"The expense of thus distributing wealth in Great Britain and
Ireland, including transit from place to place, and all the
agents directly and indirectly engaged in this department, is,
perhaps, little short of one hundred millions annually, without
taking into consideration the deterioration of the quality of
many of the articles constituting this wealth, by carriage, and
by being divided into small quantities, and kept in improper
stores and places, in which the atmosphere is unfavorable to the
keeping of such articles in a tolerably good, and much less in
the best, condition for use."
In further illustration of the contrariety of interests between person
and person, class and class, which pervades the present constitution
of society, M. Considerant adds:--
"If the wine-growers wish for free trade, this freedom ruins the
producer of corn, the manufacturers of iron, of cloth, of
cotton, and--we are compelled to add--the smuggler and the
customs' officer. If it is the interest of the consumer that
machines should be invented which lower prices by rendering
production less costly, these same machines throw out of work
thousands of workmen who do not know how to, and cannot at once,
find other work. Here, then, again is one of the innumerable
_vicious circles_ of civilisation ... for there are a thousand
facts which prove cumulatively that in our existing social
system the introduction of any good brings always along with it
some evil.
"In short, if we go lower down and come to vulgar details, we
find that it is the interest of the tailor, the shoemaker, and
the hatter that coats, shoes, and hats should be soon worn out;
that the glazier profits by the hail-storms which break windows;
that the mason and the architect profit by fires; the lawyer is
enriched by law-suits; the doctor by disease; the wine-seller by
drunkenness; the prostitute by debauchery. And what a disaster
it would be for the judges, the police, and the jailers, as well
as for the barristers and the solicitors, and all the lawyers'
clerks, if crimes, offences, and law-suits were all at once to
come to an end!"[6]
The following is one of the cardinal points of this school:--
"Add to all this, that civilisation, which sows dissension and
war on every side; which employs a great part of its powers in
unproductive labor or even in destruction; which furthermore
diminishes the public wealth by the unnecessary friction and
discord it introduces into industry; add to all this, I say,
that this same social system has for its special characteristic
to produce a repugnance for work--a disgust for labor.