But commercial operations are
essentially irregular, and it has been proved beyond question
that the profits of commerce are but an arbitrary discount forced
from the consumer by the producer,--in short, a displacement, to
say the least. This we should soon see, if it was possible to
compare the total amount of annual losses with the amount of
profits. In the thought of political economy, the principle that
ALL LABOR SHOULD LEAVE AN EXCESS is simply the consecration
of the constitutional right which all of us gained by the
revolution,-- the right of robbing one's neighbor.
The law of proportionality of values alone can solve this
problem. I will approach the question a little farther back: its
gravity warrants me in treating it with the consideration that it
merits.
Most philosophers, like most philologists, see in society only a
creature of the mind, or rather, an abstract name serving to
designate a collection of men. It is a prepossession which all
of us received in our infancy with our first lessons in grammar,
that collective nouns, the names of genera and species, do not
designate realities.
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