One village manufactures loin-cloths, the other raises
mealies, and these are exchanged against each other. These villages
fulfil the Socialistic ideal. There are no capitalists and no
middlemen, and production is only "for use," not "for profit."
Balanced over-production will result in this, that every native will
have a superabundance of loin-cloths and food. But supposing that the
agriculturists go in for loin-cloth making, finding that occupation
more congenial, and that they abandon much agriculture; or supposing
that inclement weather, or a plague of grasshoppers, should seriously
curtail the harvest, then there will soon be a glut of loin-cloths and
a crisis. The cry of over-production will arise among the loin-cloth
makers, but that cry will be unjustified and absurd. The more the
people make the more they will have, provided production is properly
balanced. The doctrine that we suffer from over-production and that
the capitalist system is at fault, that altered distribution rather
than increased production will abolish misery, and that Socialism can
prevent want and unemployment by a scientific organisation of
production, is wrong.

Socialists may, of course, argue, "In the Socialist State production
would be organised, and controlled, and properly balanced and
harmonised," an argument which is irrelevant with regard to the
over-production doctrine, and which besides is unsound, although it
may be found in most Socialistic writings. As production is
world-wide, the Socialists' control of production would also have to
be world-wide. It would involve not only the control of all human
energy throughout the world, but also the control of the seasons, of
the weather, of insect plagues, of fashions, of appetite, &c.

The foregoing proves that "men can never become richer till the
produce of their labour increases. The more they produce the richer
they will be, provided there be a demand for the produce of their
labour. If a shoemaker makes four pairs of shoes in a day he will be
twice richer than he would be if he made only two pairs in a day,
provided that an increased demand is co-existing. The question,
therefore, 'How can we become richer?' is reduced to this one, 'How
can we increase the produce of labour and at the same time maintain an
equivalent demand for that produce?'"[215] The doctrines that want and
unemployment are due to over-production and to the capitalist system
are wrong.

We now come to the