Josiah Warren

If a traveler, in a hot day, stop at a farm-house, and ask for a drink of water, he generally gets it without any thought of price. Why? Because it costs nothing, or its cost is immaterial. If the traveler was so thirsty that he would give a dollar for the water, rather than not have it, this would be the value of the water to him; and if the farmer were to charge this price, he would be acting upon the principle that “The price of a thing should be what it will bring” which is the motto and spirit of all the principal commerce of the world; and if he were to stop up all the neighboring springs, and cut of all supplies of water from other sources, and compel travelers to depend solely on him for water, and then should charge them a hundred dollars for a drink, he would be acting precisely upon the principle on which all the main business of the world has been conducted from time immemorial. It is pricing a thing according to “what it will bring,” or according to its value to the receiver, instead of its cost to the producer. For an illustration in the mercantile line, consult any report of “prices current,” or “state of the markets,” with comments by the publisher. The following is a sample, copied from a paper, the nearest at hand:

“No new arrivals of flour—demand increasing, prices rose since yesterday, at twelve o’clock, 25 cts. per barrel. “No change in coffee since our last. “Sugar raised on Thursday, half ct. per pound, -in consequence of a report received of short crops; but later arrivals contradicted the report, and prices fell again. Molasses, in demand, and holders not anxious to sell. Pork, little in market, and prices rising. Bacon, plenty and dull, fell since our last, from 15 to 13 cents. Cotton, all in few hands, bought up on speculation.”

It will here be seen, that prices are raised in consequence of increased want, and are lowered with its decrease. The most successful speculator is he who can create the most want in the community, and extort the most from it. This is civilized cannibalism.

The value of a loaf of bread to a starving man, is equivalent to the value of his life, and if the “price of a thing” should be “what it will bring,” then one might properly demand of the starving man, his whole future life in servitude as the price of the loaf! But, any one who should make such a demand, would be looked upon as insane, a cannibal, and one simultaneous voice would denounce the outrageous injustice, and cry aloud for retribution! Why? What is it that constitutes the cannibalism in this case? Is it not setting a price upon the bread according to its VALUE instead of its COST?

If the producers and venders of the bread had bestowed one hour’s labor upon its production and in passing it to the starving man, then some other articles which cost its producer and vender an hour’s equivalent labor, would be a natural and just compensation for the loaf. I have placed emphasis on the idea of equivalent labor, because it appears that we must discriminate between different kinds of labor, some being more disagreeable, more repugnant, requiring a more COSTLY draft upon our ease or health than others. The idea of cost extends to and embraces this difference. The most repugnant labor being considered the most COSTLY. The idea of cost is also extended to all contingent expenses in production or vending.

A watch has a cost and a value. The COST consists of the amount of labor bestowed on the mineral or natural wealth, in converting it into metal, the labor bestowed by the workmen in constructing the watch, the wear of tools, the rent, firewood, insurance, taxes, clerkship, and various other contingent expenses of its manufacturer, together with the labor expended in its transmission from him to its vender; and the labor and contingent expenses of the vender in passing it to the one who uses it. In some of these departments the labor is more disagreeable, or more deleterious to health than in others, but all these items, or more, constitute the COSTS of the watch. The value of a well-made watch, depends upon the natural qualities of the metals or minerals employed, upon the natural qualities or principles of its mechanism, upon the uses to which it is applied, and upon the fancy or wants of the purchaser. It would be different with every different watch, with every purchaser, and would change every day in the hands of the same purchaser, and with every different use to which he applied it.

Now, among this multitude of values, which one should be selected to set a price upon? or, should the price be made to vary and fluctuate according to these fluctuating values! and never be completely sold,* but only from hour to hour? Common sense answers NEITHER, but, that these values, like those of sunshine and air, are of right, the equal property of all; no one having a right to set any price whatever upon them. COST, then, is the only rational ground of price, even in the most complicated transactions; yet, value is made almost entirely the governing principle in almost all the commerce of what is called civilized society!

One may inform another that his house is on fire. The in formation may be of great value to him and his family, but as it costs nothing, there is no ground of price. Conversation, and all other intercourse of mind with mind, by which each may be infinitely benefited, may prove of inconceivable value to all; where the cost is nothing, or too trifling to notice, it constitutes what is here distinguished as purely intellectual commerce.

The performance of a piece of music for the gratification of oneself and others, in which the performer feels pleasure but no pain, and which is attended with no contingent cost, may be said to cost nothing; there is, therefore, no ground of price. It may, however, be of great value to all within hearing.

This intercourse of the feelings, which is not addressed to the intellect, and has no pecuniary feature, is here distinguished as our moral commerce.

A word of sympathy to the distressed may be of great value to them; and to make this value the ground and limit of a price, would be but to follow out the principle that a “thing should bring its value!” Mercenary as we are, even now, this is no where done except by the priesthood.

A man has a lawsuit pending, upon which hangs his property, his security, his personal liberty, or his life. The lawyer who undertakes his case may ask ten, twenty, fifty, five hundred, or five thousand dollars, for a few hours attendance or labor in the case. This charge would be based chiefly on the value of his services to his client. Now, there is nothing in this statement that sounds wrong, but it is because our ears are familiarized with wrong. The case is similar to that of the starving man. The cost to the lawyer might be, say twenty hours’ labor, and allowing a portion for his apprenticeship, say twenty-one hours in all, with all contingent expenses, would constitute a legitimate, a just ground of price; but the very next step beyond this rests upon value, and is the first step in cannibalism. The laborer, when he comes to dig the lawyer’s cellar, never thinks of setting a price upon its future value to the owner; he only considers how long it will take him, how hard the ground is, what will be the weather to which he will be exposed, what will be the wear and tear of teams, tools, clothes, etc.; and in all these items, he considers nothing but the different items of COST to himself.

The doctor demands of the wood-cutter the proceeds of five, ten, or twenty days’ labor for a visit of an hour, and asks, in excuse, if the sick man would not prefer this rather than continuous disease or death. This, again, is basing a price or) an assumed value of his attendance instead of its cost. It is common to plead the difference of talents required: without waiting to prove this plea false, it is, perhaps, sufficient to show that the talents required, either in cutting wood, or in cutting off a. leg or an arm, so far as they cost the possessor, are a legitimate ground of estimate and of price; but talents which cost nothing, are natural wealth, and like the water, land, and sunshine, should be accessible to all without price.

If a priest is required to get a soul out of purgatory, he sets his price according to the value which the relatives set upon his prayers, instead of their cost to the priest. This, again, is cannibalism. The same amount of labor equally disagreeable, with equal wear and tear, performed by his customers, would be a just remuneration.

All patents give to the inventor or discoverer the power to command a price based upon the value of the thing patented; instead of which, his legitimate compensation would be an equivalent for the cost of his physical ‘and mental labor, added to that of his materials, and the contingent expenses of experiments.

A speculator buys a piece of land of government, for $1.25 per acre, and holds it till surrounding improvements, made by others, increase its value, and it is then sold accordingly, for five, ten, twenty, a hundred, or ten thousand dollars per acre. From this operation of civilized cannibalism whole families live from generation to generation, in idleness and luxury, upon the surrounding population, who must have the land at any price. Instead of this, the prime cost of land, the taxes, and other contingent expenses of surveying, etc., added to the labor of making contracts, would constitute the equitable price of land purchased for sale.

If A purchases a lot for his own use, and B wants it more than A, then A may properly consider what his labor upon it has cost him, and what would compensate him for the inconvenience or cost of parting with it; but this is a very different thing from purchasing it on purpose to part with it, which costs A no inconvenience. We here discriminate between these two cases, but in neither do we go beyond cost as the limit of price.

A loans to B ten thousand dollars at six per cent, interest, for one year, and at the end of the year receives back the whole amount loaned and six hundred dollars more! For what? For the use of the money. Why? Because it was of that valve to the borrower. For the same reason, why not demand of the starving man ten thousand dollars for a loaf of bread because it saves his life? The legitimate, the equitable compensation for the loan of money, is the COST of labor in lending it and receiving it back again.

Rents of land, buildings, etc., especially in cities, are based chiefly on their value to the occupants, and this depends on the degree of want or distress felt by the landless and houseless; the greater the distress, the higher the value and the price. The equitable rent of either would be the wear, insurance, etc., and the labor of making contracts and receiving the rents, all of which are different items of COST.

The products of machinery are now sold for what they will “bring,” and therefore its advantages go exclusively into the pockets of its owners. If these products were priced at the cost of the machinery, its wear, attendance, etc., then capitalists would not be INTERESTED in its INTRODUCTION any more’ than those who attended it; they would not be interested in reducing the wages of its attendants; and in proportion as it threw workmen out of employment it would work for them.

One of the most common, most disgusting features of this iniquitous spirit of the present pecuniary commerce, is seen and felt by every one, in all the operations of buying and selling. The cheating, higgling, huckstering, and falsehoods, so degrading to both purchaser and vender, and the injustice done to one party or the other, in almost every transaction in trade, all originate in the chaotic union of cost, value, and the reward of labor of the vender all into one price. To bring order out of this confusion, to put a stop to the discord and DEGRADATION of trade, and to reward the distributor of goods without invading the property of the purchaser, there is probably no other way than to discriminate between the cost and the value of the goods, and between the cost of the goods and the cost of the labor of buying and selling them—keeping these disconnetted, individualized.

A store-keeper selling a needle, cannot get paid for his labor within the price of the needle; to do this he must disconnect the two, and make the needle one item of the charge, and his labor another. If he sell the needle for its prime cost, and its portion of contingent expenses, and charge an equal amount of labor for that which he bestows in purchasing and vending, he is equitably remunerated for his labor, and his customer’s equal right is not invaded. Again, he cannot connect his remuneration with a larger article with any more certainty of doing justice to himself or his customer. If he add three cents upon each yard of calico, as his compensation, his customers may take one yard, and he does not get an equivalent for his labor. If the customer take thirty yards, he becomes overpaid, and his customer is wronged. Disconnection of the two elements of price, and making cost the limit of each, works vii equitably for both parties in all cases, and at once puts an end to the higgling, the deception, frauds, and every other disgusting and degrading feature of our pecuniary commerce.

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Another great obstacle to division and exchange is the lack of some principle by which to settle the prices, or which would itself settle them harmoniously, instead of the disgusting process of bargaining in every little transaction, which is so repugnant to good sense and good feeling that the best citizens are often induced to do without conveniences, or undertake to supply themselves to great disadvantage rather than enter into the degrading warfare which generally attends our pecuniary commerce. They will also afford to others little accommodations gratuitously for the same reason—these lay the receiver under indefinite obligations, one of the worst forms of slavery. Gratuitous labor must necessarily be limited, and thousands of exchanges of great value, but little cost, would immensely increase the comforts of all parties, where COST, as a principle, measured and settled the price in every transaction, without words—without disturbing our social feelings and self-respect. Another great obstacle to the development of this branch of economy, is the uncertainty, the insecurity of every business. Men dare not make investments for carrying on business to the best advantage while the markets for their products are unsteady—where prices “rise at eight o’clock” and “fall at twelve.” If prices were equitably adjusted by the COST principle, we should know, from year to year, from age to age very nearly, the prices of every thing—All labor being equally rewarded according to its cost, there would be no destructive competition—Markets would be steady—then we might subdivide the different parts of manufactures to any extent that the demand would justify at any time, and be safe, secure, and society would know the immense wealth to be derived from the division of labor. Another great obstacle to extensive division of labor, and rapid and easy exchanges, seems to be the want of the means of effecting exchanges. We cannot carry our property about us for the purpose of exchanging. If we could do this, and give one thing for another at once, and thus settle every transaction, such a thing as money, or a circulating medium, never would have been known; but, as we cannot carry flour, shoes, carpentering, brick-work, store-keeping, etc., about us to exchange for what we want, we require something which represents these; which representative we can always carry with us.

This Representative of property should be our circulating medium. Theorists have said that money was this representative, but it is NOT. A dollar represents nothing whatever but itself nor can it be made to. At no time is it any demand on any one for any quantity of any kind of property or labor whatever. At one time a dollar will procure two bushels of potatoes, at another time three bushels, at another four, and different quantities of different persons at the same time. It has no definite value at any time, nor if it had, would its value qualify it for a circulating medium; but, on the contrary, its value and its cost being inseparably united with its use as a representative, disqualifies all money for acting the part of a circulating medium: it should have but one quality, one individual, definite purpose, that of standing in the place of the thing represented, as a miniature represents a person.

Money represents robbery, banking, gambling, swindling, counterfeiting, etc., as much as it represents property; it has a value that varies with every individual that uses it, and changes as often as it is used—a picture that would represent at one time a man, at another a monkey, and then a gourd, would be just as legitimate and fit for a portrait, as common money is fit for a circulating medium.

We want a circulating medium that is a definite representative of a definite quantity of property, and nothing but a representative; so that when we cannot make direct equivalent exchanges of property, we can supply the deficiency with its definite representative, which will stand in its place. And this should not have any reference to the value of property, but only to its COST, so that if I get a bushel of wheat of you, I give you the representative of shoe-making, with which you should be able to obtain from the shoemaker as much labor as you bestowed on the wheat—cost for cost in equivalent quantities; and to effect these exchanges with facility, each one must always have a plenty of this representative on hand, or be able to make it on the occasion, and so adapt the supply of the circulating medium to the demand for it—a problem that never has yet been solved by any financiers in the world, nor ever will be while value is taken into account of price. The remark is common, that “if money was plenty we would purchase many things that we cannot for want of it.” Here, no exchange takes place that otherwise would, and division will always be in proportion to exchange or sales.

Where there is no circulating medium, there cannot be much exchange or division. On the other hand, where every one has a plenty of the circulating medium always at hand, exchanges and division of labor would not be limited for want of money. A note given by each individual for his own labor, estimated by its cost, is perfectly legitimate and competent for all the purposes of a circulating medium. It is based upon the bone and muscle, the manual powers, the talents, and resources, the property, and property-producing powers of the whole people—the soundest of all foundations, and is a circulating medium of the only kind that ever ought to have been issued. The only objection to it is, that it would immediately abolish all the great money transactions of the world—all banks and banking operations—all stockjobbing, money corporations, and money movements—all systems of finance, all systems of national policy and commercial corruption—abolish all distinctions of rich and poor— compel every one to live and enjoy at his own cost, and would contribute largely to restore the world to order, peace, and harmony.

Boarding-houses, hotels, etc., having no principle for the government of prices but whatever they can get, in the cannibal competition of society, get whatever they can, and their inmates are only those who have no other homes. If COST were made the limit of price, as economy is in favor of one set of preparations for great numbers, the cost being less in proportion to numbers, it would immediately become the interest of every one wanting board to co-operate with all others, to afford every facility in their power to get the greatest practicable number of boarders for such an establishment, and to afford every convenience, every facility for reducing the labor and trouble of conducting it, and each one doing this through self-interest, to reduce the cost of his own fare, would be promoting equally the interest of every other boarder—here would be COOPERATION, but no COMBINATION. They need have no compact with each other. The individual who conducted the house, would be the only person with whom any contract need be made. Five hundred persons thus accommodated with five times better fare than common boarding-houses can now afford, would employ but one kitchen, instead of a hundred kitchens—perhaps five cooks, instead of a hundred, and the cost of board to each would, probably, not exceed one fifth of that of keeping a private kitchen for five persons! Families seeing this, would probably prefer such quarters, at least at meal-times, and thus relieve the females of the family, from the dull, mill-horse drudgery to which they otherwise are irretrievably doomed.

One person to keep a dairy in good order (instead of fifty cows being scattered among fifty families, with fifty boys or men to hunt and drive them, badly housed, badly fed, and badly treated in the hurry of other domestic duties), is an arrangement that would naturally result from the economy that each would derive from the cost principle.

A washing establishment conducted on the COST principle, would exhibit one of the most necessary divisions of labor, and relieve the house-keepers from the most irksome and repugnant of all their duties. The same principle and motives being brought to bear upon schools, the different branches of mechanism, and all social arrangements, would work in a similar manner—each in the pursuit of his own interest promoting the interests of all others. Machinery being made and worked on the COST principle, every one would be equally benefited by its construction and use—the more there was at work, the more would the burthen of labor be reduced to all. If it threw a certain set out of employment, they would turn immediately to other employments, and thus reduce the labor still to be performed by hand.

Land being bought and sold on the COST principle, would be open to them at almost a nominal price. Board and clothing being obtained at COST—all arts, trades, and mysteries being communicated for an equivalent of the labor of communicating them, and the rewards of all labor being equal according to its cost—a report of the demand being always accessible, so that they could know what to turn to, and where to find instruction in any art, trade, or science, and a market for their products at a full, equivalent price, machinery might then be introduced without any limits but their wants, with benefits to all—with injury to none! and who shall measure the yet untold economies which might then result from machinery! I have said without any limits but our wants, because an immense number of inventions are now brought out which are no improvements at all upon existing modes, and the country is overrun, and inventions disgraced by a surfeit of the productions of over-stimulated stupidity, for no other purpose than to escape from unpaid labor and the punishments of poverty.

The want or demand for a machine would furnish the only reasonable motive for its construction, and an equivalent in labor and cost of materials would be the legitimate compensation to its inventor. This would afford no more inducements to invent machinery than to pursue any thing else that might be in demand—all things being equally paid, there would be no temptation to invent machinery that was not wanted, but the supply would be harmoniously adapted to the demand or wants of society. It is no uncommon occurrence, that food, clothing, etc., for which thousands are suffering, are destroyed to prevent prices from falling too low for the interests of speculators! To save these from this kind of destruction, is the particular province of the cost principle; which, while it destroys speculators themselves, delights in passing supplies from producer to consumer at the cheapest equivalent rates.

Physicians who can get fifty dollars per day, while the most useful labor is paid only fifty cents, cannot be expected to get us well while it would stop their income and drive them to an unpaid labor; but fifty dollars a day will maintain them by working one day in fifty, or maintain fifty times as many doctors as the demand requires. The cost principle will adapt the supply to the demand, and destroy the temptation to keep us sick for the sake of the profit of it.

Swarms of lawyers, office-holders, and office-seekers crowd the ranks of useless consumers, whose chief business it is to contrive means of keeping up the state of things by which they are exempt from unpaid labor, and enjoy a few of the privileges of freemen. Individualizing all business—committing none to the management of government, and conducting all our business equitably with our fellow-men, on the cost principle, will sweep away all demand for them—will compel them to assist in reducing rather than increasing the burthen of labor, and paying all labor by equivalents will change even their condition for a better.

Hordes of robbers, pirates, bankers, speculators, thieves, gamblers, pickpockets, swindlers, etc., who are driven into any thing to live, and to escape abused labor at starvation prices, may suddenly become useful citizens, when labor is properly paid, and assist in reducing rather than increasing the burthen of labor. When the door to all trades and occupations is thrown open—when the demands or wants of society are made known—when any one can turn at any time to a choice of employment which will find a market at equivalent prices, and when any one may live on two or three hours’ labor per day, where can any one find a motive to be a fungus upon society? When we contemplate the immense piles of materials and mechanism in church paraphernalia—the armies of preachers and theological imposters, their type-setters, printers, their emissaries in every nook and corner of the world, all unproductive, and only professing to counteract the vices of the present system, we see in these reasons enough for its total “demolition.

A direct and equitable exchange between the present producers, would entirely cut them off from the means of existence. If it be true that the demand for these grow out of the vices of the present social state, these being cured, their occupation will be at an end; and their transition to the productive and self-supporting class will not only put a stop to their excessive, wasteful consumption, but will immensely reduce the still remaining burthen of labor.

Controversialists, and all who are employed by them, whether moral, religious, or political, are all engaged in propping up, in pulling down, in repairing or counteracting the natural action of existing social elements. Their equitable and harmonious adjustment would relieve us of all these taxes upon our time and labor, which would be no small item of economy.

Every thing being bought and sold for the greatest profit the holder “can get” it becomes his interest to purchase every thing as cheap as possible; the cheaper he purchases the more profit he makes. This is the origin of the present horrid system of grinding and destructive COMPETITION among all producers, who are thus prompted to under-work each other.

Thus, too, it is, that there is scarcely any article of food, clothing, tools, or medicines, that is fit for use—that we are always purchasing to throw away, to be cheated out of our money and time, and be disappointed in our supplies. Responsibility rests nowhere. The vender does not make them, but imports them from those beyond the reach of responsibility. Why is every thing imported, even shoes, tools, woolen and cotton cloths? For profit. It is because things are not sold for their cost, but for whatever the holder can get.

Were COST made the limit of price, the vender of goods would have no particular motive to purchase them at the very lowest prices that he could grind out from manufacturers; and they would, therefore, have no motive to under-work and destroy each other. There would be no more of each than enough to supply the demand—no motive to import what could be made with equal advantage at home, and the manufacturer would be obliged to assume the individual responsibility of his work; because where profit-making did not stand in the way, the merchant would not otherwise purchase of him; and where land was bought and sold at COST, every man of business would own the premises where the work was done, and could not easily run away from the character of it; and this must be kept good, or another would immediately take his place.

Here, then, in the cost principle, is the means of rendering competition not only harmless, but a great regulating and adjusting power, and under its mighty influence, should we not only escape national ruin from the excessive importation of worthless articles, but should have good ones always insured, by their manufacturers being within reach of tangible responsibility.

The scramble for unlimited profits in trade being annihilated by equitable exchanges between nations, the imports and exports would be naturally self-regulating, and limited to such as were mutually beneficial, and each would have a co-operating interest in the prosperity of the other. When this takes place, the armies and navies now employed in consuming and destroying, will be compelled to turn to producing, at least whatever they consume, and thus take off another crushing load from down-trodden labor.

COST being made the limit of price, no bargaining, higgling, and chaffering (so disgusting to every one), will stand in the way of a direct purchase at once of whatever any one wants. The price will be known from year to year, and will be paid without asking it, and the time now consumed in higgling and bargain-making will be harmlessly or usefully employed.

Wars are, probably, the greatest of all destroyers of property, and they originate chiefly in two roots. First, for direct or indirect plunder; secondly, for the privileges of governing. Direct plunder will cease when men can create property with less trouble than they can invade their fellow-creature’s. Indirect plunder will cease with making cost the limit of price, thus cutting off all “profits of trade.” The privileges of governing will cease when men take all their business out of national or other combinations—manage it individually, deal equitably with each other, and leave no governing to be done.

Every one having full pay for his labor, can afford the luxuries of mechanism, commerce, and science. Each exchanging with the other for an equivalent as a settled principle, there could remain no inducement for a man, or a country, or a nation, to attempt to supply all their own wants to disadvantage; but, as under co-operative interests, every one would gain in proportion to the division of labor, this great element of economy would be carried to the very highest state of perfection.

These are a few of the items of economy that appear as necessary consequences of equity among men; others will suggest themselves to each mind as the subject is studied.

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Natural individualities admonish us not to be dogmatical on this or any other subject, but to be careful not to construct any institutions which require rigid adherence to any manmade rule, system, or dogma of any kind; to leave every one free to make any application, or no application, of any and all principles proposed, and to make any qualification or exception to them which he or she may incline to make, always deciding and acting at his or her own cost, but not at the cost of others.