At the end of the same ten years Aristus not only continues to throw his income into circulation, but he adds an increasing sum from year to year to his expenses.  He enlarges the national capital, that is, the fund which supplies wages, and as it is upon the extent of this fund that the demand for hands depends, he assists in progressively increasing the remuneration of the working class; and if he dies, he leaves children whom he has taught to succeed him in this work of progress and civilization.

In a moral point of view, the superiority of frugality over luxury is indisputable.  It is consoling to think that it is so in political economy, to every one who, not confining his views to the immediate effects of phenomena, knows how to extend his investigations to their final effects.

XII.—­He Who Has a Right to Work Has a Right to Profit.

“Brethren, you must club together to find me work at your own price.”  This is the right to work; i.e., elementary socialism of the first degree.

“Brethren, you must club together to find me work at my own price.”  This is the right to profit; i.e., refined socialism, or socialism of the second degree.

Both of these live upon such of their effects as are seen.  They will die by means of those effects which are not seen.

That which is seen is the labour and the profit excited by social combination. That which is not seen is the labour and the profit to which this same combination would give rise, if it were left to the tax-payers.

In 1848, the right to labour for a moment showed two faces.  This was sufficient to ruin it in public opinion.

One of these faces was called national workshops.  The other, forty-five centimes.  Millions of francs went daily from the Rue Rivoli to the national workshops.  This was the fair side of the medal.

And this is the reverse.  If millions are taken out of a cash-box, they must first have been put into it.  This is why the organisers of the right to public labour apply to the tax-payers.

Now, the peasants said, “I must pay forty-five centimes; then I must deprive myself of some clothing.  I cannot manure my field; I cannot repair my house.”

And the country workmen said, “As our townsman deprives himself of some clothing, there will be less work for the tailor; as he does not improve his field, there will be less work for the drainer; as he does not repair his house, there will be less work for the carpenter and mason.”

It was then proved that two kinds of meal cannot come out of one sack, and that the work furnished by the Government was done at the expense of labour, paid for by the tax-payer.  This was the death of the right to labour, which showed itself as much a chimera as an injustice.  And yet, the right to profit, which is only an exaggeration of the right to labour, is still alive and flourishing.