ustice done to
the defrauded laborer, of rivalry, of excited ambition, and burning
hatred,--these may all be important considerations, but they do not hit
the point.

On the one hand, each laborer's task being short and easy, and the means
for its successful accomplishment being equal in all cases, how could
there be large and small producers? On the other hand, all functions
being equal, either on account of the actual equivalence of talents
and capacities, or on account of social co-operation, how could a
functionary claim a salary proportional to the worth of his genius?

But, what do I say? In equality wages are always proportional to
talents. What is the economical meaning of wages? The reproductive
consumption of the laborer. The very act by which the laborer produces
constitutes, then, this consumption, exactly equal to his production,
of which we are speaking. When the astronomer produces observations, the
poet verses, or the savant experiments, they consume instruments, books,
travels, &c., &c.; now, if society supplies this consumption, what more
can the astronomer, the savant, or the poet demand? We must conclude,
then, that in equality, and only in equality, St. Simon's adage--TO
EACH ACCORDING TO HIS CAPACITY TO EACH CAPACITY ACCORDING TO ITS
RESULTS--finds its full and complete application.

III. The great evil--the horrible and ever-present evil--arising from
property, is that, while property exists, population, however reduced,
is, and always must be, over-abundant. Complaints have been made in
all ages of the excess of population; in all ages property has been
embarrassed by the presence of pauperism, not perceiving that it caused
it. Further,--nothing is more curious than the diversity of the plans
proposed for its extermination. Their atrocity is equalled only by their
absurdity.

The ancients made a practice of abandoning their children. The wholesale
and retail slaughter of slaves, civil and foreign wars, also lent their
aid. In Rome (where property held full sway), these three means were
employed so effectively, and for so long a time, that finally the empire
found itself without inhabitants. When the barbarians arrived, nobody
was to be found; the fields were no longer cultivated; grass grew in the
streets of the Italian cities.

In China, from time immemorial, upon famine alone has devolved the task
of sweeping away the poor. The people living almost exclusively upon
rice, if an accident ca