Paul Lafargue 1887
Source: Les Services Publics, le Socialiste, August 6, 1887, pp.1-2;
Translation and notes: by Graham Seaman for MIA, May 2026.
Last updated: 29 May 2026
The bourgeoisie bends its principles to suit its own interests. I am not talking about those laughable principles of Liberty, Fraternity, and other such nonsense that it made the people chase after and fight for while it got its hands on wealth and power; I am talking about those bourgeois principles necessary for its class exploitation. One principle proclaimed sacrosanct by all bourgeois is the freedom of industry and commerce and the abolition of state monopolies.
Nevertheless, in all capitalist countries, a number of industries are taken out of individual hands and placed under the impersonal administration of the State.
The protection of property and persons was once entrusted to the population themselves: when certain words were shouted or a particular bell was rung, the inhabitants of the surrounding streets had to drop whatever they were doing and rush to help using sticks or weapons to defend the person under attack. Nowadays, the State and municipalities, which are like States in miniature, are responsible for this protection of property and person.
The making of money began as the privilege of every suzerain lord and free city; our barbarian ancestors, the Germans and the Franks, wore bands of gold and silver wrapped around their arms as armrings, to serve them as money; they cut pieces from them as needed.
It took considerable expertise to distinguish between the many different currencies of such diverse origins; in the old town fairs, where all the country's trade was once conducted, Jews, scales and touchstone in hand, would test the purity and weight of money given in exchange for goods. It is easy to understand the immense benefit that merchants found in currencies being unified and manufactured by the State, which guaranteed the weight and purity—that is, the amount of copper added to gold or silver to make it more resistant. This monetary unity is so essential that in the Levant and North Africa, the currency accepted everywhere is the Maria Theresa dollar (the one hundred sou coin bearing the image of Maria Theresa), struck in the workshops of the Austrian State. The English sovereign (the 25 franc gold coin) enjoys the same privilege in many countries; in Portugal, for example, it is legal currency.
It was because it was in their best interest that the bourgeoisie allowed the State to monopolize the production of money. They only entrusted the State with the delivery of letters after realizing that this service, of paramount importance to their industrial and commercial development, could not be left to industrialists, as is still the case in several parts of the United States.
If the bourgeoisie has, under certain circumstances, sacrificed the principle dearest to its heart—freedom of industry and commerce—it is because these so-called public services are primarily bourgeois services, benefiting almost exclusively the bourgeoisie. It is undeniable that the postal service is useful to workers; but how much more useful to the bourgeoisie! While a worker writes a letter from time to time, commercial establishments receive 20, 50, 100, and more per day.
There are also public services of a different kind, which are budgetary resources; tobacco today, the "gabelle" or salt tax in the past. Professor Alglave, professor of financial science at the Law School, demands that the sale of alcohol become a public service in order to generate revenue for the State. Jules Guesde, in Le Cri du Peuple (before it was edited by Mr. Georges de Labruyère), supported the same proposal, but for a different purpose: to prevent the shameful poisoning of the population by adulterated alcohol.
Mr. Brousse, who in a spirit of generosity attributes his own unsavoury qualities to others, claims that only people of "bad faith" fail to recognize that "competition leads to the victory of the best equipped: in the aftermath of victory, the victors collude to secure a monopoly," and that "to escape this monopoly, consumers, represented by the municipality and the State, intervene and organize the relevant branch of production into a public service." This is a rather hastily pasted-together theory of public services from a very ponderous and confused writer.
Mr. Brousse, who is as ignorant of economic phenomena as if he had fallen from the moon, would be hard-pressed to name a single public service that has developed according to his fanciful evolution.
What should be blindingly obvious to him, if he could but see, are the monopolies that surround us, as oppressive as they are gigantic: the Water Company, the Gas Company, the Railway Company, Banks with the right granted by the State to print paper money, etc... If Mr. Brousse's astonishing theory had a grain of common sense, all these monopolies that squeeze consumers would be State industries.
Has anyone protested against the gas monopoly, not ordinary people like us, but shop-owners with businesses on the High Street and industrialists with gas-powered machinery in their workshops? Did anyone ever seriously propose abolishing this capitalist monopoly? It is given so little thought that, since the Opéra-Comique disaster,[1] with electric lighting back on the table, the City Council, instead of offering to undertake this new lighting system at its own expense, will, on the contrary, entrust it to the large companies, which will as good capitalists exploit their consumers to the hilt.
The Bank, which monopolizes credit—the lifeblood of all industry and commerce, the keystone of the capitalist system—is prey to a few powerful bankers who use it to extort money from every industrialist and merchant who gets into their hands; and yet no capitalist State has considered following the path indicated by Mr. Brousse, of making the Bank a public service. The audacious minister who would dare propose such an abomination has yet to be born.
Gambetta, the most popular man in France after Napoleon I and before Boulanger, was dropped through the sleight of hand of the high finance lobby because he had dared to speak of nationalizing the railways, a move ardently demanded by farmers, industrialists, merchants, and the military. The lesson has benefited the Opportunists who, since the fall of their great man of clay, do not breathe a word on the subject.[2]
Bismarck, who governs the German bourgeoisie with a whip (he treats them according to their merits) has nationalized the railways and transformed certain private industries into State industries; we shall see what will remain of this statist monopolization when the despotism of the sabre which reigns in Germany is broken.
Napoleon III, who Brousse takes as a model, had tried to win over some of the Parisian workers by building workers' housing estates and selling bread. The Central bakery of the Paris Hospitals produced thousands of loaves of bread during the Empire, which were sold in all markets at ten centimes below the current price. But after September 4th, that is, as soon as the bourgeoisie regained sole control of its own affairs, it abruptly eliminated this competition from the State against private commerce, even though it benefited a portion of the working class. We have just seen the State abandon its monopoly on gunpowder production since the opportunistic wheeler-dealers clawed their way back into power.[3]
It can therefore be said that the bourgeoisie only allow the State to take over an industry where this state monopoly is of prime utility to them, and that as soon as they can they wrests from the State the industries which it had unwillingly seized.
Transforming everything into a public service, what a lovely little game to lull the people to sleep, now that the liberal and radical con-tricks are starting to wear thin! Today we could take the funicular trams, tomorrow the metro, the day after tomorrow the sugar refineries and so on, and we would wake up one fine morning in a society without commerce or private industry: but with a formidable army of cleverly organized civil servants who would herd the disciplined and ranked working people like cattle. We could recreate Paraguay in the heart of Europe: the Jesuits transformed everything there into a public service, even the bastonnade, administered paternally to the Indians by public officials. We could prolong indefinitely the reign of the bourgeoisie, who, like the Dutch in Java, would monopolize all the posts that are all the better paid for needing less work. But the bourgeoisie is foolish enough to turn a deaf ear to these dreams.
Mr. Brousse is the conductor of a rather influential group on the Municipal Council, he wins subsidies, and is going to sabotage the Labour Exchange, which stands in the way of his dictatorial plans. Since he claims that public service is the end of all private industry, let him succeed in establishing a bakery service, which, in my personal opinion, would be of great benefit.
We, revolutionary socialists, believe that all industries must be nationalized, and that we will begin the process by creating a free public service for food, clothing and housing: but this first step towards egalitarian communism will only be achieved when revolutionary socialists are in control of the government, wrested from bourgeois hands.
Paul Lafargue.
1. On 25 May 1887 the Opera House burnt down with the loss of 87 lives. The cause was a fault in the gas lighting. [RETURN]
2. Gambetta's Republican followers were known as the 'opportunists' since they claimed to want an amnesty for those sentenced for their part in the Paris Commune, but 'only when opportune'. His government's first budget, in 1881, included the nationalisation of the railways. After heavy lobbying by financial groups the budget was rejected and Gambetta resigned. He died in 1882. [RETURN]
3. After Napoleon III surrendered to Germany at the battle of Sedan, Gambetta declared the return of the Republic under a government of national defence on 4th September 1870. [RETURN]