Grasping the thread of this idea, he said to himself that, by forming a permanent group of laborers assorted with a view to his special purpose, he would produce more steadily, more abundantly, and at less cost.It is not indispensable, however, that the workmen should be gathered into one place: the existence of the workshop does not depend essentially upon such contact.It results from the relation and proportion of the different tasks and from the common thought directing them.In a word, concentration at one point may offer its advantages, which are not to be neglected; but that is not what constitutes the workshop This, then, is the proposition which the speculator makes to those whose collaboration he desires: I guarantee you a perpetual market for your products, if you will accept me as purchaser or middle-man.The bargain is so clearly advantageous that the proposition cannot fail of acceptance.The laborer finds in it steady work, a fixed price, and security; the employer, on the other hand, will find a readier sale for his goods, since, producing more advantageously, he can lower the price; in short, his profits will be larger because of the mass of his investments.All, even to the public and the magistrate, will congratulate the employer on having added to the social wealth by his combinations, and will vote him a reward.
But, in the first place, whoever says reduction of expenses says reduction of services, not, it is true, in the new shop, but for the workers at the same trade who are left outside, as well as for many others whose accessory services will be less needed in future.Therefore every establishment of a workshop corresponds to an eviction of workers: this assertion, utterly contradictory though it may appear, is as true of the workshop as of a machine.
The economists admit it: but here they repeat their eternal refrain that, after a lapse of time, the demand for the product having increased in proportion to the reduction of price, labor in turn will come finally to be in greater demand than ever.Undoubtedly, WITH TIME, the equilibrium will be restored; but, I must add again, the equilibrium will be no sooner restored at this point than it will be disturbed at another, because the spirit of invention never stops, any more than labor.Now, what theory could justify these perpetual hecatombs?" When we have reduced the number of toilers," wrote Sismondi, "to a fourth or a fifth of what it is at present, we shall need only a fourth or a fifth as many priests, physicians, etc.
When we have cut them off altogether, we shall be in a position to dispense with the human race." And that is what really would happen if, in order to put the labor of each machine in proportion to the needs of consumption, -- that is, to restore the balance of values continually destroyed, --
it were not necessary to continually create new machines, open other markets, and consequently multiply services and displace other arms.So that on the one hand industry and wealth, on the other population and misery, advance, so to speak, in procession, one always dragging the other after it.
I have shown the contractor, at the birth of industry, negotiating on equal terms with his comrades, who have since become his workmen.It is plain, in fact, that this original equality was bound to disappear through the advantageous position of the master and the dependence of the wage-workers.
In vain does the law assure to each the right of enterprise, as well as the faculty to labor alone and sell one's products directly.According to the hypothesis, this last resource is impracticable, since it was the object of the workshop to annihilate isolated labor.And as for the right to take the plough, as they say, and go at speed, it is the same in manufactures as in agriculture; to know how to work is nothing, it is necessary to arrive at the right time; the shop, as well as the land, is to the first comer.
When an establishment has had the leisure to develop itself, enlarge its foundations, ballast itself with capital, and assure itself a body of patrons, what can the workman who has only his arms do against a power so superior?
Hence it was not by an arbitrary act of sovereign power or by fortuitous and brutal usurpation that the guilds and masterships were established in the Middle Ages: the force of events had created them long before the edicts of kings could have given them legal consecration; and, in spite of the reform of '89, we see them reestablishing themselves under our eyes with an energy a hundred times more formidable.Abandon labor to its own tendencies, and the subjection of three- fourths of the human race is assured.
But this is not all.The machine, or the workshop, after having degraded the laborer by giving him a master, completes his degeneracy by reducing him from the rank of artisan to that of common workman.
Formerly the population on the banks of the Saone and Rhone was largely made up of watermen, thoroughly fitted for the conduct of canal- boats or row-boats.Now that the steam-tug is to be found almost everywhere, most of the boatmen, finding it impossible to get a living at their trade, either pass three-fourths of their life in idleness, or else become stokers.
If not misery, then degradation: such is the last alternative which machinery offers to the workman.For it is with a machine as with a piece of artillery: the captain excepted, those whom it occupies are servants, slaves.
Since the establishment of large factories, a multitude of little industries have disappeared from the domestic hearth: does any one believe that the girls who work for ten and fifteen cents have as much intelligence as their ancestors?
"After the establishment of the railway from Paris to Saint Germain,"
