The right to be lazy, and other studies — John Shaqi
The right to be lazy, and other studiesLafargue, Paul
Philosophy
The right to be lazy, and other studies
Lafargue, Paul
Hours of labor; Social problems; Socialism; Working class
The class struggle is out of fashion, declare these professors of
socialism. Can a line of demarcation be drawn between classes? Do not
the working people have savings bank accounts of $20, $40 and $100,
bringing them 50 cents, $1.50 and $3.00 of interest yearly? Is it not
true that the directors and managers of mines, railroads and financial
houses are wage-workers, having their functions and duties in the
enterprises which they manage for the account of capitalists? The
argument is unanswerable, but by the same token there is no vegetable
kingdom nor animal kingdom because we can not separate them "with
an ax," as it were, for the reason that at their points of contact,
vegetables and animals merge into each other. There is no longer any
day or any night because the sun does not appear on the horizon at the
same moment all over the earth, and because it is day at the antipodes
while it is night here.
The concentration of capital? A worn-out tune of 1850. The corporations
by their stocks and bonds parcel out property and distribute it among
all the citizens. How blinded we were by our sectarianism when we
thought that this new form of property, essentially capitalistic,
was enabling the financiers to plunge their thieving hands into the
smallest purses, to extract the last pieces of silver.
The poverty of the working class! But it is diminishing and soon will
disappear through the constant increase of wages, while interest
on money is constantly diminishing; some fine day it will descend
to zero and the bourgeois will be overjoyed to offer their beloved
capital on the altar of socialism. That to-morrow or the day after
the capitalist will be forced to work, is the prediction of Mr.
Waldeck-Rousseau. And there are intellectuals whose condition grows
worse in proportion as capitalism develops, who are stultified by the
utterances of the employers to a point where they affirm that the
position of wage-workers is improving, and there are intellectuals
who assume to possess some knowledge of political economy, who affirm
that interest on money is rapidly diminishing. Could these reformers
of socialism perchance be ignorant that Adam Smith calculated at the
end of the eighteenth century that 3 per cent was the normal interest
of capital running no risk, and that the financiers of our own epoch
consider that it is still around 3 per cent that the interest rate
must fluctuate. If a few years ago this rate seemed to fall below 2½
per cent, it has risen today above 3 per cent. Capital is merchandise,
like intellectual capacities and carrots; as such it is subject to
the fluctuations of supply and demand. It was then more offered than
demanded, whereas since the development of the industrial plant of
Russia, since the opening of China to European exploitation, etc., the
over-supply of capital has been absorbed and its price rises with its
scarcity. But the intellectuals have too many trifles to think of and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account