FOOTNOTES:
[176] "The power of emulation, in exciting to the most strenuous exertions for the sake of the approbation and admiration of others, is borne witness to by experience in every situation in which human beings publicly compete with one another, even if it be in things frivolous, or from which the public derives no benefit. A contest, who can do most for the common good, is not the kind of competition which Socialists repudiate."—John Stuart Mill's "Principles of Political Economy." Every union, every association of people, who pursue equal aims, likewise furnishes numerous examples of greater effort with no material, but only an ideal, reward in view. The emulators are moved by the ambition to distinguish themselves, by the desire to serve the common cause. But this sort of ambition is no vice; it is a virtue; it is put forth in the interest of all; and the individual finds his satisfaction in that along with all others. Ambition is harmful and objectionable only when it is put forth to the injury of the whole, and at the expense of others.
[177] Von Thuenen says in his "Der isolirte Staat": "The reason why the proletarians, on the one hand, and property classes, on the other, face each other permanently as enemies lies in the antagonism of their interests; and they will remain unreconciled so long as this division of interests is not removed. Not only the well-being of his wage-giver but—through discoveries in industry, the pavement of streets and building of railroads, the forming of new business connections—the revenues of the Nation also may increase. Under our present social order, however, the workingman is touched by none of these; his condition remains what it was, and the whole increase of revenues accrues to the employers, the capitalists and the landlords." This last sentence is an almost literal anticipation of the words of Gladstone in the English Parliament, when he declared in 1864 "this intoxicating increase of incomes and power" that England had experienced in the course of the previous twenty years, "has been confined exclusively to the possessing classes." Again on p. 207 of his work, v. Thuenen says: "The evil lies in the divorce of the workingman from his product."
Morelly declares in his "Principles of Legislation": "Property divides us into two classes—Rich and Poor. The former love their property and care not to defend the State; the latter can not possibly love the Fatherland, seeing that it bestows upon them naught but misery. Under the system of Communism, however, all love the Fatherland, seeing that all receive from it life and happiness."
[178] In weighing the advantages and the disadvantages of Communism, John Stuart Mill says in his "Principles of Political Economy": "No soil could be more favorable to the growth of such a feeling, than a Communist association, since all the ambition, and the bodily and mental activity, which are now exerted in the pursuit of separate and self-regarding interests, would require another sphere of employment, and would naturally find it in the pursuit of the general benefit of the community."
[179] "Die Gesetze der sozialen Entwickelung."
[180] What does Herr Eugene Richter say to this calculation? In his "Irrelehren" (False Doctrines) he makes merry over the enormous shortening of the hours of work that we have held out in this work as the result that would follow upon the obligation of all to work and upon the higher technical organization of the process of production. He seeks to minimize as much as possible the productivity of production on a large scale, and to enhance the importance of production on a small scale. He does so in order that he might claim that the expected increased production was not practicable. In order to make Socialism seem impossible, these defenders of the existing "order" are forced to discredit the merits of their own social system.
[181] "Capital is said by a Quarterly Reviewer to fly turbulence and strife, and to be timid, which is very true; but this is very incompletely stating the question. Capital eschews no profit, or very small profit, just as Nature was formerly said to abhor a vacuum. With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 per cent. will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 per cent. certain will produce eagerness; 50 per cent. positive audacity; 100 per cent. will made it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent., and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, it will freely encourage both. Smuggling and the slave-trade have amply proved all that is here stated." (P. J. Dunning, 1. c., p. 35.) Cited by Karl Marx in "Capital," p. 786, edition Swan-Sonnenscheim & Co., London, 1896.
[182] A competitor with electricity, applied to lighting purposes, has recently arisen in the shape of the so-called acetylene gas, which was discovered in the United States, by means of an electrolytic process, similar to that used in the preparation of aluminum. A compound is made of calcium and carbon, called calcium-carbide, which, in touch with water, produces the acetylene gas. Its lighting power is fifteen times that of the ordinary illuminating gas, besides being much cheaper.
[183] "The generality of laborers in this and most other countries, have as little choice of occupation or freedom of locomotion, are practically as dependent on fixed rules, and on the will of others, as they could be on any system short of actual slavery."—John Stuart Mill's "Principles of Political Economy."