There is also a wealth of ingenious remarks, which, if not, perhaps, true, deserve retention because of their originality. How such spoliation on the part of capitalists and proprietors can continue without a revolt of the working men is a question which has been asked by every writer on theoretical socialism, without its full import ever being realised. Is there not something very improbable in this? The problem is a curious one, indeed, and requires much ingenuity for its solution. Marx disposed of it by his theory of surplus value. Rodbertus in a simpler fashion showed the opposition between economic distribution as realised in exchange and the social distribution which lurks behind it. Proudhon has his own solution. There is, says he, between master and men continual miscalculation.[631] The master pays each workman in proportion to the value of his own individual labour, but reserves for himself the product which results from the collective force of all—a product which is altogether superior to that yielded by the sum of their individual efforts. This excessive product represents profits. “It is said that the capitalist pays his workmen by the day. But to be more exact we ought to say that he pays a _per diem_ wage multiplied by the number of workmen employed each day—which is not the same thing. For that immense force which results from union and from the harmonious combination of simultaneous efforts he has paid nothing. Two hundred grenadiers can deck the base of the Louqsor statue in a few hours, a task which would be quite impossible for one man though he worked two hundred days. According to the capitalist reckoning the wages paid in both cases would be the same.”[632] “And so the worker is led to believe that he is paid for his work, whereas in reality he is only partly paid for it. Even after receiving his wage he still retains a right of property in the things which he has produced.”[633] His explanation, though very subtle, is none the less erroneous. The appearance of the pamphlet made Proudhon famous, not merely in the eyes of the public, who knew little of him beyond his famous formula, but also in the opinion of the economists. Blanqui and Garnier, among others, interested themselves in his work. “It is impossible to have a higher opinion of anyone than I have of you,” writes the former.[634] Blanqui by his favourable report to the Academy of Moral Sciences was instrumental in thwarting the legal proceedings which the Minister of the Interior was anxious to take against Proudhon. And it was upon Garnier’s advice that the publisher Guillaumin, although a strong adherent of orthodox economics, consented to issue a new work by Proudhon in 1846. The book was entitled _Les Contradictions économiques_, and Guillaumin was not a little startled by it.[635]