say some theorists. This
was no elliptical expression, meaning that the "results of labor
constitute the riches of the people." No; these theorists intended to
say, that it is the _intensity_ of labor which measures riches; and
the proof of this is that from step to step, from restriction to
restriction, they forced on the United States (and in so doing
believed that they were doing well) to give to the procuring of, for
instance, a certain quantity of iron, double the necessary labor. In
England, iron was then at $20; in the United States it cost $40.
Supposing the day's work to be worth $2.50, it is evident that the
United States could, by barter, procure a ton of iron by eight days'
labor taken from the labor of the nation. Thanks to the restrictive
measures of these gentlemen, sixteen days' work were necessary to
procure it, by direct production. Here then we have double labor for
an identical result; therefore double riches; and riches, measured not
by the result, but by the intensity of labor. Is not this pure and
unadulterated Sisyphism?

That there may be nothing equivocal, these gentlemen carry their idea
still farther, and on the same principle that we have heard them call
the intensity of labor _riches_, we will find them calling the
abundant results of labor and the plenty of everything proper to the
satisfying of our wants, _poverty_. "Everywhere," they remark,
"machinery has pushed aside manual labor; everywhere production is
superabundant; everywhere the equilibrium is destroyed between the
power of production and that of consumption." Here then we see that,
according to these gentlemen, if the United States was in a critical
situation it was because her productions were too abundant; there was
too much intelligence, too much efficiency in her national labor. We
were too well fed, too well clothed, too well supplied with
everything; the rapid production was more than sufficient for our
wants. It was necessary to put an end to this calamity, and therefore
it became needful to force us, by restrictions, to work more in order
to produce less.

All that we could have further to hope for, would be, that human
intellect might sink and become extinct; for, while intellect exists,
it cannot but seek continually to increase the _proportion of the end
to the means; of the product to the labor_. Indeed it is in this
continuous effort, and in this alone, that intellect consists.

Sisyphism has been the doctrine o