34

THE  SOCIALISM  OF  TO-DAY.

same  fact  reappears.  For  part  of  the  day  the  workman  works
to  obtain  the  equivalent  of  his  subsistence,  viz.  his  wages,  and
during  the  remaining  time  for  the  capitalist.  The  fact  stated  by
Marx  is,  then,  quite  true  ;  but  it  is  not  by  economic  subtleties
about  the  “  surplus  value  ”  that  an  attack  is  to  be  made  on  a
partition  of  produce  which  results  from  the  laws  of  the  state
and  from  the  whole  existing  social  organization.  You  can  rob
a  man  of  his  property,  but  you  will  never  induce  him  to  give
up  the  enjoyment  of  it  without  receiving  in  exchange  either
services,  or  products,  or  money.  If,  like  Proudhon,  you  wish
that  the  producer  were  able  to  purchase  his  product,  or  to  keep
the  whole  of  it,  make  him  a  capitalist.  Already  in  France,  and
to  a  greater  extent  in  Switzerland,  unlike  the  case  in  England,
a  great  number  of  men,  possessing  land  and  instruments  of
labour,  can  thus  sit  under  their  own  vine  and  keep  for  themselves ­
  all  the  fruits  of  their  labour,  won  from  a  soil  which  owes
nothing  to  anybody.  Advance  this  movement  by  spreading
education  and  the  habit  of  thrift,  and  the  time  will  come  when
all  will  have  a  share  in  property,  either  landed  or  industrial,
and  when  all  will  be  freed  from  the  tax  paid  to  capital,  because
the  capital  will  be  their  own.
Rent  is  a  natural  fact  and  interest  a  necessary  one.  You
cannot  therefore  abolish  them,  but  the  labourer,  by  acquiring
ownership,  can  claim  them  for  himself.
In  the  Middle  Ages,  in  the  trade-guilds,  the  artisan  working
with  his  own  hands  was  owner  of  the  trade-capital,  the  instruments ­
  of  his  labour.  Accordingly,  he  retained  the  whole
produce.  Some  similar  organization  should  be  revived,  but
under  a  different  juridical  form.
The  fundamental  error  of  Marx  lies  in  the  idea  he  conceives ­
  of  value,  which,  according  to  him,  is  always  in  proportion ­
  to  labour.  He  has  certainly  made  the  theory  of  Smith
and  Ricardo  much  more  plausible  by  saying  that  the  value
of  an  article  depends  on  the  amount  of  labour  “  socially
necessary  ”  to  produce  it.  Thus,  a  chair  has  cost  you  three
days’  labour  ;  but,  on  the  average,  it  can  be  made  in  two  days.
It  will  therefore  be  worth  only  the  equivalent  of  two  days’
labour.  Even  thus  amended,  the  idea  is  false.  We  must