For the purposes of this exchange, the economic commune, as the first appropriator of the social products, has to determine, "for each type of articles, a uniform price" {277}, based on the average production costs. "The significance which the so-called costs of production ... have for value and price today, will be provided" (in the socialitarian system)"...by the estimates of the quantity of labour to be employed. These estimates, by virtue of the principle of equal rights for each individual also in the economic sphere, can be traced back, in the last analysis, to consideration of the number of persons that participated in the labour; they will result in the relation of prices corresponding both to the natural conditions of production and to the social right of realisation. The output of the precious metals will continue, as now, to determine the value of money...
It can be seen from this that in the changed constitution of society, one not only does not lose the determining factor and measure, in the first place of values, and, with value, of the exchange relations between products, but wins them good and proper for the first time" {326-327}.
The famous "absolute value" {D. K. G. 499} is at last realised.
On the other hand, however, the commune must also put its individual members in a position to buy from it the articles produced, by paying to each, in compensation for his labour, a certain sum of money, daily, weekly or monthly, but necessarily the same for all. "From the socialitarian standpoint it is consequently a matter of indifference whether we say that wages disappear, or, that they must become the exclusive form of economic income" {D. C.
263}. Equal wages and equal prices, however, establish "quantitative, if not qualitative equality of consumption" {268}, and thereby the "universal principle of justice" {282} is realised in the economic sphere.
As to how the level of this wage of the future is to be determined, Herr Dühring tells us only that here too, as in all other cases, there will be an exchange of "equal labour for equal labour" {D. C. 257}. For six hours of labour, therefore, a sum of money will be paid which also embodies in itself six hours of labour.
Nevertheless, the "universal principle of justice" must not in any way be confounded with that crude levelling down which makes the bourgeois so indignantly oppose all communism, and especially the spontaneous communism of the workers. It is by no means so inexorable as it would like to appear.
The "equality in principle of economic rights does not exclude the voluntary addition to what justice requires of an expression of special recognition and honour... Society honours itself in conferring distinction on the higher types of professional ability by a moderate additional allocation for consumption" {267}.
And Herr Dühring, too, honours himself, when combining the innocence of a dove with the subtleness of a serpent, [Matthew 10:16. -- Ed .] he displays such touching concern for the moderate additional consumption of the Dührings of the future.
This will finally do away with the capitalist mode of distribution.
For "supposing under such conditions someone actually had a surplus of private means at his disposal, he would not be able to find any use for it as capital. No individual and no group would acquire it from him for production, except by way of exchange or purchase, but neither would ever have occasion to pay him interest or profit" {264-65}. Hence "inheritance conforming to the principle of equality" {289} would be permissible. It cannot be dispensed with, for "a certain form of inheritance will always be a necessary accompaniment of the family principle". But even the right of inheritance "will not be able to lead to any amassing of considerable wealth, as the building up of property ... can never again aim at the creation of means of production and purely rentiers' existences" {291}.
And this fortunately completes the economic commune. Let us now have a look at how it works.
We assume that all of Herr Dühring's preliminary conditions are completely realised; we therefore take it for granted that the economic commune pays to each of its members, for six hours of labour a day, a sum of money, say twelve marks, in which likewise six hours of labour are embodied.
We assume further that prices exactly correspond to values, and therefore, on our assumptions, cover only the costs of raw materials, the wear and tear of machinery, the consumption of instruments of labour and the wages paid. An economic commune of a hundred working members would then produce in a day commodities to the value of twelve hundred marks; and in a year of 300 working-days, 360,000 marks. It pays the same sum to its members, each of whom does as he likes with his share, which is twelve marks a day or 3,600 marks a year. At the end of a year, and at the end of a hundred years, the commune is no richer than it was at the beginning. During this whole period it will never once be in a position to provide even the moderate additional allocation for Herr Dühring's consumption, unless it cares to take it from its stock of means of production. Accumulation is completely forgotten. Even worse: as accumulation is a social necessity and the retention of money provides a convenient form of accumulation, the organisation of the economic commune directly impels its members to accumulate privately, and thereby leads it to its own destruction.
How can this conflict in the nature of the economic commune be avoided? It might take refuge in his beloved "taxes" {24}, the price surcharge, and sell its annual production for 480,000 instead of 360,000. But as all other economic communes are in the same position, and would therefore act in the same way, each of them, in its exchanges with the others, would have to pay just as much "taxes" as it pockets itself, and the "tribute"{374} would thus have to fall on its own members alone.
