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Page 28
Happily, preamble and conclusion are both false, because, behind the
half of the phenomenon _which is seen_, lies the other half _which is
not seen_.
The franc saved by James B. is not seen, no more are the necessary
effects of this saving.
Since, in consequence of his invention, James B. spends only one franc
on hand labour in the pursuit of a determined advantage, another franc
remains to him.
If, then, there is in the world a workman with unemployed arms, there is
also in the world a capitalist with an unemployed franc. These two
elements meet and combine, and it is as clear as daylight, that between
the supply and demand of labour, and between the supply and demand of
wages, the relation is in no way changed.
The invention and the workman paid with the first franc, now perform
the work which was formerly accomplished by two workmen. The second
workman, paid with the second franc, realises a new kind of work.
What is the change, then, which has taken place? An additional national
advantage has been gained; in other words, the invention is a gratuitous
triumph--a gratuitous profit for mankind.
From the form which I have given to my demonstration, the following
inference might be drawn:--
"It is the capitalist who reaps all the advantage from machinery. The
working class, if it suffers only temporarily, never profits by it,
since, by your own showing, they displace a portion of the national
labour, without diminishing it, it is true, but also without increasing
it."
I do not pretend, in this slight treatise, to answer every objection;
the only end I have in view, is to combat a vulgar, widely spread, and
dangerous prejudice. I want to prove that a new machine only causes the
discharge of a certain number of hands, when the remuneration which pays
them is abstracted by force. These hands and this remuneration would
combine to produce what it was impossible to produce before the
invention; whence it follows, that the final result is _an increase of
advantages for equal labour_.
Who is the gainer by these additional advantages?
First, it is true, the capitalist, the inventor; the first who succeeds
in using the machine; and this is the reward of his genius and courage.
In this case, as we have just seen, he effects a saving upon the expense
of production, which, in whatever way it may be spent (and it always is
spent), employs exactly as many hands as the machine caused to be
dismissed.
But soon competition obliges him to lower his prices in proportion to
the saving itself; and then it is no longer the inventor who reaps the
benefit of the invention--it is the purchaser of what is produced, the
consumer, the public, including the workman; in a word, mankind.
And _that which is not seen_ is, that the saving thus procured for all
consumers creates a fund whence wages may be supplied, and which
replaces that which the machine has exhausted.
Thus, to recur to the forementioned example, James B. obtains a profit
by spending two francs in wages. Thanks to his invention, the hand
labour costs him only one franc. So long as he sells the thing produced
at the same price, he employs one workman less in producing this
particular thing, and that is _what is seen_; but there is an additional
workman employed by the franc which James B. has saved. This is _that
which is not seen_.
When, by the natural progress of things, James B. is obliged to lower
the price of the thing produced by one franc, then he no longer realises
a saving; then he has no longer a franc to dispose of to procure for the
national labour a new production. But then another gainer takes his
place, and this gainer is mankind. Whoever buys the thing he has
produced, pays a franc less, and necessarily adds this saving to the
fund of wages; and this, again, is _what is not seen_.
Another solution, founded upon facts, has been given of this problem of
machinery.
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