The chemists, who have discovered by experience such beautiful proportions, know no more of their how or why than of the force which governs them.
Social economy, on the contrary, to which no a posteriori investigation could reveal directly the law of proportionality of values, can grasp it in the very force which produces it, and which it is time to announce.
This force, which Adam Smith has glorified so eloquently, and which his successors have misconceived (making privilege its equal), -- this force is LABOR.Labor differs in quantity and quality with the producer;
in this respect it is like all the great principles of Nature and the most general laws, simple in their action and formula, but infinitely modified by a multitude of special causes, and manifesting themselves under an innumerable variety of forms.It is labor, labor alone, that produces all the elements of wealth, and that combines them to their last molecules according to a law of variable, but certain, proportionality.It is labor, in fine, that, as the principle of life, agitates (mens agitat) the material (molem)
of wealth, and proportions it.
Society, or the collective man, produces an infinitude of objects, the enjoyment of which constitutes its well-being.This well-being is developed not only in the ratio of the quantity of the products, but also in the ratio of their variety (quality) and proportion.From this fundamental datum it follows that society always, at each instant of its life, must strive for such proportion in its products as will give the greatest amount of well-being, considering the power and means of production.Abundance, variety, and proportion in products are the three factors which constitute WEALTH: wealth, the object of social economy, is subject to the same conditions of existence as beauty, the object of art; virtue, the object of morality;
and truth, the object of metaphysics.
But how establish this marvelous proportion, so essential that without it a portion of human labor is lost, -- that is, useless, inharmonious, untrue, and consequently synonymous with poverty and annihilation?
Prometheus, according to the fable, is the symbol of human activity.
Prometheus steals the fire of heaven, and invents the early arts; Prometheus foresees the future, and aspires to equality with Jupiter; Prometheus is God.Then let us call society Prometheus.
Prometheus devotes, on an average, ten hours a day to labor, seven to rest, and seven to pleasure.In order to gather from his toil the most useful fruit, Prometheus notes the time and trouble that each object of his consumption costs him.Only experience can teach him this, and this experience lasts throughout his life.While laboring and producing, then, Prometheus is subject to an infinitude of disappointments.But, as a final result, the more he labors, the greater is his well-being and the more idealized his luxury; the further he extends his conquests over Nature, the more strongly he fortifies within him the principle of life and intelligence in the exercise of which he alone finds happiness; till finally, the early education of the Laborer completed and order introduced into his occupations, to labor, with him, is no longer to suffer, -- it is to live, to enjoy.
But the attractiveness of labor does not nullify the rule, since, on the contrary, it is the fruit of it; and those who, under the pretext that labor should be attractive, reason to the denial of justice and to communism, resemble children who, after having gathered some flowers in the garden, should arrange a flower- bed on the staircase.
In society, then, justice is simply the proportionality of values; its guarantee and sanction is the responsibility of the producer.
Prometheus knows that such a product costs an hour's labor, such another a day's, a week's, a year's; he knows at the same time that all these products, arranged according to their cost, form the progression of his wealth.First, then, he will assure his existence by providing himself with the least costly, and consequently most necessary, things; then, as fast as his position becomes secure, he will look forward to articles of luxury, proceeding always, if he is wise, according to the natural position of each article in the scale of prices.Sometimes Prometheus will make a mistake in his calculations, or else, carried away by passion, he will sacrifice an immediate good to a premature enjoyment, and, after having toiled and moiled, he will starve.Thus, the law carries with it its own sanction; its violation is inevitably accompanied by the immediate punishment of the transgressor.
Say, then, was right in saying: "The happiness of this class (the consumers), composed of all the others, constitutes the general well- being, the state of prosperity of a country." Only he should have added that the happiness of the class of producers, which also is composed of all the others, equally constitutes the general well-being, the state of prosperity of a country.
So, when he says: "The fortune of each consumer is perpetually at war with all that he buys," he should have added again: "The fortune of each producer is incessantly attacked by all that he sells." In the absence of a clear expression of this reciprocity, most economical phenomena become unintelligible;
and I will soon show how, in consequence of this grave omission, most economists in writing their books have talked wildly about the balance of trade.
I have just said that society produces first the least costly, and consequently most necessary, things.Now, is it true that cheapness of products is always a correlative of their necessity, and vice versa; so that these two words, necessity and cheapness, like the following ones, costliness and superfluity, are synonymes?
