It must be understood that I speak here of general effects, and not of the temporary disturbances occasioned by the transition from a bad to a good system. A momentary disarrangement necessarily accompanies all progress. This may be a reason for making the transition a gentle one, but not for systematically interdicting all progress, and still less for misunderstanding it.
They represent industry to us as a conflict. This is not true; or is true only when you confine yourself to considering each branch of industry in its effects on some similar branch—in isolating both, in the mind, from the rest of humanity. But there is something else; there are its effects on consumption, and the general well-being.
This is the reason why it is not allowable to assimilate labor to war as they do.
In war, the strongest overwhelms the weakest.
In labor, the strongest gives strength to the weakest. This radically destroys the analogy.
Though the English are strong and skilled; possess immense invested capital, and have at their disposal the two great powers of production, iron and fire, all this is converted into the cheapness of the product; and who gains by the cheapness of the product?—he who buys it.
It is not in their power to absolutely annihilate any portion of our labor. All that they can do is to make it superfluous through some result acquired—to give air at the same time that they suppress the pump; to increase thus the force at our disposal, and, which is a remarkable thing, to render their pretended supremacy more impossible, as their superiority becomes more undeniable.
Thus, by a rigorous and consoling demonstration, we reach this conclusion: That labor and violence, so opposed in their nature, are, whatever socialists and protectionists may say, no less so in their effects.
All we required, to do that, was to distinguish between annihilated labor and economized labor.
Having less iron because one works less, or having more iron although one works less, are things which are more than different,—they are opposites. The protectionists confound them; we do not. That is all.