But nine-tenths of Europeans have never possessed a healthy house, because at all times common people have had to work day after day to satisfy the needs of their rulers, and have never had the necessary leisure or money to build, or to have built, the home of their dreams. And they can have no houses, and will inhabit hovels as long as present conditions remain unchanged. It is thus seen that our method is quite contrary to that of the economists, who immortalize the so-called _laws_ of production, and, reckoning up the number of houses built every year, demonstrate by statistics, that as the number of the new-built houses _is_ too small to meet all demands, nine-tenths of Europeans _must_ live in hovels. Let us pass on to food. After having enumerated the benefits accruing from the division of labour, economists tell us the division of labour requires that some men should work at agriculture and others at manufacture. Farmers producing so much, factories so much, exchange being carried on in such a way, they analyze the sale, the profit, the net gain or the surplus value, the wages, the taxes, banking, and so on. But after having followed them so far, we are none the wiser, and if we ask them: "How is it that millions of human beings are in want of bread, when every family could grow sufficient wheat to feed ten, twenty, and even a hundred people annually?" they answer us by droning the same anthem--division of labour, wages, surplus value, capital, etc.--arriving at the same conclusion, that production is insufficient to satisfy all needs; a conclusion which, if true, does not answer the question: "Can or cannot man by his labour produce the bread he needs? And if he cannot, what is it that hinders him?" Here are 350 million Europeans. They need so much bread, so much meat, wine, milk, eggs, and butter every year. They need so many houses, so much clothing. This is the minimum of their needs. Can they produce all this? and if they can, will sufficient leisure be left them for art, science, and amusement?--in a word, for everything that is not comprised in the category of absolute necessities? If the answer is in the affirmative,--What hinders them going ahead? What must they do to remove the obstacles? Is it time that is needed to achieve such a result? Let them take it! But let us not lose sight of the aim of production--the satisfaction of the needs of all. If the most imperious needs of man remain unsatisfied now,--What must we do to increase the productivity of our work? But is there no other cause? Might it not be that production, having lost sight of the _needs_ of man, has strayed in an absolutely wrong direction, and that its organization is at fault? And as we can prove that such is the case, let us see how to reorganize production so as to really satisfy all needs. This seems to us the only right way of facing things. The only way that would allow of Political Economy becoming a science--the Science of Social Physiology.