"The Constituent Assembly,
frightened
at the extent of the evil and the
difficulty of curing it, ordains the _statu quo_.
difficulty of curing it, ordains the _statu quo_.
Proudhon - What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government
A contractor pays one hundred thousand francs
for raw material, fifty thousand francs in wages, and then expects to
receive a product of two hundred thousand francs,--that is, expects to
make a profit on the material and on the labor of his employees; but
if the laborers and the purveyor of the material cannot, with their
combined wages, repurchase that which they have produced for the
contractor, how can they live? I will develop my question. Here details
become necessary.
If the workingman receives for his labor an average of three francs per
day, his employer (in order to gain any thing beyond his own salary, if
only interest on his capital) must sell the day's labor of his employee,
in the form of merchandise, for more than three francs. The workingman
cannot, then, repurchase that which he has produced for his master.
It is thus with all trades whatsoever. The tailor, the hatter, the
cabinet-maker, the blacksmith, the tanner, the mason, the jeweller,
the printer, the clerk, &c. , even to the farmer and wine-grower, cannot
repurchase their products; since, producing for a master who in one form
or another makes a profit, they are obliged to pay more for their own
labor than they get for it.
In France, twenty millions of laborers, engaged in all the branches of
science, art, and industry, produce every thing which is useful to man.
Their annual wages amount, it is estimated to twenty thousand millions;
but, in consequence of the right of property, and the multifarious forms
of increase, premiums, tithes, interests, fines, profits, farm-rents,
house-rents, revenues, emoluments of every nature and description, their
products are estimated by the proprietors and employers at twenty-five
thousand millions. What does that signify? That the laborers, who are
obliged to repurchase these products in order to live, must either pay
five for that which they produced for four, or fast one day in five.
If there is an economist in France able to show that this calculation is
false, I summon him to appear; and I promise to retract all that I have
wrongfully and wickedly uttered in my attacks upon property.
Let us now look at the results of this profit.
If the wages of the workingmen were the same in all pursuits, the
deficit caused by the proprietor's tax would be felt equally everywhere;
but also the cause of the evil would be so apparent, that it would soon
be discovered and suppressed. But, as there is the same inequality of
wages (from that of the scavenger up to that of the minister of state)
as of property, robbery continually rebounds from the stronger to the
weaker; so that, since the laborer finds his hardships increase as he
descends in the social scale, the lowest class of people are literally
stripped naked and eaten alive by the others.
The laboring people can buy neither the cloth which they weave, nor the
furniture which they manufacture, nor the metal which they forge, nor
the jewels which they cut, nor the prints which they engrave. They can
procure neither the wheat which they plant, nor the wine which they
grow, nor the flesh of the animals which they raise. They are allowed
neither to dwell in the houses which they build, nor to attend the
plays which their labor supports, nor to enjoy the rest which their body
requires. And why? Because the right of increase does not permit these
things to be sold at the cost-price, which is all that laborers can
afford to pay. On the signs of those magnificent warehouses which he in
his poverty admires, the laborer reads in large letters: "This is thy
work, and thou shalt not have it. " _Sic vos non vobis_!
Every manufacturer who employs one thousand laborers, and gains from
them daily one sou each, is slowly pushing them into a state of misery.
Every man who makes a profit has entered into a conspiracy with famine.
But the whole nation has not even this labor, by means of which property
starves it. And why? Because the workers are forced by the insufficiency
of their wages to monopolize labor; and because, before being destroyed
by dearth, they destroy each other by competition. Let us pursue this
truth no further.
If the laborer's wages will not purchase his product, it follows
that the product is not made for the producer. For whom, then, is it
intended? For the richer consumer; that is, for only a fraction of
society. But when the whole society labors, it produces for the whole
society. If, then, only a part of society consumes, sooner or later a
part of society will be idle. Now, idleness is death, as well for the
laborer as for the proprietor.
This conclusion is inevitable.
The most distressing spectacle imaginable is the sight of producers
resisting and struggling against this mathematical necessity, this power
of figures to which their prejudices blind them.
If one hundred thousand printers can furnish reading-matter enough for
thirty-four millions of men, and if the price of books is so high that
only one-third of that number can afford to buy them, it is clear that
these one hundred thousand printers will produce three times as much as
the booksellers can sell. That the products of the laborers may never
exceed the demands of the consumers, the laborers must either rest two
days out of three, or, separating into three groups, relieve each other
three times a week, month, or quarter; that is, during two-thirds of
their life they must not live. But industry, under the influence of
property, does not proceed with such regularity. It endeavors to
produce a great deal in a short time, because the greater the amount of
products, and the shorter the time of production, the less each product
costs. As soon as a demand begins to be felt, the factories fill up, and
everybody goes to work. Then business is lively, and both governors and
governed rejoice. But the more they work to-day, the more idle will they
be hereafter; the more they laugh, the more they shall weep. Under
the rule of property, the flowers of industry are woven into none but
funeral wreaths. The laborer digs his own grave.
If the factory stops running, the manufacturer has to pay interest on
his capital the same as before. He naturally tries, then, to continue
production by lessening expenses. Then comes the lowering of wages; the
introduction of machinery; the employment of women and children to do
the work of men; bad workmen, and wretched work. They still produce,
because the decreased cost creates a larger market; but they do not
produce long, because, the cheapness being due to the quantity and
rapidity of production, the productive power tends more than ever to
outstrip consumption. It is when laborers, whose wages are scarcely
sufficient to support them from one day to another, are thrown out of
work, that the consequences of the principle of property become most
frightful. They have not been able to economize, they have made no
savings, they have accumulated no capital whatever to support them even
one day more. Today the factory is closed. To-morrow the people starve
in the streets. Day after tomorrow they will either die in the hospital,
or eat in the jail.
And still new misfortunes come to complicate this terrible situation. In
consequence of the cessation of business, and the extreme cheapness of
merchandise, the manufacturer finds it impossible to pay the interest
on his borrowed capital; whereupon his frightened creditors hasten to
withdraw their funds. Production is suspended, and labor comes to a
standstill. Then people are astonished to see capital desert commerce,
and throw itself upon the Stock Exchange; and I once heard M. Blanqui
bitterly lamenting the blind ignorance of capitalists. The cause of
this movement of capital is very simple; but for that very reason an
economist could not understand it, or rather must not explain it. The
cause lies solely in COMPETITION.
I mean by competition, not only the rivalry between two parties engaged
in the same business, but the general and simultaneous effort of all
kinds of business to get ahead of each other. This effort is to-day
so strong, that the price of merchandise scarcely covers the cost of
production and distribution; so that, the wages of all laborers being
lessened, nothing remains, not even interest for the capitalists.
The primary cause of commercial and industrial stagnations is, then,
interest on capital,--that interest which the ancients with one accord
branded with the name of usury, whenever it was paid for the use
of money, but which they did not dare to condemn in the forms of
house-rent, farm-rent, or profit: as if the nature of the thing lent
could ever warrant a charge for the lending; that is, robbery.
In proportion to the increase received by the capitalist will be the
frequency and intensity of commercial crises,--the first being given, we
always can determine the two others; and vice versa. Do you wish to know
the regulator of a society? Ascertain the amount of active capital; that
is, the capital bearing interest, and the legal rate of this interest.
The course of events will be a series of overturns, whose number and
violence will be proportional to the activity of capital.
In 1839, the number of failures in Paris alone was one thousand and
sixty-four. This proportion was kept up in the early months of 1840;
and, as I write these lines, the crisis is not yet ended. It is said,
further, that the number of houses which have wound up their business
is greater than the number of declared failures. By this flood, we may
judge of the waterspout's power of suction.
The decimation of society is now imperceptible and permanent, now
periodical and violent; it depends upon the course which property takes.
In a country where the property is pretty evenly distributed, and where
little business is done,--the rights and claims of each being balanced
by those of others,--the power of invasion is destroyed. There--it may
be truly said--property does not exist, since the right of increase is
scarcely exercised at all. The condition of the laborers--as regards
security of life--is almost the same as if absolute equality prevailed
among them. They are deprived of all the advantages of full and free
association, but their existence is not endangered in the least. With
the exception of a few isolated victims of the right of property--of
this misfortune whose primary cause no one perceives--the society
appears to rest calmly in the bosom of this sort of equality. But have a
care; it is balanced on the edge of a sword: at the slightest shock, it
will fall and meet with death!
Ordinarily, the whirlpool of property localizes itself. On the one hand,
farm-rent stops at a certain point; on the other, in consequence of
competition and over-production, the price of manufactured goods does
not rise,--so that the condition of the peasant varies but little, and
depends mainly on the seasons. The devouring action of property bears,
then, principally upon business. We commonly say COMMERCIAL CRISES, not
AGRICULTURAL CRISES; because, while the farmer is eaten up slowly by the
right of increase, the manufacturer is swallowed at a single mouthful.
This leads to the cessation of business, the destruction of fortunes,
and the inactivity of the working people; who die one after another on
the highways, and in the hospitals, prisons, and galleys.
To sum up this proposition:--
Property sells products to the laborer for more than it pays him for
them; therefore it is impossible.
APPENDIX TO THE FIFTH PROPOSITION.
I. Certain reformers, and even the most of the publicists--who, though
belonging to no particular school, busy themselves in devising means for
the amelioration of the lot of the poorer and more numerous class--lay
much stress now-a-days on a better organization of labor. The disciples
of Fourier, especially, never stop shouting, "ON TO THE PHALANX! "
declaiming in the same breath against the foolishness and absurdity of
other sects.
They consist of half-a-dozen incomparable geniuses who have discovered
that FIVE AND FOUR MAKE NINE; TAKE TWO AWAY, AND NINE REMAIN,--and
who weep over the blindness of France, who refuses to believe in this
astonishing arithmetic. [1]
[1] Fourier, having to multiply a whole number by a fraction,
never failed, they say, to obtain a product much greater than the
multiplicand. He affirmed that under his system of harmony the mercury
would solidify when the temperature was above zero. He might as well
have said that the Harmonians would make burning ice. I once asked an
intelligent phalansterian what he thought of such physics. "I do not
know," he answered; "but I believe. " And yet the same man disbelieved in
the doctrine of the Real Presence.
In fact, the Fourierists proclaim themselves, on the one hand, defenders
of property, of the right of increase, which they have thus formulated:
TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS CAPITAL, HIS LABOR, AND HIS SKILL. On the other
hand, they wish the workingman to come into the enjoyment of all
the wealth of society; that is,--abridging the expression,--into the
undivided enjoyment of his own product. Is not this like saying to the
workingman, "Labor, you shall have three francs per day; you shall live
on fifty-five sous; you shall give the rest to the proprietor, and thus
you will consume three francs"?
If the above speech is not an exact epitome of Charles Fourier's system,
I will subscribe to the whole phalansterian folly with a pen dipped in
my own blood.
Of what use is it to reform industry and agriculture,--of what use,
indeed, to labor at all,--if property is maintained, and labor can never
meet its expenses? Without the abolition of property, the organization
of labor is neither more nor less than a delusion. If production should
be quadrupled,--a thing which does not seem to me at all impossible,--it
would be labor lost: if the additional product was not consumed, it
would be of no value, and the proprietor would decline to receive it as
interest; if it was consumed, all the disadvantages of property would
reappear. It must be confessed that the theory of passional attraction
is gravely at fault in this particular, and that Fourier, when he tried
to harmonize the PASSION for property,--a bad passion, whatever he may
say to the contrary,--blocked his own chariot-wheels.
The absurdity of the phalansterian economy is so gross, that many people
suspect Fourier, in spite of all the homage paid by him to proprietors,
of having been a secret enemy of property. This opinion might be
supported by plausible arguments; still it is not mine. Charlatanism
was too important a part for such a man to play, and sincerity too
insignificant a one. I would rather think Fourier ignorant (which is
generally admitted) than disingenuous. As for his disciples, before they
can formulate any opinion of their own, they must declare once for
all, unequivocally and with no mental reservation, whether they mean to
maintain property or not, and what they mean by their famous motto,--"To
each according to his capital, his labor, and his skill. "
II. But, some half-converted proprietor will observe, "Would it not be
possible, by suppressing the bank, incomes, farm-rent, house-rent, usury
of all kinds, and finally property itself, to proportion products to
capacities? That was St. Simon's idea; it was also Fourier's; it is the
desire of the human conscience; and no decent person would dare maintain
that a minister of state should live no better than a peasant. "
O Midas! your ears are long! What! will you never understand that
disparity of wages and the right of increase are one and the same?
Certainly, St. Simon, Fourier, and their respective flocks committed
a serious blunder in attempting to unite, the one, inequality and
communism; the other, inequality and property: but you, a man of
figures, a man of economy,--you, who know by heart your LOGARITHMIC
tables,--how can you make so stupid a mistake?
Does not political economy itself teach you that the product of a man,
whatever be his individual capacity, is never worth more than his labor,
and that a man's labor is worth no more than his consumption? You remind
me of that great constitution-framer, poor Pinheiro-Ferreira, the Sieyes
of the nineteenth century, who, dividing the citizens of a nation into
twelve classes,--or, if you prefer, into twelve grades,--assigned to
some a salary of one hundred thousand francs each; to others, eighty
thousand; then twenty-five thousand, fifteen thousand, ten thousand,
&c. , down to one thousand five hundred, and one thousand francs, the
minimum allowance of a citizen. Pinheiro loved distinctions, and could
no more conceive of a State without great dignitaries than of an army
without drum-majors; and as he also loved, or thought he loved, liberty,
equality, and fraternity, he combined the good and the evil of our old
society in an eclectic philosophy which he embodied in a constitution.
Excellent Pinheiro! Liberty even to passive submission, fraternity
even to identity of language, equality even in the jury-box and at the
guillotine,--such was his ideal republic. Unappreciated genius, of whom
the present century was unworthy, but whom the future will avenge!
Listen, proprietor. Inequality of talent exists in fact; in right it is
not admissible, it goes for nothing, it is not thought of. One Newton in
a century is equal to thirty millions of men; the psychologist admires
the rarity of so fine a genius, the legislator sees only the rarity
of the function. Now, rarity of function bestows no privilege upon the
functionary; and that for several reasons, all equally forcible.
1. Rarity of genius was not, in the Creator's design, a motive to compel
society to go down on its knees before the man of superior talents,
but a providential means for the performance of all functions to the
greatest advantage of all.
2. Talent is a creation of society rather than a gift of Nature; it
is an accumulated capital, of which the receiver is only the guardian.
Without society,--without the education and powerful assistance which
it furnishes,--the finest nature would be inferior to the most ordinary
capacities in the very respect in which it ought to shine. The more
extensive a man's knowledge, the more luxuriant his imagination, the
more versatile his talent,--the more costly has his education been, the
more remarkable and numerous were his teachers and his models, and the
greater is his debt. The farmer produces from the time that he leaves
his cradle until he enters his grave: the fruits of art and science
are late and scarce; frequently the tree dies before the fruit ripens.
Society, in cultivating talent, makes a sacrifice to hope.
3. Capacities have no common standard of comparison: the conditions of
development being equal, inequality of talent is simply speciality of
talent.
4. Inequality of wages, like the right of increase, is economically
impossible. Take the most favorable case,--that where each laborer
has furnished his maximum production; that there may be an equitable
distribution of products, the share of each must be equal to the
quotient of the total production divided by the number of laborers. This
done, what remains wherewith to pay the higher wages? Nothing whatever.
Will it be said that all laborers should be taxed? But, then, their
consumption will not be equal to their production, their wages will not
pay for their productive service, they will not be able to repurchase
their product, and we shall once more be afflicted with all the
calamities of property. I do not speak of the injustice done to
the defrauded laborer, of rivalry, of excited ambition, and burning
hatred,--these may all be important considerations, but they do not hit
the point.
On the one hand, each laborer's task being short and easy, and the means
for its successful accomplishment being equal in all cases, how could
there be large and small producers? On the other hand, all functions
being equal, either on account of the actual equivalence of talents
and capacities, or on account of social co-operation, how could a
functionary claim a salary proportional to the worth of his genius?
But, what do I say? In equality wages are always proportional to
talents. What is the economical meaning of wages? The reproductive
consumption of the laborer. The very act by which the laborer produces
constitutes, then, this consumption, exactly equal to his production,
of which we are speaking. When the astronomer produces observations, the
poet verses, or the savant experiments, they consume instruments, books,
travels, &c. , &c. ; now, if society supplies this consumption, what more
can the astronomer, the savant, or the poet demand? We must conclude,
then, that in equality, and only in equality, St. Simon's adage--TO
EACH ACCORDING TO HIS CAPACITY TO EACH CAPACITY ACCORDING TO ITS
RESULTS--finds its full and complete application.
III. The great evil--the horrible and ever-present evil--arising from
property, is that, while property exists, population, however reduced,
is, and always must be, over-abundant. Complaints have been made in
all ages of the excess of population; in all ages property has been
embarrassed by the presence of pauperism, not perceiving that it caused
it. Further,--nothing is more curious than the diversity of the plans
proposed for its extermination. Their atrocity is equalled only by their
absurdity.
The ancients made a practice of abandoning their children. The wholesale
and retail slaughter of slaves, civil and foreign wars, also lent their
aid. In Rome (where property held full sway), these three means were
employed so effectively, and for so long a time, that finally the empire
found itself without inhabitants. When the barbarians arrived, nobody
was to be found; the fields were no longer cultivated; grass grew in the
streets of the Italian cities.
In China, from time immemorial, upon famine alone has devolved the task
of sweeping away the poor. The people living almost exclusively upon
rice, if an accident causes the crop to fail, in a few days hunger kills
the inhabitants by myriads; and the Chinese historian records in the
annals of the empire, that in such a year of such an emperor twenty,
thirty, fifty, one hundred thousand inhabitants died of starvation.
Then they bury the dead, and recommence the production of children until
another famine leads to the same result. Such appears to have been, in
all ages, the Confucian economy.
I borrow the following facts from a modern economist:--
"Since the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, England has been
preyed upon by pauperism. At that time beggars were punished by law. "
Nevertheless, she had not one-fourth as large a population as she has
to-day.
"Edward prohibits alms-giving, on pain of imprisonment. . . . The laws of
1547 and 1656 prescribe a like punishment, in case of a second offence.
Elizabeth orders that each parish shall support its own paupers. But
what is a pauper? Charles II. decides that an UNDISPUTED residence of
forty days constitutes a settlement in a parish; but, if disputed, the
new-comer is forced to pack off. James II. modifies this decision,
which is again modified by William. In the midst of trials, reports, and
modifications, pauperism increases, and the workingman languishes and
dies.
"The poor-tax in 1774 exceeded forty millions of francs; in 1783-4-5,
it averaged fifty-three millions; 1813, more than a hundred and
eighty-seven millions five hundred thousand francs; 1816, two hundred
and fifty millions; in 1817, it is estimated at three hundred and
seventeen millions.
"In 1821, the number of paupers enrolled upon the parish lists was
estimated at four millions, nearly one-third of the population.
"FRANCE. In 1544, Francis I. establishes a compulsory tax in behalf of
the poor. In 1566 and 1586, the same principle is applied to the whole
kingdom.
"Under Louis XIV. , forty thousand paupers infested the capital [as many
in proportion as to-day]. Mendicity was punished severely. In 1740,
the Parliament of Paris re-establishes within its own jurisdiction the
compulsory assessment.
"The Constituent Assembly, frightened at the extent of the evil and the
difficulty of curing it, ordains the _statu quo_.
"The Convention proclaims assistance of the poor to be a NATIONAL DEBT.
Its law remains unexecuted.
"Napoleon also wishes to remedy the evil: his idea is imprisonment. 'In
that way,' said he, 'I shall protect the rich from the importunity
of beggars, and shall relieve them of the disgusting sight of abject
poverty. '" O wonderful man!
From these facts, which I might multiply still farther, two things are
to be inferred,--the one, that pauperism is independent of population;
the other, that all attempts hitherto made at its extermination have
proved abortive.
Catholicism founds hospitals and convents, and commands charity; that
is, she encourages mendicity. That is the extent of her insight as
voiced by her priests.
The secular power of Christian nations now orders taxes on the rich,
now banishment and imprisonment for the poor; that is, on the one hand,
violation of the right of property, and, on the other, civil death and
murder.
The modern economists--thinking that pauperism is caused by the excess
of population, exclusively--have devoted themselves to devising checks.
Some wish to prohibit the poor from marrying; thus,--having denounced
religious celibacy,--they propose compulsory celibacy, which will
inevitably become licentious celibacy.
Others do not approve this method, which they deem too violent; and
which, they say, deprives the poor man of THE ONLY PLEASURE WHICH HE
KNOWS IN THIS WORLD. They would simply recommend him to be PRUDENT. This
opinion is held by Malthus, Sismondi, Say, Droz, Duchatel, &c. But if
the poor are to be PRUDENT, the rich must set the example. Why should
the marriageable age of the latter be fixed at eighteen years, while
that of the former is postponed until thirty?
Again, they would do well to explain clearly what they mean by this
matrimonial prudence which they so urgently recommend to the laborer;
for here equivocation is especially dangerous, and I suspect that
the economists are not thoroughly understood. "Some half-enlightened
ecclesiastics are alarmed when they hear prudence in marriage advised;
they fear that the divine injunction--INCREASE AND MULTIPLY--is to be
set aside. To be logical, they must anathematize bachelors. " (J. Droz:
Political Economy. )
M. Droz is too honest a man, and too little of a theologian, to see why
these casuists are so alarmed; and this chaste ignorance is the very
best evidence of the purity of his heart. Religion never has encouraged
early marriages; and the kind of PRUDENCE which it condemns is that
described in this Latin sentence from Sanchez,--_An licet ob metum
liberorum semen extra vas ejicere_?
Destutt de Tracy seems to dislike prudence in either form. He says: "I
confess that I no more share the desire of the moralists to diminish
and restrain our pleasures, than that of the politicians to increase
our procreative powers, and accelerate reproduction. " He believes, then,
that we should love and marry when and as we please. Widespread misery
results from love and marriage, but this our philosopher does not heed.
True to the dogma of the necessity of evil, to evil he looks for the
solution of all problems. He adds: "The multiplication of men continuing
in all classes of society, the surplus members of the upper classes are
supported by the lower classes, and those of the latter are destroyed
by poverty. " This philosophy has few avowed partisans; but it has over
every other the indisputable advantage of demonstration in practice. Not
long since France heard it advocated in the Chamber of Deputies, in the
course of the discussion on the electoral reform,--POVERTY WILL ALWAYS
EXIST. That is the political aphorism with which the minister of state
ground to powder the arguments of M. Arago. POVERTY WILL ALWAYS EXIST!
Yes, so long as property does.
The Fourierists--INVENTORS of so many marvellous contrivances--could
not, in this field, belie their character. They invented four methods of
checking increase of population at will.
1. THE VIGOR OF WOMEN. On this point they are contradicted by
experience; for, although vigorous women may be less likely to conceive,
nevertheless they give birth to the healthiest children; so that the
advantage of maternity is on their side.
2. INTEGRAL EXERCISE, or the equal development of all the physical
powers. If this development is equal, how is the power of reproduction
lessened?
3. THE GASTRONOMIC REGIME; or, in plain English, the philosophy of the
belly. The Fourierists say, that abundance of rich food renders
women sterile; just as too much sap--while enhancing the beauty of
flowers--destroys their reproductive capacity. But the analogy is a
false one. Flowers become sterile when the stamens--or male organs--are
changed into petals, as may be seen by inspecting a rose; and when
through excessive dampness the pollen loses its fertilizing power.
Then,--in order that the gastronomic regime may produce the results
claimed for it,--not only must the females be fattened, but the males
must be rendered impotent.
4. PHANEROGAMIC MORALITY, or public concubinage. I know not why the
phalansterians use Greek words to convey ideas which can be expressed so
clearly in French. This method--like the preceding one--is copied from
civilized customs. Fourier, himself, cites the example of prostitutes
as a proof. Now we have no certain knowledge yet of the facts which he
quotes. So states Parent Duchatelet in his work on "Prostitution. "
From all the information which I have been able to gather, I find that
all the remedies for pauperism and fecundity--sanctioned by universal
practice, philosophy, political economy, and the latest reformers--may
be summed up in the following list: masturbation, onanism, [19]
sodomy, tribadie, polyandry, [20] prostitution, castration, continence,
abortion, and infanticide. [21]
All these methods being proved inadequate, there remains proscription.
Unfortunately, proscription, while decreasing the number of the poor,
increases their proportion. If the interest charged by the proprietor
upon the product is equal only to one-twentieth of the product (by law
it is equal to one-twentieth of the capital), it follows that twenty
laborers produce for nineteen only; because there is one among them,
called proprietor, who eats the share of two. Suppose that the twentieth
laborer--the poor one--is killed: the production of the following year
will be diminished one-twentieth; consequently the nineteenth will have
to yield his portion, and perish. For, since it is not one-twentieth
of the product of nineteen which must be paid to the proprietor, but
one-twentieth of the product of twenty (see third proposition), each
surviving laborer must sacrifice one-twentieth PLUS one four-hundredth
of his product; in other words, one man out of nineteen must be killed.
Therefore, while property exists, the more poor people we kill, the more
there are born in proportion.
Malthus, who proved so clearly that population increases in geometrical
progression, while production increases only in arithmetical
progression, did not notice this PAUPERIZING power of property. Had he
observed this, he would have understood that, before trying to check
reproduction, the right of increase should be abolished; because,
wherever that right is tolerated, there are always too many inhabitants,
whatever the extent or fertility of the soil.
It will be asked, perhaps, how I would maintain a balance between
population and production; for sooner or later this problem must be
solved. The reader will pardon me, if I do not give my method here. For,
in my opinion, it is useless to say a thing unless we prove it. Now, to
explain my method fully would require no less than a formal treatise.
It is a thing so simple and so vast, so common and so extraordinary,
so true and so misunderstood, so sacred and so profane, that to name it
without developing and proving it would serve only to excite contempt
and incredulity. One thing at a time. Let us establish equality, and
this remedy will soon appear; for truths follow each other, just as
crimes and errors do.
SIXTH PROPOSITION.
Property is impossible, because it is the Mother of Tyranny.
What is government? Government is public economy, the supreme
administrative power over public works and national possessions.
Now, the nation is like a vast society in which all the citizens are
stockholders. Each one has a deliberative voice in the assembly; and,
if the shares are equal, has one vote at his disposal. But, under the
regime of property, there is great inequality between the shares of
the stockholders; therefore, one may have several hundred votes, while
another has only one. If, for example, I enjoy an income of one million;
that is, if I am the proprietor of a fortune of thirty or forty millions
well invested, and if this fortune constitutes 1/30000 of the national
capital,--it is clear that the public administration of my property
would form 1/30000 of the duties of the government; and, if the nation
had a population of thirty-four millions, that I should have as many
votes as one thousand one hundred and thirty-three simple stockholders.
Thus, when M. Arago demands the right of suffrage for all members of the
National Guard, he is perfectly right; since every citizen is enrolled
for at least one national share, which entitles him to one vote. But the
illustrious orator ought at the same time to demand that each elector
shall have as many votes as he has shares; as is the case in commercial
associations. For to do otherwise is to pretend that the nation has a
right to dispose of the property of individuals without consulting them;
which is contrary to the right of property. In a country where property
exists, equality of electoral rights is a violation of property.
Now, if each citizen's sovereignty must and ought to be proportional to
his property, it follows that the small stock holders are at the mercy
of the larger ones; who will, as soon as they choose, make slaves of
the former, marry them at pleasure, take from them their wives,
castrate their sons, prostitute their daughters, throw the aged to the
sharks,--and finally will be forced to serve themselves in the same way,
unless they prefer to tax themselves for the support of their servants.
In such a condition is Great Britain to-day. John Bull--caring little
for liberty, equality, or dignity--prefers to serve and beg. But you,
bonhomme Jacques?
Property is incompatible with political and civil equality; then
property is impossible.
HISTORICAL COMMENTS. --1. When the vote of the third estate was doubled
by the States-General of 1789, property was grossly violated. The
nobility and the clergy possessed three-fourths of the soil of France;
they should have controlled three-fourths of the votes in the national
representation. To double the vote of the third estate was just, it is
said, since the people paid nearly all the taxes. This argument would
be sound, if there were nothing to be voted upon but taxes. But it was a
question at that time of reforming the government and the constitution;
consequently, the doubling of the vote of the third estate was a
usurpation, and an attack on property.
2. If the present representatives of the radical opposition should
come into power, they would work a reform by which every National Guard
should be an elector, and every elector eligible for office,--an attack
on property.
They would lower the rate of interest on public funds,--an attack on
property.
They would, in the interest of the public, pass laws to regulate the
exportation of cattle and wheat,--an attack on property.
They would alter the assessment of taxes,--an attack on property.
They would educate the people gratuitously,--a conspiracy against
property.
They would organize labor; that is, they would guarantee labor to the
workingman, and give him a share in the profits,--the abolition of
property.
Now, these same radicals are zealous defenders of property,--a radical
proof that they know not what they do, nor what they wish.
3. Since property is the grand cause of privilege and despotism, the
form of the republican oath should be changed. Instead of, "I swear
hatred to royalty," henceforth the new member of a secret society should
say, "I swear hatred to property. "
SEVENTH PROPOSITION.
_Property is impossible, because, in consuming its Receipts, it loses
them; in hoarding them, it nullifies them; and in using them as Capital,
it turns them against Production_.
I. If, with the economists, we consider the laborer as a living machine,
we must regard the wages paid to him as the amount necessary to support
this machine, and keep it in repair. The head of a manufacturing
establishment--who employs laborers at three, five, ten, and
fifteen francs per day, and who charges twenty francs for his
superintendence--does not regard his disbursements as losses, because
he knows they will return to him in the form of products. Consequently,
LABOR and REPRODUCTIVE CONSUMPTION are identical.
What is the proprietor? He is a machine which does not work; or, which
working for its own pleasure, and only when it sees fit, produces
nothing.
What is it to consume as a proprietor? It is to consume without
working, to consume without reproducing. For, once more, that which the
proprietor consumes as a laborer comes back to him; he does not give his
labor in exchange for his property, since, if he did, he would thereby
cease to be a proprietor. In consuming as a laborer, the proprietor
gains, or at least does not lose, since he recovers that which he
consumes; in consuming as a proprietor, he impoverishes himself. To
enjoy property, then, it is necessary to destroy it; to be a real
proprietor, one must cease to be a proprietor.
The laborer who consumes his wages is a machine which destroys and
reproduces; the proprietor who consumes his income is a bottomless
gulf,--sand which we water, a stone which we sow. So true is this,
that the proprietor--neither wishing nor knowing how to produce, and
perceiving that as fast as he uses his property he destroys it for
ever--has taken the precaution to make some one produce in his place.
That is what political economy, speaking in the name of eternal justice,
calls PRODUCING BY HIS CAPITAL,--PRODUCING BY HIS TOOLS. And that is
what ought to be called PRODUCING BY A SLAVE--PRODUCING AS A THIEF AND
AS A TYRANT. He, the proprietor, produce! . . . The robber might say, as
well: "I produce. "
The consumption of the proprietor has been styled luxury, in opposition
to USEFUL consumption. From what has just been said, we see that great
luxury can prevail in a nation which is not rich,--that poverty even
increases with luxury, and vice versa. The economists (so much credit
must be given them, at least) have caused such a horror of luxury,
that to-day a very large number of proprietors--not to say almost
all--ashamed of their idleness--labor, economize, and capitalize. They
have jumped from the frying-pan into the fire.
I cannot repeat it too often: the proprietor who thinks to deserve
his income by working, and who receives wages for his labor, is a
functionary who gets paid twice; that is the only difference between an
idle proprietor and a laboring proprietor. By his labor, the proprietor
produces his wages only--not his income. And since his condition enables
him to engage in the most lucrative pursuits, it may be said that the
proprietor's labor harms society more than it helps it. Whatever the
proprietor does, the consumption of his income is an actual loss, which
his salaried functions neither repair nor justify; and which would
annihilate property, were it not continually replenished by outside
production.
II. Then, the proprietor who consumes annihilates the product: he does
much worse if he lays it up. The things which he lays by pass into
another world; nothing more is seen of them, not even the _caput
mortuum_,--the smoke. If we had some means of transportation by which
to travel to the moon, and if the proprietors should be seized with a
sudden fancy to carry their savings thither, at the end of a certain
time our terraqueous planet would be transported by them to its
satellite!
The proprietor who lays up products will neither allow others to enjoy
them, nor enjoy them himself; for him there is neither possession nor
property. Like the miser, he broods over his treasures: he does not use
them. He may feast his eyes upon them; he may lie down with them; he
may sleep with them in his arms: all very fine, but coins do not
breed coins. No real property without enjoyment; no enjoyment without
consumption; no consumption without loss of property,--such is the
inflexible necessity to which God's judgment compels the proprietor to
bend. A curse upon property!
III. The proprietor who, instead of consuming his income, uses it as
capital, turns it against production, and thereby makes it impossible
for him to exercise his right. For the more he increases the amount of
interest to be paid upon it, the more he is compelled to diminish wages.
Now, the more he diminishes wages,--that is, the less he devotes to
the maintenance and repair of the machines,--the more he diminishes
the quantity of labor; and with the quantity of labor the quantity of
product, and with the quantity of product the very source of his income.
This is clearly shown by the following example:--
Take an estate consisting of arable land, meadows, and vineyards,
containing the dwellings of the owner and the tenant; and worth,
together with the farming implements, one hundred thousand francs, the
rate of increase being three per cent. If, instead of consuming his
revenue, the proprietor uses it, not in enlarging but in beautifying his
estate, can he annually demand of his tenant an additional ninety francs
on account of the three thousand francs which he has thus added to
his capital? Certainly not; for on such conditions the tenant, though
producing no more than before, would soon be obliged to labor for
nothing,--what do I say? to actually suffer loss in order to hold his
lease.
In fact, revenue can increase only as productive soil increases: it
is useless to build walls of marble, and work with plows of gold. But,
since it is impossible to go on acquiring for ever, to add estate to
estate, to CONTINUE ONE'S POSSESSIONS, as the Latins said; and since,
moreover, the proprietor always has means wherewith to capitalize,--it
follows that the exercise of his right finally becomes impossible.
Well, in spite of this impossibility, property capitalizes, and in
capitalizing increases its revenue; and, without stopping to look at the
particular cases which occur in commerce, manufacturing operations,
and banking, I will cite a graver fact,--one which directly affects all
citizens. I mean the indefinite increase of the budget.
The taxes increase every year. It would be difficult to tell in which
department of the government the expenses increase; for who can boast
of any knowledge as to the budget? On this point, the ablest financiers
continually disagree. What is to be thought, I ask, of the science of
government, when its professors cannot understand one another's figures?
Whatever be the immediate causes of this growth of the budget, it is
certain that taxation increases at a rate which causes everybody to
despair. Everybody sees it, everybody acknowledges it; but nobody
seems to understand the primary cause. [1] Now, I say that it cannot be
otherwise,--that it is necessary and inevitable.
[1] "The financial situation of the English government was shown up
in the House of Lords during the session of January 23. It is not
an encouraging one. For several years the expenses have exceeded the
receipts, and the Minister has been able to re-establish the balance
only by loans renewed annually. The combined deficits of the years 1838
and 1839 amount to forty-seven million five hundred thousand francs. In
1840, the excess of expenses over receipts is expected to be twenty-two
million five hundred thousand francs. Attention was called to these
figures by Lord Ripon. Lord Melbourne replied: 'The noble earl unhappily
was right in declaring that the public expenses continually increase,
and with him I must say that there is no room for hope that they can be
diminished or met in any way. '"--National: January 26, 1840.
A nation is the tenant of a rich proprietor called the GOVERNMENT,
to whom it pays, for the use of the soil, a farm-rent called a tax.
Whenever the government makes war, loses or gains a battle, changes the
outfit of its army, erects a monu-ment, digs a canal, opens a road,
or builds a railway, it borrows money, on which the tax-payers pay
interest; that is, the government, without adding to its productive
capacity, increases its active capital,--in a word, capitalizes after
the manner of the proprietor of whom I have just spoken.
Now, when a governmental loan is once contracted, and the interest is
once stipulated, the budget cannot be reduced. For, to accomplish that,
either the capitalists must relinquish their interest, which would
involve an abandonment of property; or the government must go into
bankruptcy, which would be a fraudulent denial of the political
principle; or it must pay the debt, which would require another loan;
or it must reduce expenses, which is impossible, since the loan
was contracted for the sole reason that the ordinary receipts
were insufficient; or the money expended by the government must be
reproductive, which requires an increase of productive capacity,--a
condition excluded by our hypothesis; or, finally, the tax-payers must
submit to a new tax in order to pay the debt,--an impossible thing. For,
if this new tax were levied upon all citizens alike, half, or even more,
of the citizens would be unable to pay it; if the rich had to bear the
whole, it would be a forced contribution,--an invasion of property.
Long financial experience has shown that the method of loans, though
exceedingly dangerous, is much surer, more convenient, and less costly
than any other method; consequently the government borrows,--that is,
goes on capitalizing,--and increases the budget.
Then, a budget, instead of ever diminishing, must necessarily and
continually increase. It is astonishing that the economists, with all
their learning, have failed to perceive a fact so simple and so evident.
If they have perceived it, why have they neglected to condemn it?
HISTORICAL COMMENT. --Much interest is felt at present in a financial
operation which is expected to result in a reduction of the budget.
It is proposed to change the present rate of increase, five per cent.
Laying aside the politico-legal question to deal only with the financial
question,--is it not true that, when five per cent. is changed to four
per cent. , it will then be necessary, for the same reasons, to change
four to three; then three to two, then two to one, and finally to sweep
away increase altogether? But that would be the advent of equality of
conditions and the abolition of property. Now it seems to me, that an
intelligent nation should voluntarily meet an inevitable revolution
half way, instead of suffering itself to be dragged after the car of
inflexible necessity.
EIGHTH PROPOSITION.
Property is impossible, because its power of Accumulation is infinite,
and is exercised only over finite quantities.
If men, living in equality, should grant to one of their number the
exclusive right of property; and this sole proprietor should lend one
hundred francs to the human race at compound interest, payable to his
descendants twenty-four generations hence,--at the end of six hundred
years this sum of one hundred francs, at five per cent. , would amount to
107,854,010,777,600 francs; two thousand six hundred and ninety-six
and one-third times the capital of France (supposing her capital to be
40,000,000,000), or more than twenty times the value of the terrestrial
globe!
Suppose that a man, in the reign of St. Louis, had borrowed one hundred
francs, and had refused,--he and his heirs after him,--to return it.
Even though it were known that the said heirs were not the rightful
possessors, and that prescription had been interrupted always at the
right moment,--nevertheless, by our laws, the last heir would be obliged
to return the one hundred francs with interest, and interest on the
interest; which in all would amount, as we have seen, to nearly one
hundred and eight thousand billions.
Every day, fortunes are growing in our midst much more rapidly than
this.
for raw material, fifty thousand francs in wages, and then expects to
receive a product of two hundred thousand francs,--that is, expects to
make a profit on the material and on the labor of his employees; but
if the laborers and the purveyor of the material cannot, with their
combined wages, repurchase that which they have produced for the
contractor, how can they live? I will develop my question. Here details
become necessary.
If the workingman receives for his labor an average of three francs per
day, his employer (in order to gain any thing beyond his own salary, if
only interest on his capital) must sell the day's labor of his employee,
in the form of merchandise, for more than three francs. The workingman
cannot, then, repurchase that which he has produced for his master.
It is thus with all trades whatsoever. The tailor, the hatter, the
cabinet-maker, the blacksmith, the tanner, the mason, the jeweller,
the printer, the clerk, &c. , even to the farmer and wine-grower, cannot
repurchase their products; since, producing for a master who in one form
or another makes a profit, they are obliged to pay more for their own
labor than they get for it.
In France, twenty millions of laborers, engaged in all the branches of
science, art, and industry, produce every thing which is useful to man.
Their annual wages amount, it is estimated to twenty thousand millions;
but, in consequence of the right of property, and the multifarious forms
of increase, premiums, tithes, interests, fines, profits, farm-rents,
house-rents, revenues, emoluments of every nature and description, their
products are estimated by the proprietors and employers at twenty-five
thousand millions. What does that signify? That the laborers, who are
obliged to repurchase these products in order to live, must either pay
five for that which they produced for four, or fast one day in five.
If there is an economist in France able to show that this calculation is
false, I summon him to appear; and I promise to retract all that I have
wrongfully and wickedly uttered in my attacks upon property.
Let us now look at the results of this profit.
If the wages of the workingmen were the same in all pursuits, the
deficit caused by the proprietor's tax would be felt equally everywhere;
but also the cause of the evil would be so apparent, that it would soon
be discovered and suppressed. But, as there is the same inequality of
wages (from that of the scavenger up to that of the minister of state)
as of property, robbery continually rebounds from the stronger to the
weaker; so that, since the laborer finds his hardships increase as he
descends in the social scale, the lowest class of people are literally
stripped naked and eaten alive by the others.
The laboring people can buy neither the cloth which they weave, nor the
furniture which they manufacture, nor the metal which they forge, nor
the jewels which they cut, nor the prints which they engrave. They can
procure neither the wheat which they plant, nor the wine which they
grow, nor the flesh of the animals which they raise. They are allowed
neither to dwell in the houses which they build, nor to attend the
plays which their labor supports, nor to enjoy the rest which their body
requires. And why? Because the right of increase does not permit these
things to be sold at the cost-price, which is all that laborers can
afford to pay. On the signs of those magnificent warehouses which he in
his poverty admires, the laborer reads in large letters: "This is thy
work, and thou shalt not have it. " _Sic vos non vobis_!
Every manufacturer who employs one thousand laborers, and gains from
them daily one sou each, is slowly pushing them into a state of misery.
Every man who makes a profit has entered into a conspiracy with famine.
But the whole nation has not even this labor, by means of which property
starves it. And why? Because the workers are forced by the insufficiency
of their wages to monopolize labor; and because, before being destroyed
by dearth, they destroy each other by competition. Let us pursue this
truth no further.
If the laborer's wages will not purchase his product, it follows
that the product is not made for the producer. For whom, then, is it
intended? For the richer consumer; that is, for only a fraction of
society. But when the whole society labors, it produces for the whole
society. If, then, only a part of society consumes, sooner or later a
part of society will be idle. Now, idleness is death, as well for the
laborer as for the proprietor.
This conclusion is inevitable.
The most distressing spectacle imaginable is the sight of producers
resisting and struggling against this mathematical necessity, this power
of figures to which their prejudices blind them.
If one hundred thousand printers can furnish reading-matter enough for
thirty-four millions of men, and if the price of books is so high that
only one-third of that number can afford to buy them, it is clear that
these one hundred thousand printers will produce three times as much as
the booksellers can sell. That the products of the laborers may never
exceed the demands of the consumers, the laborers must either rest two
days out of three, or, separating into three groups, relieve each other
three times a week, month, or quarter; that is, during two-thirds of
their life they must not live. But industry, under the influence of
property, does not proceed with such regularity. It endeavors to
produce a great deal in a short time, because the greater the amount of
products, and the shorter the time of production, the less each product
costs. As soon as a demand begins to be felt, the factories fill up, and
everybody goes to work. Then business is lively, and both governors and
governed rejoice. But the more they work to-day, the more idle will they
be hereafter; the more they laugh, the more they shall weep. Under
the rule of property, the flowers of industry are woven into none but
funeral wreaths. The laborer digs his own grave.
If the factory stops running, the manufacturer has to pay interest on
his capital the same as before. He naturally tries, then, to continue
production by lessening expenses. Then comes the lowering of wages; the
introduction of machinery; the employment of women and children to do
the work of men; bad workmen, and wretched work. They still produce,
because the decreased cost creates a larger market; but they do not
produce long, because, the cheapness being due to the quantity and
rapidity of production, the productive power tends more than ever to
outstrip consumption. It is when laborers, whose wages are scarcely
sufficient to support them from one day to another, are thrown out of
work, that the consequences of the principle of property become most
frightful. They have not been able to economize, they have made no
savings, they have accumulated no capital whatever to support them even
one day more. Today the factory is closed. To-morrow the people starve
in the streets. Day after tomorrow they will either die in the hospital,
or eat in the jail.
And still new misfortunes come to complicate this terrible situation. In
consequence of the cessation of business, and the extreme cheapness of
merchandise, the manufacturer finds it impossible to pay the interest
on his borrowed capital; whereupon his frightened creditors hasten to
withdraw their funds. Production is suspended, and labor comes to a
standstill. Then people are astonished to see capital desert commerce,
and throw itself upon the Stock Exchange; and I once heard M. Blanqui
bitterly lamenting the blind ignorance of capitalists. The cause of
this movement of capital is very simple; but for that very reason an
economist could not understand it, or rather must not explain it. The
cause lies solely in COMPETITION.
I mean by competition, not only the rivalry between two parties engaged
in the same business, but the general and simultaneous effort of all
kinds of business to get ahead of each other. This effort is to-day
so strong, that the price of merchandise scarcely covers the cost of
production and distribution; so that, the wages of all laborers being
lessened, nothing remains, not even interest for the capitalists.
The primary cause of commercial and industrial stagnations is, then,
interest on capital,--that interest which the ancients with one accord
branded with the name of usury, whenever it was paid for the use
of money, but which they did not dare to condemn in the forms of
house-rent, farm-rent, or profit: as if the nature of the thing lent
could ever warrant a charge for the lending; that is, robbery.
In proportion to the increase received by the capitalist will be the
frequency and intensity of commercial crises,--the first being given, we
always can determine the two others; and vice versa. Do you wish to know
the regulator of a society? Ascertain the amount of active capital; that
is, the capital bearing interest, and the legal rate of this interest.
The course of events will be a series of overturns, whose number and
violence will be proportional to the activity of capital.
In 1839, the number of failures in Paris alone was one thousand and
sixty-four. This proportion was kept up in the early months of 1840;
and, as I write these lines, the crisis is not yet ended. It is said,
further, that the number of houses which have wound up their business
is greater than the number of declared failures. By this flood, we may
judge of the waterspout's power of suction.
The decimation of society is now imperceptible and permanent, now
periodical and violent; it depends upon the course which property takes.
In a country where the property is pretty evenly distributed, and where
little business is done,--the rights and claims of each being balanced
by those of others,--the power of invasion is destroyed. There--it may
be truly said--property does not exist, since the right of increase is
scarcely exercised at all. The condition of the laborers--as regards
security of life--is almost the same as if absolute equality prevailed
among them. They are deprived of all the advantages of full and free
association, but their existence is not endangered in the least. With
the exception of a few isolated victims of the right of property--of
this misfortune whose primary cause no one perceives--the society
appears to rest calmly in the bosom of this sort of equality. But have a
care; it is balanced on the edge of a sword: at the slightest shock, it
will fall and meet with death!
Ordinarily, the whirlpool of property localizes itself. On the one hand,
farm-rent stops at a certain point; on the other, in consequence of
competition and over-production, the price of manufactured goods does
not rise,--so that the condition of the peasant varies but little, and
depends mainly on the seasons. The devouring action of property bears,
then, principally upon business. We commonly say COMMERCIAL CRISES, not
AGRICULTURAL CRISES; because, while the farmer is eaten up slowly by the
right of increase, the manufacturer is swallowed at a single mouthful.
This leads to the cessation of business, the destruction of fortunes,
and the inactivity of the working people; who die one after another on
the highways, and in the hospitals, prisons, and galleys.
To sum up this proposition:--
Property sells products to the laborer for more than it pays him for
them; therefore it is impossible.
APPENDIX TO THE FIFTH PROPOSITION.
I. Certain reformers, and even the most of the publicists--who, though
belonging to no particular school, busy themselves in devising means for
the amelioration of the lot of the poorer and more numerous class--lay
much stress now-a-days on a better organization of labor. The disciples
of Fourier, especially, never stop shouting, "ON TO THE PHALANX! "
declaiming in the same breath against the foolishness and absurdity of
other sects.
They consist of half-a-dozen incomparable geniuses who have discovered
that FIVE AND FOUR MAKE NINE; TAKE TWO AWAY, AND NINE REMAIN,--and
who weep over the blindness of France, who refuses to believe in this
astonishing arithmetic. [1]
[1] Fourier, having to multiply a whole number by a fraction,
never failed, they say, to obtain a product much greater than the
multiplicand. He affirmed that under his system of harmony the mercury
would solidify when the temperature was above zero. He might as well
have said that the Harmonians would make burning ice. I once asked an
intelligent phalansterian what he thought of such physics. "I do not
know," he answered; "but I believe. " And yet the same man disbelieved in
the doctrine of the Real Presence.
In fact, the Fourierists proclaim themselves, on the one hand, defenders
of property, of the right of increase, which they have thus formulated:
TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS CAPITAL, HIS LABOR, AND HIS SKILL. On the other
hand, they wish the workingman to come into the enjoyment of all
the wealth of society; that is,--abridging the expression,--into the
undivided enjoyment of his own product. Is not this like saying to the
workingman, "Labor, you shall have three francs per day; you shall live
on fifty-five sous; you shall give the rest to the proprietor, and thus
you will consume three francs"?
If the above speech is not an exact epitome of Charles Fourier's system,
I will subscribe to the whole phalansterian folly with a pen dipped in
my own blood.
Of what use is it to reform industry and agriculture,--of what use,
indeed, to labor at all,--if property is maintained, and labor can never
meet its expenses? Without the abolition of property, the organization
of labor is neither more nor less than a delusion. If production should
be quadrupled,--a thing which does not seem to me at all impossible,--it
would be labor lost: if the additional product was not consumed, it
would be of no value, and the proprietor would decline to receive it as
interest; if it was consumed, all the disadvantages of property would
reappear. It must be confessed that the theory of passional attraction
is gravely at fault in this particular, and that Fourier, when he tried
to harmonize the PASSION for property,--a bad passion, whatever he may
say to the contrary,--blocked his own chariot-wheels.
The absurdity of the phalansterian economy is so gross, that many people
suspect Fourier, in spite of all the homage paid by him to proprietors,
of having been a secret enemy of property. This opinion might be
supported by plausible arguments; still it is not mine. Charlatanism
was too important a part for such a man to play, and sincerity too
insignificant a one. I would rather think Fourier ignorant (which is
generally admitted) than disingenuous. As for his disciples, before they
can formulate any opinion of their own, they must declare once for
all, unequivocally and with no mental reservation, whether they mean to
maintain property or not, and what they mean by their famous motto,--"To
each according to his capital, his labor, and his skill. "
II. But, some half-converted proprietor will observe, "Would it not be
possible, by suppressing the bank, incomes, farm-rent, house-rent, usury
of all kinds, and finally property itself, to proportion products to
capacities? That was St. Simon's idea; it was also Fourier's; it is the
desire of the human conscience; and no decent person would dare maintain
that a minister of state should live no better than a peasant. "
O Midas! your ears are long! What! will you never understand that
disparity of wages and the right of increase are one and the same?
Certainly, St. Simon, Fourier, and their respective flocks committed
a serious blunder in attempting to unite, the one, inequality and
communism; the other, inequality and property: but you, a man of
figures, a man of economy,--you, who know by heart your LOGARITHMIC
tables,--how can you make so stupid a mistake?
Does not political economy itself teach you that the product of a man,
whatever be his individual capacity, is never worth more than his labor,
and that a man's labor is worth no more than his consumption? You remind
me of that great constitution-framer, poor Pinheiro-Ferreira, the Sieyes
of the nineteenth century, who, dividing the citizens of a nation into
twelve classes,--or, if you prefer, into twelve grades,--assigned to
some a salary of one hundred thousand francs each; to others, eighty
thousand; then twenty-five thousand, fifteen thousand, ten thousand,
&c. , down to one thousand five hundred, and one thousand francs, the
minimum allowance of a citizen. Pinheiro loved distinctions, and could
no more conceive of a State without great dignitaries than of an army
without drum-majors; and as he also loved, or thought he loved, liberty,
equality, and fraternity, he combined the good and the evil of our old
society in an eclectic philosophy which he embodied in a constitution.
Excellent Pinheiro! Liberty even to passive submission, fraternity
even to identity of language, equality even in the jury-box and at the
guillotine,--such was his ideal republic. Unappreciated genius, of whom
the present century was unworthy, but whom the future will avenge!
Listen, proprietor. Inequality of talent exists in fact; in right it is
not admissible, it goes for nothing, it is not thought of. One Newton in
a century is equal to thirty millions of men; the psychologist admires
the rarity of so fine a genius, the legislator sees only the rarity
of the function. Now, rarity of function bestows no privilege upon the
functionary; and that for several reasons, all equally forcible.
1. Rarity of genius was not, in the Creator's design, a motive to compel
society to go down on its knees before the man of superior talents,
but a providential means for the performance of all functions to the
greatest advantage of all.
2. Talent is a creation of society rather than a gift of Nature; it
is an accumulated capital, of which the receiver is only the guardian.
Without society,--without the education and powerful assistance which
it furnishes,--the finest nature would be inferior to the most ordinary
capacities in the very respect in which it ought to shine. The more
extensive a man's knowledge, the more luxuriant his imagination, the
more versatile his talent,--the more costly has his education been, the
more remarkable and numerous were his teachers and his models, and the
greater is his debt. The farmer produces from the time that he leaves
his cradle until he enters his grave: the fruits of art and science
are late and scarce; frequently the tree dies before the fruit ripens.
Society, in cultivating talent, makes a sacrifice to hope.
3. Capacities have no common standard of comparison: the conditions of
development being equal, inequality of talent is simply speciality of
talent.
4. Inequality of wages, like the right of increase, is economically
impossible. Take the most favorable case,--that where each laborer
has furnished his maximum production; that there may be an equitable
distribution of products, the share of each must be equal to the
quotient of the total production divided by the number of laborers. This
done, what remains wherewith to pay the higher wages? Nothing whatever.
Will it be said that all laborers should be taxed? But, then, their
consumption will not be equal to their production, their wages will not
pay for their productive service, they will not be able to repurchase
their product, and we shall once more be afflicted with all the
calamities of property. I do not speak of the injustice done to
the defrauded laborer, of rivalry, of excited ambition, and burning
hatred,--these may all be important considerations, but they do not hit
the point.
On the one hand, each laborer's task being short and easy, and the means
for its successful accomplishment being equal in all cases, how could
there be large and small producers? On the other hand, all functions
being equal, either on account of the actual equivalence of talents
and capacities, or on account of social co-operation, how could a
functionary claim a salary proportional to the worth of his genius?
But, what do I say? In equality wages are always proportional to
talents. What is the economical meaning of wages? The reproductive
consumption of the laborer. The very act by which the laborer produces
constitutes, then, this consumption, exactly equal to his production,
of which we are speaking. When the astronomer produces observations, the
poet verses, or the savant experiments, they consume instruments, books,
travels, &c. , &c. ; now, if society supplies this consumption, what more
can the astronomer, the savant, or the poet demand? We must conclude,
then, that in equality, and only in equality, St. Simon's adage--TO
EACH ACCORDING TO HIS CAPACITY TO EACH CAPACITY ACCORDING TO ITS
RESULTS--finds its full and complete application.
III. The great evil--the horrible and ever-present evil--arising from
property, is that, while property exists, population, however reduced,
is, and always must be, over-abundant. Complaints have been made in
all ages of the excess of population; in all ages property has been
embarrassed by the presence of pauperism, not perceiving that it caused
it. Further,--nothing is more curious than the diversity of the plans
proposed for its extermination. Their atrocity is equalled only by their
absurdity.
The ancients made a practice of abandoning their children. The wholesale
and retail slaughter of slaves, civil and foreign wars, also lent their
aid. In Rome (where property held full sway), these three means were
employed so effectively, and for so long a time, that finally the empire
found itself without inhabitants. When the barbarians arrived, nobody
was to be found; the fields were no longer cultivated; grass grew in the
streets of the Italian cities.
In China, from time immemorial, upon famine alone has devolved the task
of sweeping away the poor. The people living almost exclusively upon
rice, if an accident causes the crop to fail, in a few days hunger kills
the inhabitants by myriads; and the Chinese historian records in the
annals of the empire, that in such a year of such an emperor twenty,
thirty, fifty, one hundred thousand inhabitants died of starvation.
Then they bury the dead, and recommence the production of children until
another famine leads to the same result. Such appears to have been, in
all ages, the Confucian economy.
I borrow the following facts from a modern economist:--
"Since the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, England has been
preyed upon by pauperism. At that time beggars were punished by law. "
Nevertheless, she had not one-fourth as large a population as she has
to-day.
"Edward prohibits alms-giving, on pain of imprisonment. . . . The laws of
1547 and 1656 prescribe a like punishment, in case of a second offence.
Elizabeth orders that each parish shall support its own paupers. But
what is a pauper? Charles II. decides that an UNDISPUTED residence of
forty days constitutes a settlement in a parish; but, if disputed, the
new-comer is forced to pack off. James II. modifies this decision,
which is again modified by William. In the midst of trials, reports, and
modifications, pauperism increases, and the workingman languishes and
dies.
"The poor-tax in 1774 exceeded forty millions of francs; in 1783-4-5,
it averaged fifty-three millions; 1813, more than a hundred and
eighty-seven millions five hundred thousand francs; 1816, two hundred
and fifty millions; in 1817, it is estimated at three hundred and
seventeen millions.
"In 1821, the number of paupers enrolled upon the parish lists was
estimated at four millions, nearly one-third of the population.
"FRANCE. In 1544, Francis I. establishes a compulsory tax in behalf of
the poor. In 1566 and 1586, the same principle is applied to the whole
kingdom.
"Under Louis XIV. , forty thousand paupers infested the capital [as many
in proportion as to-day]. Mendicity was punished severely. In 1740,
the Parliament of Paris re-establishes within its own jurisdiction the
compulsory assessment.
"The Constituent Assembly, frightened at the extent of the evil and the
difficulty of curing it, ordains the _statu quo_.
"The Convention proclaims assistance of the poor to be a NATIONAL DEBT.
Its law remains unexecuted.
"Napoleon also wishes to remedy the evil: his idea is imprisonment. 'In
that way,' said he, 'I shall protect the rich from the importunity
of beggars, and shall relieve them of the disgusting sight of abject
poverty. '" O wonderful man!
From these facts, which I might multiply still farther, two things are
to be inferred,--the one, that pauperism is independent of population;
the other, that all attempts hitherto made at its extermination have
proved abortive.
Catholicism founds hospitals and convents, and commands charity; that
is, she encourages mendicity. That is the extent of her insight as
voiced by her priests.
The secular power of Christian nations now orders taxes on the rich,
now banishment and imprisonment for the poor; that is, on the one hand,
violation of the right of property, and, on the other, civil death and
murder.
The modern economists--thinking that pauperism is caused by the excess
of population, exclusively--have devoted themselves to devising checks.
Some wish to prohibit the poor from marrying; thus,--having denounced
religious celibacy,--they propose compulsory celibacy, which will
inevitably become licentious celibacy.
Others do not approve this method, which they deem too violent; and
which, they say, deprives the poor man of THE ONLY PLEASURE WHICH HE
KNOWS IN THIS WORLD. They would simply recommend him to be PRUDENT. This
opinion is held by Malthus, Sismondi, Say, Droz, Duchatel, &c. But if
the poor are to be PRUDENT, the rich must set the example. Why should
the marriageable age of the latter be fixed at eighteen years, while
that of the former is postponed until thirty?
Again, they would do well to explain clearly what they mean by this
matrimonial prudence which they so urgently recommend to the laborer;
for here equivocation is especially dangerous, and I suspect that
the economists are not thoroughly understood. "Some half-enlightened
ecclesiastics are alarmed when they hear prudence in marriage advised;
they fear that the divine injunction--INCREASE AND MULTIPLY--is to be
set aside. To be logical, they must anathematize bachelors. " (J. Droz:
Political Economy. )
M. Droz is too honest a man, and too little of a theologian, to see why
these casuists are so alarmed; and this chaste ignorance is the very
best evidence of the purity of his heart. Religion never has encouraged
early marriages; and the kind of PRUDENCE which it condemns is that
described in this Latin sentence from Sanchez,--_An licet ob metum
liberorum semen extra vas ejicere_?
Destutt de Tracy seems to dislike prudence in either form. He says: "I
confess that I no more share the desire of the moralists to diminish
and restrain our pleasures, than that of the politicians to increase
our procreative powers, and accelerate reproduction. " He believes, then,
that we should love and marry when and as we please. Widespread misery
results from love and marriage, but this our philosopher does not heed.
True to the dogma of the necessity of evil, to evil he looks for the
solution of all problems. He adds: "The multiplication of men continuing
in all classes of society, the surplus members of the upper classes are
supported by the lower classes, and those of the latter are destroyed
by poverty. " This philosophy has few avowed partisans; but it has over
every other the indisputable advantage of demonstration in practice. Not
long since France heard it advocated in the Chamber of Deputies, in the
course of the discussion on the electoral reform,--POVERTY WILL ALWAYS
EXIST. That is the political aphorism with which the minister of state
ground to powder the arguments of M. Arago. POVERTY WILL ALWAYS EXIST!
Yes, so long as property does.
The Fourierists--INVENTORS of so many marvellous contrivances--could
not, in this field, belie their character. They invented four methods of
checking increase of population at will.
1. THE VIGOR OF WOMEN. On this point they are contradicted by
experience; for, although vigorous women may be less likely to conceive,
nevertheless they give birth to the healthiest children; so that the
advantage of maternity is on their side.
2. INTEGRAL EXERCISE, or the equal development of all the physical
powers. If this development is equal, how is the power of reproduction
lessened?
3. THE GASTRONOMIC REGIME; or, in plain English, the philosophy of the
belly. The Fourierists say, that abundance of rich food renders
women sterile; just as too much sap--while enhancing the beauty of
flowers--destroys their reproductive capacity. But the analogy is a
false one. Flowers become sterile when the stamens--or male organs--are
changed into petals, as may be seen by inspecting a rose; and when
through excessive dampness the pollen loses its fertilizing power.
Then,--in order that the gastronomic regime may produce the results
claimed for it,--not only must the females be fattened, but the males
must be rendered impotent.
4. PHANEROGAMIC MORALITY, or public concubinage. I know not why the
phalansterians use Greek words to convey ideas which can be expressed so
clearly in French. This method--like the preceding one--is copied from
civilized customs. Fourier, himself, cites the example of prostitutes
as a proof. Now we have no certain knowledge yet of the facts which he
quotes. So states Parent Duchatelet in his work on "Prostitution. "
From all the information which I have been able to gather, I find that
all the remedies for pauperism and fecundity--sanctioned by universal
practice, philosophy, political economy, and the latest reformers--may
be summed up in the following list: masturbation, onanism, [19]
sodomy, tribadie, polyandry, [20] prostitution, castration, continence,
abortion, and infanticide. [21]
All these methods being proved inadequate, there remains proscription.
Unfortunately, proscription, while decreasing the number of the poor,
increases their proportion. If the interest charged by the proprietor
upon the product is equal only to one-twentieth of the product (by law
it is equal to one-twentieth of the capital), it follows that twenty
laborers produce for nineteen only; because there is one among them,
called proprietor, who eats the share of two. Suppose that the twentieth
laborer--the poor one--is killed: the production of the following year
will be diminished one-twentieth; consequently the nineteenth will have
to yield his portion, and perish. For, since it is not one-twentieth
of the product of nineteen which must be paid to the proprietor, but
one-twentieth of the product of twenty (see third proposition), each
surviving laborer must sacrifice one-twentieth PLUS one four-hundredth
of his product; in other words, one man out of nineteen must be killed.
Therefore, while property exists, the more poor people we kill, the more
there are born in proportion.
Malthus, who proved so clearly that population increases in geometrical
progression, while production increases only in arithmetical
progression, did not notice this PAUPERIZING power of property. Had he
observed this, he would have understood that, before trying to check
reproduction, the right of increase should be abolished; because,
wherever that right is tolerated, there are always too many inhabitants,
whatever the extent or fertility of the soil.
It will be asked, perhaps, how I would maintain a balance between
population and production; for sooner or later this problem must be
solved. The reader will pardon me, if I do not give my method here. For,
in my opinion, it is useless to say a thing unless we prove it. Now, to
explain my method fully would require no less than a formal treatise.
It is a thing so simple and so vast, so common and so extraordinary,
so true and so misunderstood, so sacred and so profane, that to name it
without developing and proving it would serve only to excite contempt
and incredulity. One thing at a time. Let us establish equality, and
this remedy will soon appear; for truths follow each other, just as
crimes and errors do.
SIXTH PROPOSITION.
Property is impossible, because it is the Mother of Tyranny.
What is government? Government is public economy, the supreme
administrative power over public works and national possessions.
Now, the nation is like a vast society in which all the citizens are
stockholders. Each one has a deliberative voice in the assembly; and,
if the shares are equal, has one vote at his disposal. But, under the
regime of property, there is great inequality between the shares of
the stockholders; therefore, one may have several hundred votes, while
another has only one. If, for example, I enjoy an income of one million;
that is, if I am the proprietor of a fortune of thirty or forty millions
well invested, and if this fortune constitutes 1/30000 of the national
capital,--it is clear that the public administration of my property
would form 1/30000 of the duties of the government; and, if the nation
had a population of thirty-four millions, that I should have as many
votes as one thousand one hundred and thirty-three simple stockholders.
Thus, when M. Arago demands the right of suffrage for all members of the
National Guard, he is perfectly right; since every citizen is enrolled
for at least one national share, which entitles him to one vote. But the
illustrious orator ought at the same time to demand that each elector
shall have as many votes as he has shares; as is the case in commercial
associations. For to do otherwise is to pretend that the nation has a
right to dispose of the property of individuals without consulting them;
which is contrary to the right of property. In a country where property
exists, equality of electoral rights is a violation of property.
Now, if each citizen's sovereignty must and ought to be proportional to
his property, it follows that the small stock holders are at the mercy
of the larger ones; who will, as soon as they choose, make slaves of
the former, marry them at pleasure, take from them their wives,
castrate their sons, prostitute their daughters, throw the aged to the
sharks,--and finally will be forced to serve themselves in the same way,
unless they prefer to tax themselves for the support of their servants.
In such a condition is Great Britain to-day. John Bull--caring little
for liberty, equality, or dignity--prefers to serve and beg. But you,
bonhomme Jacques?
Property is incompatible with political and civil equality; then
property is impossible.
HISTORICAL COMMENTS. --1. When the vote of the third estate was doubled
by the States-General of 1789, property was grossly violated. The
nobility and the clergy possessed three-fourths of the soil of France;
they should have controlled three-fourths of the votes in the national
representation. To double the vote of the third estate was just, it is
said, since the people paid nearly all the taxes. This argument would
be sound, if there were nothing to be voted upon but taxes. But it was a
question at that time of reforming the government and the constitution;
consequently, the doubling of the vote of the third estate was a
usurpation, and an attack on property.
2. If the present representatives of the radical opposition should
come into power, they would work a reform by which every National Guard
should be an elector, and every elector eligible for office,--an attack
on property.
They would lower the rate of interest on public funds,--an attack on
property.
They would, in the interest of the public, pass laws to regulate the
exportation of cattle and wheat,--an attack on property.
They would alter the assessment of taxes,--an attack on property.
They would educate the people gratuitously,--a conspiracy against
property.
They would organize labor; that is, they would guarantee labor to the
workingman, and give him a share in the profits,--the abolition of
property.
Now, these same radicals are zealous defenders of property,--a radical
proof that they know not what they do, nor what they wish.
3. Since property is the grand cause of privilege and despotism, the
form of the republican oath should be changed. Instead of, "I swear
hatred to royalty," henceforth the new member of a secret society should
say, "I swear hatred to property. "
SEVENTH PROPOSITION.
_Property is impossible, because, in consuming its Receipts, it loses
them; in hoarding them, it nullifies them; and in using them as Capital,
it turns them against Production_.
I. If, with the economists, we consider the laborer as a living machine,
we must regard the wages paid to him as the amount necessary to support
this machine, and keep it in repair. The head of a manufacturing
establishment--who employs laborers at three, five, ten, and
fifteen francs per day, and who charges twenty francs for his
superintendence--does not regard his disbursements as losses, because
he knows they will return to him in the form of products. Consequently,
LABOR and REPRODUCTIVE CONSUMPTION are identical.
What is the proprietor? He is a machine which does not work; or, which
working for its own pleasure, and only when it sees fit, produces
nothing.
What is it to consume as a proprietor? It is to consume without
working, to consume without reproducing. For, once more, that which the
proprietor consumes as a laborer comes back to him; he does not give his
labor in exchange for his property, since, if he did, he would thereby
cease to be a proprietor. In consuming as a laborer, the proprietor
gains, or at least does not lose, since he recovers that which he
consumes; in consuming as a proprietor, he impoverishes himself. To
enjoy property, then, it is necessary to destroy it; to be a real
proprietor, one must cease to be a proprietor.
The laborer who consumes his wages is a machine which destroys and
reproduces; the proprietor who consumes his income is a bottomless
gulf,--sand which we water, a stone which we sow. So true is this,
that the proprietor--neither wishing nor knowing how to produce, and
perceiving that as fast as he uses his property he destroys it for
ever--has taken the precaution to make some one produce in his place.
That is what political economy, speaking in the name of eternal justice,
calls PRODUCING BY HIS CAPITAL,--PRODUCING BY HIS TOOLS. And that is
what ought to be called PRODUCING BY A SLAVE--PRODUCING AS A THIEF AND
AS A TYRANT. He, the proprietor, produce! . . . The robber might say, as
well: "I produce. "
The consumption of the proprietor has been styled luxury, in opposition
to USEFUL consumption. From what has just been said, we see that great
luxury can prevail in a nation which is not rich,--that poverty even
increases with luxury, and vice versa. The economists (so much credit
must be given them, at least) have caused such a horror of luxury,
that to-day a very large number of proprietors--not to say almost
all--ashamed of their idleness--labor, economize, and capitalize. They
have jumped from the frying-pan into the fire.
I cannot repeat it too often: the proprietor who thinks to deserve
his income by working, and who receives wages for his labor, is a
functionary who gets paid twice; that is the only difference between an
idle proprietor and a laboring proprietor. By his labor, the proprietor
produces his wages only--not his income. And since his condition enables
him to engage in the most lucrative pursuits, it may be said that the
proprietor's labor harms society more than it helps it. Whatever the
proprietor does, the consumption of his income is an actual loss, which
his salaried functions neither repair nor justify; and which would
annihilate property, were it not continually replenished by outside
production.
II. Then, the proprietor who consumes annihilates the product: he does
much worse if he lays it up. The things which he lays by pass into
another world; nothing more is seen of them, not even the _caput
mortuum_,--the smoke. If we had some means of transportation by which
to travel to the moon, and if the proprietors should be seized with a
sudden fancy to carry their savings thither, at the end of a certain
time our terraqueous planet would be transported by them to its
satellite!
The proprietor who lays up products will neither allow others to enjoy
them, nor enjoy them himself; for him there is neither possession nor
property. Like the miser, he broods over his treasures: he does not use
them. He may feast his eyes upon them; he may lie down with them; he
may sleep with them in his arms: all very fine, but coins do not
breed coins. No real property without enjoyment; no enjoyment without
consumption; no consumption without loss of property,--such is the
inflexible necessity to which God's judgment compels the proprietor to
bend. A curse upon property!
III. The proprietor who, instead of consuming his income, uses it as
capital, turns it against production, and thereby makes it impossible
for him to exercise his right. For the more he increases the amount of
interest to be paid upon it, the more he is compelled to diminish wages.
Now, the more he diminishes wages,--that is, the less he devotes to
the maintenance and repair of the machines,--the more he diminishes
the quantity of labor; and with the quantity of labor the quantity of
product, and with the quantity of product the very source of his income.
This is clearly shown by the following example:--
Take an estate consisting of arable land, meadows, and vineyards,
containing the dwellings of the owner and the tenant; and worth,
together with the farming implements, one hundred thousand francs, the
rate of increase being three per cent. If, instead of consuming his
revenue, the proprietor uses it, not in enlarging but in beautifying his
estate, can he annually demand of his tenant an additional ninety francs
on account of the three thousand francs which he has thus added to
his capital? Certainly not; for on such conditions the tenant, though
producing no more than before, would soon be obliged to labor for
nothing,--what do I say? to actually suffer loss in order to hold his
lease.
In fact, revenue can increase only as productive soil increases: it
is useless to build walls of marble, and work with plows of gold. But,
since it is impossible to go on acquiring for ever, to add estate to
estate, to CONTINUE ONE'S POSSESSIONS, as the Latins said; and since,
moreover, the proprietor always has means wherewith to capitalize,--it
follows that the exercise of his right finally becomes impossible.
Well, in spite of this impossibility, property capitalizes, and in
capitalizing increases its revenue; and, without stopping to look at the
particular cases which occur in commerce, manufacturing operations,
and banking, I will cite a graver fact,--one which directly affects all
citizens. I mean the indefinite increase of the budget.
The taxes increase every year. It would be difficult to tell in which
department of the government the expenses increase; for who can boast
of any knowledge as to the budget? On this point, the ablest financiers
continually disagree. What is to be thought, I ask, of the science of
government, when its professors cannot understand one another's figures?
Whatever be the immediate causes of this growth of the budget, it is
certain that taxation increases at a rate which causes everybody to
despair. Everybody sees it, everybody acknowledges it; but nobody
seems to understand the primary cause. [1] Now, I say that it cannot be
otherwise,--that it is necessary and inevitable.
[1] "The financial situation of the English government was shown up
in the House of Lords during the session of January 23. It is not
an encouraging one. For several years the expenses have exceeded the
receipts, and the Minister has been able to re-establish the balance
only by loans renewed annually. The combined deficits of the years 1838
and 1839 amount to forty-seven million five hundred thousand francs. In
1840, the excess of expenses over receipts is expected to be twenty-two
million five hundred thousand francs. Attention was called to these
figures by Lord Ripon. Lord Melbourne replied: 'The noble earl unhappily
was right in declaring that the public expenses continually increase,
and with him I must say that there is no room for hope that they can be
diminished or met in any way. '"--National: January 26, 1840.
A nation is the tenant of a rich proprietor called the GOVERNMENT,
to whom it pays, for the use of the soil, a farm-rent called a tax.
Whenever the government makes war, loses or gains a battle, changes the
outfit of its army, erects a monu-ment, digs a canal, opens a road,
or builds a railway, it borrows money, on which the tax-payers pay
interest; that is, the government, without adding to its productive
capacity, increases its active capital,--in a word, capitalizes after
the manner of the proprietor of whom I have just spoken.
Now, when a governmental loan is once contracted, and the interest is
once stipulated, the budget cannot be reduced. For, to accomplish that,
either the capitalists must relinquish their interest, which would
involve an abandonment of property; or the government must go into
bankruptcy, which would be a fraudulent denial of the political
principle; or it must pay the debt, which would require another loan;
or it must reduce expenses, which is impossible, since the loan
was contracted for the sole reason that the ordinary receipts
were insufficient; or the money expended by the government must be
reproductive, which requires an increase of productive capacity,--a
condition excluded by our hypothesis; or, finally, the tax-payers must
submit to a new tax in order to pay the debt,--an impossible thing. For,
if this new tax were levied upon all citizens alike, half, or even more,
of the citizens would be unable to pay it; if the rich had to bear the
whole, it would be a forced contribution,--an invasion of property.
Long financial experience has shown that the method of loans, though
exceedingly dangerous, is much surer, more convenient, and less costly
than any other method; consequently the government borrows,--that is,
goes on capitalizing,--and increases the budget.
Then, a budget, instead of ever diminishing, must necessarily and
continually increase. It is astonishing that the economists, with all
their learning, have failed to perceive a fact so simple and so evident.
If they have perceived it, why have they neglected to condemn it?
HISTORICAL COMMENT. --Much interest is felt at present in a financial
operation which is expected to result in a reduction of the budget.
It is proposed to change the present rate of increase, five per cent.
Laying aside the politico-legal question to deal only with the financial
question,--is it not true that, when five per cent. is changed to four
per cent. , it will then be necessary, for the same reasons, to change
four to three; then three to two, then two to one, and finally to sweep
away increase altogether? But that would be the advent of equality of
conditions and the abolition of property. Now it seems to me, that an
intelligent nation should voluntarily meet an inevitable revolution
half way, instead of suffering itself to be dragged after the car of
inflexible necessity.
EIGHTH PROPOSITION.
Property is impossible, because its power of Accumulation is infinite,
and is exercised only over finite quantities.
If men, living in equality, should grant to one of their number the
exclusive right of property; and this sole proprietor should lend one
hundred francs to the human race at compound interest, payable to his
descendants twenty-four generations hence,--at the end of six hundred
years this sum of one hundred francs, at five per cent. , would amount to
107,854,010,777,600 francs; two thousand six hundred and ninety-six
and one-third times the capital of France (supposing her capital to be
40,000,000,000), or more than twenty times the value of the terrestrial
globe!
Suppose that a man, in the reign of St. Louis, had borrowed one hundred
francs, and had refused,--he and his heirs after him,--to return it.
Even though it were known that the said heirs were not the rightful
possessors, and that prescription had been interrupted always at the
right moment,--nevertheless, by our laws, the last heir would be obliged
to return the one hundred francs with interest, and interest on the
interest; which in all would amount, as we have seen, to nearly one
hundred and eight thousand billions.
Every day, fortunes are growing in our midst much more rapidly than
this.
