IV. (2)

Schoeffle sees a system of remunerating labour by means of labour tickets or vouchers, for he realises that it is impossible to abolish rewards as an incentive to action; he also retains exchange of commodities when produced. But how is the price to be determined? He applies Marx' formula of value in its entirety.

The prices of social products are to be determined by the cost of labour; labour is to be determined according to the time of social labour fixed by a process, the simplicity of which no one can fail to admire. If a district requires 20,000 hectolitres of wheat and has to employ 100,000 days of socially organised labour in order to produce it, each hectolitre will be worth 100000\20000 = 5 days of labour. This value will have currency even if individuals may have devoted 10 or 20 days of individual labour to the production of a hectolitre of wheat. This amounts in a year to 300,000,000 days, socially organised, which, if the day consists of eight hours, will represent 2,400,000,000 social hours of labour. The sum total of all the necessary social wealth produced under public management would likewise have a total value of 2,400,000,000 hours of labour. The hours of labour = 1\2400000000 of collective annual labour, and should be the general measure of value and 2,400,000,000 nominal labour-units should be handed to the workers in the form of certificates, vouchers, or cheques, representing labour, in order that these same workers might purchase the total produce of the collective labour at the public stores, amounting to a corresponding value of 2,400,000,000 hours of labour. Public departments of administration would give credit for work done, fix the value of the product according to the ascertained cost of production in terms of labour-time, deliver cheques on account of work when registered, and hand over products against these cheques at the rates based upon the cost of social labour (pp. 75–76).

After setting forth this excellent system, Schoeffle raises two questions:—

No doubt this dispensation would form a triumph for the accountants, but it is fair to ask how these, and à fortiori the persons interested, could know whether the measure of the hour of labour of 1\240000000 is really the correct measure. But this figure, which is high as it stands, is insignificant when compared with actual facts. It is applied to the production of 10,000 hectolitres of corn. But the average production in France, which is insufficient to satisfy the demand of the consumers, is at least 120 million hectolitres. Applying to this the unit of the labour-hour, we have, therefore, 1\288000000000000 or a unit of 288 trillions of labour-hours. But how is this unit of 288 trillions to be fixed? By dividing up the quantity of corn pro duced? But is the production in every year and in every place identical with the number of labour-hours which have been devoted to it? A drought when the corn is ripening will reduce the quantity of corn and consequently the value of the labour-hour. If the harvest be abundant, the value of the labour-hour is increased. But there may have been an abundant harvest in one locality and a bad one in another. How then is the equality of labour-hours to be ascertained? In order to do so, it would be necessary to wait until the harvest was gathered and measured. What would be the value of the labour-hour during this period? No doubt it would be that of the preceding year, but suppos-that the harvest in the preceding year was good, while that of the present year is bad, and that the labour-hour of the preceding year continues to be taken as the unit, a value will be attributed to it which is quite devoid of reality.

This labour-hour cannot be identical from one harvest to another, neither can it be identical as between different localities.

Can it be the same in the level country of the North of France and on the edge of a moor in Brittany? And if the labour-hour cannot be identified for the same product, how can it be identified as between different ones? Is the labour-hour of the labourer in Lower Brittany identical with that of a skilled mechanic? Is the artist to be entitled to demand vouchers for his labour-hours if there be no one able or willing to purchase his pictures? Will not the “executive” point out to him that he has no claim because he has been engaged in useless toil? In that event we find him bereft of his right to work. Can he appeal? And while his appeal is pending, how is he to live? He will be told that “there are too many artists, and that the State cannot undertake to give them all vouchers for their work in proportion to the time which they have spent in front of their canvases.” But I must live. Certainly, then come and work at the accounts. But I have no head for figures. There is a canal being excavated, go and work as a navvy. But that is not my profession. So much the worse for you, we have nothing else to offer you, and if you don't do as we suggest, you will receive no vouchers for work. Then I shall die of starvation. So much the worse for you. And if I blister my hands at the tenth shovel-full, and if at the end of two or three hours I am unable to budge, am I to receive a voucher for labour equal to that of the man who has shifted eleven cubic metres in his day's work?

This question will not arise only in the case of the artist, it will arise in that of the weaver of Lyons, the ribbon-weaver of Saint Etienne, the goldsmith, the printer, and of persons of every occupation; it will arise in the case of agricultural labourers, for they do not work three hundred days in the year and have periods when work is stopped; will they receive vouchers on the days when the snow is on the ground and they are obliged to stay at home?

Is the value of the labour-hour identical for each individual? Are not people skilful and unskilful, quick and slow?

Finally the cost of labour is only one factor in the net cost of a commodity, and if the net cost is an objective element in its value, there are two others—the demand, and the purchasing power of the consumer.

Purchasing power is to be regulated by the number of vouchers for work received by each individual. But if these vouchers only correspond with the time occupied without being represented by an exchangeable product, what is their possessor to do with them?

Again everyone will not receive vouchers for labour in order to live; children will form an exception, as will also women who do not work in the public workshops. Still less will the aged receive them, they will have to be supported at the expense of the active population. Everyone, therefore, will not receive, in the form of vouchers for labour, “the integral product of his labour.”

The administrative department charged with the distribution of work would begin by providing for the departmental expenses and the expenses of regulating the accounts of the remuneration to be credited to each worker, which would be heavy; the expenses of government would be onerous in proportion to the multiplicity of its functions and the actual cost of national defence, police, and of the administration of justice would continue to fall upon labour so long as the whole of humanity remains unconverted to collectivism and human nature remains unchanged.