the first place from the community--in Turkish or Egyptian bonds, or
in Patagonian gold mines, and so make Egyptian fellahs, Italian
emigrants, and Chinese coolies their wage-slaves.

This is the direct and deliberate limitation of production; but there
is also a limitation indirect and not of set purpose, which consists in
spending human toil on objects absolutely useless, or destined only to
satisfy the dull vanity of the rich.

It is impossible to reckon in figures the extent to which wealth is
restricted indirectly, the extent to which energy is squandered, while
it might have served to produce, and above all to prepare the machinery
necessary to production. It is enough to cite the immense sums spent by
Europe in armaments, for the sole purpose of acquiring control of
markets, and so forcing her own goods on neighbouring territories, and
making exploitation easier at home; the millions paid every year to
officials of all sorts, whose function it is to maintain the "rights" of
minorities--the right, that is, of a few rich men--to manipulate the
economic activities of the nation; the millions spent on judges,
prisons, policemen, and all the paraphernalia of so-called
justice--spent to no purpose, because we know that every alleviation,
however slight, of the wretchedness of our great cities is always
followed by a considerable diminution of crime; lastly, the millions
spent on propagating pernicious doctrines by means of the press, and
news "cooked" in the interest of this or that party, of this politician
or of that group of speculators.

But over and above this we must take into account all the labour that
goes to sheer waste,--here, in keeping up the stables, the kennels, and
the retinue of the rich; there, in pandering to the caprices of society
and the depraved tastes of the fashionable mob; there again, in forcing
the consumer to buy what he does not need, or foisting an inferior
article upon him by means of puffery, and in producing on the other hand
wares which are absolutely injurious, but profitable to the
manufacturer. What is squandered in this manner would be enough to
double the production of useful things, or so to plenish our mills and
factories with machinery that they would soon flood the shops with all
that is now lacking to two-thirds of the nation. Under our present
system a full quarter of the producers in every nation are forced to be
idle for three or four months in the year, and the labour