Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/262

248 call to the laboring classes: You are caught in a horrible whirlpool. Escape or you are lost! The more you toil the cheaper become your productions, the consumption of them grows more lavish, you must work still longer and harder tomorrow to get the means to support your sheer existence. Stop work for awhile! Loaf part of your time! Decrease your work by a half, by a quarter! Your earnings will remain the same if every one only consumes what he actually requires, and only labors as much as he is obliged to.

The professors of political economy are not of this opinion. They have a horror of leisure for mankind and believe that all good and happiness lie in the most extreme exertions of man's laboring faculties. Their doctrine can be condensed into two commandments: Thou shalt consume as much as possible, no matter whether the consumption is justified by actual necessity or not; thou shalt produce as much as possible no matter whether the productions are needed or not. These wise men make no distinction between the fire-works destined to flare up for a minute or two, to astonish some idle blockheads, and the machine that turns out useful bedsteads and wardrobes, year after year. The fire-works cost $10.000; they represent, in addition to the materials, the labor of fifty men for one year, who were during that time in perpetual danger. The machine costs $2.000. But the professor of political economy continues his dissertation with gentle impartiality: The fire-works are worth five times as much as the machine; the workmen are equally usefully employed in producing them; the production of the fireworks added to the wealth of the country as much as if five bed-making machines had been produced; and, if it were possible to keep a million workmen employed in the manufacture of such fire-works, producing thus a billion