William Pare

“ Whoever has to bear the cost should have the deciding power in every case. If one has to bear the cost of another's conduct, and just so far as he has to do so, he should have the deciding power over the conduct of the other. Hence dependence and close connections of interests demand continual concessions and compromises. Hence, too, close connection and mutual dependence is the legitimate and scientific root of despotism, as disconnection or individualization of interests is the root of freedom and emancipation. ”

“ Hence the exact formula of the doctrine, with its inherent limitation, may be stated thus:—"The Sovereignty of the Individual, to be exercised at his own cost." It results, that wherever such circumstances exist that a person cannot exercise his own individuality and sovereignty without throwing the "cost," or burden of his actions upon others, the principle has so far to be compromised. Such circumstances arise out of connected or amalgamated interests, and the sole remedy is disconnection. The exercise of sovereignty is the exercise of the deciding power. ”

“ The following, among others, are the objectionable consequences which flow from the principle of making value, instead of cost, the rule of price; and every one of which consequences, it is affirmed, are reversed by the operation of the cost principle:—
It renders falsehood and hypocrisy a necessary concomitant of Trade. It makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer. It creates trade for trade's sake, and augments the number of non-producers, whose support is chargeable to labour. It degrades the dignity of labour. It prevents the possibility of a scientific adjustment of supply to demand. ”

“ Every scheme or arrangement which is based upon the principle of thwarting the inherent affinities of the individual monads, which compose any system or organism, is essentially vicious, and the organization is false—a mere bundle of revolutionary and antagonistic atoms. If, then, individuality is a universal law which must be obeyed if we would have order and harmony in any sphere, and, consequently, if we would have a true constitution of human government, then the absolute sovereignty of the individual necessarily results. ”

“ Man, standing, then, at the head of the created universe, is consequently the most complex creature in existence— every individual, man or woman, being a little world in him or herself, an image or reflection of God, an epitome of the Infinite. Hence the individualities of such a being are utterly immeasurable; and every attempt to adjust the capacities, the adaptations, the wants, or the responsibilities of one human being by the capacities, the adaptations, or the wants of another human being, except in the very broadest generalities, is unqualifiedly futile and hopeless. ”

“ If one purchaser values an article more highly than another, by what principle will he be prevented from offering a higher price? How is it possible to measure the relative painfulness or repugnance of labour? What allowance is to be made for superior skill or natural capacity? ”

“ If the principle were predicated of one individual alone, the assertion of his sovereignty, or, in other words, of his absolute right to do as he pleases, or to pursue his own happiness in his own way, would be, confessedly, to invest him with the attributes of despotism over others. ”

“ It follows from these facts, that equity in the exchange of labour, or the products of labour, cannot be arrived at by measuring the labour of different persons by time merely. Equity is the equality of burdens according to the requirements of each person, or, in other words, the assumption of as much burden by each person as has to be assumed by somebody, on his account, so that no one shall be living by imposing burdens upon others. ”

“ The price is a consideration wholly for the vendor, and the value a consideration wholly for the purchaser. Hence it follows that both value and cost enter into a bargain, even when legitimately made. But value goes solely to determine the demand, and is solely cognizable by the purchaser or consumer—by him who receives; while cost (or burden) goes to determine the price, and is solely cognizable by the seller or producer—by him who renders. ”

“ Time is one element in the measurement of the burdens of labour, but the different degrees of repugnance in the different kinds of labour prevent it from being the only one. Hence it follows that there must be some means of measuring this repugnance itself—in other words, of determining the relative hardness of different kinds of work, before we can arrive at an equitable system of exchanging labour, and the products of labour. ”

“ The value principle, in some form of expression, is, as I have said, the only recognized principle of trade throughout the world. "A thing is worth what it will bring in the market." Still, if I were to charge you $500, or a fourth part of that sum, and, taking advantage of your necessities, force you to pay it, everybody would denounce me, the poor wheelwright, as an extortioner and a scoundrel. ”

“ Warren, value has nothing whatever to do, upon scientific principles, with settling the price at which any article should be sold. Cost is the only equitable limit, and by cost is meant the amount of labour bestowed on its production, that measure being again measured by the painfulness or repugnance of the labour itself.
Value is a consideration for the purchaser alone, and determines him whether he will give the amount of the cost or not. ”

“ Meanwhile you, a wealthy merchant, are daily rolling up an enormous fortune by doing business upon the same principle which you condemn in the wheelwright, and nobody finds fault. At every scarcity in the market you immediately raise the price of every article you hold. It is your business to take advantage of the necessities of those with whom you deal, by selling [138] to them according to the value to them, and not according to the cost to you. ”

“ If, again, I over-estimate the cost to me, and ask a price greater than your estimate of the value to you, there is no bargain, and I have lost the opportunity of earning a price measured by the real cost of the performance, so that the cost of my mistake again falls on me; while, the market being open, and a thorough adjust ment of supply to demand being established, others will make a juster estimate, whose services you will procure and you will suffer no inconvenience. Competition will regulate any disposition on my part to overcharge. ”

“ So far from quarrelling with existing government, where it is put upon the footing of temporary expediency as distinguished from abstract principle, and final purpose, it sanctions and confirms it. It has no sympathies with aimless and fruitless struggles, the recriminations of different classes in society, nor with merely anarchical and destructive onslaughts upon existing institutions. It proposes no abrupt and sudden shock to existing society. ”

“ The same idea may be differently presented in this manner.—It is equity, that every individual should sustain just as just as much of the common burden of life as has to be sustained by anybody on his account. Such would be the result if each produced for himself all that he consumed, as in the first case supposed above; and the fact that it is found convenient to exchange labour and the products of labour, does not vary the definition of equity in the least. ”

“ The monads or atoms of which human society is composed, are the individual men and women in it. They must be so disposed of, as we have seen, in order that society may be harmonic, that the destiny of each shall be controlled by his or her own individualities of taste, conscience, intellect, capacity and will. But man is a being endowed with consciousness. ”

“ Hence, inasmuch as the interests of mankind have never yet been scientifically individualized by the operations of an equitable commerce, and the limits of encroachment never scientifically defined, the axioms of morality, and even the provisions of positive legislation, have been doubtless appropriate adaptations in the ages of false social relations to which they have been applied, as the cataplasm or the sinapism may be for disordered conditions of the human system. ”

“ The use of the labour note is not strictly a principle of equity, but partakes more of the nature of a contrivance than any other feature of the system of equitable commerce; but yet it seems to be a necessary instrument to be employed in the practical working of the system. The theory of equity is complete without it, but the necessity for its use arises from the practical fact that exchanges cannot in every case be completed on the spot. Hence a circulating medium of some sort is indispensable ”

“ Some kinds of labour are exceedingly repugnant, while others are less so, and others again are pleasing and attractive. There are differences of this sort which are agreed upon by all the world. For example,—sweeping the filth from the streets, or standing in the cold water and dredging the bottom of a stream, would be, by general consent, regarded as more repugnant, or, in the common language on the subject, harder work, than laying out a garden, or measuring goods. ”

“ If value is the limit of price then the price of the hour's labour should be $500. That is the equivalent of the value of the labour to you. If cost is the limit to price, then you should pay me a commodity, or commodities, or a representative in currency which will procure me commodities, having in them one hour's labour, equally as hard as the mending of the carriage, without the slightest reference to the degree of benefit which that labour has bestowed upon you ”

“ While it is the most ultra-radical doctrine in theory and final purpose ever promulgated in the world, it is at the same time eminently conservative in immediate practice. While it teaches, in principle, the prospective disruption of nearly every existing institution, it teaches concurrently, as matter of expediency, a patient and philosophic endurance of the evils around us, while we labour assiduously for their removal. ”

“ Andrews contends that " there is no reason in the nature of the case why there should not be as accurate a knowledge in the community of the statistics of supply and demand, as there is of the rise and fall of the tides, nor why that knowledge should not be applied to secure a minute, punctual, and accurate distribution of products over the face of the earth, according to the wants of various countries, neighbourhoods and individuals. The supposed excess of labour is no more an excess than congestion is an excess of blood in the human system. ”

“ It is the business of speculation, and hence of the whole mercantile profession, to confuse and becloud the knowledge of the community upon this very vital point of their interests, and to derange such natural adjustment as might otherwise grow up, even in the absence of full knowledge on the subject—to create the belief that there is excess or deficiency when there is none, and to cause such excess or deficiency, in fact, when there would otherwise be none, in order to buy cheap and sell dear. ”

“ He starts with the proposition—"That the essential element of beneficent commerce is Equity, or that which is just and equal between man and man." He then proceeds:—"The fundamental inquiry, therefore, upon the answer to which alone a science of commerce can be erected, is the true measure of equity, or, what is the same thing, the measure of price in the exchange of labour and commodities. ”

“ He, and no one else, knows the determining force of his own attractions. No one else can, therefore, decide for him; and hence individuality can only become the law of human action by securing to each individual the sovereign determination of his own judgment, and of his own conduct, in all things, with no right reserved either of punishment, or censure, on the part of anybody else whomsoever ”

“ Warren says:—"In society where even the first elements of order had made their way to the intellects of men, there would be some point at which all would continually make known their wants, as far as they could anticipate them, and put them in a position to be supplied; and all who wanted employment would know where to look for it, and the supply could be adapted to the demand. ”

“ The party who remains indebted to the other gives his own note, provided the other consents to receive it, for an equivalent amount of his own labour, or else of the standard commodity—say so many pounds of corn, specifying in the note the kind of labour, and the alternative. As it may happen that the party receiving the labour note may not require the labour itself, or that it may be inconvenient for the party promising to perform it when it is wanted, it is provided that the obligation may be discharged, at the option of the party giving the note, in the standard commodity instead. ”

“ The limitation is this: every individual is the rightful sovereign over his own conduct in all things, whenever, and just so far as, the consequences of his conduct can be assumed by himself; or, rather, inasmuch as no one objects to assuming agreeable consequences, whenever and as far as this is true of the disagreeable consequences. For disagreeable consequences, endurance, or burden of all sorts, the term "cost" is elected as a scientific technicality. ”