Political
economy--that is, proprietary despotism--can never be in the
wrong: it must be the proletariat.
The example of printing has been cited many a time, always to
sustain the optimistic view. The number of persons supported
today by the manufacture of books is perhaps a thousand times
larger than was that of the copyists and illuminators prior to
Gutenberg's time; therefore, they conclude with a satisfied air,
printing has injured nobody. An infinite number of similar facts
might be cited, all of them indisputable, but not one of which
would advance the question a step. Once more, no one denies that
machines have contributed to the general welfare; but I affirm,
in regard to this incontestable fact, that the economists fall
short of the truth when they advance the absolute statement that
THE SIMPLIFICATION OF PROCESSES HAS NOWHERE RESULTED IN A
DIMINUTION OF THE NUMBER OF HANDS EMPLOYED IN ANY INDUSTRY
WHATEVER. What the economists ought to say is that machinery,
like the division of labor, in the present system of social
economy is at once a source of wealth and a permanent and fatal
cause of misery.
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