,--the farmer, I say, can he
boast that he produces by his own unaided effort?
boast that he produces by his own unaided effort?
Proudhon - What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government
Property makes of a poet either a Croesus or a beggar; only
equality knows how to honor and to praise him. What is its duty? To
regulate the right of the singer and the duty of the listener. Now,
notice this point, which is a very important one in the solution of this
question: both are free, the one to sell, the other to buy. Henceforth
their respective pretensions go for nothing; and the estimate, whether
fair or unfair, that they place, the one upon his verse, the other
upon his liberality, can have no influence upon the conditions of the
contract. We must no longer, in making our bargains, weigh talent; we
must consider products only.
In order that the bard of Achilles may get his due reward, he must first
make himself wanted: that done, the exchange of his verse for a fee of
any kind, being a free act, must be at the same time a just act; that
is, the poet's fee must be equal to his product. Now, what is the value
of this product?
Let us suppose, in the first place, that this "Iliad"--this chef-d'
oeuvre that is to be equitably rewarded--is really above price, that we
do not know how to appraise it. If the public, who are free to purchase
it, refuse to do so, it is clear that, the poem being unexchangeable,
its intrinsic value will not be diminished; but that its exchangeable
value, or its productive utility, will be reduced to zero, will be
nothing at all. Then we must seek the amount of wages to be paid between
infinity on the one hand and nothing on the other, at an equal distance
from each, since all rights and liberties are entitled to equal respect;
in other words, it is not the intrinsic value, but the relative value,
of the thing sold that needs to be fixed. The question grows simpler:
what is this relative value? To what reward does a poem like the "Iliad"
entitle its author?
The first business of political economy, after fixing its definitions,
was the solution of this problem; now, not only has it not been solved,
but it has been declared insoluble. According to the economists,
the relative or exchangeable value of things cannot be absolutely
determined; it necessarily varies.
"The value of a thing," says Say, "is a positive quantity, but only for
a given moment. It is its nature to perpetually vary, to change from one
point to another. Nothing can fix it absolutely, because it is based
on needs and means of production which vary with every moment. These
variations complicate economical phenomena, and often render them very
difficult of observation and solution. I know no remedy for this; it is
not in our power to change the nature of things. "
Elsewhere Say says, and repeats, that value being based on utility, and
utility depending entirely on our needs, whims, customs, &c. , value
is as variable as opinion. Now, political economy being the science
of values, of their production, distribution, exchange, and
consumption,--if exchangeable value cannot be absolutely determined,
how is political economy possible? How can it be a science? How can two
economists look each other in the face without laughing? How dare they
insult metaphysicians and psychologists? What! that fool of a Descartes
imagined that philosophy needed an immovable base--an _aliquid
inconcussum_--on which the edifice of science might be built, and he was
simple enough to search for it! And the Hermes of economy, Trismegistus
Say, devoting half a volume to the amplification of that solemn text,
_political economy is a science_, has the courage to affirm immediately
afterwards that this science cannot determine its object,--which is
equivalent to saying that it is without a principle or foundation! He
does not know, then, the illustrious Say, the nature of a science; or
rather, he knows nothing of the subject which he discusses.
Say's example has borne its fruits. Political economy, as it exists at
present, resembles ontology: discussing effects and causes, it knows
nothing, explains nothing, decides nothing. The ideas honored with the
name of economic laws are nothing more than a few trifling generalities,
to which the economists thought to give an appearance of depth by
clothing them in high-sounding words. As for the attempts that have been
made by the economists to solve social problems, all that can be said
of them is, that, if a glimmer of sense occasionally appears in their
lucubrations, they immediately fall back into absurdity. For twenty-five
years political economy, like a heavy fog, has weighed upon France,
checking the efforts of the mind, and setting limits to liberty.
Has every creation of industry a venal, absolute, unchangeable, and
consequently legitimate and true value? --Yes.
Can every product of man be exchanged for some other product of
man? --Yes, again.
How many nails is a pair of shoes worth?
If we can solve this appalling problem, we shall have the key of the
social system for which humanity has been searching for six thousand
years. In the presence of this problem, the economist recoils confused;
the peasant who can neither read nor write replies without hesitation:
"As many as can be made in the same time, and with the same expense. "
The absolute value of a thing, then, is its cost in time and expense.
How much is a diamond worth which costs only the labor of picking it
up? --Nothing; it is not a product of man. How much will it be worth when
cut and mounted? --The time and expense which it has cost the laborer.
Why, then, is it sold at so high a price? --Because men are not free.
Society must regulate the exchange and distribution of the rarest
things, as it does that of the most common ones, in such a way that each
may share in the enjoyment of them. What, then, is that value which is
based upon opinion? --Delusion, injustice, and robbery.
By this rule, it is easy to reconcile every body. If the mean term,
which we are searching for, between an infinite value and no value at
all is expressed in the case of every product, by the amount of time and
expense which the product cost, a poem which has cost its author thirty
years of labor and an outlay of ten thousand francs in journeys, books,
&c. , must be paid for by the ordinary wages received by a laborer during
thirty years, PLUS ten thousand francs indemnity for expense incurred.
Suppose the whole amount to be fifty thousand francs; if the society
which gets the benefit of the production include a million of men, my
share of the debt is five centimes.
This gives rise to a few observations.
1. The same product, at different times and in different places, may
cost more or less of time and outlay; in this view, it is true that
value is a variable quantity. But this variation is not that of the
economists, who place in their list of the causes of the variation of
values, not only the means of production, but taste, caprice, fashion,
and opinion. In short, the true value of a thing is invariable in its
algebraic expression, although it may vary in its monetary expression.
2. The price of every product in demand should be its cost in time and
outlay--neither more nor less: every product not in demand is a loss to
the producer--a commercial non-value.
3. The ignorance of the principle of evaluation, and the difficulty
under many circumstances of applying it, is the source of commercial
fraud, and one of the most potent causes of the inequality of fortunes.
4. To reward certain industries and pay for certain products, a society
is needed which corresponds in size with the rarity of talents, the
costliness of the products, and the variety of the arts and sciences.
If, for example, a society of fifty farmers can support a schoolmaster,
it requires one hundred for a shoemaker, one hundred and fifty for a
blacksmith, two hundred for a tailor, &c. If the number of farmers rises
to one thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand, &c. , as fast as
their number increases, that of the functionaries which are earliest
required must increase in the same proportion; so that the highest
functions become possible only in the most powerful societies. [17] That
is the peculiar feature of capacities; the character of genius, the seal
of its glory, cannot arise and develop itself, except in the bosom of
a great nation. But this physiological condition, necessary to the
existence of genius, adds nothing to its social rights: far from
that,--the delay in its appearance proves that, in economical and
civil affairs, the loftiest intelligence must submit to the equality
of possessions; an equality which is anterior to it, and of which it
constitutes the crown.
This is severe on our pride, but it is an inexorable truth. And here
psychology comes to the aid of social economy, giving us to understand
that talent and material recompense have no common measure; that, in
this respect, the condition of all producers is equal: consequently,
that all comparison between them, and all distinction in fortunes, is
impossible.
_ _In fact, every work coming from the hands of man--compared with the
raw material of which it is composed--is beyond price. In this respect,
the distance is as great between a pair of wooden shoes and the trunk of
a walnut-tree, as between a statue by Scopas and a block of marble.
The genius of the simplest mechanic exerts as much influence over the
materials which he uses, as does the mind of a Newton over the inert
spheres whose distances, volumes, and revolutions he calculates. You ask
for talent and genius a corresponding degree of honor and reward. Fix
for me the value of a wood-cutter's talent, and I will fix that of
Homer. If any thing can reward intelligence, it is intelligence itself.
That is what happens, when various classes of producers pay to each
other a reciprocal tribute of admiration and praise. But if they
contemplate an exchange of products with a view to satisfying mutual
needs, this exchange must be effected in accordance with a system of
economy which is indifferent to considerations of talent and genius, and
whose laws are deduced, not from vague and meaningless admiration, but
from a just balance between DEBIT and CREDIT; in short, from commercial
accounts.
Now, that no one may imagine that the liberty of buying and selling
is the sole basis of the equality of wages, and that society's sole
protection against superiority of talent lies in a certain force of
inertia which has nothing in common with right, I shall proceed to
explain why all capacities are entitled to the same reward, and why a
corresponding difference in wages would be an injustice. I shall prove
that the obligation to stoop to the social level is inherent in talent;
and on this very superiority of genius I will found the equality of
fortunes. I have just given the negative argument in favor of rewarding
all capacities alike; I will now give the direct and positive argument.
Listen, first, to the economist: it is always pleasant to see how he
reasons, and how he understands justice. Without him, moreover, without
his amusing blunders and his wonderful arguments, we should learn
nothing. Equality, so odious to the economist, owes every thing to
political economy.
"When the parents of a physician [the text says a lawyer, which is
not so good an example] have expended on his education forty thousand
francs, this sum may be regarded as so much capital invested in his
head. It is therefore permissible to consider it as yielding an annual
income of four thousand francs. If the physician earns thirty thousand,
there remains an income of twenty-six thousand francs due to the
personal talents given him by Nature. This natural capital, then, if we
assume ten per cent. as the rate of interest, amounts to two hundred
and sixty thousand francs; and the capital given him by his parents, in
defraying the expenses of his education, to forty thousand francs. The
union of these two kinds of capital constitutes his fortune. "--Say:
Complete Course, &c.
Say divides the fortune of the physician into two parts: one is composed
of the capital which went to pay for his education, the other represents
his personal talents. This division is just; it is in conformity with
the nature of things; it is universally admitted; it serves as the
major premise of that grand argument which establishes the inequality of
capacities. I accept this premise without qualification; let us look at
the consequences.
1. Say CREDITS the physician with forty thousand francs,--the cost of
his education. This amount should be entered upon the DEBIT side of the
account. For, although this expense was incurred for him, it was not
incurred by him. Then, instead of appropriating these forty thousand
francs, the physician should add them to the price of his product, and
repay them to those who are entitled to them. Notice, further, that
Say speaks of INCOME instead of REIMBURSEMENT; reasoning on the false
principle of the productivity of capital. The expense of educating a
talent is a debt contracted by this talent. From the very fact of its
existence, it becomes a debtor to an amount equal to the cost of its
production. This is so true and simple that, if the education of some
one child in a family has cost double or triple that of its brothers,
the latter are entitled to a proportional amount of the property
previous to its division. There is no difficulty about this in the case
of guardianship, when the estate is administered in the name of the
minors.
2. That which I have just said of the obligation incurred by talent of
repaying the cost of its education does not embarrass the economist. The
man of talent, he says, inheriting from his family, inherits among other
things a claim to the forty thousand francs which his education costs;
and he becomes, in consequence, its proprietor. But this is to abandon
the right of talent, and to fall back upon the right of occupancy; which
again calls up all the questions asked in Chapter II. What is the right
of occupancy? what is inheritance? Is the right of succession a right of
accumulation or only a right of choice? how did the physician's father
get his fortune? was he a proprietor, or only a usufructuary? If he was
rich, let him account for his wealth; if he was poor, how could he incur
so large an expense? If he received aid, what right had he to use that
aid to the disadvantage of his benefactors, &c. ?
3. "There remains an income of twenty-six thousand francs due to
the personal talents given him by Nature. " (Say,--as above quoted. )
Reasoning from this premise, Say concludes that our physician's talent
is equivalent to a capital of two hundred and sixty thousand francs.
This skilful calculator mistakes a consequence for a principle. The
talent must not be measured by the gain, but rather the gain by
the talent; for it may happen, that, notwithstanding his merit, the
physician in question will gain nothing at all, in which case will it be
necessary to conclude that his talent or fortune is equivalent to zero?
To such a result, however, would Say's reasoning lead; a result which is
clearly absurd.
Now, it is impossible to place a money value on any talent whatsoever,
since talent and money have no common measure. On what plausible ground
can it be maintained that a physician should be paid two, three, or a
hundred times as much as a peasant? An unavoidable difficulty, which has
never been solved save by avarice, necessity, and oppression. It is not
thus that the right of talent should be determined. But how is it to be
determined?
4. I say, first, that the physician must be treated with as much favor
as any other producer, that he must not be placed below the level of
others. This I will not stop to prove. But I add that neither must he be
lifted above that level; because his talent is collective property for
which he did not pay, and for which he is ever in debt.
Just as the creation of every instrument of production is the result of
collective force, so also are a man's talent and knowledge the product
of universal intelligence and of general knowledge slowly accumulated
by a number of masters, and through the aid of many inferior industries.
When the physician has paid for his teachers, his books, his diplomas,
and all the other items of his educational expenses, he has no more paid
for his talent than the capitalist pays for his house and land when he
gives his employees their wages. The man of talent has contributed to
the production in himself of a useful instrument. He has, then, a share
in its possession; he is not its proprietor. There exist side by side in
him a free laborer and an accumulated social capital. As a laborer, he
is charged with the use of an instrument, with the superintendence of a
machine; namely, his capacity. As capital, he is not his own master; he
uses himself, not for his own benefit, but for that of others.
Even if talent did not find in its own excellence a reward for the
sacrifices which it costs, still would it be easier to find reasons for
lowering its reward than for raising it above the common level.
Every producer receives an education; every laborer is a talent, a
capacity,--that is, a piece of collective property. But all talents are
not equally costly. It takes but few teachers, but few years, and but
little study, to make a farmer or a mechanic: the generative effort
and--if I may venture to use such language--the period of social
gestation are proportional to the loftiness of the capacity. But while
the physician, the poet, the artist, and the savant produce but little,
and that slowly, the productions of the farmer are much less uncertain,
and do not require so long a time. Whatever be then the capacity of a
man,--when this capacity is once created,--it does not belong to him.
Like the material fashioned by an industrious hand, it had the power
of BECOMING, and society has given it BEING. Shall the vase say to the
potter, "I am that I am, and I owe you nothing"?
The artist, the savant, and the poet find their just recompense in the
permission that society gives them to devote themselves exclusively to
science and to art: so that in reality they do not labor for themselves,
but for society, which creates them, and requires of them no other duty.
Society can, if need be, do without prose and verse, music and painting,
and the knowledge of the movements of the moon and stars; but it cannot
live a single day without food and shelter.
Undoubtedly, man does not live by bread alone; he must, also (according
to the Gospel), LIVE BY THE WORD OF GOD; that is, he must love the
good and do it, know and admire the beautiful, and study the marvels of
Nature. But in order to cultivate his mind, he must first take care of
his body,--the latter duty is as necessary as the former is noble. If it
is glorious to charm and instruct men, it is honorable as well to feed
them. When, then, society--faithful to the principle of the division
of labor--intrusts a work of art or of science to one of its members,
allowing him to abandon ordinary labor, it owes him an indemnity for
all which it prevents him from producing industrially; but it owes him
nothing more. If he should demand more, society should, by refusing his
services, annihilate his pretensions. Forced, then, in order to live, to
devote himself to labor repugnant to his nature, the man of genius would
feel his weakness, and would live the most distasteful of lives.
They tell of a celebrated singer who demanded of the Empress of Russia
(Catherine II) twenty thousand roubles for his services: "That is more
than I give my field-marshals," said Catherine. "Your majesty," replied
the other, "has only to make singers of her field-marshals. "
If France (more powerful than Catherine II) should say to Mademoiselle
Rachel, "You must act for one hundred louis, or else spin cotton;" to
M. Duprez, "You must sing for two thousand four hundred francs, or else
work in the vineyard,"--do you think that the actress Rachel, and the
singer Duprez, would abandon the stage? If they did, they would be the
first to repent it.
Mademoiselle Rachel receives, they say, sixty thousand francs annually
from the Comedie-Francaise. For a talent like hers, it is a slight fee.
Why not one hundred thousand francs, two hundred thousand francs? Why!
not a civil list? What meanness! Are we really guilty of chaffering with
an artist like Mademoiselle Rachel?
It is said, in reply, that the managers of the theatre cannot give more
without incurring a loss; that they admit the superior talent of
their young associate; but that, in fixing her salary, they have been
compelled to take the account of the company's receipts and expenses
into consideration also.
That is just, but it only confirms what I have said; namely, that an
artist's talent may be infinite, but that its mercenary claims are
necessarily limited,--on the one hand, by its usefulness to the society
which rewards it; on the other, by the resources of this society: in
other words, that the demand of the seller is balanced by the right of
the buyer.
Mademoiselle Rachel, they say, brings to the treasury of the
Theatre-Francais more than sixty thousand francs. I admit it; but then I
blame the theatre. From whom does the Theatre-Francais take this
money? From some curious people who are perfectly free. Yes; but the
workingmen, the lessees, the tenants, those who borrow by pawning their
possessions, from whom these curious people recover all that they pay to
the theatre,--are they free? And when the better part of their products
are consumed by others at the play, do you assure me that their families
are not in want? Until the French people, reflecting on the salaries
paid to all artists, savants, and public functionaries, have plainly
expressed their wish and judgment as to the matter, the salaries of
Mademoiselle Rachel and all her fellow-artists will be a compulsory tax
extorted by violence, to reward pride, and support libertinism.
It is because we are neither free nor sufficiently enlightened, that we
submit to be cheated in our bargains; that the laborer pays the duties
levied by the prestige of power and the selfishness of talent upon the
curiosity of the idle, and that we are perpetually scandalized by these
monstrous inequalities which are encouraged and applauded by public
opinion.
The whole nation, and the nation only, pays its authors, its savants,
its artists, its officials, whatever be the hands through which their
salaries pass. On what basis should it pay them? On the basis of
equality. I have proved it by estimating the value of talent. I shall
confirm it in the following chapter, by proving the impossibility of all
social inequality.
What have we shown so far? Things so simple that really they seem
silly:--
That, as the traveller does not appropriate the route which he
traverses, so the farmer does not appropriate the field which he sows;
That if, nevertheless, by reason of his industry, a laborer may
appropriate the material which he employs, every employer of material
becomes, by the same title, a proprietor;
That all capital, whether material or mental, being the result of
collective labor, is, in consequence, collective property;
That the strong have no right to encroach upon the labor of the weak,
nor the shrewd to take advantage of the credulity of the simple;
Finally, that no one can be forced to buy that which he does not want,
still less to pay for that which he has not bought; and, consequently,
that the exchangeable value of a product, being measured neither by the
opinion of the buyer nor that of the seller, but by the amount of time
and outlay which it has cost, the property of each always remains the
same.
Are not these very simple truths? Well, as simple as they seem to you,
reader, you shall yet see others which surpass them in dullness and
simplicity. For our course is the reverse of that of the geometricians:
with them, the farther they advance, the more difficult their problems
become; we, on the contrary, after having commenced with the most
abstruse propositions, shall end with the axioms.
But I must close this chapter with an exposition of one of those
startling truths which never have been dreamed of by legists or
economists.
% 8. --That, from the Stand-point of Justice, Labor destroys Property.
This proposition is the logical result of the two preceding sections,
which we have just summed up.
The isolated man can supply but a very small portion of his wants; all
his power lies in association, and in the intelligent combination of
universal effort. The division and co-operation of labor multiply the
quantity and the variety of products; the individuality of functions
improves their quality.
There is not a man, then, but lives upon the products of several
thousand different industries; not a laborer but receives from society
at large the things which he consumes, and, with these, the power to
reproduce. Who, indeed, would venture the assertion, "I produce, by
my own effort, all that I consume; I need the aid of no one else"?
The farmer, whom the early economists regarded as the only real
producer--the farmer, housed, furnished, clothed, fed, and assisted
by the mason, the carpenter, the tailor, the miller, the baker, the
butcher, the grocer, the blacksmith, &c.
,--the farmer, I say, can he
boast that he produces by his own unaided effort?
The various articles of consumption are given to each by all;
consequently, the production of each involves the production of all.
One product cannot exist without another; an isolated industry is an
impossible thing. What would be the harvest of the farmer, if others
did not manufacture for him barns, wagons, ploughs, clothes, &c. ? Where
would be the savant without the publisher; the printer without the
typecaster and the machinist; and these, in their turn, without a
multitude of other industries? . . . Let us not prolong this catalogue--so
easy to extend--lest we be accused of uttering commonplaces. All
industries are united by mutual relations in a single group; all
productions do reciprocal service as means and end; all varieties of
talent are but a series of changes from the inferior to the superior.
Now, this undisputed and indisputable fact of the general participation
in every species of product makes all individual productions common; so
that every product, coming from the hands of the producer, is mortgaged
in advance by society. The producer himself is entitled to only
that portion of his product, which is expressed by a fraction whose
denominator is equal to the number of individuals of which society is
composed. It is true that in return this same producer has a share in
all the products of others, so that he has a claim upon all, just as
all have a claim upon him; but is it not clear that this reciprocity of
mortgages, far from authorizing property, destroys even possession? The
laborer is not even possessor of his product; scarcely has he finished
it, when society claims it.
"But," it will be answered, "even if that is so--even if the product
does not belong to the producer--still society gives each laborer an
equivalent for his product; and this equivalent, this salary, this
reward, this allowance, becomes his property. Do you deny that this
property is legitimate? And if the laborer, instead of consuming his
entire wages, chooses to economize,--who dare question his right to do
so? "
The laborer is not even proprietor of the price of his labor, and cannot
absolutely control its disposition. Let us not be blinded by a spurious
justice. That which is given the laborer in exchange for his product is
not given him as a reward for past labor, but to provide for and secure
future labor. We consume before we produce. The laborer may say at the
end of the day, "I have paid yesterday's expenses; to-morrow I shall pay
those of today. " At every moment of his life, the member of society is
in debt; he dies with the debt unpaid:--how is it possible for him to
accumulate?
They talk of economy--it is the proprietor's hobby. Under a system of
equality, all economy which does not aim at subsequent reproduction or
enjoyment is impossible--why? Because the thing saved, since it cannot
be converted into capital, has no object, and is without a FINAL CAUSE.
This will be explained more fully in the next chapter.
To conclude:--
The laborer, in his relation to society, is a debtor who of necessity
dies insolvent. The proprietor is an unfaithful guardian who denies the
receipt of the deposit committed to his care, and wishes to be paid for
his guardianship down to the last day.
Lest the principles just set forth may appear to certain readers
too metaphysical, I shall reproduce them in a more concrete form,
intelligible to the dullest brains, and pregnant with the most important
consequences.
Hitherto, I have considered property as a power of EXCLUSION; hereafter,
I shall examine it as a power of INVASION.
CHAPTER IV. THAT PROPERTY IS IMPOSSIBLE.
The last resort of proprietors,--the overwhelming argument whose
invincible potency reassures them,--is that, in their opinion, equality
of conditions is impossible. "Equality of conditions is a chimera," they
cry with a knowing air; "distribute wealth equally to-day--to-morrow
this equality will have vanished. "
To this hackneyed objection, which they repeat everywhere with the most
marvellous assurance, they never fail to add the following comment, as
a sort of GLORY BE TO THE FATHER: "If all men were equal, nobody would
work. " This anthem is sung with variations.
"If all were masters, nobody would obey. "
"If nobody were rich, who would employ the poor? "
And, "If nobody were poor, who would labor for the rich? "
But let us have done with invective--we have better arguments at our
command.
If I show that property itself is impossible--that it is property which
is a contradiction, a chimera, a utopia; and if I show it no longer
by metaphysics and jurisprudence, but by figures, equations, and
calculations,--imagine the fright of the astounded proprietor! And you,
reader; what do you think of the retort?
Numbers govern the world--mundum regunt numeri. This proverb applies
as aptly to the moral and political, as to the sidereal and molecular,
world. The elements of justice are identical with those of algebra;
legislation and government are simply the arts of classifying
and balancing powers; all jurisprudence falls within the rules of
arithmetic. This chapter and the next will serve to lay the foundations
of this extraordinary doctrine. Then will be unfolded to the reader's
vision an immense and novel career; then shall we commence to see in
numerical relations the synthetic unity of philosophy and the sciences;
and, filled with admiration and enthusiasm for this profound and
majestic simplicity of Nature, we shall shout with the apostle: "Yes,
the Eternal has made all things by number, weight, and measure! " We
shall understand not only that equality of conditions is possible, but
that all else is impossible; that this seeming impossibility which
we charge upon it arises from the fact that we always think of it
in connection either with the proprietary or the communistic
regime,--political systems equally irreconcilable with human nature. We
shall see finally that equality is constantly being realized without our
knowledge, even at the very moment when we are pronouncing it incapable
of realization; that the time draws near when, without any effort or
even wish of ours, we shall have it universally established; that with
it, in it, and by it, the natural and true political order must make
itself manifest.
It has been said, in speaking of the blindness and obstinacy of the
passions, that, if man had any thing to gain by denying the truths of
arithmetic, he would find some means of unsettling their certainty: here
is an opportunity to try this curious experiment. I attack property,
no longer with its own maxims, but with arithmetic. Let the proprietors
prepare to verify my figures; for, if unfortunately for them the figures
prove accurate, the proprietors are lost.
In proving the impossibility of property, I complete the proof of its
injustice. In fact,--
That which is JUST must be USEFUL;
That which is useful must be TRUE;
That which is true must be POSSIBLE;
Therefore, every thing which is impossible is untrue, useless, unjust.
Then,--a priori,--we may judge of the justice of any thing by its
possibility; so that if the thing were absolutely impossible, it would
be absolutely unjust.
PROPERTY IS PHYSICALLY AND MATHEMATICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.
DEMONSTRATION.
AXIOM. --Property is the Right of Increase claimed by the Proprietor over
any thing which he has stamped as his own.
This proposition is purely an axiom, because,--
1. It is not a definition, since it does not express all that is
included in the right of property--the right of sale, of exchange, of
gift; the right to transform, to alter, to consume, to destroy, to
use and abuse, &c. All these rights are so many different powers of
property, which we may consider separately; but which we disregard here,
that we may devote all our attention to this single one,--the right of
increase.
2. It is universally admitted. No one can deny it without denying the
facts, without being instantly belied by universal custom.
3. It is self-evident, since property is always accompanied (either
actually or potentially) by the fact which this axiom expresses; and
through this fact, mainly, property manifests, establishes, and asserts
itself.
4. Finally, its negation involves a contradiction. The right of increase
is really an inherent right, so essential a part of property, that, in
its absence, property is null and void.
OBSERVATIONS. --Increase receives different names according to the
thing by which it is yielded: if by land, FARM-RENT; if by houses and
furniture, RENT; if by life-investments, REVENUE; if by money, INTEREST;
if by exchange, ADVANTAGE, GAIN, PROFIT (three things which must not be
confounded with the wages or legitimate price of labor).
Increase--a sort of royal prerogative, of tangible and consumable
homage--is due to the proprietor on account of his nominal and
metaphysical occupancy. His seal is set upon the thing; that is enough
to prevent any one else from occupying it without HIS permission.
This permission to use his things the proprietor may, if he chooses,
freely grant. Commonly he sells it. This sale is really a stellionate
and an extortion; but by the legal fiction of the right of property,
this same sale, severely punished, we know not why, in other cases, is a
source of profit and value to the proprietor.
The amount demanded by the proprietor, in payment for this permission,
is expressed in monetary terms by the dividend which the supposed
product yields in nature. So that, by the right of increase, the
proprietor reaps and does not plough; gleans and does not till; consumes
and does not produce; enjoys and does not labor. Very different from the
idols of the Psalmist are the gods of property: the former had hands and
felt not; the latter, on the contrary, _manus habent et palpabunt_.
_ _The right of increase is conferred in a very mysterious and
supernatural manner. The inauguration of a proprietor is accompanied
by the awful ceremonies of an ancient initiation. First, comes the
CONSECRATION of the article; a consecration which makes known to all
that they must offer up a suitable sacrifice to the proprietor, whenever
they wish, by his permission obtained and signed, to use his article.
Second, comes the ANATHEMA, which prohibits--except on the conditions
aforesaid--all persons from touching the article, even in the
proprietor's absence; and pronounces every violator of property
sacrilegious, infamous, amenable to the secular power, and deserving of
being handed over to it.
Finally, the DEDICATION, which enables the proprietor or patron
saint--the god chosen to watch over the article--to inhabit it mentally,
like a divinity in his sanctuary. By means of this dedication, the
substance of the article--so to speak--becomes converted into the person
of the proprietor, who is regarded as ever present in its form.
This is exactly the doctrine of the writers on jurisprudence.
"Property," says Toullier, "is a MORAL QUALITY inherent in a thing;
AN ACTUAL BOND which fastens it to the proprietor, and which cannot be
broken save by his act. " Locke humbly doubted whether God could make
matter INTELLIGENT. Toullier asserts that the proprietor renders it
MORAL. How much does he lack of being a God? These are by no means
exaggerations.
PROPERTY IS THE RIGHT OF INCREASE; that is, the power to produce without
labor. Now, to produce without labor is to make something from nothing;
in short, to create. Surely it is no more difficult to do this than to
moralize matter. The jurists are right, then, in applying to proprietors
this passage from the Scriptures,--_Ego dixi: Dii estis et filii Excelsi
omnes_,--"I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the
Most High. "
PROPERTY IS THE RIGHT OF INCREASE. To us this axiom shall be like the
name of the beast in the Apocalypse,--a name in which is hidden the
complete explanation of the whole mystery of this beast. It was known
that he who should solve the mystery of this name would obtain a
knowledge of the whole prophecy, and would succeed in mastering the
beast. Well! by the most careful interpretation of our axiom we shall
kill the sphinx of property.
Starting from this eminently characteristic fact--the RIGHT OF
INCREASE--we shall pursue the old serpent through his coils; we shall
count the murderous entwinings of this frightful taenia, whose head,
with its thousand suckers, is always hidden from the sword of its most
violent enemies, though abandoning to them immense fragments of its
body. It requires something more than courage to subdue this monster.
It was written that it should not die until a proletaire, armed with a
magic wand, had fought with it.
COROLLARIES. --1. THE AMOUNT OF INCREASE IS PROPORTIONAL TO THE THING
INCREASED. Whatever be the rate of interest,--whether it rise to three,
five, or ten per cent. , or fall to one-half, one-fourth, one-tenth,--it
does not matter; the law of increase remains the same. The law is as
follows:--
All capital--the cash value of which can be estimated--may be considered
as a term in an arithmetical series which progresses in the ratio of one
hundred, and the revenue yielded by this capital as the corresponding
term of another arithmetical series which progresses in a ratio equal to
the rate of interest. Thus, a capital of five hundred francs being the
fifth term of the arithmetical progression whose ratio is one hundred,
its revenue at three per cent. will be indicated by the fifth term of
the arithmetical progression whose ratio is three:--
100 . 200 . 300 . 400 . 500.
3 . 6 . 9 . 12 . 15.
An acquaintance with this sort of LOGARITHMS--tables of which,
calculated to a very high degree, are possessed by proprietors--will
give us the key to the most puzzling problems, and cause us to
experience a series of surprises.
By this LOGARITHMIC theory of the right of increase, a piece of
property, together with its income, may be defined as A NUMBER WHOSE
LOGARITHM IS EQUAL TO THE SUM OF ITS UNITS DIVIDED BY ONE HUNDRED, AND
MULTIPLIED BY THE RATE OF INTEREST. For instance; a house valued at one
hundred thousand francs, and leased at five per cent. , yields a revenue
of five thousand francs, according to the formula 100,000 x 5 / 100 =
five thousand. Vice versa, a piece of land which yields, at two and a
half per cent. , a revenue of three thousand francs is worth one hundred
and twenty thousand francs, according to this other formula;
3,000 x 100/ 2 1/2 = one hundred and twenty thousand.
In the first case, the ratio of the progression which marks the increase
of interest is five; in the second, it is two and a half.
OBSERVATION. --The forms of increase known as farm-rent, income, and
interest are paid annually; rent is paid by the week, the month, or
the year; profits and gains are paid at the time of exchange. Thus, the
amount of increase is proportional both to the thing increased, and
the time during which it increases; in other words, usury grows like a
cancer--_foenus serpit sicut cancer_.
2. THE INCREASE PAID TO THE PROPRIETOR BY THE OCCUPANT IS A DEAD LOSS
TO THE LATTER. For if the proprietor owed, in exchange for the increase
which he receives, some thing more than the permission which he grants,
his right of property would not be perfect--he would not possess
_jure optimo, jure perfecto;_ that is, he would not be in reality a
proprietor. Then, all which passes from the hands of the occupant into
those of the proprietor in the name of increase, and as the price of
the permission to occupy, is a permanent gain for the latter, and a dead
loss and annihilation for the former; to whom none of it will return,
save in the forms of gift, alms, wages paid for his services, or
the price of merchandise which he has delivered. In a word, increase
perishes so far as the borrower is concerned; or to use the more
energetic Latin phrase,--_res perit solventi_.
3. THE RIGHT OF INCREASE OPPRESSES THE PROPRIETOR AS WELL AS THE
STRANGER. The master of a thing, as its proprietor, levies a tax for the
use of his property upon himself as its possessor, equal to that which
he would receive from a third party; so that capital bears interest in
the hands of the capitalist, as well as in those of the borrower and the
commandite. If, indeed, rather than accept a rent of five hundred francs
for my apartment, I prefer to occupy and enjoy it, it is clear that I
shall become my own debtor for a rent equal to that which I deny myself.
This principle is universally practised in business, and is regarded as
an axiom by the economists. Manufacturers, also, who have the advantage
of being proprietors of their floating capital, although they owe no
interest to any one, in calculating their profits subtract from them,
not only their running expenses and the wages of their employees, but
also the interest on their capital. For the same reason, money-lenders
retain in their own possession as little money as possible; for, since
all capital necessarily bears interest, if this interest is supplied by
no one, it comes out of the capital, which is to that extent diminished.
Thus, by the right of increase, capital eats itself up. This is,
doubtless, the idea that Papinius intended to convey in the phrase, as
elegant as it is forcible--_Foenus mordet solidam_. I beg pardon for
using Latin so frequently in discussing this subject; it is an homage
which I pay to the most usurious nation that ever existed.
FIRST PROPOSITION.
Property is impossible, because it demands Something for Nothing.
The discussion of this proposition covers the same ground as that of the
origin of farm-rent, which is so much debated by the economists. When
I read the writings of the greater part of these men, I cannot avoid
a feeling of contempt mingled with anger, in view of this mass of
nonsense, in which the detestable vies with the absurd. It would be a
repetition of the story of the elephant in the moon, were it not for the
atrocity of the consequences. To seek a rational and legitimate origin
of that which is, and ever must be, only robbery, extortion, and
plunder--that must be the height of the proprietor's folly; the last
degree of bedevilment into which minds, otherwise judicious, can be
thrown by the perversity of selfishness.
"A farmer," says Say, "is a wheat manufacturer who, among other tools
which serve him in modifying the material from which he makes the
wheat, employs one large tool, which we call a field. If he is not the
proprietor of the field, if he is only a tenant, he pays the proprietor
for the productive service of this tool. The tenant is reimbursed by
the purchaser, the latter by another, until the product reaches the
consumer; who redeems the first payment, PLUS all the others, by means
of which the product has at last come into his hands. "
Let us lay aside the subsequent payments by which the product reaches
the consumer, and, for the present, pay attention only to the first one
of all,--the rent paid to the proprietor by the tenant. On what ground,
we ask, is the proprietor entitled to this rent?
According to Ricardo, MacCulloch, and Mill, farm-rent, properly
speaking, is simply the EXCESS OF THE PRODUCT OF THE MOST FERTILE LAND
OVER THAT OF LANDS OF AN INFERIOR QUALITY; so that farm-rent is not
demanded for the former until the increase of population renders
necessary the cultivation of the latter.
It is difficult to see any sense in this. How can a right to the land be
based upon a difference in the quality of the land? How can varieties of
soil engender a principle of legislation and politics? This reasoning
is either so subtle, or so stupid, that the more I think of it, the more
bewildered I become. Suppose two pieces of land of equal area; the one,
A, capable of supporting ten thousand inhabitants; the other, B, capable
of supporting nine thousand only: when, owing to an increase in their
number, the inhabitants of A shall be forced to cultivate B, the landed
proprietors of A will exact from their tenants in A a rent proportional
to the difference between ten and nine. So say, I think, Ricardo,
MacCulloch, and Mill. But if A supports as many inhabitants as it can
contain,--that is, if the inhabitants of A, by our hypothesis, have only
just enough land to keep them alive,--how can they pay farm-rent?
If they had gone no farther than to say that the difference in land has
OCCASIONED farm-rent, instead of CAUSED it, this observation would have
taught us a valuable lesson; namely, that farm-rent grew out of a desire
for equality. Indeed, if all men have an equal right to the possession
of good land, no one can be forced to cultivate bad land without
indemnification. Farm-rent--according to Ricardo, MacCulloch, and
Mill--would then have been a compensation for loss and hardship. This
system of practical equality is a bad one, no doubt; but it sprang from
good intentions. What argument can Ricardo, MacCulloch, and Mill develop
therefrom in favor of property? Their theory turns against themselves,
and strangles them.
Malthus thinks that farm-rent has its source in the power possessed by
land of producing more than is necessary to supply the wants of the
men who cultivate it. I would ask Malthus why successful labor should
entitle the idle to a portion of the products?
But the worthy Malthus is mistaken in regard to the fact. Yes; land has
the power of producing more than is needed by those who cultivate it, if
by CULTIVATORS is meant tenants only. The tailor also makes more clothes
than he wears, and the cabinet-maker more furniture than he uses. But,
since the various professions imply and sustain one another, not only
the farmer, but the followers of all arts and trades--even to the doctor
and the school-teacher--are, and ought to be, regarded as CULTIVATORS OF
THE LAND. Malthus bases farm-rent upon the principle of commerce.
Now, the fundamental law of commerce being equivalence of the products
exchanged, any thing which destroys this equivalence violates the law.
There is an error in the estimate which needs to be corrected.
Buchanan--a commentator on Smith--regarded farm-rent as the result of a
monopoly, and maintained that labor alone is productive. Consequently,
he thought that, without this monopoly, products would rise in price;
and he found no basis for farm-rent save in the civil law. This opinion
is a corollary of that which makes the civil law the basis of property.
But why has the civil law--which ought to be the written expression of
justice--authorized this monopoly? Whoever says monopoly, necessarily
excludes justice. Now, to say that farm-rent is a monopoly sanctioned by
the law, is to say that injustice is based on justice,--a contradiction
in terms.
Say answers Buchanan, that the proprietor is not a monopolist, because a
monopolist "is one who does not increase the utility of the merchandise
which passes through his hands. "
How much does the proprietor increase the utility of his tenant's
products? Has he ploughed, sowed, reaped, mowed, winnowed, weeded? These
are the processes by which the tenant and his employees increase
the utility of the material which they consume for the purpose of
reproduction.
"The landed proprietor increases the utility of products by means of his
implement, the land. This implement receives in one state, and returns
in another the materials of which wheat is composed. The action of
the land is a chemical process, which so modifies the material that it
multiplies it by destroying it. The soil is then a producer of utility;
and when it [the soil? ] asks its pay in the form of profit, or farm
rent, for its proprietor, it at the same time gives something to the
consumer in exchange for the amount which the consumer pays it. It gives
him a produced utility; and it is the production of this utility which
warrants us in calling land productive, as well as labor. "
Let us clear up this matter.
The blacksmith who manufactures for the farmer implements of husbandry,
the wheelwright who makes him a cart, the mason who builds his barn,
the carpenter, the basket-maker, &c. ,--all of whom contribute to
agricultural production by the tools which they provide,--are producers
of utility; consequently, they are entitled to a part of the products.
equality knows how to honor and to praise him. What is its duty? To
regulate the right of the singer and the duty of the listener. Now,
notice this point, which is a very important one in the solution of this
question: both are free, the one to sell, the other to buy. Henceforth
their respective pretensions go for nothing; and the estimate, whether
fair or unfair, that they place, the one upon his verse, the other
upon his liberality, can have no influence upon the conditions of the
contract. We must no longer, in making our bargains, weigh talent; we
must consider products only.
In order that the bard of Achilles may get his due reward, he must first
make himself wanted: that done, the exchange of his verse for a fee of
any kind, being a free act, must be at the same time a just act; that
is, the poet's fee must be equal to his product. Now, what is the value
of this product?
Let us suppose, in the first place, that this "Iliad"--this chef-d'
oeuvre that is to be equitably rewarded--is really above price, that we
do not know how to appraise it. If the public, who are free to purchase
it, refuse to do so, it is clear that, the poem being unexchangeable,
its intrinsic value will not be diminished; but that its exchangeable
value, or its productive utility, will be reduced to zero, will be
nothing at all. Then we must seek the amount of wages to be paid between
infinity on the one hand and nothing on the other, at an equal distance
from each, since all rights and liberties are entitled to equal respect;
in other words, it is not the intrinsic value, but the relative value,
of the thing sold that needs to be fixed. The question grows simpler:
what is this relative value? To what reward does a poem like the "Iliad"
entitle its author?
The first business of political economy, after fixing its definitions,
was the solution of this problem; now, not only has it not been solved,
but it has been declared insoluble. According to the economists,
the relative or exchangeable value of things cannot be absolutely
determined; it necessarily varies.
"The value of a thing," says Say, "is a positive quantity, but only for
a given moment. It is its nature to perpetually vary, to change from one
point to another. Nothing can fix it absolutely, because it is based
on needs and means of production which vary with every moment. These
variations complicate economical phenomena, and often render them very
difficult of observation and solution. I know no remedy for this; it is
not in our power to change the nature of things. "
Elsewhere Say says, and repeats, that value being based on utility, and
utility depending entirely on our needs, whims, customs, &c. , value
is as variable as opinion. Now, political economy being the science
of values, of their production, distribution, exchange, and
consumption,--if exchangeable value cannot be absolutely determined,
how is political economy possible? How can it be a science? How can two
economists look each other in the face without laughing? How dare they
insult metaphysicians and psychologists? What! that fool of a Descartes
imagined that philosophy needed an immovable base--an _aliquid
inconcussum_--on which the edifice of science might be built, and he was
simple enough to search for it! And the Hermes of economy, Trismegistus
Say, devoting half a volume to the amplification of that solemn text,
_political economy is a science_, has the courage to affirm immediately
afterwards that this science cannot determine its object,--which is
equivalent to saying that it is without a principle or foundation! He
does not know, then, the illustrious Say, the nature of a science; or
rather, he knows nothing of the subject which he discusses.
Say's example has borne its fruits. Political economy, as it exists at
present, resembles ontology: discussing effects and causes, it knows
nothing, explains nothing, decides nothing. The ideas honored with the
name of economic laws are nothing more than a few trifling generalities,
to which the economists thought to give an appearance of depth by
clothing them in high-sounding words. As for the attempts that have been
made by the economists to solve social problems, all that can be said
of them is, that, if a glimmer of sense occasionally appears in their
lucubrations, they immediately fall back into absurdity. For twenty-five
years political economy, like a heavy fog, has weighed upon France,
checking the efforts of the mind, and setting limits to liberty.
Has every creation of industry a venal, absolute, unchangeable, and
consequently legitimate and true value? --Yes.
Can every product of man be exchanged for some other product of
man? --Yes, again.
How many nails is a pair of shoes worth?
If we can solve this appalling problem, we shall have the key of the
social system for which humanity has been searching for six thousand
years. In the presence of this problem, the economist recoils confused;
the peasant who can neither read nor write replies without hesitation:
"As many as can be made in the same time, and with the same expense. "
The absolute value of a thing, then, is its cost in time and expense.
How much is a diamond worth which costs only the labor of picking it
up? --Nothing; it is not a product of man. How much will it be worth when
cut and mounted? --The time and expense which it has cost the laborer.
Why, then, is it sold at so high a price? --Because men are not free.
Society must regulate the exchange and distribution of the rarest
things, as it does that of the most common ones, in such a way that each
may share in the enjoyment of them. What, then, is that value which is
based upon opinion? --Delusion, injustice, and robbery.
By this rule, it is easy to reconcile every body. If the mean term,
which we are searching for, between an infinite value and no value at
all is expressed in the case of every product, by the amount of time and
expense which the product cost, a poem which has cost its author thirty
years of labor and an outlay of ten thousand francs in journeys, books,
&c. , must be paid for by the ordinary wages received by a laborer during
thirty years, PLUS ten thousand francs indemnity for expense incurred.
Suppose the whole amount to be fifty thousand francs; if the society
which gets the benefit of the production include a million of men, my
share of the debt is five centimes.
This gives rise to a few observations.
1. The same product, at different times and in different places, may
cost more or less of time and outlay; in this view, it is true that
value is a variable quantity. But this variation is not that of the
economists, who place in their list of the causes of the variation of
values, not only the means of production, but taste, caprice, fashion,
and opinion. In short, the true value of a thing is invariable in its
algebraic expression, although it may vary in its monetary expression.
2. The price of every product in demand should be its cost in time and
outlay--neither more nor less: every product not in demand is a loss to
the producer--a commercial non-value.
3. The ignorance of the principle of evaluation, and the difficulty
under many circumstances of applying it, is the source of commercial
fraud, and one of the most potent causes of the inequality of fortunes.
4. To reward certain industries and pay for certain products, a society
is needed which corresponds in size with the rarity of talents, the
costliness of the products, and the variety of the arts and sciences.
If, for example, a society of fifty farmers can support a schoolmaster,
it requires one hundred for a shoemaker, one hundred and fifty for a
blacksmith, two hundred for a tailor, &c. If the number of farmers rises
to one thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand, &c. , as fast as
their number increases, that of the functionaries which are earliest
required must increase in the same proportion; so that the highest
functions become possible only in the most powerful societies. [17] That
is the peculiar feature of capacities; the character of genius, the seal
of its glory, cannot arise and develop itself, except in the bosom of
a great nation. But this physiological condition, necessary to the
existence of genius, adds nothing to its social rights: far from
that,--the delay in its appearance proves that, in economical and
civil affairs, the loftiest intelligence must submit to the equality
of possessions; an equality which is anterior to it, and of which it
constitutes the crown.
This is severe on our pride, but it is an inexorable truth. And here
psychology comes to the aid of social economy, giving us to understand
that talent and material recompense have no common measure; that, in
this respect, the condition of all producers is equal: consequently,
that all comparison between them, and all distinction in fortunes, is
impossible.
_ _In fact, every work coming from the hands of man--compared with the
raw material of which it is composed--is beyond price. In this respect,
the distance is as great between a pair of wooden shoes and the trunk of
a walnut-tree, as between a statue by Scopas and a block of marble.
The genius of the simplest mechanic exerts as much influence over the
materials which he uses, as does the mind of a Newton over the inert
spheres whose distances, volumes, and revolutions he calculates. You ask
for talent and genius a corresponding degree of honor and reward. Fix
for me the value of a wood-cutter's talent, and I will fix that of
Homer. If any thing can reward intelligence, it is intelligence itself.
That is what happens, when various classes of producers pay to each
other a reciprocal tribute of admiration and praise. But if they
contemplate an exchange of products with a view to satisfying mutual
needs, this exchange must be effected in accordance with a system of
economy which is indifferent to considerations of talent and genius, and
whose laws are deduced, not from vague and meaningless admiration, but
from a just balance between DEBIT and CREDIT; in short, from commercial
accounts.
Now, that no one may imagine that the liberty of buying and selling
is the sole basis of the equality of wages, and that society's sole
protection against superiority of talent lies in a certain force of
inertia which has nothing in common with right, I shall proceed to
explain why all capacities are entitled to the same reward, and why a
corresponding difference in wages would be an injustice. I shall prove
that the obligation to stoop to the social level is inherent in talent;
and on this very superiority of genius I will found the equality of
fortunes. I have just given the negative argument in favor of rewarding
all capacities alike; I will now give the direct and positive argument.
Listen, first, to the economist: it is always pleasant to see how he
reasons, and how he understands justice. Without him, moreover, without
his amusing blunders and his wonderful arguments, we should learn
nothing. Equality, so odious to the economist, owes every thing to
political economy.
"When the parents of a physician [the text says a lawyer, which is
not so good an example] have expended on his education forty thousand
francs, this sum may be regarded as so much capital invested in his
head. It is therefore permissible to consider it as yielding an annual
income of four thousand francs. If the physician earns thirty thousand,
there remains an income of twenty-six thousand francs due to the
personal talents given him by Nature. This natural capital, then, if we
assume ten per cent. as the rate of interest, amounts to two hundred
and sixty thousand francs; and the capital given him by his parents, in
defraying the expenses of his education, to forty thousand francs. The
union of these two kinds of capital constitutes his fortune. "--Say:
Complete Course, &c.
Say divides the fortune of the physician into two parts: one is composed
of the capital which went to pay for his education, the other represents
his personal talents. This division is just; it is in conformity with
the nature of things; it is universally admitted; it serves as the
major premise of that grand argument which establishes the inequality of
capacities. I accept this premise without qualification; let us look at
the consequences.
1. Say CREDITS the physician with forty thousand francs,--the cost of
his education. This amount should be entered upon the DEBIT side of the
account. For, although this expense was incurred for him, it was not
incurred by him. Then, instead of appropriating these forty thousand
francs, the physician should add them to the price of his product, and
repay them to those who are entitled to them. Notice, further, that
Say speaks of INCOME instead of REIMBURSEMENT; reasoning on the false
principle of the productivity of capital. The expense of educating a
talent is a debt contracted by this talent. From the very fact of its
existence, it becomes a debtor to an amount equal to the cost of its
production. This is so true and simple that, if the education of some
one child in a family has cost double or triple that of its brothers,
the latter are entitled to a proportional amount of the property
previous to its division. There is no difficulty about this in the case
of guardianship, when the estate is administered in the name of the
minors.
2. That which I have just said of the obligation incurred by talent of
repaying the cost of its education does not embarrass the economist. The
man of talent, he says, inheriting from his family, inherits among other
things a claim to the forty thousand francs which his education costs;
and he becomes, in consequence, its proprietor. But this is to abandon
the right of talent, and to fall back upon the right of occupancy; which
again calls up all the questions asked in Chapter II. What is the right
of occupancy? what is inheritance? Is the right of succession a right of
accumulation or only a right of choice? how did the physician's father
get his fortune? was he a proprietor, or only a usufructuary? If he was
rich, let him account for his wealth; if he was poor, how could he incur
so large an expense? If he received aid, what right had he to use that
aid to the disadvantage of his benefactors, &c. ?
3. "There remains an income of twenty-six thousand francs due to
the personal talents given him by Nature. " (Say,--as above quoted. )
Reasoning from this premise, Say concludes that our physician's talent
is equivalent to a capital of two hundred and sixty thousand francs.
This skilful calculator mistakes a consequence for a principle. The
talent must not be measured by the gain, but rather the gain by
the talent; for it may happen, that, notwithstanding his merit, the
physician in question will gain nothing at all, in which case will it be
necessary to conclude that his talent or fortune is equivalent to zero?
To such a result, however, would Say's reasoning lead; a result which is
clearly absurd.
Now, it is impossible to place a money value on any talent whatsoever,
since talent and money have no common measure. On what plausible ground
can it be maintained that a physician should be paid two, three, or a
hundred times as much as a peasant? An unavoidable difficulty, which has
never been solved save by avarice, necessity, and oppression. It is not
thus that the right of talent should be determined. But how is it to be
determined?
4. I say, first, that the physician must be treated with as much favor
as any other producer, that he must not be placed below the level of
others. This I will not stop to prove. But I add that neither must he be
lifted above that level; because his talent is collective property for
which he did not pay, and for which he is ever in debt.
Just as the creation of every instrument of production is the result of
collective force, so also are a man's talent and knowledge the product
of universal intelligence and of general knowledge slowly accumulated
by a number of masters, and through the aid of many inferior industries.
When the physician has paid for his teachers, his books, his diplomas,
and all the other items of his educational expenses, he has no more paid
for his talent than the capitalist pays for his house and land when he
gives his employees their wages. The man of talent has contributed to
the production in himself of a useful instrument. He has, then, a share
in its possession; he is not its proprietor. There exist side by side in
him a free laborer and an accumulated social capital. As a laborer, he
is charged with the use of an instrument, with the superintendence of a
machine; namely, his capacity. As capital, he is not his own master; he
uses himself, not for his own benefit, but for that of others.
Even if talent did not find in its own excellence a reward for the
sacrifices which it costs, still would it be easier to find reasons for
lowering its reward than for raising it above the common level.
Every producer receives an education; every laborer is a talent, a
capacity,--that is, a piece of collective property. But all talents are
not equally costly. It takes but few teachers, but few years, and but
little study, to make a farmer or a mechanic: the generative effort
and--if I may venture to use such language--the period of social
gestation are proportional to the loftiness of the capacity. But while
the physician, the poet, the artist, and the savant produce but little,
and that slowly, the productions of the farmer are much less uncertain,
and do not require so long a time. Whatever be then the capacity of a
man,--when this capacity is once created,--it does not belong to him.
Like the material fashioned by an industrious hand, it had the power
of BECOMING, and society has given it BEING. Shall the vase say to the
potter, "I am that I am, and I owe you nothing"?
The artist, the savant, and the poet find their just recompense in the
permission that society gives them to devote themselves exclusively to
science and to art: so that in reality they do not labor for themselves,
but for society, which creates them, and requires of them no other duty.
Society can, if need be, do without prose and verse, music and painting,
and the knowledge of the movements of the moon and stars; but it cannot
live a single day without food and shelter.
Undoubtedly, man does not live by bread alone; he must, also (according
to the Gospel), LIVE BY THE WORD OF GOD; that is, he must love the
good and do it, know and admire the beautiful, and study the marvels of
Nature. But in order to cultivate his mind, he must first take care of
his body,--the latter duty is as necessary as the former is noble. If it
is glorious to charm and instruct men, it is honorable as well to feed
them. When, then, society--faithful to the principle of the division
of labor--intrusts a work of art or of science to one of its members,
allowing him to abandon ordinary labor, it owes him an indemnity for
all which it prevents him from producing industrially; but it owes him
nothing more. If he should demand more, society should, by refusing his
services, annihilate his pretensions. Forced, then, in order to live, to
devote himself to labor repugnant to his nature, the man of genius would
feel his weakness, and would live the most distasteful of lives.
They tell of a celebrated singer who demanded of the Empress of Russia
(Catherine II) twenty thousand roubles for his services: "That is more
than I give my field-marshals," said Catherine. "Your majesty," replied
the other, "has only to make singers of her field-marshals. "
If France (more powerful than Catherine II) should say to Mademoiselle
Rachel, "You must act for one hundred louis, or else spin cotton;" to
M. Duprez, "You must sing for two thousand four hundred francs, or else
work in the vineyard,"--do you think that the actress Rachel, and the
singer Duprez, would abandon the stage? If they did, they would be the
first to repent it.
Mademoiselle Rachel receives, they say, sixty thousand francs annually
from the Comedie-Francaise. For a talent like hers, it is a slight fee.
Why not one hundred thousand francs, two hundred thousand francs? Why!
not a civil list? What meanness! Are we really guilty of chaffering with
an artist like Mademoiselle Rachel?
It is said, in reply, that the managers of the theatre cannot give more
without incurring a loss; that they admit the superior talent of
their young associate; but that, in fixing her salary, they have been
compelled to take the account of the company's receipts and expenses
into consideration also.
That is just, but it only confirms what I have said; namely, that an
artist's talent may be infinite, but that its mercenary claims are
necessarily limited,--on the one hand, by its usefulness to the society
which rewards it; on the other, by the resources of this society: in
other words, that the demand of the seller is balanced by the right of
the buyer.
Mademoiselle Rachel, they say, brings to the treasury of the
Theatre-Francais more than sixty thousand francs. I admit it; but then I
blame the theatre. From whom does the Theatre-Francais take this
money? From some curious people who are perfectly free. Yes; but the
workingmen, the lessees, the tenants, those who borrow by pawning their
possessions, from whom these curious people recover all that they pay to
the theatre,--are they free? And when the better part of their products
are consumed by others at the play, do you assure me that their families
are not in want? Until the French people, reflecting on the salaries
paid to all artists, savants, and public functionaries, have plainly
expressed their wish and judgment as to the matter, the salaries of
Mademoiselle Rachel and all her fellow-artists will be a compulsory tax
extorted by violence, to reward pride, and support libertinism.
It is because we are neither free nor sufficiently enlightened, that we
submit to be cheated in our bargains; that the laborer pays the duties
levied by the prestige of power and the selfishness of talent upon the
curiosity of the idle, and that we are perpetually scandalized by these
monstrous inequalities which are encouraged and applauded by public
opinion.
The whole nation, and the nation only, pays its authors, its savants,
its artists, its officials, whatever be the hands through which their
salaries pass. On what basis should it pay them? On the basis of
equality. I have proved it by estimating the value of talent. I shall
confirm it in the following chapter, by proving the impossibility of all
social inequality.
What have we shown so far? Things so simple that really they seem
silly:--
That, as the traveller does not appropriate the route which he
traverses, so the farmer does not appropriate the field which he sows;
That if, nevertheless, by reason of his industry, a laborer may
appropriate the material which he employs, every employer of material
becomes, by the same title, a proprietor;
That all capital, whether material or mental, being the result of
collective labor, is, in consequence, collective property;
That the strong have no right to encroach upon the labor of the weak,
nor the shrewd to take advantage of the credulity of the simple;
Finally, that no one can be forced to buy that which he does not want,
still less to pay for that which he has not bought; and, consequently,
that the exchangeable value of a product, being measured neither by the
opinion of the buyer nor that of the seller, but by the amount of time
and outlay which it has cost, the property of each always remains the
same.
Are not these very simple truths? Well, as simple as they seem to you,
reader, you shall yet see others which surpass them in dullness and
simplicity. For our course is the reverse of that of the geometricians:
with them, the farther they advance, the more difficult their problems
become; we, on the contrary, after having commenced with the most
abstruse propositions, shall end with the axioms.
But I must close this chapter with an exposition of one of those
startling truths which never have been dreamed of by legists or
economists.
% 8. --That, from the Stand-point of Justice, Labor destroys Property.
This proposition is the logical result of the two preceding sections,
which we have just summed up.
The isolated man can supply but a very small portion of his wants; all
his power lies in association, and in the intelligent combination of
universal effort. The division and co-operation of labor multiply the
quantity and the variety of products; the individuality of functions
improves their quality.
There is not a man, then, but lives upon the products of several
thousand different industries; not a laborer but receives from society
at large the things which he consumes, and, with these, the power to
reproduce. Who, indeed, would venture the assertion, "I produce, by
my own effort, all that I consume; I need the aid of no one else"?
The farmer, whom the early economists regarded as the only real
producer--the farmer, housed, furnished, clothed, fed, and assisted
by the mason, the carpenter, the tailor, the miller, the baker, the
butcher, the grocer, the blacksmith, &c.
,--the farmer, I say, can he
boast that he produces by his own unaided effort?
The various articles of consumption are given to each by all;
consequently, the production of each involves the production of all.
One product cannot exist without another; an isolated industry is an
impossible thing. What would be the harvest of the farmer, if others
did not manufacture for him barns, wagons, ploughs, clothes, &c. ? Where
would be the savant without the publisher; the printer without the
typecaster and the machinist; and these, in their turn, without a
multitude of other industries? . . . Let us not prolong this catalogue--so
easy to extend--lest we be accused of uttering commonplaces. All
industries are united by mutual relations in a single group; all
productions do reciprocal service as means and end; all varieties of
talent are but a series of changes from the inferior to the superior.
Now, this undisputed and indisputable fact of the general participation
in every species of product makes all individual productions common; so
that every product, coming from the hands of the producer, is mortgaged
in advance by society. The producer himself is entitled to only
that portion of his product, which is expressed by a fraction whose
denominator is equal to the number of individuals of which society is
composed. It is true that in return this same producer has a share in
all the products of others, so that he has a claim upon all, just as
all have a claim upon him; but is it not clear that this reciprocity of
mortgages, far from authorizing property, destroys even possession? The
laborer is not even possessor of his product; scarcely has he finished
it, when society claims it.
"But," it will be answered, "even if that is so--even if the product
does not belong to the producer--still society gives each laborer an
equivalent for his product; and this equivalent, this salary, this
reward, this allowance, becomes his property. Do you deny that this
property is legitimate? And if the laborer, instead of consuming his
entire wages, chooses to economize,--who dare question his right to do
so? "
The laborer is not even proprietor of the price of his labor, and cannot
absolutely control its disposition. Let us not be blinded by a spurious
justice. That which is given the laborer in exchange for his product is
not given him as a reward for past labor, but to provide for and secure
future labor. We consume before we produce. The laborer may say at the
end of the day, "I have paid yesterday's expenses; to-morrow I shall pay
those of today. " At every moment of his life, the member of society is
in debt; he dies with the debt unpaid:--how is it possible for him to
accumulate?
They talk of economy--it is the proprietor's hobby. Under a system of
equality, all economy which does not aim at subsequent reproduction or
enjoyment is impossible--why? Because the thing saved, since it cannot
be converted into capital, has no object, and is without a FINAL CAUSE.
This will be explained more fully in the next chapter.
To conclude:--
The laborer, in his relation to society, is a debtor who of necessity
dies insolvent. The proprietor is an unfaithful guardian who denies the
receipt of the deposit committed to his care, and wishes to be paid for
his guardianship down to the last day.
Lest the principles just set forth may appear to certain readers
too metaphysical, I shall reproduce them in a more concrete form,
intelligible to the dullest brains, and pregnant with the most important
consequences.
Hitherto, I have considered property as a power of EXCLUSION; hereafter,
I shall examine it as a power of INVASION.
CHAPTER IV. THAT PROPERTY IS IMPOSSIBLE.
The last resort of proprietors,--the overwhelming argument whose
invincible potency reassures them,--is that, in their opinion, equality
of conditions is impossible. "Equality of conditions is a chimera," they
cry with a knowing air; "distribute wealth equally to-day--to-morrow
this equality will have vanished. "
To this hackneyed objection, which they repeat everywhere with the most
marvellous assurance, they never fail to add the following comment, as
a sort of GLORY BE TO THE FATHER: "If all men were equal, nobody would
work. " This anthem is sung with variations.
"If all were masters, nobody would obey. "
"If nobody were rich, who would employ the poor? "
And, "If nobody were poor, who would labor for the rich? "
But let us have done with invective--we have better arguments at our
command.
If I show that property itself is impossible--that it is property which
is a contradiction, a chimera, a utopia; and if I show it no longer
by metaphysics and jurisprudence, but by figures, equations, and
calculations,--imagine the fright of the astounded proprietor! And you,
reader; what do you think of the retort?
Numbers govern the world--mundum regunt numeri. This proverb applies
as aptly to the moral and political, as to the sidereal and molecular,
world. The elements of justice are identical with those of algebra;
legislation and government are simply the arts of classifying
and balancing powers; all jurisprudence falls within the rules of
arithmetic. This chapter and the next will serve to lay the foundations
of this extraordinary doctrine. Then will be unfolded to the reader's
vision an immense and novel career; then shall we commence to see in
numerical relations the synthetic unity of philosophy and the sciences;
and, filled with admiration and enthusiasm for this profound and
majestic simplicity of Nature, we shall shout with the apostle: "Yes,
the Eternal has made all things by number, weight, and measure! " We
shall understand not only that equality of conditions is possible, but
that all else is impossible; that this seeming impossibility which
we charge upon it arises from the fact that we always think of it
in connection either with the proprietary or the communistic
regime,--political systems equally irreconcilable with human nature. We
shall see finally that equality is constantly being realized without our
knowledge, even at the very moment when we are pronouncing it incapable
of realization; that the time draws near when, without any effort or
even wish of ours, we shall have it universally established; that with
it, in it, and by it, the natural and true political order must make
itself manifest.
It has been said, in speaking of the blindness and obstinacy of the
passions, that, if man had any thing to gain by denying the truths of
arithmetic, he would find some means of unsettling their certainty: here
is an opportunity to try this curious experiment. I attack property,
no longer with its own maxims, but with arithmetic. Let the proprietors
prepare to verify my figures; for, if unfortunately for them the figures
prove accurate, the proprietors are lost.
In proving the impossibility of property, I complete the proof of its
injustice. In fact,--
That which is JUST must be USEFUL;
That which is useful must be TRUE;
That which is true must be POSSIBLE;
Therefore, every thing which is impossible is untrue, useless, unjust.
Then,--a priori,--we may judge of the justice of any thing by its
possibility; so that if the thing were absolutely impossible, it would
be absolutely unjust.
PROPERTY IS PHYSICALLY AND MATHEMATICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.
DEMONSTRATION.
AXIOM. --Property is the Right of Increase claimed by the Proprietor over
any thing which he has stamped as his own.
This proposition is purely an axiom, because,--
1. It is not a definition, since it does not express all that is
included in the right of property--the right of sale, of exchange, of
gift; the right to transform, to alter, to consume, to destroy, to
use and abuse, &c. All these rights are so many different powers of
property, which we may consider separately; but which we disregard here,
that we may devote all our attention to this single one,--the right of
increase.
2. It is universally admitted. No one can deny it without denying the
facts, without being instantly belied by universal custom.
3. It is self-evident, since property is always accompanied (either
actually or potentially) by the fact which this axiom expresses; and
through this fact, mainly, property manifests, establishes, and asserts
itself.
4. Finally, its negation involves a contradiction. The right of increase
is really an inherent right, so essential a part of property, that, in
its absence, property is null and void.
OBSERVATIONS. --Increase receives different names according to the
thing by which it is yielded: if by land, FARM-RENT; if by houses and
furniture, RENT; if by life-investments, REVENUE; if by money, INTEREST;
if by exchange, ADVANTAGE, GAIN, PROFIT (three things which must not be
confounded with the wages or legitimate price of labor).
Increase--a sort of royal prerogative, of tangible and consumable
homage--is due to the proprietor on account of his nominal and
metaphysical occupancy. His seal is set upon the thing; that is enough
to prevent any one else from occupying it without HIS permission.
This permission to use his things the proprietor may, if he chooses,
freely grant. Commonly he sells it. This sale is really a stellionate
and an extortion; but by the legal fiction of the right of property,
this same sale, severely punished, we know not why, in other cases, is a
source of profit and value to the proprietor.
The amount demanded by the proprietor, in payment for this permission,
is expressed in monetary terms by the dividend which the supposed
product yields in nature. So that, by the right of increase, the
proprietor reaps and does not plough; gleans and does not till; consumes
and does not produce; enjoys and does not labor. Very different from the
idols of the Psalmist are the gods of property: the former had hands and
felt not; the latter, on the contrary, _manus habent et palpabunt_.
_ _The right of increase is conferred in a very mysterious and
supernatural manner. The inauguration of a proprietor is accompanied
by the awful ceremonies of an ancient initiation. First, comes the
CONSECRATION of the article; a consecration which makes known to all
that they must offer up a suitable sacrifice to the proprietor, whenever
they wish, by his permission obtained and signed, to use his article.
Second, comes the ANATHEMA, which prohibits--except on the conditions
aforesaid--all persons from touching the article, even in the
proprietor's absence; and pronounces every violator of property
sacrilegious, infamous, amenable to the secular power, and deserving of
being handed over to it.
Finally, the DEDICATION, which enables the proprietor or patron
saint--the god chosen to watch over the article--to inhabit it mentally,
like a divinity in his sanctuary. By means of this dedication, the
substance of the article--so to speak--becomes converted into the person
of the proprietor, who is regarded as ever present in its form.
This is exactly the doctrine of the writers on jurisprudence.
"Property," says Toullier, "is a MORAL QUALITY inherent in a thing;
AN ACTUAL BOND which fastens it to the proprietor, and which cannot be
broken save by his act. " Locke humbly doubted whether God could make
matter INTELLIGENT. Toullier asserts that the proprietor renders it
MORAL. How much does he lack of being a God? These are by no means
exaggerations.
PROPERTY IS THE RIGHT OF INCREASE; that is, the power to produce without
labor. Now, to produce without labor is to make something from nothing;
in short, to create. Surely it is no more difficult to do this than to
moralize matter. The jurists are right, then, in applying to proprietors
this passage from the Scriptures,--_Ego dixi: Dii estis et filii Excelsi
omnes_,--"I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the
Most High. "
PROPERTY IS THE RIGHT OF INCREASE. To us this axiom shall be like the
name of the beast in the Apocalypse,--a name in which is hidden the
complete explanation of the whole mystery of this beast. It was known
that he who should solve the mystery of this name would obtain a
knowledge of the whole prophecy, and would succeed in mastering the
beast. Well! by the most careful interpretation of our axiom we shall
kill the sphinx of property.
Starting from this eminently characteristic fact--the RIGHT OF
INCREASE--we shall pursue the old serpent through his coils; we shall
count the murderous entwinings of this frightful taenia, whose head,
with its thousand suckers, is always hidden from the sword of its most
violent enemies, though abandoning to them immense fragments of its
body. It requires something more than courage to subdue this monster.
It was written that it should not die until a proletaire, armed with a
magic wand, had fought with it.
COROLLARIES. --1. THE AMOUNT OF INCREASE IS PROPORTIONAL TO THE THING
INCREASED. Whatever be the rate of interest,--whether it rise to three,
five, or ten per cent. , or fall to one-half, one-fourth, one-tenth,--it
does not matter; the law of increase remains the same. The law is as
follows:--
All capital--the cash value of which can be estimated--may be considered
as a term in an arithmetical series which progresses in the ratio of one
hundred, and the revenue yielded by this capital as the corresponding
term of another arithmetical series which progresses in a ratio equal to
the rate of interest. Thus, a capital of five hundred francs being the
fifth term of the arithmetical progression whose ratio is one hundred,
its revenue at three per cent. will be indicated by the fifth term of
the arithmetical progression whose ratio is three:--
100 . 200 . 300 . 400 . 500.
3 . 6 . 9 . 12 . 15.
An acquaintance with this sort of LOGARITHMS--tables of which,
calculated to a very high degree, are possessed by proprietors--will
give us the key to the most puzzling problems, and cause us to
experience a series of surprises.
By this LOGARITHMIC theory of the right of increase, a piece of
property, together with its income, may be defined as A NUMBER WHOSE
LOGARITHM IS EQUAL TO THE SUM OF ITS UNITS DIVIDED BY ONE HUNDRED, AND
MULTIPLIED BY THE RATE OF INTEREST. For instance; a house valued at one
hundred thousand francs, and leased at five per cent. , yields a revenue
of five thousand francs, according to the formula 100,000 x 5 / 100 =
five thousand. Vice versa, a piece of land which yields, at two and a
half per cent. , a revenue of three thousand francs is worth one hundred
and twenty thousand francs, according to this other formula;
3,000 x 100/ 2 1/2 = one hundred and twenty thousand.
In the first case, the ratio of the progression which marks the increase
of interest is five; in the second, it is two and a half.
OBSERVATION. --The forms of increase known as farm-rent, income, and
interest are paid annually; rent is paid by the week, the month, or
the year; profits and gains are paid at the time of exchange. Thus, the
amount of increase is proportional both to the thing increased, and
the time during which it increases; in other words, usury grows like a
cancer--_foenus serpit sicut cancer_.
2. THE INCREASE PAID TO THE PROPRIETOR BY THE OCCUPANT IS A DEAD LOSS
TO THE LATTER. For if the proprietor owed, in exchange for the increase
which he receives, some thing more than the permission which he grants,
his right of property would not be perfect--he would not possess
_jure optimo, jure perfecto;_ that is, he would not be in reality a
proprietor. Then, all which passes from the hands of the occupant into
those of the proprietor in the name of increase, and as the price of
the permission to occupy, is a permanent gain for the latter, and a dead
loss and annihilation for the former; to whom none of it will return,
save in the forms of gift, alms, wages paid for his services, or
the price of merchandise which he has delivered. In a word, increase
perishes so far as the borrower is concerned; or to use the more
energetic Latin phrase,--_res perit solventi_.
3. THE RIGHT OF INCREASE OPPRESSES THE PROPRIETOR AS WELL AS THE
STRANGER. The master of a thing, as its proprietor, levies a tax for the
use of his property upon himself as its possessor, equal to that which
he would receive from a third party; so that capital bears interest in
the hands of the capitalist, as well as in those of the borrower and the
commandite. If, indeed, rather than accept a rent of five hundred francs
for my apartment, I prefer to occupy and enjoy it, it is clear that I
shall become my own debtor for a rent equal to that which I deny myself.
This principle is universally practised in business, and is regarded as
an axiom by the economists. Manufacturers, also, who have the advantage
of being proprietors of their floating capital, although they owe no
interest to any one, in calculating their profits subtract from them,
not only their running expenses and the wages of their employees, but
also the interest on their capital. For the same reason, money-lenders
retain in their own possession as little money as possible; for, since
all capital necessarily bears interest, if this interest is supplied by
no one, it comes out of the capital, which is to that extent diminished.
Thus, by the right of increase, capital eats itself up. This is,
doubtless, the idea that Papinius intended to convey in the phrase, as
elegant as it is forcible--_Foenus mordet solidam_. I beg pardon for
using Latin so frequently in discussing this subject; it is an homage
which I pay to the most usurious nation that ever existed.
FIRST PROPOSITION.
Property is impossible, because it demands Something for Nothing.
The discussion of this proposition covers the same ground as that of the
origin of farm-rent, which is so much debated by the economists. When
I read the writings of the greater part of these men, I cannot avoid
a feeling of contempt mingled with anger, in view of this mass of
nonsense, in which the detestable vies with the absurd. It would be a
repetition of the story of the elephant in the moon, were it not for the
atrocity of the consequences. To seek a rational and legitimate origin
of that which is, and ever must be, only robbery, extortion, and
plunder--that must be the height of the proprietor's folly; the last
degree of bedevilment into which minds, otherwise judicious, can be
thrown by the perversity of selfishness.
"A farmer," says Say, "is a wheat manufacturer who, among other tools
which serve him in modifying the material from which he makes the
wheat, employs one large tool, which we call a field. If he is not the
proprietor of the field, if he is only a tenant, he pays the proprietor
for the productive service of this tool. The tenant is reimbursed by
the purchaser, the latter by another, until the product reaches the
consumer; who redeems the first payment, PLUS all the others, by means
of which the product has at last come into his hands. "
Let us lay aside the subsequent payments by which the product reaches
the consumer, and, for the present, pay attention only to the first one
of all,--the rent paid to the proprietor by the tenant. On what ground,
we ask, is the proprietor entitled to this rent?
According to Ricardo, MacCulloch, and Mill, farm-rent, properly
speaking, is simply the EXCESS OF THE PRODUCT OF THE MOST FERTILE LAND
OVER THAT OF LANDS OF AN INFERIOR QUALITY; so that farm-rent is not
demanded for the former until the increase of population renders
necessary the cultivation of the latter.
It is difficult to see any sense in this. How can a right to the land be
based upon a difference in the quality of the land? How can varieties of
soil engender a principle of legislation and politics? This reasoning
is either so subtle, or so stupid, that the more I think of it, the more
bewildered I become. Suppose two pieces of land of equal area; the one,
A, capable of supporting ten thousand inhabitants; the other, B, capable
of supporting nine thousand only: when, owing to an increase in their
number, the inhabitants of A shall be forced to cultivate B, the landed
proprietors of A will exact from their tenants in A a rent proportional
to the difference between ten and nine. So say, I think, Ricardo,
MacCulloch, and Mill. But if A supports as many inhabitants as it can
contain,--that is, if the inhabitants of A, by our hypothesis, have only
just enough land to keep them alive,--how can they pay farm-rent?
If they had gone no farther than to say that the difference in land has
OCCASIONED farm-rent, instead of CAUSED it, this observation would have
taught us a valuable lesson; namely, that farm-rent grew out of a desire
for equality. Indeed, if all men have an equal right to the possession
of good land, no one can be forced to cultivate bad land without
indemnification. Farm-rent--according to Ricardo, MacCulloch, and
Mill--would then have been a compensation for loss and hardship. This
system of practical equality is a bad one, no doubt; but it sprang from
good intentions. What argument can Ricardo, MacCulloch, and Mill develop
therefrom in favor of property? Their theory turns against themselves,
and strangles them.
Malthus thinks that farm-rent has its source in the power possessed by
land of producing more than is necessary to supply the wants of the
men who cultivate it. I would ask Malthus why successful labor should
entitle the idle to a portion of the products?
But the worthy Malthus is mistaken in regard to the fact. Yes; land has
the power of producing more than is needed by those who cultivate it, if
by CULTIVATORS is meant tenants only. The tailor also makes more clothes
than he wears, and the cabinet-maker more furniture than he uses. But,
since the various professions imply and sustain one another, not only
the farmer, but the followers of all arts and trades--even to the doctor
and the school-teacher--are, and ought to be, regarded as CULTIVATORS OF
THE LAND. Malthus bases farm-rent upon the principle of commerce.
Now, the fundamental law of commerce being equivalence of the products
exchanged, any thing which destroys this equivalence violates the law.
There is an error in the estimate which needs to be corrected.
Buchanan--a commentator on Smith--regarded farm-rent as the result of a
monopoly, and maintained that labor alone is productive. Consequently,
he thought that, without this monopoly, products would rise in price;
and he found no basis for farm-rent save in the civil law. This opinion
is a corollary of that which makes the civil law the basis of property.
But why has the civil law--which ought to be the written expression of
justice--authorized this monopoly? Whoever says monopoly, necessarily
excludes justice. Now, to say that farm-rent is a monopoly sanctioned by
the law, is to say that injustice is based on justice,--a contradiction
in terms.
Say answers Buchanan, that the proprietor is not a monopolist, because a
monopolist "is one who does not increase the utility of the merchandise
which passes through his hands. "
How much does the proprietor increase the utility of his tenant's
products? Has he ploughed, sowed, reaped, mowed, winnowed, weeded? These
are the processes by which the tenant and his employees increase
the utility of the material which they consume for the purpose of
reproduction.
"The landed proprietor increases the utility of products by means of his
implement, the land. This implement receives in one state, and returns
in another the materials of which wheat is composed. The action of
the land is a chemical process, which so modifies the material that it
multiplies it by destroying it. The soil is then a producer of utility;
and when it [the soil? ] asks its pay in the form of profit, or farm
rent, for its proprietor, it at the same time gives something to the
consumer in exchange for the amount which the consumer pays it. It gives
him a produced utility; and it is the production of this utility which
warrants us in calling land productive, as well as labor. "
Let us clear up this matter.
The blacksmith who manufactures for the farmer implements of husbandry,
the wheelwright who makes him a cart, the mason who builds his barn,
the carpenter, the basket-maker, &c. ,--all of whom contribute to
agricultural production by the tools which they provide,--are producers
of utility; consequently, they are entitled to a part of the products.
