The Socialism of to-day

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 835096955

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-28834

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Laveleye, Émile de

Title:: The Socialism of to-day

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Field & Tuer

Year of publication:: 1884

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (XLIV, 331 S.)

Collection:: Economics Books

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FERDINAND LASSALLE. 57 century : “The simple working man,” he says, “ who has only his two hands, possesses nothing unless he is able to sell his labour to others. He may sell it cheap or dear, but the price, more or less high, does not depend on himself alone; it is the result of the bargain he makes with his employer. ' This latter pays as little as he possibly can, and since he can choose from among a vast number of labourers, he prefers the one who will work at the lowest rate. The labourers are thus obliged to lower their prices in competition with one another. In every kind of labour it must therefore result—and such is actually the case—that the wages of the labourer are limited to the exact amount necessary to keep him alive.” These few lines contain the whole system of Marx and of Lassalle. Let us now examine how far the famous “iron law” is conformable with truth. But first, there is a preliminary remark to make. The majority of modem economists main tain that the influences which govern wages are natural laws which are as immutable as those which rule physical pheno mena, and that it is therefore useless and even absurd to try to change them. I hat is, however, an entirely erroneous way to view the matter. True it is that, given the present social organization, with the existing manners and customs, results merely of our past history, the laws which govern wages are their “ natural ” consequence. But these facts and institutions, of which they are the consequence, are contingent facts, pro ceeding from the free-will of man. The men who are their authors can alter them, as they have so often done in the course of ages, and then the “ natural ” results would be quite different. There is, therefore, in Political Economy, no necessary chain of facts over which we have no control, as is the case ‘n the physical world in the midst of which we live. We submit to the cosmical laws, we make the social laws. The former are unchangeable, and find their causes in the con stitution of the universe; while the latter alter from age to age, according as the march of history gives birth to new types of civilization. This being admitted, it remains to be seen if, in the present ocial state, the “ iron law ” is realized with that fatal strictness

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