Page:Ferdinand Lassalle - The Working Man's Programme - tr. Edward Peters (1884).djvu/24

 or the demand preceded the offer of the goods, and formed the well known guide to the amount of goods offered for sale. Or in other words—the production of the community was carried on mainly by handicrafts. For this is the character of business carried on in a small way or by handicrafts, as distinguished from that which is carried on in factories or on a large scale, that either the demand is waited for, before the article is produced; as for instance the tailor waits for my order before he makes me a coat, the locksmith before he makes me a lock; or that at least if many articles are manufactured beforehand, this production in advance is limited to the minimum of the requirements of the locality and its immediate neighbourhood, which are accurately known by experience. For instance, a tinman makes a certain number of lamps in advance, which he knows will be soon absorbed by the requirements of the town.

The characteristic quality, gentlemen, of a community which produces mainly in this manner, is poverty, or at least only a moderate degree of prosperity, and on the other hand a certain stability and fixedness of all relations.

But now, through the incessant reciprocal action which I have described to you, the work of the community, and consequently all the relations of life gradually assumed a totally opposite character. This was in germ the same character which distinguishes the work of the Community to-day, through truly in a very different, in fact in an immensely developed degree. In the gigantic development which has now been attained this character may be thus indicated in opposition to the