24 
THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 
multitude of their followers. As we know, in reaction against 
the physiocrats who used to derive all wealth from nature, 
Smith asserts that labour is the sole source of value. He 
even wishes to make labour the measure of values. “ Labour 
alone,” he says, “ is the ultimate and real standard by which 
the value of all commodities can at all times and places be 
estimated and compared—equal quantities of labour, at all 
times and places, may be said to be of equal value to the 
labourer.” This is precisely Bastiat’s idea, when he affirms 
that in societies it is services that are always exchanged for 
services. Almost all economists, including M. Thiers, who on 
this point is the mouthpiece of the generally received opinion, 
maintain that the legitimate source of property is labour. 
Admit this premiss, and Marx will prove with irrefutable logic 
that capital is the product of spoliation. In short, if all value 
proceeds solely from labour, the wealth produced ought to 
belong entirely to the labourers, and if labour is the only 
legitimate source of property, working men ought to be the only 
proprietors. Those Economists who look upon labour as the 
source of value and property cannot but admit the reasoning 
of Marx. Like Proudhon, he builds up his deductions on a 
definition of value. Let us follow his chain of syllogisms, in 
which one may recognize a disciple of Hegel. It is worth 
while trying to understand these abstractions in their mathe 
matical dress when we reflect that, translated into common 
language in petty socialist journals, they have become the 
working man’s catechism throughout Germany. 
The wealth of communities, under the régime of capitalist 
production, appears in the form of an immense accumulation 
of merchandise. Wares, that is to say products intended for 
exchange, are the elementary form of wealth in modem com 
munities. Every article which possesses any utility has two 
kinds of value. It is valuable in so far as it answers by its 
properties to any human need. That is its “value in use,” 
which ends in the consumption of commodities. It is also 
valuable in so far as it permits ■ its owner, by giving it up, 
to obtain some other article which he desires. That is its 
“value in exchange.” These two values are far from always