And, sir, this fatal consequence which necessity forces upon the State is no mere imagination.Even now the legislative power is asked, no longer simply to regulate the government of factories, but to create factories itself.Listen to the millions of voices shouting on all hands for THE ORGANISATION OF LABOR, THECREATION OF NATIONAL WORKSHOPS! The whole laboring class is agitated: it has its journals, organs, and representatives.To guarantee labor to the workingman, to balance production with sale, to harmonize industrial proprietors, it advocates to-day--as a sovereign remedy--one sole head, one national wardenship, one huge manufacturing company.For, sir, all this is included in the idea of national workshops.On this subject I wish to quote, as proof, the views of an illustrious economist, a brilliant mind, a progressive intellect, an enthusiastic soul, a true patriot, and yet an official defender of the right of property.
Course of M.Blanqui.Lecture of Nov.27,1840.
The honorable professor of the Conservatory proposes then,--1.TO CHECK THE CONTINUAL EMIGRATION OF LABORERS FROM THECOUNTRY INTO THE CITIES.
But, to keep the peasant in his village, his residence there must be made endurable: to be just to all, the proletaire of the country must be treated as well as the proletaire of the city.
Reform is needed, then, on farms as well as in factories; and, when the government enters the workshop, the government must seize the plough! What becomes, during this progressive invasion, of independent cultivation, exclusive domain, property?
2.TO FIX FOR EACH PROFESSION A MODERATE SALARY, VARYING WITHTIME AND PLACE AND BASED UPON CERTAIN DATA.
The object of this measure would be to secure to laborers their subsistence, and to proprietors their profits, while obliging the latter to sacrifice from motives of prudence, if for no other reason, a portion of their income.Now, I say, that this portion, in the long run, would swell until at last there would be an equality of enjoyment between the proletaire and the proprietor.For, as we have had occasion to remark several times already, the interest of the capitalist--in other words the increase of the idler--tends, on account of the power of labor, the multiplication of products and exchanges, to continually diminish, and, by constant reduction, to disappear.So that, in the society proposed by M.Blanqui, equality would not be realized at first, but would exist potentially; since property, though outwardly seeming to be industrial feudality, being no longer a principle of exclusion and encroachment, but only a privilege of division, would not be slow, thanks to the intellectual and political emancipation of the proletariat, in passing into absolute equality,--as absolute at least as any thing can be on this earth.
I omit, for the sake of brevity, the numerous considerations which the professor adduces in support of what he calls, too modestly in my opinion, his Utopia.They would serve only to prove beyond all question that, of all the charlatans of radicalism who fatigue the public ear, no one approaches, for depth and clearness of thought, the audacious M.Blanqui.
3.NATIONAL WORKSHOPS SHOULD BE IN OPERATION ONLY DURING PERIODSOF STAGNATION IN ORDINARY INDUSTRIES; AT SUCH TIMES THEY SHOULDBE OPENED AS VAST OUTLETS TO THE FLOOD OF THE LABORINGPOPULATION.
But, sir, the stoppage of private industry is the result of over-production, and insufficient markets.If, then, production continues in the national workshops, how will the crisis be terminated? Undoubtedly, by the general depreciation of merchandise, and, in the last analysis, by the conversion of private workshops into national workshops.On the other hand, the government will need capital with which to pay its workmen;now, how will this capital be obtained? By taxation.And upon what will the tax be levied? Upon property.Then you will have proprietary industry sustaining against itself, and at its own expense, another industry with which it cannot compete.What, think you, will become, in this fatal circle, of the possibility of profit,--in a word, of property?
Thank Heaven! equality of conditions is taught in the public schools; let us fear revolutions no longer.The most implacable enemy of property could not, if he wished to destroy it, go to work in a wiser and more effective way.Courage, then, ministers, deputies, economists! make haste to seize this glorious initiative; let the watchwords of equality, uttered from the heights of science and power, be repeated in the midst of the people; let them thrill the breasts of the proletaires, and carry dismay into the ranks of the last representatives of privilege!
The tendency of society in favor of compelling proprietors to support national workshops and public manufactories is so strong that for several years, under the name of ELECTORALREFORM, it has been exclusively the question of the day.What is, after all, this electoral reform which the people grasp at, as if it were a bait, and which so many ambitious persons either call for or denounce? It is the acknowledgment of the right of the masses to a voice in the assessment of taxes, and the making of the laws; which laws, aiming always at the protection of material interests, affect, in a greater or less degree, all questions of taxation or wages.Now the people, instructed long since by their journals, their dramas, and their songs,
