Therefore
we are on the road, as I have said, to a general scheduling of
prices.
But a general scheduling of prices is nothing but a determination
of all values, and here again political economy comes into
conflict with its own principles and tendencies. Unfortunately,
to realize M. Wolowski's reform, it is necessary to begin by
solving all the previous contradictions and enter a higher sphere
of association; and it is this absence of solution which has
brought down upon M. Wolowski's system the condemnation of most
of his fellow-economists.
In fact, the system of trade-marks is inapplicable in the
existing order, because this system, contrary to the interests of
the manufacturers and repugnant to their habits, could be
sustained only by the energetic will of power. Suppose for a
moment that the administration be charged with affixing the
marks; its agents will have to interpose continually in the work
of manufacture, as it interposes in the liquor business and the
manufacture of beer; further, these agents, whose functions seem
already so intrusive and annoying, deal only with taxable
quantities, not with exchangeable qualities.
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