overseer to impede him, and lastly, when he sees his work
bringing in a profit to him and to others who work like him, but
bringing in little to idlers. Nothing else can be deducted from their
argumentation, and this is what we maintain ourselves.

As to the form of possession of the instruments of labour, the
economists only mention it _indirectly_ in their demonstration, as a
guarantee to the cultivator that he shall not be robbed of the profits
of his yield nor of his improvements. Besides, in support of their
thesis in favour of _private property_ against all other forms of
_possession_, should not the economists demonstrate that under the form
of communal property land never produces such rich harvests as when the
possession is private? But this they could not prove; in fact, it is the
contrary that has been observed.

Take for example a commune in the canton of Vaud, in the winter time,
when all the men of the village go to fell wood in the forest, which
belongs to them all. It is precisely during these festivals of labour
that the greatest ardour for work and the most considerable display of
human energy are apparent. No salaried labour, no effort of a private
owner can bear comparison with it.

Or let us take a Russian village, when all its inhabitants mow a field
belonging to the commune, or farmed by it. There you will see what man
_can_ produce when he works in common for communal production. Comrades
vie with one another in cutting the widest swathe, women bestir
themselves in their wake so as not to be distanced by the mowers. It is
a festival of labour, in which a hundred people accomplish in a few
hours a work that would not have been finished in a few days had they
worked separately. What a miserable contrast compared to them is offered
by the work of the isolated owner!

In fact, we might quote scores of examples among the pioneers of
America, in Swiss, German, Russian, and in certain French villages; or
the work done in Russia by gangs (_artels)_ of masons, carpenters,
boatmen, fishermen, etc., who undertake a task and divide the produce or
the remuneration among themselves without it passing through an
intermediary of middlemen; or else the amount of work I saw performed in
English ship-yards when the remuneration was paid on the same principle.
We could also mention the great communal hunts of nomadic tribes, and an
infinite number of successful collective enterprises. And in every case
we could