Part 20 (1/2)

In theory we have demonstrated that compet.i.tion, on its useful side, should be universal and carried to its maximum of intensity; but that, viewed on its negative side, it must be everywhere stifled, even to the last vestige. Are the economists in a position to effect this elimination? Have they foreseen the consequences, calculated the difficulties? If the answer should be affirmative, I should have the boldness to propose the following case to them for solution.

A treaty of coalition, or rather of a.s.sociation,--for the courts would be greatly embarra.s.sed to define either term,--has just united in one company all the coal mines in the basin of the Loire. On complaint of the munic.i.p.alities of Lyons and Saint Etienne, the ministry has appointed a commission charged with examining the character and tendencies of this frightful society.

Well, I ask, what can the intervention of power, with the a.s.sistance of civil law and political economy, accomplish here?

They cry out against coalition. But can the proprietors of mines be prevented from a.s.sociating, from reducing their general expenses and costs of exploitation, and from working their mines to better advantage by a more perfect understanding with each other? Shall they be ordered to begin their old war over again, and ruin themselves by increased expenses, waste, over-production, disorder, and decreased prices? All that is absurd.

Shall they be prevented from increasing their prices so as to recover the interest on their capital? Then let them be protected themselves against any demands for increased wages on the part of the workmen; let the law concerning joint-stock companies be reenacted; let the sale of shares be prohibited; and when all these measures shall have been taken, as the capitalist-proprietors of the basin cannot justly be forced to lose capital invested under a different condition of things, let them be indemnified.

Shall a tariff be imposed upon them? That would be a law of maximum. The State would then have to put itself in the place of the exploiters; keep the accounts of their capital, interest, and office expenses; regulate the wages of the miners, the salaries of the engineers and directors, the price of the wood employed in the extraction of the coal, the expenditure for material; and, finally, determine the normal and legitimate rate of profit. All this cannot be done by ministerial decree: a law is necessary.

Will the legislator dare, for the sake of a special industry, to change the public law of the French, and put power in the place of property? Then of two things one: either commerce in coals will fall into the hands of the State, or else the State must find some means of reconciling liberty and order in carrying on the mining industry, in which case the socialists will ask that what has been executed at one point be imitated at all points.

The coalition of the Loire mines has posited the social question in terms which permit no more evasion. Either compet.i.tion,--that is, monopoly and what follows; or exploitation by the State,--that is, dearness of labor and continuous impoverishment; or else, in short, a solution based upon equality,--in other words, the organization of labor, which involves the negation of political economy and the end of property.

But the economists do not proceed with this abrupt logic: they love to bargain with necessity. M. Dupin (session of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, June 10, 1843) expresses the opinion that, ”though compet.i.tion may be useful within the nation, it must be prevented between nations.”

To PREVENT or to LET ALONE,--such is the eternal alternative of the economists: beyond it their genius does not go. In vain is it cried out at them that it is not a question of PREVENTING anything or of PERMITTING everything; that what is asked of them, what society expects of them, is a RECONCILIATION: this double idea does not enter their head.

”It is necessary,” M. Dunoyer replies to M. Dupin, ”to DISTINGUISH theory from practice.”

My G.o.d! everybody knows that M. Dunoyer, inflexible as to principles in his works, is very accommodating as to practice in the Council of State. But let him condescend to once ask himself this question: Why am I obliged to continually distinguish practice from theory? Why do they not harmonize?

M. Blanqui, as a lover of peace and harmony, supports the learned M. Dunoyer,--that is, theory. Nevertheless he thinks, with M.

Dupin,--that is, with practice,--that compet.i.tion is not EXEMPT FROM REPROACH. So afraid is M. Blanqui of calumniating and stirring up the fire!

M. Dupin is obstinate in his opinion. He cites, as evils for which compet.i.tion is responsible, fraud, sale by false weights, the exploitation of children. All doubtless in order to prove that compet.i.tion WITHIN THE NATION may be useful!

M. Pa.s.sy, with his usual logic, observes that there will always be dishonest people who, etc. Accuse human nature, he cries, but not compet.i.tion.

At the very outset M. Pa.s.sy's logic wanders from the question.

Compet.i.tion is reproached with the inconveniences which result from its nature, not with the frauds of which it is the occasion or pretext. A manufacturer finds a way of replacing a workman who costs him three francs a day by a woman to whom he gives but one franc. This expedient is the only one by which he can meet a falling market and keep his establishment in motion. Soon to the working women he will add children. Then, forced by the necessities of war, he will gradually reduce wages and add to the hours of labor. Where is the guilty party here? This argument may be turned about in a hundred ways and applied to all industries without furnis.h.i.+ng any ground for accusing human nature.

M. Pa.s.sy himself is obliged to admit it when he adds: ”As for the compulsory labor of children, the fault is on the parents.”

Exactly. And the fault of the parents on whom?

”In Ireland,” continues this orator, ”there is no compet.i.tion, and yet poverty is extreme.”

On this point M. Pa.s.sy's ordinary logic has been betrayed by an extraordinary lack of memory. In Ireland there is a complete, universal monopoly of the land, and unlimited, desperate compet.i.tion for farms. Compet.i.tion-monopoly are the two b.a.l.l.s which unhappy Ireland drags, one after each foot.

When the economists are tired of accusing human nature, the greed of parents, and the turbulence of radicals, they find delectation in picturing the felicity of the proletariat. But there again they cannot agree with each other or with themselves; and nothing better depicts the anarchy of compet.i.tion than the disorder of their ideas.

Today the wife of the workingman dresses in elegant robes which in a previous century great ladies would not have disdained.--M.