I will not enter again upon this now useless discussion, since I propose, in the following chapter, to exhaust the subject of PRODUCTION BY CAPITAL.
Thus, capital can be exchanged, but cannot be a source of income.
LABOR and SKILL remain; or, as St.Simon puts it, RESULTS and CAPACITIES.

I will examine them successively.
Should wages be governed by labor?
In other words, is it just that he who does the most should get the most?
I beg the reader to pay the closest attention to this point.
To solve the problem with one stroke, we have only to ask ourselves the following question: "Is labor a CONDITION or a STRUGGLE ?" The reply seems plain.
God said to man, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,"-- that is, thou shalt produce thy own bread: with more or less ease, according to thy skill in directing and combining thy efforts, thou shalt labor.
God did not say, "Thou shalt quarrel with thy neighbor for thy bread;" but, "Thou shalt labor by the side of thy neighbor, and ye shall dwell together in harmony." Let us develop the meaning of this law, the extreme simplicity of which renders it liable to misconstruction.
In labor, two things must be noticed and distinguished: ASSOCIATION and AVAILABLE MATERIAL.
In so far as laborers are associated, they are equal; and it involves a contradiction to say that one should be paid more than another.

For, as the product of one laborer can be paid for only in the product of another laborer, if the two products are unequal, the remainder--or the difference between the greater and the smaller--will not be acquired by society; and, therefore, not being exchanged, will not affect the equality of wages.

There will result, it is true, in favor of the stronger laborer a natural inequality, but not a social inequality; no one having suffered by his strength and productive energy.

In a word, society exchanges only equal products--that is, rewards no labor save that performed for her benefit; consequently, she pays all laborers equally: with what they produce outside of her sphere she has no more to do, than with the difference in their voices and their hair.
I seem to be positing the principle of inequality: the reverse of this is the truth.