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

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

58 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. described by Lassalle, following in the footsteps of Ricardo, Smith, and Turgot. In the first place, it is clearly true that the rate of wages cannot long remain below what is indis pensable to enable the labourers to live and rear children, otherwise their numbers would be rapidly diminished. It is not that we see them die of starvation, as in the famines of the Middle Ages, and even under Louis XIV. ; but, as Friederich Lange says, they die of the same causes as in ordinary times, only they disappear more rapidly.* Now it is a woman in childbirth who succumbs to the cold, and now an infant who perishes because the milk it takes is not sufficiently nourishing. Diseases become rapidly fatal, since they fasten on constitu tions already enfeebled ; and thus the mortality increases without being noticed. This is precisely what occurred during the siege of Paris. Scarcely any one literally died of hunger, because charity increased in proportion to the suffering, and yet the number of deaths considerably increased, while that of the births diminished. Prolonged industrial crises, and displacements or transformations in any particular trade, act in the same manner, when they bring about a reduction of wages. From this side, then, “ the iron law ” is a stern reality. But, on the other hand, is it true that wages can never rise above the minimum indispensable for existence, and that, in consequence, all the efforts of philanthropists to- better the condition of the great masses are, as Lassalle asserts, a delusion or a sham ? Mill was so convinced of the truth of this principle, that he did not wish agricultural labourers to be given even a strip of land where they might grow a few vegetables by working in their spare hours. The only result, he maintains, would be that, after his day’s work was over, the labourer would dig in his own garden in the evening, by moonlight, and on holidays, and that by thus obtaining some increase of food he would be able to sell his labour all the cheaper. Hence increase of work and lower wages would be the effect of a * Friederich-Albert Lange, Die Arbeiterfrage (The Labour Question), third edition, Winterthur, 1875, p. 164.

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: The Socialism of to-day

Monograph

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation