The Labor enquirer., 1886-05-15

OlQ 0u65s anu Guc uauuo w Ivy pAoNSo
as much. If all instruments Of produc-
ton were held in Joint property by the
whole people, and the product divided
with perfect equality among them, and
if in a society thus constituted, industry
were as energetic and the product as
ample as at the present time, there
would be enough to make all the exist
ing population sxtremely comfortable; !;
but when that population had doubled
itself. as, with existing habits Of the peo-
pie, under such an encouragement, it un-
doubtedly woul y in a little more than
twenty years, what would then be their
condition Unless the arts of produc-
tion were in the same time improved in
an almost unexampled degree, the infe-
nor soils which must be resorted to,
would by an insuperable necessity, rem
der every individual in the communit Y
poorer than before. If the population
continued to increase at the same rate,
a time would soon arrive when no one
would have more than mere necessaries,
and, soon after, time when no one
would have sufficlency of these, and
the further increase of population would
be arrested by death"
To the above Mr.. George replies:
call this I deny. 1 assert that the
very reverse of these propositions is
true. assert that in any given state of
civilization greater number of people
can collectively be better provided for
than smaller. | assert that the injus-
tice of society, not the niggardlin ess of
nature, is the cause of the want and
misery which the current theory attrib-
utes to overpopulation. I assert that the
new mouths which an increasing popu-
lation calls into existence require no
more food than the old ones. while the
hands they bring with them can in the
natural order of things produce more. l
assert that, other things being equal, the
greater the population, the greater the
comfort which an equitable distribution n
of wealth would give to each individual
assert that IN state of equality the
natural increase Of, population would
constantly tend to make every individ-
ual richer instead of poorer. l thus dis
tinctly join i-sue and submit the ques-
ton to the test of facts"
And by facts he sustains each of these
assertions. Mr.. Mil surrenders the
whole case when he admits th t at GER
tain point in time (the presently all
would have enough eff all instruments
of production were held in joint prop
erty by the whole people" Tor if the
law be true, the pressure of population
upon subsistence must be continuous
There can be no period of suspension
If to abolish certain method of prop
erty holding will suspend this law(?) of
population, that law is thereby proved a
fallacy. And to state that the old con-
dltfons will return in twenty years under
the new order, is to state exactly what
the capacity of the earth is, thing which
no man can do.
To make the instruments of produc-
ton the joint property of the people is
the object of Socialists. To tate that
such change would do no good, is the
ooject of snobs like J. S. Mill, who wish
to leave the means of production in the
hands of his rich but lazy patrons. The
Malthusian law is therefore the weapon
of robbers. Justice and reason, its enc
mics, are the weapons of Socialists and
scientists who are anxious to be heard
on the ground of fact and reason.
Strange that any Anarchist, free
thinker, or anv kind of radical, should
cling to the absurdity in the fac of the
fact that producers are periodically
rauslng "overproduction," which if con.
tinued for1wenty years, (the time al
lowed by Mr.. Mill for nature to begin
her devastatlon) would fill the world 80
full of wealth that the Malthusianist
would blush for his own Stiffness wnlle
watching the decay ofsurplus subsistence
instead of surplus population. The
thinker who has not read Henry George
cannot expect to keep up in the march
of social pros ress, because Mr.. George
destroys much of the popular political
economy hitherto considered valid, so
that even if we object to his retonstruc-
ton, he is worthy of no ice. H.