ever be satisfied.

The point of view, we see, would be entirely changed. Behind the loom
that weaves so many yards of cloth, behind the steel-plate perforator,
and behind the safe in which dividends are hoarded, we should see man,
the artisan of production, more often than not excluded from the feast
he has prepared for others. We should also understand that the
standpoint being wrong, the so-called "laws" of value and exchange are
but a very false explanation of events, as they happen nowadays; and
that things will come to pass very differently when production is
organized in such a manner as to meet all needs of society.

II

There is not one single principle of Political Economy that does not
change its aspect if you look at it from our point of view.

Take, for instance, over-production, a word which every day re-echoes in
our ears. Is there a single economist, academician, or candidate for
academical honours, who has not supported arguments, proving that
economic crises are due to over-production--that at a given moment more
cotton, more cloth, more watches are produced than are needed! Have we
not, all of us, thundered against the rapacity of the capitalists who
are obstinately bent on producing more than can possibly be consumed!

However, on careful examination all these reasonings prove unsound. In
fact, Is there one single commodity among those in universal use which
is produced in greater quantity than need be. Examine one by one all
commodities sent out by countries exporting on a large scale, and you
will see that nearly all are produced in _insufficient_ quantities for
the inhabitants of the countries exporting them.

It is not a surplus of wheat that the Russian peasant sends to Europe.
The most plentiful harvests of wheat and rye in European Russia only
yield _enough_ for the population. And as a rule, the peasant deprives
himself of what he actually needs when he sells his wheat or rye to pay
rent and taxes.

It is not a surplus of coal that England sends to the four corners of
the globe, because only three-quarters of a ton, per head of population,
annually, remains for home domestic consumption, and millions of
Englishmen are deprived of fire in the winter, or have only just enough
to boil a few vegetables. In fact, setting aside useless luxuries, there
is in England, which exports more than any other country, one single
commodity in universal use--cottons--whose production is sufficiently