In the path upon which civilization has entered, whichever way we turn, we always end, then, either in the despotism of monopoly, and consequently the oppression of consumers, or else in the annihilation of privilege by the action of the police, which is to go backwards in economy and dissolve society by destroying liberty.Marvellous thing! in this system of free industry, abuses, like lice, being generated by their own remedies, if the legislator should try to suppress all offences, be on the watch against all frauds, and secure persons, property, and the public welfare against any attack, going from reform to reform, he would finally so multiply the non-productive functions that the entire nation would be engaged in them, and that at last there would be nobody left to produce.Everybody would be a policeman; the industrial class would become a myth.Then, perhaps, order would reign in monopoly.
"The principle of the law yet to be made concerning trade-marks," says M.Renouard, "is that these marks cannot and should not be transformed into guarantees of quality."
This is a consequence of the patent law, which, as we have seen, does not guarantee the invention.Adopt M.Renouard's principle; after that of what use will marks be? Of what importance is it to me to read on the cork of a bottle, instead of twelve-cent wine or fifteen-cent wine, WINE-DRINKERS'
COMPANY or the name of any other concern you will? What I care for is not the name of the merchant, but the quality and fair price of the merchandise.
The name of the manufacturer is supposed, it is true, to serve as a concise sign of good or bad manufacture, of superior or inferior quality.
Then why not frankly take part with those who ask, besides the mark of origin, a mark significant of something? Such a reservation is incomprehensible.
The two sorts of marks have the same purpose; the second is only a statement or paraphrase of the first, a condensation of the merchant's prospectus;
why, once more, if the origin signifies something, should not the mark define this significance?
M.Wolowski has very clearly developed this argument in his opening lecture of 1843-44, the substance of which lies entirely in the following analogy:
Just as the government has succeeded in determining a standard of quantity, it may, it should also fix a standard of quality; one of these standards is the necessary complement of the other.The monetary unit, the system of weights and measures, have not infringed upon industrial liberty; no more would it be damaged by a system of trade-marks.
M.Wolowski then supports himself on the authority of the princes of the science, A.Smith and J.B.Say, -- a precaution always useful with hearers who bow to authority much more than to reason.
I declare, for my part, that I thoroughly share M.Wolowski's idea, and for the reason that I find it profoundly revolutionary.The trade-mark, being, according to M.Wolowski's expression, nothing but a standard of qualities, is equivalent in my eyes to a general scheduling of prices.
For, whether a particular administration marks in the name of the State and guarantees the quality of the merchandise, as is the case with gold and silver, or whether the matter of marking is left to the manufacturer, from the moment that the mark must give the intrinsic composition of the merchandise (these are M.Wolowski's own words) and guarantee the consumer against all surprise, it necessarily resolves itself into a fixed price.
It is not the same thing as price; two similar products, but differing in origin and quality, may be of equal value, as a bottle of Burgundy may be worth a bottle of Bordeaux; but the mark, being significant, leads to an exact knowledge of the price, since it gives the analysis.To calculate the price of an article of merchandise is to decompose it into its constituent parts; now, that is exactly what the trade-mark must do, if designed to signify anything.Therefore we are on the road, as I have said, to a general scheduling of prices.
But a general scheduling of prices is nothing but a determination of all values, and here again political economy comes into conflict with its own principles and tendencies.Unfortunately, to realize M.Wolowski's reform, it is necessary to begin by solving all the previous contradictions and enter a higher sphere of association; and it is this absence of solution which has brought down upon M.Wolowski's system the condemnation of most of his fellow-economists.
In fact, the system of trade-marks is inapplicable in the existing order, because this system, contrary to the interests of the manufacturers and repugnant to their habits, could be sustained only by the energetic will of power.Suppose for a moment that the administration be charged with affixing the marks; its agents will have to interpose continually in the work of manufacture, as it interposes in the liquor business and the manufacture of beer; further, these agents, whose functions seem already so intrusive and annoying, deal only with taxable quantities, not with exchangeable qualities.These fiscal supervisors and inspectors will have to carry their investigation into all details in order to repress and prevent fraud; and what fraud? The legislator will have defined it either incorrectly or not at all; it is at this point that the task becomes appalling.
There is no fraud in selling wine of the poorest quality, but there is fraud in passing off one quality for another; then you are obliged to differentiate the qualities of wines, and consequently to guarantee them.
