The Socialism of to-day

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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. 59 measure which, at first sight, would seem such a good thing for the rural day-labourers. If “ economic laws ” acted, as is affirmed, with the same inexorable rigour as cosmic laws, then the reasoning of Mill and Lassalle would be unassailable ; but man is a free agent, obeying various motives, and his conduct varies according to his beliefs and hopes, and according to the ruling ideas and the institutions in vogue around him. A greater amount of comfort among working men will bring about a decrease in wages only if they avail themselves of it to increase exception ally the number of their children. Now this result is so far from being necessary that the greater proportion of observed facts would seem to warrant the opposite conclusion. Want and misery carry off many children, but, indirectly, they also cause a large number of births. Easy circumstances, on the contrary, by inducing foresight, retard marriages, and render them less prolific. Is not the proof of it to be found in Ireland, where, forty years ago, the population swarmed in the midst of the most abject destitution, and in the very word prolétaire itself, which signifies at once miserable and pro creator of children ? It is not observed that those working men whose condition has been improved by the philanthropy of their masters have larger families than others. In Flanders, where, in consequence of the density of the population, wages in the country districts have fallen to an average of seven shillings a week, many labourers draw a supplement of food from a few perches of land which they rent at a price which is often excessive. Now, whatever Mill may say to the con trary, those who obtain these strips of land are subject to less privations than those who have none, and it is not observed that they have any more children. When employers build houses for their operatives, and let them at a moderate rent, they cannot profit thereby to reduce wages, for the number of hands is not, in consequence, increased. Better still, let •arge hotels * be built, where labourers can find food and * As examples, we may cite the Familistère of Guise, established by M. Godin-Lcmaire, and the Hôtel Louise, organized by M. Jules d’Andri- *nont, director of the colliery of Hasard, near Liège. This latter institution.

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