The Conquest of Bread

to assure shelter, food, and clothes to all-an idea extremely displeasing to middle-class citizens, whatever their party co

edence of all other questions. If it is settled in the interests of the people, the Revolution will be on the right road; for in solving

seething for half a century now, and can only go from bad to worse. Everything tends that way-new nations entering the lists of international trade and fighting for p

pon us and spread like fire laid to a train of gunpowder. The number of the out-of-works will be doubled as soon as t

tion in all its nakedness. But we do know that they wish to maintain the wage system, and we must therefore

00,000 and its municipal tax of three or four pounds a-head;[3] because this excellent method of "taming the beast" was customary in Rome, and even in Egypt four thousand years ago; and lastly, because despots, kings, and emperors have always employed the ruse of t

so misguided as to start on

is numbered only 8,000; a fortnight later they had already increased to 49,000. They w

and industry suffer most from the general upheaval. We have only to think, indeed, of the number of workmen whose labour depends directl

workers and their families thrown on the streets. And our "practical men" would seek to avert this truly terrible situation by

e enterprise and wage labour. Society itself will be forced to take production in hand, in its entirety, and to reorganize it to meet the needs of the whole people. But this cannot be accomplished in a

at task which awaits us, and instead of trying to patch up a situation which we o

while they worked to supply the needs of the agricultural population. For we must not forget that while France weaves silks and satins to deck the wives of German financiers, the Empress of Russia, and the Queen of the Sandwich Islands, and while Paris fashions wonderful trinkets and playthings for rich folk all the world over, two-thirds of the French peasantry have not proper lamps to give them light, or the implements necessary for modern agriculture. Lastly, unproductive