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There is no radical vice here. What astonishes M. Blanqui is
simply that of which the Academy to which he belongs has asked a
determination,--namely, the oscillations of the economic
pendulum, VALUE, beating alternately and in regular time good and
evil, until the hour of the universal equation shall strike. If
I may be permitted another comparison, humanity in its march is
like a column of soldiers, who, starting in the same step and at
the same moment to the measured beating of the drum, gradually
lose their distances. The whole body advances, but the distance
from head to tail grows ever longer; and it is a necessary effect
of the movement that there should be some laggards and
stragglers.
But it is necessary to penetrate still farther into the antinomy.
Machines promised us an increase of wealth; they have kept their
word, but at the same time endowing us with an increase of
poverty. They promised us liberty; I am going to prove that they
have brought us slavery.
I have stated that the determination of value, and with it the
tribulations of society, began with the division of industries,
without which there could be no exchange, or wealth, or progress.
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