What Is Property?
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
[1840 / Part 4 of 16]
CHAPTER III
LABOR AS THE EFFICIENT CAUSE OF THE DOMAIN OF PROPERTY
Nearly all the modern writers on jurisprudence, taking their cue
from the economists, have abandoned the theory of first occupancy as
a too dangerous one, and have adopted that which regards property as
born of labor. In this they are deluded; they reason in a circle. To
labor it is necessary to occupy, says M. Cousin. Consequently, I
have added in my turn, all having an equal right of occupancy, to
labor it is necessary to submit to equality. "The rich,"
exclaims Jean Jacques, "have the arrogance to say, `I built
this wall; I earned this land by my labor.' Who set you the tasks?
we may reply, and by what right do you demand payment from us for
labor which we did not impose upon you?" All sophistry falls to
the ground in the presence of this argument.
But the partisans of labor do not see that their system is an
absolute contradiction of the Code, all the articles and provisions
of which suppose property to be based upon the fact of first
occupancy. If labor, through the appropriation which results from
it, alone gives birth to property, the Civil Code lies, the charter
is a falsehood, our whole social system is a violation of right. ...
Thus, the principle of occupation is abandoned; no longer is it
said, "The land belongs to him who first gets possession of it.
Property, forced into its first intrenchment, repudiates its old
adage; justice, ashamed, retracts her maxims, and sorrow lowers her
bandage over her blushing cheeks. And it was but yesterday that this
progress in social philosophy began: fifty centuries required for
the extirpation of a lie! During this lamentable period, how many
usurpations have been sanctioned, how many invasions glorified, how
many conquests celebrated! The absent dispossessed, the poor
banished, the hungry excluded by wealth, which is so ready and bold
in action! Jealousies and wars, incendiarism and bloodshed, among
the nations! But henceforth, thanks to the age and its spirit, it is
to be admitted that the earth is not a prize to be won in a race; in
the absence of any other obstacle, there is a place for everybody
under the sun. Each one may harness his goat to the bearn, drive his
cattle to pasture, sow a corner of a field, and bake his bread by
his own fireside.
Ah! the problem is solved! property is the daughter of labor!
What, then, is the right of accession, and the right <88>of
succession, and the right of donation, &c., if not the right to
become a proprietor by simple occupancy? What are your laws
concerning the age of majority, emancipation, guardianship, and
interdiction, if not the various conditions by which he who is
already a laborer gains or loses the right of occupancy; that is,
property?
"It would seem that lands capable of cultivation ought to be
regarded as natural wealth, since they are not of human creation,
but Nature's gratuitous gift to man; but inasmuch as this wealth is
not fugitive, like the air and water, -- inasmuch as a field is a
fixed and limited space which certain men have been able to
appropriate, to the exclusion of all others who in their turn have
consented to this appropriation, -- the land, which was a natural
and gratuitous gift, has become social wealth, for the use of which
we ought to pay." -- Say: Political Economy.
Was I wrong in saying, at the beginning of this chapter, that the
economists are the very worst authorities in matters of legislation
and philosophy? It is the father of this class of men who
clearly states the question, How can the supplies of Nature, the
wealth created by Providence, become private property? and who
replies by so gross an equivocation that we scarcely know which the
author lacks, sense or honesty. What, I ask, has the fixed and solid
nature of the earth to do with the right of appropriation? I can
understand that a thing limited and stationary, like
the land, offers greater chances for appropriation than the water or
the sunshine; that it is easier to exercise the right of domain over
the soil than over the atmosphere: but we are not dealing with the
difficulty of the thing, and Say confounds the right with the
possibility. We do not ask why the earth has been appropriated to a
greater extent than the sea and the air; we want to know by what
right man has appropriated wealth which he did not create, and
which Nature gave to him gratuitously.
Say, then, did not solve the question which he asked. But if he
had solved it, if the explanation which he has given us were as
satisfactory as it is illogical, we should know no better than
before who has a right to exact payment for the use of the soil, of
this wealth which is not man's handiwork. Who is entitled to the
rent of the land? The producer of the land, without doubt. Who made
the land? God. Then, proprietor, retire!
But the creator of the land does not sell it: he gives it; and, in
giving it, he is no respecter of persons. Why, then, are some of his
children regarded as legitimate, while others are treated as
bastards? If the equality of shares was an original right, why is
the inequality of conditions a posthumous right?
Say gives us to understand that if the air and the water were not
of a fugitive nature, they would have been appropriated. Let
me observe in passing that this is more than an hypothesis; it is a
reality. Men have appropriated the air and the water, I will not say
as often as they could, but as often as they have been allowed to.
The right to hunt and fish used always to be confined to lords and
proprietors; to-day it is leased by the government and communes to
whoever can pay the license-fee and the rent. To regulate hunting
and fishing is an excellent idea, but to make it a subject of sale
is to create a monopoly of air and water.
Finally, it is permissible neither to draw water from a spring
situated in another's grounds without the permission of the
proprietor, because by the right of accession the spring belongs to
the possessor of the soil, if there is no other claim; nor to pass a
day on his premises without paying a tax; nor to look at a court, a
garden, or an orchard, without the consent of the proprietor; nor to
stroll in a park or an enclosure against the owner's will: every one
is allowed to shut himself up and to fence himself in. All these
prohibitions are so many positive interdictions, not only of the
land, but of the air and water. We who belong to the proletaire
class: property excommunicates us! Terra, et aqua, et aere, et
igne interdicti sumus.
Men could not appropriate the most fixed of all the elements
without appropriating the three others; since, by French and Roman
law, property in the surface carries with it property from zenith to
nadir -- Cujus est solum, ejus est usque ad cælum.
Now, if the use of water, air, and fire excludes property, so does
the use of the soil. ...
... Water, air, and light are common things, not because
they are inexhaustible, but because they are indispensable;
and so indispensable that for that very reason Nature has created
them in quantities almost infinite, in order that their
plentifulness might prevent their appropriation. Likewise the land
is indispensable to our existence, -- consequently a common thing,
consequently insusceptible of appropriation; but land is much
scarcer than the other elements, therefore its use must be
regulated, not for the profit of a few, but in the interest and for
the security of all. In a word, equality of rights is proved by
equality of needs. Now, equality of rights, in the case of a
commodity which is limited in amount, can be realized only by
equality of possession. An agrarian law underlies M. Ch. Comte's
arguments.
... can men legitimate property by mutual consent? I say, no. Such
a contract, though drafted by Grotius, Montesquieu, and J. J.
Rousseau, though signed by the whole human race, would be null in
the eyes of justice, and an act to enforce it would be illegal. Man
can no more give up labor than liberty. Now, to recognize the right
of territorial property is to give up labor, since it is to
relinquish the means of labor; it is to traffic in a natural right,
and divest ourselves of manhood.
Enlightened to-day by the triumphal march of science, taught by
the most glorious successes to question our own opinions, we receive
with favor and applause the observer of Nature, who, by a thousand
experiments based upon the most profound analysis, pursues a new
principle, a law hitherto undiscovered. We take care to repel no
idea, no fact, under the pretext that abler men than ourselves lived
in former days, who did not notice the same phenomena, nor grasp the
same analogies. Why do we not preserve a like attitude towards
political and philosophical questions? Why this ridiculous mania for
affirming that every thing has been said, which means that we know
all about mental and moral science? Why is the proverb, There is
nothing new under the sun, applied exclusively to metaphysical
investigations?
Because we still study philosophy with the imagination, instead of
by observation and method; because fancy and will are universally
regarded as judges, in the place of arguments and facts, -- it has
been impossible to this day to distinguish the charlatan from the
philosopher, the savant from the impostor. ... In this way,
general ignorance produces general tyranny; and while liberty of
thought is written in the charter, slavery of thought, under the
name of majority rule, is decreed by the charter.
...The institution of property, the work of ignorant reason, may
be abrogated by a more enlightened reason. Consequently, property
cannot be established by prescription. This is so certain and so
true, that on it rests the maxim that in the matter of prescription
a violation of right goes for nothing.
Whichever way we turn, we shall come to the conclusion that
prescription is a contradiction of property; or rather that
prescription and property are two forms of the same principle, but
two forms which serve to correct each other; and ancient and modern
jurisprudence did not make the least of its blunders in pretending
to reconcile them. Indeed, if we see in the institution of property
only a desire to secure to each individual his share of the soil and
his right to labor; in the distinction between naked property and
possession only an asylum for absentees, orphans, and all who do not
know, or cannot maintain, their rights; in prescription only a
means, either of defence against unjust pretensions and
encroachments, or of settlement of the differences caused by the
removal of possessors, -- we shall recognize in these various forms
of human justice the spontaneous efforts of the mind to come to the
aid of the social instinct; we shall see in this protection of all
rights the sentiment of equality, a constant levelling tendency.
And, looking deeper, we shall find in the very exaggeration of these
principles the confirmation of our doctrine; because, if equality of
conditions and universal association are not soon realized, it will
be owing to the obstacle thrown for the time in the way of the
common sense of the people by the stupidity of legislators and
judges; and also to the fact that, while society in its original
state was illuminated with a flash of truth, the early speculations
of its leaders could bring forth nothing but darkness.
...The consent of mankind is an indication of Nature; not, as
Cicero says, a law of Nature. Under the indication is hidden the
truth, which faith can believe, but only thought can know. Such has
been the constant progress of the human mind in regard to physical
phenomena and the creations of genius: how can it be otherwise with
the facts of conscience and the rules of human conduct? ...
We shall show by the maxims of political economy and law, that is,
by the authorities recognized by property, --
1. That labor has no inherent power to appropriate natural wealth.
2. That, if we admit that labor has this power, we are led
directly to equality of property, -- whatever the kind of labor,
however scarce the product, or unequal the ability of the laborers.
3. That, in the order of justice, labor destroys property.
If the reader thinks it is pushing logic too far to question a
nation's right of property in the territory which it possesses, I
will simply remind him of the fact that at all ages the results of
the fictitious right of national property have been pretensions to
suzerainty, tributes, monarchical privileges, statute-labor, quotas
of men and money, supplies of merchandise, &c.; ending finally
in refusals to pay taxes, insurrections, wars, and depopulations.
"Scattered through this territory are extended tracts of
land, which have not been converted into individual property. These
lands, which consist mainly of forests, belong to the whole
population, and the government, which receives the revenues, uses or
ought to use them in the interest of all."
Ought to use is well said: a lie is avoided thereby. "Let
them be offered for sale. . . ."
Why offered for sale? Who has a right to sell them? Even were the
nation proprietor, can the generation of to-day dispossess the
generation of to-morrow? The nation, in its function of
usufructuary, possesses them; the government rules, superintends,
and protects them. If it also granted lands, it could grant only
their use; it has no right to sell them or transfer them in any way
whatever. Not being a proprietor, how can it transmit property?
The purchaser draws boundaries, fences himself in, and says, "This
is mine; each one by himself, each one for himself." Here,
then, is a piece of land upon which, henceforth, no one has a right
to step, save the proprietor and his friends; which can benefit
nobody, save the proprietor and his servants. Let these sales
multiply, and soon the people -- who have been neither able nor
willing to sell, and who have received none of the proceeds of the
sale -- will have nowhere to rest, no place of shelter, no ground to
till. They will die of hunger at the proprietor's door, on the edge
of that property which was their birthright; and the proprietor,
watching them die, will exclaim, "So perish idlers and
vagrants!"
To say that property is the daughter of labor, and then to give
labor material on which to exercise itself, is, if I am not
mistaken, to reason in a circle. Contradictions will result from it.
I maintain that the possessor is paid for his trouble and industry
in his doubled crop, but that he acquires no right to the land. "Let
the laborer have the fruits of his labor." Very good; but I do
not understand that property in products carries with it property in
raw material. Does the skill of the fisherman, who on the same coast
can catch more fish than his fellows, make him proprietor of the
fishing-grounds? Can the expertness of a hunter ever be regarded as
a property-title to a game-forest? The analogy is perfect, -- the
industrious cultivator finds the reward of his industry in the
abundancy and superiority of his crop. If he has made improvements
in the soil, he has the possessor's right of preference. Never,
under any circumstances, can he be allowed to claim a property-title
to the soil which he cultivates, on the ground of his skill as a
cultivator.
To change possession into property, something is needed besides
labor, without which a man would cease to be proprietor as soon as
he ceased to be a laborer. Now, the law bases property upon
immemorial, unquestionable possession; that is, prescription. Labor
is only the sensible sign, the physical act, by which occupation is
manifested. If, then, the cultivator remains proprietor after he has
ceased to labor and produce; if his possession, first conceded, then
tolerated, finally becomes inalienable, -- it happens by permission
of the civil law, and by virtue of the principle of occupancy. So
true is this, that there is not a bill of sale, not a farm lease,
not an annuity, but implies it. I will quote only one example.
How do we measure the value of land? By its product. If a piece of
land yields one thousand francs, we say that at five per cent. it is
worth twenty thousand francs; at four per cent. twenty-five thousand
francs, &c.; which means, in other words, that in twenty or
twenty-five years' time the purchaser would recover in full the
amount originally paid for the land. If, then, after a certain
length of time, the price of a piece of land has been wholly
recovered, why does the purchaser continue to be proprietor? Because
of the right of occupancy, in the absence of which every sale would
be a redemption.
The theory of appropriation by labor is, then, a contradiction of
the Code; and when the partisans of this theory pretend to explain
the laws thereby, they contradict themselves.
"If men succeed in fertilizing land hitherto unproductive, or
even death-producing, like certain swamps, they create thereby
property in all its completeness."
... Man has created every thing -- every thing save the material
itself. Now, I maintain that this material he can only possess and
use, on condition of permanent labor, -- granting, for the time
being, his right of property in things which he has produced.
This, then, is the first point settled: property in product, if we
grant so much, does not carry with it property in the means of
production; that seems to me to need no further demonstration. ...
Admit, however, that labor gives a right of property in material.
Why is not this principle universal? Why is the benefit of this
pretended law confined to a few and denied to the mass of laborers?
... Why does the tenant no longer acquire through his labor the land
which was formerly acquired by the labor of the proprietor?
... Suppose the owner, in a spirit of moderation rarely met with,
does not go to the extent of absorbing this product by raising the
rent, but allows the cultivator to enjoy the results of his labor;
even then justice is not satisfied. The tenant, by improving the
land, has imparted a new value to the property; he, therefore, has a
right to a part of the property. If the farm was originally worth
one hundred thousand francs, and if by the labor of the tenant its
value has risen to one hundred and fifty thousand francs, the
tenant, who produced this extra value, is the legitimate proprietor
of one-third of the farm. ...
If the laborer, who adds to the value of a thing, has a right of
property in it, he who maintains this value acquires the same right.
For what is maintenance? It is incessant addition, -- continuous
creation. What is it to cultivate? It is to give the soil its value
every year; it is, by annually renewed creation, to prevent the
diminution or destruction of the value of a piece of land.
Admitting, then, that property is rational and legitimate, --
admitting that rent is equitable and just, -- I say that he who
cultivates acquires property by as good a title as he who clears, or
he who improves; and that every time a tenant pays his rent, he
obtains a fraction of property in the land entrusted to his care,
the denominator of which is equal to the proportion of rent paid.
Unless you admit this, you fall into absolutism and tyranny; you
recognize class privileges; you sanction slavery.
Whoever labors becomes a proprietor -- this is an inevitable
deduction from the acknowledged principles of political economy and
jurisprudence. And when I say proprietor, I do not mean simply (as
do our hypocritical economists) proprietor of his allowance, his
salary, his wages, -- I mean proprietor of the value which he
creates, and by which the master alone profits.
As all this relates to the theory of wages and of the distribution
of products, -- and as this matter never has been even partially
cleared up, -- I ask permission to insist on it: this discussion
will not be useless to the work in hand. Many persons talk of
admitting working-people to a share in the products and profits; but
in their minds this participation is pure benevolence: they have
never shown -- perhaps never suspected -- that it was a natural,
necessary right, inherent in labor, and inseparable from the
function of producer, even in the lowest forms of his work.
This is my proposition: The laborer retains, even after he has
received his wages, a natural right of property in the thing which
he has produced.
No one is ignorant of the difficulties that are met with in the
conversion of untilled land into arable and productive land. These
difficulties are so great, that usually an isolated man would perish
before he could put the soil in a condition to yield him even the
most meagre living. To that end are needed the united and combined
efforts of society, and all the resources of industry. ...
In this century of bourgeoisie morality, in which I have
had the honor to be born, the moral sense is so debased that I
should not be at all surprised if I were asked, by many a worthy
proprietor, what I see in this that is unjust and illegitimate?
Debased creature! galvanized corpse! how can I expect to convince
you, if you cannot tell robbery when I show it to you? A man, by
soft and insinuating words, discovers the secret of taxing others
that he may establish himself; then, once enriched by their united
efforts, he refuses, on the very conditions which he himself
dictated, to advance the well-being of those who made his fortune
for him: and you ask how such conduct is fraudulent! Under the
pretext that he has paid his laborers, that he owes them nothing
more, that he has nothing to gain by putting himself at the service
of others, while his own occupations claim his attention, -- he
refuses, I say, to aid others in getting a foothold, as he was aided
in getting his own; and when, in the impotence of their isolation,
these poor laborers are compelled to sell their birthright, he --
this ungrateful proprietor, this knavish upstart -- stands ready to
put the finishing touch to their deprivation and their ruin. And you
think that just? Take care! I read in your startled countenance the
reproach of a guilty conscience, much more clearly than the innocent
astonishment of involuntary ignorance.
"The capitalist," they say, "has paid the laborers
their daily wages." To be accurate, it must be said
that the capitalist has paid as many times one day's wage as he has
employed laborers each day, -- which is not at all the same thing.
For he has paid nothing for that immense power which results from
the union and harmony of laborers, and the convergence and
simultaneousness of their efforts. ...
The laborer needs a salary which will enable him to live while he
works; for unless he consumes, he cannot produce. Whoever employs a
man owes him maintenance and support, or wages enough to procure the
same. That is the first thing to be done in all production. I admit,
for the moment, that in this respect the capitalist has discharged
his duty.
It is necessary that the laborer should find in his production, in
addition to his present support, a guarantee of his future support;
otherwise the source of production would dry up, and his productive
capacity would become exhausted: in other words, the labor
accomplished must give birth perpetually to new labor -- such is the
universal law of reproduction. In this way, the proprietor of a farm
finds: 1. In his crops, means, not only of supporting himself and
his family, but of maintaining and improving his capital, of feeding
his live-stock -- in a word, means of new labor and continual
reproduction; 2. In his ownership of a productive agency, a
permanent basis of cultivation and labor.
But he who lends his services, -- what is his basis of
cultivation? The proprietor's presumed need of him, and the
unwarranted supposition that he wishes to employ him. Just as the
commoner once held his land by the munificence and condescension of
the lord, so to-day the working-man holds his labor by the
condescension and necessities of the master and proprietor: that is
what is called possession by a precarious title. But this precarious
condition is an injustice, for it implies an inequality in the
bargain. The laborer's wages exceed but little his running expenses,
and do not assure him wages for to-morrow; while the capitalist
finds in the instrument produced by the laborer a pledge of
independence and security for the future.
Now, this reproductive leaven -- this eternal germ of life, this
preparation of the land and manufacture of implements for production
-- constitutes the debt of the capitalist to the producer, which he
never pays; and it is this fraudulent denial which causes the
poverty of the laborer, the luxury of idleness, and the inequality
of conditions. This it is, above all other things, which has been so
fitly named the exploitation of man by man.
One of three things must be done. Either the laborer must be given
a portion of the product in addition to his wages; or the employer
must render the laborer an equivalent in productive service; or else
he must pledge himself to employ him for ever. Division of the
product, reciprocity of service, or guarantee of perpetual labor, --
from the adoption of one of these courses the capitalist cannot
escape. But it is evident that he cannot satisfy the second and
third of these conditions -- he can neither put himself at the
service of the thousands of working-men, who, directly or
indirectly, have aided him in establishing himself, nor employ them
all for ever. He has no other course left him, then, but a division
of the property. But if the property is divided, all conditions will
be equal -- there will be no more large capitalists or large
proprietors.
Labor leads us to equality. Every step that we take brings us
nearer to it; and if laborers had equal strength, diligence, and
industry, clearly their fortunes would be equal also. Indeed, if, as
is pretended, -- and as we have admitted, -- the laborer is
proprietor of the value which he creates, it follows: --
1. That the laborer acquires at the expense of the idle
proprietor;
2. That all production being necessarily collective, the laborer
is entitled to a share of the products and profits commensurate with
his labor;
3. That all accumulated capital being social property, no one can
be its exclusive proprietor.
... if labor is the sole basis of property, I cease to be
proprietor of my field as soon as I receive rent for it from
another. This we have shown beyond all cavil. It is the same with
all capital; so that to put capital in an enterprise, is, by the
law's decision, to exchange it for an equivalent sum in products. I
will not enter again upon this now useless discussion, since I
propose, in the following chapter, to exhaust the subject of production
by capital.
Thus, capital can be exchanged, but cannot be a source of income.
Should wages be governed by labor? In other words, is it just that
he who does the most should get the most? I beg the reader to pay
the closest attention to this point.
To solve the problem with one stroke, we have only to ask
ourselves the following question: "Is labor a condition
or a struggle? "The reply seems plain.
In labor, two things must be noticed and distinguished: association
and available material.
In so far as laborers are associated, they are equal; and it
involves a contradiction to say that one should be paid more than
another. For, as the product of one laborer can be paid for only in
the product of another laborer, if the two products are unequal, the
remainder -- or the difference between the greater and the smaller
-- will not be acquired by society; and, therefore, not being
exchanged, will not affect the equality of wages. There will result,
it is true, in favor of the stronger laborer a natural inequality,
but not a social inequality; no one having suffered by his strength
and productive energy. In a word, society exchanges only equal
products -- that is, rewards no labor save that performed for her
benefit; consequently, she pays all laborers equally: with what they
produce outside of her sphere she has no more to do, than with the
difference in their voices and their hair.
I seem to be positing the principle of inequality: the reverse of
this is the truth. The total amount of labor which can be performed
for society (that is, of labor susceptible of exchange), being,
within a given space, as much greater as the laborers are more
numerous, and as the task assigned to each is less in magnitude, --
it follows that natural inequality neutralizes itself in proportion
as association extends, and as the quantity of consumable values
produced thereby increases. So that in society the only thing which
could bring back the inequality of labor would be the right of
occupancy, -- the right of property.
Now, suppose that this daily social task consists in the
ploughing, hoeing, or reaping of two square decameters, and that the
average time required to accomplish it is seven hours: one laborer
will finish it in six hours, another will require eight; the
majority, however, will work seven. But provided each one furnishes
the quantity of labor demanded of him, whatever be the time he
employs, they are entitled to equal wages.
Shall the laborer who is capable of finishing his task in six
hours have the right, on the ground of superior strength and
activity, to usurp the task of the less skilful laborer, and thus
rob him of his labor and bread? Who dares maintain such a
proposition? He who finishes before the others may rest, if he
chooses; he may devote himself to useful exercise and labors for the
maintenance of his strength, and the culture of his mind, and the
pleasure of his life. This he can do without injury to any one: but
let him confine himself to services which affect him solely. Vigor,
genius, diligence, and all the personal advantages which result
therefrom, are the work of Nature and, to a certain extent, of the
individual; society awards them the esteem which they merit: but the
wages which it pays them is measured, not by their power, but by
their production. Now, the product of each is limited by the right
of all.
If the soil were infinite in extent, and the amount of available
material were exhaustless, even then we could not accept this maxim,
-- To each according to his labor. And why? Because society,
I repeat, whatever be the number of its subjects, is forced to pay
them all the same wages, since she pays them only in their own
products. Only, on the hypothesis just made, inasmuch as the strong
cannot be prevented from using all their advantages, the
inconveniences of natural inequality would reappear in the very
bosom of social equality. But the land, considering the productive
power of its inhabitants and their ability to multiply, is very
limited; further, by the immense variety of products and the extreme
division of labor, the social task is made easy of accomplishment.
Now, through this limitation of things producible, and through the
ease of producing them, the law of absolute equality takes effect.
Yes, life is a struggle. But this struggle is not between man and
man -- it is between man and Nature; and it is each one's duty to
take his share in it. If, in the struggle, the strong come to the
aid of the weak, their kindness deserves praise and love; but their
aid must be accepted as a free gift, -- not imposed by force, nor
offered at a price. All have the same career before them, neither
too long nor too difficult; whoever finishes it finds his reward at
the end: it is not necessary to get there first.
The principle, To each according to his labor, interpreted
to mean, Who works most should receive most, is based,
therefore, on two palpable errors: one, an error in economy, that in
the labor of society tasks must necessarily be unequal; the other,
an error in physics, that there is no limit to the amount of
producible things.
"But," it will be said, "suppose there are some
people who wish to perform only half of their task?" . . . Is
that very embarrassing? Probably they are satisfied with half of
their salary. Paid according to the labor that they had performed,
of what could they complain? and what injury would they do to
others? In this sense, it is fair to apply the maxim, -- To each
according to his results. It is the law of equality itself.
Further, numerous difficulties, relative to the police system and
the organization of industry, might be raised here. I will reply to
them all with this one sentence, -- that they must all be solved by
the principle of equality. Thus, some one might observe, "Here
is a task which cannot be postponed without detriment to production.
Ought society to suffer from the negligence of a few? and will she
not venture -- out of respect for the right of labor -- to assure
with her own hands the product which they refuse her? In such a
case, to whom will the salary belong?"
To society; who will be allowed to perform the labor, either
herself, or through her representatives, but always in such a way
that the general equality shall never be violated, and that only the
idler shall be punished for his idleness. Further, if society may
not use excessive severity towards her lazy members, she has a
right, in self-defence, to guard against abuses.
But every industry needs -- they will add -- leaders, instructors,
superintendents, &c. Will these be engaged in the general task?
No; since their task is to lead, instruct, and superintend. But they
must be chosen from the laborers by the laborers themselves, and
must fulfil the conditions of eligibility. It is the same with all
public functions, whether of administration or instruction.
Then, article first of the universal constitution will be: --
"The limited quantity of available material proves the
necessity of dividing the labor among the whole number of laborers.
The capacity, given to all, of accomplishing a social task, -- that
is, an equal task, -- and the impossibility of paying one laborer
save in the products of another, justify the equality of wages."
7. -- That Inequality of Powers is the Necessary Condition of
Equality of Fortunes.
It is objected, -- and this objection constitutes the second part
of the St. Simonian, and the third part of the Fourierstic, maxims,
--
"That all kinds of labor cannot be executed with equal ease.
Some require great superiority of skill and intelligence; and on
this superiority is based the price. The artist, the savant,
the poet, the statesman, are esteemed only because of their
excellence; and this excellence destroys all similitude between them
and other men: in the presence of these heights of science and
genius the law of equality disappears. Now, if equality is not
absolute, there is no equality. From the poet we descend to the
novelist; from the sculptor to the stonecutter; from the architect
to the mason; from the chemist to the cook, &c. Capacities are
classified and subdivided into orders, genera, and species. The
extremes of talent are connected by intermediate talents. Humanity
is a vast hierarchy, in which the individual estimates himself by
comparison, and fixes his price by the value placed upon his product
by the public."
This objection always has seemed a formidable one. It is the
stumbling-block of the economists, as well as of the defenders of
equality. It has led the former into egregious blunders, and has
caused the latter to utter incredible platitudes. Gracchus Babeuf
wished all superiority to be stringently repressed, and even
persecuted as a social calamity. To establish his
communistic edifice, he lowered all citizens to the stature of the
smallest. Ignorant eclectics have been known to object to the
inequality of knowledge, and I should not be surprised if some one
should yet rebel against the inequality of virtue. Aristotle was
banished, Socrates drank the hemlock, Epaminondas was called to
account, for having proved superior in intelligence and virtue to
some dissolute and foolish demagogues. Such follies will be
re-enacted, so long as the inequality of fortunes justifies a
populace, blinded and oppressed by the wealthy, in fearing the
elevation of new tyrants to power.
Nothing seems more unnatural than that which we examine too
closely, and often nothing seems less like the truth than the truth
itself. On the other hand, according to J. J. Rousseau, "it
takes a great deal of philosophy to enable us to observe once what
we see every day;" and, according to d'Alembert, "the
ordinary truths of life make but little impression on men, unless
their attention is especially called to them." The father of
the school of economists (Say), from whom I borrow these two
quotations, might have profited by them; but he who laughs at the
blind should wear spectacles, and he who notices him is
near-sighted.
Strange! that which has frightened so many minds is not, after
all, an objection to equality -- it is the very condition on which
equality exists! . . .
Natural inequality the condition of equality of fortunes! . . .
What a paradox! . . . I repeat my assertion, that no one may think I
have blundered -- inequality of powers is the sine qua non
of equality of fortunes.
There are two things to be considered in society -- functions
and relations.
I. Functions. Every laborer is supposed to be capable of
performing the task assigned to him; or, to use a common expression,
"every workman must know his trade." The workman equal to
his work, -- there is an equation between functionary and function.
In society, functions are not alike; there must be, then,
different capacities. Further, -- certain functions demand greater
intelligence and powers; then there are people of superior mind and
talent. For the performance of work necessarily involves a workman:
from the need springs the idea, and the idea makes the producer. We
only know what our senses long for and our intelligence demands; we
have no keen desire for things of which we cannot conceive, and the
greater our powers of conception, the greater our capabilities of
production.
Thus, functions arising from needs, needs from desires, and
desires from spontaneous perception and imagination, the same
intelligence which imagines can also produce; consequently, no labor
is superior to the laborer. In a word, if the function calls out the
functionary, it is because the functionary exists before the
function.
Let us admire Nature's economy. With regard to these various needs
which she has given us, and which the isolated man cannot satisfy
unaided, Nature has granted to the race a power refused to the
individual. This gives rise to the principle of the division of
labor, -- a principle founded on the speciality of vocations.
The satisfaction of some needs demands of man continual creation;
while others can, by the labor of a single individual, be satisfied
for millions of men through thousands of centuries. For example, the
need of clothing and food requires perpetual reproduction; while a
knowledge of the system of the universe may be acquired for ever by
two or three highly-gifted men. The perpetual current of rivers
supports our commerce, and runs our machinery; but the sun, alone in
the midst of space, gives light to the whole world. Nature, who
might create Platos and Virgils, Newtons and Cuviers, as she creates
husbandmen and shepherds, does not see fit to do so; choosing rather
to proportion the rarity of genius to the duration of its products,
and to balance the number of capacities by the competency of each
one of them.
I do not inquire here whether the distance which separates one man
from another, in point of talent and intelligence, arises from the
deplorable condition of civilization, nor whether that which is now
called the inequality of powers would be in an ideal society
any thing more than a diversity of powers. I take the worst
view of the matter; and, that I may not be accused of tergiversation
and evasion of difficulties, I acknowledge all the inequalities that
any one can desire.
I cannot conceive how any one dares to justify the inequality of
conditions, by pointing to the base inclinations and propensities of
certain men. Whence comes this shameful degradation of heart and
mind to which so many fall victims, if not from the misery and
abjection into which property plunges them?
Certain philosophers, in love with the levelling idea, maintain
that all minds are equal, and that all differences are the result of
education. I am no believer, I confess, in this doctrine; which,
even if it were true, would lead to a result directly opposite to
that desired. For, if capacities are equal, whatever be the degree
of their power (as no one can be coerced), there are functions
deemed coarse, low, and degrading, which deserve higher pay, -- a
result no less repugnant to equality than to the principle, to
each capacity according to its results. Give me, on the
contrary, a society in which every kind of talent bears a proper
numerical relation to the needs of the society, and which demands
from each producer only that which his special function requires him
to produce; and, without impairing in the least the hierarchy of
functions, I will deduce the equality of fortunes.
This is my second point.
II. Relations. In considering the element of labor, I have
shown that in the same class of productive services, the capacity to
perform a social task being possessed by all, no inequality of
reward can be based upon an inequality of individual powers.
However, it is but fair to say that certain capacities seem quite
incapable of certain services; so that, if human industry were
entirely confined to one class of products, numerous incapacities
would arise, and, consequently, the greatest social inequality. But
every body sees, without any hint from me, that the variety of
industries avoids this difficulty; so clear is this that I shall not
stop to discuss it. We have only to prove, then, that functions are
equal to each other; just as laborers, who perform the same
function, are equal to each other. -- -- Property makes man a
eunuch, and then reproaches him for being nothing but dry wood, a
decaying tree.
Are you astonished that I refuse to genius, to knowledge, to
courage, -- in a word, to all the excellences admired by the world,
-- the homage of dignities, the distinctions of power and wealth? It
is not I who refuse it: it is economy, it is justice, it is liberty.
Liberty! for the first time in this discussion I appeal to her. Let
her rise in her own defence, and achieve her victory.
Every transaction ending in an exchange of products or services
may be designated as a commercial operation.
Whoever says commerce, says exchange of equal values; for, if the
values are not equal, and the injured party perceives it, he will
not consent to the exchange, and there will be no commerce.
Commerce exists only among free men. Transactions may be effected
between other people by violence or fraud, but there is no commerce.
A free man is one who enjoys the use of his reason and his
faculties; who is neither blinded by passion, nor hindered or driven
by oppression, nor deceived by erroneous opinions.
So, in every exchange, there is a moral obligation that neither of
the contracting parties shall gain at the expense of the other; that
is, that, to be legitimate and true, commerce must be exempt from
all inequality. This is the first condition of commerce. Its second
condition is, that it be voluntary; that is, that the parties act
freely and openly.
I define, then, commerce or exchange as an act of society.
...
The peasant who hires land, the manufacturer who borrows capital,
the tax-payer who pays tolls, duties, patent and license fees,
personal and property taxes, &c., and the deputy who votes for
them, -- all act neither intelligently nor freely. Their enemies are
the proprietors, the capitalists, the government.
Give men liberty, enlighten their minds that they may know the
meaning of their contracts, and you will see the most perfect
equality in exchanges without regard to superiority of talent and
knowledge; and you will admit that in commercial affairs, that is,
in the sphere of society, the word superiority is void of sense.
...
In order that the bard of Achilles may get his due reward, he must
first make himself wanted: that done, the exchange of his verse for
a fee of any kind, being a free act, must be at the same time a just
act; that is, the poet's fee must be equal to his product. Now, what
is the value of this product?
Let us suppose, in the first place, that this "Iliad" --
this chef-d' oeuvre that is to be equitably rewarded -- is
really above price, that we do not know how to appraise it. If the
public, who are free to purchase it, refuse to do so, it is clear
that, the poem being unexchangeable, its intrinsic value will not be
diminished; but that its exchangeable value, or its productive
utility, will be reduced to zero, will be nothing at all. Then we
must seek the amount of wages to be paid between infinity on the one
hand and nothing on the other, at an equal distance from each,
since all rights and liberties are entitled to equal respect; in
other words, it is not the intrinsic value, but the relative value,
of the thing sold that needs to be fixed. The question grows
simpler: what is this relative value? To what reward does a poem
like the "Iliad" entitle its author?
The first business of political economy, after fixing its
definitions, was the solution of this problem; now, not only has it
not been solved, but it has been declared insoluble. According to
the economists, the relative or exchangeable value of things cannot
be absolutely determined; it necessarily varies.
"The value of a thing," says Say, "is a positive
quantity, but only for a given moment. It is its nature to
perpetually vary, to change from one point to another. Nothing can
fix it absolutely, because it is based on needs and means of
production which vary with every moment. These variations complicate
economical phenomena, and often render them very difficult of
observation and solution. I know no remedy for this; it is not in
our power to change the nature of things."
Elsewhere Say says, and repeats, that value being based on
utility, and utility depending entirely on our needs, whims,
customs, &c., value is as variable as opinion. Now, political
economy being the science of values, of their production,
distribution, exchange, and consumption, -- if exchangeable value
cannot be absolutely determined, how is political economy possible?
How can it be a science? How can two economists look each other in
the face without laughing? How dare they insult metaphysicians and
psychologists? What! that fool of a Descartes imagined that
philosophy needed an immovable base -- an aliquid inconcussum
-- on which the edifice of science might be built, and he was simple
enough to search for it! And the Hermes of economy, Trismegistus
Say, devoting half a volume to the amplification of that solemn
text, political economy is a science, has the courage to
affirm immediately afterwards that this science cannot determine its
object, -- which is equivalent to saying that it is without a
principle or foundation! He does not know, then, the illustrious
Say, the nature of a science; or rather, he knows nothing of the
subject which he discusses.
Say's example has borne its fruits. Political economy, as it
exists at present, resembles ontology: discussing effects and
causes, it knows nothing, explains nothing, decides nothing. The
ideas honored with the name of economic laws are nothing more than a
few trifling generalities, to which the economists thought to give
an appearance of depth by clothing them in high-sounding words. As
for the attempts that have been made by the economists to solve
social problems, all that can be said of them is, that, if a glimmer
of sense occasionally appears in their lucubrations, they
immediately fall back into absurdity. For twenty-five years
political economy, like a heavy fog, has weighed upon France,
checking the efforts of the mind, and setting limits to liberty.
Has every creation of industry a venal, absolute, unchangeable,
and consequently legitimate and true value? -- Yes.
Can every product of man be exchanged for some other product of
man? -- Yes, again.
How many nails is a pair of shoes worth?
If we can solve this appalling problem, we shall have the key of
the social system for which humanity has been searching for six
thousand years. In the presence of this problem, the economist
recoils confused; the peasant who can neither read nor write replies
without hesitation: "As many as can be made in the same time,
and with the same expense."
The absolute value of a thing, then, is its cost in time and
expense. How much is a diamond worth which costs only the labor of
picking it up? -- Nothing; it is not a product of man. How much will
it be worth when cut and mounted? -- The time and expense which it
has cost the laborer. Why, then, is it sold at so high a price? --
Because men are not free. Society must regulate the exchange and
distribution of the rarest things, as it does that of the most
common ones, in such a way that each may share in the enjoyment of
them. What, then, is that value which is based upon opinion? --
Delusion, injustice, and robbery.
By this rule, it is easy to reconcile every body. If the mean
term, which we are searching for, between an infinite value and no
value at all is expressed in the case of every product, by the
amount of time and expense which the product cost, a poem which has
cost its author thirty years of labor and an outlay of ten thousand
francs in journeys, books, &c., must be paid for by the ordinary
wages received by a laborer during thirty years, plus ten
thousand francs indemnity for expense incurred. Suppose the whole
amount to be fifty thousand francs; if the society which gets the
benefit of the production include a million of men, my share of the
debt is five centimes.
This gives rise to a few observations.
1. The same product, at different times and in different places,
may cost more or less of time and outlay; in this view, it is true
that value is a variable quantity. But this variation is not that of
the economists, who place in their list of the causes of the
variation of values, not only the means of production, but taste,
caprice, fashion, and opinion. In short, the true value of a thing
is invariable in its algebraic expression, although it may vary in
its monetary expression.
2. The price of every product in demand should be its cost in time
and outlay -- neither more nor less: every product not in demand is
a loss to the producer -- a commercial non-value.
3. The ignorance of the principle of evaluation, and the
difficulty under many circumstances of applying it, is the source of
commercial fraud, and one of the most potent causes of the
inequality of fortunes.
4. To reward certain industries and pay for certain products, a
society is needed which corresponds in size with the rarity of
talents, the costliness of the products, and the variety of the arts
and sciences. If, for example, a society of fifty farmers can
support a schoolmaster, it requires one hundred for a shoemaker, one
hundred and fifty for a blacksmith, two hundred for a tailor, &c.
If the number of farmers rises to one thousand, ten thousand, one
hundred thousand, &c., as fast as their number increases, that
of the functionaries which are earliest required must increase in
the same proportion; so that the highest functions become possible
only in the most powerful societies. That is the peculiar feature of
capacities; the character of genius, the seal of its glory, cannot
arise and develop itself, except in the bosom of a great nation. But
this physiological condition, necessary to the existence of genius,
adds nothing to its social rights: far from that, -- the delay in
its appearance proves that, in economical and civil affairs, the
loftiest intelligence must submit to the equality of possessions; an
equality which is anterior to it, and of which it constitutes the
crown.
This is severe on our pride, but it is an inexorable truth. And
here psychology comes to the aid of social economy, giving us to
understand that talent and material recompense have no common
measure; that, in this respect, the condition of all producers is
equal: consequently, that all comparison between them, and all
distinction in fortunes, is impossible.
How many citizens are needed to support a professor of philosophy?
-- Thirty-five millions. How many for an economist? -- Two billions.
And for a literary man, who is neither a savant, nor an
artist, nor a philosopher, nor an economist, and who writes
newspaper novels? -- None.
In fact, every work coming from the hands of man -- compared with
the raw material of which it is composed -- is beyond price. In this
respect, the distance is as great between a pair of wooden shoes and
the trunk of a walnut-tree, as between a statue by Scopas and a
block of marble. The genius of the simplest mechanic exerts as much
influence over the materials which he uses, as does the mind of a
Newton over the inert spheres whose distances, volumes, and
revolutions he calculates. You ask for talent and genius a
corresponding degree of honor and reward. Fix for me the value of a
wood-cutter's talent, and I will fix that of Homer. If any thing can
reward intelligence, it is intelligence itself. That is what
happens, when various classes of producers pay to each other a
reciprocal tribute of admiration and praise. But if they contemplate
an exchange of products with a view to satisfying mutual needs, this
exchange must be effected in accordance with a system of economy
which is indifferent to considerations of talent and genius, and
whose laws are deduced, not from vague and meaningless admiration,
but from a just balance between debit and credit; in
short, from commercial accounts.
Now, that no one may imagine that the liberty of buying and
selling is the sole basis of the equality of wages, and that
society's sole protection against superiority of talent lies in a
certain force of inertia which has nothing in common with right, I
shall proceed to explain why all capacities are entitled to the same
reward, and why a corresponding difference in wages would be an
injustice. I shall prove that the obligation to stoop to the social
level is inherent in talent; and on this very superiority of genius
I will found the equality of fortunes. I have just given the
negative argument in favor of rewarding all capacities alike; I will
now give the direct and positive argument.
Listen, first, to the economist: it is always pleasant to see how
he reasons, and how he understands justice. Without him, moreover,
without his amusing blunders and his wonderful arguments, we should
learn nothing. Equality, so odious to the economist, owes every
thing to political economy.
"When the parents of a physician [the text says a lawyer,
which is not so good an example] have expended on his education
forty thousand francs, this sum may be regarded as so much capital
invested in his head. It is therefore permissible to consider it as
yielding an annual income of four thousand francs. If the physician
earns thirty thousand, there remains an income of twenty-six
thousand francs due to the personal talents given him by Nature.
This natural capital, then, if we assume ten per cent. as the rate
of interest, amounts to two hundred and sixty thousand francs; and
the capital given him by his parents, in defraying the expenses of
his education, to forty thousand francs. The union of these two
kinds of capital constitutes his fortune." -- Say: Complete
Course, &c..
Say divides the fortune of the physician into two parts: one is
composed of the capital which went to pay for his education, the
other represents his personal talents. This division is just; it is
in conformity with the nature of things; it is universally admitted;
it serves as the major premise of that grand argument which
establishes the inequality of capacities. I accept this premise
without qualification; let us look at the consequences.
1. Say credits the physician with forty thousand francs,
-- the cost of his education. This amount should be entered upon the
debit side of the account. For, although this expense was
incurred for him, it was not incurred by him. Then, instead of
appropriating these forty thousand francs, the physician should add
them to the price of his product, and repay them to those who are
entitled to them. Notice, further, that Say speaks of income
instead of reimbursement; reasoning on the false principle
of the productivity of capital. The expense of educating a talent is
a debt contracted by this talent. From the very fact of its
existence, it becomes a debtor to an amount equal to the cost of its
production. This is so true and simple that, if the education of
some one child in a family has cost double or triple that of its
brothers, the latter are entitled to a proportional amount of the
property previous to its division. There is no difficulty about this
in the case of guardianship, when the estate is administered in the
name of the minors.
2. That which I have just said of the obligation incurred by
talent of repaying the cost of its education does not embarrass the
economist. The man of talent, he says, inheriting from his family,
inherits among other things a claim to the forty thousand francs
which his education costs; and he becomes, in consequence, its
proprietor. But this is to abandon the right of talent, and to fall
back upon the right of occupancy; which again calls up all the
questions asked in Chapter II. What is the right of occupancy? what
is inheritance? Is the right of succession a right of accumulation
or only a right of choice? how did the physician's father get his
fortune? was he a proprietor, or only a usufructuary? If he was
rich, let him account for his wealth; if he was poor, how could he
incur so large an expense? If he received aid, what right had he to
use that aid to the disadvantage of his benefactors, &c.?
3. "There remains an income of twenty-six thousand francs due
to the personal talents given him by Nature." (Say, --
as above quoted.) Reasoning from this premise, Say concludes that
our physician's talent is equivalent to a capital of two hundred and
sixty thousand francs. This skilful calculator mistakes a
consequence for a principle. The talent must not be measured by the
gain, but rather the gain by the talent; for it may happen, that,
notwithstanding his merit, the physician in question will gain
nothing at all, in which case will it be necessary to conclude that
his talent or fortune is equivalent to zero? To such a result,
however, would Say's reasoning lead; a result which is clearly
absurd.
Now, it is impossible to place a money value on any talent
whatsoever, since talent and money have no common measure. On what
plausible ground can it be maintained that a physician should be
paid two, three, or a hundred times as much as a peasant? An
unavoidable difficulty, which has never been solved save by avarice,
necessity, and oppression. It is not thus that the right of talent
should be determined. But how is it to be determined?
4. I say, first, that the physician must be treated with as much
favor as any other producer, that he must not be placed below the
level of others. This I will not stop to prove. But I add that
neither must he be lifted above that level; because his talent is
collective property for which he did not pay, and for which he is
ever in debt.
Just as the creation of every instrument of production is the
result of collective force, so also are a man's talent and knowledge
the product of universal intelligence and of general knowledge
slowly accumulated by a number of masters, and through the aid of
many inferior industries. When the physician has paid for his
teachers, his books, his diplomas, and all the other items of his
educational expenses, he has no more paid for his talent than the
capitalist pays for his house and land when he gives his employees
their wages. The man of talent has contributed to the production in
himself of a useful instrument. He has, then, a share in its
possession; he is not its proprietor. There exist side by side in
him a free laborer and an accumulated social capital. As a laborer,
he is charged with the use of an instrument, with the
superintendence of a machine; namely, his capacity. As capital, he
is not his own master; he uses himself, not for his own benefit, but
for that of others.
Even if talent did not find in its own excellence a reward for the
sacrifices which it costs, still would it be easier to find reasons
for lowering its reward than for raising it above the common level.
Every producer receives an education; every laborer is a talent, a
capacity, -- that is, a piece of collective property. But all
talents are not equally costly. It takes but few teachers, but few
years, and but little study, to make a farmer or a mechanic: the
generative effort and -- if I may venture to use such language --
the period of social gestation are proportional to the loftiness of
the capacity. But while the physician, the poet, the artist, and the
savant produce but little, and that slowly, the productions
of the farmer are much less uncertain, and do not require so long a
time. Whatever be then the capacity of a man, -- when this capacity
is once created, -- it does not belong to him. Like the material
fashioned by an industrious hand, it had the power of becoming,
and society has given it being. Shall the vase say to the
potter, "I am that I am, and I owe you nothing"?
The artist, the savant, and the poet find their just
recompense in the permission that society gives them to devote
themselves exclusively to science and to art: so that in reality
they do not labor for themselves, but for society, which creates
them, and requires of them no other duty. Society can, if need be,
do without prose and verse, music and painting, and the knowledge of
the movements of the moon and stars; but it cannot live a single day
without food and shelter.
Undoubtedly, man does not live by bread alone; he must, also
(according to the Gospel), live by the word of God; that is,
he must love the good and do it, know and admire the beautiful, and
study the marvels of Nature. But in order to cultivate his mind, he
must first take care of his body, -- the latter duty is as necessary
as the former is noble. If it is glorious to charm and instruct men,
it is honorable as well to feed them. When, then, society --
faithful to the principle of the division of labor -- intrusts a
work of art or of science to one of its members, allowing him to
abandon ordinary labor, it owes him an indemnity for all which it
prevents him from producing industrially; but it owes him nothing
more. If he should demand more, society should, by refusing his
services, annihilate his pretensions. Forced, then, in order to
live, to devote himself to labor repugnant to his nature, the man of
genius would feel his weakness, and would live the most distasteful
of lives.
...
It is said, in reply, that the managers of the theatre cannot give
more without incurring a loss; that they admit the superior talent
of their young associate; but that, in fixing her salary, they have
been compelled to take the account of the company's receipts and
expenses into consideration also.
That is just, but it only confirms what I have said; namely, that
an artist's talent may be infinite, but that its mercenary claims
are necessarily limited, -- on the one hand, by its usefulness to
the society which rewards it; on the other, by the resources of this
society: in other words, that the demand of the seller is balanced
by the right of the buyer.
...
It is because we are neither free nor sufficiently enlightened,
that we submit to be cheated in our bargains; that the laborer pays
the duties levied by the prestige of power and the selfishness of
talent upon the curiosity of the idle, and that we are perpetually
scandalized by these monstrous inequalities which are encouraged and
applauded by public opinion.
The whole nation, and the nation only, pays its authors, its savants,
its artists, its officials, whatever be the hands through which
their salaries pass. On what basis should it pay them? On the basis
of equality. I have proved it by estimating the value of talent. I
shall confirm it in the following chapter, by proving the
impossibility of all social inequality.
What have we shown so far? Things so simple that really they seem
silly: --
That, as the traveller does not appropriate the route which he
traverses, so the farmer does not appropriate the field which he
sows;
That if, nevertheless, by reason of his industry, a laborer may
appropriate the material which he employs, every employer of
material becomes, by the same title, a proprietor;
That all capital, whether material or mental, being the result of
collective labor, is, in consequence, collective property;
That the strong have no right to encroach upon the labor of the
weak, nor the shrewd to take advantage of the credulity of the
simple;
Finally, that no one can be forced to buy that which he does not
want, still less to pay for that which he has not bought; and,
consequently, that the exchangeable value of a product, being
measured neither by the opinion of the buyer nor that of the seller,
but by the amount of time and outlay which it has cost, the property
of each always remains the same.
Are not these very simple truths? Well, as simple as they seem to
you, reader, you shall yet see others which surpass them in dullness
and simplicity. For our course is the reverse of that of the
geometricians: with them, the farther they advance, the more
difficult their problems become; we, on the contrary, after having
commenced with the most abstruse propositions, shall end with the
axioms.
But I must close this chapter with an exposition of one of those
startling truths which never have been dreamed of by legists or
economists. 8. -- That, from the Stand-point of Justice, Labor
destroys Property.
This proposition is the logical result of the two preceding
sections, which we have just summed up.
The isolated man can supply but a very small portion of his wants;
all his power lies in association, and in the intelligent
combination of universal effort. The division and co-operation of
labor multiply the quantity and the variety of products; the
individuality of functions improves their quality.
There is not a man, then, but lives upon the products of several
thousand different industries; not a laborer but receives from
society at large the things which he consumes, and, with these, the
power to reproduce. Who, indeed, would venture the assertion, "I
produce, by my own effort, all that I consume; I need the aid of no
one else"? The farmer, whom the early economists regarded as
the only real producer -- the farmer, housed, furnished, clothed,
fed, and assisted by the mason, the carpenter, the tailor, the
miller, the baker, the butcher, the grocer, the blacksmith, &c.,
-- the farmer, I say, can he boast that he produces by his own
unaided effort?
The various articles of consumption are given to each by all;
consequently, the production of each involves the production of all.
One product cannot exist without another; an isolated industry is an
impossible thing. What would be the harvest of the farmer, if others
did not manufacture for him barns, wagons, ploughs, clothes, &c.?
Where would be the savant without the publisher; the printer
without the typecaster and the machinist; and these, in their turn,
without a multitude of other industries? . . . Let us not prolong
this catalogue -- so easy to extend -- lest we be accused of
uttering commonplaces. All industries are united by mutual relations
in a single group; all productions do reciprocal service as means
and end; all varieties of talent are but a series of changes from
the inferior to the superior.
Now, this undisputed and indisputable fact of the general
participation in every species of product makes all individual
productions common; so that every product, coming from the hands of
the producer, is mortgaged in advance by society. The producer
himself is entitled to only that portion of his product, which is
expressed by a fraction whose denominator is equal to the number of
individuals of which society is composed. It is true that in return
this same producer has a share in all the products of others, so
that he has a claim upon all, just as all have a claim upon him; but
is it not clear that this reciprocity of mortgages, far from
authorizing property, destroys even possession? The laborer is not
even possessor of his product; scarcely has he finished it, when
society claims it.
"But," it will be answered, "even if that is so --
even if the product does not belong to the producer -- still society
gives each laborer an equivalent for his product; and this
equivalent, this salary, this reward, this allowance, becomes his
property. Do you deny that this property is legitimate? And if the
laborer, instead of consuming his entire wages, chooses to
economize, -- who dare question his right to do so?"
The laborer is not even proprietor of the price of his labor, and
cannot absolutely control its disposition. Let us not be blinded by
a spurious justice. That which is given the laborer in exchange for
his product is not given him as a reward for past labor, but to
provide for and secure future labor. We consume before we produce.
The laborer may say at the end of the day, "I have paid
yesterday's expenses; to-morrow I shall pay those of today." At
every moment of his life, the member of society is in debt; he dies
with the debt unpaid: -- how is it possible for him to accumulate?
They talk of economy -- it is the proprietor's hobby. Under a
system of equality, all economy which does not aim at subsequent
reproduction or enjoyment is impossible -- why? Because the thing
saved, since it cannot be converted into capital, has no object, and
is without a final cause. This will be explained more fully
in the next chapter.
To conclude: --
The laborer, in his relation to society, is a debtor who of
necessity dies insolvent. The proprietor is an unfaithful guardian
who denies the receipt of the deposit committed to his care, and
wishes to be paid for his guardianship down to the last day.
Lest the principles just set forth may appear to certain readers
too metaphysical, I shall reproduce them in a more concrete form,
intelligible to the dullest brains, and pregnant with the most
important consequences.
Hitherto, I have considered property as a power of exclusion;
hereafter, I shall examine it as a power of invasion.
