other principles").

It amounts to this: Everybody works in field, factory, school, hospital,
etc. The working-day is fixed by the State, which owns the land, the
factories, the roads, etc. Every work-day is paid for with a
_labour-note_, which is inscribed with these words: _Eight hours' work_.
With this cheque the worker can procure all sorts of merchandise in the
stores owned by the State or by divers corporations. The cheque is
divisible, so that you can buy an hour's-work worth of meat, ten
minutes' worth of matches, or half an hour of tobacco. After the
Collectivist Revolution, instead of saying "twopence worth of soap," we
shall say "five minutes' worth of soap."

Most collectivists, true to the distinction laid down by middle-class
economists (and by Marx as well) between _qualified_ work and _simple_
work, tell us, moreover, that _qualified_ or professional work must be
paid a certain quantity more than _simple_ work. Thus one hour's work of
a doctor will have to be considered as equivalent to two or three hours'
work of a hospital nurse, or to three or five hours' work of a navvy.
"Professional, or qualified work, will be a multiple of simple work,"
says the collectivist Groenlund, "because this kind of work needs a more
or less long apprenticeship."

Some other collectivists, such as the French Marxist, Guesde, do not
make this distinction. They proclaim the "Equality of Wages." The
doctor, the schoolmaster, and the professor will be paid (in
labour-cheques) at the same rate as the navvy. Eight hours visiting the
sick in a hospital will be worth the same as eight hours spent in
earthworks or else in mines or factories.

Some make a greater concession; they admit that disagreeable or
unhealthy work--such as sewerage--could be paid for at a higher rate
than agreeable work. One hour's work of a sewerman would be worth, they
say, two hours of a professor's work.

Let us add that certain collectivists admit of corporations being paid a
lump sum for work done. Thus a corporation would say: "Here are a
hundred tons of steel. A hundred workmen were required to produce them,
and it took them ten days. Their work-day being an eight-hours day, it
has taken them eight thousand working hours to produce a hundred tons of
steel--eight hours a ton." For this the State would pay them eight
thousand labour-notes of one hour each, and these eight thousand cheques
would be divided among the members of the iron-works as they