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SECOND
MEMOIR
A LETTER TO M. BLANQUI.
Paris, April
1, 1841.
MONSIEUR,— Before resuming my "Inquiries
into Government and Property," it is fitting, for the satisfaction
of some worthy people, and also in the interest of order, that
I should make to you a plain, straightforward explanation. In
a much-governed State, no one would be allowed to attack the
external form of the society, and the groundwork of its institutions,
until he had established his right to do so, — first, by his morality;
second, by his capacity; and, third, by the purity of his intentions.
Any one who, wishing to publish a treatise upon the constitution
of the country, could not satisfy this threefold condition, would
be obliged to procure the endorsement of a responsible patron
possessing the requisite qualifications. But we Frenchmen
have the liberty of the press. This grand right — the sword
of thought, which elevates the
virtuous citizen to the
rank of legislator, and makes the malicious citizen an agent
of discord — frees us from all preliminary responsibility to the
law; but it does not release us from our internal obligation
to render a public account of our sentiments and thoughts. I
have used, in all its fulness, and concerning an important question,
the right which the charter grants us. I come to-day, sir, to
submit my conscience to your judgment, and my feeble insight
to your discriminating reason. You have criticised in a kindly
spirit — I had almost said with partiality for the writer — a
work which teaches a doctrine that you thought it your duty to
condemn. "The Academy of Moral and Political Sciences," said
you in your report, "can accept the conclusions of the author
only as far as it likes." I venture to hope, sir, that,
after you have read this letter, if your prudence still restrains
you, your fairness will induce you to do me justice.
Men,
equal in the dignity of their persons and equal before the
law, should
be equal in their conditions, — such
is the thesis
which I maintained and developed in a memoir bearing the title, "What
is Property? or, An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of
Government."
The idea of social equality, even in individual fortunes, has
in all ages besieged, like a vague presentiment, the human imagination.
Poets have sung of it in their hymns; philosophers have dreamed
of it in their Utopias; priests teach it, but only for the spiritual
world. The people, governed by it, never have had faith in it;
and the civil power is never more disturbed than by the fables
of the age of gold and the reign of Astrea. A year ago, however,
this idea received a scientific demonstration, which has not
yet been satisfactorily answered, and, permit me to add, never
will be. This demonstration, owing to its slightly impassioned
style, its method of reasoning, — which was so at variance with
that employed by the generally recognized authorities, — and the
importance and novelty of its conclusions, was of a nature to
cause some alarm; and might have been dangerous, had it not been — as
you, sir, so well said — a sealed letter, so far as the general
public was concerned, addressed only to men of intelligence.
I was glad to see that through its metaphysical dress you recognized
the wise foresight of the author; and I thank you for it. May
God grant that my intentions, which are wholly peaceful, may
never be charged upon me as treasonable!
Like a stone thrown into a mass of serpents, the First Memoir
on Property excited intense animosity, and aroused the passions
of many. But, while some wished the author and his work to be
publicly denounced, others found in them simply the solution
of the fundamental problems of society; a few even basing evil
speculations upon the new light which they had obtained. It was
not to be expected that a system of inductions abstractly gathered
together, and still more abstractly expressed, would be understood
with equal accuracy in its ensemble and in each of its parts.
To find the law of equality, no longer in charity and self-
sacrifice (which are not binding in their nature), but in justice;
to base equality of functions upon equality of persons; to determine
the absolute principle of exchange; to neutralize the inequality
of individual faculties by collective force; to establish an
equation between property and robbery; to change the law of succession
without destroying the principle; to maintain the human personality
in a system of absolute association, and to save liberty from
the chains of communism; to synthetize the monarchical and democratic
forms of government; to reverse the division of powers; to give
the executive power to the nation, and to make legislation a
positive, fixed, and absolute science, — what a series of paradoxes!
what a string of delusions! if I may not say, what a chain of
truths! But it is not my purpose here to pass upon the theory
of the right of possession. I discuss no dogmas. My only object
is to justify my views, and to show that, in writing as I did,
I not only exercised a right, but performed a duty.
Yes, I have
attacked property, and shall attack it again; but, sir, before
demanding that I shall make the amende honorable for having obeyed my conscience and spoken the exact truth, condescend,
I beg of you, to cast a glance at the events which are happening
around us; look at our deputies, our magistrates, our philosophers,
our ministers, our professors, and our publicists; examine their
methods of dealing with the matter of property; count up with
me the restrictions placed upon it every day in the name of the
public welfare; measure the breaches already made; estimate those
which society thinks of making hereafter; add the ideas concerning
property held by all theories in common; interrogate history,
and then tell me what will be left, half a century hence, of
this old right of property; and, thus perceiving that I have
so many accomplices, you will immediately declare me innocent.
What is
the law of expropriation on the ground of public utility, which
everybody favors, and which is even thought too lenient?1 A
flagrant violation of the right of property. Society indemnifies,
it
is said, the dispossessed proprietor;
but does it return to
him the traditional associations, the poetic charm, and the family
pride which accompany property? Naboth, and the miller of Sans-Souci,
would have protested against French law, as they protested against
the caprice of their kings. "It is the field of our fathers," they
would have cried, "and we will not sell it!" Among
the ancients, the refusal of the individual limited the powers
of the State. The Roman law bowed to the will of the citizen,
and an emperor — Commodus, if I remember rightly — abandoned
the project of enlarging the forum out of respect for the rights
of the occupants who refused to abdicate. Property is a real
right, jus in re, — a right inherent in the thing,
and whose principle lies in the external manifestation of man's
will. Man
leaves his imprint, stamps his character, upon the objects of
his handiwork. This plastic force of man, as the modern jurists
say, is the seal which, set upon matter, makes it holy. Whoever
lays hands upon it, against the proprietor's will, does violence
to the latter's personality. And yet, when an administrative
committee saw fit to declare that public utility required it,
property had to give way to the general will. Soon, in the name
of public utility, methods of cultivation and conditions of enjoyment
will be prescribed; inspectors of agriculture and manufactures
will be appointed; property will be taken away from unskilful
hands, and entrusted to laborers who are more deserving of it;
and a general superintendence of production will be established.
It is not two years since I saw a proprietor destroy a forest
more than five hundred acres in extent. If public utility had
interfered, that forest — the only one for miles around — would
still be standing.
But, it is said, expropriation on the ground of public utility
is only an exception which confirms the principle, and bears
testimony in favor of the right. Very well; but from this exception
we will pass to another, from that to a third, and so on from
exceptions to exceptions, until we have reduced the rule to a
pure abstraction.
How many supporters do you think, sir, can be claimed for the
project of the conversion of the public funds? I venture to say
that everybody favors it, except the fund-holders. Now, this
so-called conversion is an extensive expropriation, and in this
case with no indemnity whatever. The public funds are so much
real estate, the income from which the proprietor counts upon
with perfect safety, and which owes its value to the tacit promise
of the government to pay interest upon it at the established
rate, until the fund-holder applies for redemption. For, if the
income is liable to diminution, it is less profitable than house-rent
or farm-rent, whose rates may rise or fall according to the fluctuations
in the market; and in that case, what inducement has the capitalist
to invest his money in the State? When, then, you force the fund-holder
to submit to a diminution of interest, you make him bankrupt
to the extent of the diminution; and since, in consequence of
the conversion, an equally profitable investment becomes impossible,
you depreciate his property.
That such a measure may be justly executed, it must be generalized;
that is, the law which provides for it must decree also that
interest on sums lent on deposit or on mortgage throughout the
realm, as well as house and farm-rents, shall be reduced to three
per cent. This simultaneous reduction of all kinds of income
would be not a whit more difficult to accomplish than the proposed
conversion; and, further, it would offer the advantage of forestalling
at one blow all objections to it, at the same time that it would
insure a just assessment of the land- tax. See! If at the moment
of conversion a piece of real estate yields an income of one
thousand francs, after the new law takes effect it will yield
only six hundred francs. Now, allowing the tax to be an aliquot
part — one-fourth for example — of the income derived from each
piece of property, it is clear on the one hand that the proprietor
would not, in order to lighten his share of the tax, underestimate
the value of his property; since, house and farm-rents being
fixed by the value of the capital, and the latter being measured
by the tax, to depreciate his real estate would be to reduce
his revenue. On the other hand, it is equally evident that the
same proprietors could not overestimate the value of their property,
in order to increase their incomes beyond the limits of the law,
since the tenants and farmers, with their old leases in their
hands, would enter a protest.
Such, sir, must be the result sooner or later of the conversion
which has been so long demanded; otherwise, the financial operation
of which we are speaking would be a crying injustice, unless
intended as a stepping-stone. This last motive seems the most
plausible one; for in spite of the clamors of interested parties,
and the flagrant violation of certain rights, the public conscience
is bound to fulfil its desire, and is no more affected when charged
with attacking property, than when listening to the complaints
of the bondholders. In this case, instinctive justice belies
legal justice.
Who has
not heard of the inextricable confusion into which the Chamber
of Deputies was thrown last year, while discussing the
question of colonial and native sugars? 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?2
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.3
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
régime, — one of inability to exercise charity without violating
justice!4
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.5
The honorable
professor of the Conservatory proposes then, —
- 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?
- 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.
- 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,6 and their songs,7 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.8 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.
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.9 . . ."
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
commandité, — 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,10 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,11 "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,12 paid
to defend it, undermines it with redoubled blows; at another — time,
an academy calls it in question,13 or inquires as to the progress of its demolition.14 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,15
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'état 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'état, 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. . .He thought he owed it to public peace to make
this great sacrifice of
acquired rights
and natural equity. But the violation of individual property
and written contracts is a bad preface to a public code."
In fact, such violations are always cruelly punished. In '89
and '93, the possessions of the nobility and the clergy were
confiscated, the clever proletaires were enriched; and to-day
the latter, having become aristocrats, are making us pay dearly
for our fathers' robbery. What, therefore, is to be done now?
It is not for us to violate right, but to restore it. Now, it
would be a violation of justice to dispossess some and endow
others, and then stop there. We must gradually lower the rate
of interest, organize industry, associate laborers and their
functions, and take a census of the large fortunes, not for the
purpose of granting privileges, but that we may effect their
redemption by settling a life-annuity upon their proprietors.
We must apply on a large scale the principle of collective production,
give the State eminent domain over all capital! make each producer
responsible, abolish the custom-house, and transform every profession
and trade into a public function. Thereby large fortunes will
vanish without confiscation or violence; individual possession
will establish itself, without communism, under the inspection
of the republic; and equality of conditions will no longer depend
simply on the will of citizens.
Of the authors who have written upon the Romans, Bossuet and
Montesquieu occupy prominent positions in the first rank; the
first being generally regarded as the father of the philosophy
of history, and the second as the most profound writer upon law
and politics. Nevertheless, it could be shown that these two
great writers, each of them imbued with the prejudices of their
century and their cloth, have left the question of the causes
of the rise and fall of the Romans precisely where they found
it.
Bossuet
is admirable as long as he confines himself to description:
witness, among other passages, the picture
which he has given
us of Greece before the Persian War, and which seems to have
inspired "Telemachus;" the parallel between Athens
and Sparta, drawn twenty times since Bossuet; the description
of the character and morals of the ancient Romans; and, finally,
the sublime peroration which ends the "Discourse on Universal
History." But when the famous historian deals with causes,
his philosophy is at fault.
"The
tribunes always favored the division of captured lands, or
the proceeds of their sale, among the
citizens. The Senate
steadfastly opposed those laws which were damaging to the State,
and wanted the price of lands to be awarded to the public treasury."
Thus,
according to Bossuet, the first and greatest wrong of civil
wars was inflicted upon the people, who, dying of hunger,
demanded that the lands, which they had shed their blood to conquer,
should be given to them for cultivation. The patricians, who
bought them to deliver to their slaves, had more regard for justice
and the public interests. How little affects the opinions of
men! If the rôles of Cicero and the Gracchi had been inverted,
Bossuet, whose sympathies were aroused by the eloquence of the
great orator more than by the clamors of the tribunes, would
have viewed the agrarian laws in quite a different light. He
then would have understood that the interest of the treasury
was only a pretext; that, when the captured lands were put up
at auction, the patricians hastened to buy them, in order to
profit by the revenues from them, — certain, moreover, that the
price paid would come back to them sooner or later, in exchange
either for supplies furnished by them to the republic, or for
the subsistence of the multitude, who could buy only of them,
and whose services at one time, and poverty at another, were
rewarded by the State. For a State does not hoard; on the contrary,
the public funds always return to the people. If, then, a certain
number of men are the sole dealers in articles of primary necessity,
it follows that the public treasury, in passing and repassing
through their hands, deposits and accumulates real property there.
When Menenius related to the people his fable of the limbs and
the stomach, if any one had remarked to this story-teller that
the stomach freely gives to the limbs the nourishment which it
freely receives, but that the patricians gave to the plebeians
only for cash, and lent to them only at usury, he undoubtedly
would have silenced the wily senator, and saved the people from
a great imposition. The Conscript Fathers were fathers only of
their own line. As for the common people, they were regarded
as an impure race, exploitable, taxable, and workable at the
discretion and mercy of their masters.
As a general
thing, Bossuet shows little regard for the people. His monarchical
and theological instincts know nothing but authority,
obedience, and alms-giving, under the name of charity. This unfortunate
disposition constantly leads him to mistake symptoms for causes;
and his depth, which is so much admired,
is borrowed from his authors, and amounts to very little, after
all. When
he says, for instance, that "the dissensions in the
republic, and finally its fall, were caused by the jealousies
of its citizens, and their love of liberty carried to an extreme
and intolerable extent," are we not tempted to ask him what
caused those jealousies? — what inspired the people
with that love of liberty, extreme and intolerable? It
would be useless
to reply, The corruption of morals; the disregard for the ancient
poverty; the debaucheries, luxury, and class jealousies; the
seditious character of the Gracchi, &c. Why did the morals
become corrupt, and whence arose those eternal dissensions between
the patricians and the plebeians?
In Rome, as in all other places, the dissension between the
rich and the poor was not caused directly by the desire for wealth
(people, as a general thing, do not covet that which they deem
it illegitimate to acquire), but by a natural instinct of the
plebeians, which led them to seek the cause of their adversity
in the constitution of the republic. So we are doing to-day;
instead of altering our public economy, we demand an electoral
reform. The Roman people wished to return to the social compact;
they asked for reforms, and demanded a revision of the laws,
and a creation of new magistracies. The patricians, who had nothing
to complain of, opposed every innovation. Wealth always has been
conservative. Nevertheless, the people overcame the resistance
of the Senate; the electoral right was greatly extended; the
privileges of the plebeians were increased, — they had their representatives,
their tribunes, and their consuls; but, notwithstanding these
reforms, the republic could not be saved. When all political
expedients had been exhausted, when civil war had depleted the
population, when the Caesars had thrown their bloody mantle over
the cancer which was consuming the empire, — inasmuch as accumulated
property always was respected, and since the fire never stopped,
the nation had to perish in the flames. The imperial power was
a compromise which protected the property of the rich, and nourished
the proletaires with wheat from Africa and Sicily: a double error,
which destroyed the aristocrats by plethora and the commoners
by famine. At last there was but one real proprietor left, — the
emperor, — whose dependent, flatterer, parasite, or slave, each
citizen became; and when this proprietor was ruined, those who
gathered the crumbs from under his table, and laughed when he
cracked his jokes, perished also.
Montesquieu
succeeded no better than Bossuet in fathoming the causes of
the Roman decline; indeed, it may
be said that the
president has only developed the ideas of the bishop. If the
Romans had been more moderate in their conquests, more just to
their allies, more humane to the vanquished; if the nobles had
been less covetous, the emperors less lawless, the people less
violent, and all classes less corrupt; if . . . &c., — perhaps
the dignity of the empire might have been preserved, and Rome
might have retained the sceptre of the world! That is all that
can be gathered from the teachings of Montesquieu. But the truth
of history does not lie there; the destinies of the world are
not dependent upon such trivial causes. The passions of men,
like the contingencies of time and the varieties of climate,
serve to maintain the forces which move humanity and produce
all historical changes; but they do not explain them. The grain
of sand of which Pascal speaks would have caused the death of
one man only, had not prior action ordered the events of which
this death was the precursor.
Montesquieu has read extensively; he knows Roman history thoroughly,
is perfectly well acquainted with the people of whom he speaks,
and sees very clearly why they were able to conquer their rivals
and govern the world. While reading him we admire the Romans,
but we do not like them; we witness their triumphs without pleasure,
and we watch their fall without sorrow. Montesquieu's work, like
the works of all French writers, is skilfully composed, — spirited,
witty, and filled with wise observations. He pleases, interests,
instructs, but leads to little reflection; he does not conquer
by depth of thought; he does not exalt the mind by elevated reason
or earnest feeling. In vain should we search his writings for
knowledge of antiquity, the character of primitive society, or
a description of the heroic ages, whose morals and prejudices
lived until the last days of the republic. Vico, painting the
Romans with their horrible traits, represents them as excusable,
because he shows that all their conduct was governed by preexisting
ideas and customs, and that they were informed, so to speak,
by a superior genius of which they were unconscious; in Montesquieu,
the Roman atrocity revolts, but is not explained. Therefore,
as a writer, Montesquieu brings greater credit upon French literature;
as a philosopher, Vico bears away the palm.
Originally,
property in Rome was national, not private. Numa was the first
to establish individual property by distributing
the lands captured by Romulus. What was the dividend of this
distribution effected by Numa? What conditions were imposed upon
individuals, what powers reserved to the State? None whatever.
Inequality of fortunes, absolute abdication by the republic of
its right of eminent domain over the property of citizens, — such
were the first results of the division of Numa, who justly may
be regarded as the originator of Roman revolutions. He it was
who instituted the worship of the god Terminus, — the guardian
of private possession, and one of the most ancient gods of Italy.
It was Numa who placed property under the protection of Jupiter;
who, in imitation of the Etrurians, wished to make priests of
the land-surveyors; who invented a liturgy for cadastral operations,
and ceremonies of consecration for the marking of boundaries, —
who, in short, made a religion of property.16 All
these fancies would have been more beneficial than dangerous,
if the holy king
had not forgotten one essential thing; namely, to fix the amount
that each citizen could possess, and on what conditions he could
possess it. For, since it is the essence of property to continually
increase by accession and profit, and since the lender will take
advantage of every opportunity to apply this principle inherent
in property, it follows that properties tend, by means of their
natural energy and the religious respect which protects them,
to absorb each other, and fortunes to increase or diminish to
an indefinite extent, — a process which necessarily results
in the ruin of the people, and the fall of the republic. Roman
history
is but the development of this law.
Scarcely
had the Tarquins been banished from Rome and the monarchy abolished,
when quarrels commenced between
the orders. In the
year 494 B.C., the secession of the commonalty to the Mons Sacer
led to the establishment of the tribunate. Of what did the plebeians
complain? That they were poor, exhausted by the interest which
they paid to the proprietors, — foeneratoribus; that the
republic, administered for the benefit of the nobles, did nothing
for the
people; that, delivered over to the mercy of their creditors,
who could sell them and their children, and having neither hearth
nor home, they were refused the means of subsistence, while the
rate of interest was kept at its highest point, &c. For five
centuries, the sole policy of the Senate was to evade these just
complaints; and, notwithstanding the energy of the tribunes,
notwithstanding the eloquence of the Gracchi, the violence of
Marius, and the triumph of Caesar, this execrable policy succeeded
only too well. The Senate always temporized; the measures proposed
by the tribunes might be good, but they were inopportune. It
admitted that something should be done; but first it was necessary
that the people should resume the performance of their duties,
because the Senate could not yield to violence, and force must
be employed only by the law. If the people — out of respect
for legality — took this beautiful advice, the Senate conjured
up a difficulty; the reform was postponed, and that was the end
of it. On the contrary, if the demands of the proletaires became
too pressing, it declared a foreign war, and neighboring nations
were deprived of their liberty, to maintain the Roman aristocracy.
But the toils of war were only a halt for the plebeians in their
onward march towards pauperism. The lands confiscated from the
conquered nations were immediately added to the domain of the
State, to the ager publicus; and, as such, cultivated for the
benefit of the treasury; or, as was more often the case, they
were sold at auction. None of them were granted to the proletaires,
who, unlike the patricians and knights, were not supplied by
the victory with the means of buying them. War never enriched
the soldier; the extensive plundering has been done always by
the generals. The vans of Augereau, and of twenty others, are
famous in our armies; but no one ever heard of a private getting
rich. Nothing was more common in Rome than charges of peculation,
extortion, embezzlement, and brigandage, carried on in the provinces
at the head of armies, and in other public capacities. All these
charges were quieted by intrigue, bribery of the judges, or desistance
of the accuser. The culprit was allowed always in the end to
enjoy his spoils in peace; his son was only the more respected
on account of his father's crimes. And, in fact, it could not
be otherwise. What would become of us, if every deputy, peer,
or public functionary should be called upon to show his title
to his fortune!
"The patricians arrogated the exclusive enjoyment of the
ager publicus; and, like the feudal seigniors, granted some portions
of their lands to their dependants, — a wholly precarious concession,
revocable at the will of the grantor. The plebeians, on the contrary,
were entitled to the enjoyment of only a little pasture-land
left to them in common: an utterly unjust state of things, since,
in consequence of it, taxation — census — weighed
more heavily upon the poor than upon the rich. The patrician,
in fact, always
exempted himself from the tithe which he owed as the price
and as the acknowledgment of the concession of domain; and,
on the
other hand, paid no taxes on his possessions, if, as there
is good reason to believe, only citizens' property was taxed." — Laboulaye:
History of Property.
In
order thoroughly to understand the preceding quotation, we
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