to fall below 2½ -per cent, it has risen today above 3 per cent. Capital is merchandise, -like intellectual capacities and carrots; as such it is subject to -the fluctuations of supply and demand. It was then more offered than -demanded, whereas since the development of the industrial plant of -Russia, since the opening of China to European exploitation, etc., the -over-supply of capital has been absorbed and its price rises with its -scarcity. But the intellectuals have too many trifles to think of and -too many harmonious phrases to construct for giving any thought to -economic phenomena. They take for sterling truths all the lies of the -capitalists, and repeat with pious conviction the old litanies of the -orthodox economic church: "There are no classes, wealth is coming to be -distributed more and more equitably, the workers are growing richer and -those living on incomes are growing poorer, and the capitalist society -is the best of all possible societies; these truths shine forth like -suns and none but partisans and mystics can deny them." - -These intellectuals propose to modify the tactics as well as the -theories of the socialist party; they wish to impose upon it a new -method of action. It must no longer strive to conquer the public powers -by a great struggle, legal or revolutionary as need may be, but let -itself be conquered by every ministry of a republican coalition; it is -no longer to oppose the socialist party to all the bourgeois parties; -what is needed is to put it at the service of the liberal party; we -must no longer organize it for the class struggle, but keep it ready -for all the compromises of politicians. And to further the triumph of -the new method of action, they propose to disorganize the socialist -party, to break up its old systems and to demolish the organizations -which for twenty years have labored to give the workers a sense of -their class interests and to group them in a party of economic and -political struggle. - -But the intellectuals will lose their labors; thus far they have only -succeeded in drawing closer the ties uniting the socialists of the -different organizations, and in making themselves ridiculous. - -The intellectuals ought to have been the first of all the various -groups to revolt against capitalist society, in which they occupy -a subordinate position so little in keeping with their hopes and -their talents, but they do not even understand it; they have such a -confused idea of it that Auguste Comte, Renan, and others more or less -distinguished have cherished the dream of reviving for their benefit an -aristocracy copied after the model of the Chinese mandarin system. Such -an idea is a reflection of past ages in their heads, for nothing is -in more absolute opposition with the modern social movement than such -pretensions. The intellectuals in previous states of society formed -a world outside and above that of production, having charge only of -education, of the direction of religious worship, and of the political -administration. - -The mechanic industry of these societies combine in the same producer, -manual labor and intellectual labor; it was for example the same -cabinetmaker who designed and executed the piece of furniture, who -bought its first material and who even undertook its sale. Capitalist -production has divorced two functions which once were indissolubly -united; on the one side it puts the manual workers, who become more -and more servants of the machine, and on the other the intellectual -workers, engineers, chemists, managers, etc. But these two categories -of workers, however different and contrary they may be in their -education and habits, are welded together, to the point that a -capitalist industry can not be carried on without manual laborers any -more than without intellectual wage-workers. - -United in production, united under the yoke of capitalist exploitation, -united they should be also in revolt against the common enemy. The -intellectuals, if they understood their own real interests would come -in crowds to socialism, not through philanthropy, not through pity for -the miseries of the workers, not through affectation and snobbery, -but to save themselves, to assure the future welfare of their wives -and children, to fulfill their duty to their class. They ought to be -ashamed of being left behind in the social battle by their comrades in -the manual category. They have many things to teach them, but they have -still much to learn from them; the workingmen have a practical sense -superior to theirs, and have given proof of an instinctive intuition -of the communist tendencies of modern capitalism which is lacking to -the intellectuals, who have only been able by a conscious mental effort -to arrive at this conception. If only they had understood their own -interests, they would long since have turned against the capitalist -class the education which it has generously distributed in order -better to exploit them; they would have utilized their intellectual -capacities, which are enriching their masters, as so many improved -weapons to fight capitalism and to conquer the freedom of their class, -the wage-working class. - -Capitalist production, which has overthrown the old conditions of life -and of work, has elaborated new forms, which already can be discerned -without supernatural vision, but which to the intellectuals remain -sealed under seven seals. One of the leading lights of intellectualism, -M. Durkheim, in his book, "The Division of Labor," which made some -noise in university circles, can not conceive of society except on -the social pattern of ancient Egypt, each laborer remaining, his life -through, penned up in one single trade. However, unless one is so -unfortunate as to be affected by the hopeless near-sightedness of the -Ecole Normale, one can not help seeing that the machine is suppressing -trades, one after the other, in a way to let only one survive, that -of the machinist, and that when it has finished its revolutionary -work which the socialists will complete by revolutionizing capitalist -society, the producer of the communist society will plow and sow with -the machine today, will spin, will turn wood or polish steel to-morrow, -and will exercise in turn all the trades to the greater profit of his -health and his intelligence. - -The industrial applications of mechanics, chemistry and physics, -which, monopolized by capital, oppress the worker, will, when they -shall be common property, emancipate man from toil and give him leisure -and liberty. - -Mechanical production, which under capitalist direction can only buffet -the worker back and forth from periods of over-work to periods of -enforced idleness, will when developed and regulated by a communist -administration, require from the producer, to provide for the normal -needs of society, only a maximum day of two or three hours in the -workshop, and when this time of necessary social labor is fulfilled he -will be able to enjoy freely the physical and intellectual pleasures of -life. - -The artist then will paint, will sing, will dance, the writer will -write, the musician will compose operas, the philosopher will build -systems, the chemist will analyze substances not to gain money, to -receive a salary, but to deserve applause, to win laurel wreaths, like -the conquerors at the Olympic games, but to satisfy their artistic and -scientific passion; for one does not drink a glass of champagne or kiss -the woman he loves for the benefit of the gallery. The artist and the -scientist may then repeat the enthusiastic words of Kepler, that hero -of science: "The elector of Saxony with all his wealth can not equal -the pleasure I have felt in composing the Mysterium Cosmographicum." - -Will not the intellectuals end by hearing the voice of the socialist -calling them to the rescue, to emancipate science and art from the -capitalist yoke, to liberate thought from the slavery of commercialism? - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[31] Ever since the French Revolution the law has required the words -"Liberté. Egalité. Fraternité." to be placed over the door of every -public building in France.—Translator. - -[32] It is a well-known fact that in the American establishments of -these and similar companies each workman before receiving employment -must sign papers transferring to the corporation the title to all -inventions made by him while in its service.—Translator. - - - - -THE BANKRUPTCY OF CAPITALISM - - -The nineteenth century was the century of capitalism. Capitalism -filled that century to overflowing with its commerce, its industry, -its manners, its fashions, its literature, its art, its science, -its philosophy, its religion, its politics and its civil code, more -universal than the laws imposed by Rome upon the nations of the ancient -world. The capitalist movement, starting from England, the United -States and France, has shaken the foundations of Europe and of the -world. It has forced the old feudal monarchies of Austria and Germany -and the barbaric despotism of Russia to put themselves in line; and in -these last days it has gone into the extreme East, into Japan, where -it has overthrown the feudal system and implanted the industry and the -politics of capitalism. - -Capitalism has taken possession of our planet; its fleets bring -together the continents which oceans had separated; its railroads, -spanning mountains and deserts, furrow the earth; the electric wires, -the nervous system of the globe, bind all nations together, and their -palpitations reverberate in the great centers of population. Now for -the first time there is a contemporary history of the world. Events in -Australia, the Transvaal, China, are known in London, Paris, New York, -at the moment they are brought about, precisely as if they happened in -the outskirts of the city where the news is published. - -Civilized nations live off the products of the whole earth. Egypt, -India, Louisiana, furnish the cotton, Australia the wool, Japan the -silk, China the tea, Brazil the coffee, New Zealand and the United -States the meat and grain. The capitalist carries in his stomach and on -his back the spoils of the universe. - -The study of natural phenomena has undergone an unprecedented, an -unheard-of, development. New sciences, geology, chemistry, physics, -etc., have arisen. The industrial application of the forces of nature -and of the discoveries of science has taken on a still more startling -development; some of the geometrical discoveries of the scientists -of Alexandria, two thousand years old, have for the first time been -utilized. - -The production of machine industry can provide for all demand and more. -The mechanical application of the forces of nature has increased man's -productive forces tenfold, a hundredfold. A few hours' daily labor, -furnished by the able-bodied members of the nation, would produce -enough to satisfy the material and intellectual needs of all. - -But what has come of the colossal and wonderful development of science, -industry and commerce in the nineteenth century? Has it made humanity -stronger, healthier, happier? Has it given leisure to the producers? -Has it brought comfort and contentment to the people? - -Never has work been so prolonged, so exhausting, so injurious to man's -body and so fatal to his intelligence. Never has the industrial labor -which undermines health, shortens life and starves the intellect been -so general, been imposed on such ever-growing masses of laborers. The -men, women and children of the proletariat are bent under the iron yoke -of machine industry. Poverty is their reward when they work, starvation -when they lose their jobs. - -In former stages of society, famine appeared only when the earth -refused her harvests. In capitalist society, famine sits at the hearth -of the working class when granaries and cellars burst with the fruits -of the earth, and when the market is gorged with the products of -industry. - -All the toil, all the production, all the suffering of the working -class has but served to heighten its physical and mental destitution, -to drag it down from poverty into wretchedness. - -Capitalism, controlling the means of production and directing the -social and political life of a century of science and industry, has -become bankrupt. The capitalists have not even proved competent, like -the owners of chattel slaves, to guarantee to their toilers the work to -provide their miserable livelihood; capitalism massacred them when they -dared demand the right to work—a slave's right.[33] - -The capitalist class has also made a failure of itself. It has seized -upon the social wealth to enjoy it, and never was the ruling class more -incapable of enjoyment. The newly rich, those who have built up their -fortunes by accumulating the filchings from labor, live like strangers -in the midst of luxury and artistic treasures, with which they surround -themselves through a foolish vanity, to pay homage to their millions. - -The leading capitalists, the millionaires and billionaires, are -sad specimens of the human race, useless and hurtful. The mark of -degeneracy is upon them. Their sickly offspring are old at birth. Their -organs are sapped with diseases. Exquisite meats and wines load down -their tables, but the stomach refuses to digest them; women expert in -love perfume their couches with youth and beauty, but their senses are -be-numbed. They own palatial dwellings in enchanting sites, and they -have no eyes, no feeling for joyful nature, with its eternal youth -and change. Sated and disgusted with everything, they are followed -everywhere by ennui as by their shadows. They yawn at rising and when -they go to bed; they yawn at their fests and at their orgies. They -began yawning in their mother's womb. - -The pessimism which, in the wake of capitalist property, made its -appearance in ancient Greece six centuries before Jesus Christ, and -which has since formed the foundation of the moral and religious -philosophy of the capitalist class, became the leading characteristic -of the philosophy of the second half of the nineteenth century. The -pessimism of Theognis sprang from the uncertainties and vicissitudes of -life in the Greek cities, torn by the perpetual wars between rich and -poor; the pessimism of the capitalist is the bitter fruit of satiety, -ennui and the impoverishment of the blood. - -The capitalist class is falling into its second childhood; its -decreptitude appears in its literature, now returning to its -starting point. Romantic literature, the literary form proper to the -capitalist class, which started out with the romantic Christianity -of Chateaubriand, is returning to the same point, after passing -through the historical novel and the character novel. (Witness in this -country the immense sale of "Ben Hur" and its imitators.—Translator.) -Capitalism, which in its virile and combative youth in the eighteenth -century had wished to emancipate itself from Christianity, resigns -itself in its old age to practices of the grossest superstition. - -The capitalist class, bankrupt, old, useless and hurtful, has finished -its historic mission; it persists as ruling class only through its -acquired momentum. The proletariat of the twentieth century will -execute the decree of history; will drive it from its position of -social control. Then the stupendous work in science and industry -accomplished by civilized humanity, at the price of such toil and -suffering, will engender peace and happiness; then will this vale of -tears be transformed into an earthly paradise. - - -FOOTNOTE: - -[33] I allude to the Days of June, 1848. The Insurgents demanded the -"Right to Work." - - - - -THE WOMAN QUESTION - - -The bourgeois has thought and still thinks that woman ought to -remain at home and devote her activity to supervising and directing -the housekeeping, caring for her husband, and manufacturing and -nourishing children. Even Xenophon, at the time when the bourgeoisie -was newly born and was taking its shape in ancient society, traced -the main outlines of this ideal of woman. But if through the course -of centuries, this ideal may have appeared reasonable, because it -corresponded to economic conditions which prevailed, it is no longer -anything more than an ideological survival, since these conditions have -ceased to exist. - -The domestication of woman presupposes that she fulfills in the -household certain numerous functions which absorb all her energy; now, -the most important and the most exacting of these domestic labors—the -spinning of wool and linen, the cutting and making up of clothing, -laundry work, baking, etc.,—are carried on by capitalistic industry. -It furthermore presupposes that man by his contribution to the family -capital and his earnings provides for the material needs of the -family; now, among the comfortable bourgeoisie, marriage is as much an -association of capitals[34] as a union of persons and often the capital -contributed by the wife exceeds that of the husband, and in the small -bourgeoisie the gains of the father of the family have fallen so low -that the children,—girls as well as boys,—are compelled to earn their -living in business, railroad offices, banks, teaching, civil service -positions, etc., while it often happens that the young wife continues -to work outside in order to help out the resources of the housekeeping, -when the earnings of the husband do not suffice to cover the expenses. - -The daughters and wives of the small bourgeoisie, as well as those -of the working class, thus enter into competition with their father, -brothers and husband. This economic antagonism, which the bourgeoisie -had prevented from developing by confining the wife to the family -dwelling, is becoming general and is intensified in proportion as -capitalistic production develops; it invades the fields of the liberal -professions—medicine, law, literature, journalism, the sciences, -etc.,—where man had reserved for himself a monopoly, which he imagined -was to be eternal. The laborers, as is always the case, have been the -first to draw the logical consequences of the participation of woman -in social production; they have replaced the ideal of the artisan,—the -wife who is nothing but a housekeeper,—by a new ideal,—woman as a -companion in their economic and political struggles for the raising of -wages and the emancipation of labor. - -The bourgeois has not yet succeeded in understanding that his ideal -is already long since out of date and that it must be remodeled -to correspond to the new conditions of the social environment; -nevertheless since the first half of the nineteenth century the ladies -of the bourgeoisie have begun to protest against their inferior -position in the family, so much the more intolerable in that their -dowry placed them on a footing of equality with the husband; they -rebelled against the domestic slavery and the parsimonious life to -which they were condemned, as well as the deprivation of intellectual -and material enjoyments which was imposed upon them; the bolder ones -went so far as to demand free love and to ally themselves with the -utopian sects which preached the emancipation of woman.[35] The -philosophers and the moralists had the simplicity to believe that they -would stop the woman movement by opposing to it the sacred interest -of the family, which they declared could not survive without the -subjection of woman to the labors of the household, the sewing on -of shirt buttons, the mending of hose, etc., her duty was to devote -herself to these obscure and thankless labors, in order that man -might freely unfold and display his brilliant and superior faculties. -These same philosophers, who lectured the rebellious ladies on the -cult of the family, sang the praises of capitalist industry, which, -by forcing the wife away from the domestic hearth and her child's -cradle to condemn her to the forced labor of the factory, destroys the -working-class family. - -The bourgeois ladies laughed at the sermons, equally imbecile and -ethical, of these solemn philosophers; they kept on their way and -attained the end they set for themselves; like the patrician lady of -ancient Rome and the countess of the eighteenth century, they threw -off the cares of housekeeping and of the nursing of the child upon -mercenaries, that they might devote themselves wholly to the toilet, -that they might be the most luxuriously arrayed dolls in the capitalist -world and in order to make business move. The daughters and wives of -American plutocracy have attained the extreme limits of this sort of -emancipation; they are transforming their fathers and husbands into -accumulators of millions, which they squander madly. Since the toilet -does not exhaust the entire activity of the ladies of capitalism, they -find amusement in breaking the marriage contract in order to assert -their independence and improve the race. The Communist Manifesto -remarks that the innumerable divorce suits in which adultery is alleged -are indisputable proofs of the respect inspired in the bourgeois of -both sexes by the sacred bonds of marriage which the "licentious -socialists" talk of loosening. - -When the daughters and wives of the small bourgeoisie, obliged to -earn their living and to increase the resources of the family, began -to invade the stores, the offices, the civil service and the liberal -professions, the bourgeois were seized with anxiety for their means -of existence already so reduced; feminine competition would reduce -them still further. The intellectuals who took up the defense of the -males, thought it prudent not to start afresh with the ethical sermons -which had miscarried so piteously in the case of the wealthy bourgeois -ladies;—they appealed to science; they demonstrated by reasons which -were irrefutable and loftily scientific that woman cannot emerge from -the occupations of housekeeping without violating the laws of nature -and history. They proved to their complete satisfaction that woman -is an inferior being, incapable of receiving a higher intellectual -education and of furnishing the combination of attention, energy and -agility demanded by the professions in which she was entering into -competition with man. Her brain, less voluminous, less heavy and less -complex than that of man, is a "child's brain." Her less developed -muscles have not the strength for attack and for resistance; the -bones of her forearm, her pelvis, her femur, and in fact all her -osseous, muscular and nervous system do not permit her to undertake -more than the routine of the household. Nature designed her in all her -organization to be the servant of man, just as the odious god of the -Jews and Christians marked out the race of Ham for slavery. - -History contributed its startling confirmation of these ultra -scientific truths; the philosophers and the historians affirmed that -always and everywhere the wife, subordinate to the man, had been -shut up in the house, in the woman's apartments; if such had been her -lot in the past, such was to be her destiny in the future, was the -positive declaration of Auguste Comte, the profoundest of bourgeois -philosophers. Lombroso, the illustrious comedian, went him one better: -he seriously declared that social statistics proclaimed the inferiority -of woman, since the number of female criminals is below that of male -criminals; while buried in these figures, he might have added that the -statistics of insanity demonstrate the same inferiority. Thus we see -that ethics, anatomy, physiology, social statistics and history riveted -forever upon woman the chains of domestic servitude. - - -II. - -Bachofen, Morgan and a crowd of anthropologists have revised the -opinion of the historians and philosophers upon the role played by -woman in the past. They have shown that everywhere the paternal -family, which subordinated woman to man, had been preceded by the -maternal family, which gave the first place to woman. The Greek -language contains the record of her two conditions: while the Spartans, -among whom matriarchal customs persisted, still continued to call -her _despoina_, the mistress of the house, the sovereign, the other -Greeks gave to the wife the name _damar_, the subdued, the vanquished. -The Odyssey, in characterizing Nausicaa, says that she is _parthenos -admes_, the girl not subdued, that is to say, without a husband, -without a master. The modern expression "yoke of marriage" preserves -the ancient idea. - -Hesiod, in opposition to Homer, who tells only of patriarchal customs, -preserves precious recollections of the matriarchal family; he tells -us that when it existed man, even if he were a hundred years old, -lived with his prudent mother,—he was fed in her house like a great -child. (Works and Days, V. 129-130.) It was not the woman who then had -the "child's brain", but the man; everything seems in fact to prove -that her intelligence was the first to develop. This intellectual -superiority caused her to be deified before man in the primitive -religions of Egypt, the Indies, Asia and Greece, and caused the first -inventions of the arts and trades, with the exception of metal working, -to be attributed to goddesses and not to gods. The Muses, originally -three in number, were in Greece, even in preference to Apollo, the -goddesses of poetry, music and the dance. Isis, "mother of corn ears -and lady of bread," and Demeter, lawgiver, had taught the Egyptians and -Greeks the tillage of barley and wheat and made them renounce their -anthropophagic repasts. The woman appeared to the pre-patriarchal man, -like the Germans whom Tacitus knew, as having within herself something -holy and providential, _aliquid sanctum et providum_ (Germania VIII). -Her prudence and foresight gave her this divine character. Must we -conclude that this intellectual superiority, which manifested itself -when the economic environment is rudimentary, is a natural phenomenon? - -But, in any case, it may be asserted that the vitality of woman is -superior to that of man. The life insurance companies of the United -States, England and Holland, which do not base their calculation upon -scientific fairy tales of the intellectuals but upon mortality tables, -pay woman an annuity below that which they give man, because her -probabilities of death are less. Here for example is the annuity paid -for a capital of $1,000 by American and Dutch companies:[36] - - New York. Holland. - Age. Men. Women. Men. Women. - 50 years $ 76.47 $ 69.57 $ 76.80 $ 73.60 - 60 years 97.24 88.03 98.50 93.50 - 70 years 134.31 122.48 142.00 136.70 - 80 years 183.95 168.00 222.70 211.70 - -It may be objected that man, leading a more active life, is more -subject to accidents, diseases, and other causes of death, and that -consequently the prolonged life of woman does not prove the higher -vitality of her organism, but the advantages of a life less subject to -accident. - -The answer to this objection is found in the statistics of the various -nations. There is in no country a perfect equilibrium between the -number of women and that of men; for 1,000 men there are in Belgium -1,005 women, in France 1,014, in England 1,062, in Scotland 1,071 and -in Norway 1,091. Nevertheless in these countries with the feminine -preponderance there is an excess of masculine births: of the whole -of Western Europe for every 1000 girls there are born from 1,040 to -1,060 boys. If, in spite of this excess of masculine births, more -girls survive, it is because the greater mortality of the boys shows -the balance in favor of the girls; and this higher mortality cannot -be explained by the life of man being more subject to accident, since -it is observed at an early age, notably during the first two years. -All the diseases of childhood, with the exception of diphtheria and -whooping cough, are to a perceptible extent more fatal among boys than -among girls; from zero to five years the male sex is particularly -frail; at all ages, except between ten and fifteen years, the male -mortality is in excess of the female. - -The superior vitality of the female sex is also noticeable in -the greater ease with which it builds up its organism. M. Iribe, -superintendent of the sanitarium of Hendaye, to which are sent Parisian -children from three to fourteen years of age, who are afflicted with -anaemia, incipient tuberculosis, scrofula and rickets, reports that at -the time of their dismissal, at the end of six months, the progress in -weight, girth and chest development is incomparably higher in the girls -than in the boys, the increase in weight is double and often more. - -The same statement has been made by other superintendents of -sanitariums. (Bulletin Medical, No. 81, 1903.) - -Woman undeniably possesses a greater vitality than man. M. Gustav -Loisel has made inquiry "as to whether this difference existed in -embryonic life, and what may be its cause?" He has communicated the -results of his inquiries to the Biological Society of Paris, which -published them in its Bulletin of November 6, 1903. - -M. Loisel availed himself of 792 weights and measurements made upon 72 -foetuses at the Maternity Hospital of Paris by C. E. Legou;[37] from -the following weights of the foetuses at three, four, five and six -months he obtains the following figures: - - Males. Females. Differences. - Grammes. Grammes. - Total weight 1908.18 1708.11 200.07 in favor of males - Kidneys 16.87 17.19 2.67 in favor of males - Superrenal glands 5.15 6.43 0.32 in favor of females - Liver 88.35 96.31 1.28 in favor of females - Spleen 2.59 2.38 7.90 in favor of females - Thymus 3.89 3.97 0.21 in favor of males - Heart 10.97 12.60 0.08 in favor of females - Lungs 47.29 44.62 1.63 in favor of females - Brain 236.94 235.17 1.17 in favor of males - -"These figures thus show us," says M. Loisel, "a preponderance already -existing in favor of the females as regards the kidneys, the superrenal -glands, the liver, the thymus and the heart; this predominance is the -more noticeable since the total weight of the body is larger in the -male than in the female." - -If now we take the relation between the total weight and the weight of -the organs which are heaviest in the male, we find that the proportion -is still in favor of the female: - - -PROPORTION OF TOTAL WEIGHT. - - Males. Females. - Spleen 1 to 736 1 to 718 - Lungs 1 to 40 1 to 38 - Brain 1 to 8 1 to 7 - -The organs here examined, brain included, are thus absolutely or -relatively heavier in the female foetus than in the male foetus. - -M. Loisel has also examined into the proportion of the weights of -the different organs to the total weight according to the age of the -foetus. He has prepared a table, from which I take only the figures -concerning the brain: - - Proportion of - AGE TOTAL WEIGHT weight of brain - to total weight. - Males Females Males Females - Grammes Grammes - 3 Months 58.33 65.96 1/6.5 1/7 - 4 Months 167.25 182.58 1/7.3 1/6.6 - 5 Months 336.33 295.00 1/7.6 1/7.5 - 6 Months 732.58 636.00 1/8.3 1/7.3 - -The weight of the male foetus, which is below that of the female -foetus, at three months, when the sex has just been determined, grows -more rapidly and the proportion between the weight is always to the -advantage of the females from the fourth month on. - -"To sum up," says M. Loisel, "all the organs are heavier in the female -foetus than in the male foetus up to about the fourth month. The -predominance then passes over to the male, but only for the lungs -and the organs for sex-union, thus the cardiac muscle always remains -heavier in the female. The organs which are of real service to the -individual during the embryonic life always remain more developed in -the female sex. - -If now we consider that the differences in favor of the females are -especially in the liver, the heart, the superrenal glands and the -kidneys, we shall come to the conclusion that the greater vitality of -the female organisms corresponds to their being better nourished and -better purified."[38] - - -III. - -The superior organization possessed by woman at birth, assuring her -throughout her life a much greater vitality, is probably demanded -by the part she plays in the production of the species, a part -altogether more prolonged and exhausting than that of the man who, -when fertilization is accomplished, has no more to do, while then -the travail of woman begins, to continue during long months, through -pregnancy and after birth. The women of savage tribes suckle their -children for two years and more. It sometimes happens that the male -pays dear for his inutility; after union, the bees kill the males, -and the male spider must hastily take himself off that he may not be -devoured by the larger and stronger female. Among the Sakawas, at -the annual feast of Mylitta Anaitis, they sacrificed at Babylon the -handsome slave who had just united with the priestess who incarnated -the Assyrian goddess. This bloody religious ceremonial must have been a -reproduction of an Amazonian custom. - -The life of savagery and barbarism permits woman to develop her -superiority from birth; each sex there has its special function; it -is the division of labor in embryo. The man, whose muscular system is -more developed, "fights, hunts, fishes and sits down," according to the -Australian native, he regards all the rest as under the jurisdiction -of woman, whose function puts brain activity into play at an earlier -epoch. She has charge of the communal house, which often shelters a -clan of more than one hundred individuals; she prepares clothing from -skins and other raw materials; she charges herself with the cultivation -of the garden, the rearing of domestic animals and the manufacture -of household utensils; she preserves, economizes, cooks, distributes -the provisions, vegetable and animal, which have been gathered during -the course of the year; and like the Valkyries of the Scandinavians -and the Keres of the pre-Homeric Greeks, she accompanies the warrior -on the field battle, aids in the fray, raises him up if he is wounded -and cares for him; her assistance is so appreciated that, according to -Tacitus, the barbarians who under the leadership of Civilis revolted -against Vespasian, were seized with pity for the Roman soldiers because -their wives did not accompany them when they marched to combat. -Plato likewise who, like the chosen ones initiated in the Eleusinian -Mysteries, was more informed regarding ancient customs than is -supposed, makes the women to be present in the battles of the warriors -of his Republic. - -These multiple and diverse functions, which obliged woman to reflect, -to calculate, to think of the morrow and to look ahead at long range, -must necessarily have developed her intellectual faculties; thus the -craniologists say that only a slight difference exists between the -cranial capacity of the two sexes in the negroes, the Australians, -and the red skins, while they find that it goes on increasing among -civilized people. Woman is for the careless and improvident savage, a -providence; she is the prudent and prescient being who presides over -his destinies from birth to death. Man, making his religions with -the events and the intellectual acquisitions of his daily life, was -thus obliged to begin by deifying woman. The pre-Homeric Greeks and -Romans had placed their destinies under the control of goddesses, -the Fates—Moirai, Parcae—whose name signifies in the Latin language -"sparing," "economic," and in the Greek the part which falls to each -one in the distribution of food or of booty. - -If we relieve the rich and poetical Greek mythology of the symbolical, -allegorical and mystical lucubrations with which the philosophers -and the poets of the classical epoch and the Alexandrine period have -overloaded and complicated it, and which the German mythologists, -servilely copied by those of France and England, have carried on to -their own more perfect confusion, it becomes an inestimable storehouse -of prehistoric customs which preserves the memory of the manners -which travelers and anthropologists now observe living again among -the savages and barbarous nations of Africa and the New World. The -mythological legend furnishes us with information of the relative value -of feminine and masculine intelligence among the Greeks, before they -had entered upon the patriarchal period. - -Jupiter, the "father of the gods", as Homer, Hesiod and Aeschylos -call him, after having driven the feminine divinities from Olympus, -enthroned there the patriarchate, which for some generations had -been established upon earth; the religious heaven always reflects -terrestrial manners as the moon reflects the light of the sun. But -Jupiter, who like every barbarian, knew how to use his fists (Iliad -XV. 228), who boasted that he was the strongest of the gods, and who -to dominate the others kept next his throne two servants, Force and -Violence, always ready to obey his orders, was inadequately prepared by -his intellectual qualities to replace woman in the government of the -Olympian family; in order to supply the capacities which were lacking -to him, Hesiod tells us that he married Metis, "the wisest among -mortals and gods." The savage and the barbarian, that he may take into -himself the courage of a fallen enemy, devours his throbbing heart; -Jupiter carried off Metis to assimilate her cunning, her prudence -and her wisdom, for her name in the Greek language has these diverse -meanings; these qualities were considered as belonging to woman. - -But the process of assimilation took some time, if we may judge from -the rascally farce played upon him by Prometheus. The latter killed -and butchered an enormous ox, in one pile he placed the flesh which -he covered with the skin upon which he deposited the entrails; in -another pile he put the bare bones which he adroitly concealed under -heaps of fat. "You have divided the parts very badly," said the father -of gods and men. "Most worthy Jupiter, greatest of living gods, -take the part that your wisdom counsels you to choose," replied the -astute Prometheus. The ruler of the heavens, listening only to his -gluttony, laid both hands upon the heap of fat amid the laughter of -the Olympians; his wrath was terrible when he saw the bare bones. -(Theogony 435 _et seq._) Such a farce would hardly have been played in -the Olympian heaven had it not been that on the earth similar tests had -been required to prove to the Father that his intellectual faculties -did not justify him in taking the place of the Mother in the leadership -of the family and the management of its property. - -The higher position in the family and society, which man conquered -by brute force, while it compelled him to a mental activity to which -he was little accustomed, at the same time put at his disposal -opportunities for reflection and development which constantly -increased. Woman, "subdued," as the Greek expression has it, shut up in -the narrow circle of the family, the leadership of which had been taken -from her, and having little or no contact with the outside world, saw -on the contrary a great reduction of the means of development which -she had enjoyed, and to complete her subjection she was forbidden the -intellectual culture which was given to man. If in spite of these -fetters and these disadvantages, the disastrous effects of which cannot -be exaggerated, the brain of woman continued to evolve, it was because -woman's intelligence profited through the progress realized by the -masculine brain; for one sex transmits to the other the qualities which -it has acquired; thus pullets of certain varieties inherit the spurs -which are highly developed among the cocks, while in other varieties -they transmit to the males their exaggerated crests. "It is fortunate," -says Darwin upon this point, "that the equal transmission of the -characteristics of both sexes has been a general rule in the whole -series of mammals, otherwise, it is probable that man would have become -as superior to woman in intellectual power as the peacock is to the -female in ornamental plumage." (Descent of Man—Sexual Selection, VIII -and XIX.) - -But defects as well as valuable qualities are transmitted from one sex -to the other: if woman has profited by the brain-growth of man, he -has in his turn been retarded in his development by the sluggishness -in the development of woman's brain, produced by the reduction to the -smallest minimum of intellectual activity to which he has condemned -her. The breeders who seek the choicest results are as careful to -have irreproachable females as males; amateur cockfighters attach as -much importance to the selection of the pullets as to the cocks, they -produce only from those which are armed with spurs and which have the -fighting spirit. It may be said that humanity, since it emerged from -communism of the clan to live under the system of private property, has -been developed by the efforts of one sex alone and that its evolution -has been retarded through the obstacles interposed by the other sex. -Man by systematically depriving woman of the means of development, -material and intellectual, has made of her a force retarding human -progress. - -In fact if we study and compare the different periods of savagery -and barbarism, we cannot but observe the continuous and remarkable -progress in human mind, because women and men, exercising freely their -physical and mental faculties, contribute equally to the evolution of -the species; this has been retarded ever since humanity entered into -the period of civilization and private property, because then woman, -constrained and confined in her development, cannot contribute to -it in so effective a way. The senile stagnation in which China has -vegetated for more than a thousand years can only be attributed to -the degradation of woman, which has gone to the point of the cruel -mutilation of her feet that she may be imprisoned the more closely -in the woman's quarters. Europe also suffers from the degradation of -woman, since in spite of the extraordinary material progress of these -last two thousand years and the increasing and no less extraordinary -accumulation of human knowledge, it cannot be maintained that the -brain of the civilized modern exceeds in power and capacity that of -the Greeks of the classic epoch, which extends from the seventh to -the fourth century before the Christian era. It is certain that a -Victor Hugo, a Zola, or any university graduate or doctor has stored -in his brain an abundance of positive and diversified conceptions not -possessed by Aeschylus, Anaxagoras, Protagoras and Aristotle, but that -does not prove that his imagination and his intelligence, or that of -his contemporaries is more rich, more varied and more vast than that of -the generations of Ionia and Attica, who were the artificers of that -incomparable budding and blossoming of science, philosophy, literature -and art at which history marvels and who reveled in that subtle and -paradoxical play of sophistical philosophy, the like of which has not -again been seen. The sophists—Photagoras, Gorgias, Socrates, Plato, -etc., stated, discussed and solved the problems of the spiritualistic -philosophy and many others besides: yet the Hellenes of Asia Minor and -of Greece had emerged from barbarism only a few centuries before. Many -reasons may be cited to explain this arrest in human development, but -the principal one is the subjection of woman. - - -IV. - -Capitalist production, which takes charge of most of the labors to -which woman devoted herself in the gentile house, has levied into its -army of wage-workers in factory, shop, office and schoolroom, the -wives and daughters of the working class and of the small bourgeoisie, -in order to procure cheap labor. Its pressing need of intellectual -capacities has set aside the venerable and venerated axiom of masculine -ethics: "to read, write and count ought to be all of a woman's -knowledge;" it has required that girls like boys be instructed in the -rudiments of the sciences. The first step once taken, they could not -be forbidden to enter the universities. They proved that the feminine -brain, which the intellectuals had declared a "child's brain," was as -capable as the masculine brain of receiving all scientific instruction. -The abstract sciences (mathematics, geometry, mechanics, etc.), the -first whose study had been accessible to woman, were also the first in -which they could give the measure of their intellectual capacities; -they are now attacking the experimental sciences (physiology, physics, -chemistry, applied mechanics, etc.), in America and Europe there arises -a throng of women who are marching on a level with men in spite of the -inferiority of the conditions of development in which they have lived -since their first infancy. - -As Capitalism has not snatched woman from the domestic hearth and -launched her into social production to emancipate her, but to exploit -her more ferociously than man, so it has been careful not to overthrow -the economic, legal, political and moral barriers which had been raised -to seclude her in the marital dwelling. Woman, exploited by capital, -endures the miseries of the free laborer and bears in addition her -chains of the past. Her economic misery is aggravated; instead of being -supported by her father or husband, to whose rule she still submits, -she is obliged to earn her living; and under the pretext that she has -fewer necessities than man, her labor is paid less; and when her -daily toil in the shop, the office or school is ended, her labor in -the household begins. Motherhood, the sacred, the highest of social -functions, becomes in capitalistic society a cause of horrible misery, -economic and physiologic. The social and economic condition of woman is -a danger for the reproduction of the species. - -But this crushing and pitiful condition announces the end of her -servitude, which begins with the establishment of private property and -which can end only with its abolition. Civilized humanity, oppressed -by the mechanical mode of production, turns its face toward a society, -based on common property, in which woman, delivered from the economic, -legal and moral chains which bind her, may develop freely her physical -and intellectual faculties, as in the time of the communism of the -savages. - -The savages, to forbid primitive promiscuity and successfully restrain -the circle of sexual relations, found no other means than to separate -the sexes; there are reasons for believing that the women took the -initiative in this separation, which the specialization of their -functions consolidated and emphasized. This was manifested socially by -religious ceremonials and secret languages peculiar to each set and -even by struggles;[39] and after having taken the character of violent -antagonism, it ended in the brutal subjection of woman, which still -survives although it is progressively attenuated in proportion as the -competition of the two sexes becomes more general and intense upon -the economic field. But the modern antagonism will not end with the -victory of one sex over the other, for it is one of the phenomena of -the struggle of labor against capital, which will find its solution in -the emancipation of the working class in which women as well as men are -incorporated. - -The technique of production which tends to suppress the specialization -of trades and functions and to replace muscular effort by attention -and intellectual skill and which, the more it is perfected, mingles -and confounds man and woman the more in social labor, will prevent the -return of the conditions which in savage and barbarous nations had -maintained the separation of the sexes. Common property will put an end -to the economic antagonism of specialization. - -But if it is possible to catch a glimpse of the end of female servitude -and of the antagonism of the sexes and to conceive for the human -species an era of incomparable bodily and mental progress, brought -about by women and men of a high development in muscle and brain, it is -impossible to foresee the sexual relations of free and equal women and -men who will not be united nor separated by sordid material interests -and by the gross ethics engendered by such interests. But if we may -judge by the present and the past, men, in whom the genetic passion -is more violent and more continuous than in women—the same phenomenon -is observed in the males and females of the whole animal series—will -be obliged to exhibit their physical and intellectual qualities to -win their sweethearts. Sexual selection, which, as Darwin has shown, -fulfilled an important role in the development of the animal species -and which, with rare exceptions, has ceased to play this part in the -Indo-European races for about three thousand years, will again become -one of the most active factors in the perfecting of the human race. - -Motherhood and love will permit women to regain the higher position -which she occupied in primitive societies, the memory of which has been -preserved by the legends and myths of the ancient religions. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[34] The dowry has played an important role in the history of woman: -at the beginning of the patriarchal period the husband buys her from -her father, who has to refund her purchase price if for any cause -whatever he repudiates her and sends her back to her family; later this -purchase price is returned to him and constitutes her dowry, which -her relatives are accustomed to double. From the moment when the wife -enters into her husband's house with a dowry, she ceases to be a slave -whom he may dismiss, sell and kill. The dowry, which in Rome and Athens -became a legal charge upon the property of the husband, was, in case -of her repudiation or divorce, to be restored to her in preference to -any creditor. "No pleasure is derived from the riches which a woman -brings into the household," says a fragment of Euripides, "they only -serve to render divorce difficult." The comic authors ridiculed the -husbands, who in fear of a suit over the dowry, fell into dependence -upon the wife. A character in Plautus says to a husband who is talking -against his wife, "You accepted the money of her dowry, you sold your -authority—imperium." The wealthy Roman matrons carried their insolence -to such a point that they did not trust the management of their dowry -to their husbands, they gave it over to the stewards, who sometimes -fulfilled with them another service, as the evil-speaking Martial -states. - -Adultery on the part of the wife involved a legal divorce and the -restitution of the dowry, but rather than come to this painful -extremity, the husbands preferred to close their eyes to the foibles -of their wives; at Rome and at Athens the law had to strike at them -in order to recall them to their marital dignity; in China a certain -number of bamboo strokes were applied to the soles of their feet. The -penalties not being sufficient to encourage the husbands to repudiate -their adulterous wives, the law, in order to prop up masculine virtue, -permitted those who denounced the infidelity of the wife to retain a -part of the dowry; there were then men who married only in prospect -of the adultery of the wife. The Roman women evaded the law by having -themselves enrolled in the censor's book on the list of prostitutes, -to whom it did not apply. The number of matrons inscribed became so -considerable that the Senate, under Tiberius passed a decree forbidding -"women who had a patrician for a grandfather, husband or father to -traffic in their bodies." (Tacitus, Annals II., 85.) Adultery on the -part of the wife in the patrician society of antiquity, as well as -in the aristocratic society of the eighteenth century, had become so -general that it had so to speak entered into the social customs. It was -looked upon lightly as a corrective and accompaniment of marriage. - -[35] The Saint Simon manifesto of 1830 announced that the religion of -Saint Simon had come "to put an end to that shameful traffic, that -legal prostitution, which under the name of marriage often blesses -the monstrous union of self-surrender and egoism, of light and of -ignorance, of youth and decrepitude." - -[36] The French companies make no differences between the sexes because -they pay very small annuities. La Génerale, the most important one in -France, gives for $1,000 at the age of 50 years an annuity of $64.20; -at 60 years $80.80; at 70 years $118.50; at 80 years $134.70. Thus -it realizes immense profits: its shares which in 1819 were worth 750 -francs each were quoted last January at 31,300 francs. - -[37] E. Legou. "Some Considerations on the Development of the Foetus." -Paris. 1903. The weights and measurements of M. Legou were made for -official use. - -[38] The latest observations upon ants and bees tend to prove that the -fertilized eggs would give birth to females and to workers; and the -nonfertilized to males, which consequently would be born from eggs that -are less complex. - -[39] A. W. Howit, who observed among the Australians a species of -sexual totemism, says that it often happens that the women and men of -one and the same clan fight, when the animal that serves as the totem -for one sex is killed by the other sex. - - - - -THE SOCIALIST IDEAL - - -Our comrades in Germany were discussing some time since the question -whether Socialism is a science. Socialism is not and cannot be a -science for the simple reason that it is a political party and must -disappear when its work is accomplished after the abolition of the -classes which gave birth to it; but the end which it pursues is -scientific. - -Guizot, who had a vague idea of the theory of the class -struggle—himself a product of the Revolution, which was a dramatic -struggle between classes—said with good reason that a class cannot -emancipate itself until it possesses the qualities requisite for taking -the leadership of society; now one of these qualities is to have a -more or less definite conception of the social order which it proposes -to substitute for that which is oppressing it. This conception cannot -but be a social ideal, or, to employ a scientific word, a social -hypothesis; but an hypothesis, as well in the natural sciences as in -social science, may be utopian or scientific. - -Socialism, because it is a political party of the oppressed class, -has therefore an ideal. It groups and organizes the efforts of the -individuals who wish to build on the ruins of capitalist society, based -upon individual property, an ideal or hypothetical society based upon -common property in the means of production. - -Only through the class struggle can modern socialism realize its -social ideal, which possesses the qualities demanded of any hypothesis -that claims a scientific character. The fact of choosing a scientific -goal, and of trying to reach it only through the class struggle, -distinguishes it from the Socialism of 1848, which was pursuing through -the reconciliation of classes a social ideal which could not but be -utopian considering the historic moment in which it was conceived. -Socialism has thus evolved from Utopia into science. Engels has traced -the main lines of this evolution in his memorable pamphlet, "Socialism, -Utopian and Scientific." It is the same with all sciences, which begin -with Utopia to arrive at positive knowledge; this course is imposed by -the very nature of the human mind. - -Man progresses in social life as in intellectual life, only by starting -from the known and traveling toward the unknown, and that unknown must -be represented by the imagination; that imaginary conception of the -unknown, which cannot but be hypothetical, is one of the most powerful -incentives to action, it is the very condition of every forward -step. It is natural that men like Bernstein in Germany and Jaurès in -France should seek to domesticate Socialism and to put it in tow of -liberalism, accusing it of hypnotising its soldiers with an ideal of -the year 3000, which makes them live in the expectation of a Messianic -"catastrophe" and reject the immediate advantages of an understanding -and co-operation with bourgeois parties, and which blinds them to -their shocking errors regarding the concentration of wealth, the -disappearance of small industry and the middle class, the increase of -class antagonisms, the spreading and intensification of the misery of -the working class, etc. These errors may have been plausible hypotheses -before 1848, but since then events have shown their falsity. This -unfortunate ideal prevents them from descending from the revolutionary -heights to accept the responsibilities of power and of setting aside -the cause of labor to devote themselves entirely tongue and pen, to -the rehabilitation of a millionaire leader; it obliges them to oppose -all exterior policies and acts, to vote not a cent nor a soldier for -colonial expeditions, which carry labor, Christianity, syphilis and the -alcoholism of civilization to the barbaric tribes. The neo-methodists -of the ancient and outworn gospel of the brotherhood of classes advise -the socialists to suppress their ideal, or, since it unfortunately -captivates the masses of the people, to speak of it without caring -for it, as Jaurès does, that they may consecrate themselves to -practical necessities, to the vast plans of agricultural and industrial -co-operation, to popular universities, etc. - -The dilettantes of politics, these practical groundlings of -opportunism, nevertheless hold themselves up for transcendent idealists -and march with their eyes fixed upon the stars, because they substitute -for ideas a brilliant orchestra of sonorous words and eternal -principles. - -These bourgeois idealists edge their way in everywhere; after the -Revolution of 1789 they rebuked the scientists for their hypotheses -and their theories; according to them science should have stopped with -the study of facts in themselves without dreaming of uniting them into -a general system. "What is the use of cutting stones without putting -up a building," replied Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, the genial disciple -of Lamarck, who lived to see the extinction of his theory on the -continuity of species, which, only thirty years after his death, was -to take on a new birth with Darwin. They are still reproaching the -physiologists for wasting their time in elaborating hypotheses which -last on an average only three years and which cannot explain what -takes place in a muscle which contracts and in a brain which thinks. -They grumble against the hypotheses of the physicists, who do not know -the real nature of elasticity, of electrical conductivity, or even -what happens when a particle of sugar is dissolved. They would like -to prohibit scientists from any speculation because it is disastrous -and may lead into error. But the latter protest and declare that -imagination is one of the first and most indispensable faculties of -the scientist, and that the hypotheses to which they give birth, even -though they be erroneous and able to survive only three years, are -nevertheless the necessary condition of all scientific progress. - -If the communist ideal were an hypothesis undemonstrable and false it -would still be a propelling force of social progress, but such is not -the case. - -The hypothesis in science, as in the social field, is the more -undemonstrable and susceptible of error in proportion as the data -contributing to its elaboration are less numerous and more uncertain. -Greek science, which had to furnish a conception of the world when the -data regarding the phenomena of nature were of the most rudimentary, -was obliged to resort to hypotheses which for boldness and intuitive -accuracy are marvels of history and of thought; after having admitted, -according to the vulgar opinion, that the earth was flat, and that -the temple of Delphi was situated at its center, they put forth the -hypothesis of its spherical form, then undemonstrable. - -Socialism, which dates from the first years of the nineteenth century, -started, like Greek science, from hypotheses the more erroneous, and -from ideal the more utopian, in that the social world which it proposed -to transform was less known; and at that epoch could not be known for -the excellent reason that it was in course of formation. - -The machine operated by steam was beginning to edge into industry -where the tool, managed by the artisan, was moved by human power, -and in some rare circumstances by animals, wind or waterfalls. The -Socialist thinkers, as Engels observes, were then obliged to draw from -their own brain the social ideal which they could not extract from the -tumultuous economic environment in full course of transformation. -They grasped again, infusing new life into it, the communist ideal -which has slumbered in the mind of man since he emerged from the -communism of primitive society which the poetic Greek mythology calls -the golden age and which has awakened to shine here and there with a -glorious splendor at great epochs of social upheaval. They sought, -then, to establish communism, not because the economic environment -was ready for its introduction, but because men were miserable, -because the laws of justice and equality were violated, because the -precepts of the Christ could not be followed in their purity. The -communistic ideal, not springing from economic reality, was then but -an unconscious reminiscence of a prehistoric past, and came only -from idealistic notions upon a justice, an equality and a gospel law -no less idealistic; it is then idealistic in the second degree, and -consequently utopian. - -The Socialists of the first half of the nineteenth century, who -rekindled the communist ideal, had the rare merit of giving it a -consistency less idealistic. They spoke little of the Christian -religion, of justice and of equality; Robert Owen laid the -responsibilities of social evils upon the family, property and -religion; Charles Fourier criticises the ideas of justice and morality -introduced by the bourgeois Revolution of '89 with incomparable -animation and irony. They did not weep over the misery of the poor, -but left that to Victor Hugo and the charlatans of romanticism. They -preached the social problem from its realistic side, the only side -from which it can be solved. They used their talents to prove that -a social organization of production would succeed in satisfying the -desires of all without reducing the share of any, not even that of the -privileged capitalist class. Meanwhile the recent application of steam -and machinery demanded also a new organization of labor, and this was -the constant concern of the industrial bourgeoisie. The socialists were -thus pursuing the same end as the industrials; bourgeois and socialists -might consequently come to an understanding. We therefore find in the -socialist sects of that epoch industrials, engineers and financiers -who in the second half of the century cast away their sympathy for the -workers and occupied an important place in capitalist society. - -The socialism of that epoch could not under these conditions be -anything else than pacific; instead of entering on the struggle with -the capitalists, the socialists thought only of converting them to -their system of social reform from which they were to be the first to -benefit. They proclaimed the association of capital, intelligence and -labor, the interests of which, according to them, were identical! they -preached a mutual understanding between the employer and the employed, -between the exploiter and the exploited; they know no class struggle; -they condemned strikes and all political agitation, especially if it -were revolutionary; they desired order in the street and harmony in the -workshop. They demanded, finally, nothing more than was desired by the -new industrial bourgeoisie. - -They foresaw that industry, strengthened by the motive power of steam, -machinery and the concentration of the instruments of labor, would have -a colossal producing power, and they had the simplicity to believe that -the capitalists would content themselves with taking only a reasonable -part of the wealth thus created, and would leave to their co-operators, -the manual and intellectual laborers, a portion sufficient to enable -them to live in comfort. This socialism was marvellously agreeable -to capital, since it promised an increase of wealth and advised an -understanding between the laborer and the employer. It recruited -the great majority of its adepts in the educational hotbeds of the -bourgeoisie. It was utopian, therefore it was the socialism of the -intellectuals. - -But precisely because it was utopian, the laborers, in constant -antagonism with their employers on questions of labor and hours, -looked on it with suspicion. They could understand nothing of this -socialism which condemned strikes and political action and which -assumed to harmonize the interests of capital and labor, of the -exploiter and exploited. They kept aloof from the socialists and gave -all their sympathies to the bourgeois republicans, because they were -revolutionary. They joined their secret societies and climbed with them -upon the barricades to make riots and political revolutions. - -Marx and Engels took socialism at the point to which the great utopians -had brought it, but instead of torturing their brains to improvise the -organization of labor and of production, they studied that which was -already created by the very necessities of the new mechanical industry -which had arrived at a degree of development sufficient to permit -its power and its tendency to be apparent. Its productivity was so -enormous, as Fourier and Saint Simon had foreseen, that it was capable -of providing abundantly for the normal needs of all the members of -society. This was the first time in history that such a productive -power had been observed, and it was because capitalist production could -satisfy all needs, and for that reason alone, that it is possible to -reintroduce communism, that is to say the equal participation of all in -social wealth, and the free and complete development of the physical, -intellectual and moral faculties. Communism is no longer a utopia but a -possibility. - -Machinery replaces the individualistic production of the small -industry, by the communistic production of the capitalistic factory, -but property in the means of labor has remained individual, as in the -time of the small industry. There is then a contradiction between the -individualistic mode of possession and the communist mode of production -and this contradiction translates itself into the antagonism between -the laborer and the capitalist employer. The producers, who form the -immense majority of the nation, no longer possess the instruments -of labor, the possession of which is centralized in the idle hands -of a decreasing minority. The social problem imposed by mechanical -production will be solved, as the social problems imposed by preceding -modes of production have been solved, by precipitating the evolution -begun by economic force, by finishing the expropriation of the -individual in the means of production, by giving to the communistic -mode of production the communistic mode of possession which it demands. - -The communism of contemporary socialists no longer proceeds, like that -of former times, from the cerebral lucubrations of gifted thinkers; it -proceeds from economic reality, it is the final goal of the economic -forces which, without attracting the attention of the capitalists and -their intellectuals, have fashioned the communistic mold of a new -society, the coming of which we only have to hasten. Communism, then, -is no longer a utopian hypothesis; it is a scientific ideal. It may be -added that never has the economic structure of any society been better -and more completely analyzed than capitalist society, and that never -was a social ideal conceived with such numerous and positive data as -the communist idea of modern socialism. - -Although it is the economic forces which fashion men at the pleasure -and spur them to action, and although these constitute the mysterious -force determining the great currents of history which the Christians -attribute to God, and the free-thinking bourgeois assign to Progress, -to Civilization, to the Immortal Principles and other similar manitous, -worthy of savage tribes, they are nevertheless the product of human -activity. Man, who created them and brought them into the world, has -thus far let himself be guided by them; yet now that he has understood -their nature and grasped their tendency, he can act upon their -evolution. The socialists who are accused of being stricken by Oriental -fatalism and of relying upon the good pleasure of economic forces to -bring to light the communist society instead of crossing their arms -like the fakirs of official Economics, and of bending the knee before -its fundamental dogma, _laissez faire_, _laissez passer_, propose on -the contrary to subdue them, as the blind forces of nature have been -subdued, and force them to do good to men instead of leaving them to -work misery to the toilers of civilization. They do not wait for their -ideal to fall from heaven as the Christians hope for the grace of -God, and the capitalists for wealth; they prepare, on the contrary, -to realize it, not by appealing to the intelligence of the capitalist -class and to its sentiments of justice and humanity, but by fighting -it, by expropriating it from its political power, which protects its -economic despotism. - -Socialism, because it possesses a social ideal, has in consequence -a criticism of its own. Every class which struggles for its -enfranchisement seeks to realize a social ideal, in complete opposition -with that of the ruling class. The struggle is waged at first in -the ideological world before the physical shock of the revolutionary -battle. It thus begins the criticism of the ideas of the society which -must be revolted against, for "the ideas of the ruling class are the -ideas of society," or these ideas are the intellectual reflection of -its material interests. - -Thus, the wealth of the ruling class is produced by slave labor; -religion, ethics, philosophy and literature agree in authorizing -slavery. The ugly God of the Jews and Christianity strikes with his -curse the progeny of Ham, that it may furnish slaves. Aristotle, the -encyclopedic thinker of Greek philosophy, declares that slaves are -predestined by nature and that no rights exist for them, for there -can be no rights except between equals. Euripides in his tragedies -preaches the doctrine of servile morality; St. Paul, St. Augustine and -the Church teach slaves submission to their earthly masters that they -may deserve the favor of their heavenly master; Christian civilization -introduced slavery into America and maintains it there until economic -phenomena prove that slave labor is a method of exploitation more -costly and less profitable than free labor. - -At the epoch when the Greco-Roman civilization was dissolving, when the -labor of artisans and free workers began to be substituted for slave -labor, pagan religion, philosophy and literature decided to accord them -certain rights. The same Euripides who advised the slave to lose his -personality in that of the master does not wish him to be despised. -"There is nothing shameful in slavery but the name," says the pedagogue -in Ion, "the slave, moreover, is not inferior to the free man when -he has a noble heart." The mysteries of Eleusis and of Orphism, like -Christianity, which continues their work, admit slaves among their -initiated and promise them liberty, equality and happiness after death. - -The dominating class of the Middle Ages being military, the Christian -religion and social ethics condemned lending money at interest, and -covered the lender with infamy; to take interest for money loaned -was then something so ignominious that the Jewish race, obliged to -specialize itself in the trade of money, still bears the shame of it. -But today, now that the Christians have become Jews, and the ruling -class lives on the interest of its capital, the trade of the lender at -interest is the most honorable, the most desirable, the most exclusive. - -The oppressed class, although the ideology of the oppressing class -is imposed upon it, nevertheless elaborates religious, ethical and -political ideas corresponding to its condition of life; vague and -secret at first, they gain in precision and force in proportion as the -oppressed class takes definite form and acquires the consciousness -of its social utility and of its strength; and the hour of its -emancipation is near when its conception of nature and of society -opposes itself openly and boldly to that of the ruling class. - -The economic conditions in which the bourgeois moves and evolves make -of it a class essentially religious. Christianity is its work and will -last as long as this class shall rule society. Seven or eight centuries -before Christ, when the bourgeoisie had its birth in the commercial -and industrial cities of the Mediterranean sea, we may observe the -elaboration of a new religion; the gods of paganism created by warrior -tribes could not be suited to a class consecrated to the production -and sale of merchandise. Mysterious cults (the mysteries of the -Cabiri, of Demeter, of Dionysus, etc.) revive the religious traditions -of the prehistoric matriarchical period; the idea of a soul and its -existence after death revive; the idea of posthumous punishments and -rewards to compensate for acts of social injustice are introduced, -etc. These religious elements, combined with the intellectual data of -Greek philosophy, contribute to form Christianity, the religion, _par -excellence_, of societies which have for their foundation property -belonging to the individual and the class which enrich themselves by -the exploitation of wage labor. For fifteen centuries all the movements -of the bourgeoisie, either for organization, or for self-emancipation, -or for the acquisition of power have been accompanied and complicated -by religious crises; but always Christianity more or less modified -remains the religion of society. The revolutionists of 1789, who in the -ardor of the struggle promised themselves to de-Christianize France, -were eager when the bourgeoisie were victorious to raise again the -altars they had overthrown and to reintroduce the cult that they had -proscribed. - -The economic environment which produces the proletariat relieves -it on the contrary from every idea of sentiment. There is not seen -either in Europe nor in America among the laboring masses of the great -industries any anxiety to elaborate a religion to replace Christianity, -nor any desire to reform it. The economic and political organizations -of the working class are completely uninterested as to any doctrinal -discussion of religious and spiritual dogmas, although they combat the -priests of all cults because they are the lackeys of the capitalist -class. - -The victory of the proletariat will deliver humanity from the nightmare -of religion. The belief in superior beings to explain the natural -world and the social inequality, and to prolong the dominion of the -ruling class, and the belief in the posthumous existence of the soul -to recompense the inequality of fate will have no more justification -once man, who has already grasped the general causes of the phenomena -of nature, shall live in a communist society from whence shall have -disappeared the inequality and the injustice of capitalistic society. - -The militant socialists, following the example of the encyclopedists -of the eighteenth century, have to make a merciless criticism of the -economic, political, historical, philosophical, moral and religious -ideas of the capitalist class in order to prepare in all spheres -of thought the triumph of the new ideology which the proletariat -introduces into the world. - - - - -THE RIGHTS OF THE HORSE AND THE RIGHTS OF MAN - - -Capitalist Civilization has endowed the wage-worker with the -metaphysical Rights of Man, but this is only to rivet him more closely -and more firmly to his economic duty. - -"I make you free," so speak the Rights of Man to the laborer, "free to -earn a wretched living and turn your employer into a millionaire; free -to sell him your liberty for a mouthful of bread. He will imprison you -ten hours or twelve hours in his workshops; he will not let you go till -you are wearied to the marrow of your bones, till you have just enough -strength left to gulp down your soup and sink into a heavy sleep. You -have but one of your rights that you may not sell, and that is the -right to pay taxes." - -Progress and Civilization may be hard on wage-working humanity, but -they have all a mother's tenderness for the animals which stupid bipeds -call "lower." - -Civilization has especially favored the equine race: it would be too -great a task to go through the long list of its benefactions; I will -name but a few, of general notoriety, that I may awaken and inflame the -passionate desires of the workers, now torpid in their misery. - -Horses are divided into distinct classes. The equine aristocracy enjoys -so many and so oppressive privileges, that if the human-faced brutes -which serve them as jockeys, trainers, stable valets and grooms were -not morally degraded to the point of not feeling their shame, they -would have rebelled against their lords and masters, whom they rub -down, groom, brush and comb, also making their beds, cleaning up their -excrements and receiving bites and kicks by way of thanks. - -Aristocratic horses, like capitalists, do not work; and when they -exercise themselves in the fields they look disdainfully, with a -coupon-clipper's contempt, upon the human animals which plow and seed -the lands, mow and rake the meadows, to provide them with oats, clover, -timothy and other succulent plants. - -These four-footed favorites of Civilization command such social -influence that they impose their wills upon the capitalists, their -brothers in privilege; they force the loftiest of them to come with -their beautiful ladies and take tea in the stables, inhaling the acrid -perfumes of their solid and liquid evacuations. And when these lords -consent to parade in public, they require from ten to twenty thousand -men and women to stack themselves up on uncomfortable seats, under the -broiling sun, to admire their exquisitely chiseled forms and their -feats of running and leaping. They respect none of the social dignities -before which the votaries of the Rights of Man bow in reverence. -At Chantilly not long ago one of the favorites for the grand prize -launched a kick at the king of Belgium, because it did not like the -looks of his head. His royal majesty, who adores horses, murmured an -apology and withdrew. - -It is fortunate that these horses, who can count more authentic -ancestors than the houses of Orleans and Hohenzollern, have not been -corrupted by their high social station: had they taken it into their -heads to rival the capitalists in aesthetic pretentions, profligate -luxury and depraved tastes, such as wearing lace and diamonds, and -drinking champagne and Chateau-Margaux, a blacker misery and more -overwhelming drudgery would be impending over the class of wage-workers. - -Thrice happy is it for proletarian humanity that these equine -aristocrats have not taken the fancy of feeding upon human flesh, -like the old Bengal tigers which rove around the villages of India -to carry off women and children; if unhappily the horses had been -man-eaters, the capitalists, who can refuse them nothing, would have -built slaughter-houses for wage-workers, where they could carve out -and dress boy sirloins, woman hams and girl roasts to satisfy their -anthropophagic tastes. - -The proletarian horses, not so well endowed, have to work for their -peck of oats, but the capitalist class, through deference for the -aristocrats of the equine race, concedes to the working horses rights -that are far more solid and real than those inscribed in the "Rights of -Man." - -The first of rights, the right to existence, which no civilized society -will recognize for laborers, is possessed by horses. - -The colt, even before his birth, while still in the fetus state, begins -to enjoy the right to existence; his mother, when her pregnancy has -scarcely begun, is discharged from all work and sent into the country -to fashion the new being in peace and comfort; she remains near him to -suckle him and teach him to choose the delicious grasses of the meadow, -in which he gambols until he is grown. - -The moralists and politicians of the "Rights of Man" think it would -be monstrous to grant such rights to the laborers; I raised a tempest -in the Chamber of Deputies when I asked that women, two months before -and two months after confinement, should have the right and the means -to absent themselves from the factory. My proposition upset the ethics -of civilization and shook the capitalist order. What an abominable -abomination—to demand for babies the rights of colts. - -As for the young proletarians, they can scarcely trot on their little -toes before they are condemned to hard labor in the prisons of -capitalism, while the colts develop freely under kindly Nature; care is -taken that they be completely formed before they are set to work, and -their tasks are proportioned to their strength with a tender care. - -This care on the part of the capitalists follows them all through their -lives. We may still recall the noble indignation of the bourgeois -press when it learned that the omnibus company was using peat and -tannery waste in its stalls as a substitute for straw: to think of the -unhappy horses having such poor litters! The more delicate souls of -the bourgeoisie have in every capitalist country organized societies -for the protection of animals, in order to prove that they can not be -excited by the fate of the small victims of industry. Schopenhauer, the -bourgeois philosopher, in whom was incarnated so perfectly the gross -egoism of the philistine, could not hear the cracking of a whip without -his heart being torn by it. - -This same omnibus company, which works its laborers from fourteen -to sixteen hours a day, requires from its dear horses only five to -seven hours. It has bought green meadows in which they may recuperate -from fatigue or indisposition. Its policy is to expend more for the -entertainment of a quadruped than for paying the wages of a biped. It -has never occurred to any legislator nor to any fanatical advocate of -the "Rights of Man" to reduce the horse's daily pittance in order to -assure him a retreat that would be of service to him only after his -death. - -The Rights of Horses have not been posted up; they are "unwritten -rights," as Socrates called the laws implanted by Nature in the -consciousness of all men. - -The horse has shown his wisdom in contenting himself with these rights, -with no thought of demanding those of the citizen; he has judged that -he would have been as stupid as man if he had sacrificed his mess of -lentils for the metaphysical banquet of Rights to Revolt, to Equality, -to Liberty, and other trivialities which to the proletariat are about -as useful as a cautery on a wooden leg. - -Civilization, though partial to the equine race, has not shown herself -indifferent to the fate of the other animals. Sheep, like canons, -pass their days in pleasant and plentiful idleness; they are fed in -the stable on barley, lucerne, rutabagas and other roots, raised by -wage-workers; shepherds conduct them to feed in fat pastures, and when -the sun parches the plain, they are carried to where they can browse on -the tender grass of the mountains. - -The Church, which has burned her heretics, and regrets that she can not -again bring up her faithful sons in the love of "mutton," represents -Jesus, under the form of a kind shepherd, bearing upon his shoulders a -weary lamb. - -True, the love for the ram and the ewe is in the last analysis only -the love for the leg of mutton and the cutlet, just as the Liberty of -the Rights of Man is nothing but the slavery of the wage-worker, since -our jesuitical Civilization always disguises capitalist exploitation -in eternal principles and bourgeois egoism in noble sentiments; yet at -least the bourgeois tends and fattens the sheep up to the day of the -sacrifice, while he seizes the laborer still warm from the workshop -and lean from toil to send him to the shambels of Tonquin or Madagascar. - -Laborers of all crafts, you who toil so hard to create your poverty -in producing the wealth of the capitalists, arise, arise! Since the -buffoons of parliament unfurl the Rights of Man, do you boldly demand -for yourselves, your wives and your children the Rights of the Horse. - - - - -THE END. - - - - - ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ - │ Transcriber's Note: │ - │ │ - │ Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. │ - │ │ - │ Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant │ - │ form was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. │ - │ │ - │ Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. │ - │ │ - │ Footnotes were moved to the end of chapters and numbered in one │ - │ continuous sequence. │ - │ │ - │ Italicized words are surrounded by underline characters, _like │ - │ this_. │ - └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Right to be Lazy, by Paul Lafargue - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIGHT TO BE LAZY *** - -***** This file should be named 52984-0.txt or 52984-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/9/8/52984/ - -Produced by Turgut Dincer, Christian Boissonnas and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net -(This file was produced from images generously made -available by The Internet Archive) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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