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THE  SOCIALISM  OF  TO-DAY.

encroaching  little  by  little  upon  the  lands  of  the  small  farmeis,
drove  the  surplus  population  into  the  towns,  free  indeed,  but
deprived  of  the  means  of  labour,  and,  consequently,  forced  to
place  themselves  at  the  service  of  those  who  had  the  means
of  labour  at  their  disposal.  The  suppression  of  individual
handicrafts  and  the  invention  of  machinery  have  favoured  the
development  of  the  large  industrial  system,  in  which  a  few
capitalists,  becoming  more  and  more  powerful,  employ  an  everincreasing
  army  of  proletarians.  Every  augmentation  of  capital
calls  for  a  proportionate  increase  in  the  number  of  workmen.
“  The  accumulation  of  wealth  at  one  pole  of  society  advances
step  by  step  with  an  accumulation,  at  the  other  pole,  of  the
poverty,  servitude,  and  moral  degradation  of  the  class  which,
out  of  its  produce,  brings  capital  into  existence.”
As  we  read  Marx’s  book  and  feel  ourselves  shut  up  within
the  iron  bars  of  his  logic,  we  are,  as  it  were,  a  prey  to  a  nightmare, ­
  because,  having  admitted  his  premises,  which  are  borrowed
from  the  most  undoubted  authorities,  we  know  not  how  to
escape  from  his  conclusions,  and  because,  at  the  same  time,
his  wide  and  solid  learning  enables  him  to  quote  in  support
of  his  theses  striking  extracts  from  a  crowd  of  authors  and
numerous  telling  facts,  drawn  from  Parliamentary  inquiries  and
from  the  industrial  and  agricultural  history  of  England.  And
yet,  when  we  go  to  the  bottom  of  the  matter  and  look  around
us,  we  perceive  that  we  have  been  enveloped  in  a  skilful  tissue
of  errors  and  subtleties,  intermingled  with  a  few  truths.  Nevertheless, ­
  it  is  not  easy  to  release  ourselves,  and  if  we  admit  the
theory  of  value  circulated  by  Smith,  Ricardo,  Bastiat,  and  Carey,
we  cannot  do  so  without  contradicting  ourselves.
M.  Maurice  Block  has  tried  to  refute  the  chief  basis  of
Marx’s  system,  which  consists  in  the  assertion  that  the  labourer
produces  his  subsistence  by  the  work  of  only  a  part  of  the  day,
while  the  other  part  is  monopolized  by  the  employer,  who  keeps
the  fruits  of  it  for  himself  without  compensation.  The  fact
alleged  by  Marx  is,  however,  incontestable.  It  is  perfectly  true
that  the  employer  does  not  give  and  cannot  give  to  the  employé
the  full  value  of  the  product,  for  if  he  did,  where  could  he
obtain  the  means  of  paying  the  interest  on  his  capital,  the  rent