Now, this is what
happened
to me.
Proudhon - What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government
In fact, without
the appropriation of instruments, property is nothing.
"Hitherto, we have confined ourselves to pointing out and combating the
despotic features of property, by considering property alone. We have
failed to see that the despotism of property is a correlative of the
division of the human race;. . . that property, instead of being organized
in such a way as to facilitate the unlimited communion of man with his
fellows and with the universe, has been, on the contrary, turned against
this communion. "
Let us translate this into commercial phraseology. In order to destroy
despotism and the inequality of conditions, men must cease from
competition and must associate their interests. Let employer and
employed (now enemies and rivals) become associates.
Now, ask any manufacturer, merchant, or capitalist, whether he would
consider himself a proprietor if he were to share his revenue and
profits with this mass of wage-laborers whom it is proposed to make his
associates.
"Family, property, and country are finite things, which ought to be
organized with a view to the infinite. For man is a finite being,
who aspires to the infinite. To him, absolute finiteness is evil. The
infinite is his aim, the indefinite his right. "
Few of my readers would understand these hierophantic words, were I to
leave them unexplained. M. Leroux means, by this magnificent formula,
that humanity is a single immense society, which, in its collective
unity, represents the infinite; that every nation, every tribe, every
commune, and every citizen are, in different degrees, fragments or
finite members of the infinite society, the evil in which results
solely from individualism and privilege,--in other words, from the
subordination of the infinite to the finite; finally, that, to attain
humanity's end and aim, each part has a right to an indefinitely
progressive development.
"All the evils which afflict the human race arise from caste. The family
is a blessing; the family caste (the nobility) is an evil. Country is
a blessing; the country caste (supreme, domineering, conquering) is an
evil; property (individual possession) is a blessing; the property
caste (the domain of property of Pothier, Toullier, Troplong, &c. ) is an
evil. "
Thus, according to M. Leroux, there is property and property,--the one
good, the other bad. Now, as it is proper to call different things by
different names, if we keep the name "property" for the former, we must
call the latter robbery, rapine, brigandage. If, on the contrary, we
reserve the name "property" for the latter, we must designate the former
by the term POSSESSION, or some other equivalent; otherwise we should be
troubled with an unpleasant synonymy.
What a blessing it would be if philosophers, daring for once to say all
that they think, would speak the language of ordinary mortals! Nations
and rulers would derive much greater profit from their lectures, and,
applying the same names to the same ideas, would come, perhaps, to
understand each other. I boldly declare that, in regard to property, I
hold no other opinion than that of M. Leroux; but, if I should adopt the
style of the philosopher, and repeat after him, "Property is a blessing,
but the property caste--the _statu quo_ of property--is an evil," I
should be extolled as a genius by all the bachelors who write for the
reviews. [70] If, on the contrary, I prefer the classic language of Rome
and the civil code, and say accordingly, "Possession is a blessing, but
property is robbery," immediately the aforesaid bachelors raise a hue
and cry against the monster, and the judge threatens me. Oh, the power
of language!
"Le National," on the other hand, has laughed at M. Leroux and his ideas
on property, charging him with TAUTOLOGY and CHILDISHNESS. "Le National"
does not wish to understand. Is it necessary to remind this journal that
it has no right to deride a dogmatic philosopher, because it is without
a doctrine itself? From its foundation, "Le National" has been a nursery
of intriguers and renegades. From time to time it takes care to warn its
readers. Instead of lamenting over all its defections, the democratic
sheet would do better to lay the blame on itself, and confess the
shallowness of its theories. When will this organ of popular interests
and the electoral reform cease to hire sceptics and spread doubt? I will
wager, without going further, that M. Leon Durocher, the critic of M.
Leroux, is an anonymous or pseudonymous editor of some bourgeois, or
even aristocratic, journal.
The economists, questioned in their turn, propose to associate capital
and labor. You know, sir, what that means. If we follow out the
doctrine, we soon find that it ends in an absorption of property, not by
the community, but by a general and indissoluble commandite, so that
the condition of the proprietor would differ from that of the workingman
only in receiving larger wages. This system, with some peculiar
additions and embellishments, is the idea of the phalanstery. But it
is clear that, if inequality of conditions is one of the attributes of
property, it is not the whole of property. That which makes property a
DELIGHTFUL THING, as some philosopher (I know not who) has said, is
the power to dispose at will, not only of one's own goods, but of their
specific nature; to use them at pleasure; to confine and enclose them;
to excommunicate mankind, as M. Pierre Leroux says; in short, to make
such use of them as passion, interest, or even caprice, may suggest.
What is the possession of money, a share in an agricultural or
industrial enterprise, or a government-bond coupon, in comparison with
the infinite charm of being master of one's house and grounds, under
one's vine and fig-tree? "_Beati possidentes_! " says an author quoted by
M. Troplong. Seriously, can that be applied to a man of income, who has
no other possession under the sun than the market, and in his pocket
his money? As well maintain that a trough is a coward. A nice method of
reform! They never cease to condemn the thirst for gold, and the
growing individualism of the century; and yet, most inconceivable
of contradictions, they prepare to turn all kinds of property into
one,--property in coin.
I must say something further of a theory of property lately put forth
with some ado: I mean the theory of M. Considerant.
The Fourierists are not men who examine a doctrine in order to ascertain
whether it conflicts with their system. On the contrary, it is their
custom to exult and sing songs of triumph whenever an adversary passes
without perceiving or noticing them.
These gentlemen want direct refutations, in order that, if they are
beaten, they may have, at least, the selfish consolation of having been
spoken of. Well, let their wish be gratified.
M. Considerant makes the most lofty pretensions to logic. His method
of procedure is always that of MAJOR, MINOR, AND CONCLUSION. He would
willingly write upon his hat, "_Argumentator in barbara_. " But M.
Considerant is too intelligent and quick-witted to be a good logician,
as is proved by the fact that he appears to have taken the syllogism for
logic.
The syllogism, as everybody knows who is interested in philosophical
curiosities, is the first and perpetual sophism of the human mind,--the
favorite tool of falsehood, the stumbling-block of science, the advocate
of crime. The syllogism has produced all the evils which the fabulist
so eloquently condemned, and has done nothing good or useful: it is
as devoid of truth as of justice. We might apply to it these words of
Scripture: "_Celui qui met en lui sa confiance, perira_. " Consequently,
the best philosophers long since condemned it; so that now none but the
enemies of reason wish to make the syllogism its weapon.
M. Considerant, then, has built his theory of property upon a syllogism.
Would he be disposed to stake the system of Fourier upon his arguments,
as I am ready to risk the whole doctrine of equality upon my refutation
of that system? Such a duel would be quite in keeping with the warlike
and chivalric tastes of M. Considerant, and the public would profit by
it; for, one of the two adversaries falling, no more would be said about
him, and there would be one grumbler less in the world.
The theory of M. Considerant has this remarkable feature, that, in
attempting to satisfy at the same time the claims of both laborers and
proprietors, it infringes alike upon the rights of the former and the
privileges of the latter. In the first place, the author lays it down as
a principle: "1. That the use of the land belongs to each member of the
race; that it is a natural and imprescriptible right, similar in all
respects to the right to the air and the sunshine. 2. That the right
to labor is equally fundamental, natural, and imprescriptible. " I have
shown that the recognition of this double right would be the death of
property. I denounce M. Considerant to the proprietors!
But M. Considerant maintains that the right to labor creates the right
of property, and this is the way he reasons:--
Major Premise. --"Every man legitimately possesses the thing which his
labor, his skill,--or, in more general terms, his action,--has created. "
To which M. Considerant adds, by way of comment: "Indeed, the land not
having been created by man, it follows from the fundamental principle
of property, that the land, being given to the race in common, can in
no wise be the exclusive and legitimate property of such and such
individuals, who were not the creators of this value. "
If I am not mistaken, there is no one to whom this proposition, at first
sight and in its entirety, does not seem utterly irrefutable. Reader,
distrust the syllogism.
First, I observe that the words LEGITIMATELY POSSESSES signify to the
author's mind is _LEGITIMATE PROPRIETOR;_ otherwise the argument, being
intended to prove the legitimacy of property, would have no meaning. I
might here raise the question of the difference between property and
possession, and call upon M. Considerant, before going further, to
define the one and the other; but I pass on.
This first proposition is doubly false. 1. In that it asserts the act
of CREATION to be the only basis of property. 2. In that it regards this
act as sufficient in all cases to authorize the right of property.
And, in the first place, if man may be proprietor of the game which he
does not create, but which he KILLS; of the fruits which he does not
create, but which he GATHERS; of the vegetables which he does not
create, but which he PLANTS; of the animals which he does not create,
but which he REARS,--it is conceivable that men may in like manner
become proprietors of the land which they do not create, but which they
clear and fertilize. The act of creation, then, is not NECESSARY to the
acquisition of the right of property. I say further, that this act alone
is not always sufficient, and I prove it by the second premise of M.
Considerant:--
Minor Premise. --"Suppose that on an isolated island, on the soil of a
nation, or over the whole face of the earth (the extent of the scene of
action does not affect our judgment of the facts), a generation of
human beings devotes itself for the first time to industry, agriculture,
manufactures, &c. This generation, by its labor, intelligence, and
activity, creates products, develops values which did not exist on the
uncultivated land. Is it not perfectly clear that the property of this
industrious generation will stand on a basis of right, if the value
or wealth produced by the activity of all be distributed among the
producers, according to each one's assistance in the creation of the
general wealth? That is unquestionable. "
That is quite questionable. For this value or wealth, PRODUCED BY THE
ACTIVITY OF ALL, is by the very fact of its creation COLLECTIVE wealth,
the use of which, like that of the land, may be divided, but which as
property remains UNDIVIDED. And why this undivided ownership? Because
the society which creates is itself indivisible,--a permanent unit,
incapable of reduction to fractions. And it is this unity of society
which makes the land common property, and which, as M. Considerant
says, renders its use imprescriptible in the case of every individual.
Suppose, indeed, that at a given time the soil should be equally
divided; the very next moment this division, if it allowed the right
of property, would become illegitimate. Should there be the slightest
irregularity in the method of transfer, men, members of society,
imprescriptible possessors of the land, might be deprived at one blow of
property, possession, and the means of production. In short, property
in capital is indivisible, and consequently inalienable, not necessarily
when the capital is UNCREATED, but when it is COMMON or COLLECTIVE.
I confirm this theory against M. Considerant, by the third term of his
syllogism:--
Conclusion. --"The results of the labor performed by this generation are
divisible into two classes, between which it is important clearly to
distinguish. The first class includes the products of the soil which
belong to this first generation in its usufructuary capacity, augmented,
improved and refined by its labor and industry. These products consist
either of objects of consumption or instruments of labor. It is clear
that these products are the legitimate property of those who have
created them by their activity. . . . Second class. --Not only has this
generation created the products just mentioned (objects of consumption
and instruments of labor), but it has also added to the original value
of the soil by cultivation, by the erection of buildings, by all
the labor producing permanent results, which it has performed. This
additional value evidently constitutes a product--a value created by
the activity of the first generation; and if, BY ANY MEANS WHATEVER,
the ownership of this value be distributed among the members of
society equitably,--that is, in proportion to the labor which each
has performed,--each will legitimately possess the portion which he
receives. He may then dispose of this legitimate and private property
as he sees fit,--exchange it, give it away, or transfer it; and no other
individual, or collection of other individuals,--that is, society,--can
lay any claim to these values. "
Thus, by the distribution of collective capital, to the use of which
each associate, either in his own right or in right of his authors,
has an imprescriptible and undivided title, there will be in the
phalanstery, as in the France of 1841, the poor and the rich; some men
who, to live in luxury, have only, as Figaro says, to take the
trouble to be born, and others for whom the fortune of life is but an
opportunity for long-continued poverty; idlers with large incomes, and
workers whose fortune is always in the future; some privileged by birth
and caste, and others pariahs whose sole civil and political rights are
THE RIGHT TO LABOR, AND THE RIGHT TO LAND. For we must not be deceived;
in the phalanstery every thing will be as it is to-day, an object of
property,--machines, inventions, thought, books, the products of art,
of agriculture, and of industry; animals, houses, fences, vineyards,
pastures, forests, fields,--every thing, in short, except the
UNCULTIVATED LAND. Now, would you like to know what uncultivated land is
worth, according to the advocates of property? "A square league hardly
suffices for the support of a savage," says M. Charles Comte. Estimating
the wretched subsistence of this savage at three hundred francs
per year, we find that the square league necessary to his life is,
relatively to him, faithfully represented by a rent of fifteen francs.
In France there are twenty-eight thousand square leagues, the total rent
of which, by this estimate, would be four hundred and twenty thousand
francs, which, when divided among nearly thirty-four millions of people,
would give each an INCOME OF A CENTIME AND A QUARTER. That is the new
right which the great genius of Fourier has invented IN BEHALF OF THE
FRENCH PEOPLE, and with which his first disciple hopes to reform the
world. I denounce M. Considerant to the proletariat!
If the theory of M. Considerant would at least really guarantee this
property which he cherishes so jealously, I might pardon him the flaws
in his syllogism, certainly the best one he ever made in his life. But,
no: that which M. Considerant takes for property is only a privilege
of extra pay. In Fourier's system, neither the created capital nor
the increased value of the soil are divided and appropriated in any
effective manner: the instruments of labor, whether created or not,
remain in the hands of the phalanx; the pretended proprietor can touch
only the income. He is permitted neither to realize his share of the
stock, nor to possess it exclusively, nor to administer it, whatever it
be. The cashier throws him his dividend; and then, proprietor, eat the
whole if you can!
The system of Fourier would not suit the proprietors, since it takes
away the most delightful feature of property,--the free disposition of
one's goods. It would please the communists no better, since it involves
unequal conditions. It is repugnant to the friends of free association
and equality, in consequence of its tendency to wipe out human character
and individuality by suppressing possession, family, and country,--the
threefold expression of the human personality.
Of all our active publicists, none seem to me more fertile in resources,
richer in imagination, more luxuriant and varied in style, than M.
Considerant. Nevertheless, I doubt if he will undertake to reestablish
his theory of property. If he has this courage, this is what I would say
to him: "Before writing your reply, consider well your plan of action;
do not scour the country; have recourse to none of your ordinary
expedients; no complaints of civilization; no sarcasms upon equality;
no glorification of the phalanstery. Leave Fourier and the departed in
peace, and endeavor only to re-adjust the pieces of your syllogism. To
this end, you ought, first, to analyze closely each proposition of your
adversary; second, to show the error, either by a direct refutation, or
by proving the converse; third, to oppose argument to argument, so that,
objection and reply meeting face to face, the stronger may break down
the weaker, and shiver it to atoms. By that method only can you boast of
having conquered, and compel me to regard you as an honest reasoner, and
a good artillery-man. "
I should have no excuse for tarrying longer with these phalansterian
crotchets, if the obligation which I have imposed upon myself of making
a clean sweep, and the necessity of vindicating my dignity as a writer,
did not prevent me from passing in silence the reproach uttered against
me by a correspondent of "La Phalange. " "We have seen but lately," says
this journalist, [71] "that M. Proudhon, enthusiast as he has been for
the science created by Fourier, is, or will be, an enthusiast for any
thing else whatsoever. "
If ever sectarians had the right to reproach another for changes in
his beliefs, this right certainly does not belong to the disciples of
Fourier, who are always so eager to administer the phalansterian baptism
to the deserters of all parties. But why regard it as a crime, if they
are sincere? Of what consequence is the constancy or inconstancy of
an individual to the truth which is always the same? It is better
to enlighten men's minds than to teach them to be obstinate in their
prejudices. Do we not know that man is frail and fickle, that his heart
is full of delusions, and that his lips are a distillery of falsehood?
_Omnis homo meudax_. Whether we will or no, we all serve for a time as
instruments of this truth, whose kingdom comes every day.
God alone is immutable, because he is eternal.
That is the reply which, as a general rule, an honest man is entitled
always to make, and which I ought perhaps to be content to offer as an
excuse; for I am no better than my fathers. But, in a century of doubt
and apostasy like ours, when it is of importance to set the small and
the weak an example of strength and honesty of utterance, I must not
suffer my character as a public assailant of property to be dishonored.
I must render an account of my old opinions.
Examining myself, therefore, upon this charge of Fourierism, and
endeavoring to refresh my memory, I find that, having been connected
with the Fourierists in my studies and my friendships, it is possible
that, without knowing it, I have been one of Fourier's partisans. Jerome
Lalande placed Napoleon and Jesus Christ in his catalogue of atheists.
The Fourierists resemble this astronomer: if a man happens to find fault
with the existing civilization, and to admit the truth of a few of their
criticisms, they straightway enlist him, willy-nilly, in their school.
Nevertheless, I do not deny that I have been a Fourierist; for,
since they say it, of course it may be so. But, sir, that of which my
ex-associates are ignorant, and which doubtless will astonish you, is
that I have been many other things,--in religion, by turns a Protestant,
a Papist, an Arian and Semi-Arian, a Manichean, a Gnostic, an
Adamite even and a Pre-Adamite, a Sceptic, a Pelagian, a Socinian, an
Anti-Trinitarian, and a Neo-Christian; [72] in philosophy and politics,
an Idealist, a Pantheist, a Platonist, a Cartesian, an Eclectic
(that is, a sort of _juste-milieu_), a Monarchist, an Aristocrat,
a Constitutionalist, a follower of Babeuf, and a Communist. I have
wandered through a whole encyclopaedia of systems. Do you think
it surprising, sir, that, among them all, I was for a short time a
Fourierist?
For my part, I am not at all surprised, although at present I have
no recollection of it. One thing is sure,--that my superstition and
credulity reached their height at the very period of my life which my
critics reproachfully assign as the date of my Fourieristic beliefs.
Now I hold quite other views. My mind no longer admits that which is
demonstrated by syllogisms, analogies, or metaphors, which are the
methods of the phalanstery, but demands a process of generalization and
induction which excludes error. Of my past OPINIONSS I retain absolutely
none. I have acquired some KNOWLEDGE. I no longer BELIEVE. I either
KNOW, or am IGNORANT. In a word, in seeking for the reason of things, I
saw that I was a RATIONALIST.
Undoubtedly, it would have been simpler to begin where I have ended.
But then, if such is the law of the human mind; if all society, for six
thousand years, has done nothing but fall into error; if all mankind are
still buried in the darkness of faith, deceived by their prejudices and
passions, guided only by the instinct of their leaders; if my accusers,
themselves, are not free from sectarianism (for they call themselves
FOURIERISTS),--am I alone inexcusable for having, in my inner self, at
the secret tribunal of my conscience, begun anew the journey of our poor
humanity?
I would by no means, then, deny my errors; but, sir, that which
distinguishes me from those who rush into print is the fact that, though
my thoughts have varied much, my writings do not vary. To-day, even, and
on a multitude of questions, I am beset by a thousand extravagant and
contradictory opinions; but my opinions I do not print, for the public
has nothing to do with them. Before addressing my fellow-men, I wait
until light breaks in upon the chaos of my ideas, in order that what I
may say may be, not the whole truth (no man can know that), but nothing
but the truth.
This singular disposition of my mind to first identify itself with a
system in order to better understand it, and then to reflect upon it in
order to test its legitimacy, is the very thing which disgusted me with
Fourier, and ruined in my esteem the societary school. To be a faithful
Fourierist, in fact, one must abandon his reason and accept every
thing from a master,--doctrine, interpretation, and application. M.
Considerant, whose excessive intolerance anathematizes all who do not
abide by his sovereign decisions, has no other conception of Fourierism.
Has he not been appointed Fourier's vicar on earth and pope of a Church
which, unfortunately for its apostles, will never be of this world?
Passive belief is the theological virtue of all sectarians, especially
of the Fourierists.
Now, this is what happened to me. While trying to demonstrate by
argument the religion of which I had become a follower in studying
Fourier, I suddenly perceived that by reasoning I was becoming
incredulous; that on each article of the creed my reason and my faith
were at variance, and that my six weeks' labor was wholly lost. I saw
that the Fourierists--in spite of their inexhaustible gabble, and their
extravagant pretension to decide in all things--were neither savants,
nor logicians, nor even believers; that they were SCIENTIFIC QUACKS, who
were led more by their self-love than their conscience to labor for the
triumph of their sect, and to whom all means were good that would reach
that end. I then understood why to the Epicureans they promised women,
wine, music, and a sea of luxury; to the rigorists, maintenance of
marriage, purity of morals, and temperance; to laborers, high wages;
to proprietors, large incomes; to philosophers, solutions the secret
of which Fourier alone possessed; to priests, a costly religion and
magnificent festivals; to savants, knowledge of an unimaginable nature;
to each, indeed, that which he most desired. In the beginning,
this seemed to me droll; in the end, I regarded it as the height of
impudence. No, sir; no one yet knows of the foolishness and infamy which
the phalansterian system contains. That is a subject which I mean to
treat as soon as I have balanced my accounts with property. [73]
It is rumored that the Fourierists think of leaving France and going to
the new world to found a phalanstery. When a house threatens to fall,
the rats scamper away; that is because they are rats. Men do better;
they rebuild it. Not long since, the St. Simonians, despairing of their
country which paid no heed to them, proudly shook the dust from their
feet, and started for the Orient to fight the battle of free woman.
Pride, wilfulness, mad selfishness! True charity, like true faith,
does not worry, never despairs; it seeks neither its own glory, nor
its interest, nor empire; it does every thing for all, speaks with
indulgence to the reason and the will, and desires to conquer only by
persuasion and sacrifice. Remain in France, Fourierists, if the progress
of humanity is the only thing which you have at heart! There is more to
do here than in the new world. Otherwise, go! you are nothing but liars
and hypocrites!
The foregoing statement by no means embraces all the political elements,
all the opinions and tendencies, which threaten the future of property;
but it ought to satisfy any one who knows how to classify facts, and to
deduce their law or the idea which governs them. Existing society seems
abandoned to the demon of falsehood and discord; and it is this sad
sight which grieves so deeply many distinguished minds who lived too
long in a former age to be able to understand ours. Now, while the
short-sighted spectator begins to despair of humanity, and, distracted
and cursing that of which he is ignorant, plunges into scepticism and
fatalism, the true observer, certain of the spirit which governs
the world, seeks to comprehend and fathom Providence. The memoir on
"Property," published last year by the pensioner of the Academy of
Besancon, is simply a study of this nature.
The time has come for me to relate the history of this unlucky treatise,
which has already caused me so much chagrin, and made me so unpopular;
but which was on my part so involuntary and unpremeditated, that I would
dare to affirm that there is not an economist, not a philosopher, not a
jurist, who is not a hundred times guiltier than I. There is something
so singular in the way in which I was led to attack property, that if,
on hearing my sad story, you persist, sir, in your blame, I hope at
least you will be forced to pity me.
I never have pretended to be a great politician; far from that, I always
have felt for controversies of a political nature the greatest aversion;
and if, in my "Essay on Property," I have sometimes ridiculed our
politicians, believe, sir, that I was governed much less by my pride
in the little that I know, than by my vivid consciousness of their
ignorance and excessive vanity. Relying more on Providence than on
men; not suspecting at first that politics, like every other science,
contained an absolute truth; agreeing equally well with Bossuet and
Jean Jacques,--I accepted with resignation my share of human misery,
and contented myself with praying to God for good deputies, upright
ministers, and an honest king. By taste as well as by discretion and
lack of confidence in my powers, I was slowly pursuing some commonplace
studies in philology, mingled with a little metaphysics, when I suddenly
fell upon the greatest problem that ever has occupied philosophical
minds: I mean the criterion of certainty.
Those of my readers who are unacquainted with the philosophical
terminology will be glad to be told in a few words what this criterion
is, which plays so great a part in my work.
The criterion of certainty, according to the philosophers, will be,
when discovered, an infallible method of establishing the truth of an
opinion, a judgment, a theory, or a system, in nearly the same way as
gold is recognized by the touchstone, as iron approaches the magnet,
or, better still, as we verify a mathematical operation by applying
the PROOF. TIME has hitherto served as a sort of criterion for society.
Thus, the primitive men--having observed that they were not all equal
in strength, beauty, and labor--judged, and rightly, that certain ones
among them were called by nature to the performance of simple and common
functions; but they concluded, and this is where their error lay, that
these same individuals of duller intellect, more restricted genius, and
weaker personality, were predestined to SERVE the others; that is, to
labor while the latter rested, and to have no other will than theirs:
and from this idea of a natural subordination among men sprang
domesticity, which, voluntarily accepted at first, was imperceptibly
converted into horrible slavery. Time, making this error more palpable,
has brought about justice. Nations have learned at their own cost that
the subjection of man to man is a false idea, an erroneous theory,
pernicious alike to master and to slave. And yet such a social system
has stood several thousand years, and has been defended by celebrated
philosophers; even to-day, under somewhat mitigated forms, sophists of
every description uphold and extol it. But experience is bringing it to
an end.
Time, then, is the criterion of societies; thus looked at, history is
the demonstration of the errors of humanity by the argument _reductio ad
absurdum_.
Now, the criterion sought for by metaphysicians would have the advantage
of discriminating at once between the true and the false in every
opinion; so that in politics, religion, and morals, for example, the
true and the useful being immediately recognized, we should no longer
need to await the sorrowful experience of time. Evidently such a secret
would be death to the sophists,--that cursed brood, who, under different
names, excite the curiosity of nations, and, owing to the difficulty
of separating the truth from the error in their artistically woven
theories, lead them into fatal ventures, disturb their peace, and fill
them with such extraordinary prejudice.
Up to this day, the criterion of certainty remains a mystery; this is
owing to the multitude of criteria that have been successively proposed.
Some have taken for an absolute and definite criterion the testimony
of the senses; others intuition; these evidence; those argument. M.
Lamennais affirms that there is no other criterion than universal
reason. Before him, M. de Bonald thought he had discovered it in
language. Quite recently, M. Buchez has proposed morality; and, to
harmonize them all, the eclectics have said that it was absurd to seek
for an absolute criterion, since there were as many criteria as special
orders of knowledge.
Of all these hypotheses it may be observed, That the testimony of the
senses is not a criterion, because the senses, relating us only to
phenomena, furnish us with no ideas; that intuition needs external
confirmation or objective certainty; that evidence requires proof, and
argument verification; that universal reason has been wrong many a time;
that language serves equally well to express the true or the false; that
morality, like all the rest, needs demonstration and rule; and finally,
that the eclectic idea is the least reasonable of all, since it is of no
use to say that there are several criteria if we cannot point out one.
I very much fear that it will be with the criterion as with the
philosopher's stone; that it will finally be abandoned, not only as
insolvable, but as chimerical. Consequently, I entertain no hopes of
having found it; nevertheless, I am not sure that some one more skilful
will not discover it.
Be it as it may with regard to a criterion or criteria, there are
methods of demonstration which, when applied to certain subjects,
may lead to the discovery of unknown truths, bring to light relations
hitherto unsuspected, and lift a paradox to the highest degree of
certainty. In such a case, it is not by its novelty, nor even by its
content, that a system should be judged, but by its method. The critic,
then, should follow the example of the Supreme Court, which, in the
cases which come before it, never examines the facts, but only the form
of procedure. Now, what is the form of procedure? A method.
I then looked to see what philosophy, in the absence of a criterion, had
accomplished by the aid of special methods, and I must say that I
could not discover--in spite of the loudly-proclaimed pretensions
of some--that it had produced any thing of real value; and, at last,
wearied with the philosophical twaddle, I resolved to make a new search
for the criterion. I confess it, to my shame, this folly lasted for two
years, and I am not yet entirely rid of it. It was like seeking a needle
in a haystack. I might have learned Chinese or Arabic in the time that I
have lost in considering and reconsidering syllogisms, in rising to
the summit of an induction as to the top of a ladder, in inserting
a proposition between the horns of a dilemma, in decomposing,
distinguishing, separating, denying, affirming, admitting, as if I could
pass abstractions through a sieve.
I selected justice as the subject-matter of my experiments.
Finally, after a thousand decompositions, recompositions, and double
compositions, I found at the bottom of my analytical crucible, not the
criterion of certainty, but a metaphysico-economico-political treatise,
whose conclusions were such that I did not care to present them in a
more artistic or, if you will, more intelligible form. The effect which
this work produced upon all classes of minds gave me an idea of the
spirit of our age, and did not cause me to regret the prudent and
scientific obscurity of my style. How happens it that to-day I am
obliged to defend my intentions, when my conduct bears the evident
impress of such lofty morality?
You have read my work, sir, and you know the gist of my tedious and
scholastic lucubrations. Considering the revolutions of humanity,
the vicissitudes of empires, the transformations of property, and the
innumerable forms of justice and of right, I asked, "Are the evils which
afflict us inherent in our condition as men, or do they arise only from
an error? This inequality of fortunes which all admit to be the cause of
society's embarrassments, is it, as some assert, the effect of Nature;
or, in the division of the products of labor and the soil, may there not
have been some error in calculation? Does each laborer receive all that
is due him, and only that which is due him? In short, in the present
conditions of labor, wages, and exchange, is no one wronged? --are the
accounts well kept? --is the social balance accurate? "
Then I commenced a most laborious investigation. It was necessary to
arrange informal notes, to discuss contradictory titles, to reply to
captious allegations, to refute absurd pretensions, and to describe
fictitious debts, dishonest transactions, and fraudulent accounts. In
order to triumph over quibblers, I had to deny the authority of custom,
to examine the arguments of legislators, and to oppose science with
science itself. Finally, all these operations completed, I had to give a
judicial decision.
I therefore declared, my hand upon my heart, before God and men, that
the causes of social inequality are three in number: 1. GRATUITOUS
APPROPRIATION OF COLLECTIVE WEALTH; 2. INEQUALITY IN EXCHANGE; 3. THE
RIGHT OF PROFIT OR INCREASE.
And since this threefold method of extortion is the very essence of the
domain of property, I denied the legitimacy of property, and proclaimed
its identity with robbery.
That is my only offence. I have reasoned upon property; I have searched
for the criterion of justice; I have demonstrated, not the possibility,
but the necessity, of equality of fortunes; I have allowed myself no
attack upon persons, no assault upon the government, of which I, more
than any one else, am a provisional adherent. If I have sometimes
used the word PROPRIETOR, I have used it as the abstract name of a
metaphysical being, whose reality breathes in every individual,--not
alone in a privileged few.
Nevertheless, I acknowledge--for I wish my confession to be
sincere--that the general tone of my book has been bitterly censured.
They complain of an atmosphere of passion and invective unworthy of
an honest man, and quite out of place in the treatment of so grave a
subject.
If this reproach is well founded (which it is impossible for me either
to deny or admit, because in my own cause I cannot be judge),--if, I
say, I deserve this charge, I can only humble myself and acknowledge
myself guilty of an involuntary wrong; the only excuse that I could
offer being of such a nature that it ought not to be communicated to the
public. All that I can say is, that I understand better than any one how
the anger which injustice causes may render an author harsh and violent
in his criticisms. When, after twenty years of labor, a man still finds
himself on the brink of starvation, and then suddenly discovers in
an equivocation, an error in calculation, the cause of the evil which
torments him in common with so many millions of his fellows, he can
scarcely restrain a cry of sorrow and dismay.
But, sir, though pride be offended by my rudeness, it is not to pride
that I apologize, but to the proletaires, to the simple-minded, whom I
perhaps have scandalized. My angry dialectics may have produced a bad
effect on some peaceable minds. Some poor workingman--more affected
by my sarcasm than by the strength of my arguments--may, perhaps, have
concluded that property is the result of a perpetual Machiavelianism on
the part of the governors against the governed,--a deplorable error of
which my book itself is the best refutation. I devoted two chapters to
showing how property springs from human personality and the comparison
of individuals. Then I explained its perpetual limitation; and,
following out the same idea, I predicted its approaching disappearance.
How, then, could the editors of the "Revue Democratique," after
having borrowed from me nearly the whole substance of their economical
articles, dare to say: "The holders of the soil, and other productive
capital, are more or less wilful accomplices in a vast robbery, they
being the exclusive receivers and sharers of the stolen goods"?
The proprietors WILFULLY guilty of the crime of robbery! Never did
that homicidal phrase escape my pen; never did my heart conceive the
frightful thought. Thank Heaven! I know not how to calumniate my kind;
and I have too strong a desire to seek for the reason of things to be
willing to believe in criminal conspiracies. The millionnaire is no more
tainted by property than the journeyman who works for thirty sous per
day. On both sides the error is equal, as well as the intention. The
effect is also the same, though positive in the former, and negative
in the latter. I accused property; I did not denounce the proprietors,
which would have been absurd: and I am sorry that there are among us
wills so perverse and minds so shattered that they care for only so much
of the truth as will aid them in their evil designs. Such is the
only regret which I feel on account of my indignation, which, though
expressed perhaps too bitterly, was at least honest, and legitimate in
its source.
However, what did I do in this essay which I voluntarily submitted
to the Academy of Moral Sciences? Seeking a fixed axiom amid social
uncertainties, I traced back to one fundamental question all the
secondary questions over which, at present, so keen and diversified
a conflict is raging This question was the right of property. Then,
comparing all existing theories with each other, and extracting from
them that which is common to them all, I endeavored to discover that
element in the idea of property which is necessary, immutable, and
absolute; and asserted, after authentic verification, that this idea
is reducible to that of INDIVIDUAL AND TRANSMISSIBLE POSSESSION;
SUSCEPTIBLE OF EXCHANGE, BUT NOT OF ALIENATION; FOUNDED ON LABOR, AND
NOT ON FICTITIOUS OCCUPANCY, OR IDLE CAPRICE. I said, further, that this
idea was the result of our revolutionary movements,--the culminating
point towards which all opinions, gradually divesting themselves of
their contradictory elements, converge. And I tried to demonstrate
this by the spirit of the laws, by political economy, by psychology and
history.
A Father of the Church, finishing a learned exposition of the Catholic
doctrine, cried, in the enthusiasm of his faith, _"Domine, si error est,
a te decepti sumus_ (if my religion is false, God is to blame). " I, as
well as this theologian, can say, "If equality is a fable, God, through
whom we act and think and are; God, who governs society by eternal laws,
who rewards just nations, and punishes proprietors,--God alone is the
author of evil; God has lied. The fault lies not with me. "
But, if I am mistaken in my inferences, I should be shown my error, and
led out of it. It is surely worth the trouble, and I think I deserve
this honor. There is no ground for proscription.
For, in the words of that member of the Convention who did not like
the guillotine, _to kill is not to reply_. Until then, I persist in
regarding my work as useful, social, full of instruction for public
officials,--worthy, in short, of reward and encouragement.
For there is one truth of which I am profoundly convinced,--nations
live by absolute ideas, not by approximate and partial conceptions;
therefore, men are needed who define principles, or at least test them
in the fire of controversy. Such is the law,--the idea first, the pure
idea, the understanding of the laws of God, the theory: practice follows
with slow steps, cautious, attentive to the succession of events; sure
to seize, towards this eternal meridian, the indications of supreme
reason.
The co-operation of theory and practice produces in humanity the
realization of order,--the absolute truth. [74]
All of us, as long as we live, are called, each in proportion to his
strength, to this sublime work. The only duty which it imposes upon
us is to refrain from appropriating the truth to ourselves, either by
concealing it, or by accommodating it to the temper of the century,
or by using it for our own interests. This principle of conscience, so
grand and so simple, has always been present in my thought.
Consider, in fact, sir, that which I might have done, but did not wish
to do. I reason on the most honorable hypothesis. What hindered me from
concealing, for some years to come, the abstract theory of the equality
of fortunes, and, at the same time, from criticising constitutions and
codes; from showing the absolute and the contingent, the immutable and
the ephemeral, the eternal and the transitory, in laws present and past;
from constructing a new system of legislation, and establishing on
a solid foundation this social edifice, ever destroyed and as often
rebuilt? Might I not, taking up the definitions of casuists, have
clearly shown the cause of their contradictions and uncertainties, and
supplied, at the same time, the inadequacies of their conclusions? Might
I not have confirmed this labor by a vast historical exposition, in
which the principle of exclusion, and of the accumulation of property,
the appropriation of collective wealth, and the radical vice in
exchanges, would have figured as the constant causes of tyranny, war,
and revolution?
"It should have been done," you say. Do not doubt, sir, that such a task
would have required more patience than genius. With the principles of
social economy which I have analyzed, I would have had only to break
the ground, and follow the furrow. The critic of laws finds nothing more
difficult than to determine justice: the labor alone would have been
longer. Oh, if I had pursued this glittering prospect, and, like the
man of the burning bush, with inspired countenance and deep and solemn
voice, had presented myself some day with new tables, there would have
been found fools to admire, boobies to applaud, and cowards to offer me
the dictatorship; for, in the way of popular infatuations, nothing is
impossible.
But, sir, after this monument of insolence and pride, what should I have
deserved in your opinion, at the tribunal of God, and in the judgment of
free men? Death, sir, and eternal reprobation!
I therefore spoke the truth as soon as I saw it, waiting only long
enough to give it proper expression. I pointed out error in order
that each might reform himself, and render his labors more useful. I
announced the existence of a new political element, in order that
my associates in reform, developing it in concert, might arrive more
promptly at that unity of principles which alone can assure to society
a better day. I expected to receive, if not for my book, at least for
my commendable conduct, a small republican ovation. And, behold!
journalists denounce me, academicians curse me, political adventurers
(great God! ) think to make themselves tolerable by protesting that they
are not like me! I give the formula by which the whole social edifice
may be scientifically reconstructed, and the strongest minds reproach
me for being able only to destroy. The rest despise me, because I am
unknown. When the "Essay on Property" fell into the reformatory camp,
some asked: "Who has spoken? Is it Arago? Is it Lamennais? Michel de
Bourges or Garnier-Pages? "
And when they heard the name of a new man: "We do not know him,"
they would reply. Thus, the monopoly of thought, property in reason,
oppresses the proletariat as well as the _bourgeoisie_. The worship of
the infamous prevails even on the steps of the tabernacle.
But what am I saying? May evil befall me, if I blame the poor creatures!
Oh! let us not despise those generous souls, who in the excitement of
their patriotism are always prompt to identify the voice of their
chiefs with the truth. Let us encourage rather their simple credulity,
enlighten complacently and tenderly their precious sincerity, and
reserve our shafts for those vain-glorious spirits who are always
admiring their genius, and, in different tongues, caressing the people
in order to govern them.
These considerations alone oblige me to reply to the strange and
superficial conclusions of the "Journal du Peuple" (issue of Oct. 11,
1840), on the question of property. I leave, therefore, the journalist
to address myself only to his readers. I hope that the self-love of the
writer will not be offended, if, in the presence of the masses, I ignore
an individual.
You say, proletaires of the "Peuple," "For the very reason that men and
things exist, there always will be men who will possess things; nothing,
therefore, can destroy property. "
In speaking thus, you unconsciously argue exactly after the manner of
M. Cousin, who always reasons from _possession_ to PROPERTY. This
coincidence, however, does not surprise me. M. Cousin is a philosopher
of much mind, and you, proletaires, have still more. Certainly it is
honorable, even for a philosopher, to be your companion in error.
Originally, the word PROPERTY was synonymous with PROPER or INDIVIDUAL
POSSESSION. It designated each individual's special right to the use of
a thing. But when this right of use, inert (if I may say so) as it
was with regard to the other usufructuaries, became active and
paramount,--that is, when the usufructuary converted his right to
personally use the thing into the right to use it by his neighbor's
labor,--then property changed its nature, and its idea became complex.
The legists knew this very well, but instead of opposing, as they ought,
this accumulation of profits, they accepted and sanctioned the whole.
And as the right of farm-rent necessarily implies the right of use,--in
other words, as the right to cultivate land by the labor of a slave
supposes one's power to cultivate it himself, according to the principle
that the greater includes the less,--the name property was reserved
to designate this double right, and that of possession was adopted to
designate the right of use.
Whence property came to be called the perfect right, the right of
domain, the eminent right, the heroic or _quiritaire_ right,--in Latin,
_jus perfectum, jus optimum, jus quiritarium, jus dominii_,--while
possession became assimilated to farm-rent.
Now, that individual possession exists of right, or, better,
from natural necessity, all philosophers admit, and can easily e
demonstrated; but when, in imitation of M. Cousin, we assume it to be
the basis of the domain of property, we fall into the sophism called
_sophisma amphiboliae vel ambiguitatis_, which consists in changing the
meaning by a verbal equivocation.
People often think themselves very profound, because, by the aid of
expressions of extreme generality, they appear to rise to the height
of absolute ideas, and thus deceive inexperienced minds; and, what
is worse, this is commonly called EXAMINING ABSTRACTIONS. But the
abstraction formed by the comparison of identical facts is one thing,
while that which is deduced from different acceptations of the same term
is quite another. The first gives the universal idea, the axiom, the
law; the second indicates the order of generation of ideas. All
our errors arise from the constant confusion of these two kinds of
abstractions. In this particular, languages and philosophies are alike
deficient. The less common an idiom is, and the more obscure its
terms, the more prolific is it as a source of error: a philosopher is
sophistical in proportion to his ignorance of any method of neutralizing
this imperfection in language. If the art of correcting the errors of
speech by scientific methods is ever discovered, then philosophy will
have found its criterion of certainty.
Now, then, the difference between property and possession being well
established, and it being settled that the former, for the reasons
which I have just given, must necessarily disappear, is it best, for the
slight advantage of restoring an etymology, to retain the word PROPERTY?
My opinion is that it would be very unwise to do so, and I will tell
why. I quote from the "Journal du Peuple:"--
"To the legislative power belongs the right to regulate property, to
prescribe the conditions of acquiring, possessing, and transmitting
it. . . It cannot be denied that inheritance, assessment, commerce,
industry, labor, and wages require the most important modifications. "
You wish, proletaires, to REGULATE PROPERTY; that is, you wish to
destroy it and reduce it to the right of possession. For to regulate
property without the consent of the proprietors is to deny the right
OF DOMAIN; to associate employees with proprietors is to destroy
the EMINENT right; to suppress or even reduce farm-rent, house-rent,
revenue, and increase generally, is to annihilate PERFECT property. Why,
then, while laboring with such laudable enthusiasm for the establishment
of equality, should you retain an expression whose equivocal meaning
will always be an obstacle in the way of your success?
There you have the first reason--a wholly philosophical one--for
rejecting not only the thing, but the name, property. Here now is the
political, the highest reason.
Every social revolution--M. Cousin will tell you--is effected only by
the realization of an idea, either political, moral, or religious. When
Alexander conquered Asia, his idea was to avenge Greek liberty against
the insults of Oriental despotism; when Marius and Caesar overthrew
the Roman patricians, their idea was to give bread to the people;
when Christianity revolutionized the world, its idea was to emancipate
mankind, and to substitute the worship of one God for the deities of
Epicurus and Homer; when France rose in '89, her idea was liberty and
equality before the law. There has been no true revolution, says M.
Cousin, with out its idea; so that where an idea does not exist, or even
fails of a formal expression, revolution is impossible. There are mobs,
conspirators, rioters, regicides. There are no revolutionists. Society,
devoid of ideas, twists and tosses about, and dies in the midst of its
fruitless labor.
Nevertheless, you all feel that a revolution is to come, and that you
alone can accomplish it. What, then, is the idea which governs you,
proletaires of the nineteenth century? --for really I cannot call you
revolutionists.
the appropriation of instruments, property is nothing.
"Hitherto, we have confined ourselves to pointing out and combating the
despotic features of property, by considering property alone. We have
failed to see that the despotism of property is a correlative of the
division of the human race;. . . that property, instead of being organized
in such a way as to facilitate the unlimited communion of man with his
fellows and with the universe, has been, on the contrary, turned against
this communion. "
Let us translate this into commercial phraseology. In order to destroy
despotism and the inequality of conditions, men must cease from
competition and must associate their interests. Let employer and
employed (now enemies and rivals) become associates.
Now, ask any manufacturer, merchant, or capitalist, whether he would
consider himself a proprietor if he were to share his revenue and
profits with this mass of wage-laborers whom it is proposed to make his
associates.
"Family, property, and country are finite things, which ought to be
organized with a view to the infinite. For man is a finite being,
who aspires to the infinite. To him, absolute finiteness is evil. The
infinite is his aim, the indefinite his right. "
Few of my readers would understand these hierophantic words, were I to
leave them unexplained. M. Leroux means, by this magnificent formula,
that humanity is a single immense society, which, in its collective
unity, represents the infinite; that every nation, every tribe, every
commune, and every citizen are, in different degrees, fragments or
finite members of the infinite society, the evil in which results
solely from individualism and privilege,--in other words, from the
subordination of the infinite to the finite; finally, that, to attain
humanity's end and aim, each part has a right to an indefinitely
progressive development.
"All the evils which afflict the human race arise from caste. The family
is a blessing; the family caste (the nobility) is an evil. Country is
a blessing; the country caste (supreme, domineering, conquering) is an
evil; property (individual possession) is a blessing; the property
caste (the domain of property of Pothier, Toullier, Troplong, &c. ) is an
evil. "
Thus, according to M. Leroux, there is property and property,--the one
good, the other bad. Now, as it is proper to call different things by
different names, if we keep the name "property" for the former, we must
call the latter robbery, rapine, brigandage. If, on the contrary, we
reserve the name "property" for the latter, we must designate the former
by the term POSSESSION, or some other equivalent; otherwise we should be
troubled with an unpleasant synonymy.
What a blessing it would be if philosophers, daring for once to say all
that they think, would speak the language of ordinary mortals! Nations
and rulers would derive much greater profit from their lectures, and,
applying the same names to the same ideas, would come, perhaps, to
understand each other. I boldly declare that, in regard to property, I
hold no other opinion than that of M. Leroux; but, if I should adopt the
style of the philosopher, and repeat after him, "Property is a blessing,
but the property caste--the _statu quo_ of property--is an evil," I
should be extolled as a genius by all the bachelors who write for the
reviews. [70] If, on the contrary, I prefer the classic language of Rome
and the civil code, and say accordingly, "Possession is a blessing, but
property is robbery," immediately the aforesaid bachelors raise a hue
and cry against the monster, and the judge threatens me. Oh, the power
of language!
"Le National," on the other hand, has laughed at M. Leroux and his ideas
on property, charging him with TAUTOLOGY and CHILDISHNESS. "Le National"
does not wish to understand. Is it necessary to remind this journal that
it has no right to deride a dogmatic philosopher, because it is without
a doctrine itself? From its foundation, "Le National" has been a nursery
of intriguers and renegades. From time to time it takes care to warn its
readers. Instead of lamenting over all its defections, the democratic
sheet would do better to lay the blame on itself, and confess the
shallowness of its theories. When will this organ of popular interests
and the electoral reform cease to hire sceptics and spread doubt? I will
wager, without going further, that M. Leon Durocher, the critic of M.
Leroux, is an anonymous or pseudonymous editor of some bourgeois, or
even aristocratic, journal.
The economists, questioned in their turn, propose to associate capital
and labor. You know, sir, what that means. If we follow out the
doctrine, we soon find that it ends in an absorption of property, not by
the community, but by a general and indissoluble commandite, so that
the condition of the proprietor would differ from that of the workingman
only in receiving larger wages. This system, with some peculiar
additions and embellishments, is the idea of the phalanstery. But it
is clear that, if inequality of conditions is one of the attributes of
property, it is not the whole of property. That which makes property a
DELIGHTFUL THING, as some philosopher (I know not who) has said, is
the power to dispose at will, not only of one's own goods, but of their
specific nature; to use them at pleasure; to confine and enclose them;
to excommunicate mankind, as M. Pierre Leroux says; in short, to make
such use of them as passion, interest, or even caprice, may suggest.
What is the possession of money, a share in an agricultural or
industrial enterprise, or a government-bond coupon, in comparison with
the infinite charm of being master of one's house and grounds, under
one's vine and fig-tree? "_Beati possidentes_! " says an author quoted by
M. Troplong. Seriously, can that be applied to a man of income, who has
no other possession under the sun than the market, and in his pocket
his money? As well maintain that a trough is a coward. A nice method of
reform! They never cease to condemn the thirst for gold, and the
growing individualism of the century; and yet, most inconceivable
of contradictions, they prepare to turn all kinds of property into
one,--property in coin.
I must say something further of a theory of property lately put forth
with some ado: I mean the theory of M. Considerant.
The Fourierists are not men who examine a doctrine in order to ascertain
whether it conflicts with their system. On the contrary, it is their
custom to exult and sing songs of triumph whenever an adversary passes
without perceiving or noticing them.
These gentlemen want direct refutations, in order that, if they are
beaten, they may have, at least, the selfish consolation of having been
spoken of. Well, let their wish be gratified.
M. Considerant makes the most lofty pretensions to logic. His method
of procedure is always that of MAJOR, MINOR, AND CONCLUSION. He would
willingly write upon his hat, "_Argumentator in barbara_. " But M.
Considerant is too intelligent and quick-witted to be a good logician,
as is proved by the fact that he appears to have taken the syllogism for
logic.
The syllogism, as everybody knows who is interested in philosophical
curiosities, is the first and perpetual sophism of the human mind,--the
favorite tool of falsehood, the stumbling-block of science, the advocate
of crime. The syllogism has produced all the evils which the fabulist
so eloquently condemned, and has done nothing good or useful: it is
as devoid of truth as of justice. We might apply to it these words of
Scripture: "_Celui qui met en lui sa confiance, perira_. " Consequently,
the best philosophers long since condemned it; so that now none but the
enemies of reason wish to make the syllogism its weapon.
M. Considerant, then, has built his theory of property upon a syllogism.
Would he be disposed to stake the system of Fourier upon his arguments,
as I am ready to risk the whole doctrine of equality upon my refutation
of that system? Such a duel would be quite in keeping with the warlike
and chivalric tastes of M. Considerant, and the public would profit by
it; for, one of the two adversaries falling, no more would be said about
him, and there would be one grumbler less in the world.
The theory of M. Considerant has this remarkable feature, that, in
attempting to satisfy at the same time the claims of both laborers and
proprietors, it infringes alike upon the rights of the former and the
privileges of the latter. In the first place, the author lays it down as
a principle: "1. That the use of the land belongs to each member of the
race; that it is a natural and imprescriptible right, similar in all
respects to the right to the air and the sunshine. 2. That the right
to labor is equally fundamental, natural, and imprescriptible. " I have
shown that the recognition of this double right would be the death of
property. I denounce M. Considerant to the proprietors!
But M. Considerant maintains that the right to labor creates the right
of property, and this is the way he reasons:--
Major Premise. --"Every man legitimately possesses the thing which his
labor, his skill,--or, in more general terms, his action,--has created. "
To which M. Considerant adds, by way of comment: "Indeed, the land not
having been created by man, it follows from the fundamental principle
of property, that the land, being given to the race in common, can in
no wise be the exclusive and legitimate property of such and such
individuals, who were not the creators of this value. "
If I am not mistaken, there is no one to whom this proposition, at first
sight and in its entirety, does not seem utterly irrefutable. Reader,
distrust the syllogism.
First, I observe that the words LEGITIMATELY POSSESSES signify to the
author's mind is _LEGITIMATE PROPRIETOR;_ otherwise the argument, being
intended to prove the legitimacy of property, would have no meaning. I
might here raise the question of the difference between property and
possession, and call upon M. Considerant, before going further, to
define the one and the other; but I pass on.
This first proposition is doubly false. 1. In that it asserts the act
of CREATION to be the only basis of property. 2. In that it regards this
act as sufficient in all cases to authorize the right of property.
And, in the first place, if man may be proprietor of the game which he
does not create, but which he KILLS; of the fruits which he does not
create, but which he GATHERS; of the vegetables which he does not
create, but which he PLANTS; of the animals which he does not create,
but which he REARS,--it is conceivable that men may in like manner
become proprietors of the land which they do not create, but which they
clear and fertilize. The act of creation, then, is not NECESSARY to the
acquisition of the right of property. I say further, that this act alone
is not always sufficient, and I prove it by the second premise of M.
Considerant:--
Minor Premise. --"Suppose that on an isolated island, on the soil of a
nation, or over the whole face of the earth (the extent of the scene of
action does not affect our judgment of the facts), a generation of
human beings devotes itself for the first time to industry, agriculture,
manufactures, &c. This generation, by its labor, intelligence, and
activity, creates products, develops values which did not exist on the
uncultivated land. Is it not perfectly clear that the property of this
industrious generation will stand on a basis of right, if the value
or wealth produced by the activity of all be distributed among the
producers, according to each one's assistance in the creation of the
general wealth? That is unquestionable. "
That is quite questionable. For this value or wealth, PRODUCED BY THE
ACTIVITY OF ALL, is by the very fact of its creation COLLECTIVE wealth,
the use of which, like that of the land, may be divided, but which as
property remains UNDIVIDED. And why this undivided ownership? Because
the society which creates is itself indivisible,--a permanent unit,
incapable of reduction to fractions. And it is this unity of society
which makes the land common property, and which, as M. Considerant
says, renders its use imprescriptible in the case of every individual.
Suppose, indeed, that at a given time the soil should be equally
divided; the very next moment this division, if it allowed the right
of property, would become illegitimate. Should there be the slightest
irregularity in the method of transfer, men, members of society,
imprescriptible possessors of the land, might be deprived at one blow of
property, possession, and the means of production. In short, property
in capital is indivisible, and consequently inalienable, not necessarily
when the capital is UNCREATED, but when it is COMMON or COLLECTIVE.
I confirm this theory against M. Considerant, by the third term of his
syllogism:--
Conclusion. --"The results of the labor performed by this generation are
divisible into two classes, between which it is important clearly to
distinguish. The first class includes the products of the soil which
belong to this first generation in its usufructuary capacity, augmented,
improved and refined by its labor and industry. These products consist
either of objects of consumption or instruments of labor. It is clear
that these products are the legitimate property of those who have
created them by their activity. . . . Second class. --Not only has this
generation created the products just mentioned (objects of consumption
and instruments of labor), but it has also added to the original value
of the soil by cultivation, by the erection of buildings, by all
the labor producing permanent results, which it has performed. This
additional value evidently constitutes a product--a value created by
the activity of the first generation; and if, BY ANY MEANS WHATEVER,
the ownership of this value be distributed among the members of
society equitably,--that is, in proportion to the labor which each
has performed,--each will legitimately possess the portion which he
receives. He may then dispose of this legitimate and private property
as he sees fit,--exchange it, give it away, or transfer it; and no other
individual, or collection of other individuals,--that is, society,--can
lay any claim to these values. "
Thus, by the distribution of collective capital, to the use of which
each associate, either in his own right or in right of his authors,
has an imprescriptible and undivided title, there will be in the
phalanstery, as in the France of 1841, the poor and the rich; some men
who, to live in luxury, have only, as Figaro says, to take the
trouble to be born, and others for whom the fortune of life is but an
opportunity for long-continued poverty; idlers with large incomes, and
workers whose fortune is always in the future; some privileged by birth
and caste, and others pariahs whose sole civil and political rights are
THE RIGHT TO LABOR, AND THE RIGHT TO LAND. For we must not be deceived;
in the phalanstery every thing will be as it is to-day, an object of
property,--machines, inventions, thought, books, the products of art,
of agriculture, and of industry; animals, houses, fences, vineyards,
pastures, forests, fields,--every thing, in short, except the
UNCULTIVATED LAND. Now, would you like to know what uncultivated land is
worth, according to the advocates of property? "A square league hardly
suffices for the support of a savage," says M. Charles Comte. Estimating
the wretched subsistence of this savage at three hundred francs
per year, we find that the square league necessary to his life is,
relatively to him, faithfully represented by a rent of fifteen francs.
In France there are twenty-eight thousand square leagues, the total rent
of which, by this estimate, would be four hundred and twenty thousand
francs, which, when divided among nearly thirty-four millions of people,
would give each an INCOME OF A CENTIME AND A QUARTER. That is the new
right which the great genius of Fourier has invented IN BEHALF OF THE
FRENCH PEOPLE, and with which his first disciple hopes to reform the
world. I denounce M. Considerant to the proletariat!
If the theory of M. Considerant would at least really guarantee this
property which he cherishes so jealously, I might pardon him the flaws
in his syllogism, certainly the best one he ever made in his life. But,
no: that which M. Considerant takes for property is only a privilege
of extra pay. In Fourier's system, neither the created capital nor
the increased value of the soil are divided and appropriated in any
effective manner: the instruments of labor, whether created or not,
remain in the hands of the phalanx; the pretended proprietor can touch
only the income. He is permitted neither to realize his share of the
stock, nor to possess it exclusively, nor to administer it, whatever it
be. The cashier throws him his dividend; and then, proprietor, eat the
whole if you can!
The system of Fourier would not suit the proprietors, since it takes
away the most delightful feature of property,--the free disposition of
one's goods. It would please the communists no better, since it involves
unequal conditions. It is repugnant to the friends of free association
and equality, in consequence of its tendency to wipe out human character
and individuality by suppressing possession, family, and country,--the
threefold expression of the human personality.
Of all our active publicists, none seem to me more fertile in resources,
richer in imagination, more luxuriant and varied in style, than M.
Considerant. Nevertheless, I doubt if he will undertake to reestablish
his theory of property. If he has this courage, this is what I would say
to him: "Before writing your reply, consider well your plan of action;
do not scour the country; have recourse to none of your ordinary
expedients; no complaints of civilization; no sarcasms upon equality;
no glorification of the phalanstery. Leave Fourier and the departed in
peace, and endeavor only to re-adjust the pieces of your syllogism. To
this end, you ought, first, to analyze closely each proposition of your
adversary; second, to show the error, either by a direct refutation, or
by proving the converse; third, to oppose argument to argument, so that,
objection and reply meeting face to face, the stronger may break down
the weaker, and shiver it to atoms. By that method only can you boast of
having conquered, and compel me to regard you as an honest reasoner, and
a good artillery-man. "
I should have no excuse for tarrying longer with these phalansterian
crotchets, if the obligation which I have imposed upon myself of making
a clean sweep, and the necessity of vindicating my dignity as a writer,
did not prevent me from passing in silence the reproach uttered against
me by a correspondent of "La Phalange. " "We have seen but lately," says
this journalist, [71] "that M. Proudhon, enthusiast as he has been for
the science created by Fourier, is, or will be, an enthusiast for any
thing else whatsoever. "
If ever sectarians had the right to reproach another for changes in
his beliefs, this right certainly does not belong to the disciples of
Fourier, who are always so eager to administer the phalansterian baptism
to the deserters of all parties. But why regard it as a crime, if they
are sincere? Of what consequence is the constancy or inconstancy of
an individual to the truth which is always the same? It is better
to enlighten men's minds than to teach them to be obstinate in their
prejudices. Do we not know that man is frail and fickle, that his heart
is full of delusions, and that his lips are a distillery of falsehood?
_Omnis homo meudax_. Whether we will or no, we all serve for a time as
instruments of this truth, whose kingdom comes every day.
God alone is immutable, because he is eternal.
That is the reply which, as a general rule, an honest man is entitled
always to make, and which I ought perhaps to be content to offer as an
excuse; for I am no better than my fathers. But, in a century of doubt
and apostasy like ours, when it is of importance to set the small and
the weak an example of strength and honesty of utterance, I must not
suffer my character as a public assailant of property to be dishonored.
I must render an account of my old opinions.
Examining myself, therefore, upon this charge of Fourierism, and
endeavoring to refresh my memory, I find that, having been connected
with the Fourierists in my studies and my friendships, it is possible
that, without knowing it, I have been one of Fourier's partisans. Jerome
Lalande placed Napoleon and Jesus Christ in his catalogue of atheists.
The Fourierists resemble this astronomer: if a man happens to find fault
with the existing civilization, and to admit the truth of a few of their
criticisms, they straightway enlist him, willy-nilly, in their school.
Nevertheless, I do not deny that I have been a Fourierist; for,
since they say it, of course it may be so. But, sir, that of which my
ex-associates are ignorant, and which doubtless will astonish you, is
that I have been many other things,--in religion, by turns a Protestant,
a Papist, an Arian and Semi-Arian, a Manichean, a Gnostic, an
Adamite even and a Pre-Adamite, a Sceptic, a Pelagian, a Socinian, an
Anti-Trinitarian, and a Neo-Christian; [72] in philosophy and politics,
an Idealist, a Pantheist, a Platonist, a Cartesian, an Eclectic
(that is, a sort of _juste-milieu_), a Monarchist, an Aristocrat,
a Constitutionalist, a follower of Babeuf, and a Communist. I have
wandered through a whole encyclopaedia of systems. Do you think
it surprising, sir, that, among them all, I was for a short time a
Fourierist?
For my part, I am not at all surprised, although at present I have
no recollection of it. One thing is sure,--that my superstition and
credulity reached their height at the very period of my life which my
critics reproachfully assign as the date of my Fourieristic beliefs.
Now I hold quite other views. My mind no longer admits that which is
demonstrated by syllogisms, analogies, or metaphors, which are the
methods of the phalanstery, but demands a process of generalization and
induction which excludes error. Of my past OPINIONSS I retain absolutely
none. I have acquired some KNOWLEDGE. I no longer BELIEVE. I either
KNOW, or am IGNORANT. In a word, in seeking for the reason of things, I
saw that I was a RATIONALIST.
Undoubtedly, it would have been simpler to begin where I have ended.
But then, if such is the law of the human mind; if all society, for six
thousand years, has done nothing but fall into error; if all mankind are
still buried in the darkness of faith, deceived by their prejudices and
passions, guided only by the instinct of their leaders; if my accusers,
themselves, are not free from sectarianism (for they call themselves
FOURIERISTS),--am I alone inexcusable for having, in my inner self, at
the secret tribunal of my conscience, begun anew the journey of our poor
humanity?
I would by no means, then, deny my errors; but, sir, that which
distinguishes me from those who rush into print is the fact that, though
my thoughts have varied much, my writings do not vary. To-day, even, and
on a multitude of questions, I am beset by a thousand extravagant and
contradictory opinions; but my opinions I do not print, for the public
has nothing to do with them. Before addressing my fellow-men, I wait
until light breaks in upon the chaos of my ideas, in order that what I
may say may be, not the whole truth (no man can know that), but nothing
but the truth.
This singular disposition of my mind to first identify itself with a
system in order to better understand it, and then to reflect upon it in
order to test its legitimacy, is the very thing which disgusted me with
Fourier, and ruined in my esteem the societary school. To be a faithful
Fourierist, in fact, one must abandon his reason and accept every
thing from a master,--doctrine, interpretation, and application. M.
Considerant, whose excessive intolerance anathematizes all who do not
abide by his sovereign decisions, has no other conception of Fourierism.
Has he not been appointed Fourier's vicar on earth and pope of a Church
which, unfortunately for its apostles, will never be of this world?
Passive belief is the theological virtue of all sectarians, especially
of the Fourierists.
Now, this is what happened to me. While trying to demonstrate by
argument the religion of which I had become a follower in studying
Fourier, I suddenly perceived that by reasoning I was becoming
incredulous; that on each article of the creed my reason and my faith
were at variance, and that my six weeks' labor was wholly lost. I saw
that the Fourierists--in spite of their inexhaustible gabble, and their
extravagant pretension to decide in all things--were neither savants,
nor logicians, nor even believers; that they were SCIENTIFIC QUACKS, who
were led more by their self-love than their conscience to labor for the
triumph of their sect, and to whom all means were good that would reach
that end. I then understood why to the Epicureans they promised women,
wine, music, and a sea of luxury; to the rigorists, maintenance of
marriage, purity of morals, and temperance; to laborers, high wages;
to proprietors, large incomes; to philosophers, solutions the secret
of which Fourier alone possessed; to priests, a costly religion and
magnificent festivals; to savants, knowledge of an unimaginable nature;
to each, indeed, that which he most desired. In the beginning,
this seemed to me droll; in the end, I regarded it as the height of
impudence. No, sir; no one yet knows of the foolishness and infamy which
the phalansterian system contains. That is a subject which I mean to
treat as soon as I have balanced my accounts with property. [73]
It is rumored that the Fourierists think of leaving France and going to
the new world to found a phalanstery. When a house threatens to fall,
the rats scamper away; that is because they are rats. Men do better;
they rebuild it. Not long since, the St. Simonians, despairing of their
country which paid no heed to them, proudly shook the dust from their
feet, and started for the Orient to fight the battle of free woman.
Pride, wilfulness, mad selfishness! True charity, like true faith,
does not worry, never despairs; it seeks neither its own glory, nor
its interest, nor empire; it does every thing for all, speaks with
indulgence to the reason and the will, and desires to conquer only by
persuasion and sacrifice. Remain in France, Fourierists, if the progress
of humanity is the only thing which you have at heart! There is more to
do here than in the new world. Otherwise, go! you are nothing but liars
and hypocrites!
The foregoing statement by no means embraces all the political elements,
all the opinions and tendencies, which threaten the future of property;
but it ought to satisfy any one who knows how to classify facts, and to
deduce their law or the idea which governs them. Existing society seems
abandoned to the demon of falsehood and discord; and it is this sad
sight which grieves so deeply many distinguished minds who lived too
long in a former age to be able to understand ours. Now, while the
short-sighted spectator begins to despair of humanity, and, distracted
and cursing that of which he is ignorant, plunges into scepticism and
fatalism, the true observer, certain of the spirit which governs
the world, seeks to comprehend and fathom Providence. The memoir on
"Property," published last year by the pensioner of the Academy of
Besancon, is simply a study of this nature.
The time has come for me to relate the history of this unlucky treatise,
which has already caused me so much chagrin, and made me so unpopular;
but which was on my part so involuntary and unpremeditated, that I would
dare to affirm that there is not an economist, not a philosopher, not a
jurist, who is not a hundred times guiltier than I. There is something
so singular in the way in which I was led to attack property, that if,
on hearing my sad story, you persist, sir, in your blame, I hope at
least you will be forced to pity me.
I never have pretended to be a great politician; far from that, I always
have felt for controversies of a political nature the greatest aversion;
and if, in my "Essay on Property," I have sometimes ridiculed our
politicians, believe, sir, that I was governed much less by my pride
in the little that I know, than by my vivid consciousness of their
ignorance and excessive vanity. Relying more on Providence than on
men; not suspecting at first that politics, like every other science,
contained an absolute truth; agreeing equally well with Bossuet and
Jean Jacques,--I accepted with resignation my share of human misery,
and contented myself with praying to God for good deputies, upright
ministers, and an honest king. By taste as well as by discretion and
lack of confidence in my powers, I was slowly pursuing some commonplace
studies in philology, mingled with a little metaphysics, when I suddenly
fell upon the greatest problem that ever has occupied philosophical
minds: I mean the criterion of certainty.
Those of my readers who are unacquainted with the philosophical
terminology will be glad to be told in a few words what this criterion
is, which plays so great a part in my work.
The criterion of certainty, according to the philosophers, will be,
when discovered, an infallible method of establishing the truth of an
opinion, a judgment, a theory, or a system, in nearly the same way as
gold is recognized by the touchstone, as iron approaches the magnet,
or, better still, as we verify a mathematical operation by applying
the PROOF. TIME has hitherto served as a sort of criterion for society.
Thus, the primitive men--having observed that they were not all equal
in strength, beauty, and labor--judged, and rightly, that certain ones
among them were called by nature to the performance of simple and common
functions; but they concluded, and this is where their error lay, that
these same individuals of duller intellect, more restricted genius, and
weaker personality, were predestined to SERVE the others; that is, to
labor while the latter rested, and to have no other will than theirs:
and from this idea of a natural subordination among men sprang
domesticity, which, voluntarily accepted at first, was imperceptibly
converted into horrible slavery. Time, making this error more palpable,
has brought about justice. Nations have learned at their own cost that
the subjection of man to man is a false idea, an erroneous theory,
pernicious alike to master and to slave. And yet such a social system
has stood several thousand years, and has been defended by celebrated
philosophers; even to-day, under somewhat mitigated forms, sophists of
every description uphold and extol it. But experience is bringing it to
an end.
Time, then, is the criterion of societies; thus looked at, history is
the demonstration of the errors of humanity by the argument _reductio ad
absurdum_.
Now, the criterion sought for by metaphysicians would have the advantage
of discriminating at once between the true and the false in every
opinion; so that in politics, religion, and morals, for example, the
true and the useful being immediately recognized, we should no longer
need to await the sorrowful experience of time. Evidently such a secret
would be death to the sophists,--that cursed brood, who, under different
names, excite the curiosity of nations, and, owing to the difficulty
of separating the truth from the error in their artistically woven
theories, lead them into fatal ventures, disturb their peace, and fill
them with such extraordinary prejudice.
Up to this day, the criterion of certainty remains a mystery; this is
owing to the multitude of criteria that have been successively proposed.
Some have taken for an absolute and definite criterion the testimony
of the senses; others intuition; these evidence; those argument. M.
Lamennais affirms that there is no other criterion than universal
reason. Before him, M. de Bonald thought he had discovered it in
language. Quite recently, M. Buchez has proposed morality; and, to
harmonize them all, the eclectics have said that it was absurd to seek
for an absolute criterion, since there were as many criteria as special
orders of knowledge.
Of all these hypotheses it may be observed, That the testimony of the
senses is not a criterion, because the senses, relating us only to
phenomena, furnish us with no ideas; that intuition needs external
confirmation or objective certainty; that evidence requires proof, and
argument verification; that universal reason has been wrong many a time;
that language serves equally well to express the true or the false; that
morality, like all the rest, needs demonstration and rule; and finally,
that the eclectic idea is the least reasonable of all, since it is of no
use to say that there are several criteria if we cannot point out one.
I very much fear that it will be with the criterion as with the
philosopher's stone; that it will finally be abandoned, not only as
insolvable, but as chimerical. Consequently, I entertain no hopes of
having found it; nevertheless, I am not sure that some one more skilful
will not discover it.
Be it as it may with regard to a criterion or criteria, there are
methods of demonstration which, when applied to certain subjects,
may lead to the discovery of unknown truths, bring to light relations
hitherto unsuspected, and lift a paradox to the highest degree of
certainty. In such a case, it is not by its novelty, nor even by its
content, that a system should be judged, but by its method. The critic,
then, should follow the example of the Supreme Court, which, in the
cases which come before it, never examines the facts, but only the form
of procedure. Now, what is the form of procedure? A method.
I then looked to see what philosophy, in the absence of a criterion, had
accomplished by the aid of special methods, and I must say that I
could not discover--in spite of the loudly-proclaimed pretensions
of some--that it had produced any thing of real value; and, at last,
wearied with the philosophical twaddle, I resolved to make a new search
for the criterion. I confess it, to my shame, this folly lasted for two
years, and I am not yet entirely rid of it. It was like seeking a needle
in a haystack. I might have learned Chinese or Arabic in the time that I
have lost in considering and reconsidering syllogisms, in rising to
the summit of an induction as to the top of a ladder, in inserting
a proposition between the horns of a dilemma, in decomposing,
distinguishing, separating, denying, affirming, admitting, as if I could
pass abstractions through a sieve.
I selected justice as the subject-matter of my experiments.
Finally, after a thousand decompositions, recompositions, and double
compositions, I found at the bottom of my analytical crucible, not the
criterion of certainty, but a metaphysico-economico-political treatise,
whose conclusions were such that I did not care to present them in a
more artistic or, if you will, more intelligible form. The effect which
this work produced upon all classes of minds gave me an idea of the
spirit of our age, and did not cause me to regret the prudent and
scientific obscurity of my style. How happens it that to-day I am
obliged to defend my intentions, when my conduct bears the evident
impress of such lofty morality?
You have read my work, sir, and you know the gist of my tedious and
scholastic lucubrations. Considering the revolutions of humanity,
the vicissitudes of empires, the transformations of property, and the
innumerable forms of justice and of right, I asked, "Are the evils which
afflict us inherent in our condition as men, or do they arise only from
an error? This inequality of fortunes which all admit to be the cause of
society's embarrassments, is it, as some assert, the effect of Nature;
or, in the division of the products of labor and the soil, may there not
have been some error in calculation? Does each laborer receive all that
is due him, and only that which is due him? In short, in the present
conditions of labor, wages, and exchange, is no one wronged? --are the
accounts well kept? --is the social balance accurate? "
Then I commenced a most laborious investigation. It was necessary to
arrange informal notes, to discuss contradictory titles, to reply to
captious allegations, to refute absurd pretensions, and to describe
fictitious debts, dishonest transactions, and fraudulent accounts. In
order to triumph over quibblers, I had to deny the authority of custom,
to examine the arguments of legislators, and to oppose science with
science itself. Finally, all these operations completed, I had to give a
judicial decision.
I therefore declared, my hand upon my heart, before God and men, that
the causes of social inequality are three in number: 1. GRATUITOUS
APPROPRIATION OF COLLECTIVE WEALTH; 2. INEQUALITY IN EXCHANGE; 3. THE
RIGHT OF PROFIT OR INCREASE.
And since this threefold method of extortion is the very essence of the
domain of property, I denied the legitimacy of property, and proclaimed
its identity with robbery.
That is my only offence. I have reasoned upon property; I have searched
for the criterion of justice; I have demonstrated, not the possibility,
but the necessity, of equality of fortunes; I have allowed myself no
attack upon persons, no assault upon the government, of which I, more
than any one else, am a provisional adherent. If I have sometimes
used the word PROPRIETOR, I have used it as the abstract name of a
metaphysical being, whose reality breathes in every individual,--not
alone in a privileged few.
Nevertheless, I acknowledge--for I wish my confession to be
sincere--that the general tone of my book has been bitterly censured.
They complain of an atmosphere of passion and invective unworthy of
an honest man, and quite out of place in the treatment of so grave a
subject.
If this reproach is well founded (which it is impossible for me either
to deny or admit, because in my own cause I cannot be judge),--if, I
say, I deserve this charge, I can only humble myself and acknowledge
myself guilty of an involuntary wrong; the only excuse that I could
offer being of such a nature that it ought not to be communicated to the
public. All that I can say is, that I understand better than any one how
the anger which injustice causes may render an author harsh and violent
in his criticisms. When, after twenty years of labor, a man still finds
himself on the brink of starvation, and then suddenly discovers in
an equivocation, an error in calculation, the cause of the evil which
torments him in common with so many millions of his fellows, he can
scarcely restrain a cry of sorrow and dismay.
But, sir, though pride be offended by my rudeness, it is not to pride
that I apologize, but to the proletaires, to the simple-minded, whom I
perhaps have scandalized. My angry dialectics may have produced a bad
effect on some peaceable minds. Some poor workingman--more affected
by my sarcasm than by the strength of my arguments--may, perhaps, have
concluded that property is the result of a perpetual Machiavelianism on
the part of the governors against the governed,--a deplorable error of
which my book itself is the best refutation. I devoted two chapters to
showing how property springs from human personality and the comparison
of individuals. Then I explained its perpetual limitation; and,
following out the same idea, I predicted its approaching disappearance.
How, then, could the editors of the "Revue Democratique," after
having borrowed from me nearly the whole substance of their economical
articles, dare to say: "The holders of the soil, and other productive
capital, are more or less wilful accomplices in a vast robbery, they
being the exclusive receivers and sharers of the stolen goods"?
The proprietors WILFULLY guilty of the crime of robbery! Never did
that homicidal phrase escape my pen; never did my heart conceive the
frightful thought. Thank Heaven! I know not how to calumniate my kind;
and I have too strong a desire to seek for the reason of things to be
willing to believe in criminal conspiracies. The millionnaire is no more
tainted by property than the journeyman who works for thirty sous per
day. On both sides the error is equal, as well as the intention. The
effect is also the same, though positive in the former, and negative
in the latter. I accused property; I did not denounce the proprietors,
which would have been absurd: and I am sorry that there are among us
wills so perverse and minds so shattered that they care for only so much
of the truth as will aid them in their evil designs. Such is the
only regret which I feel on account of my indignation, which, though
expressed perhaps too bitterly, was at least honest, and legitimate in
its source.
However, what did I do in this essay which I voluntarily submitted
to the Academy of Moral Sciences? Seeking a fixed axiom amid social
uncertainties, I traced back to one fundamental question all the
secondary questions over which, at present, so keen and diversified
a conflict is raging This question was the right of property. Then,
comparing all existing theories with each other, and extracting from
them that which is common to them all, I endeavored to discover that
element in the idea of property which is necessary, immutable, and
absolute; and asserted, after authentic verification, that this idea
is reducible to that of INDIVIDUAL AND TRANSMISSIBLE POSSESSION;
SUSCEPTIBLE OF EXCHANGE, BUT NOT OF ALIENATION; FOUNDED ON LABOR, AND
NOT ON FICTITIOUS OCCUPANCY, OR IDLE CAPRICE. I said, further, that this
idea was the result of our revolutionary movements,--the culminating
point towards which all opinions, gradually divesting themselves of
their contradictory elements, converge. And I tried to demonstrate
this by the spirit of the laws, by political economy, by psychology and
history.
A Father of the Church, finishing a learned exposition of the Catholic
doctrine, cried, in the enthusiasm of his faith, _"Domine, si error est,
a te decepti sumus_ (if my religion is false, God is to blame). " I, as
well as this theologian, can say, "If equality is a fable, God, through
whom we act and think and are; God, who governs society by eternal laws,
who rewards just nations, and punishes proprietors,--God alone is the
author of evil; God has lied. The fault lies not with me. "
But, if I am mistaken in my inferences, I should be shown my error, and
led out of it. It is surely worth the trouble, and I think I deserve
this honor. There is no ground for proscription.
For, in the words of that member of the Convention who did not like
the guillotine, _to kill is not to reply_. Until then, I persist in
regarding my work as useful, social, full of instruction for public
officials,--worthy, in short, of reward and encouragement.
For there is one truth of which I am profoundly convinced,--nations
live by absolute ideas, not by approximate and partial conceptions;
therefore, men are needed who define principles, or at least test them
in the fire of controversy. Such is the law,--the idea first, the pure
idea, the understanding of the laws of God, the theory: practice follows
with slow steps, cautious, attentive to the succession of events; sure
to seize, towards this eternal meridian, the indications of supreme
reason.
The co-operation of theory and practice produces in humanity the
realization of order,--the absolute truth. [74]
All of us, as long as we live, are called, each in proportion to his
strength, to this sublime work. The only duty which it imposes upon
us is to refrain from appropriating the truth to ourselves, either by
concealing it, or by accommodating it to the temper of the century,
or by using it for our own interests. This principle of conscience, so
grand and so simple, has always been present in my thought.
Consider, in fact, sir, that which I might have done, but did not wish
to do. I reason on the most honorable hypothesis. What hindered me from
concealing, for some years to come, the abstract theory of the equality
of fortunes, and, at the same time, from criticising constitutions and
codes; from showing the absolute and the contingent, the immutable and
the ephemeral, the eternal and the transitory, in laws present and past;
from constructing a new system of legislation, and establishing on
a solid foundation this social edifice, ever destroyed and as often
rebuilt? Might I not, taking up the definitions of casuists, have
clearly shown the cause of their contradictions and uncertainties, and
supplied, at the same time, the inadequacies of their conclusions? Might
I not have confirmed this labor by a vast historical exposition, in
which the principle of exclusion, and of the accumulation of property,
the appropriation of collective wealth, and the radical vice in
exchanges, would have figured as the constant causes of tyranny, war,
and revolution?
"It should have been done," you say. Do not doubt, sir, that such a task
would have required more patience than genius. With the principles of
social economy which I have analyzed, I would have had only to break
the ground, and follow the furrow. The critic of laws finds nothing more
difficult than to determine justice: the labor alone would have been
longer. Oh, if I had pursued this glittering prospect, and, like the
man of the burning bush, with inspired countenance and deep and solemn
voice, had presented myself some day with new tables, there would have
been found fools to admire, boobies to applaud, and cowards to offer me
the dictatorship; for, in the way of popular infatuations, nothing is
impossible.
But, sir, after this monument of insolence and pride, what should I have
deserved in your opinion, at the tribunal of God, and in the judgment of
free men? Death, sir, and eternal reprobation!
I therefore spoke the truth as soon as I saw it, waiting only long
enough to give it proper expression. I pointed out error in order
that each might reform himself, and render his labors more useful. I
announced the existence of a new political element, in order that
my associates in reform, developing it in concert, might arrive more
promptly at that unity of principles which alone can assure to society
a better day. I expected to receive, if not for my book, at least for
my commendable conduct, a small republican ovation. And, behold!
journalists denounce me, academicians curse me, political adventurers
(great God! ) think to make themselves tolerable by protesting that they
are not like me! I give the formula by which the whole social edifice
may be scientifically reconstructed, and the strongest minds reproach
me for being able only to destroy. The rest despise me, because I am
unknown. When the "Essay on Property" fell into the reformatory camp,
some asked: "Who has spoken? Is it Arago? Is it Lamennais? Michel de
Bourges or Garnier-Pages? "
And when they heard the name of a new man: "We do not know him,"
they would reply. Thus, the monopoly of thought, property in reason,
oppresses the proletariat as well as the _bourgeoisie_. The worship of
the infamous prevails even on the steps of the tabernacle.
But what am I saying? May evil befall me, if I blame the poor creatures!
Oh! let us not despise those generous souls, who in the excitement of
their patriotism are always prompt to identify the voice of their
chiefs with the truth. Let us encourage rather their simple credulity,
enlighten complacently and tenderly their precious sincerity, and
reserve our shafts for those vain-glorious spirits who are always
admiring their genius, and, in different tongues, caressing the people
in order to govern them.
These considerations alone oblige me to reply to the strange and
superficial conclusions of the "Journal du Peuple" (issue of Oct. 11,
1840), on the question of property. I leave, therefore, the journalist
to address myself only to his readers. I hope that the self-love of the
writer will not be offended, if, in the presence of the masses, I ignore
an individual.
You say, proletaires of the "Peuple," "For the very reason that men and
things exist, there always will be men who will possess things; nothing,
therefore, can destroy property. "
In speaking thus, you unconsciously argue exactly after the manner of
M. Cousin, who always reasons from _possession_ to PROPERTY. This
coincidence, however, does not surprise me. M. Cousin is a philosopher
of much mind, and you, proletaires, have still more. Certainly it is
honorable, even for a philosopher, to be your companion in error.
Originally, the word PROPERTY was synonymous with PROPER or INDIVIDUAL
POSSESSION. It designated each individual's special right to the use of
a thing. But when this right of use, inert (if I may say so) as it
was with regard to the other usufructuaries, became active and
paramount,--that is, when the usufructuary converted his right to
personally use the thing into the right to use it by his neighbor's
labor,--then property changed its nature, and its idea became complex.
The legists knew this very well, but instead of opposing, as they ought,
this accumulation of profits, they accepted and sanctioned the whole.
And as the right of farm-rent necessarily implies the right of use,--in
other words, as the right to cultivate land by the labor of a slave
supposes one's power to cultivate it himself, according to the principle
that the greater includes the less,--the name property was reserved
to designate this double right, and that of possession was adopted to
designate the right of use.
Whence property came to be called the perfect right, the right of
domain, the eminent right, the heroic or _quiritaire_ right,--in Latin,
_jus perfectum, jus optimum, jus quiritarium, jus dominii_,--while
possession became assimilated to farm-rent.
Now, that individual possession exists of right, or, better,
from natural necessity, all philosophers admit, and can easily e
demonstrated; but when, in imitation of M. Cousin, we assume it to be
the basis of the domain of property, we fall into the sophism called
_sophisma amphiboliae vel ambiguitatis_, which consists in changing the
meaning by a verbal equivocation.
People often think themselves very profound, because, by the aid of
expressions of extreme generality, they appear to rise to the height
of absolute ideas, and thus deceive inexperienced minds; and, what
is worse, this is commonly called EXAMINING ABSTRACTIONS. But the
abstraction formed by the comparison of identical facts is one thing,
while that which is deduced from different acceptations of the same term
is quite another. The first gives the universal idea, the axiom, the
law; the second indicates the order of generation of ideas. All
our errors arise from the constant confusion of these two kinds of
abstractions. In this particular, languages and philosophies are alike
deficient. The less common an idiom is, and the more obscure its
terms, the more prolific is it as a source of error: a philosopher is
sophistical in proportion to his ignorance of any method of neutralizing
this imperfection in language. If the art of correcting the errors of
speech by scientific methods is ever discovered, then philosophy will
have found its criterion of certainty.
Now, then, the difference between property and possession being well
established, and it being settled that the former, for the reasons
which I have just given, must necessarily disappear, is it best, for the
slight advantage of restoring an etymology, to retain the word PROPERTY?
My opinion is that it would be very unwise to do so, and I will tell
why. I quote from the "Journal du Peuple:"--
"To the legislative power belongs the right to regulate property, to
prescribe the conditions of acquiring, possessing, and transmitting
it. . . It cannot be denied that inheritance, assessment, commerce,
industry, labor, and wages require the most important modifications. "
You wish, proletaires, to REGULATE PROPERTY; that is, you wish to
destroy it and reduce it to the right of possession. For to regulate
property without the consent of the proprietors is to deny the right
OF DOMAIN; to associate employees with proprietors is to destroy
the EMINENT right; to suppress or even reduce farm-rent, house-rent,
revenue, and increase generally, is to annihilate PERFECT property. Why,
then, while laboring with such laudable enthusiasm for the establishment
of equality, should you retain an expression whose equivocal meaning
will always be an obstacle in the way of your success?
There you have the first reason--a wholly philosophical one--for
rejecting not only the thing, but the name, property. Here now is the
political, the highest reason.
Every social revolution--M. Cousin will tell you--is effected only by
the realization of an idea, either political, moral, or religious. When
Alexander conquered Asia, his idea was to avenge Greek liberty against
the insults of Oriental despotism; when Marius and Caesar overthrew
the Roman patricians, their idea was to give bread to the people;
when Christianity revolutionized the world, its idea was to emancipate
mankind, and to substitute the worship of one God for the deities of
Epicurus and Homer; when France rose in '89, her idea was liberty and
equality before the law. There has been no true revolution, says M.
Cousin, with out its idea; so that where an idea does not exist, or even
fails of a formal expression, revolution is impossible. There are mobs,
conspirators, rioters, regicides. There are no revolutionists. Society,
devoid of ideas, twists and tosses about, and dies in the midst of its
fruitless labor.
Nevertheless, you all feel that a revolution is to come, and that you
alone can accomplish it. What, then, is the idea which governs you,
proletaires of the nineteenth century? --for really I cannot call you
revolutionists.
