It is said that all perpetual annuities are
essentially
redeemable.
Proudhon - What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government
Neither the constitution of 1790,
nor that of '93, nor the granted charter, nor the accepted charter, have
defined it accurately. All imply an inequality in fortune and station
incompatible with even a shadow of equality in rights. In this respect
it may be said that all our constitutions have been faithful expressions
of the popular will: I am going, to prove it.
Formerly the people were excluded from civil and military offices; it
was considered a wonder when the following high-sounding article
was inserted in the Declaration of Rights: "All citizens are equally
eligible to office; free nations know no qualifications in their choice
of officers save virtues and talents. "
They certainly ought to have admired so beautiful an idea: they admired
a piece of nonsense. Why! the sovereign people, legislators, and
reformers, see in public offices, to speak plainly, only opportunities
for pecuniary advancement. And, because it regards them as a source of
profit, it decrees the eligibility of citizens. For of what use would
this precaution be, if there were nothing to gain by it? No one would
think of ordaining that none but astronomers and geographers should be
pilots, nor of prohibiting stutterers from acting at the theatre and
the opera. The nation was still aping the kings: like them it wished
to award the lucrative positions to its friends and flatterers.
Unfortunately, and this last feature completes the resemblance, the
nation did not control the list of livings; that was in the hands of its
agents and representatives. They, on the other hand, took care not to
thwart the will of their gracious sovereign.
This edifying article of the Declaration of Rights, retained in the
charters of 1814 and 1830, implies several kinds of civil inequality;
that is, of inequality before the law: inequality ofstation, since the
public functions are sought only for the consideration and emoluments
which they bring; inequality of wealth, since, if it had been desired
to equalize fortunes, public service would have been regarded as a duty,
not as a reward; inequality of privilege, the law not stating what
it means by TALENTS and VIRTUES. Under the empire, virtue and talent
consisted simply in military bravery and devotion to the emperor; that
was shown when Napoleon created his nobility, and attempted to connect
it with the ancients. To-day, the man who pays taxes to the amount
of two hundred francs is virtuous; the talented man is the honest
pickpocket: such truths as these are accounted trivial.
The people finally legalized property. God forgive them, for they
knew not what they did! For fifty years they have suffered for their
miserable folly. But how came the people, whose voice, they tell us,
is the voice of God, and whose conscience is infallible,--how came the
people to err? How happens it that, when seeking liberty and equality,
they fell back into privilege and slavery? Always through copying the
ancient regime.
Formerly, the nobility and the clergy contributed towards the expenses
of the State only by voluntary aid and gratuitous gift; their property
could not be seized even for debt,--while the plebeian, overwhelmed by
taxes and statute-labor, was continually tormented, now by the
king's tax-gatherers, now by those of the nobles and clergy. He whose
possessions were subject to mortmain could neither bequeath nor inherit
property; he was treated like the animals, whose services and offspring
belong to their master by right of accession. The people wanted the
conditions of OWNERSHIP to be alike for all; they thought that every one
should ENJOY AND FREELY DISPOSE OF HIS POSSESSIONS HIS INCOME AND THE
FRUIT OF HIS LABOR AND INDUSTRY. The people did not invent property; but
as they had not the same privileges in regard to it, which the nobles
and clergy possessed, they decreed that the right should be exercised
by all under the same conditions. The more obnoxious forms of
property--statute-labor, mortmain, maitrise, and exclusion from public
office--have disappeared; the conditions of its enjoyment have been
modified: the principle still remains the same. There has been progress
in the regulation of the right; there has been no revolution.
These, then, are the three fundamental principles of modern society,
established one after another by the movements of 1789 and 1830: 1.
SOVEREIGNTY OF THE HUMAN WILL; in short, DESPOTISM. 2. INEQUALITY OF
WEALTH AND RANK. 3. PROPERTY--above JUSTICE, always invoked as the
guardian angel of sovereigns, nobles, and proprietors; JUSTICE, the
general, primitive, categorical law of all society.
We must ascertain whether the ideas of DESPOTISM, CIVIL INEQUALITY
and PROPERTY, are in harmony with the primitive notion of JUSTICE, and
necessarily follow from it,--assuming various forms according to the
condition, position, and relation of persons; or whether they are not
rather the illegitimate result of a confusion of different things, a
fatal association of ideas. And since justice deals especially with the
questions of government, the condition of persons, and the possession
of things, we must ascertain under what conditions, judging by universal
opinion and the progress of the human mind, government is just, the
condition of citizens is just, and the possession of things is just;
then, striking out every thing which fails to meet these conditions,
the result will at once tell us what legitimate government is, what the
legitimate condition of citizens is, and what the legitimate possession
of things is; and finally, as the last result of the analysis, what
JUSTICE is.
Is the authority of man over man just?
Everybody answers, "No; the authority of man is only the authority of
the law, which ought to be justice and truth. " The private will counts
for nothing in government, which consists, first, in discovering truth
and justice in order to make the law; and, second, in superintending the
execution of this law. I do not now inquire whether our constitutional
form of government satisfies these conditions; whether, for example, the
will of the ministry never influences the declaration and interpretation
of the law; or whether our deputies, in their debates, are more intent
on conquering by argument than by force of numbers: it is enough for me
that my definition of a good government is allowed to be correct. This
idea is exact. Yet we see that nothing seems more just to the Oriental
nations than the despotism of their sovereigns; that, with the ancients
and in the opinion of the philosophers themselves, slavery was just;
that in the middle ages the nobles, the priests, and the bishops felt
justified in holding slaves; that Louis XIV. thought that he was right
when he said, "The State! I am the State;" and that Napoleon deemed it
a crime for the State to oppose his will. The idea of justice, then,
applied to sovereignty and government, has not always been what it is
to-day; it has gone on developing and shaping itself by degrees, until
it has arrived at its present state. But has it reached its last phase?
I think not: only, as the last obstacle to be overcome arises from the
institution of property which we have kept intact, in order to finish
the reform in government and consummate the revolution, this very
institution we must attack.
Is political and civil inequality just?
Some say yes; others no. To the first I would reply that, when the
people abolished all privileges of birth and caste, they did it, in all
probability, because it was for their advantage; why then do they favor
the privileges of fortune more than those of rank and race? Because, say
they, political inequality is a result of property; and without property
society is impossible: thus the question just raised becomes a question
of property. To the second I content myself with this remark: If you
wish to enjoy political equality, abolish property; otherwise, why do
you complain?
Is property just?
Everybody answers without hesitation, "Yes, property is just. " I say
everybody, for up to the present time no one who thoroughly understood
the meaning of his words has answered no. For it is no easy thing to
reply understandingly to such a question; only time and experience can
furnish an answer. Now, this answer is given; it is for us to understand
it. I undertake to prove it.
We are to proceed with the demonstration in the following order:--
I. We dispute not at all, we refute nobody, we deny nothing; we accept
as sound all the arguments alleged in favor of property, and confine
ourselves to a search for its principle, in order that we may then
ascertain whether this principle is faithfully expressed by property. In
fact, property being defensible on no ground save that of justice, the
idea, or at least the intention, of justice must of necessity underlie
all the arguments that have been made in defence of property; and, as on
the other hand the right of property is only exercised over those things
which can be appreciated by the senses, justice, secretly objectifying
itself, so to speak, must take the shape of an algebraic formula.
By this method of investigation, we soon see that every argument which
has been invented in behalf of property, WHATEVER IT MAY BE, always and
of necessity leads to equality; that is, to the negation of property.
The first part covers two chapters: one treating of occupation, the
foundation of our right; the other, of labor and talent, considered as
causes of property and social inequality.
The first of these chapters will prove that the right of occupation
OBSTRUCTS property; the second that the right of labor DESTROYS it.
II. Property, then, being of necessity conceived as existing only in
connection with equality, it remains to find out why, in spite of this
necessity of logic, equality does not exist. This new investigation also
covers two chapters: in the first, considering the fact of property in
itself, we inquire whether this fact is real, whether it exists, whether
it is possible; for it would imply a contradiction, were these two
opposite forms of society, equality and inequality, both possible. Then
we discover, singularly enough, that property may indeed manifest
itself accidentally; but that, as an institution and principle, it is
mathematically impossible. So that the axiom of the school--ab actu ad
posse valet consecutio: from the actual to the possible the inference is
good--is given the lie as far as property is concerned.
Finally, in the last chapter, calling psychology to our aid, and
probing man's nature to the bottom, we shall disclose the principle of
JUSTICE--its formula and character; we shall state with precision the
organic law of society; we shall explain the origin of property, the
causes of its establishment, its long life, and its approaching death;
we shall definitively establish its identity with robbery. And, after
having shown that these three prejudices--THE SOVEREIGNTY OF MAN, THE
INEQUALITY OF CONDITIONS, AND PROPERTY--are one and the same; that they
may be taken for each other, and are reciprocally convertible,--we
shall have no trouble in inferring therefrom, by the principle
of contradiction, the basis of government and right. There our
investigations will end, reserving the right to continue them in future
works.
The importance of the subject which engages our attention is recognized
by all minds.
"Property," says M. Hennequin, "is the creative and conservative
principle of civil society. Property is one of those basic institutions,
new theories concerning which cannot be presented too soon; for it must
not be forgotten, and the publicist and statesman must know, that on the
answer to the question whether property is the principle or the result
of social order, whether it is to be considered as a cause or an effect,
depends all morality, and, consequently, all the authority of human
institutions. "
These words are a challenge to all men of hope and faith; but, although
the cause of equality is a noble one, no one has yet picked up the
gauntlet thrown down by the advocates of property; no one has been
courageous enough to enter upon the struggle. The spurious learning of
haughty jurisprudence, and the absurd aphorisms of a political economy
controlled by property have puzzled the most generous minds; it is a
sort of password among the most influential friends of liberty and
the interests of the people that EQUALITY IS A CHIMERA! So many false
theories and meaningless analogies influence minds otherwise keen,
but which are unconsciously controlled by popular prejudice. Equality
advances every day--fit aequalitas. Soldiers of liberty, shall we desert
our flag in the hour of triumph?
A defender of equality, I shall speak without bitterness and without
anger; with the independence becoming a philosopher, with the courage
and firmness of a free man. May I, in this momentous struggle, carry
into all hearts the light with which I am filled; and show, by the
success of my argument, that equality failed to conquer by the sword
only that it might conquer by the pen!
CHAPTER II. PROPERTY CONSIDERED AS A NATURAL RIGHT
PROPERTY CONSIDERED AS A NATURAL RIGHT. --OCCUPATION AND
CIVIL LAW AS EFFICIENT BASES OF PROPERTY. DEFINITIONS.
The Roman law defined property as the right to use and abuse one's own
within the limits of the law--jus utendi et abutendi re sua, guatenus
juris ratio patitur. A justification of the word ABUSE has been
attempted, on the ground that it signifies, not senseless and immoral
abuse, but only absolute domain. Vain distinction! invented as an excuse
for property, and powerless against the frenzy of possession, which it
neither prevents nor represses. The proprietor may, if he chooses, allow
his crops to rot under foot; sow his field with salt; milk his cows
on the sand; change his vineyard into a desert, and use his
vegetable-garden as a park: do these things constitute abuse, or not? In
the matter of property, use and abuse are necessarily indistinguishable.
According to the Declaration of Rights, published as a preface to the
Constitution of '93, property is "the right to enjoy and dispose at
will of one's goods, one's income, and the fruit of one's labor and
industry. "
Code Napoleon, article 544: "Property is the right to enjoy and dispose
of things in the most absolute manner, provided we do not overstep the
limits prescribed by the laws and regulations. "
These two definitions do not differ from that of the Roman law: all
give the proprietor an absolute right over a thing; and as for the
restriction imposed by the code,--PROVIDED WE DO NOT OVERSTEP THE LIMITS
PRESCRIBED BY THE LAWS AND REGULATIONS,--its object is not to limit
property, but to prevent the domain of one proprietor from interfering
with that of another. That is a confirmation of the principle, not a
limitation of it.
There are different kinds of property: 1. Property pure and simple, the
dominant and seigniorial power over a thing; or, as they term it, NAKED
PROPERTY. 2. POSSESSION. "Possession," says Duranton, "is a matter of
fact, not of right. " Toullier: "Property is a right, a legal power;
possession is a fact. " The tenant, the farmer, the commandite', the
usufructuary, are possessors; the owner who lets and lends for use, the
heir who is to come into possession on the death of a usufructuary, are
proprietors. If I may venture the comparison: a lover is a possessor, a
husband is a proprietor.
This double definition of property--domain and possession--is of the
highest importance; and it must be clearly understood, in order to
comprehend what is to follow.
From the distinction between possession and property arise two sorts of
rights: the jus in re, the right in a thing, the right by which I may
reclaim the property which I have acquired, in whatever hands I find
it; and the jus ad rem, the right TO a thing, which gives me a claim to
become a proprietor. Thus the right of the partners to a marriage over
each other's person is the jus in re; that of two who are betrothed is
only the jus ad rem. In the first, possession and property are united;
the second includes only naked property. With me who, as a laborer,
have a right to the possession of the products of Nature and my own
industry,--and who, as a proletaire, enjoy none of them,--it is by
virtue of the jus ad rem that I demand admittance to the jus in re.
This distinction between the jus in re and the jus ad rem is the basis
of the famous distinction between possessoire and petitoire,--actual
categories of jurisprudence, the whole of which is included within their
vast boundaries. Petitoire refers to every thing relating to property;
possessoire to that relating to possession. In writing this memoir
against property, I bring against universal society an action petitoire:
I prove that those who do not possess to-day are proprietors by the same
title as those who do possess; but, instead of inferring therefrom
that property should be shared by all, I demand, in the name of general
security, its entire abolition. If I fail to win my case, there is
nothing left for us (the proletarian class and myself) but to cut our
throats: we can ask nothing more from the justice of nations; for, as
the code of procedure (art 26) tells us in its energetic style, THE
PLAINTIFF WHO HAS BEEN NON-SUITED IN AN ACTION PETITOIRE, IS DEBARRED
THEREBY FROM BRINGING AN ACTION POSSESSOIRE. If, on the contrary, I gain
the case, we must then commence an action possessoire, that we may be
reinstated in the enjoyment of the wealth of which we are deprived by
property. I hope that we shall not be forced to that extremity; but
these two actions cannot be prosecuted at once, such a course being
prohibited by the same code of procedure.
Before going to the heart of the question, it will not be useless to
offer a few preliminary remarks.
% 1. --Property as a Natural Right.
The Declaration of Rights has placed property in its list of the natural
and inalienable rights of man, four in all: LIBERTY, EQUALITY, PROPERTY,
SECURITY. What rule did the legislators of '93 follow in compiling
this list? None. They laid down principles, just as they discussed
sovereignty and the laws; from a general point of view, and according to
their own opinion. They did every thing in their own blind way.
If we can believe Toullier: "The absolute rights can be reduced to
three: SECURITY, LIBERTY, PROPERTY. " Equality is eliminated by the
Rennes professor; why? Is it because LIBERTY implies it, or because
property prohibits it? On this point the author of "Droit Civil
Explique" is silent: it has not even occurred to him that the matter is
under discussion.
Nevertheless, if we compare these three or four rights with each other,
we find that property bears no resemblance whatever to the others;
that for the majority of citizens it exists only potentially, and as a
dormant faculty without exercise; that for the others, who do enjoy it,
it is susceptible of certain transactions and modifications which do
not harmonize with the idea of a natural right; that, in practice,
governments, tribunals, and laws do not respect it; and finally that
everybody, spontaneously and with one voice, regards it as chimerical.
Liberty is inviolable. I can neither sell nor alienate my liberty;
every contract, every condition of a contract, which has in view the
alienation or suspension of liberty, is null: the slave, when he plants
his foot upon the soil of liberty, at that moment becomes a free man.
When society seizes a malefactor and deprives him of his liberty, it is
a case of legitimate defence: whoever violates the social compact by the
commission of a crime declares himself a public enemy; in attacking the
liberty of others, he compels them to take away his own. Liberty is the
original condition of man; to renounce liberty is to renounce the nature
of man: after that, how could we perform the acts of man?
Likewise, equality before the law suffers neither restriction nor
exception. All Frenchmen are equally eligible to office: consequently,
in the presence of this equality, condition and family have, in many
cases, no influence upon choice. The poorest citizen can obtain judgment
in the courts against one occupying the most exalted station. Let the
millionaire, Ahab, build a chateau upon the vineyard of Naboth: the
court will have the power, according to the circumstances, to order the
destruction of the chateau, though it has cost millions; and to force
the trespasser to restore the vineyard to its original state, and pay
the damages. The law wishes all property, that has been legitimately
acquired, to be kept inviolate without regard to value, and without
respect for persons.
The charter demands, it is true, for the exercise of certain political
rights, certain conditions of fortune and capacity; but all publicists
know that the legislator's intention was not to establish a privilege,
but to take security. Provided the conditions fixed by law are complied
with, every citizen may be an elector, and every elector eligible. The
right, once acquired, is the same for all; the law compares neither
persons nor votes. I do not ask now whether this system is the best; it
is enough that, in the opinion of the charter and in the eyes of every
one, equality before the law is absolute, and, like liberty, admits of
no compromise.
It is the same with the right of security. Society promises its members
no half-way protection, no sham defence; it binds itself to them as
they bind themselves to it. It does not say to them, "I will shield
you, provided it costs me nothing; I will protect you, if I run no risks
thereby. " It says, "I will defend you against everybody; I will save and
avenge you, or perish myself. "
The whole strength of the State is at the service of each citizen; the
obligation which binds them together is absolute.
How different with property! Worshipped by all, it is acknowledged by
none: laws, morals, customs, public and private conscience, all plot its
death and ruin.
To meet the expenses of government, which has armies to support, tasks
to perform, and officers to pay, taxes are needed. Let all contribute to
these expenses: nothing more just. But why should the rich pay more than
the poor? That is just, they say, because they possess more. I confess
that such justice is beyond my comprehension.
Why are taxes paid? To protect all in the exercise of their natural
rights--liberty, equality, security, and property; to maintain order in
the State; to furnish the public with useful and pleasant conveniences.
Now, does it cost more to defend the rich man's life and liberty than
the poor man's? Who, in time of invasion, famine, or plague, causes
more trouble,--the large proprietor who escapes the evil without
the assistance of the State, or the laborer who sits in his cottage
unprotected from danger?
Is public order endangered more by the worthy citizen, or by the artisan
and journeyman? Why, the police have more to fear from a few hundred
laborers, out of work, than from two hundred thousand electors!
Does the man of large income appreciate more keenly than the poor man
national festivities, clean streets, and beautiful monuments?
Why, he prefers his country-seat to all the popular pleasures; and when
he wants to enjoy himself, he does not wait for the greased pole!
One of two things is true: either the proportional tax affords greater
security to the larger tax-payers, or else it is a wrong.
Because, if property is a natural right, as the Declaration of '93
declares, all that belongs to me by virtue of this right is as sacred as
my person; it is my blood, my life, myself: whoever touches it offends
the apple of my eye. My income of one hundred thousand francs is as
inviolable as the grisette's daily wage of seventy-five centimes; her
attic is no more sacred than my suite of apartments. The tax is not
levied in proportion to strength, size, or skill: no more should it be
levied in proportion to property.
If, then, the State takes more from me, let it give me more in return,
or cease to talk of equality of rights; for otherwise, society is
established, not to defend property, but to destroy it. The State,
through the proportional tax, becomes the chief of robbers; the State
sets the example of systematic pillage: the State should be brought to
the bar of justice at the head of those hideous brigands, that execrable
mob which it now kills from motives of professional jealousy.
But, they say, the courts and the police force are established to
restrain this mob; government is a company, not exactly for insurance,
for it does not insure, but for vengeance and repression. The premium
which this company exacts, the tax, is divided in proportion to
property; that is, in proportion to the trouble which each piece of
property occasions the avengers and repressers paid by the government.
This is any thing but the absolute and inalienable right of property.
Under this system the poor and the rich distrust, and make war upon,
each other. But what is the object of the war? Property. So that
property is necessarily accompanied by war upon property. The liberty
and security of the rich do not suffer from the liberty and security
of the poor; far from that, they mutually strengthen and sustain each
other. The rich man's right of property, on the contrary, has to be
continually defended against the poor man's desire for property. What
a contradiction! In England they have a poor-rate: they wish me to pay
this tax. But what relation exists between my natural and inalienable
right of property and the hunger from which ten million wretched people
are suffering? When religion commands us to assist our fellows, it
speaks in the name of charity, not in the name of law. The obligation
of benevolence, imposed upon me by Christian morality, cannot be imposed
upon me as a political tax for the benefit of any person or poor-house.
I will give alms when I see fit to do so, when the sufferings of others
excite in me that sympathy of which philosophers talk, and in which I do
not believe: I will not be forced to bestow them. No one is obliged to
do more than comply with this injunction: IN THE EXERCISE OF YOUR OWN
RIGHTS DO NOT ENCROACH UPON THE RIGHTS OF ANOTHER; an injunction which
is the exact definition of liberty. Now, my possessions are my own;
no one has a claim upon them: I object to the placing of the third
theological virtue in the order of the day.
Everybody, in France, demands the conversion of the five per cent.
bonds; they demand thereby the complete sacrifice of one species of
property. They have the right to do it, if public necessity requires it;
but where is the just indemnity promised by the charter? Not only
does none exist, but this indemnity is not even possible; for, if the
indemnity were equal to the property sacrificed, the conversion would be
useless.
The State occupies the same position to-day toward the bondholders
that the city of Calais did, when besieged by Edward III, toward its
notables. The English conqueror consented to spare its inhabitants,
provided it would surrender to him its most distinguished citizens to do
with as he pleased. Eustache and several others offered themselves; it
was noble in them, and our ministers should recommend their example to
the bondholders. But had the city the right to surrender them? Assuredly
not. The right to security is absolute; the country can require no one
to sacrifice himself. The soldier standing guard within the enemy's
range is no exception to this rule. Wherever a citizen stands guard,
the country stands guard with him: to-day it is the turn of the one,
to-morrow of the other. When danger and devotion are common, flight is
parricide. No one has the right to flee from danger; no one can serve
as a scapegoat. The maxim of Caiaphas--IT IS RIGHT THAT A MAN SHOULD DIE
FOR HIS NATION--is that of the populace and of tyrants; the two extremes
of social degradation.
It is said that all perpetual annuities are essentially redeemable. This
maxim of civil law, applied to the State, is good for those who wish to
return to the natural equality of labor and wealth; but, from the point
of view of the proprietor, and in the mouth of conversionists, it is
the language of bankrupts. The State is not only a borrower, it is an
insurer and guardian of property; granting the best of security, it
assures the most inviolable possession. How, then, can it force open the
hands of its creditors, who have confidence in it, and then talk to
them of public order and security of property? The State, in such
an operation, is not a debtor who discharges his debt; it is a
stock-company which allures its stockholders into a trap, and there,
contrary to its authentic promise, exacts from them twenty, thirty, or
forty per cent. of the interest on their capital.
That is not all. The State is a university of citizens joined together
under a common law by an act of society. This act secures all in the
possession of their property; guarantees to one his field, to another
his vineyard, to a third his rents, and to the bondholder, who might
have bought real estate but who preferred to come to the assistance of
the treasury, his bonds. The State cannot demand, without offering an
equivalent, the sacrifice of an acre of the field or a corner of the
vineyard; still less can it lower rents: why should it have the right
to diminish the interest on bonds? This right could not justly exist,
unless the bondholder could invest his funds elsewhere to equal
advantage; but being confined to the State, where can he find a place to
invest them, since the cause of conversion, that is, the power to borrow
to better advantage, lies in the State? That is why a government, based
on the principle of property, cannot redeem its annuities without the
consent of their holders.
The money deposited with the republic is property which it has no right
to touch while other kinds of property are respected; to force
their redemption is to violate the social contract, and outlaw the
bondholders.
The whole controversy as to the conversion of bonds finally reduces
itself to this:--
QUESTION. Is it just to reduce to misery forty-five thousand families
who derive an income from their bonds of one hundred francs or less?
ANSWER. Is it just to compel seven or eight millions of tax-payers to
pay a tax of five francs, when they should pay only three? It is clear,
in the first place, that the reply is in reality no reply; but, to make
the wrong more apparent, let us change it thus: Is it just to endanger
the lives of one hundred thousand men, when we can save them by
surrendering one hundred heads to the enemy? Reader, decide!
All this is clearly understood by the defenders of the present system.
Yet, nevertheless, sooner or later, the conversion will be effected
and property be violated, because no other course is possible; because
property, regarded as a right, and not being a right, must of right
perish; because the force of events, the laws of conscience, and
physical and mathematical necessity must, in the end, destroy this
illusion of our minds.
To sum up: liberty is an absolute right, because it is to man what
impenetrability is to matter,--a sine qua non of existence; equality
is an absolute right, because without equality there is no society;
security is an absolute right, because in the eyes of every man his own
liberty and life are as precious as another's. These three rights are
absolute; that is, susceptible of neither increase nor diminution;
because in society each associate receives as much as he gives,--liberty
for liberty, equality for equality, security for security, body for
body, soul for soul, in life and in death.
But property, in its derivative sense, and by the definitions of law, is
a right outside of society; for it is clear that, if the wealth of each
was social wealth, the conditions would be equal for all, and it would
be a contradiction to say: PROPERTY IS A MAN'S RIGHT TO DISPOSE AT WILL
OF SOCIAL PROPERTY. Then if we are associated for the sake of liberty,
equality, and security, we are not associated for the sake of property;
then if property is a NATURAL right, this natural right is not SOCIAL,
but ANTI-SOCIAL. Property and society are utterly irreconcilable
institutions. It is as impossible to associate two proprietors as to
join two magnets by their opposite poles. Either society must perish, or
it must destroy property.
If property is a natural, absolute, imprescriptible, and inalienable
right, why, in all ages, has there been so much speculation as to its
origin? --for this is one of its distinguishing characteristics. The
origin of a natural right! Good God! who ever inquired into the origin
of the rights of liberty, security, or equality? They exist by the same
right that we exist; they are born with us, they live and die with us.
With property it is very different, indeed. By law, property can exist
without a proprietor, like a quality without a subject. It exists for
the human being who as yet is not, and for the octogenarian who is no
more. And yet, in spite of these wonderful prerogatives which savor
of the eternal and the infinite, they have never found the origin of
property; the doctors still disagree. On one point only are they in
harmony: namely, that the validity of the right of property depends upon
the authenticity of its origin. But this harmony is their condemnation.
Why have they acknowledged the right before settling the question of
origin?
Certain classes do not relish investigation into the pretended titles to
property, and its fabulous and perhaps scandalous history. They wish to
hold to this proposition: that property is a fact; that it always has
been, and always will be. With that proposition the savant Proudhon [11]
commenced his "Treatise on the Right of Usufruct," regarding the origin
of property as a useless question. Perhaps I would subscribe to this
doctrine, believing it inspired by a commendable love of peace, were
all my fellow-citizens in comfortable circumstances; but, no! I will not
subscribe to it.
The titles on which they pretend to base the right of property are two
in number: OCCUPATION and LABOR. I shall examine them successively,
under all their aspects and in detail; and I remind the reader that,
to whatever authority we appeal, I shall prove beyond a doubt that
property, to be just and possible, must necessarily have equality for
its condition.
% 2. --Occupation, as the Title to Property.
It is remarkable that, at those meetings of the State Council at which
the Code was discussed, no controversy arose as to the origin and
principle of property. All the articles of Vol. II. , Book 2, concerning
property and the right of accession, were passed without opposition or
amendment. Bonaparte, who on other questions had given his legists so
much trouble, had nothing to say about property. Be not surprised at it:
in the eyes of that man, the most selfish and wilful person that ever
lived, property was the first of rights, just as submission to authority
was the most holy of duties.
The right of OCCUPATION, or of the FIRST OCCUPANT, is that which results
from the actual, physical, real possession of a thing. I occupy a
piece of land; the presumption is, that I am the proprietor, until
the contrary is proved. We know that originally such a right cannot be
legitimate unless it is reciprocal; the jurists say as much.
Cicero compares the earth to a vast theatre: _Quemadmodum theatrum cum
commune sit, recte tamen dici potest ejus esse eum locum quem quisque
occuparit_.
This passage is all that ancient philosophy has to say about the origin
of property.
The theatre, says Cicero, is common to all; nevertheless, the place that
each one occupies is called HIS OWN; that is, it is a place POSSESSED,
not a place APPROPRIATED. This comparison annihilates property;
moreover, it implies equality. Can I, in a theatre, occupy at the same
time one place in the pit, another in the boxes, and a third in the
gallery? Not unless I have three bodies, like Geryon, or can exist
in different places at the same time, as is related of the magician
Apollonius.
According to Cicero, no one has a right to more than he needs: such
is the true interpretation of his famous axiom--_suum quidque cujusque
sit_, to each one that which belongs to him--an axiom that has been
strangely applied. That which belongs to each is not that which each MAY
possess, but that which each HAS A RIGHT to possess. Now, what have we a
right to possess? That which is required for our labor and consumption;
Cicero's comparison of the earth to a theatre proves it. According to
that, each one may take what place he will, may beautify and adorn it,
if he can; it is allowable: but he must never allow himself to overstep
the limit which separates him from another. The doctrine of Cicero leads
directly to equality; for, occupation being pure toleration, if the
toleration is mutual (and it cannot be otherwise) the possessions are
equal.
Grotius rushes into history; but what kind of reasoning is that which
seeks the origin of a right, said to be natural, elsewhere than in
Nature? This is the method of the ancients: the fact exists, then it
is necessary, then it is just, then its antecedents are just also.
Nevertheless, let us look into it.
"Originally, all things were common and undivided; they were the
property of all. " Let us go no farther. Grotius tells us how this
original communism came to an end through ambition and cupidity; how the
age of gold was followed by the age of iron, &c. So that property rested
first on war and conquest, then on treaties and agreements. But either
these treaties and agreements distributed wealth equally, as did the
original communism (the only method of distribution with which the
barbarians were acquainted, and the only form of justice of which they
could conceive; and then the question of origin assumes this form:
how did equality afterwards disappear? )--or else these treaties and
agreements were forced by the strong upon the weak, and in that case
they are null; the tacit consent of posterity does not make them valid,
and we live in a permanent condition of iniquity and fraud.
We never can conceive how the equality of conditions, having once
existed, could afterwards have passed away. What was the cause of such
degeneration? The instincts of the animals are unchangeable, as well
as the differences of species; to suppose original equality in human
society is to admit by implication that the present inequality is
a degeneration from the nature of this society,--a thing which the
defenders of property cannot explain. But I infer therefrom that, if
Providence placed the first human beings in a condition of equality, it
was an indication of its desires, a model that it wished them to realize
in other forms; just as the religious sentiment, which it planted in
their hearts, has developed and manifested itself in various ways. Man
has but one nature, constant and unalterable: he pursues it through
instinct, he wanders from it through reflection, he returns to it
through judgment; who shall say that we are not returning now? According
to Grotius, man has abandoned equality; according to me, he will yet
return to it. How came he to abandon it? Why will he return to it? These
are questions for future consideration.
Reid writes as follows:--
"The right of property is not innate, but acquired. It is not grounded
upon the constitution of man, but upon his actions. Writers on
jurisprudence have explained its origin in a manner that may satisfy
every man of common understanding.
"The earth is given to men in common for the purposes of life, by the
bounty of Heaven. But to divide it, and appropriate one part of its
produce to one, another part to another, must be the work of men
who have power and understanding given them, by which every man may
accommodate himself, WITHOUT HURT TO ANY OTHER.
"This common right of every man to what the earth produces, before it
be occupied and appropriated by others, was, by ancient moralists, very
properly compared to the right which every citizen had to the public
theatre, where every man that came might occupy an empty seat, and
thereby acquire a right to it while the entertainment lasted; but no man
had a right to dispossess another.
"The earth is a great theatre, furnished by the Almighty, with perfect
wisdom and goodness, for the entertainment and employment of all
mankind. Here every man has a right to accommodate himself as a
spectator, and to perform his part as an actor; but without hurt to
others. "
Consequences of Reid's doctrine.
1. That the portion which each one appropriates may wrong no one, it
must be equal to the quotient of the total amount of property to be
shared, divided by the number of those who are to share it;
2. The number of places being of necessity equal at all times to that
of the spectators, no spectator can occupy two places, nor can any actor
play several parts;
3. Whenever a spectator comes in or goes out, the places of all contract
or enlarge correspondingly: for, says Reid, "THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY
IS NOT INNATE, BUT ACQUIRED;" consequently, it is not absolute;
consequently, the occupancy on which it is based, being a conditional
fact, cannot endow this right with a stability which it does not possess
itself. This seems to have been the thought of the Edinburgh professor
when he added:--
"A right to life implies a right to the necessary means of life; and
that justice, which forbids the taking away the life of an innocent man,
forbids no less the taking from him the necessary means of life. He has
the same right to defend the one as the other. To hinder another man's
innocent labor, or to deprive him of the fruit of it, is an injustice
of the same kind, and has the same effect as to put him in fetters or in
prison, and is equally a just object of resentment. "
Thus the chief of the Scotch school, without considering at all the
inequality of skill or labor, posits a priori the equality of the means
of labor, abandoning thereafter to each laborer the care of his own
person, after the eternal axiom: WHOSO DOES WELL, SHALL FARE WELL.
The philosopher Reid is lacking, not in knowledge of the principle, but
in courage to pursue it to its ultimate. If the right of life is equal,
the right of labor is equal, and so is the right of occupancy. Would
it not be criminal, were some islanders to repulse, in the name of
property, the unfortunate victims of a shipwreck struggling to reach
the shore? The very idea of such cruelty sickens the imagination. The
proprietor, like Robinson Crusoe on his island, wards off with pike and
musket the proletaire washed overboard by the wave of civilization, and
seeking to gain a foothold upon the rocks of property. "Give me work! "
cries he with all his might to the proprietor: "don't drive me away, I
will work for you at any price. " "I do not need your services," replies
the proprietor, showing the end of his pike or the barrel of his gun.
"Lower my rent at least. " "I need my income to live upon. " "How can
I pay you, when I can get no work? " "That is your business. " Then the
unfortunate proletaire abandons himself to the waves; or, if he attempts
to land upon the shore of property, the proprietor takes aim, and kills
him.
We have just listened to a spiritualist; we will now question a
materialist, then an eclectic: and having completed the circle of
philosophy, we will turn next to law.
According to Destutt de Tracy, property is a necessity of our nature.
That this necessity involves unpleasant consequences, it would be
folly to deny. But these consequences are necessary evils which do not
invalidate the principle; so that it as unreasonable to rebel against
property on account of the abuses which it generates, as to complain
of life because it is sure to end in death. This brutal and pitiless
philosophy promises at least frank and close reasoning. Let us see if it
keeps its promise.
"We talk very gravely about the conditions of property,. . . as if it was
our province to decide what constitutes property. . . . It would seem, to
hear certain philosophers and legislators, that at a certain moment,
spontaneously and without cause, people began to use the words THINE and
MINE; and that they might have, or ought to have, dispensed with them.
But THINE and MINE were never invented. "
A philosopher yourself, you are too realistic. THINE and MINE do not
necessarily refer to self, as they do when I say your philosophy, and my
equality; for your philosophy is you philosophizing, and my equality is
I professing equality. THINE and MINE oftener indicate a relation,--YOUR
country, YOUR parish, YOUR tailor, YOUR milkmaid; MY chamber, MY seat at
the theatre, MY company and MY battalion in the National Guard. In the
former sense, we may sometimes say MY labor, MY skill, MY virtue; never
MY grandeur nor MY majesty: in the latter sense only, MY field, MY
house, MY vineyard, MY capital,--precisely as the banker's clerk says
MY cash-box. In short, THINE and MINE are signs and expressions of
personal, but equal, rights; applied to things outside of us, they
indicate possession, function, use, not property.
It does not seem possible, but, nevertheless, I shall prove, by
quotations, that the whole theory of our author is based upon this
paltry equivocation.
"Prior to all covenants, men are, not exactly, as Hobbes says, in a
state of HOSTILITY, but of ESTRANGEMENT. In this state, justice and
injustice are unknown; the rights of one bear no relation to the rights
of another. All have as many rights as needs, and all feel it their duty
to satisfy those needs by any means at their command. "
Grant it; whether true or false, it matters not. Destutt de Tracy cannot
escape equality. On this theory, men, while in a state of ESTRANGEMENT,
are under no obligations to each other; they all have the right
to satisfy their needs without regard to the needs of others, and
consequently the right to exercise their power over Nature, each
according to his strength and ability. That involves the greatest
inequality of wealth. Inequality of conditions, then, is the
characteristic feature of estrangement or barbarism: the exact opposite
of Rousseau's idea.
But let us look farther:--
"Restrictions of these rights and this duty commence at the time when
covenants, either implied or expressed, are agreed upon. Then appears
for the first time justice and injustice; that is, the balance between
the rights of one and the rights of another, which up to that time were
necessarily equal. "
Listen: RIGHTS WERE EQUAL; that means that each individual had the right
to SATISFY HIS NEEDS WITHOUT REFERENCE TO THE NEEDS OF OTHERS. In other
words, that all had the right to injure each other; that there was no
right save force and cunning. They injured each other, not only by war
and pillage, but also by usurpation and appropriation. Now, in order to
abolish this equal right to use force and stratagem,--this equal
right to do evil, the sole source of the inequality of benefits and
injuries,--they commenced to make COVENANTS EITHER IMPLIED OR EXPRESSED,
and established a balance. Then these agreements and this balance
were intended to secure to all equal comfort; then, by the law of
contradictions, if isolation is the principle of inequality, society
must produce equality. The social balance is the equalization of the
strong and the weak; for, while they are not equals, they are strangers;
they can form no associations,--they live as enemies. Then, if
inequality of conditions is a necessary evil, so is isolation, for
society and inequality are incompatible with each other. Then, if
society is the true condition of man's existence, so is equality also.
This conclusion cannot be avoided.
This being so, how is it that, ever since the establishment of this
balance, inequality has been on the increase? How is it that justice and
isolation always accompany each other? Destutt de Tracy shall reply:--
"NEEDS and MEANS, RIGHTS and DUTIES, are products of the will. If man
willed nothing, these would not exist. But to have needs and means,
rights and duties, is to HAVE, to POSSESS, something. They are so many
kinds of property, using the word in its most general sense: they are
things which belong to us. "
Shameful equivocation, not justified by the necessity for
generalization! The word PROPERTY has two meanings: 1. It designates the
quality which makes a thing what it is; the attribute which is peculiar
to it, and especially distinguishes it. We use it in this sense when we
say THE PROPERTIES OF THE TRIANGLE or of NUMBERS; THE PROPERTY OF THE
MAGNET, &c. 2. It expresses the right of absolute control over a thing
by a free and intelligent being. It is used in this sense by writers
on jurisprudence. Thus, in the phrase, IRON ACQUIRES THE PROPERTY OF A
MAGNET, the word PROPERTY does not convey the same idea that it does in
this one: _I HAVE ACQUIRED THIS MAGNET AS MY PROPERTY_. To tell a poor
man that he HAS property because he HAS arms and legs,--that the hunger
from which he suffers, and his power to sleep in the open air are his
property,--is to play upon words, and to add insult to injury.
"The sole basis of the idea of property is the idea of personality. As
soon as property is born at all, it is born, of necessity, in all its
fulness. As soon as an individual knows HIMSELF,--his moral personality,
his capacities of enjoyment, suffering, and action,--he necessarily
sees also that this SELF is exclusive proprietor of the body in which
it dwells, its organs, their powers, faculties, &c. . . . Inasmuch as
artificial and conventional property exists, there must be natural
property also; for nothing can exist in art without its counterpart in
Nature. "
We ought to admire the honesty and judgment of philosophers! Man has
properties; that is, in the first acceptation of the term, faculties. He
has property; that is, in its second acceptation, the right of domain.
He has, then, the property of the property of being proprietor. How
ashamed I should be to notice such foolishness, were I here considering
only the authority of Destutt de Tracy! But the entire human race, since
the origination of society and language, when metaphysics and dialectics
were first born, has been guilty of this puerile confusion of thought.
All which man could call his own was identified in his mind with his
person. He considered it as his property, his wealth; a part of himself,
a member of his body, a faculty of his mind. The possession of things
was likened to property in the powers of the body and mind; and on this
false analogy was based the right of property,--THE IMITATION OF NATURE
BY ART, as Destutt de Tracy so elegantly puts it.
But why did not this ideologist perceive that man is not proprietor even
of his own faculties? Man has powers, attributes, capacities; they are
given him by Nature that he may live, learn, and love: he does not own
them, but has only the use of them; and he can make no use of them that
does not harmonize with Nature's laws. If he had absolute mastery over
his faculties, he could avoid hunger and cold; he could eat unstintedly,
and walk through fire; he could move mountains, walk a hundred leagues
in a minute, cure without medicines and by the sole force of his will,
and could make himself immortal. He could say, "I wish to produce," and
his tasks would be finished with the words; he could say. "I wish to
know," and he would know; "I love," and he would enjoy. What then? Man
is not master of himself, but may be of his surroundings. Let him use
the wealth of Nature, since he can live only by its use; but let him
abandon his pretensions to the title of proprietor, and remember that he
is called so only metaphorically.
To sum up: Destutt de Tracy classes together the external PRODUCTIONS of
nature and art, and the POWERS or FACULTIES of man, making both of them
species of property; and upon this equivocation he hopes to establish,
so firmly that it can never be disturbed, the right of property. But
of these different kinds of property some are INNATE, as memory,
imagination, strength, and beauty; while others are ACQUIRED, as land,
water, and forests. In the state of Nature or isolation, the strongest
and most skilful (that is, those best provided with innate property)
stand the best chance of obtaining acquired property.
nor that of '93, nor the granted charter, nor the accepted charter, have
defined it accurately. All imply an inequality in fortune and station
incompatible with even a shadow of equality in rights. In this respect
it may be said that all our constitutions have been faithful expressions
of the popular will: I am going, to prove it.
Formerly the people were excluded from civil and military offices; it
was considered a wonder when the following high-sounding article
was inserted in the Declaration of Rights: "All citizens are equally
eligible to office; free nations know no qualifications in their choice
of officers save virtues and talents. "
They certainly ought to have admired so beautiful an idea: they admired
a piece of nonsense. Why! the sovereign people, legislators, and
reformers, see in public offices, to speak plainly, only opportunities
for pecuniary advancement. And, because it regards them as a source of
profit, it decrees the eligibility of citizens. For of what use would
this precaution be, if there were nothing to gain by it? No one would
think of ordaining that none but astronomers and geographers should be
pilots, nor of prohibiting stutterers from acting at the theatre and
the opera. The nation was still aping the kings: like them it wished
to award the lucrative positions to its friends and flatterers.
Unfortunately, and this last feature completes the resemblance, the
nation did not control the list of livings; that was in the hands of its
agents and representatives. They, on the other hand, took care not to
thwart the will of their gracious sovereign.
This edifying article of the Declaration of Rights, retained in the
charters of 1814 and 1830, implies several kinds of civil inequality;
that is, of inequality before the law: inequality ofstation, since the
public functions are sought only for the consideration and emoluments
which they bring; inequality of wealth, since, if it had been desired
to equalize fortunes, public service would have been regarded as a duty,
not as a reward; inequality of privilege, the law not stating what
it means by TALENTS and VIRTUES. Under the empire, virtue and talent
consisted simply in military bravery and devotion to the emperor; that
was shown when Napoleon created his nobility, and attempted to connect
it with the ancients. To-day, the man who pays taxes to the amount
of two hundred francs is virtuous; the talented man is the honest
pickpocket: such truths as these are accounted trivial.
The people finally legalized property. God forgive them, for they
knew not what they did! For fifty years they have suffered for their
miserable folly. But how came the people, whose voice, they tell us,
is the voice of God, and whose conscience is infallible,--how came the
people to err? How happens it that, when seeking liberty and equality,
they fell back into privilege and slavery? Always through copying the
ancient regime.
Formerly, the nobility and the clergy contributed towards the expenses
of the State only by voluntary aid and gratuitous gift; their property
could not be seized even for debt,--while the plebeian, overwhelmed by
taxes and statute-labor, was continually tormented, now by the
king's tax-gatherers, now by those of the nobles and clergy. He whose
possessions were subject to mortmain could neither bequeath nor inherit
property; he was treated like the animals, whose services and offspring
belong to their master by right of accession. The people wanted the
conditions of OWNERSHIP to be alike for all; they thought that every one
should ENJOY AND FREELY DISPOSE OF HIS POSSESSIONS HIS INCOME AND THE
FRUIT OF HIS LABOR AND INDUSTRY. The people did not invent property; but
as they had not the same privileges in regard to it, which the nobles
and clergy possessed, they decreed that the right should be exercised
by all under the same conditions. The more obnoxious forms of
property--statute-labor, mortmain, maitrise, and exclusion from public
office--have disappeared; the conditions of its enjoyment have been
modified: the principle still remains the same. There has been progress
in the regulation of the right; there has been no revolution.
These, then, are the three fundamental principles of modern society,
established one after another by the movements of 1789 and 1830: 1.
SOVEREIGNTY OF THE HUMAN WILL; in short, DESPOTISM. 2. INEQUALITY OF
WEALTH AND RANK. 3. PROPERTY--above JUSTICE, always invoked as the
guardian angel of sovereigns, nobles, and proprietors; JUSTICE, the
general, primitive, categorical law of all society.
We must ascertain whether the ideas of DESPOTISM, CIVIL INEQUALITY
and PROPERTY, are in harmony with the primitive notion of JUSTICE, and
necessarily follow from it,--assuming various forms according to the
condition, position, and relation of persons; or whether they are not
rather the illegitimate result of a confusion of different things, a
fatal association of ideas. And since justice deals especially with the
questions of government, the condition of persons, and the possession
of things, we must ascertain under what conditions, judging by universal
opinion and the progress of the human mind, government is just, the
condition of citizens is just, and the possession of things is just;
then, striking out every thing which fails to meet these conditions,
the result will at once tell us what legitimate government is, what the
legitimate condition of citizens is, and what the legitimate possession
of things is; and finally, as the last result of the analysis, what
JUSTICE is.
Is the authority of man over man just?
Everybody answers, "No; the authority of man is only the authority of
the law, which ought to be justice and truth. " The private will counts
for nothing in government, which consists, first, in discovering truth
and justice in order to make the law; and, second, in superintending the
execution of this law. I do not now inquire whether our constitutional
form of government satisfies these conditions; whether, for example, the
will of the ministry never influences the declaration and interpretation
of the law; or whether our deputies, in their debates, are more intent
on conquering by argument than by force of numbers: it is enough for me
that my definition of a good government is allowed to be correct. This
idea is exact. Yet we see that nothing seems more just to the Oriental
nations than the despotism of their sovereigns; that, with the ancients
and in the opinion of the philosophers themselves, slavery was just;
that in the middle ages the nobles, the priests, and the bishops felt
justified in holding slaves; that Louis XIV. thought that he was right
when he said, "The State! I am the State;" and that Napoleon deemed it
a crime for the State to oppose his will. The idea of justice, then,
applied to sovereignty and government, has not always been what it is
to-day; it has gone on developing and shaping itself by degrees, until
it has arrived at its present state. But has it reached its last phase?
I think not: only, as the last obstacle to be overcome arises from the
institution of property which we have kept intact, in order to finish
the reform in government and consummate the revolution, this very
institution we must attack.
Is political and civil inequality just?
Some say yes; others no. To the first I would reply that, when the
people abolished all privileges of birth and caste, they did it, in all
probability, because it was for their advantage; why then do they favor
the privileges of fortune more than those of rank and race? Because, say
they, political inequality is a result of property; and without property
society is impossible: thus the question just raised becomes a question
of property. To the second I content myself with this remark: If you
wish to enjoy political equality, abolish property; otherwise, why do
you complain?
Is property just?
Everybody answers without hesitation, "Yes, property is just. " I say
everybody, for up to the present time no one who thoroughly understood
the meaning of his words has answered no. For it is no easy thing to
reply understandingly to such a question; only time and experience can
furnish an answer. Now, this answer is given; it is for us to understand
it. I undertake to prove it.
We are to proceed with the demonstration in the following order:--
I. We dispute not at all, we refute nobody, we deny nothing; we accept
as sound all the arguments alleged in favor of property, and confine
ourselves to a search for its principle, in order that we may then
ascertain whether this principle is faithfully expressed by property. In
fact, property being defensible on no ground save that of justice, the
idea, or at least the intention, of justice must of necessity underlie
all the arguments that have been made in defence of property; and, as on
the other hand the right of property is only exercised over those things
which can be appreciated by the senses, justice, secretly objectifying
itself, so to speak, must take the shape of an algebraic formula.
By this method of investigation, we soon see that every argument which
has been invented in behalf of property, WHATEVER IT MAY BE, always and
of necessity leads to equality; that is, to the negation of property.
The first part covers two chapters: one treating of occupation, the
foundation of our right; the other, of labor and talent, considered as
causes of property and social inequality.
The first of these chapters will prove that the right of occupation
OBSTRUCTS property; the second that the right of labor DESTROYS it.
II. Property, then, being of necessity conceived as existing only in
connection with equality, it remains to find out why, in spite of this
necessity of logic, equality does not exist. This new investigation also
covers two chapters: in the first, considering the fact of property in
itself, we inquire whether this fact is real, whether it exists, whether
it is possible; for it would imply a contradiction, were these two
opposite forms of society, equality and inequality, both possible. Then
we discover, singularly enough, that property may indeed manifest
itself accidentally; but that, as an institution and principle, it is
mathematically impossible. So that the axiom of the school--ab actu ad
posse valet consecutio: from the actual to the possible the inference is
good--is given the lie as far as property is concerned.
Finally, in the last chapter, calling psychology to our aid, and
probing man's nature to the bottom, we shall disclose the principle of
JUSTICE--its formula and character; we shall state with precision the
organic law of society; we shall explain the origin of property, the
causes of its establishment, its long life, and its approaching death;
we shall definitively establish its identity with robbery. And, after
having shown that these three prejudices--THE SOVEREIGNTY OF MAN, THE
INEQUALITY OF CONDITIONS, AND PROPERTY--are one and the same; that they
may be taken for each other, and are reciprocally convertible,--we
shall have no trouble in inferring therefrom, by the principle
of contradiction, the basis of government and right. There our
investigations will end, reserving the right to continue them in future
works.
The importance of the subject which engages our attention is recognized
by all minds.
"Property," says M. Hennequin, "is the creative and conservative
principle of civil society. Property is one of those basic institutions,
new theories concerning which cannot be presented too soon; for it must
not be forgotten, and the publicist and statesman must know, that on the
answer to the question whether property is the principle or the result
of social order, whether it is to be considered as a cause or an effect,
depends all morality, and, consequently, all the authority of human
institutions. "
These words are a challenge to all men of hope and faith; but, although
the cause of equality is a noble one, no one has yet picked up the
gauntlet thrown down by the advocates of property; no one has been
courageous enough to enter upon the struggle. The spurious learning of
haughty jurisprudence, and the absurd aphorisms of a political economy
controlled by property have puzzled the most generous minds; it is a
sort of password among the most influential friends of liberty and
the interests of the people that EQUALITY IS A CHIMERA! So many false
theories and meaningless analogies influence minds otherwise keen,
but which are unconsciously controlled by popular prejudice. Equality
advances every day--fit aequalitas. Soldiers of liberty, shall we desert
our flag in the hour of triumph?
A defender of equality, I shall speak without bitterness and without
anger; with the independence becoming a philosopher, with the courage
and firmness of a free man. May I, in this momentous struggle, carry
into all hearts the light with which I am filled; and show, by the
success of my argument, that equality failed to conquer by the sword
only that it might conquer by the pen!
CHAPTER II. PROPERTY CONSIDERED AS A NATURAL RIGHT
PROPERTY CONSIDERED AS A NATURAL RIGHT. --OCCUPATION AND
CIVIL LAW AS EFFICIENT BASES OF PROPERTY. DEFINITIONS.
The Roman law defined property as the right to use and abuse one's own
within the limits of the law--jus utendi et abutendi re sua, guatenus
juris ratio patitur. A justification of the word ABUSE has been
attempted, on the ground that it signifies, not senseless and immoral
abuse, but only absolute domain. Vain distinction! invented as an excuse
for property, and powerless against the frenzy of possession, which it
neither prevents nor represses. The proprietor may, if he chooses, allow
his crops to rot under foot; sow his field with salt; milk his cows
on the sand; change his vineyard into a desert, and use his
vegetable-garden as a park: do these things constitute abuse, or not? In
the matter of property, use and abuse are necessarily indistinguishable.
According to the Declaration of Rights, published as a preface to the
Constitution of '93, property is "the right to enjoy and dispose at
will of one's goods, one's income, and the fruit of one's labor and
industry. "
Code Napoleon, article 544: "Property is the right to enjoy and dispose
of things in the most absolute manner, provided we do not overstep the
limits prescribed by the laws and regulations. "
These two definitions do not differ from that of the Roman law: all
give the proprietor an absolute right over a thing; and as for the
restriction imposed by the code,--PROVIDED WE DO NOT OVERSTEP THE LIMITS
PRESCRIBED BY THE LAWS AND REGULATIONS,--its object is not to limit
property, but to prevent the domain of one proprietor from interfering
with that of another. That is a confirmation of the principle, not a
limitation of it.
There are different kinds of property: 1. Property pure and simple, the
dominant and seigniorial power over a thing; or, as they term it, NAKED
PROPERTY. 2. POSSESSION. "Possession," says Duranton, "is a matter of
fact, not of right. " Toullier: "Property is a right, a legal power;
possession is a fact. " The tenant, the farmer, the commandite', the
usufructuary, are possessors; the owner who lets and lends for use, the
heir who is to come into possession on the death of a usufructuary, are
proprietors. If I may venture the comparison: a lover is a possessor, a
husband is a proprietor.
This double definition of property--domain and possession--is of the
highest importance; and it must be clearly understood, in order to
comprehend what is to follow.
From the distinction between possession and property arise two sorts of
rights: the jus in re, the right in a thing, the right by which I may
reclaim the property which I have acquired, in whatever hands I find
it; and the jus ad rem, the right TO a thing, which gives me a claim to
become a proprietor. Thus the right of the partners to a marriage over
each other's person is the jus in re; that of two who are betrothed is
only the jus ad rem. In the first, possession and property are united;
the second includes only naked property. With me who, as a laborer,
have a right to the possession of the products of Nature and my own
industry,--and who, as a proletaire, enjoy none of them,--it is by
virtue of the jus ad rem that I demand admittance to the jus in re.
This distinction between the jus in re and the jus ad rem is the basis
of the famous distinction between possessoire and petitoire,--actual
categories of jurisprudence, the whole of which is included within their
vast boundaries. Petitoire refers to every thing relating to property;
possessoire to that relating to possession. In writing this memoir
against property, I bring against universal society an action petitoire:
I prove that those who do not possess to-day are proprietors by the same
title as those who do possess; but, instead of inferring therefrom
that property should be shared by all, I demand, in the name of general
security, its entire abolition. If I fail to win my case, there is
nothing left for us (the proletarian class and myself) but to cut our
throats: we can ask nothing more from the justice of nations; for, as
the code of procedure (art 26) tells us in its energetic style, THE
PLAINTIFF WHO HAS BEEN NON-SUITED IN AN ACTION PETITOIRE, IS DEBARRED
THEREBY FROM BRINGING AN ACTION POSSESSOIRE. If, on the contrary, I gain
the case, we must then commence an action possessoire, that we may be
reinstated in the enjoyment of the wealth of which we are deprived by
property. I hope that we shall not be forced to that extremity; but
these two actions cannot be prosecuted at once, such a course being
prohibited by the same code of procedure.
Before going to the heart of the question, it will not be useless to
offer a few preliminary remarks.
% 1. --Property as a Natural Right.
The Declaration of Rights has placed property in its list of the natural
and inalienable rights of man, four in all: LIBERTY, EQUALITY, PROPERTY,
SECURITY. What rule did the legislators of '93 follow in compiling
this list? None. They laid down principles, just as they discussed
sovereignty and the laws; from a general point of view, and according to
their own opinion. They did every thing in their own blind way.
If we can believe Toullier: "The absolute rights can be reduced to
three: SECURITY, LIBERTY, PROPERTY. " Equality is eliminated by the
Rennes professor; why? Is it because LIBERTY implies it, or because
property prohibits it? On this point the author of "Droit Civil
Explique" is silent: it has not even occurred to him that the matter is
under discussion.
Nevertheless, if we compare these three or four rights with each other,
we find that property bears no resemblance whatever to the others;
that for the majority of citizens it exists only potentially, and as a
dormant faculty without exercise; that for the others, who do enjoy it,
it is susceptible of certain transactions and modifications which do
not harmonize with the idea of a natural right; that, in practice,
governments, tribunals, and laws do not respect it; and finally that
everybody, spontaneously and with one voice, regards it as chimerical.
Liberty is inviolable. I can neither sell nor alienate my liberty;
every contract, every condition of a contract, which has in view the
alienation or suspension of liberty, is null: the slave, when he plants
his foot upon the soil of liberty, at that moment becomes a free man.
When society seizes a malefactor and deprives him of his liberty, it is
a case of legitimate defence: whoever violates the social compact by the
commission of a crime declares himself a public enemy; in attacking the
liberty of others, he compels them to take away his own. Liberty is the
original condition of man; to renounce liberty is to renounce the nature
of man: after that, how could we perform the acts of man?
Likewise, equality before the law suffers neither restriction nor
exception. All Frenchmen are equally eligible to office: consequently,
in the presence of this equality, condition and family have, in many
cases, no influence upon choice. The poorest citizen can obtain judgment
in the courts against one occupying the most exalted station. Let the
millionaire, Ahab, build a chateau upon the vineyard of Naboth: the
court will have the power, according to the circumstances, to order the
destruction of the chateau, though it has cost millions; and to force
the trespasser to restore the vineyard to its original state, and pay
the damages. The law wishes all property, that has been legitimately
acquired, to be kept inviolate without regard to value, and without
respect for persons.
The charter demands, it is true, for the exercise of certain political
rights, certain conditions of fortune and capacity; but all publicists
know that the legislator's intention was not to establish a privilege,
but to take security. Provided the conditions fixed by law are complied
with, every citizen may be an elector, and every elector eligible. The
right, once acquired, is the same for all; the law compares neither
persons nor votes. I do not ask now whether this system is the best; it
is enough that, in the opinion of the charter and in the eyes of every
one, equality before the law is absolute, and, like liberty, admits of
no compromise.
It is the same with the right of security. Society promises its members
no half-way protection, no sham defence; it binds itself to them as
they bind themselves to it. It does not say to them, "I will shield
you, provided it costs me nothing; I will protect you, if I run no risks
thereby. " It says, "I will defend you against everybody; I will save and
avenge you, or perish myself. "
The whole strength of the State is at the service of each citizen; the
obligation which binds them together is absolute.
How different with property! Worshipped by all, it is acknowledged by
none: laws, morals, customs, public and private conscience, all plot its
death and ruin.
To meet the expenses of government, which has armies to support, tasks
to perform, and officers to pay, taxes are needed. Let all contribute to
these expenses: nothing more just. But why should the rich pay more than
the poor? That is just, they say, because they possess more. I confess
that such justice is beyond my comprehension.
Why are taxes paid? To protect all in the exercise of their natural
rights--liberty, equality, security, and property; to maintain order in
the State; to furnish the public with useful and pleasant conveniences.
Now, does it cost more to defend the rich man's life and liberty than
the poor man's? Who, in time of invasion, famine, or plague, causes
more trouble,--the large proprietor who escapes the evil without
the assistance of the State, or the laborer who sits in his cottage
unprotected from danger?
Is public order endangered more by the worthy citizen, or by the artisan
and journeyman? Why, the police have more to fear from a few hundred
laborers, out of work, than from two hundred thousand electors!
Does the man of large income appreciate more keenly than the poor man
national festivities, clean streets, and beautiful monuments?
Why, he prefers his country-seat to all the popular pleasures; and when
he wants to enjoy himself, he does not wait for the greased pole!
One of two things is true: either the proportional tax affords greater
security to the larger tax-payers, or else it is a wrong.
Because, if property is a natural right, as the Declaration of '93
declares, all that belongs to me by virtue of this right is as sacred as
my person; it is my blood, my life, myself: whoever touches it offends
the apple of my eye. My income of one hundred thousand francs is as
inviolable as the grisette's daily wage of seventy-five centimes; her
attic is no more sacred than my suite of apartments. The tax is not
levied in proportion to strength, size, or skill: no more should it be
levied in proportion to property.
If, then, the State takes more from me, let it give me more in return,
or cease to talk of equality of rights; for otherwise, society is
established, not to defend property, but to destroy it. The State,
through the proportional tax, becomes the chief of robbers; the State
sets the example of systematic pillage: the State should be brought to
the bar of justice at the head of those hideous brigands, that execrable
mob which it now kills from motives of professional jealousy.
But, they say, the courts and the police force are established to
restrain this mob; government is a company, not exactly for insurance,
for it does not insure, but for vengeance and repression. The premium
which this company exacts, the tax, is divided in proportion to
property; that is, in proportion to the trouble which each piece of
property occasions the avengers and repressers paid by the government.
This is any thing but the absolute and inalienable right of property.
Under this system the poor and the rich distrust, and make war upon,
each other. But what is the object of the war? Property. So that
property is necessarily accompanied by war upon property. The liberty
and security of the rich do not suffer from the liberty and security
of the poor; far from that, they mutually strengthen and sustain each
other. The rich man's right of property, on the contrary, has to be
continually defended against the poor man's desire for property. What
a contradiction! In England they have a poor-rate: they wish me to pay
this tax. But what relation exists between my natural and inalienable
right of property and the hunger from which ten million wretched people
are suffering? When religion commands us to assist our fellows, it
speaks in the name of charity, not in the name of law. The obligation
of benevolence, imposed upon me by Christian morality, cannot be imposed
upon me as a political tax for the benefit of any person or poor-house.
I will give alms when I see fit to do so, when the sufferings of others
excite in me that sympathy of which philosophers talk, and in which I do
not believe: I will not be forced to bestow them. No one is obliged to
do more than comply with this injunction: IN THE EXERCISE OF YOUR OWN
RIGHTS DO NOT ENCROACH UPON THE RIGHTS OF ANOTHER; an injunction which
is the exact definition of liberty. Now, my possessions are my own;
no one has a claim upon them: I object to the placing of the third
theological virtue in the order of the day.
Everybody, in France, demands the conversion of the five per cent.
bonds; they demand thereby the complete sacrifice of one species of
property. They have the right to do it, if public necessity requires it;
but where is the just indemnity promised by the charter? Not only
does none exist, but this indemnity is not even possible; for, if the
indemnity were equal to the property sacrificed, the conversion would be
useless.
The State occupies the same position to-day toward the bondholders
that the city of Calais did, when besieged by Edward III, toward its
notables. The English conqueror consented to spare its inhabitants,
provided it would surrender to him its most distinguished citizens to do
with as he pleased. Eustache and several others offered themselves; it
was noble in them, and our ministers should recommend their example to
the bondholders. But had the city the right to surrender them? Assuredly
not. The right to security is absolute; the country can require no one
to sacrifice himself. The soldier standing guard within the enemy's
range is no exception to this rule. Wherever a citizen stands guard,
the country stands guard with him: to-day it is the turn of the one,
to-morrow of the other. When danger and devotion are common, flight is
parricide. No one has the right to flee from danger; no one can serve
as a scapegoat. The maxim of Caiaphas--IT IS RIGHT THAT A MAN SHOULD DIE
FOR HIS NATION--is that of the populace and of tyrants; the two extremes
of social degradation.
It is said that all perpetual annuities are essentially redeemable. This
maxim of civil law, applied to the State, is good for those who wish to
return to the natural equality of labor and wealth; but, from the point
of view of the proprietor, and in the mouth of conversionists, it is
the language of bankrupts. The State is not only a borrower, it is an
insurer and guardian of property; granting the best of security, it
assures the most inviolable possession. How, then, can it force open the
hands of its creditors, who have confidence in it, and then talk to
them of public order and security of property? The State, in such
an operation, is not a debtor who discharges his debt; it is a
stock-company which allures its stockholders into a trap, and there,
contrary to its authentic promise, exacts from them twenty, thirty, or
forty per cent. of the interest on their capital.
That is not all. The State is a university of citizens joined together
under a common law by an act of society. This act secures all in the
possession of their property; guarantees to one his field, to another
his vineyard, to a third his rents, and to the bondholder, who might
have bought real estate but who preferred to come to the assistance of
the treasury, his bonds. The State cannot demand, without offering an
equivalent, the sacrifice of an acre of the field or a corner of the
vineyard; still less can it lower rents: why should it have the right
to diminish the interest on bonds? This right could not justly exist,
unless the bondholder could invest his funds elsewhere to equal
advantage; but being confined to the State, where can he find a place to
invest them, since the cause of conversion, that is, the power to borrow
to better advantage, lies in the State? That is why a government, based
on the principle of property, cannot redeem its annuities without the
consent of their holders.
The money deposited with the republic is property which it has no right
to touch while other kinds of property are respected; to force
their redemption is to violate the social contract, and outlaw the
bondholders.
The whole controversy as to the conversion of bonds finally reduces
itself to this:--
QUESTION. Is it just to reduce to misery forty-five thousand families
who derive an income from their bonds of one hundred francs or less?
ANSWER. Is it just to compel seven or eight millions of tax-payers to
pay a tax of five francs, when they should pay only three? It is clear,
in the first place, that the reply is in reality no reply; but, to make
the wrong more apparent, let us change it thus: Is it just to endanger
the lives of one hundred thousand men, when we can save them by
surrendering one hundred heads to the enemy? Reader, decide!
All this is clearly understood by the defenders of the present system.
Yet, nevertheless, sooner or later, the conversion will be effected
and property be violated, because no other course is possible; because
property, regarded as a right, and not being a right, must of right
perish; because the force of events, the laws of conscience, and
physical and mathematical necessity must, in the end, destroy this
illusion of our minds.
To sum up: liberty is an absolute right, because it is to man what
impenetrability is to matter,--a sine qua non of existence; equality
is an absolute right, because without equality there is no society;
security is an absolute right, because in the eyes of every man his own
liberty and life are as precious as another's. These three rights are
absolute; that is, susceptible of neither increase nor diminution;
because in society each associate receives as much as he gives,--liberty
for liberty, equality for equality, security for security, body for
body, soul for soul, in life and in death.
But property, in its derivative sense, and by the definitions of law, is
a right outside of society; for it is clear that, if the wealth of each
was social wealth, the conditions would be equal for all, and it would
be a contradiction to say: PROPERTY IS A MAN'S RIGHT TO DISPOSE AT WILL
OF SOCIAL PROPERTY. Then if we are associated for the sake of liberty,
equality, and security, we are not associated for the sake of property;
then if property is a NATURAL right, this natural right is not SOCIAL,
but ANTI-SOCIAL. Property and society are utterly irreconcilable
institutions. It is as impossible to associate two proprietors as to
join two magnets by their opposite poles. Either society must perish, or
it must destroy property.
If property is a natural, absolute, imprescriptible, and inalienable
right, why, in all ages, has there been so much speculation as to its
origin? --for this is one of its distinguishing characteristics. The
origin of a natural right! Good God! who ever inquired into the origin
of the rights of liberty, security, or equality? They exist by the same
right that we exist; they are born with us, they live and die with us.
With property it is very different, indeed. By law, property can exist
without a proprietor, like a quality without a subject. It exists for
the human being who as yet is not, and for the octogenarian who is no
more. And yet, in spite of these wonderful prerogatives which savor
of the eternal and the infinite, they have never found the origin of
property; the doctors still disagree. On one point only are they in
harmony: namely, that the validity of the right of property depends upon
the authenticity of its origin. But this harmony is their condemnation.
Why have they acknowledged the right before settling the question of
origin?
Certain classes do not relish investigation into the pretended titles to
property, and its fabulous and perhaps scandalous history. They wish to
hold to this proposition: that property is a fact; that it always has
been, and always will be. With that proposition the savant Proudhon [11]
commenced his "Treatise on the Right of Usufruct," regarding the origin
of property as a useless question. Perhaps I would subscribe to this
doctrine, believing it inspired by a commendable love of peace, were
all my fellow-citizens in comfortable circumstances; but, no! I will not
subscribe to it.
The titles on which they pretend to base the right of property are two
in number: OCCUPATION and LABOR. I shall examine them successively,
under all their aspects and in detail; and I remind the reader that,
to whatever authority we appeal, I shall prove beyond a doubt that
property, to be just and possible, must necessarily have equality for
its condition.
% 2. --Occupation, as the Title to Property.
It is remarkable that, at those meetings of the State Council at which
the Code was discussed, no controversy arose as to the origin and
principle of property. All the articles of Vol. II. , Book 2, concerning
property and the right of accession, were passed without opposition or
amendment. Bonaparte, who on other questions had given his legists so
much trouble, had nothing to say about property. Be not surprised at it:
in the eyes of that man, the most selfish and wilful person that ever
lived, property was the first of rights, just as submission to authority
was the most holy of duties.
The right of OCCUPATION, or of the FIRST OCCUPANT, is that which results
from the actual, physical, real possession of a thing. I occupy a
piece of land; the presumption is, that I am the proprietor, until
the contrary is proved. We know that originally such a right cannot be
legitimate unless it is reciprocal; the jurists say as much.
Cicero compares the earth to a vast theatre: _Quemadmodum theatrum cum
commune sit, recte tamen dici potest ejus esse eum locum quem quisque
occuparit_.
This passage is all that ancient philosophy has to say about the origin
of property.
The theatre, says Cicero, is common to all; nevertheless, the place that
each one occupies is called HIS OWN; that is, it is a place POSSESSED,
not a place APPROPRIATED. This comparison annihilates property;
moreover, it implies equality. Can I, in a theatre, occupy at the same
time one place in the pit, another in the boxes, and a third in the
gallery? Not unless I have three bodies, like Geryon, or can exist
in different places at the same time, as is related of the magician
Apollonius.
According to Cicero, no one has a right to more than he needs: such
is the true interpretation of his famous axiom--_suum quidque cujusque
sit_, to each one that which belongs to him--an axiom that has been
strangely applied. That which belongs to each is not that which each MAY
possess, but that which each HAS A RIGHT to possess. Now, what have we a
right to possess? That which is required for our labor and consumption;
Cicero's comparison of the earth to a theatre proves it. According to
that, each one may take what place he will, may beautify and adorn it,
if he can; it is allowable: but he must never allow himself to overstep
the limit which separates him from another. The doctrine of Cicero leads
directly to equality; for, occupation being pure toleration, if the
toleration is mutual (and it cannot be otherwise) the possessions are
equal.
Grotius rushes into history; but what kind of reasoning is that which
seeks the origin of a right, said to be natural, elsewhere than in
Nature? This is the method of the ancients: the fact exists, then it
is necessary, then it is just, then its antecedents are just also.
Nevertheless, let us look into it.
"Originally, all things were common and undivided; they were the
property of all. " Let us go no farther. Grotius tells us how this
original communism came to an end through ambition and cupidity; how the
age of gold was followed by the age of iron, &c. So that property rested
first on war and conquest, then on treaties and agreements. But either
these treaties and agreements distributed wealth equally, as did the
original communism (the only method of distribution with which the
barbarians were acquainted, and the only form of justice of which they
could conceive; and then the question of origin assumes this form:
how did equality afterwards disappear? )--or else these treaties and
agreements were forced by the strong upon the weak, and in that case
they are null; the tacit consent of posterity does not make them valid,
and we live in a permanent condition of iniquity and fraud.
We never can conceive how the equality of conditions, having once
existed, could afterwards have passed away. What was the cause of such
degeneration? The instincts of the animals are unchangeable, as well
as the differences of species; to suppose original equality in human
society is to admit by implication that the present inequality is
a degeneration from the nature of this society,--a thing which the
defenders of property cannot explain. But I infer therefrom that, if
Providence placed the first human beings in a condition of equality, it
was an indication of its desires, a model that it wished them to realize
in other forms; just as the religious sentiment, which it planted in
their hearts, has developed and manifested itself in various ways. Man
has but one nature, constant and unalterable: he pursues it through
instinct, he wanders from it through reflection, he returns to it
through judgment; who shall say that we are not returning now? According
to Grotius, man has abandoned equality; according to me, he will yet
return to it. How came he to abandon it? Why will he return to it? These
are questions for future consideration.
Reid writes as follows:--
"The right of property is not innate, but acquired. It is not grounded
upon the constitution of man, but upon his actions. Writers on
jurisprudence have explained its origin in a manner that may satisfy
every man of common understanding.
"The earth is given to men in common for the purposes of life, by the
bounty of Heaven. But to divide it, and appropriate one part of its
produce to one, another part to another, must be the work of men
who have power and understanding given them, by which every man may
accommodate himself, WITHOUT HURT TO ANY OTHER.
"This common right of every man to what the earth produces, before it
be occupied and appropriated by others, was, by ancient moralists, very
properly compared to the right which every citizen had to the public
theatre, where every man that came might occupy an empty seat, and
thereby acquire a right to it while the entertainment lasted; but no man
had a right to dispossess another.
"The earth is a great theatre, furnished by the Almighty, with perfect
wisdom and goodness, for the entertainment and employment of all
mankind. Here every man has a right to accommodate himself as a
spectator, and to perform his part as an actor; but without hurt to
others. "
Consequences of Reid's doctrine.
1. That the portion which each one appropriates may wrong no one, it
must be equal to the quotient of the total amount of property to be
shared, divided by the number of those who are to share it;
2. The number of places being of necessity equal at all times to that
of the spectators, no spectator can occupy two places, nor can any actor
play several parts;
3. Whenever a spectator comes in or goes out, the places of all contract
or enlarge correspondingly: for, says Reid, "THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY
IS NOT INNATE, BUT ACQUIRED;" consequently, it is not absolute;
consequently, the occupancy on which it is based, being a conditional
fact, cannot endow this right with a stability which it does not possess
itself. This seems to have been the thought of the Edinburgh professor
when he added:--
"A right to life implies a right to the necessary means of life; and
that justice, which forbids the taking away the life of an innocent man,
forbids no less the taking from him the necessary means of life. He has
the same right to defend the one as the other. To hinder another man's
innocent labor, or to deprive him of the fruit of it, is an injustice
of the same kind, and has the same effect as to put him in fetters or in
prison, and is equally a just object of resentment. "
Thus the chief of the Scotch school, without considering at all the
inequality of skill or labor, posits a priori the equality of the means
of labor, abandoning thereafter to each laborer the care of his own
person, after the eternal axiom: WHOSO DOES WELL, SHALL FARE WELL.
The philosopher Reid is lacking, not in knowledge of the principle, but
in courage to pursue it to its ultimate. If the right of life is equal,
the right of labor is equal, and so is the right of occupancy. Would
it not be criminal, were some islanders to repulse, in the name of
property, the unfortunate victims of a shipwreck struggling to reach
the shore? The very idea of such cruelty sickens the imagination. The
proprietor, like Robinson Crusoe on his island, wards off with pike and
musket the proletaire washed overboard by the wave of civilization, and
seeking to gain a foothold upon the rocks of property. "Give me work! "
cries he with all his might to the proprietor: "don't drive me away, I
will work for you at any price. " "I do not need your services," replies
the proprietor, showing the end of his pike or the barrel of his gun.
"Lower my rent at least. " "I need my income to live upon. " "How can
I pay you, when I can get no work? " "That is your business. " Then the
unfortunate proletaire abandons himself to the waves; or, if he attempts
to land upon the shore of property, the proprietor takes aim, and kills
him.
We have just listened to a spiritualist; we will now question a
materialist, then an eclectic: and having completed the circle of
philosophy, we will turn next to law.
According to Destutt de Tracy, property is a necessity of our nature.
That this necessity involves unpleasant consequences, it would be
folly to deny. But these consequences are necessary evils which do not
invalidate the principle; so that it as unreasonable to rebel against
property on account of the abuses which it generates, as to complain
of life because it is sure to end in death. This brutal and pitiless
philosophy promises at least frank and close reasoning. Let us see if it
keeps its promise.
"We talk very gravely about the conditions of property,. . . as if it was
our province to decide what constitutes property. . . . It would seem, to
hear certain philosophers and legislators, that at a certain moment,
spontaneously and without cause, people began to use the words THINE and
MINE; and that they might have, or ought to have, dispensed with them.
But THINE and MINE were never invented. "
A philosopher yourself, you are too realistic. THINE and MINE do not
necessarily refer to self, as they do when I say your philosophy, and my
equality; for your philosophy is you philosophizing, and my equality is
I professing equality. THINE and MINE oftener indicate a relation,--YOUR
country, YOUR parish, YOUR tailor, YOUR milkmaid; MY chamber, MY seat at
the theatre, MY company and MY battalion in the National Guard. In the
former sense, we may sometimes say MY labor, MY skill, MY virtue; never
MY grandeur nor MY majesty: in the latter sense only, MY field, MY
house, MY vineyard, MY capital,--precisely as the banker's clerk says
MY cash-box. In short, THINE and MINE are signs and expressions of
personal, but equal, rights; applied to things outside of us, they
indicate possession, function, use, not property.
It does not seem possible, but, nevertheless, I shall prove, by
quotations, that the whole theory of our author is based upon this
paltry equivocation.
"Prior to all covenants, men are, not exactly, as Hobbes says, in a
state of HOSTILITY, but of ESTRANGEMENT. In this state, justice and
injustice are unknown; the rights of one bear no relation to the rights
of another. All have as many rights as needs, and all feel it their duty
to satisfy those needs by any means at their command. "
Grant it; whether true or false, it matters not. Destutt de Tracy cannot
escape equality. On this theory, men, while in a state of ESTRANGEMENT,
are under no obligations to each other; they all have the right
to satisfy their needs without regard to the needs of others, and
consequently the right to exercise their power over Nature, each
according to his strength and ability. That involves the greatest
inequality of wealth. Inequality of conditions, then, is the
characteristic feature of estrangement or barbarism: the exact opposite
of Rousseau's idea.
But let us look farther:--
"Restrictions of these rights and this duty commence at the time when
covenants, either implied or expressed, are agreed upon. Then appears
for the first time justice and injustice; that is, the balance between
the rights of one and the rights of another, which up to that time were
necessarily equal. "
Listen: RIGHTS WERE EQUAL; that means that each individual had the right
to SATISFY HIS NEEDS WITHOUT REFERENCE TO THE NEEDS OF OTHERS. In other
words, that all had the right to injure each other; that there was no
right save force and cunning. They injured each other, not only by war
and pillage, but also by usurpation and appropriation. Now, in order to
abolish this equal right to use force and stratagem,--this equal
right to do evil, the sole source of the inequality of benefits and
injuries,--they commenced to make COVENANTS EITHER IMPLIED OR EXPRESSED,
and established a balance. Then these agreements and this balance
were intended to secure to all equal comfort; then, by the law of
contradictions, if isolation is the principle of inequality, society
must produce equality. The social balance is the equalization of the
strong and the weak; for, while they are not equals, they are strangers;
they can form no associations,--they live as enemies. Then, if
inequality of conditions is a necessary evil, so is isolation, for
society and inequality are incompatible with each other. Then, if
society is the true condition of man's existence, so is equality also.
This conclusion cannot be avoided.
This being so, how is it that, ever since the establishment of this
balance, inequality has been on the increase? How is it that justice and
isolation always accompany each other? Destutt de Tracy shall reply:--
"NEEDS and MEANS, RIGHTS and DUTIES, are products of the will. If man
willed nothing, these would not exist. But to have needs and means,
rights and duties, is to HAVE, to POSSESS, something. They are so many
kinds of property, using the word in its most general sense: they are
things which belong to us. "
Shameful equivocation, not justified by the necessity for
generalization! The word PROPERTY has two meanings: 1. It designates the
quality which makes a thing what it is; the attribute which is peculiar
to it, and especially distinguishes it. We use it in this sense when we
say THE PROPERTIES OF THE TRIANGLE or of NUMBERS; THE PROPERTY OF THE
MAGNET, &c. 2. It expresses the right of absolute control over a thing
by a free and intelligent being. It is used in this sense by writers
on jurisprudence. Thus, in the phrase, IRON ACQUIRES THE PROPERTY OF A
MAGNET, the word PROPERTY does not convey the same idea that it does in
this one: _I HAVE ACQUIRED THIS MAGNET AS MY PROPERTY_. To tell a poor
man that he HAS property because he HAS arms and legs,--that the hunger
from which he suffers, and his power to sleep in the open air are his
property,--is to play upon words, and to add insult to injury.
"The sole basis of the idea of property is the idea of personality. As
soon as property is born at all, it is born, of necessity, in all its
fulness. As soon as an individual knows HIMSELF,--his moral personality,
his capacities of enjoyment, suffering, and action,--he necessarily
sees also that this SELF is exclusive proprietor of the body in which
it dwells, its organs, their powers, faculties, &c. . . . Inasmuch as
artificial and conventional property exists, there must be natural
property also; for nothing can exist in art without its counterpart in
Nature. "
We ought to admire the honesty and judgment of philosophers! Man has
properties; that is, in the first acceptation of the term, faculties. He
has property; that is, in its second acceptation, the right of domain.
He has, then, the property of the property of being proprietor. How
ashamed I should be to notice such foolishness, were I here considering
only the authority of Destutt de Tracy! But the entire human race, since
the origination of society and language, when metaphysics and dialectics
were first born, has been guilty of this puerile confusion of thought.
All which man could call his own was identified in his mind with his
person. He considered it as his property, his wealth; a part of himself,
a member of his body, a faculty of his mind. The possession of things
was likened to property in the powers of the body and mind; and on this
false analogy was based the right of property,--THE IMITATION OF NATURE
BY ART, as Destutt de Tracy so elegantly puts it.
But why did not this ideologist perceive that man is not proprietor even
of his own faculties? Man has powers, attributes, capacities; they are
given him by Nature that he may live, learn, and love: he does not own
them, but has only the use of them; and he can make no use of them that
does not harmonize with Nature's laws. If he had absolute mastery over
his faculties, he could avoid hunger and cold; he could eat unstintedly,
and walk through fire; he could move mountains, walk a hundred leagues
in a minute, cure without medicines and by the sole force of his will,
and could make himself immortal. He could say, "I wish to produce," and
his tasks would be finished with the words; he could say. "I wish to
know," and he would know; "I love," and he would enjoy. What then? Man
is not master of himself, but may be of his surroundings. Let him use
the wealth of Nature, since he can live only by its use; but let him
abandon his pretensions to the title of proprietor, and remember that he
is called so only metaphorically.
To sum up: Destutt de Tracy classes together the external PRODUCTIONS of
nature and art, and the POWERS or FACULTIES of man, making both of them
species of property; and upon this equivocation he hopes to establish,
so firmly that it can never be disturbed, the right of property. But
of these different kinds of property some are INNATE, as memory,
imagination, strength, and beauty; while others are ACQUIRED, as land,
water, and forests. In the state of Nature or isolation, the strongest
and most skilful (that is, those best provided with innate property)
stand the best chance of obtaining acquired property.
