The practical
formula deduced from these marvellous adages is that each laborer
owes all his time to society, and that society should give back
to him in exchange all that is necessary to the satisfaction of
his wants in proportion to the resources at its disposal.
May my communistic friends forgive me! I should be less severe
upon their ideas if I were not irreversibly convinced, in my
reason and in my heart, that communism, republicanism, and all
the social, political, and religious utopias which disdain facts
and criticism, are the greatest obstacle which progress has now
to conquer. Why will they never understand that fraternity can
be established only by justice; that justice alone, the
condition, means, and law of liberty and fraternity, must be the
object of our study; and that its determination and formula must
be pursued without relaxation, even to the minutest details? Why
do writers familiar with economic language forget that
superiority of talents is synonymous with superiority of wants,
and that, instead of expecting more from vigorous than from
ordinary personalities, society should constantly look out that
they do not receive more than they render, when it is already so
hard for the mass of mankind to render all that it receives?
Turn which way you will, you must always come back to the cash
book, to the account of receipts and expenditures, the sole
guarantee against large consumers as well as against small
producers.
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