Page:The Conquest of Bread (1906).djvu/263

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION
241

changed. Behind the loom that weaves so many yards of cloth, behind the steel-plate perforator, and behind the safe in which dividends are hoarded, we should see man, the artisan of production, more often than not excluded from the feast he has prepared for others. We should also understand that the standpoint being wrong, so-called laws of value and exchange are but a very false explanation of events, as they happen nowadays; and that things will come to pass very differently when production is organized in such a manner as to meet all needs of society.

II

There is not one single principle of Political Economy that does not change its aspect if you look at it from our point of view.

Take, for instance, over-production, a word which every day re-echoes in our ears. Is there a single economist, academician, or candidate for academical honours, who has not supported arguments, proving that economic crises are due to over-production—that at a given moment more cotton, more cloth, more watches are produced than are needed! Have not men accused of "rapacity" the capitalists who are obstinately bent on producing more than can possibly be consumed! But on careful examination all these reasonings prove unsound. In fact, Is there a commodity among those in universal use which is produced in greater