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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  mathematical ­
  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  communities. ­
  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