146 THE POVERTY OF PHILOSOPHY
causing him to be reduced. from the rank of an artisan to that of a mere laborer..... The period through which we are now passing, that of machinery, is distinguished by a special character, it is that of the qwage-qworker. The wage-worker is posterior to the division of labor and ex- change.”
A simple observation to M. Proudhon. The separation of the different parts of labor, leaving to each man the faculty of devoting himself to the speciality most agree- able to him, a separation which M. Proudhon dates from the beginning of the world, exists only in modern in- dustry, under the régime of competition.
M. Proudhon afterwards gives us a “genealogy,” much too “interesting,” in order to demonstrate how the work-
shop is born from the division of labor and the wage- worker from the workshop. ;
1. He imagines a man who “has remarked that by dividing production into different parts, and causing each to be executed by a separate workman,” the forces of production might be multiplied.
2. This man, seizing the thread of this idea, “tells himself that in forming a permanent group of assorted workmen for the special object that he has in view, he will obtain a more regular and more abundant pro- duction, &c.”
3. This man makes a proposition to other men to get them to grasp his idea, and the thread of his idea.
4. This man, at the inception of the industry, acts as an equal to equals towards the companions who, later, be- come his workmen.
5. “He is sensible, in fact, that this primitive equality
must rapidly disappear through the advantageous position of the master and the dependence of the wage-worker,”
