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all economists tell us that there is a well-proved law: ‘Man produces more than he consumes.’ After he has lived on the proceeds of his toil, there remains a surplus. Thus, a family of cultivators produces enough to feed several families, and so forth. For us, this oft-repeated sentence has no sense. If it meant that each generation leaves something to future generations, it would be true; thus, for example, a farmer plants a tree that will live, maybe, for thirty, forty, or a hundred years, and whose fruits will still be gathered by the farmer’s grandchildren. Roads, bridges, canals, his house and his furniture are so much wealth bequeathed to succeeding generations.
But this is not what is meant. We are told that the cultivator produces more than he need consume. Rather should they say that the state having always taken from him a large share of his produce for taxes and the landlord for rent, a whole class of men has been created, who formerly consumed what they produced but who today are compelled to live very poorly, from hand to mouth, the remainder having been taken from them by the state, the landlord, etc. Therefore, we prefer to say: the agricultural labourer, the industrial worker and so on consume less than they produce because they are compelled to sell most of the produce of their labour and to be satisfied with but a small portion of it.
References
- Kropotkin, Peter. (1892). The Conquest of Bread Chapter 14. Consumption and production (p. 241).
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