Comte's
argument
disproves his position.
Proudhon - What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government
Now, property is no exception to
this rule: then the universal recognition of the right of property
does not legitimate the right of property. Man is mistaken as to the
constitution of society, the nature of right, and the application of
justice; just as he was mistaken regarding the cause of meteors and the
movement of the heavenly bodies. His old opinions cannot be taken for
articles of faith. Of what consequence is it to us that the Indian race
was divided into four classes; that, on the banks of the Nile and the
Ganges, blood and position formerly determined the distribution of the
land; that the Greeks and Romans placed property under the protection
of the gods; that they accompanied with religious ceremonies the work
of partitioning the land and appraising their goods? The variety of the
forms of privilege does not sanction injustice. The faith of Jupiter,
the proprietor, [13] proves no more against the equality of citizens,
than do the mysteries of Venus, the wanton, against conjugal chastity.
The authority of the human race is of no effect as evidence in favor
of the right of property, because this right, resting of necessity upon
equality, contradicts its principle; the decision of the religions which
have sanctioned it is of no effect, because in all ages the priest
has submitted to the prince, and the gods have always spoken as the
politicians desired; the social advantages, attributed to property,
cannot be cited in its behalf, because they all spring from the
principle of equality of possession.
What means, then, this dithyramb upon property?
"The right of property is the most important of human institutions. ". . .
Yes; as monarchy is the most glorious.
"The original cause of man's prosperity upon earth. "
Because justice was supposed to be its principle.
"Property became the legitimate end of his ambition, the hope of his
existence, the shelter of his family; in a word, the corner-stone of the
domestic dwelling, of communities, and of the political State. "
Possession alone produced all that.
"Eternal principle,--"
Property is eternal, like every negation,--
"Of all social and civil institutions. "
For that reason, every institution and every law based on property will
perish.
"It is a boon as precious as liberty. "
For the rich proprietor.
"In fact, the cause of the cultivation of the habitable earth. "
If the cultivator ceased to be a tenant, would the land be worse cared
for?
"The guarantee and the morality of labor. "
Under the regime of property, labor is not a condition, but a privilege.
"The application of justice. "
What is justice without equality of fortunes? A balance with false
weights.
"All morality,--"
A famished stomach knows no morality,--
"All public order,--"
Certainly, the preservation of property,--
"Rest on the right of property. " [14]
Corner-stone of all which is, stumbling-block of all which ought to
be,--such is property.
To sum up and conclude:--
Not only does occupation lead to equality, it PREVENTS property. For,
since every man, from the fact of his existence, has the right of
occupation, and, in order to live, must have material for cultivation
on which he may labor; and since, on the other hand, the number of
occupants varies continually with the births and deaths,--it follows
that the quantity of material which each laborer may claim varies
with the number of occupants; consequently, that occupation is always
subordinate to population. Finally, that, inasmuch as possession, in
right, can never remain fixed, it is impossible, in fact, that it can
ever become property.
Every occupant is, then, necessarily a possessor or usufructuary,--a
function which excludes proprietorship. Now, this is the right of the
usufructuary: he is responsible for the thing entrusted to him; he
must use it in conformity with general utility, with a view to its
preservation and development; he has no power to transform it, to
diminish it, or to change its nature; he cannot so divide the usufruct
that another shall perform the labor while he receives the product. In a
word, the usufructuary is under the supervision of society, submitted to
the condition of labor and the law of equality.
Thus is annihilated the Roman definition of property--THE RIGHT OF USE
AND ABUSE--an immorality born of violence, the most monstrous pretension
that the civil laws ever sanctioned. Man receives his usufruct from the
hands of society, which alone is the permanent possessor. The individual
passes away, society is deathless.
What a profound disgust fills my soul while discussing such simple
truths! Do we doubt these things to-day? Will it be necessary to again
take arms for their triumph? And can force, in default of reason, alone
introduce them into our laws?
ALL HAVE AN EQUAL RIGHT OF OCCUPANCY.
THE AMOUNT OCCUPIED BEING MEASURED, NOT BY THE WILL, BUT BY THE VARIABLE
CONDITIONS OF SPACE AND NUMBER, PROPERTY CANNOT EXIST.
This no code has ever expressed; this no constitution can admit! These
are axioms which the civil law and the law of nations deny! . . . . .
But I hear the exclamations of the partisans of another system: "Labor,
labor! that is the basis of property! "
Reader, do not be deceived. This new basis of property is worse than the
first, and I shall soon have to ask your pardon for having demonstrated
things clearer, and refuted pretensions more unjust, than any which we
have yet considered.
CHAPTER III. LABOR AS THE EFFICIENT CAUSE OF THE DOMAIN OF PROPERTY.
Nearly all the modern writers on jurisprudence, taking their cue from
the economists, have abandoned the theory of first occupancy as a too
dangerous one, and have adopted that which regards property as born of
labor. In this they are deluded; they reason in a circle. To labor it is
necessary to occupy, says M. Cousin.
Consequently, I have added in my turn, all having an equal right of
occupancy, to labor it is necessary to submit to equality. "The rich,"
exclaims Jean Jacques, "have the arrogance to say, 'I built this wall; I
earned this land by my labor. ' Who set you the tasks? we may reply, and
by what right do you demand payment from us for labor which we did not
impose upon you? " All sophistry falls to the ground in the presence of
this argument.
But the partisans of labor do not see that their system is an absolute
contradiction of the Code, all the articles and provisions of which
suppose property to be based upon the fact of first occupancy. If labor,
through the appropriation which results from it, alone gives birth to
property, the Civil Code lies, the charter is a falsehood, our whole
social system is a violation of right. To this conclusion shall we come,
at the end of the discussion which is to occupy our attention in this
chapter and the following one, both as to the right of labor and the
fact of property. We shall see, on the one hand, our legislation in
opposition to itself; and, on the other hand, our new jurisprudence in
opposition both to its own principle and to our legislation.
I have asserted that the system which bases property upon labor implies,
no less than that which bases it upon occupation, the equality of
fortunes; and the reader must be impatient to learn how I propose to
deduce this law of equality from the inequality of skill and faculties:
directly his curiosity shall be satisfied. But it is proper that I
should call his attention for a moment to this remarkable feature of
the process; to wit, the substitution of labor for occupation as the
principle of property; and that I should pass rapidly in review some
of the prejudices to which proprietors are accustomed to appeal, which
legislation has sanctioned, and which the system of labor completely
overthrows.
Reader, were you ever present at the examination of a criminal? Have
you watched his tricks, his turns, his evasions, his distinctions, his
equivocations? Beaten, all his assertions overthrown, pursued like
a fallow deer by the in exorable judge, tracked from hypothesis
to hypothesis,--he makes a statement, he corrects it, retracts it,
contradicts it, he exhausts all the tricks of dialectics, more subtle,
more ingenious a thousand times than he who invented the seventy-two
forms of the syllogism. So acts the proprietor when called upon
to defend his right. At first he refuses to reply, he exclaims, he
threatens, he defies; then, forced to accept the discussion, he
arms himself with chicanery, he surrounds himself with formidable
artillery,--crossing his fire, opposing one by one and all together
occupation, possession, limitation, covenants, immemorial custom, and
universal consent. Conquered on this ground, the proprietor, like a
wounded boar, turns on his pursuers. "I have done more than occupy,"
he cries with terrible emotion; "I have labored, produced, improved,
transformed, CREATED. This house, these fields, these trees are the work
of my hands; I changed these brambles into a vineyard, and this bush
into a fig-tree; and to-day I reap the harvest of my labors. I have
enriched the soil with my sweat; I have paid those men who, had they not
had the work which I gave them, would have died of hunger. No one
shared with me the trouble and expense; no one shall share with me the
benefits. "
You have labored, proprietor! why then do you speak of original
occupancy? What, were you not sure of your right, or did you hope to
deceive men, and make justice an illusion? Make haste, then, to acquaint
us with your mode of defence, for the judgment will be final; and you
know it to be a question of restitution.
You have labored! but what is there in common between the labor which
duty compels you to perform, and the appropriation of things in which
there is a common interest? Do you not know that domain over the soil,
like that over air and light, cannot be lost by prescription?
You have labored! have you never made others labor? Why, then, have they
lost in laboring for you what you have gained in not laboring for them?
You have labored! very well; but let us see the results of your labor.
We will count, weigh, and measure them. It will be the judgment of
Balthasar; for I swear by balance, level, and square, that if you have
appropriated another's labor in any way whatsoever, you shall restore it
every stroke.
Thus, the principle of occupation is abandoned; no longer is it said,
"The land belongs to him who first gets possession of it. " Property,
forced into its first intrenchment, repudiates its old adage; justice,
ashamed, retracts her maxims, and sorrow lowers her bandage over her
blushing cheeks. And it was but yesterday that this progress in social
philosophy began: fifty centuries required for the extirpation of a
lie! During this lamentable period, how many usurpations have been
sanctioned, how many invasions glorified, how many conquests celebrated!
The absent dispossessed, the poor banished, the hungry excluded by
wealth, which is so ready and bold in action! Jealousies and wars,
incendiarism and bloodshed, among the nations! But henceforth, thanks
to the age and its spirit, it is to be admitted that the earth is not a
prize to be won in a race; in the absence of any other obstacle, there
is a place for everybody under the sun. Each one may harness his goat
to the bearn, drive his cattle to pasture, sow a corner of a field, and
bake his bread by his own fireside.
But, no; each one cannot do these things. I hear it proclaimed on all
sides, "Glory to labor and industry! to each according to his capacity;
to each capacity according to its results! " And I see three-fourths of
the human race again despoiled, the labor of a few being a scourge to
the labor of the rest.
"The problem is solved," exclaims M. Hennequin. "Property, the daughter
of labor, can be enjoyed at present and in the future only under the
protection of the laws. It has its origin in natural law; it derives its
power from civil law; and from the union of these two ideas, LABOR and
PROTECTION, positive legislation results. ". . .
Ah! THE PROBLEM IS SOLVED! PROPERTY IS THE DAUGHTER OF LABOR! What,
then, is the right of accession, and the right of succession, and the
right of donation, &c. , if not the right to become a proprietor by
simple occupancy? What are your laws concerning the age of majority,
emancipation, guardianship, and interdiction, if not the various
conditions by which he who is already a laborer gains or loses the right
of occupancy; that is, property?
Being unable, at this time, to enter upon a detailed discussion of the
Code, I shall content myself with examining the three arguments oftenest
resorted to in support of property. 1. APPROPRIATION, or the formation
of property by possession; 2. THE CONSENT OF MANKIND; 3. PRESCRIPTION. I
shall then inquire into the effects of labor upon the relative condition
of the laborers and upon property.
% 1. --The Land cannot be Appropriated.
"It would seem that lands capable of cultivation ought to be regarded
as natural wealth, since they are not of human creation, but Nature's
gratuitous gift to man; but inasmuch as this wealth is not fugitive,
like the air and water,--inasmuch as a field is a fixed and limited
space which certain men have been able to appropriate, to the
exclusion of all others who in their turn have consented to this
appropriation,--the land, which was a natural and gratuitous gift,
has become social wealth, for the use of which we ought to pay. "--SAY:
POLITICAL ECONOMY.
Was I wrong in saying, at the beginning of this chapter, that the
economists are the very worst authorities in matters of legislation and
philosophy? It is the FATHER of this class of men who clearly states
the question, How can the supplies of Nature, the wealth created by
Providence, become private property? and who replies by so gross an
equivocation that we scarcely know which the author lacks, sense or
honesty. What, I ask, has the fixed and solid nature of the earth to do
with the right of appropriation? I can understand that a thing LIMITED
and STATIONARY, like the land, offers greater chances for appropriation
than the water or the sunshine; that it is easier to exercise the right
of domain over the soil than over the atmosphere: but we are not dealing
with the difficulty of the thing, and Say confounds the right with the
possibility. We do not ask why the earth has been appropriated to a
greater extent than the sea and the air; we want to know by what right
man has appropriated wealth WHICH HE DID NOT CREATE, AND WHICH NATURE
GAVE TO HIM GRATUITOUSLY.
Say, then, did not solve the question which he asked. But if he had
solved it, if the explanation which he has given us were as satisfactory
as it is illogical, we should know no better than before who has a right
to exact payment for the use of the soil, of this wealth which is not
man's handiwork. Who is entitled to the rent of the land? The producer
of the land, without doubt. Who made the land? God. Then, proprietor,
retire!
But the creator of the land does not sell it: he gives it; and, in
giving it, he is no respecter of persons. Why, then, are some of his
children regarded as legitimate, while others are treated as bastards?
If the equality of shares was an original right, why is the inequality
of conditions a posthumous right?
Say gives us to understand that if the air and the water were not of a
FUGITIVE nature, they would have been appropriated. Let me observe in
passing that this is more than an hypothesis; it is a reality. Men have
appropriated the air and the water, I will not say as often as they
could, but as often as they have been allowed to.
The Portuguese, having discovered the route to India by the Cape of
Good Hope, pretended to have the sole right to that route; and Grotius,
consulted in regard to this matter by the Dutch who refused to recognize
this right, wrote expressly for this occasion his treatise on
the "Freedom of the Seas," to prove that the sea is not liable to
appropriation.
The right to hunt and fish used always to be confined to lords and
proprietors; to-day it is leased by the government and communes to
whoever can pay the license-fee and the rent. To regulate hunting and
fishing is an excellent idea, but to make it a subject of sale is to
create a monopoly of air and water.
What is a passport? A universal recommendation of the traveller's
person; a certificate of security for himself and his property. The
treasury, whose nature it is to spoil the best things, has made the
passport a means of espionage and a tax. Is not this a sale of the right
to travel?
Finally, it is permissible neither to draw water from a spring situated
in another's grounds without the permission of the proprietor, because
by the right of accession the spring belongs to the possessor of the
soil, if there is no other claim; nor to pass a day on his premises
without paying a tax; nor to look at a court, a garden, or an orchard,
without the consent of the proprietor; nor to stroll in a park or an
enclosure against the owner's will: every one is allowed to shut himself
up and to fence himself in. All these prohibitions are so many positive
interdictions, not only of the land, but of the air and water. We who
belong to the proletaire class: property excommunicates us! _Terra, et
aqua, et aere, et igne interdicti sumus_.
Men could not appropriate the most fixed of all the elements without
appropriating the three others; since, by French and Roman law, property
in the surface carries with it property from zenith to nadir--_Cujus
est solum, ejus est usque ad caelum_. Now, if the use of water, air,
and fire excludes property, so does the use of the soil. This chain of
reasoning seems to have been presented by M. Ch. Comte, in his "Treatise
on Property," chap. 5.
"If a man should be deprived of air for a few moments only, he would
cease to exist, and a partial deprivation would cause him severe
suffering; a partial or complete deprivation of food would produce like
effects upon him though less suddenly; it would be the same, at least
in certain climates! were he deprived of all clothing and shelter. . . . To
sustain life, then, man needs continually to appropriate many different
things. But these things do not exist in like proportions. Some, such as
the light of the stars, the atmosphere of the earth, the water composing
the seas and oceans, exist in such large quantities that men cannot
perceive any sensible increase or diminution; each one can appropriate
as much as his needs require without detracting from the enjoyment of
others, without causing them the least harm. Things of this sort are, so
to speak, the common property of the human race; the only duty imposed
upon each individual in this regard is that of infringing not at all
upon the rights of others. "
Let us complete the argument of M. Ch. Comte. A man who should be
prohibited from walking in the highways, from resting in the fields,
from taking shelter in caves, from lighting fires, from picking berries,
from gathering herbs and boiling them in a bit of baked clay,--such
a man could not live. Consequently the earth--like water, air, and
light--is a primary object of necessity which each has a right to use
freely, without infringing another's right. Why, then, is the earth
appropriated? M. Ch. Comte's reply is a curious one. Say pretends that
it is because it is not FUGITIVE; M. Ch. Comte assures us that it
is because it is not INFINITE. The land is limited in amount. Then,
according to M. Ch. Comte, it ought to be appropriated. It would
seem, on the contrary, that he ought to say, Then it ought not to be
appropriated. Because, no matter how large a quantity of air or light
any one appropriates, no one is damaged thereby; there always remains
enough for all. With the soil, it is very different. Lay hold who will,
or who can, of the sun's rays, the passing breeze, or the sea's billows;
he has my consent, and my pardon for his bad intentions. But let any
living man dare to change his right of territorial possession into the
right of property, and I will declare war upon him, and wage it to the
death!
M. Ch.
Comte's argument disproves his position. "Among the things
necessary to the preservation of life," he says, "there are some which
exist in such large quantities that they are inexhaustible; others which
exist in lesser quantities, and can satisfy the wants of only a certain
number of persons. The former are called COMMON, the latter PRIVATE. "
This reasoning is not strictly logical. Water, air, and light are
COMMON things, not because they are INEXHAUSTIBLE, but because they are
INDISPENSABLE; and so indispensable that for that very reason Nature
has created them in quantities almost infinite, in order that their
plentifulness might prevent their appropriation. Likewise the land
is indispensable to our existence,--consequently a common thing,
consequently insusceptible of appropriation; but land is much scarcer
than the other elements, therefore its use must be regulated, not for
the profit of a few, but in the interest and for the security of all.
In a word, equality of rights is proved by equality of needs. Now,
equality of rights, in the case of a commodity which is limited in
amount, can be realized only by equality of possession. An agrarian law
underlies M. Ch. Comte's arguments.
From whatever point we view this question of property--provided we go
to the bottom of it--we reach equality. I will not insist farther on
the distinction between things which can, and things which cannot, be
appropriated. On this point, economists and legists talk worse than
nonsense. The Civil Code, after having defined property, says nothing
about susceptibility of appropriation; and if it speaks of things which
are in THE MARKET, it always does so without enumerating or describing
them. However, light is not wanting. There are some few maxims such as
these: _Ad reges potestas omnium pertinet, ad singulos proprietas; Omnia
rex imperio possidet, singula dominio_. Social sovereignty opposed to
private property! --might not that be called a prophecy of equality, a
republican oracle? Examples crowd upon us: once the possessions of
the church, the estates of the crown, the fiefs of the nobility
were inalienable and imprescriptible. If, instead of abolishing this
privilege, the Constituent had extended it to every individual; if
it had declared that the right of labor, like liberty, can never be
forfeited,--at that moment the revolution would have been consummated,
and we could now devote ourselves to improvement in other directions.
% 2. --Universal Consent no Justification of Property.
In the extract from Say, quoted above, it is not clear whether the
author means to base the right of property on the stationary character
of the soil, or on the consent which he thinks all men have granted
to this appropriation. His language is such that it may mean either
of these things, or both at once; which entitles us to assume that the
author intended to say, "The right of property resulting originally from
the exercise of the will, the stability of the soil permitted it to be
applied to the land, and universal consent has since sanctioned this
application. "
However that may be, can men legitimate property by mutual consent? I
say, no. Such a contract, though drafted by Grotius, Montesquieu, and J.
J. Rousseau, though signed by the whole human race, would be null in the
eyes of justice, and an act to enforce it would be illegal. Man can
no more give up labor than liberty. Now, to recognize the right of
territorial property is to give up labor, since it is to relinquish
the means of labor; it is to traffic in a natural right, and divest
ourselves of manhood.
But I wish that this consent, of which so much is made, had been given,
either tacitly or formally. What would have been the result? Evidently,
the surrenders would have been reciprocal; no right would have been
abandoned without the receipt of an equivalent in exchange. We thus come
back to equality again,--the sine qua non of appropriation; so that,
after having justified property by universal consent, that is, by
equality, we are obliged to justify the inequality of conditions by
property. Never shall we extricate ourselves from this dilemma. Indeed,
if, in the terms of the social compact, property has equality for its
condition, at the moment when equality ceases to exist, the compact is
broken and all property becomes usurpation. We gain nothing, then, by
this pretended consent of mankind.
% 3. --Prescription Gives No Title to Property.
The right of property was the origin of evil on the earth, the first
link in the long chain of crimes and misfortunes which the human race
has endured since its birth. The delusion of prescription is the fatal
charm thrown over the intellect, the death sentence breathed into the
conscience, to arrest man's progress towards truth, and bolster up the
worship of error.
The Code defines prescription thus: "The process of gaining and losing
through the lapse of time. " In applying this definition to ideas and
beliefs, we may use the word PRESCRIPTION to denote the everlasting
prejudice in favor of old superstitions, whatever be their object; the
opposition, often furious and bloody, with which new light has always
been received, and which makes the sage a martyr. Not a principle, not a
discovery, not a generous thought but has met, at its entrance into the
world, with a formidable barrier of preconceived opinions, seeming
like a conspiracy of all old prejudices. Prescriptions against reason,
prescriptions against facts, prescriptions against every truth hitherto
unknown,--that is the sum and substance of the _statu quo_ philosophy,
the watchword of conservatives throughout the centuries.
When the evangelical reform was broached to the world, there was
prescription in favor of violence, debauchery, and selfishness; when
Galileo, Descartes, Pascal, and their disciples reconstructed philosophy
and the sciences, there was prescription in favor of the Aristotelian
philosophy; when our fathers of '89 demanded liberty and equality, there
was prescription in favor of tyranny and privilege. "There always have
been proprietors and there always will be:" it is with this profound
utterance, the final effort of selfishness dying in its last ditch,
that the friends of social inequality hope to repel the attacks of their
adversaries; thinking undoubtedly that ideas, like property, can be lost
by prescription.
Enlightened to-day by the triumphal march of science, taught by the most
glorious successes to question our own opinions, we receive with favor
and applause the observer of Nature, who, by a thousand experiments
based upon the most profound analysis, pursues a new principle, a law
hitherto undiscovered. We take care to repel no idea, no fact, under the
pretext that abler men than ourselves lived in former days, who did not
notice the same phenomena, nor grasp the same analogies. Why do we not
preserve a like attitude towards political and philosophical questions?
Why this ridiculous mania for affirming that every thing has been said,
which means that we know all about mental and moral science? Why is
the proverb, THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN, applied exclusively to
metaphysical investigations?
Because we still study philosophy with the imagination, instead of by
observation and method; because fancy and will are universally regarded
as judges, in the place of arguments and facts,--it has been impossible
to this day to distinguish the charlatan from the philosopher, the
savant from the impostor. Since the days of Solomon and Pythagoras,
imagination has been exhausted in guessing out social and psychological
laws; all systems have been proposed. Looked at in this light, it is
probably true that EVERY THING HAS BEEN SAID; but it is no less true
that EVERY THING REMAINS TO BE PROVED. In politics (to take only this
branch of philosophy), in politics every one is governed in his choice
of party by his passion and his interests; the mind is submitted to the
impositions of the will,--there is no knowledge, there is not even a
shadow of certainty. In this way, general ignorance produces general
tyranny; and while liberty of thought is written in the charter, slavery
of thought, under the name of MAJORITY RULE, is decreed by the charter.
In order to confine myself to the civil prescription of which the Code
speaks, I shall refrain from beginning a discussion upon this worn-out
objection brought forward by proprietors; it would be too tiresome
and declamatory. Everybody knows that there are rights which cannot be
prescribed; and, as for those things which can be gained through the
lapse of time, no one is ignorant of the fact that prescription requires
certain conditions, the omission of one of which renders it null. If it
is true, for example, that the proprietor's possession has been CIVIL,
PUBLIC, PEACEABLE, and UNINTERRUPTED, it is none the less true that
it is not based on a just title; since the only titles which it can
show--occupation and labor--prove as much for the proletaire who
demands, as for the proprietor who defends. Further, this possession is
DISHONEST, since it is founded on a violation of right, which prevents
prescription, according to the saying of St. Paul--_Nunquam in
usucapionibus juris error possessori prodest_. The violation of right
lies either in the fact that the holder possesses as proprietor, while
he should possess only as usufructuary; or in the fact that he has
purchased a thing which no one had a right to transfer or sell.
Another reason why prescription cannot be adduced in favor of property
(a reason borrowed from jurisprudence) is that the right to possess
real estate is a part of a universal right which has never been totally
destroyed even at the most critical periods; and the proletaire, in
order to regain the power to exercise it fully, has only to prove that
he has always exercised it in part.
He, for example, who has the universal right to possess, give, exchange,
loan, let, sell, transform, or destroy a thing, preserves the integrity
of this right by the sole act of loaning, though he has never shown his
authority in any other manner. Likewise we shall see that EQUALITY OF
POSSESSIONS, EQUALITY OF RIGHTS, LIBERTY, WILL, PERSONALITY, are so
many identical expressions of one and the same idea,--the RIGHT OF
PRESERVATION and DEVELOPMENT; in a word, the right of life, against
which there can be no prescription until the human race has vanished
from the face of the earth.
Finally, as to the time required for prescription, it would be
superfluous to show that the right of property in general cannot be
acquired by simple possession for ten, twenty, a hundred, a thousand,
or one hundred thousand years; and that, so long as there exists a human
head capable of understanding and combating the right of property, this
right will never be prescribed. For principles of jurisprudence and
axioms of reason are different from accidental and contingent facts.
One man's possession can prescribe against another man's possession; but
just as the possessor cannot prescribe against himself, so reason has
always the faculty of change and reformation. Past error is not binding
on the future. Reason is always the same eternal force. The institution
of property, the work of ignorant reason, may be abrogated by a more
enlightened reason. Consequently, property cannot be established by
prescription. This is so certain and so true, that on it rests the
maxim that in the matter of prescription a violation of right goes for
nothing.
But I should be recreant to my method, and the reader would have the
right to accuse me of charlatanism and bad faith, if I had nothing
further to advance concerning prescription. I showed, in the first
place, that appropriation of land is illegal; and that, supposing it to
be legal, it must be accompanied by equality of property. I have shown,
in the second place, that universal consent proves nothing in favor
of property; and that, if it proves any thing, it proves equality of
property. I have yet to show that prescription, if admissible at all,
presupposes equality of property.
This demonstration will be neither long nor difficult. I need only to
call attention to the reasons why prescription was introduced.
"Prescription," says Dunod, "seems repugnant to natural equity, which
permits no one either to deprive another of his possessions without his
knowledge and consent, or to enrich himself at another's expense. But as
it might often happen, in the absence of prescription, that one who had
honestly earned would be ousted after long possession; and even that
he who had received a thing from its rightful owner, or who had been
legitimately relieved from all obligations, would, on losing his title,
be liable to be dispossessed or subjected again,--the public welfare
demanded that a term should be fixed, after the expiration of which no
one should be allowed to disturb actual possessors, or reassert rights
too long neglected. . . . The civil law, in regulating prescription, has
aimed, then, only to perfect natural law, and to supplement the law of
nations; and as it is founded on the public good, which should always be
considered before individual welfare,--_bono publico usucapio introducta
est_,--it should be regarded with favor, provided the conditions
required by the law are fulfilled. "
Toullier, in his "Civil Law," says: "In order that the question of
proprietorship may not remain too long unsettled, and thereby injure the
public welfare, disturbing the peace of families and the stability of
social transactions, the law has fixed a time when all claims shall be
cancelled, and possession shall regain its ancient prerogative through
its transformation into property. "
Cassiodorus said of property, that it was the only safe harbor in
which to seek shelter from the tempests of chicanery and the gales of
avarice--_Hic unus inter humanas pro cellas portus, quem si homines
fervida voluntate praeterierint; in undosis semper jurgiis errabunt_.
Thus, in the opinion of the authors, prescription is a means of
preserving public order; a restoration in certain cases of the original
mode of acquiring property; a fiction of the civil law which derives
all its force from the necessity of settling differences which otherwise
would never end. For, as Grotius says, time has no power to produce
effects; all things happen in time, but nothing is done by time.
Prescription, or the right of acquisition through the lapse of time, is,
therefore, a fiction of the law, conventionally adopted.
But all property necessarily originated in prescription, or, as the
Latins say, in _usucapion;_ that is, in continued possession.
I ask, then, in the first place, how possession can become property by
the lapse of time? Continue possession as long as you wish, continue
it for years and for centuries, you never can give duration--which of
itself creates nothing, changes nothing, modifies nothing--the power
to change the usufructuary into a proprietor. Let the civil law secure
against chance-comers the honest possessor who has held his position
for many years,--that only confirms a right already respected; and
prescription, applied in this way, simply means that possession which
has continued for twenty, thirty, or a hundred years shall be retained
by the occupant. But when the law declares that the lapse of time
changes possessor into proprietor, it supposes that a right can be
created without a producing cause; it unwarrantably alters the character
of the subject; it legislates on a matter not open to legislation; it
exceeds its own powers. Public order and private security ask only
that possession shall be protected. Why has the law created property?
Prescription was simply security for the future; why has the law made it
a matter of privilege?
Thus the origin of prescription is identical with that of property
itself; and since the latter can legitimate itself only when accompanied
by equality, prescription is but another of the thousand forms which the
necessity of maintaining this precious equality has taken. And this is
no vain induction, no far-fetched inference. The proof is written in all
the codes.
And, indeed, if all nations, through their instinct of justice and their
conservative nature, have recognized the utility and the necessity
of prescription; and if their design has been to guard thereby the
interests of the possessor,--could they not do something for the absent
citizen, separated from his family and his country by commerce, war, or
captivity, and in no position to exercise his right of possession? No.
Also, at the same time that prescription was introduced into the laws,
it was admitted that property is preserved by intent alone,--_nudo
animo_. Now, if property is preserved by intent alone, if it can be
lost only by the action of the proprietor, what can be the use of
prescription? How does the law dare to presume that the proprietor, who
preserves by intent alone, intended to abandon that which he has allowed
to be prescribed? What lapse of time can warrant such a conjecture;
and by what right does the law punish the absence of the proprietor by
depriving him of his goods? What then! we found but a moment since that
prescription and property were identical; and now we find that they are
mutually destructive!
Grotius, who perceived this difficulty, replied so singularly that his
words deserve to be quoted: _Bene sperandum de hominibus, ac propterea
non putandum eos hoc esse animo ut, rei caducae causa, hominem alterum
velint in perpetuo peccato versari, quo d evitari saepe non poterit sine
tali derelictione_.
"Where is the man," he says, "with so unchristian a soul that, for a
trifle, he would perpetuate the trespass of a possessor, which would
inevitably be the result if he did not consent to abandon his right? " By
the Eternal! I am that man. Though a million proprietors should burn for
it in hell, I lay the blame on them for depriving me of my portion of
this world's goods. To this powerful consideration Grotius rejoins, that
it is better to abandon a disputed right than to go to law, disturb the
peace of nations, and stir up the flames of civil war. I accept, if you
wish it, this argument, provided you indemnify me. But if this indemnity
is refused me, what do I, a proletaire, care for the tranquillity and
security of the rich? I care as little for PUBLIC ORDER as for the
proprietor's safety. I ask to live a laborer; otherwise I will die a
warrior.
Whichever way we turn, we shall come to the conclusion that prescription
is a contradiction of property; or rather that prescription and property
are two forms of the same principle, but two forms which serve to
correct each other; and ancient and modern jurisprudence did not make
the least of its blunders in pretending to reconcile them. Indeed, if
we see in the institution of property only a desire to secure to
each individual his share of the soil and his right to labor; in the
distinction between naked property and possession only an asylum for
absentees, orphans, and all who do not know, or cannot maintain, their
rights; in prescription only a means, either of defence against unjust
pretensions and encroachments, or of settlement of the differences
caused by the removal of possessors,--we shall recognize in these
various forms of human justice the spontaneous efforts of the mind to
come to the aid of the social instinct; we shall see in this protection
of all rights the sentiment of equality, a constant levelling tendency.
And, looking deeper, we shall find in the very exaggeration of these
principles the confirmation of our doctrine; because, if equality of
conditions and universal association are not soon realized, it will be
owing to the obstacle thrown for the time in the way of the common sense
of the people by the stupidity of legislators and judges; and also to
the fact that, while society in its original state was illuminated with
a flash of truth, the early speculations of its leaders could bring
forth nothing but darkness.
After the first covenants, after the first draughts of laws and
constitutions, which were the expression of man's primary needs, the
legislator's duty was to reform the errors of legislation; to complete
that which was defective; to harmonize, by superior definitions, those
things which seemed to conflict. Instead of that, they halted at the
literal meaning of the laws, content to play the subordinate part of
commentators and scholiasts. Taking the inspirations of the human mind,
at that time necessarily weak and faulty, for axioms of eternal and
unquestionable truth,--influenced by public opinion, enslaved by the
popular religion,--they have invariably started with the principle
(following in this respect the example of the theologians) that that is
infallibly true which has been admitted by all persons, in all places,
and at all times--_quod ab omnibus, quod ubique, quod semper;_ as if a
general but spontaneous opinion was any thing more than an indication of
the truth. Let us not be deceived: the opinion of all nations may serve
to authenticate the perception of a fact, the vague sentiment of a law;
it can teach us nothing about either fact or law. The consent of mankind
is an indication of Nature; not, as Cicero says, a law of Nature. Under
the indication is hidden the truth, which faith can believe, but only
thought can know. Such has been the constant progress of the human mind
in regard to physical phenomena and the creations of genius: how can
it be otherwise with the facts of conscience and the rules of human
conduct?
% 4. --Labor--That Labor Has No Inherent Power to Appropriate Natural
Wealth.
We shall show by the maxims of political economy and law, that is, by
the authorities recognized by property,--
1. That labor has no inherent power to appropriate natural wealth.
2. That, if we admit that labor has this power, we are led directly to
equality of property,--whatever the kind of labor, however scarce the
product, or unequal the ability of the laborers.
3. That, in the order of justice, labor DESTROYS property.
Following the example of our opponents, and that we may leave no
obstacles in the path, let us examine the question in the strongest
possible light.
M. Ch. Comte says, in his "Treatise on Property:"--
"France, considered as a nation, has a territory which is her own. "
France, as an individuality, possesses a territory which she cultivates;
it is not her property. Nations are related to each other as individuals
are: they are commoners and workers; it is an abuse of language to call
them proprietors. The right of use and abuse belongs no more to nations
than to men; and the time will come when a war waged for the purpose of
checking a nation in its abuse of the soil will be regarded as a holy
war.
Thus, M. Ch. Comte--who undertakes to explain how property comes into
existence, and who starts with the supposition that a nation is a
proprietor--falls into that error known as BEGGING THE QUESTION; a
mistake which vitiates his whole argument.
If the reader thinks it is pushing logic too far to question a nation's
right of property in the territory which it possesses, I will simply
remind him of the fact that at all ages the results of the fictitious
right of national property have been pretensions to suzerainty,
tributes, monarchical privileges, statute-labor, quotas of men and
money, supplies of merchandise, &c. ; ending finally in refusals to pay
taxes, insurrections, wars, and depopulations.
"Scattered through this territory are extended tracts of land, which
have not been converted into individual property. These lands, which
consist mainly of forests, belong to the whole population, and the
government, which receives the revenues, uses or ought to use them in
the interest of all. "
OUGHT TO USE is well said: a lie is avoided thereby.
"Let them be offered for sale. . . . "
Why offered for sale? Who has a right to sell them? Even were the nation
proprietor, can the generation of to-day dispossess the generation of
to-morrow? The nation, in its function of usufructuary, possesses
them; the government rules, superintends, and protects them. If it also
granted lands, it could grant only their use; it has no right to sell
them or transfer them in any way whatever. Not being a proprietor, how
can it transmit property?
"Suppose some industrious man buys a portion, a large swamp for example.
This would be no usurpation, since the public would receive the exact
value through the hands of the government, and would be as rich after
the sale as before. "
How ridiculous! What! because a prodigal, imprudent, incompetent
official sells the State's possessions, while I, a ward of the State,--I
who have neither an advisory nor a deliberative voice in the State
councils,--while I am allowed to make no opposition to the sale,
this sale is right and legal! The guardians of the nation waste its
substance, and it has no redress! I have received, you tell me, through
the hands of the government my share of the proceeds of the sale: but,
in the first place, I did not wish to sell; and, had I wished to, I
could not have sold. I had not the right. And then I do not see that I
am benefited by the sale. My guardians have dressed up some soldiers,
repaired an old fortress, erected in their pride some costly but
worthless monument,--then they have exploded some fireworks and set up a
greased pole! What does all that amount to in comparison with my loss?
The purchaser draws boundaries, fences himself in, and says, "This is
mine; each one by himself, each one for himself. " Here, then, is a piece
of land upon which, henceforth, no one has a right to step, save
the proprietor and his friends; which can benefit nobody, save the
proprietor and his servants. Let these sales multiply, and soon the
people--who have been neither able nor willing to sell, and who have
received none of the proceeds of the sale--will have nowhere to rest,
no place of shelter, no ground to till. They will die of hunger at
the proprietor's door, on the edge of that property which was their
birthright; and the proprietor, watching them die, will exclaim, "So
perish idlers and vagrants! "
To reconcile us to the proprietor's usurpation, M. Ch. Comte assumes the
lands to be of little value at the time of sale.
"The importance of these usurpations should not be exaggerated: they
should be measured by the number of men which the occupied land would
support, and by the means which it would furnish them.
"It is evident, for instance, that if a piece of land which is worth
to-day one thousand francs was worth only five centimes when it was
usurped, we really lose only the value of five centimes. A square league
of earth would be hardly sufficient to support a savage in distress;
to-day it supplies one thousand persons with the means of existence.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine parts of this land is the legitimate
property of the possessors; only one-thousandth of the value has been
usurped. "
A peasant admitted one day, at confession, that he had destroyed a
document which declared him a debtor to the amount of three hundred
francs. Said the father confessor, "You must return these three hundred
francs. " "No," replied the peasant, "I will return a penny to pay for
the paper. "
M. Ch. Comte's logic resembles this peasant's honesty. The soil has not
only an integrant and actual value, it has also a potential value,--a
value of the future,--which depends on our ability to make it valuable,
and to employ it in our work. Destroy a bill of exchange, a promissory
note, an annuity deed,--as a paper you destroy almost no value at all;
but with this paper you destroy your title, and, in losing your title,
you deprive yourself of your goods. Destroy the land, or, what is the
same thing, sell it,--you not only transfer one, two, or several crops,
but you annihilate all the products that you could derive from it; you
and your children and your children's children.
When M. Ch. Comte, the apostle of property and the eulogist of labor,
supposes an alienation of the soil on the part of the government, we
must not think that he does so without reason and for no purpose; it
is a necessary part of his position. As he rejected the theory of
occupancy, and as he knew, moreover, that labor could not constitute the
right in the absence of a previous permission to occupy, he was obliged
to connect this permission with the authority of the government, which
means that property is based upon the sovereignty of the people;
in other words, upon universal consent. This theory we have already
considered.
this rule: then the universal recognition of the right of property
does not legitimate the right of property. Man is mistaken as to the
constitution of society, the nature of right, and the application of
justice; just as he was mistaken regarding the cause of meteors and the
movement of the heavenly bodies. His old opinions cannot be taken for
articles of faith. Of what consequence is it to us that the Indian race
was divided into four classes; that, on the banks of the Nile and the
Ganges, blood and position formerly determined the distribution of the
land; that the Greeks and Romans placed property under the protection
of the gods; that they accompanied with religious ceremonies the work
of partitioning the land and appraising their goods? The variety of the
forms of privilege does not sanction injustice. The faith of Jupiter,
the proprietor, [13] proves no more against the equality of citizens,
than do the mysteries of Venus, the wanton, against conjugal chastity.
The authority of the human race is of no effect as evidence in favor
of the right of property, because this right, resting of necessity upon
equality, contradicts its principle; the decision of the religions which
have sanctioned it is of no effect, because in all ages the priest
has submitted to the prince, and the gods have always spoken as the
politicians desired; the social advantages, attributed to property,
cannot be cited in its behalf, because they all spring from the
principle of equality of possession.
What means, then, this dithyramb upon property?
"The right of property is the most important of human institutions. ". . .
Yes; as monarchy is the most glorious.
"The original cause of man's prosperity upon earth. "
Because justice was supposed to be its principle.
"Property became the legitimate end of his ambition, the hope of his
existence, the shelter of his family; in a word, the corner-stone of the
domestic dwelling, of communities, and of the political State. "
Possession alone produced all that.
"Eternal principle,--"
Property is eternal, like every negation,--
"Of all social and civil institutions. "
For that reason, every institution and every law based on property will
perish.
"It is a boon as precious as liberty. "
For the rich proprietor.
"In fact, the cause of the cultivation of the habitable earth. "
If the cultivator ceased to be a tenant, would the land be worse cared
for?
"The guarantee and the morality of labor. "
Under the regime of property, labor is not a condition, but a privilege.
"The application of justice. "
What is justice without equality of fortunes? A balance with false
weights.
"All morality,--"
A famished stomach knows no morality,--
"All public order,--"
Certainly, the preservation of property,--
"Rest on the right of property. " [14]
Corner-stone of all which is, stumbling-block of all which ought to
be,--such is property.
To sum up and conclude:--
Not only does occupation lead to equality, it PREVENTS property. For,
since every man, from the fact of his existence, has the right of
occupation, and, in order to live, must have material for cultivation
on which he may labor; and since, on the other hand, the number of
occupants varies continually with the births and deaths,--it follows
that the quantity of material which each laborer may claim varies
with the number of occupants; consequently, that occupation is always
subordinate to population. Finally, that, inasmuch as possession, in
right, can never remain fixed, it is impossible, in fact, that it can
ever become property.
Every occupant is, then, necessarily a possessor or usufructuary,--a
function which excludes proprietorship. Now, this is the right of the
usufructuary: he is responsible for the thing entrusted to him; he
must use it in conformity with general utility, with a view to its
preservation and development; he has no power to transform it, to
diminish it, or to change its nature; he cannot so divide the usufruct
that another shall perform the labor while he receives the product. In a
word, the usufructuary is under the supervision of society, submitted to
the condition of labor and the law of equality.
Thus is annihilated the Roman definition of property--THE RIGHT OF USE
AND ABUSE--an immorality born of violence, the most monstrous pretension
that the civil laws ever sanctioned. Man receives his usufruct from the
hands of society, which alone is the permanent possessor. The individual
passes away, society is deathless.
What a profound disgust fills my soul while discussing such simple
truths! Do we doubt these things to-day? Will it be necessary to again
take arms for their triumph? And can force, in default of reason, alone
introduce them into our laws?
ALL HAVE AN EQUAL RIGHT OF OCCUPANCY.
THE AMOUNT OCCUPIED BEING MEASURED, NOT BY THE WILL, BUT BY THE VARIABLE
CONDITIONS OF SPACE AND NUMBER, PROPERTY CANNOT EXIST.
This no code has ever expressed; this no constitution can admit! These
are axioms which the civil law and the law of nations deny! . . . . .
But I hear the exclamations of the partisans of another system: "Labor,
labor! that is the basis of property! "
Reader, do not be deceived. This new basis of property is worse than the
first, and I shall soon have to ask your pardon for having demonstrated
things clearer, and refuted pretensions more unjust, than any which we
have yet considered.
CHAPTER III. LABOR AS THE EFFICIENT CAUSE OF THE DOMAIN OF PROPERTY.
Nearly all the modern writers on jurisprudence, taking their cue from
the economists, have abandoned the theory of first occupancy as a too
dangerous one, and have adopted that which regards property as born of
labor. In this they are deluded; they reason in a circle. To labor it is
necessary to occupy, says M. Cousin.
Consequently, I have added in my turn, all having an equal right of
occupancy, to labor it is necessary to submit to equality. "The rich,"
exclaims Jean Jacques, "have the arrogance to say, 'I built this wall; I
earned this land by my labor. ' Who set you the tasks? we may reply, and
by what right do you demand payment from us for labor which we did not
impose upon you? " All sophistry falls to the ground in the presence of
this argument.
But the partisans of labor do not see that their system is an absolute
contradiction of the Code, all the articles and provisions of which
suppose property to be based upon the fact of first occupancy. If labor,
through the appropriation which results from it, alone gives birth to
property, the Civil Code lies, the charter is a falsehood, our whole
social system is a violation of right. To this conclusion shall we come,
at the end of the discussion which is to occupy our attention in this
chapter and the following one, both as to the right of labor and the
fact of property. We shall see, on the one hand, our legislation in
opposition to itself; and, on the other hand, our new jurisprudence in
opposition both to its own principle and to our legislation.
I have asserted that the system which bases property upon labor implies,
no less than that which bases it upon occupation, the equality of
fortunes; and the reader must be impatient to learn how I propose to
deduce this law of equality from the inequality of skill and faculties:
directly his curiosity shall be satisfied. But it is proper that I
should call his attention for a moment to this remarkable feature of
the process; to wit, the substitution of labor for occupation as the
principle of property; and that I should pass rapidly in review some
of the prejudices to which proprietors are accustomed to appeal, which
legislation has sanctioned, and which the system of labor completely
overthrows.
Reader, were you ever present at the examination of a criminal? Have
you watched his tricks, his turns, his evasions, his distinctions, his
equivocations? Beaten, all his assertions overthrown, pursued like
a fallow deer by the in exorable judge, tracked from hypothesis
to hypothesis,--he makes a statement, he corrects it, retracts it,
contradicts it, he exhausts all the tricks of dialectics, more subtle,
more ingenious a thousand times than he who invented the seventy-two
forms of the syllogism. So acts the proprietor when called upon
to defend his right. At first he refuses to reply, he exclaims, he
threatens, he defies; then, forced to accept the discussion, he
arms himself with chicanery, he surrounds himself with formidable
artillery,--crossing his fire, opposing one by one and all together
occupation, possession, limitation, covenants, immemorial custom, and
universal consent. Conquered on this ground, the proprietor, like a
wounded boar, turns on his pursuers. "I have done more than occupy,"
he cries with terrible emotion; "I have labored, produced, improved,
transformed, CREATED. This house, these fields, these trees are the work
of my hands; I changed these brambles into a vineyard, and this bush
into a fig-tree; and to-day I reap the harvest of my labors. I have
enriched the soil with my sweat; I have paid those men who, had they not
had the work which I gave them, would have died of hunger. No one
shared with me the trouble and expense; no one shall share with me the
benefits. "
You have labored, proprietor! why then do you speak of original
occupancy? What, were you not sure of your right, or did you hope to
deceive men, and make justice an illusion? Make haste, then, to acquaint
us with your mode of defence, for the judgment will be final; and you
know it to be a question of restitution.
You have labored! but what is there in common between the labor which
duty compels you to perform, and the appropriation of things in which
there is a common interest? Do you not know that domain over the soil,
like that over air and light, cannot be lost by prescription?
You have labored! have you never made others labor? Why, then, have they
lost in laboring for you what you have gained in not laboring for them?
You have labored! very well; but let us see the results of your labor.
We will count, weigh, and measure them. It will be the judgment of
Balthasar; for I swear by balance, level, and square, that if you have
appropriated another's labor in any way whatsoever, you shall restore it
every stroke.
Thus, the principle of occupation is abandoned; no longer is it said,
"The land belongs to him who first gets possession of it. " Property,
forced into its first intrenchment, repudiates its old adage; justice,
ashamed, retracts her maxims, and sorrow lowers her bandage over her
blushing cheeks. And it was but yesterday that this progress in social
philosophy began: fifty centuries required for the extirpation of a
lie! During this lamentable period, how many usurpations have been
sanctioned, how many invasions glorified, how many conquests celebrated!
The absent dispossessed, the poor banished, the hungry excluded by
wealth, which is so ready and bold in action! Jealousies and wars,
incendiarism and bloodshed, among the nations! But henceforth, thanks
to the age and its spirit, it is to be admitted that the earth is not a
prize to be won in a race; in the absence of any other obstacle, there
is a place for everybody under the sun. Each one may harness his goat
to the bearn, drive his cattle to pasture, sow a corner of a field, and
bake his bread by his own fireside.
But, no; each one cannot do these things. I hear it proclaimed on all
sides, "Glory to labor and industry! to each according to his capacity;
to each capacity according to its results! " And I see three-fourths of
the human race again despoiled, the labor of a few being a scourge to
the labor of the rest.
"The problem is solved," exclaims M. Hennequin. "Property, the daughter
of labor, can be enjoyed at present and in the future only under the
protection of the laws. It has its origin in natural law; it derives its
power from civil law; and from the union of these two ideas, LABOR and
PROTECTION, positive legislation results. ". . .
Ah! THE PROBLEM IS SOLVED! PROPERTY IS THE DAUGHTER OF LABOR! What,
then, is the right of accession, and the right of succession, and the
right of donation, &c. , if not the right to become a proprietor by
simple occupancy? What are your laws concerning the age of majority,
emancipation, guardianship, and interdiction, if not the various
conditions by which he who is already a laborer gains or loses the right
of occupancy; that is, property?
Being unable, at this time, to enter upon a detailed discussion of the
Code, I shall content myself with examining the three arguments oftenest
resorted to in support of property. 1. APPROPRIATION, or the formation
of property by possession; 2. THE CONSENT OF MANKIND; 3. PRESCRIPTION. I
shall then inquire into the effects of labor upon the relative condition
of the laborers and upon property.
% 1. --The Land cannot be Appropriated.
"It would seem that lands capable of cultivation ought to be regarded
as natural wealth, since they are not of human creation, but Nature's
gratuitous gift to man; but inasmuch as this wealth is not fugitive,
like the air and water,--inasmuch as a field is a fixed and limited
space which certain men have been able to appropriate, to the
exclusion of all others who in their turn have consented to this
appropriation,--the land, which was a natural and gratuitous gift,
has become social wealth, for the use of which we ought to pay. "--SAY:
POLITICAL ECONOMY.
Was I wrong in saying, at the beginning of this chapter, that the
economists are the very worst authorities in matters of legislation and
philosophy? It is the FATHER of this class of men who clearly states
the question, How can the supplies of Nature, the wealth created by
Providence, become private property? and who replies by so gross an
equivocation that we scarcely know which the author lacks, sense or
honesty. What, I ask, has the fixed and solid nature of the earth to do
with the right of appropriation? I can understand that a thing LIMITED
and STATIONARY, like the land, offers greater chances for appropriation
than the water or the sunshine; that it is easier to exercise the right
of domain over the soil than over the atmosphere: but we are not dealing
with the difficulty of the thing, and Say confounds the right with the
possibility. We do not ask why the earth has been appropriated to a
greater extent than the sea and the air; we want to know by what right
man has appropriated wealth WHICH HE DID NOT CREATE, AND WHICH NATURE
GAVE TO HIM GRATUITOUSLY.
Say, then, did not solve the question which he asked. But if he had
solved it, if the explanation which he has given us were as satisfactory
as it is illogical, we should know no better than before who has a right
to exact payment for the use of the soil, of this wealth which is not
man's handiwork. Who is entitled to the rent of the land? The producer
of the land, without doubt. Who made the land? God. Then, proprietor,
retire!
But the creator of the land does not sell it: he gives it; and, in
giving it, he is no respecter of persons. Why, then, are some of his
children regarded as legitimate, while others are treated as bastards?
If the equality of shares was an original right, why is the inequality
of conditions a posthumous right?
Say gives us to understand that if the air and the water were not of a
FUGITIVE nature, they would have been appropriated. Let me observe in
passing that this is more than an hypothesis; it is a reality. Men have
appropriated the air and the water, I will not say as often as they
could, but as often as they have been allowed to.
The Portuguese, having discovered the route to India by the Cape of
Good Hope, pretended to have the sole right to that route; and Grotius,
consulted in regard to this matter by the Dutch who refused to recognize
this right, wrote expressly for this occasion his treatise on
the "Freedom of the Seas," to prove that the sea is not liable to
appropriation.
The right to hunt and fish used always to be confined to lords and
proprietors; to-day it is leased by the government and communes to
whoever can pay the license-fee and the rent. To regulate hunting and
fishing is an excellent idea, but to make it a subject of sale is to
create a monopoly of air and water.
What is a passport? A universal recommendation of the traveller's
person; a certificate of security for himself and his property. The
treasury, whose nature it is to spoil the best things, has made the
passport a means of espionage and a tax. Is not this a sale of the right
to travel?
Finally, it is permissible neither to draw water from a spring situated
in another's grounds without the permission of the proprietor, because
by the right of accession the spring belongs to the possessor of the
soil, if there is no other claim; nor to pass a day on his premises
without paying a tax; nor to look at a court, a garden, or an orchard,
without the consent of the proprietor; nor to stroll in a park or an
enclosure against the owner's will: every one is allowed to shut himself
up and to fence himself in. All these prohibitions are so many positive
interdictions, not only of the land, but of the air and water. We who
belong to the proletaire class: property excommunicates us! _Terra, et
aqua, et aere, et igne interdicti sumus_.
Men could not appropriate the most fixed of all the elements without
appropriating the three others; since, by French and Roman law, property
in the surface carries with it property from zenith to nadir--_Cujus
est solum, ejus est usque ad caelum_. Now, if the use of water, air,
and fire excludes property, so does the use of the soil. This chain of
reasoning seems to have been presented by M. Ch. Comte, in his "Treatise
on Property," chap. 5.
"If a man should be deprived of air for a few moments only, he would
cease to exist, and a partial deprivation would cause him severe
suffering; a partial or complete deprivation of food would produce like
effects upon him though less suddenly; it would be the same, at least
in certain climates! were he deprived of all clothing and shelter. . . . To
sustain life, then, man needs continually to appropriate many different
things. But these things do not exist in like proportions. Some, such as
the light of the stars, the atmosphere of the earth, the water composing
the seas and oceans, exist in such large quantities that men cannot
perceive any sensible increase or diminution; each one can appropriate
as much as his needs require without detracting from the enjoyment of
others, without causing them the least harm. Things of this sort are, so
to speak, the common property of the human race; the only duty imposed
upon each individual in this regard is that of infringing not at all
upon the rights of others. "
Let us complete the argument of M. Ch. Comte. A man who should be
prohibited from walking in the highways, from resting in the fields,
from taking shelter in caves, from lighting fires, from picking berries,
from gathering herbs and boiling them in a bit of baked clay,--such
a man could not live. Consequently the earth--like water, air, and
light--is a primary object of necessity which each has a right to use
freely, without infringing another's right. Why, then, is the earth
appropriated? M. Ch. Comte's reply is a curious one. Say pretends that
it is because it is not FUGITIVE; M. Ch. Comte assures us that it
is because it is not INFINITE. The land is limited in amount. Then,
according to M. Ch. Comte, it ought to be appropriated. It would
seem, on the contrary, that he ought to say, Then it ought not to be
appropriated. Because, no matter how large a quantity of air or light
any one appropriates, no one is damaged thereby; there always remains
enough for all. With the soil, it is very different. Lay hold who will,
or who can, of the sun's rays, the passing breeze, or the sea's billows;
he has my consent, and my pardon for his bad intentions. But let any
living man dare to change his right of territorial possession into the
right of property, and I will declare war upon him, and wage it to the
death!
M. Ch.
Comte's argument disproves his position. "Among the things
necessary to the preservation of life," he says, "there are some which
exist in such large quantities that they are inexhaustible; others which
exist in lesser quantities, and can satisfy the wants of only a certain
number of persons. The former are called COMMON, the latter PRIVATE. "
This reasoning is not strictly logical. Water, air, and light are
COMMON things, not because they are INEXHAUSTIBLE, but because they are
INDISPENSABLE; and so indispensable that for that very reason Nature
has created them in quantities almost infinite, in order that their
plentifulness might prevent their appropriation. Likewise the land
is indispensable to our existence,--consequently a common thing,
consequently insusceptible of appropriation; but land is much scarcer
than the other elements, therefore its use must be regulated, not for
the profit of a few, but in the interest and for the security of all.
In a word, equality of rights is proved by equality of needs. Now,
equality of rights, in the case of a commodity which is limited in
amount, can be realized only by equality of possession. An agrarian law
underlies M. Ch. Comte's arguments.
From whatever point we view this question of property--provided we go
to the bottom of it--we reach equality. I will not insist farther on
the distinction between things which can, and things which cannot, be
appropriated. On this point, economists and legists talk worse than
nonsense. The Civil Code, after having defined property, says nothing
about susceptibility of appropriation; and if it speaks of things which
are in THE MARKET, it always does so without enumerating or describing
them. However, light is not wanting. There are some few maxims such as
these: _Ad reges potestas omnium pertinet, ad singulos proprietas; Omnia
rex imperio possidet, singula dominio_. Social sovereignty opposed to
private property! --might not that be called a prophecy of equality, a
republican oracle? Examples crowd upon us: once the possessions of
the church, the estates of the crown, the fiefs of the nobility
were inalienable and imprescriptible. If, instead of abolishing this
privilege, the Constituent had extended it to every individual; if
it had declared that the right of labor, like liberty, can never be
forfeited,--at that moment the revolution would have been consummated,
and we could now devote ourselves to improvement in other directions.
% 2. --Universal Consent no Justification of Property.
In the extract from Say, quoted above, it is not clear whether the
author means to base the right of property on the stationary character
of the soil, or on the consent which he thinks all men have granted
to this appropriation. His language is such that it may mean either
of these things, or both at once; which entitles us to assume that the
author intended to say, "The right of property resulting originally from
the exercise of the will, the stability of the soil permitted it to be
applied to the land, and universal consent has since sanctioned this
application. "
However that may be, can men legitimate property by mutual consent? I
say, no. Such a contract, though drafted by Grotius, Montesquieu, and J.
J. Rousseau, though signed by the whole human race, would be null in the
eyes of justice, and an act to enforce it would be illegal. Man can
no more give up labor than liberty. Now, to recognize the right of
territorial property is to give up labor, since it is to relinquish
the means of labor; it is to traffic in a natural right, and divest
ourselves of manhood.
But I wish that this consent, of which so much is made, had been given,
either tacitly or formally. What would have been the result? Evidently,
the surrenders would have been reciprocal; no right would have been
abandoned without the receipt of an equivalent in exchange. We thus come
back to equality again,--the sine qua non of appropriation; so that,
after having justified property by universal consent, that is, by
equality, we are obliged to justify the inequality of conditions by
property. Never shall we extricate ourselves from this dilemma. Indeed,
if, in the terms of the social compact, property has equality for its
condition, at the moment when equality ceases to exist, the compact is
broken and all property becomes usurpation. We gain nothing, then, by
this pretended consent of mankind.
% 3. --Prescription Gives No Title to Property.
The right of property was the origin of evil on the earth, the first
link in the long chain of crimes and misfortunes which the human race
has endured since its birth. The delusion of prescription is the fatal
charm thrown over the intellect, the death sentence breathed into the
conscience, to arrest man's progress towards truth, and bolster up the
worship of error.
The Code defines prescription thus: "The process of gaining and losing
through the lapse of time. " In applying this definition to ideas and
beliefs, we may use the word PRESCRIPTION to denote the everlasting
prejudice in favor of old superstitions, whatever be their object; the
opposition, often furious and bloody, with which new light has always
been received, and which makes the sage a martyr. Not a principle, not a
discovery, not a generous thought but has met, at its entrance into the
world, with a formidable barrier of preconceived opinions, seeming
like a conspiracy of all old prejudices. Prescriptions against reason,
prescriptions against facts, prescriptions against every truth hitherto
unknown,--that is the sum and substance of the _statu quo_ philosophy,
the watchword of conservatives throughout the centuries.
When the evangelical reform was broached to the world, there was
prescription in favor of violence, debauchery, and selfishness; when
Galileo, Descartes, Pascal, and their disciples reconstructed philosophy
and the sciences, there was prescription in favor of the Aristotelian
philosophy; when our fathers of '89 demanded liberty and equality, there
was prescription in favor of tyranny and privilege. "There always have
been proprietors and there always will be:" it is with this profound
utterance, the final effort of selfishness dying in its last ditch,
that the friends of social inequality hope to repel the attacks of their
adversaries; thinking undoubtedly that ideas, like property, can be lost
by prescription.
Enlightened to-day by the triumphal march of science, taught by the most
glorious successes to question our own opinions, we receive with favor
and applause the observer of Nature, who, by a thousand experiments
based upon the most profound analysis, pursues a new principle, a law
hitherto undiscovered. We take care to repel no idea, no fact, under the
pretext that abler men than ourselves lived in former days, who did not
notice the same phenomena, nor grasp the same analogies. Why do we not
preserve a like attitude towards political and philosophical questions?
Why this ridiculous mania for affirming that every thing has been said,
which means that we know all about mental and moral science? Why is
the proverb, THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN, applied exclusively to
metaphysical investigations?
Because we still study philosophy with the imagination, instead of by
observation and method; because fancy and will are universally regarded
as judges, in the place of arguments and facts,--it has been impossible
to this day to distinguish the charlatan from the philosopher, the
savant from the impostor. Since the days of Solomon and Pythagoras,
imagination has been exhausted in guessing out social and psychological
laws; all systems have been proposed. Looked at in this light, it is
probably true that EVERY THING HAS BEEN SAID; but it is no less true
that EVERY THING REMAINS TO BE PROVED. In politics (to take only this
branch of philosophy), in politics every one is governed in his choice
of party by his passion and his interests; the mind is submitted to the
impositions of the will,--there is no knowledge, there is not even a
shadow of certainty. In this way, general ignorance produces general
tyranny; and while liberty of thought is written in the charter, slavery
of thought, under the name of MAJORITY RULE, is decreed by the charter.
In order to confine myself to the civil prescription of which the Code
speaks, I shall refrain from beginning a discussion upon this worn-out
objection brought forward by proprietors; it would be too tiresome
and declamatory. Everybody knows that there are rights which cannot be
prescribed; and, as for those things which can be gained through the
lapse of time, no one is ignorant of the fact that prescription requires
certain conditions, the omission of one of which renders it null. If it
is true, for example, that the proprietor's possession has been CIVIL,
PUBLIC, PEACEABLE, and UNINTERRUPTED, it is none the less true that
it is not based on a just title; since the only titles which it can
show--occupation and labor--prove as much for the proletaire who
demands, as for the proprietor who defends. Further, this possession is
DISHONEST, since it is founded on a violation of right, which prevents
prescription, according to the saying of St. Paul--_Nunquam in
usucapionibus juris error possessori prodest_. The violation of right
lies either in the fact that the holder possesses as proprietor, while
he should possess only as usufructuary; or in the fact that he has
purchased a thing which no one had a right to transfer or sell.
Another reason why prescription cannot be adduced in favor of property
(a reason borrowed from jurisprudence) is that the right to possess
real estate is a part of a universal right which has never been totally
destroyed even at the most critical periods; and the proletaire, in
order to regain the power to exercise it fully, has only to prove that
he has always exercised it in part.
He, for example, who has the universal right to possess, give, exchange,
loan, let, sell, transform, or destroy a thing, preserves the integrity
of this right by the sole act of loaning, though he has never shown his
authority in any other manner. Likewise we shall see that EQUALITY OF
POSSESSIONS, EQUALITY OF RIGHTS, LIBERTY, WILL, PERSONALITY, are so
many identical expressions of one and the same idea,--the RIGHT OF
PRESERVATION and DEVELOPMENT; in a word, the right of life, against
which there can be no prescription until the human race has vanished
from the face of the earth.
Finally, as to the time required for prescription, it would be
superfluous to show that the right of property in general cannot be
acquired by simple possession for ten, twenty, a hundred, a thousand,
or one hundred thousand years; and that, so long as there exists a human
head capable of understanding and combating the right of property, this
right will never be prescribed. For principles of jurisprudence and
axioms of reason are different from accidental and contingent facts.
One man's possession can prescribe against another man's possession; but
just as the possessor cannot prescribe against himself, so reason has
always the faculty of change and reformation. Past error is not binding
on the future. Reason is always the same eternal force. The institution
of property, the work of ignorant reason, may be abrogated by a more
enlightened reason. Consequently, property cannot be established by
prescription. This is so certain and so true, that on it rests the
maxim that in the matter of prescription a violation of right goes for
nothing.
But I should be recreant to my method, and the reader would have the
right to accuse me of charlatanism and bad faith, if I had nothing
further to advance concerning prescription. I showed, in the first
place, that appropriation of land is illegal; and that, supposing it to
be legal, it must be accompanied by equality of property. I have shown,
in the second place, that universal consent proves nothing in favor
of property; and that, if it proves any thing, it proves equality of
property. I have yet to show that prescription, if admissible at all,
presupposes equality of property.
This demonstration will be neither long nor difficult. I need only to
call attention to the reasons why prescription was introduced.
"Prescription," says Dunod, "seems repugnant to natural equity, which
permits no one either to deprive another of his possessions without his
knowledge and consent, or to enrich himself at another's expense. But as
it might often happen, in the absence of prescription, that one who had
honestly earned would be ousted after long possession; and even that
he who had received a thing from its rightful owner, or who had been
legitimately relieved from all obligations, would, on losing his title,
be liable to be dispossessed or subjected again,--the public welfare
demanded that a term should be fixed, after the expiration of which no
one should be allowed to disturb actual possessors, or reassert rights
too long neglected. . . . The civil law, in regulating prescription, has
aimed, then, only to perfect natural law, and to supplement the law of
nations; and as it is founded on the public good, which should always be
considered before individual welfare,--_bono publico usucapio introducta
est_,--it should be regarded with favor, provided the conditions
required by the law are fulfilled. "
Toullier, in his "Civil Law," says: "In order that the question of
proprietorship may not remain too long unsettled, and thereby injure the
public welfare, disturbing the peace of families and the stability of
social transactions, the law has fixed a time when all claims shall be
cancelled, and possession shall regain its ancient prerogative through
its transformation into property. "
Cassiodorus said of property, that it was the only safe harbor in
which to seek shelter from the tempests of chicanery and the gales of
avarice--_Hic unus inter humanas pro cellas portus, quem si homines
fervida voluntate praeterierint; in undosis semper jurgiis errabunt_.
Thus, in the opinion of the authors, prescription is a means of
preserving public order; a restoration in certain cases of the original
mode of acquiring property; a fiction of the civil law which derives
all its force from the necessity of settling differences which otherwise
would never end. For, as Grotius says, time has no power to produce
effects; all things happen in time, but nothing is done by time.
Prescription, or the right of acquisition through the lapse of time, is,
therefore, a fiction of the law, conventionally adopted.
But all property necessarily originated in prescription, or, as the
Latins say, in _usucapion;_ that is, in continued possession.
I ask, then, in the first place, how possession can become property by
the lapse of time? Continue possession as long as you wish, continue
it for years and for centuries, you never can give duration--which of
itself creates nothing, changes nothing, modifies nothing--the power
to change the usufructuary into a proprietor. Let the civil law secure
against chance-comers the honest possessor who has held his position
for many years,--that only confirms a right already respected; and
prescription, applied in this way, simply means that possession which
has continued for twenty, thirty, or a hundred years shall be retained
by the occupant. But when the law declares that the lapse of time
changes possessor into proprietor, it supposes that a right can be
created without a producing cause; it unwarrantably alters the character
of the subject; it legislates on a matter not open to legislation; it
exceeds its own powers. Public order and private security ask only
that possession shall be protected. Why has the law created property?
Prescription was simply security for the future; why has the law made it
a matter of privilege?
Thus the origin of prescription is identical with that of property
itself; and since the latter can legitimate itself only when accompanied
by equality, prescription is but another of the thousand forms which the
necessity of maintaining this precious equality has taken. And this is
no vain induction, no far-fetched inference. The proof is written in all
the codes.
And, indeed, if all nations, through their instinct of justice and their
conservative nature, have recognized the utility and the necessity
of prescription; and if their design has been to guard thereby the
interests of the possessor,--could they not do something for the absent
citizen, separated from his family and his country by commerce, war, or
captivity, and in no position to exercise his right of possession? No.
Also, at the same time that prescription was introduced into the laws,
it was admitted that property is preserved by intent alone,--_nudo
animo_. Now, if property is preserved by intent alone, if it can be
lost only by the action of the proprietor, what can be the use of
prescription? How does the law dare to presume that the proprietor, who
preserves by intent alone, intended to abandon that which he has allowed
to be prescribed? What lapse of time can warrant such a conjecture;
and by what right does the law punish the absence of the proprietor by
depriving him of his goods? What then! we found but a moment since that
prescription and property were identical; and now we find that they are
mutually destructive!
Grotius, who perceived this difficulty, replied so singularly that his
words deserve to be quoted: _Bene sperandum de hominibus, ac propterea
non putandum eos hoc esse animo ut, rei caducae causa, hominem alterum
velint in perpetuo peccato versari, quo d evitari saepe non poterit sine
tali derelictione_.
"Where is the man," he says, "with so unchristian a soul that, for a
trifle, he would perpetuate the trespass of a possessor, which would
inevitably be the result if he did not consent to abandon his right? " By
the Eternal! I am that man. Though a million proprietors should burn for
it in hell, I lay the blame on them for depriving me of my portion of
this world's goods. To this powerful consideration Grotius rejoins, that
it is better to abandon a disputed right than to go to law, disturb the
peace of nations, and stir up the flames of civil war. I accept, if you
wish it, this argument, provided you indemnify me. But if this indemnity
is refused me, what do I, a proletaire, care for the tranquillity and
security of the rich? I care as little for PUBLIC ORDER as for the
proprietor's safety. I ask to live a laborer; otherwise I will die a
warrior.
Whichever way we turn, we shall come to the conclusion that prescription
is a contradiction of property; or rather that prescription and property
are two forms of the same principle, but two forms which serve to
correct each other; and ancient and modern jurisprudence did not make
the least of its blunders in pretending to reconcile them. Indeed, if
we see in the institution of property only a desire to secure to
each individual his share of the soil and his right to labor; in the
distinction between naked property and possession only an asylum for
absentees, orphans, and all who do not know, or cannot maintain, their
rights; in prescription only a means, either of defence against unjust
pretensions and encroachments, or of settlement of the differences
caused by the removal of possessors,--we shall recognize in these
various forms of human justice the spontaneous efforts of the mind to
come to the aid of the social instinct; we shall see in this protection
of all rights the sentiment of equality, a constant levelling tendency.
And, looking deeper, we shall find in the very exaggeration of these
principles the confirmation of our doctrine; because, if equality of
conditions and universal association are not soon realized, it will be
owing to the obstacle thrown for the time in the way of the common sense
of the people by the stupidity of legislators and judges; and also to
the fact that, while society in its original state was illuminated with
a flash of truth, the early speculations of its leaders could bring
forth nothing but darkness.
After the first covenants, after the first draughts of laws and
constitutions, which were the expression of man's primary needs, the
legislator's duty was to reform the errors of legislation; to complete
that which was defective; to harmonize, by superior definitions, those
things which seemed to conflict. Instead of that, they halted at the
literal meaning of the laws, content to play the subordinate part of
commentators and scholiasts. Taking the inspirations of the human mind,
at that time necessarily weak and faulty, for axioms of eternal and
unquestionable truth,--influenced by public opinion, enslaved by the
popular religion,--they have invariably started with the principle
(following in this respect the example of the theologians) that that is
infallibly true which has been admitted by all persons, in all places,
and at all times--_quod ab omnibus, quod ubique, quod semper;_ as if a
general but spontaneous opinion was any thing more than an indication of
the truth. Let us not be deceived: the opinion of all nations may serve
to authenticate the perception of a fact, the vague sentiment of a law;
it can teach us nothing about either fact or law. The consent of mankind
is an indication of Nature; not, as Cicero says, a law of Nature. Under
the indication is hidden the truth, which faith can believe, but only
thought can know. Such has been the constant progress of the human mind
in regard to physical phenomena and the creations of genius: how can
it be otherwise with the facts of conscience and the rules of human
conduct?
% 4. --Labor--That Labor Has No Inherent Power to Appropriate Natural
Wealth.
We shall show by the maxims of political economy and law, that is, by
the authorities recognized by property,--
1. That labor has no inherent power to appropriate natural wealth.
2. That, if we admit that labor has this power, we are led directly to
equality of property,--whatever the kind of labor, however scarce the
product, or unequal the ability of the laborers.
3. That, in the order of justice, labor DESTROYS property.
Following the example of our opponents, and that we may leave no
obstacles in the path, let us examine the question in the strongest
possible light.
M. Ch. Comte says, in his "Treatise on Property:"--
"France, considered as a nation, has a territory which is her own. "
France, as an individuality, possesses a territory which she cultivates;
it is not her property. Nations are related to each other as individuals
are: they are commoners and workers; it is an abuse of language to call
them proprietors. The right of use and abuse belongs no more to nations
than to men; and the time will come when a war waged for the purpose of
checking a nation in its abuse of the soil will be regarded as a holy
war.
Thus, M. Ch. Comte--who undertakes to explain how property comes into
existence, and who starts with the supposition that a nation is a
proprietor--falls into that error known as BEGGING THE QUESTION; a
mistake which vitiates his whole argument.
If the reader thinks it is pushing logic too far to question a nation's
right of property in the territory which it possesses, I will simply
remind him of the fact that at all ages the results of the fictitious
right of national property have been pretensions to suzerainty,
tributes, monarchical privileges, statute-labor, quotas of men and
money, supplies of merchandise, &c. ; ending finally in refusals to pay
taxes, insurrections, wars, and depopulations.
"Scattered through this territory are extended tracts of land, which
have not been converted into individual property. These lands, which
consist mainly of forests, belong to the whole population, and the
government, which receives the revenues, uses or ought to use them in
the interest of all. "
OUGHT TO USE is well said: a lie is avoided thereby.
"Let them be offered for sale. . . . "
Why offered for sale? Who has a right to sell them? Even were the nation
proprietor, can the generation of to-day dispossess the generation of
to-morrow? The nation, in its function of usufructuary, possesses
them; the government rules, superintends, and protects them. If it also
granted lands, it could grant only their use; it has no right to sell
them or transfer them in any way whatever. Not being a proprietor, how
can it transmit property?
"Suppose some industrious man buys a portion, a large swamp for example.
This would be no usurpation, since the public would receive the exact
value through the hands of the government, and would be as rich after
the sale as before. "
How ridiculous! What! because a prodigal, imprudent, incompetent
official sells the State's possessions, while I, a ward of the State,--I
who have neither an advisory nor a deliberative voice in the State
councils,--while I am allowed to make no opposition to the sale,
this sale is right and legal! The guardians of the nation waste its
substance, and it has no redress! I have received, you tell me, through
the hands of the government my share of the proceeds of the sale: but,
in the first place, I did not wish to sell; and, had I wished to, I
could not have sold. I had not the right. And then I do not see that I
am benefited by the sale. My guardians have dressed up some soldiers,
repaired an old fortress, erected in their pride some costly but
worthless monument,--then they have exploded some fireworks and set up a
greased pole! What does all that amount to in comparison with my loss?
The purchaser draws boundaries, fences himself in, and says, "This is
mine; each one by himself, each one for himself. " Here, then, is a piece
of land upon which, henceforth, no one has a right to step, save
the proprietor and his friends; which can benefit nobody, save the
proprietor and his servants. Let these sales multiply, and soon the
people--who have been neither able nor willing to sell, and who have
received none of the proceeds of the sale--will have nowhere to rest,
no place of shelter, no ground to till. They will die of hunger at
the proprietor's door, on the edge of that property which was their
birthright; and the proprietor, watching them die, will exclaim, "So
perish idlers and vagrants! "
To reconcile us to the proprietor's usurpation, M. Ch. Comte assumes the
lands to be of little value at the time of sale.
"The importance of these usurpations should not be exaggerated: they
should be measured by the number of men which the occupied land would
support, and by the means which it would furnish them.
"It is evident, for instance, that if a piece of land which is worth
to-day one thousand francs was worth only five centimes when it was
usurped, we really lose only the value of five centimes. A square league
of earth would be hardly sufficient to support a savage in distress;
to-day it supplies one thousand persons with the means of existence.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine parts of this land is the legitimate
property of the possessors; only one-thousandth of the value has been
usurped. "
A peasant admitted one day, at confession, that he had destroyed a
document which declared him a debtor to the amount of three hundred
francs. Said the father confessor, "You must return these three hundred
francs. " "No," replied the peasant, "I will return a penny to pay for
the paper. "
M. Ch. Comte's logic resembles this peasant's honesty. The soil has not
only an integrant and actual value, it has also a potential value,--a
value of the future,--which depends on our ability to make it valuable,
and to employ it in our work. Destroy a bill of exchange, a promissory
note, an annuity deed,--as a paper you destroy almost no value at all;
but with this paper you destroy your title, and, in losing your title,
you deprive yourself of your goods. Destroy the land, or, what is the
same thing, sell it,--you not only transfer one, two, or several crops,
but you annihilate all the products that you could derive from it; you
and your children and your children's children.
When M. Ch. Comte, the apostle of property and the eulogist of labor,
supposes an alienation of the soil on the part of the government, we
must not think that he does so without reason and for no purpose; it
is a necessary part of his position. As he rejected the theory of
occupancy, and as he knew, moreover, that labor could not constitute the
right in the absence of a previous permission to occupy, he was obliged
to connect this permission with the authority of the government, which
means that property is based upon the sovereignty of the people;
in other words, upon universal consent. This theory we have already
considered.
