tablish himself; then, once
enriched by their united efforts, he refuses, on the very conditions
which he himself dictated, to advance the well-being of those who made
his fortune for him: and you ask how such conduct is fraudulent! Under
the pretext that he has paid his laborers, that he owes them nothing
more, that he has nothing to gain by putting himself at the service of
others, while his own occupations claim his attention,--he refuses, I
say, to aid others in getting a foothold, as he was aided in getting his
own; and when, in the impotence of their isolation, these poor laborers
are compelled to sell their birthright, he--this ungrateful proprietor,
this knavish upstart--stands ready to put the finishing touch to their
deprivation and their ruin. And you think that just? Take care!

I read in your startled countenance the reproach of a guilty conscience,
much more clearly than the innocent astonishment of involuntary
ignorance.

"The capitalist," they say, "has paid the laborers their DAILY WAGES."
To be accurate, it must be said that the capitalist has paid as many
times one day's wage as he has employed laborers each day,--which is not
at all the same thing. For he has paid nothing for that immense
power which results from the union and harmony of laborers, and
the convergence and simultaneousness of their efforts. Two hundred
grenadiers stood the obelisk of Luxor upon its base in a few hours; do
you suppose that one man could have accomplished the same task in two
hundred days? Nevertheless, on the books of the capitalist, the amount
of wages paid would have been the same. Well, a desert to prepare for
cultivation, a house to build, a factory to run,--all these are
obelisks to erect, mountains to move. The smallest fortune, the most
insignificant establishment, the setting in motion of the lowest
industry, demand the concurrence of so many different kinds of labor and
skill, that one man could not possibly execute the whole of them. It
is astonishing that the economists never have called attention to this
fact. Strike a balance, then, between the capitalist's receipts and his
payments.

The laborer needs a salary which will enable him to live while he works;
for unless he consumes, he cannot produce. Whoever employs a man owes
him maintenance and support, or wages enough to procure the same.
That is the first thing to be done in all production. I admit, for the
moment, that in this respect the capitalist h