II

Let us closely examine this system of remuneration for work done, preached by French, German, English, and Italian collectivists (Spanish anarchists, who still call themselves collectivists, imply by Collectivism the possession in common of all instruments of production, and the “liberty of each group to divide the produce, as they think fit, according to communist or any other principles”). It amounts to this: Everybody works in field, factory, school, hospital, etc. The working-day is fixed by the State, which owns land, factories, roads, etc. Every work-day is paid for with a labour-note, which is inscribed with these words: Eight hours work. With this cheque the worker can procure all sorts of merchandise in the stores owned by the State or by divers corporations. The cheque is divisible, so that you can buy an hour’s-work worth of meat, ten minutes worth of matches, or half an hour of tobacco. After the Collectivist Revolution, instead of saying “two-pence worth of soap,” we shall say “five minutes worth of soap.”

Most collectivists, true to the distinction laid down by middle-class economists (and by Marx) between qualified work and simple work, tell us, moreover, that qualified or professional work must be paid a certain quantity more than simple work. Thus an hour’s work of a doctor will have to be considered as equivalent to two or three hours’ work of a hospital nurse, or to three hours’ work of a navvy. “Professional, or qualified work, will be a multiple of simple work,” says the collectivist Grönlund, “because this kind of work needs a more or less long apprenticeship.”

Other collectivists, such as the French Marxists, do not make this distinction. They proclaim “Equality of Wages.” The doctor, the schoolmaster, and the professor will be paid (in labour-cheques) at the same rate as the navvy. Eight hours visiting the sick in a hospital will be worth the same as eight hours spent in earth-works or else in mines or factories.

Some make a greater concession; they admit that disagreeable or unhealthy work — such as sewerage — could be paid for at a higher rate than agreeable work. One hour’s work of a sewerman would be worth, they say, two hours of a professor’s work.

Let us add that certain collectivists admit of corporations paying a lump sum for work done. Thus a corporation would say: “Here are a hundred tons of steel. A hundred workmen were required to produce them, and it took them ten days. Their work-day being an eight-hours day, it has taken them eight thousand working hours to produce a hundred tons of steed eight hours a ton.” For this the State would pay them eight thousand labour-notes of one hour each, and these eight thousand cheques would be divided among the members of the iron-works as they themselves thought proper.

On the other hand, a hundred miners having taken twenty days to extract eight thousand tons of coal, coal would be worth two hours a ton, and the sixteen thousand cheques of one hour each, received by the Guild of Miners, would be divided among their members according to their own appreciation.

If the miners protested, and said that a ton of steel should only cost six hours’ work instead of eight; if the professor wished to have his day paid twice more than the nurse, then the State would interfere and would settle their differences.

Such is, in a few words, the organization collectivists wish to see arise out of the Social Revolution. As we see, their principles are: Collective property of the instruments of production, and remuneration to each according to the time spent in producing, while taking into account the productivity of his labour. As to the political system, it would be Parliamentarianism modified by positive instructions given to those elected, by the Referendum — a vote, taken by noes or ayes by the nation.

Let us own that this system appears to us unrealizable.

Collectivists begin by proclaiming a revolutionary principle — the abolition of private property — then they deny it no sooner than proclaimed by upholding an organization of production and consumption that originated in private property.

They proclaim a revolutionary principle, and ignore the consequences that this principle will inevitably bring about. They forget that the very fact of abolishing individual property in the instruments of work — land, factories, road, capital, — must launch society into absolutely new channels; must completely overthrow the present system of production, both in its aim as well as in its means; must modify daily relations between individuals, as soon as land, machinery, and all other instruments of production are considered common property.

They say, “No private property,” and immediately after strive to maintain private property in its daily manifestations. “You shall be a Commune as far as regards production: fields, tools, machinery, all that has been invented up till now — factories, railways, harbours, mines, etc., all are yours. Not the slightest distinction will be made concerning the share of each in this collective property.

“But from to-morrow you will minutely debate the share you are going to take in the creation of new machinery, in the digging of new mines. You will carefully weigh what part of the new produce belongs to you. You will count your minutes of work, and you will take care that a minute of your neighbours cannot buy more than yours.

“And as an hour measures nothing, as in some factories a worker can see to six power-looms at a time, while in another he only tends two, you will weigh the muscular force, the brain energy, and the nervous energy you have expended. You will accurately calculate the years of apprenticeship in order to appraise the amount each will contribute to future production. And this — after having declared that you do not take into account his share in past production.”

Well, for us it is evident that a society cannot be based on two absolutely opposed principles, two principles that contradict one another continually. And a nation or a commune that would have such an organization would be compelled to revert to private property in the instruments of production, or to transform itself immediately into a communist society.