e this. What we are sure of, what has
already been experimented upon, and recognized as practical, would
suffice to carry it into effect, if the attempt were fertilized,
vivified by the daring inspiration of the Revolution and the spontaneous
impulse of the masses.

FOOTNOTE:

[10] A fuller development of these ideas will be found in my book,
_Fields, Factories, and Workshops_, published by Messrs. Thomas Nelson
and Sons in their popular series in 1912.

CHAPTER XVII

AGRICULTURE

I

Political Economy has often been reproached with drawing all its
deductions from the decidedly false principle, that the only incentive
capable of forcing a man to augment his power of production is personal
interest in its narrowest sense.

The reproach is perfectly true; so true that epochs of great industrial
discoveries and true progress in industry are precisely those in which
the happiness of all was inspiring men, and in which personal enrichment
was least thought of. The great investigators in science and the great
inventors aimed, above all, at giving greater freedom of mankind. And if
Watt, Stephenson, Jacquard, etc., could have only foreseen what a state
of misery their sleepless nights would bring to the workers, they
certainly would have burned their designs and broken their models.

Another principle that pervades Political Economy is just as false. It
is the tacit admission, common to all economists, that if there is often
over-production in certain branches, a society will nevertheless never
have sufficient products to satisfy the wants of all, and that
consequently the day will never come when nobody will be forced to sell
his labour in exchange for wages. This tacit admission is found at the
basis of all theories and all the so-called "laws" taught by economists.

And yet it is certain that the day when any civilized association of
individuals would ask itself, _what are the needs of all, and the means
of satisfying them_, it would see that, in industry, as in agriculture,
it already possesses sufficient to provide abundantly for all needs, on
condition that it knows how to apply these means to satisfy real needs.

That this is true as regards industry no one can contest. Indeed, it
suffices to study the processes already in use to extract coals and ore,
to obtain steel and work it, to manufacture on a great scale what is
used for clothing, etc., in order to perceive that we could already
increase our