re on the share of the public produce allotted to the several
members of each household. It had been assumed as matter of course by
the majority that when every one was forced to work there would be
more than enough for all; that public spirit, and if necessary
coercion, would prove as effectual stimulants to exertion and industry
as interest and necessity had done under the system of private
ownership.

Those who relied on the refutation of this theory forgot that with
poor and suffering men who look to no future, and acknowledge no law
but such as is created by their own capricious will and pleasure, envy
is even a more powerful passion than greed. The Many preferred that
wealth and luxury should be destroyed, rather than that they should be
the exclusive possession of the Few. The first and most visible effect
of Communism was the utter disappearance of all perishable luxuries,
of all food, clothing, furniture, better than that enjoyed by the
poorest. Whatever could not be produced in quantities sufficient to
give each an appreciable share was not produced at all. Next, the
quarrels arising out of the apportionment of labour were bitter,
constant, and savage. Only a grinding despotism could compose them,
and those who wielded such despotism for a short time excited during
the period of their rule such fierce and universal hatred, that they
were invariably overturned and almost invariably murdered before their
very brief legal term of office had closed. It was not only that those
engaged in the same kind of labour quarrelled over the task assigned
to each, whether allotted in proportion to his strength, or to the
difficulty of his labour, or by lot equally to all. Those to whom the
less agreeable employments were assigned rebelled or murmured, and at
last it was necessary to substitute rotation for division of labour,
since no one would admit that he was best fitted for the lower or less
agreeable. Of course we thus wasted silver tools in doing the work of
iron, and reduced enormously the general production of wealth. Next,
it was found that since one man's industry or idleness could produce
no appreciable effect upon the general wealth, still less upon the
particular share assigned to him, every man was as idle as the envy
and jealousy of his neighbours would allow. Finally, as the produce
annually diminished and the number of mouths to be fed became a
serious consideration, the parents of many children were regarded