Principles of Political Economy: Abridged with Critical, Bibliographical, and Explanatory Notes, and a Sketch of the History of Political EconomyMill, John Stuart
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Principles of Political Economy: Abridged with Critical, Bibliographical, and Explanatory Notes, and a Sketch of the History of Political Economy
Mill, John Stuart
Economics
There have been many smaller communities established in the United
States, but it can not be said that they have been successful from
the point of view either of numbers or material prosperity. The
followers of Rapp, or the Harmonists, in Pennsylvania and Indiana;
the Owenites,(158) in Indiana; the community of Zoar, in Ohio; the
Inspirationists, in New York and Iowa; the Perfectionists, at
Oneida and Wallingford—are all evidently suffering from the
difficulties due to the absence of family life, from the
increasing spirit of personal independence which carries away the
younger members of the organizations,(159) and the want of that
executive ability which distinguishes the successful manager in
private enterprises.
§ 5. The Socialist objections to the present order of Society examined.
“The attacks(160) on the present social order are vigorous and earnest,
but open to the charge of exaggeration.
“In the first place, it is unhappily true that the wages of ordinary
labor, in all the countries of Europe, are wretchedly insufficient to
supply the physical and moral necessities of the population in any
tolerable measure. But when it is further alleged that even this
insufficient remuneration has a tendency to diminish; that there is, in
the words of M. Louis Blanc, _une baisse continue des salaires_; the
assertion is in opposition to all accurate information, and to many
notorious facts. It has yet to be proved that there is any country in the
civilized world where the ordinary wages of labor, estimated either in
money or in articles of consumption, are declining; while in many they
are, on the whole, on the increase; and an increase which is becoming, not
slower, but more rapid. There are, occasionally, branches of industry
which are being gradually superseded by something else, and in those,
until production accommodates itself to demand, wages are depressed.
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