r the well-being of all, a Communist society would not be
wanting in producers who would soon make the fertility of the soil
triple and tenfold, and give a new impulse to industry.

This our opponents agree to. "But the danger," they say, "will come from
that minority of loafers who will not work, and will not have regular
habits, in spite of the excellent conditions that would make work
pleasant. To-day the prospect of hunger compels the most refractory to
move along with the others. The one who does not arrive in time is
dismissed. But one black sheep suffices to contaminate the whole flock,
and two or three sluggish or refractory workmen would lead the others
astray and bring a spirit of disorder and rebellion into the workshop
that would make work impossible; so that in the end we should have to
return to a system of compulsion that would force such ringleaders back
into the ranks. And then,--Is not the system of wages, paid in
proportion to work performed, the only one that enables compulsion to be
employed, without hurting the feelings of independence of the worker?
All other means would imply the continual intervention of an authority
that would be repugnant to free men." This, we believe, is the objection
fairly stated.

To begin with, such an objection belongs to the category of arguments
which try to justify the State, the Penal Law, the Judge, and the
Gaoler.

"As there are people, a feeble minority, who will not submit to social
customs," the authoritarians say, "we must maintain magistrates,
tribunals and prisons, although these institutions become a source of
new evils of all kinds."

Therefore we can only repeat what we have so often said concerning
authority in general: "To avoid a possible evil you have recourse to
means which in themselves are a greater evil, and become the source of
those same abuses that you wish to remedy. For, do not forget that it is
wagedom, the impossibility of living otherwise than by selling your
labour, which has created the present Capitalist system, whose vices you
begin to recognize." Besides, this way of reasoning is merely a
sophistical justification of the evils of the present system. Wagedom
was _not_ instituted to remove the disadvantages of Communism; its
origin, like that of the State and private ownership, is to be found
elsewhere. It is born of slavery and serfdom imposed by force, and only
wears a more modern garb. Thus the argument in favour of wagedom is as