384 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. 



saved when almost everything was made to be consumed on the spot 

 by the producers themselves, only a few surplus products being sold 

 in the nearest market to pay for some foreign luxuries. How could 

 such an organization fail to succeed? If it is said that the unem- 

 ployed are not first-rate workmen, we reply, second or even third- 

 rate men will do very well. Average mechanics carpenters, masons, 

 plumbers, tanners, tailors, shoemakers, spinners, weavers, agricul- 

 tural laborers, etc. will be able to build second-class houses, make 

 second-class clothing, and produce plain food. Again, why not? 

 If every kind of trade and manufacture can be carried on and well 

 managed by public companies, whose shareholders know nothing of 

 the business, why not by the local authorities? Every company has 

 to compete with other companies and with great capitalists in the 

 sale of its products. Here there would be no competition, as the 

 great bulk of the products would be consumed by the producers 

 themselves, and in some cases exchanged for the products of other 

 similar settlements when it is found to be beneficial to do so. Why, 

 then, is this not done? Why ,is it nowhere attempted? There is 

 really only one answer. Manufacturers and capitalists are afraid it 

 would succeed. They know, in fact, that it would only succeed too 

 well; that it would render those who are now unemployed self-sup- 

 porting; and, by abolishing the spur of starvation, or the dread of 

 starvation, would raise wages all round. Hence, so long as we have 

 capitalist governments, and the workers are so blind as to send man- 

 ufacturers and capitalists and lawyers to misrepresent them in Parlia- 

 ment, a really effective remedy will not be tried. 



But will advanced thinkers and the educated workers continue 

 much longer to permit myriads to suffer penury that a few may get 

 rich? for that is really what it comes to The mere consideration 

 that the powers of production are now practically unlimited, and 

 that not only enough for every human being, but far more than 

 could possibly be consumed, can be produced by the machinery and 

 labor now in existence, shows how cruel and unnecessary is the sys- 

 tem that condemns so many men and women and children either to 

 long hours of grinding labor or to idleness and its attendant want and 

 misery. 



The ingenious sophistries of modern writers, from the point of view 

 of the competitive and capitalistic system as an absolute fundamental 

 fact, have rendered it difficult for most people to comprehend the 

 reason of the paradox, that with an enormous increase of wealth and 

 of power of producing all commodities there should be a correspond- 

 ing perpetuation, or even increase, of poverty. We owe it to an 



