An
excellent economist and profound philosopher was that miser who took
as his motto, "WHEN A GUINEA IS EXCHANGED, IT EVAPORATES.
excellent economist and profound philosopher was that miser who took
as his motto, "WHEN A GUINEA IS EXCHANGED, IT EVAPORATES.
Proudhon - What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government
Did they leave these two industries to
themselves? The native manufacturer was ruined by the colonist. To
maintain the beet-root, the cane had to be taxed. To protect the
property of the one, it became necessary to violate the property of the
other. The most remarkable feature of this business was precisely that
to which the least attention was paid; namely, that, in one way or
another, property had to be violated. Did they impose on each industry
a proportional tax, so as to preserve a balance in the market? They
created a maximum PRICE for each variety of sugar; and, as this maximum
PRICE was not the same, they attacked property in two ways,--on the one
hand, interfering with the liberty of trade; on the other, disregarding
the equality of proprietors. Did they suppress the beet-root by granting
an indemnity to the manufacturer? They sacrificed the property of the
tax-payer. Finally, did they prefer to cultivate the two varieties of
sugar at the nation's expense, just as different varieties of tobacco
are cultivated? They abolished, so far as the sugar industry was
concerned, the right of property. This last course, being the most
social, would have been certainly the best; but, if property is the
necessary basis of civilization, how is this deep-seated antagonism to
be explained? [37]
Not satisfied with the power of dispossessing a citizen on the ground
of public utility, they want also to dispossess him on the ground of
PRIVATE UTILITY. For a long time, a revision of the law concerning
mortgages was clamored for; a process was demanded, in behalf of all
kinds of credit and in the interest of even the debtors themselves,
which would render the expropriation of real estate as prompt, as easy,
and as effective as that which follows a commercial protest. The Chamber
of Deputies, in the early part of this year, 1841, discussed this
project, and the law was passed almost unanimously. There is nothing
more just, nothing more reasonable, nothing more philosophical
apparently, than the motives which gave rise to this reform.
I. Formerly, the small proprietor whose obligation had arrived at
maturity, and who found himself unable to meet it, had to employ all
that he had left, after being released from his debt, in defraying the
legal costs. Henceforth, the promptness of expropriation will save him
from total ruin. 2. The difficulties in the way of payment arrested
credit, and prevented the employment of capital in agricultural
enterprises. This cause of distrust no longer existing, capitalists will
find new markets, agriculture will rapidly develop, and farmers will
be the first to enjoy the benefit of the new law. 3. Finally, it was
iniquitous and absurd, that, on account of a protested note, a poor
manufacturer should see in twenty-four hours his business arrested, his
labor suspended, his merchandise seized, his machinery sold at auction,
and finally himself led off to prison, while two years were sometimes
necessary to expropriate the most miserable piece of real estate.
These arguments, and others besides, you clearly stated, sir, in your
first lectures of this academic year.
But, when stating these excellent arguments, did you ask yourself, sir,
whither would tend such a transformation of our system of mortgages? . . .
To monetize, if I may say so, landed property; to accumulate it within
portfolios; to separate the laborer from the soil, man from Nature; to
make him a wanderer over the face of the earth; to eradicate from
his heart every trace of family feeling, national pride, and love of
country; to isolate him more and more; to render him indifferent to
all around him; to concentrate his love upon one object,--money; and,
finally, by the dishonest practices of usury, to monopolize the land
to the profit of a financial aristocracy,--a worthy auxiliary of that
industrial feudality whose pernicious influence we begin to feel so
bitterly. Thus, little by little, the subordination of the laborer to
the idler, the restoration of abolished castes, and the distinction
between patrician and plebeian, would be effected; thus, thanks to the
new privileges granted to the property of the capitalists, that of the
small and intermediate proprietors would gradually disappear, and with
it the whole class of free and honest laborers. This certainly is not
my plan for the abolition of property. Far from mobilizing the soil, I
would, if possible, immobilize even the functions of pure intelligence,
so that society might be the fulfilment of the intentions of Nature,
who gave us our first possession, the land. For, if the instrument
or capital of production is the mark of the laborer, it is also his
pedestal, his support, his country, and, as the Psalmist says, THE PLACE
OF HIS ACTIVITY AND HIS REST. [38]
Let us examine more closely still the inevitable and approaching result
of the last law concerning judicial sales and mortgages. Under
the system of competition which is killing us, and whose necessary
expression is a plundering and tyrannical government, the farmer will
need always capital in order to repair his losses, and will be forced to
contract loans. Always depending upon the future for the payment of his
debts, he will be deceived in his hope, and surprised by maturity. For
what is there more prompt, more unexpected, more abbreviatory of space
and time, than the maturity of an obligation? I address this question
to all whom this pitiless Nemesis pursues, and even troubles in their
dreams. Now, under the new law, the expropriation of a debtor will be
effected a hundred times more rapidly; then, also, spoliation will be
a hundred times surer, and the free laborer will pass a hundred times
sooner from his present condition to that of a serf attached to the
soil. Formerly, the length of time required to effect the seizure
curbed the usurer's avidity, gave the borrower an opportunity to recover
himself, and gave rise to a transaction between him and his creditor
which might result finally in a complete release. Now, the debtor's
sentence is irrevocable: he has but a few days of grace.
And what advantages are promised by this law as an offset to this sword
of Damocles, suspended by a single hair over the head of the unfortunate
husbandman? The expenses of seizure will be much less, it is said; but
will the interest on the borrowed capital be less exorbitant? For, after
all, it is interest which impoverishes the peasant and leads to his
expropriation. That the law may be in harmony with its principle, that
it may be truly inspired by that spirit of justice for which it is
commended, it must--while facilitating expropriation--lower the legal
price of money. Otherwise, the reform concerning mortgages is but a trap
set for small proprietors,--a legislative trick.
Lower interest on money! But, as we have just seen, that is to limit
property. Here, sir, you shall make your own defence. More than once, in
your learned lectures, I have heard you deplore the precipitancy of the
Chambers, who, without previous study and without profound knowledge
of the subject, voted almost unanimously to maintain the statutes and
privileges of the Bank. Now these privileges, these statutes, this vote
of the Chambers, mean simply this,--that the market price of specie,
at five or six per cent. , is not too high, and that the conditions
of exchange, discount, and circulation, which generally double this
interest, are none too severe. So the government thinks. M. Blanqui--a
professor of political economy, paid by the State--maintains the
contrary, and pretends to demonstrate, by decisive arguments, the
necessity of a reform. Who, then, best understands the interests of
property,--the State, or M. Blanqui?
If specie could be borrowed at half the present rate, the revenues from
all sorts of property would soon be reduced one-half also. For example:
when it costs less to build a house than to hire one, when it is cheaper
to clear a field than to procure one already cleared, competition
inevitably leads to a reduction of house and farm-rents, since the
surest way to depreciate active capital is to increase its amount. But
it is a law of political economy that an increase of production augments
the mass of available capital, consequently tends to raise wages, and
finally to annihilate interest. Then, proprietors are interested in
maintaining the statutes and privileges of the Bank; then, a reform in
this matter would compromise the right of increase; then, the peers and
deputies are better informed than Professor Blanqui.
But these same deputies,--so jealous of their privileges whenever
the equalizing effects of a reform are within their intellectual
horizon,--what did they do a few days before they passed the law
concerning judicial sales? They formed a conspiracy against property!
Their law to regulate the labor of children in factories will, without
doubt, prevent the manufacturer from compelling a child to labor more
than so many hours a day; but it will not force him to increase the pay
of the child, nor that of its father. To-day, in the interest of health,
we diminish the subsistence of the poor; to-morrow it will be necessary
to protect them by fixing their MINIMUM wages. But to fix their minimum
wages is to compel the proprietor, is to force the master to accept his
workman as an associate, which interferes with freedom and makes mutual
insurance obligatory. Once entered upon this path, we never shall
stop. Little by little the government will become manufacturer,
commission-merchant, and retail dealer.
It will be the sole proprietor. Why, at all epochs, have the ministers
of State been so reluctant to meddle with the question of wages?
Why have they always refused to interfere between the master and the
workman? Because they knew the touchy and jealous nature of property,
and, regarding it as the principle of all civilization, felt that to
meddle with it would be to unsettle the very foundations of society.
Sad condition of the proprietary regime,--one of inability to exercise
charity without violating justice! [39]
And, sir, this fatal consequence which necessity forces upon the State
is no mere imagination. Even now the legislative power is asked, no
longer simply to regulate the government of factories, but to create
factories itself. Listen to the millions of voices shouting on all hands
for THE ORGANISATION OF LABOR, THE CREATION OF NATIONAL WORKSHOPS!
The whole laboring class is agitated: it has its journals, organs,
and representatives. To guarantee labor to the workingman, to balance
production with sale, to harmonize industrial proprietors, it advocates
to-day--as a sovereign remedy--one sole head, one national wardenship,
one huge manufacturing company. For, sir, all this is included in the
idea of national workshops. On this subject I wish to quote, as proof,
the views of an illustrious economist, a brilliant mind, a progressive
intellect, an enthusiastic soul, a true patriot, and yet an official
defender of the right of property. [40]
The honorable professor of the Conservatory proposes then,--
1. TO CHECK THE CONTINUAL EMIGRATION OF LABORERS FROM THE COUNTRY INTO
THE CITIES.
But, to keep the peasant in his village, his residence there must be
made endurable: to be just to all, the proletaire of the country must be
treated as well as the proletaire of the city. Reform is needed, then,
on farms as well as in factories; and, when the government enters the
workshop, the government must seize the plough! What becomes, during
this progressive invasion, of independent cultivation, exclusive domain,
property?
2. TO FIX FOR EACH PROFESSION A MODERATE SALARY, VARYING WITH TIME AND
PLACE AND BASED UPON CERTAIN DATA.
The object of this measure would be to secure to laborers their
subsistence, and to proprietors their profits, while obliging the latter
to sacrifice from motives of prudence, if for no other reason, a portion
of their income. Now, I say, that this portion, in the long run, would
swell until at last there would be an equality of enjoyment between the
proletaire and the proprietor. For, as we have had occasion to remark
several times already, the interest of the capitalist--in other words
the increase of the idler--tends, on account of the power of labor, the
multiplication of products and exchanges, to continually diminish, and,
by constant reduction, to disappear. So that, in the society proposed
by M. Blanqui, equality would not be realized at first, but would exist
potentially; since property, though outwardly seeming to be industrial
feudality, being no longer a principle of exclusion and encroachment,
but only a privilege of division, would not be slow, thanks to the
intellectual and political emancipation of the proletariat, in passing
into absolute equality,--as absolute at least as any thing can be on
this earth.
I omit, for the sake of brevity, the numerous considerations which
the professor adduces in support of what he calls, too modestly in my
opinion, his Utopia. They would serve only to prove beyond all question
that, of all the charlatans of radicalism who fatigue the public ear,
no one approaches, for depth and clearness of thought, the audacious M.
Blanqui.
3. NATIONAL WORKSHOPS SHOULD BE IN OPERATION ONLY DURING PERIODS OF
STAGNATION IN ORDINARY INDUSTRIES; AT SUCH TIMES THEY SHOULD BE OPENED
AS VAST OUTLETS TO THE FLOOD OF THE LABORING POPULATION.
But, sir, the stoppage of private industry is the result of
over-production, and insufficient markets. If, then, production
continues in the national workshops, how will the crisis be terminated?
Undoubtedly, by the general depreciation of merchandise, and, in the
last analysis, by the conversion of private workshops into national
workshops. On the other hand, the government will need capital with
which to pay its workmen; now, how will this capital be obtained? By
taxation. And upon what will the tax be levied? Upon property. Then you
will have proprietary industry sustaining against itself, and at its own
expense, another industry with which it cannot compete. What, think you,
will become, in this fatal circle, of the possibility of profit,--in a
word, of property?
Thank Heaven! equality of conditions is taught in the public schools;
let us fear revolutions no longer. The most implacable enemy of property
could not, if he wished to destroy it, go to work in a wiser and more
effective way. Courage, then, ministers, deputies, economists! make
haste to seize this glorious initiative; let the watchwords of equality,
uttered from the heights of science and power, be repeated in the midst
of the people; let them thrill the breasts of the proletaires, and carry
dismay into the ranks of the last representatives of privilege!
The tendency of society in favor of compelling proprietors to support
national workshops and public manufactories is so strong that for
several years, under the name of ELECTORAL REFORM, it has been
exclusively the question of the day. What is, after all, this electoral
reform which the people grasp at, as if it were a bait, and which
so many ambitious persons either call for or denounce? It is the
acknowledgment of the right of the masses to a voice in the assessment
of taxes, and the making of the laws; which laws, aiming always at the
protection of material interests, affect, in a greater or less degree,
all questions of taxation or wages. Now the people, instructed long
since by their journals, their dramas, [41] and their songs, [42] know
to-day that taxation, to be equitably divided, must be graduated, and
must be borne mainly by the rich,--that it must be levied upon luxuries,
&c. And be sure that the people, once in the majority in the Chamber,
will not fail to apply these lessons. Already we have a minister
of public works. National workshops will follow; and soon, as
a consequence, the excess of the proprietor's revenue over the
workingman's wages will be swallowed up in the coffers of the laborers
of the State. Do you not see that in this way property is gradually
reduced, as nobility was formerly, to a nominal title, to a distinction
purely honorary in its nature?
Either the electoral reform will fail to accomplish that which is hoped
from it, and will disappoint its innumerable partisans, or else it will
inevitably result in a transformation of the absolute right under which
we live into a right of possession; that is, that while, at present,
property makes the elector, after this reform is accomplished, the
citizen, the producer will be the possessor. [43] Consequently, the
radicals are right in saying that the electoral reform is in their eyes
only a means; but, when they are silent as to the end, they show either
profound ignorance, or useless dissimulation. There should be no secrets
or reservations from peoples and powers. He disgraces himself and fails
in respect for his fellows, who, in publishing his opinions, employs
evasion and cunning. Before the people act, they need to know the whole
truth. Unhappy he who shall dare to trifle with them! For the people are
credulous, but they are strong. Let us tell them, then, that this reform
which is proposed is only a means,--a means often tried, and hitherto
without effect,--but that the logical object of the electoral reform is
equality of fortunes; and that this equality itself is only a new means
having in view the superior and definitive object of the salvation of
society, the restoration of morals and religion, and the revival of
poetry and art.
This assertion of M. Rossi is not borne out by history. Property is the
cause of the electoral right, not as a PRESUMPTION OF CAPACITY,--an idea
which never prevailed until lately, and which is extremely absurd,--but
as a GUARANTEE OF DEVOTION TO THE ESTABLISHED ORDER. The electoral body
is a league of those interested in the maintenance of property, against
those not interested. There are thousands of documents, even official
documents, to prove this, if necessary. For the rest, the present system
is only a continuation of the municipal system, which, in the
middle ages, sprang up in connection with feudalism,--an oppressive,
mischief-making system, full of petty passions and base intrigues.
It would be an abuse of the reader's patience to insist further upon
the tendency of our time towards equality. There are, moreover, so many
people who denounce the present age, that nothing is gained by exposing
to their view the popular, scientific, and representative tendencies of
the nation.
Prompt to recognize the accuracy of the inferences drawn from
observation, they confine themselves to a general censure of the facts,
and an absolute denial of their legitimacy. "What wonder," they say,
"that this atmosphere of equality intoxicates us, considering all that
has been said and done during the past ten years! . . . Do you not see that
society is dissolving, that a spirit of infatuation is carrying us away?
All these hopes of regeneration are but forebodings of death; your songs
of triumph are like the prayers of the departing, your trumpet peals
announce the baptism of a dying man. Civilization is falling in ruin:
_Imus, imus, praecipites_! "
Such people deny God. I might content myself with the reply that
the spirit of 1830 was the result of the maintenance of the violated
charter; that this charter arose from the Revolution of '89; that
'89 implies the States-General's right of remonstrance, and the
enfranchisement of the communes; that the communes suppose feudalism,
which in its turn supposes invasion, Roman law, Christianity, &c.
But it is necessary to look further. We must penetrate to the very heart
of ancient institutions, plunge into the social depths, and uncover this
indestructible leaven of equality which the God of justice breathed into
our souls, and which manifests itself in all our works.
Labor is man's contemporary; it is a duty, since it is a condition of
existence: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. " It is more
than a duty, it is a mission: "God put the man into the garden to dress
it. " I add that labor is the cause and means of equality.
Cast away upon a desert island two men: one large, strong, and active;
the other weak, timid, and domestic. The latter will die of hunger;
while the other, a skilful hunter, an expert fisherman, and an
indefatigable husbandman, will overstock himself with provisions. What
greater inequality, in this state of Nature so dear to the heart of Jean
Jacques, could be imagined! But let these two men meet and associate
themselves: the second immediately attends to the cooking, takes charge
of the household affairs, and sees to the provisions, beds, and clothes;
provided the stronger does not abuse his superiority by enslaving and
ill-treating his companion, their social condition will be perfectly
equal. Thus, through exchange of services, the inequalities of Nature
neutralize each other, talents associate, and forces balance. Violence
and inertia are found only among the poor and the aristocratic. And
in that lies the philosophy of political economy, the mystery of human
brotherhood. _Hic est sapientia_. Let us pass from the hypothetical
state of pure Nature into civilization.
The proprietor of the soil, who produces, I will suppose with the
economists, by lending his instrument, receives at the foundation of a
society so many bushels of grain for each acre of arable land. As long
as labor is weak, and the variety of its products small, the proprietor
is powerful in comparison with the laborers; he has ten times,
one hundred times, the portion of an honest man. But let labor, by
multiplying its inventions, multiply its enjoyments and wants, and the
proprietor, if he wishes to enjoy the new products, will be obliged to
reduce his income every day; and since the first products tend rather
to depreciate than to rise in value,--in consequence of the continual
addition of the new ones, which may be regarded as supplements of the
first ones,--it follows that the idle proprietor grows poor as fast
as public prosperity increases. "Incomes" (I like to quote you, sir,
because it is impossible to give too good an authority for these
elementary principles of economy, and because I cannot express them
better myself), "incomes," you have said, "tend to disappear as capital
increases. He who possesses to-day an income of twenty thousand pounds
is not nearly as rich as he who possessed the same amount fifty years
ago. The time is coming when all property will be a burden to the idle,
and will necessarily pass into the hands of the able and industrious.
[44]. . . "
In order to live as a proprietor, or to consume without producing, it is
necessary, then, to live upon the labor of another; in other words,
it is necessary to kill the laborer. It is upon this principle that
proprietors of those varieties of capital which are of primary necessity
increase their farm-rents as fast as industry develops, much more
careful of their privileges in that respect, than those economists who,
in order to strengthen property, advocate a reduction of interest.
But the crime is unavailing: labor and production increase; soon the
proprietor will be forced to labor, and then property is lost.
The proprietor is a man who, having absolute control of an instrument
of production, claims the right to enjoy the product of the instrument
without using it himself. To this end he lends it; and we have just
seen that from this loan the laborer derives a power of exchange, which
sooner or later will destroy the right of increase. In the first place,
the proprietor is obliged to allow the laborer a portion of the product,
for without it the laborer could not live. Soon the latter, through
the development of his industry, finds a means of regaining the greater
portion of that which he gives to the proprietor; so that at last, the
objects of enjoyment increasing continually, while the income of the
idler remains the same, the proprietor, having exhausted his resources,
begins to think of going to work himself. Then the victory of the
producer is certain. Labor commences to tip the balance towards its own
side, and commerce leads to equilibrium.
Man's instinct cannot err; as, in liberty, exchange of functions leads
inevitably to equality among men, so commerce--or exchange of products,
which is identical with exchange of functions--is a new cause of
equality. As long as the proprietor does not labor, however small his
income, he enjoys a privilege; the laborer's welfare may be equal to
his, but equality of conditions does not exist. But as soon as the
proprietor becomes a producer,--since he can exchange his special
product only with his tenant or his _commandite_,--sooner or later this
tenant, this _exploited_ man, if violence is not done him, will make
a profit out of the proprietor, and will oblige him to restore--in the
exchange of their respective products--the interest on his capital. So
that, balancing one injustice by another, the contracting parties will
be equal. Labor and exchange, when liberty prevails, lead, then, to
equality of fortunes; mutuality of services neutralizes privilege.
That is why despots in all ages and countries have assumed control
of commerce; they wished to prevent the labor of their subjects from
becoming an obstacle to the rapacity of tyrants.
Up to this point, all takes place in the natural order; there is no
premeditation, no artifice. The whole proceeding is governed by the laws
of necessity alone. Proprietors and laborers act only in obedience to
their wants. Thus, the exercise of the right of increase, the art
of robbing the producer, depends--during this first period of
civilization--upon physical violence, murder, and war.
But at this point a gigantic and complicated conspiracy is hatched
against the capitalists. The weapon of the EXPLOITERS is met by the
EXPLOITED with the instrument of commerce,--a marvellous invention,
denounced at its origin by the moralists who favored property, but
inspired without doubt by the genius of labor, by the Minerva of the
proletaires.
The principal cause of the evil lay in the accumulation and immobility
of capital of all sorts,--an immobility which prevented labor, enslaved
and subalternized by haughty idleness, from ever acquiring it. The
necessity was felt of dividing and mobilizing wealth, of rendering it
portable, of making it pass from the hands of the possessor into those
of the worker. Labor invented MONEY. Afterwards, this invention was
revived and developed by the BILL OF EXCHANGE and the BANK. For all
these things are substantially the same, and proceed from the same mind.
The first man who conceived the idea of representing a value by a shell,
a precious stone, or a certain weight of metal, was the real inventor
of the Bank. What is a piece of money, in fact? It is a bill of exchange
written upon solid and durable material, and carrying with it its own
redemption. By this means, oppressed equality was enabled to laugh at
the efforts of the proprietors, and the balance of justice was adjusted
for the first time in the tradesman's shop. The trap was cunningly set,
and accomplished its purpose so thoroughly that in idle hands money
became only dissolving wealth, a false symbol, a shadow of riches.
An
excellent economist and profound philosopher was that miser who took
as his motto, "WHEN A GUINEA IS EXCHANGED, IT EVAPORATES. " So it may
be said, "When real estate is converted into money, it is lost. " This
explains the constant fact of history, that the nobles--the unproductive
proprietors of the soil--have every where been dispossessed by
industrial and commercial plebeians. Such was especially the case in the
formation of the Italian republics, born, during the middle ages, of
the impoverishment of the seigniors. I will not pursue the interesting
considerations which this matter suggests; I could only repeat the
testimony of historians, and present economical demonstrations in an
altered form.
The greatest enemy of the landed and industrial aristocracy to-day, the
incessant promoter of equality of fortunes, is the BANKER. Through him
immense plains are divided, mountains change their positions, forests
are grown upon the public squares, one hemisphere produces for another,
and every corner of the globe has its usufructuaries. By means of the
Bank new wealth is continually created, the use of which (soon becoming
indispensable to selfishness) wrests the dormant capital from the hands
of the jealous proprietor. The banker is at once the most potent creator
of wealth, and the main distributor of the products of art and Nature.
And yet, by the strangest antinomy, this same banker is the most
relentless collector of profits, increase, and usury ever inspired by
the demon of property. The importance of the services which he renders
leads us to endure, though not without complaint, the taxes which he
imposes. Nevertheless, since nothing can avoid its providential mission,
since nothing which exists can escape the end for which it exists
the banker (the modern Croesus) must some day become the restorer of
equality. And following in your footsteps, sir, I have already given the
reason; namely, that profit decreases as capital multiplies, since an
increase of capital--calling for more laborers, without whom it remains
unproductive--always causes an increase of wages. Whence it follows that
the Bank, to-day the suction-pump of wealth, is destined to become the
steward of the human race.
The phrase EQUALITY OF FORTUNES chafes people, as if it referred to
a condition of the other world, unknown here below. There are some
persons, radicals as well as moderates, whom the very mention of this
idea fills with indignation. Let, then, these silly aristocrats abolish
mercantile societies and insurance companies, which are founded
by prudence for mutual assistance. For all these social facts, so
spontaneous and free from all levelling intentions, are the legitimate
fruits of the instinct of equality.
When the legislator makes a law, properly speaking he does not MAKE
it,--he does not CREATE it: he DESCRIBES it. In legislating upon the
moral, civil, and political relations of citizens, he does not express
an arbitrary notion: he states the general idea,--the higher principle
which governs the matter which he is considering; in a word, he is the
proclaimer, not the inventor, of the law. So, when two or more men
form among themselves, by synallagmatic contract, an industrial or an
insurance association, they recognize that their interests, formerly
isolated by a false spirit of selfishness and independence, are
firmly connected by their inner natures, and by the mutuality of their
relations. They do not really bind themselves by an act of their private
will: they swear to conform henceforth to a previously existing social
law hitherto disregarded by them. And this is proved by the fact that
these same men, could they avoid association, would not associate.
Before they can be induced to unite their interests, they must acquire
full knowledge of the dangers of competition and isolation; hence the
experience of evil is the only thing which leads them into society.
Now I say that, to establish equality among men, it is only necessary
to generalize the principle upon which insurance, agricultural, and
commercial associations are based. I say that competition, isolation
of interests, monopoly, privilege, accumulation of capital, exclusive
enjoyment, subordination of functions, individual production, the right
of profit or increase, the exploitation of man by man, and, to sum up
all these species under one head, that PROPERTY is the principal cause
of misery and crime. And, for having arrived at this offensive and
anti-proprietary conclusion, I am an abhorred monster; radicals and
conservatives alike point me out as a fit subject for prosecution; the
academies shower their censures upon me; the most worthy people regard
me as mad; and those are excessively tolerant who content themselves
with the assertion that I am a fool. Oh, unhappy the writer who
publishes the truth otherwise than as a performance of a duty! If he has
counted upon the applause of the crowd; if he has supposed that avarice
and self-interest would forget themselves in admiration of him; if he
has neglected to encase himself within three thicknesses of brass,--he
will fail, as he ought, in his selfish undertaking. The unjust
criticisms, the sad disappointments, the despair of his mistaken
ambition, will kill him.
But, if I am no longer permitted to express my own personal opinion
concerning this interesting question of social equilibrium, let me, at
least, make known the thought of my masters, and develop the doctrines
advocated in the name of the government.
It never has been my intention, sir, in spite of the vigorous censure
which you, in behalf of your academy, have pronounced upon the doctrine
of equality of fortunes, to contradict and cope with you. In listening
to you, I have felt my inferiority too keenly to permit me to enter upon
such a discussion. And then,--if it must be said,--however different
your language is from mine, we believe in the same principles; you share
all my opinions. I do not mean to insinuate thereby, sir, that you have
(to use the phraseology of the schools) an ESOTERIC and an EXOTERIC
doctrine,--that, secretly believing in equality, you defend property
only from motives of prudence and by command. I am not rash enough to
regard you as my colleague in my revolutionary projects; and I esteem
you too highly, moreover, to suspect you of dissimulation. I only
mean that the truths which methodical investigation and laborious
metaphysical speculation have painfully demonstrated to me, a profound
acquaintance with political economy and a long experience reveal to
you. While I have reached my belief in equality by long reflection, and
almost in spite of my desires, you hold yours, sir, with all the zeal of
faith,--with all the spontaneity of genius. That is why your course
of lectures at the Conservatory is a perpetual war upon property and
inequality of fortunes; that is why your most learned investigations,
your most ingenious analyses, and your innumerable observations always
conclude in a formula of progress and equality; that is why, finally,
you are never more admired and applauded than at those moments of
inspiration when, borne upon the wings of science, you ascend to those
lofty truths which cause plebeian hearts to beat with enthusiasm, and
which chill with horror men whose intentions are evil. How many times,
from the place where I eagerly drank in your eloquent words, have I
inwardly thanked Heaven for exempting you from the judgment passed by
St. Paul upon the philosophers of his time,--"They have known the truth,
and have not made it known"! How many times have I rejoiced at finding
my own justification in each of your discourses! No, no; I neither wish
nor ask for any thing which you do not teach yourself. I appeal to your
numerous audience; let it belie me if, in commenting upon you, I pervert
your meaning.
A disciple of Say, what in your eyes is more anti-social than the
custom-houses; or, as you correctly call them, the barriers erected by
monopoly between nations? What is more annoying, more unjust, or more
absurd, than this prohibitory system which compels us to pay forty
sous in France for that which in England or Belgium would bring us but
fifteen? It is the custom-house, you once said, [45] which arrests
the development of civilization by preventing the specialization of
industries; it is the custom-house which enriches a hundred monopolists
by impoverishing millions of citizens; it is the custom-house which
produces famine in the midst of abundance, which makes labor sterile by
prohibiting exchange, and which stifles production in a mortal embrace.
It is the custom-house which renders nations jealous of, and hostile to,
each other; four-fifths of the wars of all ages were caused originally
by the custom-house. And then, at the highest pitch of your enthusiasm,
you shouted: "Yes, if to put an end to this hateful system, it should
become necessary for me to shed the last drop of my blood, I would
joyfully spring into the gap, asking only time enough to give thanks to
God for having judged me worthy of martyrdom! "
And, at that solemn moment, I said to myself: "Place in every department
of France such a professor as that, and the revolution is avoided. "
But, sir, by this magnificent theory of liberty of commerce you render
military glory impossible,--you leave nothing for diplomacy to do;
you even take away the desire for conquest, while abolishing profit
altogether. What matters it, indeed, who restores Constantinople,
Alexandria, and Saint Jean d'Acre, if the Syrians, Egyptians, and Turks
are free to choose their masters; free to exchange their products with
whom they please? Why should Europe get into such a turmoil over this
petty Sultan and his old Pasha, if it is only a question whether we or
the English shall civilize the Orient,--shall instruct Egypt and Syria
in the European arts, and shall teach them to construct machines, dig
canals, and build railroads? For, if to national independence free trade
is added, the foreign influence of these two countries is thereafter
exerted only through a voluntary relationship of producer to producer,
or apprentice to journeyman.
Alone among European powers, France cheerfully accepted the task of
civilizing the Orient, and began an invasion which was quite apostolic
in its character,--so joyful and high-minded do noble thoughts render
our nation! But diplomatic rivalry, national selfishness, English
avarice, and Russian ambition stood in her way. To consummate a
long-meditated usurpation, it was necessary to crush a too generous
ally: the robbers of the Holy Alliance formed a league against dauntless
and blameless France. Consequently, at the news of this famous treaty,
there arose among us a chorus of curses upon the principle of property,
which at that time was acting under the hypocritical formulas of the old
political system. The last hour of property seemed to have struck by
the side of Syria; from the Alps to the ocean, from the Rhine to the
Pyrenees, the popular conscience was aroused. All France sang songs
of war, and the coalition turned pale at the sound of these shuddering
cries: "War upon the autocrat, who wishes to be proprietor of the
old world! War upon the English perjurer, the devourer of India, the
poisoner of China, the tyrant of Ireland, and the eternal enemy of
France! War upon the allies who have conspired against liberty and
equality! War! war! war upon property! "
By the counsel of Providence the emancipation of the nations is
postponed. France is to conquer, not by arms, but by example. Universal
reason does not yet understand this grand equation, which, commencing
with the abolition of slavery, and advancing over the ruins of
aristocracies and thrones, must end in equality of rights and fortunes;
but the day is not far off when the knowledge of this truth will be as
common as that of equality of origin. Already it seems to be understood
that the Oriental question is only a question of custom-houses. Is it,
then, so difficult for public opinion to generalize this idea, and to
comprehend, finally, that if the suppression of custom-houses involves
the abolition of national property, it involves also, as a consequence,
the abolition of individual property?
In fact, if we suppress the custom-houses, the alliance of the nations
is declared by that very act; their solidarity is recognized, and their
equality proclaimed. If we suppress the custom-houses, the principle of
association will not be slow in reaching from the State to the province,
from the province to the city, and from the city to the workshop. But,
then, what becomes of the privileges of authors and artists? Of what
use are the patents for invention, imagination, amelioration, and
improvement? When our deputies write a law of literary property by
the side of a law which opens a large breach in the custom-house they
contradict themselves, indeed, and pull down with one hand what they
build up with the other. Without the custom-house, literary property
does not exist, and the hopes of our starving authors are frustrated.
For, certainly you do not expect, with the good man Fourier, that
literary property will exercise itself in China to the profit of a
French writer; and that an ode of Lamartine, sold by privilege all over
the world, will bring in millions to its author! The poet's work
is peculiar to the climate in which he lives; every where else the
reproduction of his works, having no market value, should be frank and
free. But what! will it be necessary for nations to put themselves under
mutual surveillance for the sake of verses, statues, and elixirs? We
shall always have, then, an excise, a city-toll, rights of entrance
and transit, custom-houses finally; and then, as a reaction against
privilege, smuggling.
Smuggling! That word reminds me of one of the most horrible forms
of property. "Smuggling," you have said, sir, [46] "is an offence of
political creation; it is the exercise of natural liberty, defined as a
crime in certain cases by the will of the sovereign. The smuggler is a
gallant man,--a man of spirit, who gaily busies himself in procuring for
his neighbor, at a very low price, a jewel, a shawl, or any other object
of necessity or luxury, which domestic monopoly renders excessively
dear. " Then, to a very poetical monograph of the smuggler, you add this
dismal conclusion,--that the smuggler belongs to the family of Mandrin,
and that the galleys should be his home!
But, sir, you have not called attention to the horrible exploitation
which is carried on in this way in the name of property.
It is said,--and I give this report only as an hypothesis and an
illustration, for I do not believe it,--it is said that the present
minister of finances owes his fortune to smuggling. M. Humann, of
Strasbourg, sent out of France, it is said, enormous quantities of
sugar, for which he received the bounty on exportation promised by
the State; then, smuggling this sugar back again, he exported it anew,
receiving the bounty on exportation a second time, and so on. Notice,
sir, that I do not state this as a fact; I give it only as it is told,
not endorsing or even believing it. My sole design is to fix the idea in
the mind by an example. If I believed that a minister had committed such
a crime, that is, if I had personal and authentic knowledge that he had,
I would denounce M. Humann, the minister of finances, to the Chamber of
Deputies, and would loudly demand his expulsion from the ministry.
But that which is undoubtedly false of M. Humann is true of many others,
as rich and no less honorable than he. Smuggling, organized on a large
scale by the eaters of human flesh, is carried on to the profit of a few
pashas at the risk and peril of their imprudent victims. The inactive
proprietor offers his merchandise for sale; the actual smuggler risks
his liberty, his honor, and his life. If success crowns the enterprise,
the courageous servant gets paid for his journey; the profit goes to
the coward. If fortune or treachery delivers the instrument of this
execrable traffic into the hands of the custom-house officer, the
master-smuggler suffers a loss which a more fortunate voyage will soon
repair. The agent, pronounced a scoundrel, is thrown into prison in
company with robbers; while his glorious patron, a juror, elector,
deputy, or minister, makes laws concerning expropriation, monopoly, and
custom-houses!
I promised, at the beginning of this letter, that no attack on property
should escape my pen, my only object being to justify myself before the
public by a general recrimination. But I could not refrain from branding
so odious a mode of exploitation, and I trust that this short digression
will be pardoned. Property does not avenge, I hope, the injuries which
smuggling suffers.
The conspiracy against property is general; it is flagrant; it takes
possession of all minds, and inspires all our laws; it lies at the
bottom of all theories. Here the proletaire pursues property in the
street, there the legislator lays an interdict upon it; now, a professor
of political economy or of industrial legislation, [47] paid to defend
it, undermines it with redoubled blows; at another--time, an academy
calls it in question, [48] or inquires as to the progress of its
demolition. [49] To-day there is not an idea, not an opinion, not
a sect, which does not dream of muzzling property. None confess it,
because none are yet conscious of it; there are too few minds capable
of grasping spontaneously this ensemble of causes and effects,
of principles and consequences, by which I try to demonstrate the
approaching disappearance of property; on the other hand, the ideas that
are generally formed of this right are too divergent and too loosely
determined to allow an admission, so soon, of the contrary theory. Thus,
in the middle and lower ranks of literature and philosophy, no less than
among the common people, it is thought that, when property is abolished,
no one will be able to enjoy the fruit of his labor; that no one will
have any thing peculiar to himself, and that tyrannical communism will
be established on the ruins of family and liberty! --chimeras, which are
to support for a little while longer the cause of privilege.
But, before determining precisely the idea of property, before seeking
amid the contradictions of systems for the common element which must
form the basis of the new right, let us cast a rapid glance at
the changes which, at the various periods of history, property has
undergone. The political forms of nations are the expression of their
beliefs. The mobility of these forms, their modification and their
destruction, are solemn experiences which show us the value of ideas,
and gradually eliminate from the infinite variety of customs the
absolute, eternal, and immutable truth. Now, we shall see that every
political institution tends, necessarily, and on pain of death, to
equalize conditions; that every where and always equality of fortunes
(like equality of rights) has been the social aim, whether the plebeian
classes have endeavored to rise to political power by means of property,
or whether--rulers already--they have used political power to overthrow
property. We shall see, in short, by the progress of society, that the
consummation of justice lies in the extinction of individual domain.
For the sake of brevity, I will disregard the testimony of
ecclesiastical history and Christian theology: this subject deserves a
separate treatise, and I propose hereafter to return to it. Moses and
Jesus Christ proscribed, under the names of usury and inequality, [50]
all sorts of profit and increase. The church itself, in its purest
teachings, has always condemned property; and when I attacked, not only
the authority of the church, but also its infidelity to justice, I did
it to the glory of religion. I wanted to provoke a peremptory reply, and
to pave the way for Christianity's triumph, in spite of the innumerable
attacks of which it is at present the object. I hoped that an apologist
would arise forthwith, and, taking his stand upon the Scriptures, the
Fathers, the canons, and the councils and constitutions of the Popes,
would demonstrate that the church always has maintained the doctrine of
equality, and would attribute to temporary necessity the contradictions
of its discipline. Such a labor would serve the cause of religion
as well as that of equality. We must know, sooner or later, whether
Christianity is to be regenerated in the church or out of it, and
whether this church accepts the reproaches cast upon it of hatred to
liberty and antipathy to progress. Until then we will suspend judgment,
and content ourselves with placing before the clergy the teachings of
history.
When Lycurgus undertook to make laws for Sparta, in what condition did
he find this republic? On this point all historians agree. The people
and the nobles were at war. The city was in a confused state, and
divided by two parties,--the party of the poor, and the party of the
rich. Hardly escaped from the barbarism of the heroic ages, society was
rapidly declining. The proletariat made war upon property, which, in its
turn, oppressed the proletariat. What did Lycurgus do? His first measure
was one of general security, at the very idea of which our legislators
would tremble. He abolished all debts; then, employing by turns
persuasion and force, he induced the nobles to renounce their
privileges, and re-established equality.
Lycurgus, in a word, hunted property out of Lacedaemon, seeing no other
way to harmonize liberty, equality, and law. I certainly should not wish
France to follow the example of Sparta; but it is remarkable that the
most ancient of Greek legislators, thoroughly acquainted with the nature
and needs of the people, more capable than any one else of appreciating
the legitimacy of the obligations which he, in the exercise of his
absolute authority, cancelled; who had compared the legislative
systems of his time, and whose wisdom an oracle had proclaimed,--it
is remarkable, I say, that Lycurgus should have judged the right of
property incompatible with free institutions, and should have thought it
his duty to preface his legislation by a coup d'etat which destroyed all
distinctions of fortune.
Lycurgus understood perfectly that the luxury, the love of enjoyments,
and the inequality of fortunes, which property engenders, are the bane
of society; unfortunately the means which he employed to preserve his
republic were suggested to him by false notions of political economy,
and by a superficial knowledge of the human heart. Accordingly,
property, which this legislator wrongly confounded with wealth,
reentered the city together with the swarm of evils which he was
endeavoring to banish; and this time Sparta was hopelessly corrupted.
"The introduction of wealth," says M. Pastoret, "was one of the
principal causes of the misfortunes which they experienced. Against
these, however, the laws had taken extraordinary precautions, the best
among which was the inculcation of morals which tended to suppress
desire. "
The best of all precautions would have been the anticipation of desire
by satisfaction. Possession is the sovereign remedy for cupidity,
a remedy which would have been the less perilous to Sparta because
fortunes there were almost equal, and conditions were nearly alike. As a
general thing, fasting and abstinence are bad teachers of moderation.
"There was a law," says M. Pastoret again, "to prohibit the rich from
wearing better clothing than the poor, from eating more delicate food,
and from owning elegant furniture, vases, carpets, fine houses," &c.
Lycurgus hoped, then, to maintain equality by rendering wealth useless.
How much wiser he would have been if, in accordance with his military
discipline, he had organized industry and taught the people to procure
by their own labor the things which he tried in vain to deprive them of.
In that case, enjoying happy thoughts and pleasant feelings, the citizen
would have known no other desire than that with which the legislator
endeavored to inspire him,--love of honor and glory, the triumphs of
talent and virtue.
"Gold and all kinds of ornaments were forbidden the women. " Absurd.
After the death of Lycurgus, his institutions became corrupted; and four
centuries before the Christian era not a vestige remained of the former
simplicity. Luxury and the thirst for gold were early developed among
the Spartans in a degree as intense as might have been expected from
their enforced poverty and their inexperience in the arts. Historians
have accused Pausanias, Lysander, Agesilaus, and others of having
corrupted the morals of their country by the introduction of wealth
obtained in war. It is a slander. The morals of the Spartans necessarily
grew corrupt as soon as the Lacedaemonian poverty came in contact with
Persian luxury and Athenian elegance. Lycurgus, then, made a fatal
mistake in attempting to inspire generosity and modesty by enforcing
vain and proud simplicity.
"Lycurgus was not frightened at idleness! A Lacedemonian, happening to
be in Athens (where idleness was forbidden) during the punishment of
a citizen who had been found guilty, asked to see the Athenian thus
condemned for having exercised the rights of a free man. . . . It was one
of the principles of Lycurguss, acted upon for several centuries, that
free men should not follow lucrative professions. . . . The women disdained
domestic labor; they did not spin their wool themselves, as did the
other Greeks [they did not, then, read Homer! ]; they left their slaves
to make their clothing for them. "--Pastoret: History of Legislation.
Could any thing be more contradictory? Lycurgus proscribed property
among the citizens, and founded the means of subsistence on the worst
form of property,--on property obtained by force. What wonder, after
that, that a lazy city, where no industry was carried on, became a den
of avarice? The Spartans succumbed the more easily to the allurements of
luxury and Asiatic voluptuousness, being placed entirely at their mercy
by their own coarseness. The same thing happened to the Romans, when
military success took them out of Italy,--a thing which the author
of the prosopopoeia of Fabricius could not explain. It is not the
cultivation of the arts which corrupts morals, but their degradation,
induced by inactive and luxurious opulence. The instinct of property
is to make the industry of Daedalus, as well as the talent of Phidias,
subservient to its own fantastic whims and disgraceful pleasures.
Property, not wealth, ruined the Spartans.
When Solon appeared, the anarchy caused by property was at its height
in the Athenian republic. "The inhabitants of Attica were divided
among themselves as to the form of government. Those who lived on the
mountains (the poor) preferred the popular form; those of the plain
(the middle class), the oligarchs; those by the sea coast, a mixture
of oligarchy and democracy. Other dissensions were arising from the
inequality of fortunes. The mutual antagonism of the rich and poor had
become so violent, that the one-man power seemed the only safe-guard
against the revolution with which the republic was threatened. "
(Pastoret: History of Legislation. )
Quarrels between the rich and the poor, which seldom occur in
monarchies, because a well established power suppresses dissensions,
seem to be the life of popular governments. Aristotle had noticed this.
The oppression of wealth submitted to agrarian laws, or to excessive
taxation; the hatred of the lower classes for the upper class, which
is exposed always to libellous charges made in hopes of
confiscation,--these were the features of the Athenian government which
were especially revolting to Aristotle, and which caused him to favor
a limited monarchy. Aristotle, if he had lived in our day, would have
supported the constitutional government. But, with all deference to the
Stagirite, a government which sacrifices the life of the proletaire to
that of the proprietor is quite as irrational as one which supports the
former by robbing the latter; neither of them deserve the support of a
free man, much less of a philosopher.
Solon followed the example of Lycurgus. He celebrated his legislative
inauguration by the abolition of debts,--that is, by bankruptcy. In
other words, Solon wound up the governmental machine for a longer or
shorter time depending upon the rate of interest. Consequently, when the
spring relaxed and the chain became unwound, the republic had either
to perish, or to recover itself by a second bankruptcy. This singular
policy was pursued by all the ancients. After the captivity of Babylon,
Nehemiah, the chief of the Jewish nation, abolished debts; Lycurgus
abolished debts; Solon abolished debts; the Roman people, after the
expulsion of the kings until the accession of the Caesars, struggled
with the Senate for the abolition of debts. Afterwards, towards the
end of the republic, and long after the establishment of the empire,
agriculture being abandoned, and the provinces becoming depopulated
in consequence of the excessive rates of interest, the emperors freely
granted the lands to whoever would cultivate them,--that is, they
abolished debts. No one, except Lycurgus, who went to the other extreme,
ever perceived that the great point was, not to release debtors by a
coup d'etat, but to prevent the contraction of debts in future.
On the contrary, the most democratic governments were always exclusively
based upon individual property; so that the social element of all these
republics was war between the citizens.
Solon decreed that a census should be taken of all fortunes, regulated
political rights by the result, granted to the larger proprietors more
influence, established the balance of powers,--in a word, inserted in
the constitution the most active leaven of discord; as if, instead of a
legislator chosen by the people, he had been their greatest enemy. Is
it not, indeed, the height of imprudence to grant equality of political
rights to men of unequal conditions? If a manufacturer, uniting all
his workmen in a joint-stock company, should give to each of them a
consultative and deliberative voice,--that is, should make all of them
masters,--would this equality of mastership secure continued inequality
of wages? That is the whole political system of Solon, reduced to its
simplest expression.
"In giving property a just preponderance," says M. Pastoret, "Solon
repaired, as far as he was able, his first official act,--the abolition
of debts.
themselves? The native manufacturer was ruined by the colonist. To
maintain the beet-root, the cane had to be taxed. To protect the
property of the one, it became necessary to violate the property of the
other. The most remarkable feature of this business was precisely that
to which the least attention was paid; namely, that, in one way or
another, property had to be violated. Did they impose on each industry
a proportional tax, so as to preserve a balance in the market? They
created a maximum PRICE for each variety of sugar; and, as this maximum
PRICE was not the same, they attacked property in two ways,--on the one
hand, interfering with the liberty of trade; on the other, disregarding
the equality of proprietors. Did they suppress the beet-root by granting
an indemnity to the manufacturer? They sacrificed the property of the
tax-payer. Finally, did they prefer to cultivate the two varieties of
sugar at the nation's expense, just as different varieties of tobacco
are cultivated? They abolished, so far as the sugar industry was
concerned, the right of property. This last course, being the most
social, would have been certainly the best; but, if property is the
necessary basis of civilization, how is this deep-seated antagonism to
be explained? [37]
Not satisfied with the power of dispossessing a citizen on the ground
of public utility, they want also to dispossess him on the ground of
PRIVATE UTILITY. For a long time, a revision of the law concerning
mortgages was clamored for; a process was demanded, in behalf of all
kinds of credit and in the interest of even the debtors themselves,
which would render the expropriation of real estate as prompt, as easy,
and as effective as that which follows a commercial protest. The Chamber
of Deputies, in the early part of this year, 1841, discussed this
project, and the law was passed almost unanimously. There is nothing
more just, nothing more reasonable, nothing more philosophical
apparently, than the motives which gave rise to this reform.
I. Formerly, the small proprietor whose obligation had arrived at
maturity, and who found himself unable to meet it, had to employ all
that he had left, after being released from his debt, in defraying the
legal costs. Henceforth, the promptness of expropriation will save him
from total ruin. 2. The difficulties in the way of payment arrested
credit, and prevented the employment of capital in agricultural
enterprises. This cause of distrust no longer existing, capitalists will
find new markets, agriculture will rapidly develop, and farmers will
be the first to enjoy the benefit of the new law. 3. Finally, it was
iniquitous and absurd, that, on account of a protested note, a poor
manufacturer should see in twenty-four hours his business arrested, his
labor suspended, his merchandise seized, his machinery sold at auction,
and finally himself led off to prison, while two years were sometimes
necessary to expropriate the most miserable piece of real estate.
These arguments, and others besides, you clearly stated, sir, in your
first lectures of this academic year.
But, when stating these excellent arguments, did you ask yourself, sir,
whither would tend such a transformation of our system of mortgages? . . .
To monetize, if I may say so, landed property; to accumulate it within
portfolios; to separate the laborer from the soil, man from Nature; to
make him a wanderer over the face of the earth; to eradicate from
his heart every trace of family feeling, national pride, and love of
country; to isolate him more and more; to render him indifferent to
all around him; to concentrate his love upon one object,--money; and,
finally, by the dishonest practices of usury, to monopolize the land
to the profit of a financial aristocracy,--a worthy auxiliary of that
industrial feudality whose pernicious influence we begin to feel so
bitterly. Thus, little by little, the subordination of the laborer to
the idler, the restoration of abolished castes, and the distinction
between patrician and plebeian, would be effected; thus, thanks to the
new privileges granted to the property of the capitalists, that of the
small and intermediate proprietors would gradually disappear, and with
it the whole class of free and honest laborers. This certainly is not
my plan for the abolition of property. Far from mobilizing the soil, I
would, if possible, immobilize even the functions of pure intelligence,
so that society might be the fulfilment of the intentions of Nature,
who gave us our first possession, the land. For, if the instrument
or capital of production is the mark of the laborer, it is also his
pedestal, his support, his country, and, as the Psalmist says, THE PLACE
OF HIS ACTIVITY AND HIS REST. [38]
Let us examine more closely still the inevitable and approaching result
of the last law concerning judicial sales and mortgages. Under
the system of competition which is killing us, and whose necessary
expression is a plundering and tyrannical government, the farmer will
need always capital in order to repair his losses, and will be forced to
contract loans. Always depending upon the future for the payment of his
debts, he will be deceived in his hope, and surprised by maturity. For
what is there more prompt, more unexpected, more abbreviatory of space
and time, than the maturity of an obligation? I address this question
to all whom this pitiless Nemesis pursues, and even troubles in their
dreams. Now, under the new law, the expropriation of a debtor will be
effected a hundred times more rapidly; then, also, spoliation will be
a hundred times surer, and the free laborer will pass a hundred times
sooner from his present condition to that of a serf attached to the
soil. Formerly, the length of time required to effect the seizure
curbed the usurer's avidity, gave the borrower an opportunity to recover
himself, and gave rise to a transaction between him and his creditor
which might result finally in a complete release. Now, the debtor's
sentence is irrevocable: he has but a few days of grace.
And what advantages are promised by this law as an offset to this sword
of Damocles, suspended by a single hair over the head of the unfortunate
husbandman? The expenses of seizure will be much less, it is said; but
will the interest on the borrowed capital be less exorbitant? For, after
all, it is interest which impoverishes the peasant and leads to his
expropriation. That the law may be in harmony with its principle, that
it may be truly inspired by that spirit of justice for which it is
commended, it must--while facilitating expropriation--lower the legal
price of money. Otherwise, the reform concerning mortgages is but a trap
set for small proprietors,--a legislative trick.
Lower interest on money! But, as we have just seen, that is to limit
property. Here, sir, you shall make your own defence. More than once, in
your learned lectures, I have heard you deplore the precipitancy of the
Chambers, who, without previous study and without profound knowledge
of the subject, voted almost unanimously to maintain the statutes and
privileges of the Bank. Now these privileges, these statutes, this vote
of the Chambers, mean simply this,--that the market price of specie,
at five or six per cent. , is not too high, and that the conditions
of exchange, discount, and circulation, which generally double this
interest, are none too severe. So the government thinks. M. Blanqui--a
professor of political economy, paid by the State--maintains the
contrary, and pretends to demonstrate, by decisive arguments, the
necessity of a reform. Who, then, best understands the interests of
property,--the State, or M. Blanqui?
If specie could be borrowed at half the present rate, the revenues from
all sorts of property would soon be reduced one-half also. For example:
when it costs less to build a house than to hire one, when it is cheaper
to clear a field than to procure one already cleared, competition
inevitably leads to a reduction of house and farm-rents, since the
surest way to depreciate active capital is to increase its amount. But
it is a law of political economy that an increase of production augments
the mass of available capital, consequently tends to raise wages, and
finally to annihilate interest. Then, proprietors are interested in
maintaining the statutes and privileges of the Bank; then, a reform in
this matter would compromise the right of increase; then, the peers and
deputies are better informed than Professor Blanqui.
But these same deputies,--so jealous of their privileges whenever
the equalizing effects of a reform are within their intellectual
horizon,--what did they do a few days before they passed the law
concerning judicial sales? They formed a conspiracy against property!
Their law to regulate the labor of children in factories will, without
doubt, prevent the manufacturer from compelling a child to labor more
than so many hours a day; but it will not force him to increase the pay
of the child, nor that of its father. To-day, in the interest of health,
we diminish the subsistence of the poor; to-morrow it will be necessary
to protect them by fixing their MINIMUM wages. But to fix their minimum
wages is to compel the proprietor, is to force the master to accept his
workman as an associate, which interferes with freedom and makes mutual
insurance obligatory. Once entered upon this path, we never shall
stop. Little by little the government will become manufacturer,
commission-merchant, and retail dealer.
It will be the sole proprietor. Why, at all epochs, have the ministers
of State been so reluctant to meddle with the question of wages?
Why have they always refused to interfere between the master and the
workman? Because they knew the touchy and jealous nature of property,
and, regarding it as the principle of all civilization, felt that to
meddle with it would be to unsettle the very foundations of society.
Sad condition of the proprietary regime,--one of inability to exercise
charity without violating justice! [39]
And, sir, this fatal consequence which necessity forces upon the State
is no mere imagination. Even now the legislative power is asked, no
longer simply to regulate the government of factories, but to create
factories itself. Listen to the millions of voices shouting on all hands
for THE ORGANISATION OF LABOR, THE CREATION OF NATIONAL WORKSHOPS!
The whole laboring class is agitated: it has its journals, organs,
and representatives. To guarantee labor to the workingman, to balance
production with sale, to harmonize industrial proprietors, it advocates
to-day--as a sovereign remedy--one sole head, one national wardenship,
one huge manufacturing company. For, sir, all this is included in the
idea of national workshops. On this subject I wish to quote, as proof,
the views of an illustrious economist, a brilliant mind, a progressive
intellect, an enthusiastic soul, a true patriot, and yet an official
defender of the right of property. [40]
The honorable professor of the Conservatory proposes then,--
1. TO CHECK THE CONTINUAL EMIGRATION OF LABORERS FROM THE COUNTRY INTO
THE CITIES.
But, to keep the peasant in his village, his residence there must be
made endurable: to be just to all, the proletaire of the country must be
treated as well as the proletaire of the city. Reform is needed, then,
on farms as well as in factories; and, when the government enters the
workshop, the government must seize the plough! What becomes, during
this progressive invasion, of independent cultivation, exclusive domain,
property?
2. TO FIX FOR EACH PROFESSION A MODERATE SALARY, VARYING WITH TIME AND
PLACE AND BASED UPON CERTAIN DATA.
The object of this measure would be to secure to laborers their
subsistence, and to proprietors their profits, while obliging the latter
to sacrifice from motives of prudence, if for no other reason, a portion
of their income. Now, I say, that this portion, in the long run, would
swell until at last there would be an equality of enjoyment between the
proletaire and the proprietor. For, as we have had occasion to remark
several times already, the interest of the capitalist--in other words
the increase of the idler--tends, on account of the power of labor, the
multiplication of products and exchanges, to continually diminish, and,
by constant reduction, to disappear. So that, in the society proposed
by M. Blanqui, equality would not be realized at first, but would exist
potentially; since property, though outwardly seeming to be industrial
feudality, being no longer a principle of exclusion and encroachment,
but only a privilege of division, would not be slow, thanks to the
intellectual and political emancipation of the proletariat, in passing
into absolute equality,--as absolute at least as any thing can be on
this earth.
I omit, for the sake of brevity, the numerous considerations which
the professor adduces in support of what he calls, too modestly in my
opinion, his Utopia. They would serve only to prove beyond all question
that, of all the charlatans of radicalism who fatigue the public ear,
no one approaches, for depth and clearness of thought, the audacious M.
Blanqui.
3. NATIONAL WORKSHOPS SHOULD BE IN OPERATION ONLY DURING PERIODS OF
STAGNATION IN ORDINARY INDUSTRIES; AT SUCH TIMES THEY SHOULD BE OPENED
AS VAST OUTLETS TO THE FLOOD OF THE LABORING POPULATION.
But, sir, the stoppage of private industry is the result of
over-production, and insufficient markets. If, then, production
continues in the national workshops, how will the crisis be terminated?
Undoubtedly, by the general depreciation of merchandise, and, in the
last analysis, by the conversion of private workshops into national
workshops. On the other hand, the government will need capital with
which to pay its workmen; now, how will this capital be obtained? By
taxation. And upon what will the tax be levied? Upon property. Then you
will have proprietary industry sustaining against itself, and at its own
expense, another industry with which it cannot compete. What, think you,
will become, in this fatal circle, of the possibility of profit,--in a
word, of property?
Thank Heaven! equality of conditions is taught in the public schools;
let us fear revolutions no longer. The most implacable enemy of property
could not, if he wished to destroy it, go to work in a wiser and more
effective way. Courage, then, ministers, deputies, economists! make
haste to seize this glorious initiative; let the watchwords of equality,
uttered from the heights of science and power, be repeated in the midst
of the people; let them thrill the breasts of the proletaires, and carry
dismay into the ranks of the last representatives of privilege!
The tendency of society in favor of compelling proprietors to support
national workshops and public manufactories is so strong that for
several years, under the name of ELECTORAL REFORM, it has been
exclusively the question of the day. What is, after all, this electoral
reform which the people grasp at, as if it were a bait, and which
so many ambitious persons either call for or denounce? It is the
acknowledgment of the right of the masses to a voice in the assessment
of taxes, and the making of the laws; which laws, aiming always at the
protection of material interests, affect, in a greater or less degree,
all questions of taxation or wages. Now the people, instructed long
since by their journals, their dramas, [41] and their songs, [42] know
to-day that taxation, to be equitably divided, must be graduated, and
must be borne mainly by the rich,--that it must be levied upon luxuries,
&c. And be sure that the people, once in the majority in the Chamber,
will not fail to apply these lessons. Already we have a minister
of public works. National workshops will follow; and soon, as
a consequence, the excess of the proprietor's revenue over the
workingman's wages will be swallowed up in the coffers of the laborers
of the State. Do you not see that in this way property is gradually
reduced, as nobility was formerly, to a nominal title, to a distinction
purely honorary in its nature?
Either the electoral reform will fail to accomplish that which is hoped
from it, and will disappoint its innumerable partisans, or else it will
inevitably result in a transformation of the absolute right under which
we live into a right of possession; that is, that while, at present,
property makes the elector, after this reform is accomplished, the
citizen, the producer will be the possessor. [43] Consequently, the
radicals are right in saying that the electoral reform is in their eyes
only a means; but, when they are silent as to the end, they show either
profound ignorance, or useless dissimulation. There should be no secrets
or reservations from peoples and powers. He disgraces himself and fails
in respect for his fellows, who, in publishing his opinions, employs
evasion and cunning. Before the people act, they need to know the whole
truth. Unhappy he who shall dare to trifle with them! For the people are
credulous, but they are strong. Let us tell them, then, that this reform
which is proposed is only a means,--a means often tried, and hitherto
without effect,--but that the logical object of the electoral reform is
equality of fortunes; and that this equality itself is only a new means
having in view the superior and definitive object of the salvation of
society, the restoration of morals and religion, and the revival of
poetry and art.
This assertion of M. Rossi is not borne out by history. Property is the
cause of the electoral right, not as a PRESUMPTION OF CAPACITY,--an idea
which never prevailed until lately, and which is extremely absurd,--but
as a GUARANTEE OF DEVOTION TO THE ESTABLISHED ORDER. The electoral body
is a league of those interested in the maintenance of property, against
those not interested. There are thousands of documents, even official
documents, to prove this, if necessary. For the rest, the present system
is only a continuation of the municipal system, which, in the
middle ages, sprang up in connection with feudalism,--an oppressive,
mischief-making system, full of petty passions and base intrigues.
It would be an abuse of the reader's patience to insist further upon
the tendency of our time towards equality. There are, moreover, so many
people who denounce the present age, that nothing is gained by exposing
to their view the popular, scientific, and representative tendencies of
the nation.
Prompt to recognize the accuracy of the inferences drawn from
observation, they confine themselves to a general censure of the facts,
and an absolute denial of their legitimacy. "What wonder," they say,
"that this atmosphere of equality intoxicates us, considering all that
has been said and done during the past ten years! . . . Do you not see that
society is dissolving, that a spirit of infatuation is carrying us away?
All these hopes of regeneration are but forebodings of death; your songs
of triumph are like the prayers of the departing, your trumpet peals
announce the baptism of a dying man. Civilization is falling in ruin:
_Imus, imus, praecipites_! "
Such people deny God. I might content myself with the reply that
the spirit of 1830 was the result of the maintenance of the violated
charter; that this charter arose from the Revolution of '89; that
'89 implies the States-General's right of remonstrance, and the
enfranchisement of the communes; that the communes suppose feudalism,
which in its turn supposes invasion, Roman law, Christianity, &c.
But it is necessary to look further. We must penetrate to the very heart
of ancient institutions, plunge into the social depths, and uncover this
indestructible leaven of equality which the God of justice breathed into
our souls, and which manifests itself in all our works.
Labor is man's contemporary; it is a duty, since it is a condition of
existence: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. " It is more
than a duty, it is a mission: "God put the man into the garden to dress
it. " I add that labor is the cause and means of equality.
Cast away upon a desert island two men: one large, strong, and active;
the other weak, timid, and domestic. The latter will die of hunger;
while the other, a skilful hunter, an expert fisherman, and an
indefatigable husbandman, will overstock himself with provisions. What
greater inequality, in this state of Nature so dear to the heart of Jean
Jacques, could be imagined! But let these two men meet and associate
themselves: the second immediately attends to the cooking, takes charge
of the household affairs, and sees to the provisions, beds, and clothes;
provided the stronger does not abuse his superiority by enslaving and
ill-treating his companion, their social condition will be perfectly
equal. Thus, through exchange of services, the inequalities of Nature
neutralize each other, talents associate, and forces balance. Violence
and inertia are found only among the poor and the aristocratic. And
in that lies the philosophy of political economy, the mystery of human
brotherhood. _Hic est sapientia_. Let us pass from the hypothetical
state of pure Nature into civilization.
The proprietor of the soil, who produces, I will suppose with the
economists, by lending his instrument, receives at the foundation of a
society so many bushels of grain for each acre of arable land. As long
as labor is weak, and the variety of its products small, the proprietor
is powerful in comparison with the laborers; he has ten times,
one hundred times, the portion of an honest man. But let labor, by
multiplying its inventions, multiply its enjoyments and wants, and the
proprietor, if he wishes to enjoy the new products, will be obliged to
reduce his income every day; and since the first products tend rather
to depreciate than to rise in value,--in consequence of the continual
addition of the new ones, which may be regarded as supplements of the
first ones,--it follows that the idle proprietor grows poor as fast
as public prosperity increases. "Incomes" (I like to quote you, sir,
because it is impossible to give too good an authority for these
elementary principles of economy, and because I cannot express them
better myself), "incomes," you have said, "tend to disappear as capital
increases. He who possesses to-day an income of twenty thousand pounds
is not nearly as rich as he who possessed the same amount fifty years
ago. The time is coming when all property will be a burden to the idle,
and will necessarily pass into the hands of the able and industrious.
[44]. . . "
In order to live as a proprietor, or to consume without producing, it is
necessary, then, to live upon the labor of another; in other words,
it is necessary to kill the laborer. It is upon this principle that
proprietors of those varieties of capital which are of primary necessity
increase their farm-rents as fast as industry develops, much more
careful of their privileges in that respect, than those economists who,
in order to strengthen property, advocate a reduction of interest.
But the crime is unavailing: labor and production increase; soon the
proprietor will be forced to labor, and then property is lost.
The proprietor is a man who, having absolute control of an instrument
of production, claims the right to enjoy the product of the instrument
without using it himself. To this end he lends it; and we have just
seen that from this loan the laborer derives a power of exchange, which
sooner or later will destroy the right of increase. In the first place,
the proprietor is obliged to allow the laborer a portion of the product,
for without it the laborer could not live. Soon the latter, through
the development of his industry, finds a means of regaining the greater
portion of that which he gives to the proprietor; so that at last, the
objects of enjoyment increasing continually, while the income of the
idler remains the same, the proprietor, having exhausted his resources,
begins to think of going to work himself. Then the victory of the
producer is certain. Labor commences to tip the balance towards its own
side, and commerce leads to equilibrium.
Man's instinct cannot err; as, in liberty, exchange of functions leads
inevitably to equality among men, so commerce--or exchange of products,
which is identical with exchange of functions--is a new cause of
equality. As long as the proprietor does not labor, however small his
income, he enjoys a privilege; the laborer's welfare may be equal to
his, but equality of conditions does not exist. But as soon as the
proprietor becomes a producer,--since he can exchange his special
product only with his tenant or his _commandite_,--sooner or later this
tenant, this _exploited_ man, if violence is not done him, will make
a profit out of the proprietor, and will oblige him to restore--in the
exchange of their respective products--the interest on his capital. So
that, balancing one injustice by another, the contracting parties will
be equal. Labor and exchange, when liberty prevails, lead, then, to
equality of fortunes; mutuality of services neutralizes privilege.
That is why despots in all ages and countries have assumed control
of commerce; they wished to prevent the labor of their subjects from
becoming an obstacle to the rapacity of tyrants.
Up to this point, all takes place in the natural order; there is no
premeditation, no artifice. The whole proceeding is governed by the laws
of necessity alone. Proprietors and laborers act only in obedience to
their wants. Thus, the exercise of the right of increase, the art
of robbing the producer, depends--during this first period of
civilization--upon physical violence, murder, and war.
But at this point a gigantic and complicated conspiracy is hatched
against the capitalists. The weapon of the EXPLOITERS is met by the
EXPLOITED with the instrument of commerce,--a marvellous invention,
denounced at its origin by the moralists who favored property, but
inspired without doubt by the genius of labor, by the Minerva of the
proletaires.
The principal cause of the evil lay in the accumulation and immobility
of capital of all sorts,--an immobility which prevented labor, enslaved
and subalternized by haughty idleness, from ever acquiring it. The
necessity was felt of dividing and mobilizing wealth, of rendering it
portable, of making it pass from the hands of the possessor into those
of the worker. Labor invented MONEY. Afterwards, this invention was
revived and developed by the BILL OF EXCHANGE and the BANK. For all
these things are substantially the same, and proceed from the same mind.
The first man who conceived the idea of representing a value by a shell,
a precious stone, or a certain weight of metal, was the real inventor
of the Bank. What is a piece of money, in fact? It is a bill of exchange
written upon solid and durable material, and carrying with it its own
redemption. By this means, oppressed equality was enabled to laugh at
the efforts of the proprietors, and the balance of justice was adjusted
for the first time in the tradesman's shop. The trap was cunningly set,
and accomplished its purpose so thoroughly that in idle hands money
became only dissolving wealth, a false symbol, a shadow of riches.
An
excellent economist and profound philosopher was that miser who took
as his motto, "WHEN A GUINEA IS EXCHANGED, IT EVAPORATES. " So it may
be said, "When real estate is converted into money, it is lost. " This
explains the constant fact of history, that the nobles--the unproductive
proprietors of the soil--have every where been dispossessed by
industrial and commercial plebeians. Such was especially the case in the
formation of the Italian republics, born, during the middle ages, of
the impoverishment of the seigniors. I will not pursue the interesting
considerations which this matter suggests; I could only repeat the
testimony of historians, and present economical demonstrations in an
altered form.
The greatest enemy of the landed and industrial aristocracy to-day, the
incessant promoter of equality of fortunes, is the BANKER. Through him
immense plains are divided, mountains change their positions, forests
are grown upon the public squares, one hemisphere produces for another,
and every corner of the globe has its usufructuaries. By means of the
Bank new wealth is continually created, the use of which (soon becoming
indispensable to selfishness) wrests the dormant capital from the hands
of the jealous proprietor. The banker is at once the most potent creator
of wealth, and the main distributor of the products of art and Nature.
And yet, by the strangest antinomy, this same banker is the most
relentless collector of profits, increase, and usury ever inspired by
the demon of property. The importance of the services which he renders
leads us to endure, though not without complaint, the taxes which he
imposes. Nevertheless, since nothing can avoid its providential mission,
since nothing which exists can escape the end for which it exists
the banker (the modern Croesus) must some day become the restorer of
equality. And following in your footsteps, sir, I have already given the
reason; namely, that profit decreases as capital multiplies, since an
increase of capital--calling for more laborers, without whom it remains
unproductive--always causes an increase of wages. Whence it follows that
the Bank, to-day the suction-pump of wealth, is destined to become the
steward of the human race.
The phrase EQUALITY OF FORTUNES chafes people, as if it referred to
a condition of the other world, unknown here below. There are some
persons, radicals as well as moderates, whom the very mention of this
idea fills with indignation. Let, then, these silly aristocrats abolish
mercantile societies and insurance companies, which are founded
by prudence for mutual assistance. For all these social facts, so
spontaneous and free from all levelling intentions, are the legitimate
fruits of the instinct of equality.
When the legislator makes a law, properly speaking he does not MAKE
it,--he does not CREATE it: he DESCRIBES it. In legislating upon the
moral, civil, and political relations of citizens, he does not express
an arbitrary notion: he states the general idea,--the higher principle
which governs the matter which he is considering; in a word, he is the
proclaimer, not the inventor, of the law. So, when two or more men
form among themselves, by synallagmatic contract, an industrial or an
insurance association, they recognize that their interests, formerly
isolated by a false spirit of selfishness and independence, are
firmly connected by their inner natures, and by the mutuality of their
relations. They do not really bind themselves by an act of their private
will: they swear to conform henceforth to a previously existing social
law hitherto disregarded by them. And this is proved by the fact that
these same men, could they avoid association, would not associate.
Before they can be induced to unite their interests, they must acquire
full knowledge of the dangers of competition and isolation; hence the
experience of evil is the only thing which leads them into society.
Now I say that, to establish equality among men, it is only necessary
to generalize the principle upon which insurance, agricultural, and
commercial associations are based. I say that competition, isolation
of interests, monopoly, privilege, accumulation of capital, exclusive
enjoyment, subordination of functions, individual production, the right
of profit or increase, the exploitation of man by man, and, to sum up
all these species under one head, that PROPERTY is the principal cause
of misery and crime. And, for having arrived at this offensive and
anti-proprietary conclusion, I am an abhorred monster; radicals and
conservatives alike point me out as a fit subject for prosecution; the
academies shower their censures upon me; the most worthy people regard
me as mad; and those are excessively tolerant who content themselves
with the assertion that I am a fool. Oh, unhappy the writer who
publishes the truth otherwise than as a performance of a duty! If he has
counted upon the applause of the crowd; if he has supposed that avarice
and self-interest would forget themselves in admiration of him; if he
has neglected to encase himself within three thicknesses of brass,--he
will fail, as he ought, in his selfish undertaking. The unjust
criticisms, the sad disappointments, the despair of his mistaken
ambition, will kill him.
But, if I am no longer permitted to express my own personal opinion
concerning this interesting question of social equilibrium, let me, at
least, make known the thought of my masters, and develop the doctrines
advocated in the name of the government.
It never has been my intention, sir, in spite of the vigorous censure
which you, in behalf of your academy, have pronounced upon the doctrine
of equality of fortunes, to contradict and cope with you. In listening
to you, I have felt my inferiority too keenly to permit me to enter upon
such a discussion. And then,--if it must be said,--however different
your language is from mine, we believe in the same principles; you share
all my opinions. I do not mean to insinuate thereby, sir, that you have
(to use the phraseology of the schools) an ESOTERIC and an EXOTERIC
doctrine,--that, secretly believing in equality, you defend property
only from motives of prudence and by command. I am not rash enough to
regard you as my colleague in my revolutionary projects; and I esteem
you too highly, moreover, to suspect you of dissimulation. I only
mean that the truths which methodical investigation and laborious
metaphysical speculation have painfully demonstrated to me, a profound
acquaintance with political economy and a long experience reveal to
you. While I have reached my belief in equality by long reflection, and
almost in spite of my desires, you hold yours, sir, with all the zeal of
faith,--with all the spontaneity of genius. That is why your course
of lectures at the Conservatory is a perpetual war upon property and
inequality of fortunes; that is why your most learned investigations,
your most ingenious analyses, and your innumerable observations always
conclude in a formula of progress and equality; that is why, finally,
you are never more admired and applauded than at those moments of
inspiration when, borne upon the wings of science, you ascend to those
lofty truths which cause plebeian hearts to beat with enthusiasm, and
which chill with horror men whose intentions are evil. How many times,
from the place where I eagerly drank in your eloquent words, have I
inwardly thanked Heaven for exempting you from the judgment passed by
St. Paul upon the philosophers of his time,--"They have known the truth,
and have not made it known"! How many times have I rejoiced at finding
my own justification in each of your discourses! No, no; I neither wish
nor ask for any thing which you do not teach yourself. I appeal to your
numerous audience; let it belie me if, in commenting upon you, I pervert
your meaning.
A disciple of Say, what in your eyes is more anti-social than the
custom-houses; or, as you correctly call them, the barriers erected by
monopoly between nations? What is more annoying, more unjust, or more
absurd, than this prohibitory system which compels us to pay forty
sous in France for that which in England or Belgium would bring us but
fifteen? It is the custom-house, you once said, [45] which arrests
the development of civilization by preventing the specialization of
industries; it is the custom-house which enriches a hundred monopolists
by impoverishing millions of citizens; it is the custom-house which
produces famine in the midst of abundance, which makes labor sterile by
prohibiting exchange, and which stifles production in a mortal embrace.
It is the custom-house which renders nations jealous of, and hostile to,
each other; four-fifths of the wars of all ages were caused originally
by the custom-house. And then, at the highest pitch of your enthusiasm,
you shouted: "Yes, if to put an end to this hateful system, it should
become necessary for me to shed the last drop of my blood, I would
joyfully spring into the gap, asking only time enough to give thanks to
God for having judged me worthy of martyrdom! "
And, at that solemn moment, I said to myself: "Place in every department
of France such a professor as that, and the revolution is avoided. "
But, sir, by this magnificent theory of liberty of commerce you render
military glory impossible,--you leave nothing for diplomacy to do;
you even take away the desire for conquest, while abolishing profit
altogether. What matters it, indeed, who restores Constantinople,
Alexandria, and Saint Jean d'Acre, if the Syrians, Egyptians, and Turks
are free to choose their masters; free to exchange their products with
whom they please? Why should Europe get into such a turmoil over this
petty Sultan and his old Pasha, if it is only a question whether we or
the English shall civilize the Orient,--shall instruct Egypt and Syria
in the European arts, and shall teach them to construct machines, dig
canals, and build railroads? For, if to national independence free trade
is added, the foreign influence of these two countries is thereafter
exerted only through a voluntary relationship of producer to producer,
or apprentice to journeyman.
Alone among European powers, France cheerfully accepted the task of
civilizing the Orient, and began an invasion which was quite apostolic
in its character,--so joyful and high-minded do noble thoughts render
our nation! But diplomatic rivalry, national selfishness, English
avarice, and Russian ambition stood in her way. To consummate a
long-meditated usurpation, it was necessary to crush a too generous
ally: the robbers of the Holy Alliance formed a league against dauntless
and blameless France. Consequently, at the news of this famous treaty,
there arose among us a chorus of curses upon the principle of property,
which at that time was acting under the hypocritical formulas of the old
political system. The last hour of property seemed to have struck by
the side of Syria; from the Alps to the ocean, from the Rhine to the
Pyrenees, the popular conscience was aroused. All France sang songs
of war, and the coalition turned pale at the sound of these shuddering
cries: "War upon the autocrat, who wishes to be proprietor of the
old world! War upon the English perjurer, the devourer of India, the
poisoner of China, the tyrant of Ireland, and the eternal enemy of
France! War upon the allies who have conspired against liberty and
equality! War! war! war upon property! "
By the counsel of Providence the emancipation of the nations is
postponed. France is to conquer, not by arms, but by example. Universal
reason does not yet understand this grand equation, which, commencing
with the abolition of slavery, and advancing over the ruins of
aristocracies and thrones, must end in equality of rights and fortunes;
but the day is not far off when the knowledge of this truth will be as
common as that of equality of origin. Already it seems to be understood
that the Oriental question is only a question of custom-houses. Is it,
then, so difficult for public opinion to generalize this idea, and to
comprehend, finally, that if the suppression of custom-houses involves
the abolition of national property, it involves also, as a consequence,
the abolition of individual property?
In fact, if we suppress the custom-houses, the alliance of the nations
is declared by that very act; their solidarity is recognized, and their
equality proclaimed. If we suppress the custom-houses, the principle of
association will not be slow in reaching from the State to the province,
from the province to the city, and from the city to the workshop. But,
then, what becomes of the privileges of authors and artists? Of what
use are the patents for invention, imagination, amelioration, and
improvement? When our deputies write a law of literary property by
the side of a law which opens a large breach in the custom-house they
contradict themselves, indeed, and pull down with one hand what they
build up with the other. Without the custom-house, literary property
does not exist, and the hopes of our starving authors are frustrated.
For, certainly you do not expect, with the good man Fourier, that
literary property will exercise itself in China to the profit of a
French writer; and that an ode of Lamartine, sold by privilege all over
the world, will bring in millions to its author! The poet's work
is peculiar to the climate in which he lives; every where else the
reproduction of his works, having no market value, should be frank and
free. But what! will it be necessary for nations to put themselves under
mutual surveillance for the sake of verses, statues, and elixirs? We
shall always have, then, an excise, a city-toll, rights of entrance
and transit, custom-houses finally; and then, as a reaction against
privilege, smuggling.
Smuggling! That word reminds me of one of the most horrible forms
of property. "Smuggling," you have said, sir, [46] "is an offence of
political creation; it is the exercise of natural liberty, defined as a
crime in certain cases by the will of the sovereign. The smuggler is a
gallant man,--a man of spirit, who gaily busies himself in procuring for
his neighbor, at a very low price, a jewel, a shawl, or any other object
of necessity or luxury, which domestic monopoly renders excessively
dear. " Then, to a very poetical monograph of the smuggler, you add this
dismal conclusion,--that the smuggler belongs to the family of Mandrin,
and that the galleys should be his home!
But, sir, you have not called attention to the horrible exploitation
which is carried on in this way in the name of property.
It is said,--and I give this report only as an hypothesis and an
illustration, for I do not believe it,--it is said that the present
minister of finances owes his fortune to smuggling. M. Humann, of
Strasbourg, sent out of France, it is said, enormous quantities of
sugar, for which he received the bounty on exportation promised by
the State; then, smuggling this sugar back again, he exported it anew,
receiving the bounty on exportation a second time, and so on. Notice,
sir, that I do not state this as a fact; I give it only as it is told,
not endorsing or even believing it. My sole design is to fix the idea in
the mind by an example. If I believed that a minister had committed such
a crime, that is, if I had personal and authentic knowledge that he had,
I would denounce M. Humann, the minister of finances, to the Chamber of
Deputies, and would loudly demand his expulsion from the ministry.
But that which is undoubtedly false of M. Humann is true of many others,
as rich and no less honorable than he. Smuggling, organized on a large
scale by the eaters of human flesh, is carried on to the profit of a few
pashas at the risk and peril of their imprudent victims. The inactive
proprietor offers his merchandise for sale; the actual smuggler risks
his liberty, his honor, and his life. If success crowns the enterprise,
the courageous servant gets paid for his journey; the profit goes to
the coward. If fortune or treachery delivers the instrument of this
execrable traffic into the hands of the custom-house officer, the
master-smuggler suffers a loss which a more fortunate voyage will soon
repair. The agent, pronounced a scoundrel, is thrown into prison in
company with robbers; while his glorious patron, a juror, elector,
deputy, or minister, makes laws concerning expropriation, monopoly, and
custom-houses!
I promised, at the beginning of this letter, that no attack on property
should escape my pen, my only object being to justify myself before the
public by a general recrimination. But I could not refrain from branding
so odious a mode of exploitation, and I trust that this short digression
will be pardoned. Property does not avenge, I hope, the injuries which
smuggling suffers.
The conspiracy against property is general; it is flagrant; it takes
possession of all minds, and inspires all our laws; it lies at the
bottom of all theories. Here the proletaire pursues property in the
street, there the legislator lays an interdict upon it; now, a professor
of political economy or of industrial legislation, [47] paid to defend
it, undermines it with redoubled blows; at another--time, an academy
calls it in question, [48] or inquires as to the progress of its
demolition. [49] To-day there is not an idea, not an opinion, not
a sect, which does not dream of muzzling property. None confess it,
because none are yet conscious of it; there are too few minds capable
of grasping spontaneously this ensemble of causes and effects,
of principles and consequences, by which I try to demonstrate the
approaching disappearance of property; on the other hand, the ideas that
are generally formed of this right are too divergent and too loosely
determined to allow an admission, so soon, of the contrary theory. Thus,
in the middle and lower ranks of literature and philosophy, no less than
among the common people, it is thought that, when property is abolished,
no one will be able to enjoy the fruit of his labor; that no one will
have any thing peculiar to himself, and that tyrannical communism will
be established on the ruins of family and liberty! --chimeras, which are
to support for a little while longer the cause of privilege.
But, before determining precisely the idea of property, before seeking
amid the contradictions of systems for the common element which must
form the basis of the new right, let us cast a rapid glance at
the changes which, at the various periods of history, property has
undergone. The political forms of nations are the expression of their
beliefs. The mobility of these forms, their modification and their
destruction, are solemn experiences which show us the value of ideas,
and gradually eliminate from the infinite variety of customs the
absolute, eternal, and immutable truth. Now, we shall see that every
political institution tends, necessarily, and on pain of death, to
equalize conditions; that every where and always equality of fortunes
(like equality of rights) has been the social aim, whether the plebeian
classes have endeavored to rise to political power by means of property,
or whether--rulers already--they have used political power to overthrow
property. We shall see, in short, by the progress of society, that the
consummation of justice lies in the extinction of individual domain.
For the sake of brevity, I will disregard the testimony of
ecclesiastical history and Christian theology: this subject deserves a
separate treatise, and I propose hereafter to return to it. Moses and
Jesus Christ proscribed, under the names of usury and inequality, [50]
all sorts of profit and increase. The church itself, in its purest
teachings, has always condemned property; and when I attacked, not only
the authority of the church, but also its infidelity to justice, I did
it to the glory of religion. I wanted to provoke a peremptory reply, and
to pave the way for Christianity's triumph, in spite of the innumerable
attacks of which it is at present the object. I hoped that an apologist
would arise forthwith, and, taking his stand upon the Scriptures, the
Fathers, the canons, and the councils and constitutions of the Popes,
would demonstrate that the church always has maintained the doctrine of
equality, and would attribute to temporary necessity the contradictions
of its discipline. Such a labor would serve the cause of religion
as well as that of equality. We must know, sooner or later, whether
Christianity is to be regenerated in the church or out of it, and
whether this church accepts the reproaches cast upon it of hatred to
liberty and antipathy to progress. Until then we will suspend judgment,
and content ourselves with placing before the clergy the teachings of
history.
When Lycurgus undertook to make laws for Sparta, in what condition did
he find this republic? On this point all historians agree. The people
and the nobles were at war. The city was in a confused state, and
divided by two parties,--the party of the poor, and the party of the
rich. Hardly escaped from the barbarism of the heroic ages, society was
rapidly declining. The proletariat made war upon property, which, in its
turn, oppressed the proletariat. What did Lycurgus do? His first measure
was one of general security, at the very idea of which our legislators
would tremble. He abolished all debts; then, employing by turns
persuasion and force, he induced the nobles to renounce their
privileges, and re-established equality.
Lycurgus, in a word, hunted property out of Lacedaemon, seeing no other
way to harmonize liberty, equality, and law. I certainly should not wish
France to follow the example of Sparta; but it is remarkable that the
most ancient of Greek legislators, thoroughly acquainted with the nature
and needs of the people, more capable than any one else of appreciating
the legitimacy of the obligations which he, in the exercise of his
absolute authority, cancelled; who had compared the legislative
systems of his time, and whose wisdom an oracle had proclaimed,--it
is remarkable, I say, that Lycurgus should have judged the right of
property incompatible with free institutions, and should have thought it
his duty to preface his legislation by a coup d'etat which destroyed all
distinctions of fortune.
Lycurgus understood perfectly that the luxury, the love of enjoyments,
and the inequality of fortunes, which property engenders, are the bane
of society; unfortunately the means which he employed to preserve his
republic were suggested to him by false notions of political economy,
and by a superficial knowledge of the human heart. Accordingly,
property, which this legislator wrongly confounded with wealth,
reentered the city together with the swarm of evils which he was
endeavoring to banish; and this time Sparta was hopelessly corrupted.
"The introduction of wealth," says M. Pastoret, "was one of the
principal causes of the misfortunes which they experienced. Against
these, however, the laws had taken extraordinary precautions, the best
among which was the inculcation of morals which tended to suppress
desire. "
The best of all precautions would have been the anticipation of desire
by satisfaction. Possession is the sovereign remedy for cupidity,
a remedy which would have been the less perilous to Sparta because
fortunes there were almost equal, and conditions were nearly alike. As a
general thing, fasting and abstinence are bad teachers of moderation.
"There was a law," says M. Pastoret again, "to prohibit the rich from
wearing better clothing than the poor, from eating more delicate food,
and from owning elegant furniture, vases, carpets, fine houses," &c.
Lycurgus hoped, then, to maintain equality by rendering wealth useless.
How much wiser he would have been if, in accordance with his military
discipline, he had organized industry and taught the people to procure
by their own labor the things which he tried in vain to deprive them of.
In that case, enjoying happy thoughts and pleasant feelings, the citizen
would have known no other desire than that with which the legislator
endeavored to inspire him,--love of honor and glory, the triumphs of
talent and virtue.
"Gold and all kinds of ornaments were forbidden the women. " Absurd.
After the death of Lycurgus, his institutions became corrupted; and four
centuries before the Christian era not a vestige remained of the former
simplicity. Luxury and the thirst for gold were early developed among
the Spartans in a degree as intense as might have been expected from
their enforced poverty and their inexperience in the arts. Historians
have accused Pausanias, Lysander, Agesilaus, and others of having
corrupted the morals of their country by the introduction of wealth
obtained in war. It is a slander. The morals of the Spartans necessarily
grew corrupt as soon as the Lacedaemonian poverty came in contact with
Persian luxury and Athenian elegance. Lycurgus, then, made a fatal
mistake in attempting to inspire generosity and modesty by enforcing
vain and proud simplicity.
"Lycurgus was not frightened at idleness! A Lacedemonian, happening to
be in Athens (where idleness was forbidden) during the punishment of
a citizen who had been found guilty, asked to see the Athenian thus
condemned for having exercised the rights of a free man. . . . It was one
of the principles of Lycurguss, acted upon for several centuries, that
free men should not follow lucrative professions. . . . The women disdained
domestic labor; they did not spin their wool themselves, as did the
other Greeks [they did not, then, read Homer! ]; they left their slaves
to make their clothing for them. "--Pastoret: History of Legislation.
Could any thing be more contradictory? Lycurgus proscribed property
among the citizens, and founded the means of subsistence on the worst
form of property,--on property obtained by force. What wonder, after
that, that a lazy city, where no industry was carried on, became a den
of avarice? The Spartans succumbed the more easily to the allurements of
luxury and Asiatic voluptuousness, being placed entirely at their mercy
by their own coarseness. The same thing happened to the Romans, when
military success took them out of Italy,--a thing which the author
of the prosopopoeia of Fabricius could not explain. It is not the
cultivation of the arts which corrupts morals, but their degradation,
induced by inactive and luxurious opulence. The instinct of property
is to make the industry of Daedalus, as well as the talent of Phidias,
subservient to its own fantastic whims and disgraceful pleasures.
Property, not wealth, ruined the Spartans.
When Solon appeared, the anarchy caused by property was at its height
in the Athenian republic. "The inhabitants of Attica were divided
among themselves as to the form of government. Those who lived on the
mountains (the poor) preferred the popular form; those of the plain
(the middle class), the oligarchs; those by the sea coast, a mixture
of oligarchy and democracy. Other dissensions were arising from the
inequality of fortunes. The mutual antagonism of the rich and poor had
become so violent, that the one-man power seemed the only safe-guard
against the revolution with which the republic was threatened. "
(Pastoret: History of Legislation. )
Quarrels between the rich and the poor, which seldom occur in
monarchies, because a well established power suppresses dissensions,
seem to be the life of popular governments. Aristotle had noticed this.
The oppression of wealth submitted to agrarian laws, or to excessive
taxation; the hatred of the lower classes for the upper class, which
is exposed always to libellous charges made in hopes of
confiscation,--these were the features of the Athenian government which
were especially revolting to Aristotle, and which caused him to favor
a limited monarchy. Aristotle, if he had lived in our day, would have
supported the constitutional government. But, with all deference to the
Stagirite, a government which sacrifices the life of the proletaire to
that of the proprietor is quite as irrational as one which supports the
former by robbing the latter; neither of them deserve the support of a
free man, much less of a philosopher.
Solon followed the example of Lycurgus. He celebrated his legislative
inauguration by the abolition of debts,--that is, by bankruptcy. In
other words, Solon wound up the governmental machine for a longer or
shorter time depending upon the rate of interest. Consequently, when the
spring relaxed and the chain became unwound, the republic had either
to perish, or to recover itself by a second bankruptcy. This singular
policy was pursued by all the ancients. After the captivity of Babylon,
Nehemiah, the chief of the Jewish nation, abolished debts; Lycurgus
abolished debts; Solon abolished debts; the Roman people, after the
expulsion of the kings until the accession of the Caesars, struggled
with the Senate for the abolition of debts. Afterwards, towards the
end of the republic, and long after the establishment of the empire,
agriculture being abandoned, and the provinces becoming depopulated
in consequence of the excessive rates of interest, the emperors freely
granted the lands to whoever would cultivate them,--that is, they
abolished debts. No one, except Lycurgus, who went to the other extreme,
ever perceived that the great point was, not to release debtors by a
coup d'etat, but to prevent the contraction of debts in future.
On the contrary, the most democratic governments were always exclusively
based upon individual property; so that the social element of all these
republics was war between the citizens.
Solon decreed that a census should be taken of all fortunes, regulated
political rights by the result, granted to the larger proprietors more
influence, established the balance of powers,--in a word, inserted in
the constitution the most active leaven of discord; as if, instead of a
legislator chosen by the people, he had been their greatest enemy. Is
it not, indeed, the height of imprudence to grant equality of political
rights to men of unequal conditions? If a manufacturer, uniting all
his workmen in a joint-stock company, should give to each of them a
consultative and deliberative voice,--that is, should make all of them
masters,--would this equality of mastership secure continued inequality
of wages? That is the whole political system of Solon, reduced to its
simplest expression.
"In giving property a just preponderance," says M. Pastoret, "Solon
repaired, as far as he was able, his first official act,--the abolition
of debts.
