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.
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.
Proudhon - What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government
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.
To say that property is the daughter of labor, and then to give labor
material on which to exercise itself, is, if I am not mistaken, to
reason in a circle. Contradictions will result from it.
"A piece of land of a certain size produces food enough to supply a man
for one day. If the possessor, through his labor, discovers some method
of making it produce enough for two days, he doubles its value. This
new value is his work, his creation: it is taken from nobody; it is his
property. "
I maintain that the possessor is paid for his trouble and industry in
his doubled crop, but that he acquires no right to the land. "Let
the laborer have the fruits of his labor. " Very good; but I do not
understand that property in products carries with it property in raw
material. Does the skill of the fisherman, who on the same coast
can catch more fish than his fellows, make him proprietor of the
fishing-grounds? Can the expertness of a hunter ever be regarded as
a property-title to a game-forest? The analogy is perfect,--the
industrious cultivator finds the reward of his industry in the abundancy
and superiority of his crop. If he has made improvements in the soil, he
has the possessor's right of preference. Never, under any circumstances,
can he be allowed to claim a property-title to the soil which he
cultivates, on the ground of his skill as a cultivator.
To change possession into property, something is needed besides labor,
without which a man would cease to be proprietor as soon as he ceased
to be a laborer. Now, the law bases property upon immemorial,
unquestionable possession; that is, prescription. Labor is only the
sensible sign, the physical act, by which occupation is manifested. If,
then, the cultivator remains proprietor after he has ceased to labor
and produce; if his possession, first conceded, then tolerated, finally
becomes inalienable,--it happens by permission of the civil law, and by
virtue of the principle of occupancy. So true is this, that there is not
a bill of sale, not a farm lease, not an annuity, but implies it. I will
quote only one example.
How do we measure the value of land? By its product. If a piece of land
yields one thousand francs, we say that at five per cent. it is worth
twenty thousand francs; at four per cent. twenty-five thousand francs,
&c. ; which means, in other words, that in twenty or twenty-five years'
time the purchaser would recover in full the amount originally paid for
the land. If, then, after a certain length of time, the price of a piece
of land has been wholly recovered, why does the purchaser continue to be
proprietor? Because of the right of occupancy, in the absence of which
every sale would be a redemption.
The theory of appropriation by labor is, then, a contradiction of the
Code; and when the partisans of this theory pretend to explain the laws
thereby, they contradict themselves.
"If men succeed in fertilizing land hitherto unproductive, or even
death-producing, like certain swamps, they create thereby property in
all its completeness. "
What good does it do to magnify an expression, and play with
equivocations, as if we expected to change the reality thereby? THEY
CREATE PROPERTY IN ALL ITS COMPLETENESS. You mean that they create a
productive capacity which formerly did not exist; but this capacity
cannot be created without material to support it. The substance of the
soil remains the same; only its qualities and modifications are changed.
Man has created every thing--every thing save the material itself. Now,
I maintain that this material he can only possess and use, on condition
of permanent labor,--granting, for the time being, his right of property
in things which he has produced.
This, then, is the first point settled: property in product, if we grant
so much, does not carry with it property in the means of production;
that seems to me to need no further demonstration. There is no
difference between the soldier who possesses his arms, the mason
who possesses the materials committed to his care, the fisherman who
possesses the water, the hunter who possesses the fields and forests,
and the cultivator who possesses the lands: all, if you say so, are
proprietors of their products--not one is proprietor of the means of
production. The right to product is exclusive--jus in re; the right to
means is common--jus ad rem.
% 5. --That Labor leads to Equality of Property.
Admit, however, that labor gives a right of property in material.
Why is not this principle universal? Why is the benefit of this
pretended law confined to a few and denied to the mass of laborers?
A philosopher, arguing that all animals sprang up formerly out of the
earth warmed by the rays of the sun, almost like mushrooms, on being
asked why the earth no longer yielded crops of that nature, replied:
"Because it is old, and has lost its fertility. " Has labor, once so
fecund, likewise become sterile? Why does the tenant no longer acquire
through his labor the land which was formerly acquired by the labor of
the proprietor?
"Because," they say, "it is already appropriated. " That is no answer. A
farm yields fifty bushels per hectare; the skill and labor of the tenant
double this product: the increase is created by the tenant. Suppose the
owner, in a spirit of moderation rarely met with, does not go to the
extent of absorbing this product by raising the rent, but allows the
cultivator to enjoy the results of his labor; even then justice is not
satisfied. The tenant, by improving the land, has imparted a new value
to the property; he, therefore, has a right to a part of the property.
If the farm was originally worth one hundred thousand francs, and if
by the labor of the tenant its value has risen to one hundred and fifty
thousand francs, the tenant, who produced this extra value, is the
legitimate proprietor of one-third of the farm. M. Ch. Comte could not
have pronounced this doctrine false, for it was he who said:--
"Men who increase the fertility of the earth are no less useful to their
fellow-men, than if they should create new land. "
Why, then, is not this rule applicable to the man who improves the land,
as well as to him who clears it? The labor of the former makes the land
worth one; that of the latter makes it worth two: both create equal
values. Why not accord to both equal property? I defy any one to
refute this argument, without again falling back on the right of first
occupancy.
"But," it will be said, "even if your wish should be granted, property
would not be distributed much more evenly than now. Land does not go on
increasing in value for ever; after two or three seasons it attains its
maximum fertility. That which is added by the agricultural art results
rather from the progress of science and the diffusion of knowledge, than
from the skill of the cultivator. Consequently, the addition of a
few laborers to the mass of proprietors would be no argument against
property. "
This discussion would, indeed, prove a well-nigh useless one, if our
labors culminated in simply extending land-privilege and industrial
monopoly; in emancipating only a few hundred laborers out of the
millions of proletaires. But this also is a misconception of our real
thought, and does but prove the general lack of intelligence and logic.
If the laborer, who adds to the value of a thing, has a right of
property in it, he who maintains this value acquires the same right.
For what is maintenance? It is incessant addition,--continuous creation.
What is it to cultivate? It is to give the soil its value every year;
it is, by annually renewed creation, to prevent the diminution or
destruction of the value of a piece of land. Admitting, then, that
property is rational and legitimate,--admitting that rent is equitable
and just,--I say that he who cultivates acquires property by as good a
title as he who clears, or he who improves; and that every time a tenant
pays his rent, he obtains a fraction of property in the land entrusted
to his care, the denominator of which is equal to the proportion of rent
paid. Unless you admit this, you fall into absolutism and tyranny; you
recognize class privileges; you sanction slavery.
Whoever labors becomes a proprietor--this is an inevitable deduction
from the acknowledged principles of political economy and jurisprudence.
And when I say proprietor, I do not mean simply (as do our hypocritical
economists) proprietor of his allowance, his salary, his wages,--I mean
proprietor of the value which he creates, and by which the master alone
profits.
As all this relates to the theory of wages and of the distribution of
products,--and as this matter never has been even partially cleared
up,--I ask permission to insist on it: this discussion will not
be useless to the work in hand. Many persons talk of admitting
working-people to a share in the products and profits; but in
their minds this participation is pure benevolence: they have never
shown--perhaps never suspected--that it was a natural, necessary right,
inherent in labor, and inseparable from the function of producer, even
in the lowest forms of his work.
This is my proposition: THE LABORER RETAINS, EVEN AFTER HE HAS RECEIVED
HIS WAGES, A NATURAL RIGHT OF PROPERTY IN THE THING WHICH HE HAS
PRODUCED.
I again quote M. Ch. Comte:--
"Some laborers are employed in draining marshes, in cutting down trees
and brushwood,--in a word, in cleaning up the soil. They increase the
value, they make the amount of property larger; they are paid for
the value which they add in the form of food and daily wages: it then
becomes the property of the capitalist. "
The price is not sufficient: the labor of the workers has created a
value; now this value is their property. But they have neither sold
nor exchanged it; and you, capitalist, you have not earned it. That you
should have a partial right to the whole, in return for the materials
that you have furnished and the provisions that you have supplied, is
perfectly just. You contributed to the production, you ought to share in
the enjoyment. But your right does not annihilate that of the laborers,
who, in spite of you, have been your colleagues in the work of
production. Why do you talk of wages? The money with which you pay
the wages of the laborers remunerates them for only a few years of the
perpetual possession which they have abandoned to you. Wages is the cost
of the daily maintenance and refreshment of the laborer. You are wrong
in calling it the price of a sale. The workingman has sold nothing; he
knows neither his right, nor the extent of the concession which he has
made to you, nor the meaning of the contract which you pretend to
have made with him. On his side, utter ignorance; on yours, error and
surprise, not to say deceit and fraud.
Let us make this clearer by another and more striking example.
No one is ignorant of the difficulties that are met with in the
conversion of untilled land into arable and productive land. These
difficulties are so great, that usually an isolated man would perish
before he could put the soil in a condition to yield him even the most
meagre living. To that end are needed the united and combined efforts of
society, and all the resources of industry. M. Ch. Comte quotes on this
subject numerous and well-authenticated facts, little thinking that he
is amassing testimony against his own system.
Let us suppose that a colony of twenty or thirty families establishes
itself in a wild district, covered with underbrush and forests; and from
which, by agreement, the natives consent to withdraw. Each one of these
families possesses a moderate but sufficient amount of capital, of such
a nature as a colonist would be apt to choose,--animals, seeds, tools,
and a little money and food. The land having been divided, each one
settles himself as comfortably as possible, and begins to clear away the
portion allotted to him. But after a few weeks of fatigue, such as they
never before have known, of inconceivable suffering, of ruinous and
almost useless labor, our colonists begin to complain of their trade;
their condition seems hard to them; they curse their sad existence.
Suddenly, one of the shrewdest among them kills a pig, cures a part of
the meat; and, resolved to sacrifice the rest of his provisions, goes to
find his companions in misery. "Friends," he begins in a very benevolent
tone, "how much trouble it costs you to do a little work and live
uncomfortably! A fortnight of labor has reduced you to your last
extremity! . . . Let us make an arrangement by which you shall all profit.
I offer you provisions and wine: you shall get so much every day;
we will work together, and, zounds! my friends, we will be happy and
contented! "
Would it be possible for empty stomachs to resist such an invitation?
The hungriest of them follow the treacherous tempter. They go to work;
the charm of society, emulation, joy, and mutual assistance double their
strength; the work can be seen to advance. Singing and laughing, they
subdue Nature. In a short time, the soil is thoroughly changed; the
mellowed earth waits only for the seed. That done, the proprietor pays
his laborers, who, on going away, return him their thanks, and grieve
that the happy days which they have spent with him are over.
Others follow this example, always with the same success. Then, these
installed, the rest disperse,--each one returns to his grubbing. But,
while grubbing, it is necessary to live. While they have been clearing
away for their neighbor, they have done no clearing for themselves. One
year's seed-time and harvest is already gone. They had calculated that
in lending their labor they could not but gain, since they would save
their own provisions; and, while living better, would get still more
money. False calculation! they have created for another the means
wherewith to produce, and have created nothing for themselves. The
difficulties of clearing remain the same; their clothing wears out,
their provisions give out; soon their purse becomes empty for the profit
of the individual for whom they have worked, and who alone can furnish
the provisions which they need, since he alone is in a position to
produce them. Then, when the poor grubber has exhausted his resources,
the man with the provisions (like the wolf in the fable, who scents his
victim from afar) again comes forward. One he offers to employ again by
the day; from another he offers to buy at a favorable price a piece of
his bad land, which is not, and never can be, of any use to him: that
is, he uses the labor of one man to cultivate the field of another
for his own benefit. So that at the end of twenty years, of thirty
individuals originally equal in point of wealth, five or six have
become proprietors of the whole district, while the rest have been
philanthropically dispossessed!
In this century of bourgeoisie morality, in which I have had the honor
to be born, the moral sense is so debased that I should not be at all
surprised if I were asked, by many a worthy proprietor, what I see
in this that is unjust and illegitimate? Debased creature! galvanized
corpse! how can I expect to convince you, if you cannot tell robbery
when I show it to you? A man, by soft and insinuating words, discovers
the secret of taxing others that he may establish himself; then, once
enriched by their united efforts, he refuses, on the very conditions
which he himself dictated, to advance the well-being of those who made
his fortune for him: and you ask how such conduct is fraudulent! Under
the pretext that he has paid his laborers, that he owes them nothing
more, that he has nothing to gain by putting himself at the service of
others, while his own occupations claim his attention,--he refuses, I
say, to aid others in getting a foothold, as he was aided in getting his
own; and when, in the impotence of their isolation, these poor laborers
are compelled to sell their birthright, he--this ungrateful proprietor,
this knavish upstart--stands ready to put the finishing touch to their
deprivation and their ruin. And you think that just? Take care!
I read in your startled countenance the reproach of a guilty conscience,
much more clearly than the innocent astonishment of involuntary
ignorance.
"The capitalist," they say, "has paid the laborers their DAILY WAGES. "
To be accurate, it must be said that the capitalist has paid as many
times one day's wage as he has employed laborers each day,--which is not
at all the same thing. For he has paid nothing for that immense
power which results from the union and harmony of laborers, and
the convergence and simultaneousness of their efforts. Two hundred
grenadiers stood the obelisk of Luxor upon its base in a few hours; do
you suppose that one man could have accomplished the same task in two
hundred days? Nevertheless, on the books of the capitalist, the amount
of wages paid would have been the same. Well, a desert to prepare for
cultivation, a house to build, a factory to run,--all these are
obelisks to erect, mountains to move. The smallest fortune, the most
insignificant establishment, the setting in motion of the lowest
industry, demand the concurrence of so many different kinds of labor and
skill, that one man could not possibly execute the whole of them. It
is astonishing that the economists never have called attention to this
fact. Strike a balance, then, between the capitalist's receipts and his
payments.
The laborer needs a salary which will enable him to live while he works;
for unless he consumes, he cannot produce.
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.
To say that property is the daughter of labor, and then to give labor
material on which to exercise itself, is, if I am not mistaken, to
reason in a circle. Contradictions will result from it.
"A piece of land of a certain size produces food enough to supply a man
for one day. If the possessor, through his labor, discovers some method
of making it produce enough for two days, he doubles its value. This
new value is his work, his creation: it is taken from nobody; it is his
property. "
I maintain that the possessor is paid for his trouble and industry in
his doubled crop, but that he acquires no right to the land. "Let
the laborer have the fruits of his labor. " Very good; but I do not
understand that property in products carries with it property in raw
material. Does the skill of the fisherman, who on the same coast
can catch more fish than his fellows, make him proprietor of the
fishing-grounds? Can the expertness of a hunter ever be regarded as
a property-title to a game-forest? The analogy is perfect,--the
industrious cultivator finds the reward of his industry in the abundancy
and superiority of his crop. If he has made improvements in the soil, he
has the possessor's right of preference. Never, under any circumstances,
can he be allowed to claim a property-title to the soil which he
cultivates, on the ground of his skill as a cultivator.
To change possession into property, something is needed besides labor,
without which a man would cease to be proprietor as soon as he ceased
to be a laborer. Now, the law bases property upon immemorial,
unquestionable possession; that is, prescription. Labor is only the
sensible sign, the physical act, by which occupation is manifested. If,
then, the cultivator remains proprietor after he has ceased to labor
and produce; if his possession, first conceded, then tolerated, finally
becomes inalienable,--it happens by permission of the civil law, and by
virtue of the principle of occupancy. So true is this, that there is not
a bill of sale, not a farm lease, not an annuity, but implies it. I will
quote only one example.
How do we measure the value of land? By its product. If a piece of land
yields one thousand francs, we say that at five per cent. it is worth
twenty thousand francs; at four per cent. twenty-five thousand francs,
&c. ; which means, in other words, that in twenty or twenty-five years'
time the purchaser would recover in full the amount originally paid for
the land. If, then, after a certain length of time, the price of a piece
of land has been wholly recovered, why does the purchaser continue to be
proprietor? Because of the right of occupancy, in the absence of which
every sale would be a redemption.
The theory of appropriation by labor is, then, a contradiction of the
Code; and when the partisans of this theory pretend to explain the laws
thereby, they contradict themselves.
"If men succeed in fertilizing land hitherto unproductive, or even
death-producing, like certain swamps, they create thereby property in
all its completeness. "
What good does it do to magnify an expression, and play with
equivocations, as if we expected to change the reality thereby? THEY
CREATE PROPERTY IN ALL ITS COMPLETENESS. You mean that they create a
productive capacity which formerly did not exist; but this capacity
cannot be created without material to support it. The substance of the
soil remains the same; only its qualities and modifications are changed.
Man has created every thing--every thing save the material itself. Now,
I maintain that this material he can only possess and use, on condition
of permanent labor,--granting, for the time being, his right of property
in things which he has produced.
This, then, is the first point settled: property in product, if we grant
so much, does not carry with it property in the means of production;
that seems to me to need no further demonstration. There is no
difference between the soldier who possesses his arms, the mason
who possesses the materials committed to his care, the fisherman who
possesses the water, the hunter who possesses the fields and forests,
and the cultivator who possesses the lands: all, if you say so, are
proprietors of their products--not one is proprietor of the means of
production. The right to product is exclusive--jus in re; the right to
means is common--jus ad rem.
% 5. --That Labor leads to Equality of Property.
Admit, however, that labor gives a right of property in material.
Why is not this principle universal? Why is the benefit of this
pretended law confined to a few and denied to the mass of laborers?
A philosopher, arguing that all animals sprang up formerly out of the
earth warmed by the rays of the sun, almost like mushrooms, on being
asked why the earth no longer yielded crops of that nature, replied:
"Because it is old, and has lost its fertility. " Has labor, once so
fecund, likewise become sterile? Why does the tenant no longer acquire
through his labor the land which was formerly acquired by the labor of
the proprietor?
"Because," they say, "it is already appropriated. " That is no answer. A
farm yields fifty bushels per hectare; the skill and labor of the tenant
double this product: the increase is created by the tenant. Suppose the
owner, in a spirit of moderation rarely met with, does not go to the
extent of absorbing this product by raising the rent, but allows the
cultivator to enjoy the results of his labor; even then justice is not
satisfied. The tenant, by improving the land, has imparted a new value
to the property; he, therefore, has a right to a part of the property.
If the farm was originally worth one hundred thousand francs, and if
by the labor of the tenant its value has risen to one hundred and fifty
thousand francs, the tenant, who produced this extra value, is the
legitimate proprietor of one-third of the farm. M. Ch. Comte could not
have pronounced this doctrine false, for it was he who said:--
"Men who increase the fertility of the earth are no less useful to their
fellow-men, than if they should create new land. "
Why, then, is not this rule applicable to the man who improves the land,
as well as to him who clears it? The labor of the former makes the land
worth one; that of the latter makes it worth two: both create equal
values. Why not accord to both equal property? I defy any one to
refute this argument, without again falling back on the right of first
occupancy.
"But," it will be said, "even if your wish should be granted, property
would not be distributed much more evenly than now. Land does not go on
increasing in value for ever; after two or three seasons it attains its
maximum fertility. That which is added by the agricultural art results
rather from the progress of science and the diffusion of knowledge, than
from the skill of the cultivator. Consequently, the addition of a
few laborers to the mass of proprietors would be no argument against
property. "
This discussion would, indeed, prove a well-nigh useless one, if our
labors culminated in simply extending land-privilege and industrial
monopoly; in emancipating only a few hundred laborers out of the
millions of proletaires. But this also is a misconception of our real
thought, and does but prove the general lack of intelligence and logic.
If the laborer, who adds to the value of a thing, has a right of
property in it, he who maintains this value acquires the same right.
For what is maintenance? It is incessant addition,--continuous creation.
What is it to cultivate? It is to give the soil its value every year;
it is, by annually renewed creation, to prevent the diminution or
destruction of the value of a piece of land. Admitting, then, that
property is rational and legitimate,--admitting that rent is equitable
and just,--I say that he who cultivates acquires property by as good a
title as he who clears, or he who improves; and that every time a tenant
pays his rent, he obtains a fraction of property in the land entrusted
to his care, the denominator of which is equal to the proportion of rent
paid. Unless you admit this, you fall into absolutism and tyranny; you
recognize class privileges; you sanction slavery.
Whoever labors becomes a proprietor--this is an inevitable deduction
from the acknowledged principles of political economy and jurisprudence.
And when I say proprietor, I do not mean simply (as do our hypocritical
economists) proprietor of his allowance, his salary, his wages,--I mean
proprietor of the value which he creates, and by which the master alone
profits.
As all this relates to the theory of wages and of the distribution of
products,--and as this matter never has been even partially cleared
up,--I ask permission to insist on it: this discussion will not
be useless to the work in hand. Many persons talk of admitting
working-people to a share in the products and profits; but in
their minds this participation is pure benevolence: they have never
shown--perhaps never suspected--that it was a natural, necessary right,
inherent in labor, and inseparable from the function of producer, even
in the lowest forms of his work.
This is my proposition: THE LABORER RETAINS, EVEN AFTER HE HAS RECEIVED
HIS WAGES, A NATURAL RIGHT OF PROPERTY IN THE THING WHICH HE HAS
PRODUCED.
I again quote M. Ch. Comte:--
"Some laborers are employed in draining marshes, in cutting down trees
and brushwood,--in a word, in cleaning up the soil. They increase the
value, they make the amount of property larger; they are paid for
the value which they add in the form of food and daily wages: it then
becomes the property of the capitalist. "
The price is not sufficient: the labor of the workers has created a
value; now this value is their property. But they have neither sold
nor exchanged it; and you, capitalist, you have not earned it. That you
should have a partial right to the whole, in return for the materials
that you have furnished and the provisions that you have supplied, is
perfectly just. You contributed to the production, you ought to share in
the enjoyment. But your right does not annihilate that of the laborers,
who, in spite of you, have been your colleagues in the work of
production. Why do you talk of wages? The money with which you pay
the wages of the laborers remunerates them for only a few years of the
perpetual possession which they have abandoned to you. Wages is the cost
of the daily maintenance and refreshment of the laborer. You are wrong
in calling it the price of a sale. The workingman has sold nothing; he
knows neither his right, nor the extent of the concession which he has
made to you, nor the meaning of the contract which you pretend to
have made with him. On his side, utter ignorance; on yours, error and
surprise, not to say deceit and fraud.
Let us make this clearer by another and more striking example.
No one is ignorant of the difficulties that are met with in the
conversion of untilled land into arable and productive land. These
difficulties are so great, that usually an isolated man would perish
before he could put the soil in a condition to yield him even the most
meagre living. To that end are needed the united and combined efforts of
society, and all the resources of industry. M. Ch. Comte quotes on this
subject numerous and well-authenticated facts, little thinking that he
is amassing testimony against his own system.
Let us suppose that a colony of twenty or thirty families establishes
itself in a wild district, covered with underbrush and forests; and from
which, by agreement, the natives consent to withdraw. Each one of these
families possesses a moderate but sufficient amount of capital, of such
a nature as a colonist would be apt to choose,--animals, seeds, tools,
and a little money and food. The land having been divided, each one
settles himself as comfortably as possible, and begins to clear away the
portion allotted to him. But after a few weeks of fatigue, such as they
never before have known, of inconceivable suffering, of ruinous and
almost useless labor, our colonists begin to complain of their trade;
their condition seems hard to them; they curse their sad existence.
Suddenly, one of the shrewdest among them kills a pig, cures a part of
the meat; and, resolved to sacrifice the rest of his provisions, goes to
find his companions in misery. "Friends," he begins in a very benevolent
tone, "how much trouble it costs you to do a little work and live
uncomfortably! A fortnight of labor has reduced you to your last
extremity! . . . Let us make an arrangement by which you shall all profit.
I offer you provisions and wine: you shall get so much every day;
we will work together, and, zounds! my friends, we will be happy and
contented! "
Would it be possible for empty stomachs to resist such an invitation?
The hungriest of them follow the treacherous tempter. They go to work;
the charm of society, emulation, joy, and mutual assistance double their
strength; the work can be seen to advance. Singing and laughing, they
subdue Nature. In a short time, the soil is thoroughly changed; the
mellowed earth waits only for the seed. That done, the proprietor pays
his laborers, who, on going away, return him their thanks, and grieve
that the happy days which they have spent with him are over.
Others follow this example, always with the same success. Then, these
installed, the rest disperse,--each one returns to his grubbing. But,
while grubbing, it is necessary to live. While they have been clearing
away for their neighbor, they have done no clearing for themselves. One
year's seed-time and harvest is already gone. They had calculated that
in lending their labor they could not but gain, since they would save
their own provisions; and, while living better, would get still more
money. False calculation! they have created for another the means
wherewith to produce, and have created nothing for themselves. The
difficulties of clearing remain the same; their clothing wears out,
their provisions give out; soon their purse becomes empty for the profit
of the individual for whom they have worked, and who alone can furnish
the provisions which they need, since he alone is in a position to
produce them. Then, when the poor grubber has exhausted his resources,
the man with the provisions (like the wolf in the fable, who scents his
victim from afar) again comes forward. One he offers to employ again by
the day; from another he offers to buy at a favorable price a piece of
his bad land, which is not, and never can be, of any use to him: that
is, he uses the labor of one man to cultivate the field of another
for his own benefit. So that at the end of twenty years, of thirty
individuals originally equal in point of wealth, five or six have
become proprietors of the whole district, while the rest have been
philanthropically dispossessed!
In this century of bourgeoisie morality, in which I have had the honor
to be born, the moral sense is so debased that I should not be at all
surprised if I were asked, by many a worthy proprietor, what I see
in this that is unjust and illegitimate? Debased creature! galvanized
corpse! how can I expect to convince you, if you cannot tell robbery
when I show it to you? A man, by soft and insinuating words, discovers
the secret of taxing others that he may establish himself; then, once
enriched by their united efforts, he refuses, on the very conditions
which he himself dictated, to advance the well-being of those who made
his fortune for him: and you ask how such conduct is fraudulent! Under
the pretext that he has paid his laborers, that he owes them nothing
more, that he has nothing to gain by putting himself at the service of
others, while his own occupations claim his attention,--he refuses, I
say, to aid others in getting a foothold, as he was aided in getting his
own; and when, in the impotence of their isolation, these poor laborers
are compelled to sell their birthright, he--this ungrateful proprietor,
this knavish upstart--stands ready to put the finishing touch to their
deprivation and their ruin. And you think that just? Take care!
I read in your startled countenance the reproach of a guilty conscience,
much more clearly than the innocent astonishment of involuntary
ignorance.
"The capitalist," they say, "has paid the laborers their DAILY WAGES. "
To be accurate, it must be said that the capitalist has paid as many
times one day's wage as he has employed laborers each day,--which is not
at all the same thing. For he has paid nothing for that immense
power which results from the union and harmony of laborers, and
the convergence and simultaneousness of their efforts. Two hundred
grenadiers stood the obelisk of Luxor upon its base in a few hours; do
you suppose that one man could have accomplished the same task in two
hundred days? Nevertheless, on the books of the capitalist, the amount
of wages paid would have been the same. Well, a desert to prepare for
cultivation, a house to build, a factory to run,--all these are
obelisks to erect, mountains to move. The smallest fortune, the most
insignificant establishment, the setting in motion of the lowest
industry, demand the concurrence of so many different kinds of labor and
skill, that one man could not possibly execute the whole of them. It
is astonishing that the economists never have called attention to this
fact. Strike a balance, then, between the capitalist's receipts and his
payments.
The laborer needs a salary which will enable him to live while he works;
for unless he consumes, he cannot produce.
