that is to say, some form of
Representative Government, national or local, for the individual
employer of labour. Under Collectivism it is the representatives of the
nation, or of the Commune, and their deputies and officials who are to
have the control of industry. It is they who reserve to themselves the
right of employing the surplus of production--in the interests of all.
Moreover, Collectivism draws a very subtle but very far-reaching
distinction between the work of the labourer and of the man who has
learned a craft. Unskilled labour in the eyes of the collectivist is
_simple_ labour, while the work of the craftsman, the mechanic, the
engineer, the man of science, etc., is what Marx calls _complex_ labour,
and is entitled to a higher wage. But labourers and craftsmen, weavers
and men of science, are all wage-servants of the State--"all officials,"
as was said lately, to gild the pill.

Well, then, the coming Revolution could render no greater service to
humanity than by making the wage system, in all its forms, an
impossibility, and by rendering Communism, which is the negation of
wage-slavery, the only possible solution.

For even admitting that the Collectivist modification of the present
system is possible, if introduced gradually during a period of
prosperity and peace--though for my part I question its practicability
even under such conditions--it would become impossible in a period of
Revolution, when the need of feeding hungry millions would spring up
with the first call to arms. A political revolution can be accomplished
without shaking the foundations of industry, but a revolution where the
people lay hands upon property will inevitably paralyse exchange and
production. The millions of public money flowing into the Treasury
would not suffice for paying wages to the millions of out-of-works.

This point cannot be too much insisted upon; the reorganization of
industry on a new basis (and we shall presently show how tremendous this
problem is) cannot be accomplished in a few days; nor, on the other
hand, will the people submit to be half starved for years in order to
oblige the theorists who uphold the wage system. To tide over the period
of stress they will demand what they have always demanded in such
cases--communization of supplies--the giving of rations.

It will be in vain to preach patience. The people will be patient no
longer, and if food is not forthcoming they will plunder the bakeries.

Then