Pushed then to its greatest extreme, it is pure
Sisyphism as we have defined it; _labor infinite; result nothing_.
There have been men who accused railways of _injuring shipping_; and
it is certainly true that the most perfect means of attaining an
object must always limit the use of a less perfect means. But railways
can only injure shipping by drawing from it articles of
transportation; this they can only do by transporting more cheaply;
and they can only transport more cheaply, by _diminishing the
proportion of the effort employed to the result obtained_--for it is
in this that cheapness consists. When, therefore, these men lament the
suppression of labor in attaining a given result, they maintain the
doctrine of Sisyphism. Logically, if they prefer the vessel to the
railway, they should also prefer the wagon to the vessel, the
pack-saddle to the wagon, and the sack to the pack-saddle: for this
is, of all known means of transportation, the one which requires the
greatest amount of labor, in proportion to the result obtained.
"Labor constitutes the riches of the people," say some theorists.
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