"The evil of the present organisation is not in that the 'surplus value' of production passes over to the capitalist--as Rodbertus and Marx had contended--thus narrowing down the Socialist conception, and the general ideas on the capitalist regime. Surplus value itself is only a consequence of more profound causes. The evil is that there can be any kind of 'surplus value,' instead of a surplus not consumed by each generation; for, in order that there may be 'surplus value,' men, women, and children must be obliged by hunger to sell their labour powers, for a trifling portion of what these powers produce, and, especially of what they are capable of producing" (poor Marx, who knew nothing of all these profound truths, although so confusedly expounded by the learned Prince!)... "It does not, indeed, suffice to distribute in equal shares the profits realised in one industry, if, at the same time, one has to exploit thousands of other workers. The point is to _produce with the smallest possible expenditure of human labour power the greatest possible amount of products necessary for the well being of all_." (Italicised by Kropotkine himself.) Ignorant Marxists that we are! We have never heard that a Socialist society pre-supposes a systematic organisation of production. Since it is Kropotkine who reveals this to us, it is only reasonable that we should turn to him to know what this organisation will be like. On this subject also he has some very interesting things to say. "Imagine a Society comprising several million inhabitants engaged in agriculture, and a great variety of industries--Paris, for example, with the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Imagine that in this Society all children learn to work with their hand as well as with their brain. Admit, in fine, that all adults, with the exception of the women occupied with the education of children, undertake to work _five hours a day_ from the age of twenty or twenty-two to forty-five or fifty, and that they spend this time in any occupations they choose, in no matter what branch of human labour considered _necessary_. Such a Society could, in return, guarantee well-being to all its members, _i.e._, far greater comfort than that enjoyed by the bourgeoisie to-day. And every worker in this Society would moreover have at his disposal at least five hours a day, which he could devote to science, to art, and to those individual needs that do not come within the category of _necessities_, while later on, when the productive forces of man have augmented, everything may be introduced into this category that is still to-day looked upon as a luxury or unattainable."[53]