[14] M. Célestin Jonnart.
VIII.
It appears that from the moment when it will no longer be possible to exploit the individual, there will no longer be any individuality. At least it so appears to the capitalists who deem that which does not yield them a profit to be non-existent. To the socialists, on the other hand, the existence of individuality appears dependent upon its freedom. Now, as it is, as we have just seen, only in the socialist period that all individuals will be able to have the means necessary to true freedom, it follows that the triumph of socialism will be the triumph of the individual, the blossoming of personality.[15] In the socialist period, indeed, all those who shall wish to work will be able to do so, by choosing freely their favorite kind of socially useful labor, and all will be able to consume the social products proportionally to the labor they have furnished. Will it not, therefore, be to the interest of all to work, and to try to make the work as little toilsome and as productive as possible? Is there not here, apart from the joy of serving one's fellows, the most powerful motive for emulation both as regards the quantity of labor individually performed and in the invention or discovery of improved processes tending to procure for each and all the maximum of benefits in return for the minimum of exertion?
A certain degree of audacity is required to dare compare the producers of the future under socialism, with the office-holders of to-day under capitalism. What interest has the office-holder of to-day to reduce to the minimum the cost to the State of the services it is his function to perform? His salary, determined before any labor is performed, is independent of the quantity and quality of his labor; and so the office-holder, though full of righteous indignation against the workingmen who wish to work only eight hours a day, seeks, on his own part, to work just as little as possible, and he squanders and wastes as much as possible, because extravagance never costs him a penny and sometimes brings him in handsome rewards. While under the regime of socialism, the personal interest of the individual will be in harmony with the social interest of all, under the present system the personal interests of the office-holders are in direct conflict with the interest of the State. Under the regime of socialism, men, all men, will be producers and not office-holders; they will not be office-holders any more than are members of a family who, in order to provide for the satisfaction of the needs of the family, perform severally various functions.
In conclusion, the whole question may be summed up thus: Is the spirit of initiative and personal energy likely to be more broadly disseminated among the masses, when the latter know that they are compelled to make their own wretchedness the instrument of the prosperity of a minority, or when they shall know that their own prosperity will be whatever they, by their own labor, shall make it, under a system of absolute equality of privilege? There can be no doubt as to the answer in the minds of all those who are not too much wonted to the denial of truth. But, under the regime of socialism, initiative[16] and energy cannot promote personal interests alone; while being more favorable than ever to those interests, they will necessarily be advantageous to all. As soon as the material conditions necessary for the attainment of individual prosperity shall also be the conditions requisite for social prosperity, we shall see grow out of this harmony a system of ethics based on the newly acquired consciousness of social solidarity, and under this new morality the action of the individual will have not only as its necessary though indirect result, but also as its guiding principle, motive and goal, the social or common interest, the greatest good of all.
It would seem that from this time forth all ought to unite their efforts in order to hasten the dawn of the realization of a social environment so advantageous to all. In fact, excepting a very small minority of great financiers and capitalists, all those who work or have worked with hand or brain, all have an interest in the triumph of socialism; unfortunately all are not conscious of the undeniable precariousness of the situation of all under the regime of capitalism, and so do not see the advantage for all in transforming this regime along the lines of its social tendencies, and many will stupidly strive to prolong the state of things which is the cause of their troubles.
Socialism repels no one and is open to all those, without regard to their social position, who comprehend its necessity. But, if it is far from repelling them—striving indeed to attract them—it cannot count in advance, generally speaking, on those who too readily become the dupes of illusions begotten by a more or less privileged social situation and who are unable to rise above their class prejudices sufficiently to form a just conception of their own true interests. While preparing the ground for socialism which is developing wherever the capitalist mode of production has reached a certain stage, the economic phenomena at the same time necessitate the economic and political organization of the industrial[17] laborers, and they are the class immediately and directly interested in the triumph of socialism.