It will be said, perhaps, that it is easy to prevent the absolute
annihilation of the profits of capital by stopping the
progression at any moment.
Eclecticism, the golden mean, compromise with heaven or with
morality: is it always to be the same philosophy, then? True
science is repugnant to such arrangements. All invested capital
must return to the producer in the form of interest; all labor
must leave a surplus, all wages be equal to product. Under the
protection of these laws society continually realizes, by the
greatest variety of production, the highest possible degree of
welfare. These laws are absolute; to violate them is to wound,
to mutilate society. Capital, accordingly, which, after all, is
nothing but accumulated labor, is inviolable. But, on the other
hand, the tendency to equality is no less imperative; it is
manifested at each economic phase with increasing energy and an
invincible authority. Therefore you must satisfy labor and
justice at once; you must give to the former guarantees more
and more real, and secure the latter without concession or
ambiguity.
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