VIII
CONCLUSION
   
We have now acquainted ourselves with our fines laws and regulations, with all this exceptionally complicated system that frightens the worker away with its dryness and unattractive official language.
   
We can now return to the question raised at the outset, to that of fines being a product of capitalism, i.e., of such a social order under which the people are divided into two classes, the owners of the land, machines, mills and factories, materials and supplies -- and those who have no property, and who therefore have to sell themselves to the capitalists and work for them.
   
Has it always been the case that workers in the service of an employer have had to pay him fines for all sorts of detects?
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In small establishments -- for example, among the urban artisans or workers -- no fines are imposed. There is no complete alienation of the worker from the master, they live and work together. The master does not dream of introducing fines, because he himself keeps an eye on the job and can always force the correction of what he does not like.
   
But such small establishments and trades are gradually disappearing. The handicraftsmen and artisans, and also the small peasants, cannot withstand the competition of the big factories and big employers who use improved instruments and machines and combine the labour of masses of workers. That is why we see that handicraftsmen, artisans and peasants are increasingly being ruined, and are becoming workers in factories, are abandoning their villages and migrating to the towns.
   
At the big factories the relations between the employer and the workers are quite unlike those in the small workshops. The employer is so far above the worker in wealth and social status that a veritable abyss lies between them, and frequently they do not even know one another and have nothing in common. The worker has no opportunity of making his way into the employers' ranks: he is doomed to remain impoverished for all time, working for rich men whom he does not know. Instead of the two or three workers employed by the small master there are now masses of workers, who come from various localities and constantly replace one another. Instead of separate instructions from the master, general regulations appear that are made obligatory for all workers. The former constancy of the relations between master and worker disappears: the master sets no great store by the worker at all, because he can always easily find another one among the crowd of unemployed ready to hire themselves to anybody. Thus, the power of the employer over the workers increases, and the employer makes use of this power, resorting to fines in order to drive the worker into the narrow confines of factory work. The worker has to submit to this new limitation of his rights and of his earnings, because he is now helpless against the employer.
   
And so fines appeared on earth not very long ago -- together with the big factories, together with large-scale
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capitalism, together with the complete split between the rich masters and the ragged workers. Fines are the result of the complete development of capitalism and the complete enslavement of the worker.
   
However, this development of the big factories and intensification of pressure by the employers brought still other consequences in their train. The workers, totally helpless as against the factory owners, began to understand that utter disaster and poverty awaited them if they continued to be divided. The workers began to understand that there was only one means of saving themselves from the starvation and degeneration that capitalism held in store for them -- and that was to join forces in order to fight the factory owners for higher wages and better living conditions.
   
We have seen what disgraceful oppression of the workers our factory owners resorted to in the eighties, how they turned fines into a means of lowering the workers' wages and did not confine themselves to just reducing rates. The oppression of the workers by the capitalists reached its apex.
   
But this oppression evoked the workers' resistance. The workers rose up against their oppressors and were victorious. The terrified government conceded their demands and hastened to issue a law regulating fines.
   
That was a concession to the workers. The government imagined that by issuing the fines laws and regulations, by introducing grants from the fines money it would immediately satisfy the workers and make them forget their common workers' cause, their struggle against the factory owners.
   
However, such hopes of the government, which poses as the protector of the workers, will not be justified. We have seen how unjust the new law is to the workers, how small are the concessions to the workers by comparison with even the demands advanced by the Morozov strikers; we have seen how loopholes were left everywhere for mill owners anxious to violate the law, how grants regulations that supplement the employers' tyranny with that of the officials were drawn up in the employers' interests.
   
When this law and these regulations are put into effect, when the workers acquaint themselves with them and begin to learn from their clashes with the managements how the law oppresses them, then they will begin steadily to realise
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that they are in a position of dependence. They will understand that only poverty has compelled them to work for the rich and to be content with crumbs for their heavy labour. They will understand that the government and its officials are on the side of the factory owners, and that the laws are drawn up in such a way as to make it easier for the employer to oppress the worker.
   
And the workers will appreciate, finally, the point that the law does nothing to improve their status, so long as the workers' dependence on the capitalists continues to exist, because the law will always be partial to the capitalist employers, because the latter will always succeed in devising ruses for evading the law.
   
Once they have understood this, the workers will see that only one means remains for defending themselves, namely, to join forces for the struggle against the factory owners and the unjust practices established by the law.