primitive peoples, and implies a very
advanced state of social culture. But, however little this condition
is the natural one, [Greek: kat' exochen], still less is it
particularly moral or just.

We know to-day for certain that the rise of communal possession in
land was always inseparably connected with the introduction of
slavery, and that one cannot be thought of without the other. But to
wish to imagine equality in addition to the collective possession of
primitive society is to a great extent a distortion of the facts of
history. Whatever facts we may produce from the actual and not merely
imaginary primitive history of property would be so many arguments
against Proudhon's contention. His economic argument is just as
untenable, that labour should lead to equality. All work, according
to Proudhon, is the effective of a collective force, which is equal to
the resultants of the forces of the single individuals who form the
labour group. Consequently, the product of labour is the property of
the whole community, and every worker has an equal claim to it. This
is, briefly, the argument which, from premises that are possibly
correct, draws conclusions that are entirely false. Proudhon gives the
following example: "Two hundred grenadiers placed the obelisk of Luxor
on its pedestal in a few hours, and yet we do not believe that one man
could have performed the same work in two hundred days. The collective
force is greater than the sum of individual forces and individual
efforts. Therefore the capitalist has not rewarded the labourer fairly
when he pays wages for one day multiplied by the number of
day-labourers employed by him."

It will be seen that Proudhon here proceeds from the assumption that
the value of a product of a labour is a firmly established and easily
fixed amount, as John Grey and Rodbertus had taught before him; for
only in this case could it be exactly stated how great the claim is
which belongs to a labourer. In fact, the characteristic feature of
Proudhon's theory of value lies in his endeavour to determine and fix
values; that is, to use his own dialectic jargon, according to the
synthetic solution of the antithesis of value in use and value in
exchange, in which our economic life fluctuates. Supply and demand,
considered by others as the factors which regulate and determine
value, are to him only forms which serve to contrast with one another
the value in use and value in exchange, and to cause th