United States or Equatorial Guinea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Everything, even success, has to be paid for. And thus that triumpher, that money-maker, whose pile was growing larger at each successive inventory, was sobbing with bitter grief. However, he showed himself kindly disposed towards Toussaint, and promised to assist him. As for a pension that was an idea which he could not entertain, as it was the negation of the wage-system such as it existed.
I have commented on this fact solely with the view to showing that the nature of the alternative to the wage-system thus proposed indicates a full recognition, on the part of those proposing it, of the nature and necessity of the functions which the wage-system performs at present namely, that of supplying the means by which the ablest minds in the community secure from the mass of the citizens the punctual performance of the industrial tasks required of them.
No one answered. The wage-system of modern England is a little difficult to explain in three words even if you understand it which the children didn't. 'You'll have a revolt of your slaves if you're not careful, said the Queen. 'Oh, no, said Cyril; 'you see they have votes that makes them safe not to revolt. It makes all the difference. Father told me so. 'What is this vote? asked the Queen.
These words were written 140 years ago, but, as we all know, they are still true of the working of the system to-day. Indeed the war has served to emphasize their truth by showing us how deeply entrenched are the habits of bargaining and of latent antagonism which the working of the wage-system has engendered.
Thus the normal and natural order of things, wherever the wage-system exists tends to dispense with some, or many, of the workmen. This is a clear gain if the men thus displaced are instantly taken up for some other service. But this seldom can happen; often their old skill is made useless, and before they can learn a new trade they become demoralized, and many perish.
I am an economic scientist, analyzing the forces which operate in human societies. I blame the prophets and priests and healers for their fall from idealism; but I blame still more the competitive wage-system, which presents them with the alternative to swindle or to starve. For, you see, the prophet has to have food.
And an escape from the wage-system and one not theoretically impracticable it no doubt is; but an escape into what? It is an escape into one of those systems which I have just now mentioned. That is to say, it is an escape into economic slavery.
These two coercive systems are the only alternatives to the wage-system that have ever been found workable in the past history of the world. We will now consider the system which some of the most thoughtful socialists of to-day are proposing as a substitute for it in the hoped-for socialistic future. The school of English socialists, of which Mr.
Everything, even success, has to be paid for. And thus that triumpher, that money-maker, whose pile was growing larger at each successive inventory, was sobbing with bitter grief. However, he showed himself kindly disposed towards Toussaint, and promised to assist him. As for a pension that was an idea which he could not entertain, as it was the negation of the wage-system such as it existed.
Socialists, he continues, subject to this proviso, would leave the wage-system just as it is now. The state would pay those who worked, and in accordance with the work they did; but the idle or refractory it would "leave to starve to death, if they so elected, unless somebody wished to keep them alive, as happens at the present time."
Word Of The Day