omes one huge lie. We
accustom ourselves and our children to hypocrisy, to the practice of a
double-faced morality. And since the brain is ill at ease among lies, we
cheat ourselves with sophistry. Hypocrisy and sophistry become the
second nature of the civilized man.

But a society cannot live thus; it must return to truth, or cease to
exist.

Thus the consequences which spring from the original act of monopoly
spread through the whole of social life. Under pain of death, human
societies are forced to return to first principles: the means of
production being the collective work of humanity, the product should be
the collective property of the race. Individual appropriation is neither
just nor serviceable. All belongs to all. All things are for all men,
since all men have need of them, since all men have worked in the
measure of their strength to produce them, and since it is not possible
to evaluate every one's part in the production of the world's wealth.

All things for all. Here is an immense stock of tools and implements;
here are all those iron slaves which we call machines, which saw and
plane, spin and weave for us, unmaking and remaking, working up raw
matter to produce the marvels of our time. But nobody has the right to
seize a single one of these machines and say: "This is mine; if you
want to use it you must pay me a tax on each of your products," any more
than the feudal lord of medieval times had the right to say to the
peasant: "This hill, this meadow belong to me, and you must pay me a tax
on every sheaf of corn you reap, on every brick you build."

All is for all! If the man and the woman bear their fair share of work,
they have a right to their fair share of all that is produced by all,
and that share is enough to secure them well-being. No more of such
vague formulas as "The right to work," or "To each the whole result of
his labour." What we proclaim is THE RIGHT TO WELL-BEING: WELL-BEING FOR
ALL!

CHAPTER II

WELL-BEING FOR ALL

I

Well-being for all is not a dream. It is possible, realizable, owing to
all that our ancestors have done to increase our powers of production.

We know, indeed, that the producers, although they constitute hardly
one-third of the inhabitants of civilized countries, even now produce
such quantities of goods that a certain degree of comfort could be
brought to every hearth. We know further that if all those who squander
to-day the fruits of others' toil