- 24 Aug 2003 08:24
#23561
Hi folks, I'm posting in two parts this marvelous Bakunin's text about the capitalist system. Is important to everyone who seeks the real equality.
Is it necessary to repeat here the irrefutable arguments of Socialism which no bourgeois economist has yet succeeded in
disproving? What is property, what is capital in their present form? For the capitalist and the property owner they mean the
power and the right, guaranteed by the State, to live without working. And since neither property nor capital produces anything
when not fertilized by labor - that means the power and the right to live by exploiting the work of someone else, the right to
exploit the work of those who possess neither property nor capital and who thus are forced to sell their productive power to
the lucky owners of both. Note that I have left out of account altogether the following question: In what way did property and
capital ever fall into the hands of their present owners? This is a question which, when envisaged from the points of view of
history, logic, and justice, cannot be answered in any other way but one which would serve as an indictment against the present
owners. I shall therefore confine myself here to the statement that property owners and capitalists, inasmuch as they live not by
their own productive labor but by getting land rent, house rent, interest upon their capital, or by speculation on land, buildings,
and capital, or by the commercial and industrial exploitation of the manual labor of the proletariat, all live at the expense of the
proletariat. (Speculation and exploitation no doubt also constitute a sort of labor, but altogether non-productive labor.)
I know only too well that this mode of life is highly esteemed in all civilized countries, that it is expressly and tenderly protected
by all the States, and that the States, religions, and all the juridical laws, both criminal and civil, and all the political governments,
monarchies and republican - with their immense judicial and police apparatuses and their standing armies - have no other
mission but to consecrate and protect such practices. In the presence of these powerful and respectable authorities I cannot
even permit myself to ask whether this mode of life is legitimate from the point of view of human justice, liberty, human equality,
and fraternity. I simply ask myself: Under such conditions, are fraternity and equality possible between the exploiter and the
exploited, are justice and freedom possible for the exploited?
Let us even suppose, as it is being maintained by the bourgeois economists and with them all the lawyers, all the worshippers
and believers in the juridical right, all the priests of the civil and criminal code - let us suppose that this economic relationship
between the exploiter and the exploited is altogether legitimate, that it is the inevitable consequence, the product of an eternal,
indestructible social law, yet still it will always be true that exploitation precludes brotherhood and equality. It goes without
saying that it precludes economic equality. Suppose I am your worker and you are my employer. If I offer my labor at the
lowest price, if I consent to have you live off my labor, it is certainly not because of devotion or brotherly love for you. And no
bourgeois economist would dare to say that it was, however idyllic and naive their reasoning becomes when they begin to
speak about reciprocal affections and mutual relations which should exist between employers and employees. No, I do it
because my family and I would starve to death if I did not work for an employer. Thus I am forced to sell you my labor at the
lowest possible price, and I am forced to do it by the threat of hunger.
But - the economists tell us - the property owners, the capitalists, the employers, are likewise forced to seek out and purchase
the labor of the proletariat. Yes, it is true, they are forced to do it, but not in the same measure. Had there been equality
between those who offer their labor and those who purchase it, between the necessity of selling one's labor and the necessity of
buying it, the slavery and misery of the proletariat would not exist. But then there would be neither capitalists, nor property
owners, nor the proletariat, nor rich, nor poor: there would only be workers. It is precisely because such equality does not exist
that we have and are bound to have exploiters.
This equality does not exist because in modern society where wealth is produced by the intervention of capital paying wages to
labor, the growth of the population outstrips the growth of production, which results in the supply of labor necessarily
surpassing the demand and leading to a relative sinking of the level of wages. Production thus constituted, monopolized,
exploited by bourgeois capital, is pushed on the one hand by the mutual competition of the capitalists to concentrate evermore
in the hands of an ever diminishing number of powerful capitalists, or in the hands of joint-stock companies which, owing to the
merging of their capital, are more powerful than the biggest isolated capitalists. (And the small and medium-sized capitalists, not
being able to produce at the same price as the big capitalists, naturally succumb in the deadly struggle.) On the other hand, all
enterprises are forced by the same competition to sell their products at the lowest possible price. It [capitalist monopoly] can
attain this two-fold result only by forcing out an ever-growing number of small or medium-sized capitalists, speculators,
merchants, or industrialists, from the world of exploiters into the world of the exploited proletariat, and at the same time
squeezing out ever greater savings from the wages of the same proletariat.
On the other hand, the mass of the proletariat, growing as a result of the general increase of the population - which, as we
know, not even poverty can stop effectively - and through the increasing proletarianization of the petty-bourgeoisie, ex-owners,
capitalists, merchants, and industrialists - growing, as I have said, at a much more rapid rate than the productive capacities of an
economy that is exploited by bourgeois capital - this growing mass of the proletariat is placed in a condition wherein the
workers are forced into disastrous competition against one another.
For since they possess no other means of existence but their own manual labor, they are driven, by the fear of seeing
themselves replaced by others, to sell it at the lowest price. This tendency of the workers, or rather the necessity to which they
are condemned by their own poverty, combined with the tendency of the employers to sell the products of their workers, and
consequently buy their labor, at the lowest price, constantly reproduces and consolidates the poverty of the proletariat. Since
he finds himself in a state of poverty, the worker is compelled to sell his labor for almost nothing, and because he sells that
product for almost nothing, he sinks into ever greater poverty.
Yes, greater misery, indeed! For in this galley-slave labor the productive force of the workers, abused, ruthlessly exploited,
excessively wasted and underfed, is rapidly used up. And once used up, what can be its value on the market, of what worth is
this sole commodity which he possesses and upon the daily sale of which he depends for a livelihood? Nothing! And then?
Then nothing is left for the worker but to die.
What, in a given country, is the lowest possible wage? It is the price of that which is considered by the proletarians of that
country as absolutely necessary to keep oneself alive. All the bourgeois economists are in agreement on this point. Turgot, who
saw fit to call himself the `virtuous minister' of Louis XVI, and really was an honest man, said:
"The simple worker who owns nothing more than his hands, has nothing else to sell than his labor. He sells it more or less
expensively; but its price whether high or low, does not depend on him alone: it depends on an agreement with whoever will
pay for his labor. The employer pays as little as possible; when given the choice between a great number of workers, the
employer prefers the one who works cheap. The workers are, then, forced to lower their price in competition each against the
other. In all types of labor, it necessarily follows that the salary of the worker is limited to what is necessary for survival."
(Reflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses)
J.B. Say, the true father of bourgeois economists in France also said: "Wages are much higher when more demand exists for
labor and less if offered, and are lowered accordingly when more labor is offered and less demanded. It is the relation between
supply and demand which regulates the price of this merchandise called the workers' labor, as are regulated all other public
services. When wages rise a little higher than the price necessary for the workers' families to maintain themselves, their children
multiply and a larger supply soon develops in proportion with the greater demand. When, on the contrary, the demand for
workers is less than the quantity of people offering to work, their gains decline back to the price necessary for the class to
maintain itself at the same number. The families more burdened with children disappear; from them forward the supply of labor
declines, and with less labor being offered, the price rises... In such a way it is difficult for the wages of the laborer to rise above
or fall below the price necessary to maintain the class (the workers, the proletariat) in the number required." (Cours complet d'
economie politique)
After citing Turgot and J.B. Say, Proudhon cries: "The price, as compared to the value (in real social economy) is something
essentially mobile, consequently, essentially variable, and that in its variations, it is not regulated more than by the concurrence,
concurrence, let us not forget, that as Turgot and Say agree, has the necessary effect not to give to wages to the worker more
than enough to barely prevent death by starvation, and maintain the class in the numbers needed."1
The current price of primary necessities constitutes the prevailing constant level above which workers' wages can never rise for
a very long time, but beneath which they drop very often, which constantly results in inanition, sickness, and death, until a
sufficient number of workers disappear to equalize again the supply of and demand for labor. What the economists call
equalized supply and demand does not constitute real equality between those who offer their labor for sale and those who
purchase it. Suppose that I, a manufacturer, need a hundred workers and that exactly a hundred workers present themselves in
the market - only one hundred, for if more came, the supply would exceed demand, resulting in lowered wages. But since only
one hundred appear, and since I, the manufacturer, need only that number - neither more nor less - it would seem at first that
complete equality was established; that supply and demand being equal in number, they should likewise be equal in other
respects. Does it follow that the workers can demand from me a wage and conditions of work assuring them of a truly free,
dignified, and human existence? Not at all! If I grant them those conditions and those wages, I, the capitalist, shall not gain
thereby any more than they will. But then, why should I have to plague myself and become ruined by offering them the profits of
my capital? If I want to work myself as workers do, I will invest my capital somewhere else, wherever I can get the highest
interest, and will offer my labor for sale to some capitalist just as my workers do.
If, profiting by the powerful initiative afforded me by my capital, I ask those hundred workers to fertilize that capital with their
labor, it is not because of my sympathy for their sufferings, nor because of a spirit of justice, nor because of love for humanity.
The capitalists are by no means philanthropists; they would be ruined if they practiced philanthropy. It is because I hope to
draw from the labor of the workers sufficient profit to be able to live comfortably, even richly, while at the same time increasing
my capital - and all that without having to work myself. Of course I shall work too, but my work will be of an altogether
different kind and I will be remunerated at a much higher rate than the workers. It will not be the work of production but that of
administration and exploitation.
Is it necessary to repeat here the irrefutable arguments of Socialism which no bourgeois economist has yet succeeded in
disproving? What is property, what is capital in their present form? For the capitalist and the property owner they mean the
power and the right, guaranteed by the State, to live without working. And since neither property nor capital produces anything
when not fertilized by labor - that means the power and the right to live by exploiting the work of someone else, the right to
exploit the work of those who possess neither property nor capital and who thus are forced to sell their productive power to
the lucky owners of both. Note that I have left out of account altogether the following question: In what way did property and
capital ever fall into the hands of their present owners? This is a question which, when envisaged from the points of view of
history, logic, and justice, cannot be answered in any other way but one which would serve as an indictment against the present
owners. I shall therefore confine myself here to the statement that property owners and capitalists, inasmuch as they live not by
their own productive labor but by getting land rent, house rent, interest upon their capital, or by speculation on land, buildings,
and capital, or by the commercial and industrial exploitation of the manual labor of the proletariat, all live at the expense of the
proletariat. (Speculation and exploitation no doubt also constitute a sort of labor, but altogether non-productive labor.)
I know only too well that this mode of life is highly esteemed in all civilized countries, that it is expressly and tenderly protected
by all the States, and that the States, religions, and all the juridical laws, both criminal and civil, and all the political governments,
monarchies and republican - with their immense judicial and police apparatuses and their standing armies - have no other
mission but to consecrate and protect such practices. In the presence of these powerful and respectable authorities I cannot
even permit myself to ask whether this mode of life is legitimate from the point of view of human justice, liberty, human equality,
and fraternity. I simply ask myself: Under such conditions, are fraternity and equality possible between the exploiter and the
exploited, are justice and freedom possible for the exploited?
Let us even suppose, as it is being maintained by the bourgeois economists and with them all the lawyers, all the worshippers
and believers in the juridical right, all the priests of the civil and criminal code - let us suppose that this economic relationship
between the exploiter and the exploited is altogether legitimate, that it is the inevitable consequence, the product of an eternal,
indestructible social law, yet still it will always be true that exploitation precludes brotherhood and equality. It goes without
saying that it precludes economic equality. Suppose I am your worker and you are my employer. If I offer my labor at the
lowest price, if I consent to have you live off my labor, it is certainly not because of devotion or brotherly love for you. And no
bourgeois economist would dare to say that it was, however idyllic and naive their reasoning becomes when they begin to
speak about reciprocal affections and mutual relations which should exist between employers and employees. No, I do it
because my family and I would starve to death if I did not work for an employer. Thus I am forced to sell you my labor at the
lowest possible price, and I am forced to do it by the threat of hunger.
But - the economists tell us - the property owners, the capitalists, the employers, are likewise forced to seek out and purchase
the labor of the proletariat. Yes, it is true, they are forced to do it, but not in the same measure. Had there been equality
between those who offer their labor and those who purchase it, between the necessity of selling one's labor and the necessity of
buying it, the slavery and misery of the proletariat would not exist. But then there would be neither capitalists, nor property
owners, nor the proletariat, nor rich, nor poor: there would only be workers. It is precisely because such equality does not exist
that we have and are bound to have exploiters.
This equality does not exist because in modern society where wealth is produced by the intervention of capital paying wages to
labor, the growth of the population outstrips the growth of production, which results in the supply of labor necessarily
surpassing the demand and leading to a relative sinking of the level of wages. Production thus constituted, monopolized,
exploited by bourgeois capital, is pushed on the one hand by the mutual competition of the capitalists to concentrate evermore
in the hands of an ever diminishing number of powerful capitalists, or in the hands of joint-stock companies which, owing to the
merging of their capital, are more powerful than the biggest isolated capitalists. (And the small and medium-sized capitalists, not
being able to produce at the same price as the big capitalists, naturally succumb in the deadly struggle.) On the other hand, all
enterprises are forced by the same competition to sell their products at the lowest possible price. It [capitalist monopoly] can
attain this two-fold result only by forcing out an ever-growing number of small or medium-sized capitalists, speculators,
merchants, or industrialists, from the world of exploiters into the world of the exploited proletariat, and at the same time
squeezing out ever greater savings from the wages of the same proletariat.
On the other hand, the mass of the proletariat, growing as a result of the general increase of the population - which, as we
know, not even poverty can stop effectively - and through the increasing proletarianization of the petty-bourgeoisie, ex-owners,
capitalists, merchants, and industrialists - growing, as I have said, at a much more rapid rate than the productive capacities of an
economy that is exploited by bourgeois capital - this growing mass of the proletariat is placed in a condition wherein the
workers are forced into disastrous competition against one another.
For since they possess no other means of existence but their own manual labor, they are driven, by the fear of seeing
themselves replaced by others, to sell it at the lowest price. This tendency of the workers, or rather the necessity to which they
are condemned by their own poverty, combined with the tendency of the employers to sell the products of their workers, and
consequently buy their labor, at the lowest price, constantly reproduces and consolidates the poverty of the proletariat. Since
he finds himself in a state of poverty, the worker is compelled to sell his labor for almost nothing, and because he sells that
product for almost nothing, he sinks into ever greater poverty.
Yes, greater misery, indeed! For in this galley-slave labor the productive force of the workers, abused, ruthlessly exploited,
excessively wasted and underfed, is rapidly used up. And once used up, what can be its value on the market, of what worth is
this sole commodity which he possesses and upon the daily sale of which he depends for a livelihood? Nothing! And then?
Then nothing is left for the worker but to die.
What, in a given country, is the lowest possible wage? It is the price of that which is considered by the proletarians of that
country as absolutely necessary to keep oneself alive. All the bourgeois economists are in agreement on this point. Turgot, who
saw fit to call himself the `virtuous minister' of Louis XVI, and really was an honest man, said:
"The simple worker who owns nothing more than his hands, has nothing else to sell than his labor. He sells it more or less
expensively; but its price whether high or low, does not depend on him alone: it depends on an agreement with whoever will
pay for his labor. The employer pays as little as possible; when given the choice between a great number of workers, the
employer prefers the one who works cheap. The workers are, then, forced to lower their price in competition each against the
other. In all types of labor, it necessarily follows that the salary of the worker is limited to what is necessary for survival."
(Reflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses)
J.B. Say, the true father of bourgeois economists in France also said: "Wages are much higher when more demand exists for
labor and less if offered, and are lowered accordingly when more labor is offered and less demanded. It is the relation between
supply and demand which regulates the price of this merchandise called the workers' labor, as are regulated all other public
services. When wages rise a little higher than the price necessary for the workers' families to maintain themselves, their children
multiply and a larger supply soon develops in proportion with the greater demand. When, on the contrary, the demand for
workers is less than the quantity of people offering to work, their gains decline back to the price necessary for the class to
maintain itself at the same number. The families more burdened with children disappear; from them forward the supply of labor
declines, and with less labor being offered, the price rises... In such a way it is difficult for the wages of the laborer to rise above
or fall below the price necessary to maintain the class (the workers, the proletariat) in the number required." (Cours complet d'
economie politique)
After citing Turgot and J.B. Say, Proudhon cries: "The price, as compared to the value (in real social economy) is something
essentially mobile, consequently, essentially variable, and that in its variations, it is not regulated more than by the concurrence,
concurrence, let us not forget, that as Turgot and Say agree, has the necessary effect not to give to wages to the worker more
than enough to barely prevent death by starvation, and maintain the class in the numbers needed."1
The current price of primary necessities constitutes the prevailing constant level above which workers' wages can never rise for
a very long time, but beneath which they drop very often, which constantly results in inanition, sickness, and death, until a
sufficient number of workers disappear to equalize again the supply of and demand for labor. What the economists call
equalized supply and demand does not constitute real equality between those who offer their labor for sale and those who
purchase it. Suppose that I, a manufacturer, need a hundred workers and that exactly a hundred workers present themselves in
the market - only one hundred, for if more came, the supply would exceed demand, resulting in lowered wages. But since only
one hundred appear, and since I, the manufacturer, need only that number - neither more nor less - it would seem at first that
complete equality was established; that supply and demand being equal in number, they should likewise be equal in other
respects. Does it follow that the workers can demand from me a wage and conditions of work assuring them of a truly free,
dignified, and human existence? Not at all! If I grant them those conditions and those wages, I, the capitalist, shall not gain
thereby any more than they will. But then, why should I have to plague myself and become ruined by offering them the profits of
my capital? If I want to work myself as workers do, I will invest my capital somewhere else, wherever I can get the highest
interest, and will offer my labor for sale to some capitalist just as my workers do.
If, profiting by the powerful initiative afforded me by my capital, I ask those hundred workers to fertilize that capital with their
labor, it is not because of my sympathy for their sufferings, nor because of a spirit of justice, nor because of love for humanity.
The capitalists are by no means philanthropists; they would be ruined if they practiced philanthropy. It is because I hope to
draw from the labor of the workers sufficient profit to be able to live comfortably, even richly, while at the same time increasing
my capital - and all that without having to work myself. Of course I shall work too, but my work will be of an altogether
different kind and I will be remunerated at a much higher rate than the workers. It will not be the work of production but that of
administration and exploitation.
- By Verv
- By Fasces
- By Puffer Fish
- By Unthinking Majority