Labor, as an author (M. Walras) has beautifully expressed it, is
a war declared against the parsimony of Nature; by it wealth and
society are simultaneously created. Not only does labor produce
incomparably more wealth than Nature gives us,--for instance, it
has been remarked that the shoemakers alone in France produce
ten times more than the mines of Peru, Brazil, and Mexico
combined,--but, labor infinitely extending and multiplying its
rights by the changes which it makes in natural values, it
gradually comes about that all wealth, in running the gauntlet of
labor, falls wholly into the hands of him who creates it, and
that nothing, or almost nothing, is left for the possessor of the
original material.
Such, then, is the path of economic progress: at first,
appropriation of the land and natural values; then, association
and distribution through labor until complete equality is
attained. Chasms are scattered along our road, the sword is
suspended over our heads; but, to avert all dangers, we have
reason, and reason is omnipotence.
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