What Is Property?
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
[1840 / Part 11 of 16]
PART SECOND
1. -- Of the Causes of our Mistakes. The Origin of Property.
The true form of human society cannot be determined until the
following question has been solved: --
Property not being our natural condition, how did it gain a
foothold?
Why has the social instinct, so trustworthy among the animals, erred
in the case of man? Why is man, who was born for society, not yet
associated?
I have said that human society is complex in its nature.
Though this expression is inaccurate, the fact to which it refers is
none the less true; namely, the classification of talents and
capacities. But who does not see that these talents and capacities,
owing to their infinite variety, give rise to an infinite variety of
wills, and that the character, the inclinations, and -- if I may
venture to use the expression -- the form of the ego, are
necessarily changed; so that in the order of liberty, as in the
order of intelligence, there are as many types as individuals, as
many characters as heads, whose tastes, fancies, and propensities,
being modified by dissimilar ideas, must necessarily conflict? Man,
by his nature and his instinct, is predestined to society; but his
personality, ever varying, is adverse to it.
In societies of animals, all the members do exactly the same
things. The same genius directs them; the same will animates them. A
society of beasts is a collection of atoms, round, hooked, cubical,
or triangular, but always perfectly identical. These personalities
do not vary, and we might say that a single ego governs them
all. The labors which animals perform, whether alone or in society,
are exact reproductions of their character. Just as the swarm of
bees is composed of individual bees, alike in nature and equal in
value, so the honeycomb is formed of individual cells, constantly
and invariably repeated.
But man's intelligence, fitted for his social destiny and his
personal needs, is of a very different composition, and therefore
gives rise to a wonderful variety of human wills. In the bee, the
will is constant and uniform, because the instinct which guides it
is invariable, and constitutes the animal's whole life and nature.
In man, talent varies, and the mind wavers; consequently, his will
is multiform and vague. He seeks society, but dislikes constraint
and monotony; he is an imitator, but fond of his own ideas, and
passionately in love with his works.
If, like the bees, every man were born possessed of talent,
perfect knowledge of certain kinds, and, in a word, an innate
acquaintance with the functions he has to perform, but destitute of
reflective and reasoning faculties, society would organize itself.
We should see one man plowing a field, another building houses; this
one forging metals, that one cutting clothes; and still others
storing the products, and superintending their distribution. Each
one, without inquiring as to the object of his labor, and without
troubling himself about the extent of his task, would obey orders,
bring his product, receive his salary, and would then rest for a
time; keeping meanwhile no accounts, envious of nobody, and
satisfied with the distributor, who never would be unjust to any
one. Kings would govern, but would not reign; for to reign is to be
a proprietor à l'engrais, as Bonaparte said: and
having no commands to give, since all would be at their posts, they
would serve rather as rallying centres than as authorities or
counsellors. It would be a state of ordered communism, but not a
society entered into deliberately and freely.
But man acquires skill only by observation and experiment. He
reflects, then, since to observe and experiment is to reflect; he
reasons, since he cannot help reasoning. In reflecting, he becomes
deluded; in reasoning, he makes mistakes, and, thinking himself
right, persists in them. He is wedded to his opinions; he esteems
himself, and despises others. Consequently, he isolates himself; for
he could not submit to the majority without renouncing his will and
his reason, -- that is, without disowning himself, which is
impossible. And this isolation, this intellectual egotism, this
individuality of opinion, lasts until the truth is demonstrated to
him by observation and experience. A final illustration will make
these facts still clearer.
If to the blind but convergent and harmonious instincts of a swarm
of bees should be suddenly added reflection and judgment, the little
society could not long exist. In the first place, the bees would not
fail to try some new industrial process; for instance, that of
making their cells round or square. All sorts of systems and
inventions would be tried, until long experience, aided by geometry,
should show them that the hexagonal shape is the best. Then
insurrections would occur. The drones would be told to provide for
themselves, and the queens to labor; jealousy would spread among the
laborers; discords would burst forth; soon each one would want to
produce on his own account; and finally the hive would be abandoned,
and the bees would perish. Evil would be introduced into the
honey-producing republic by the power of reflection, -- the very
faculty which ought to constitute its glory.
Thus, moral evil, or, in this case, disorder in society, is
naturally explained by our power of reflection. The mother of
poverty, crime, insurrection, and war was inequality of conditions;
which was the daughter of property, which was born of selfishness,
which was engendered by private opinion, which descended in a direct
line from the autocracy of reason. Man, in his infancy, is neither
criminal nor barbarous, but ignorant and inexperienced. Endowed with
imperious instincts which are under the control of his reasoning
faculty, at first he reflects but little, and reasons inaccurately;
then, benefit ing by his mistakes, he rectifies his ideas, and
perfects his reason. In the first place, it is the savage
sacrificing all his possessions for a trinket, and then repenting
and weeping; it is Esau selling his birthright for a mess of
pottage, and afterwards wishing to cancel the bargain; it is the
civilized workman laboring in insecurity, and continually demanding
that his wages be increased, neither he nor his employer
understanding that, in the absence of equality, any salary, however
large, is always insufficient. Then it is Naboth dying to defend his
inheritance; Cato tearing out his entrails that he might not be
enslaved; Socrates drinking the fatal cup in defence of liberty of
thought; it is the third estate of '89 reclaiming its liberty: soon
it will be the people demanding equality of wages and an equal
division of the means of production.
Man is born a social being, -- that is, he seeks equality and
justice in all his relations, but he loves independence and praise.
The difficulty of satisfying these various desires at the same time
is the primary cause of the despotism of the will, and the
appropriation which results from it. On the other hand, man always
needs a market for his products; unable to compare values of
different kinds, he is satisfied to judge approximately, according
to his passion and caprice; and he engages in dishonest commerce,
which always results in wealth and poverty. Thus, the greatest evils
which man suffers arise from the misuse of his social nature, of
this same justice of which he is so proud, and which he applies with
such deplorable ignorance. The practice of justice is a science
which, when once discovered and diffused, will sooner or later put
an end to social disorder, by teaching us our rights and duties.
This progressive and painful education of our instinct, this slow
and imperceptible transformation of our spontaneous perceptions into
deliberate knowledge, does not take place among the animals, whose
instincts remain fixed, and never become enlightened.
"According to Frederic Cuvier, who has so clearly
distinguished between instinct and intelligence in animals,
`instinct is a natural and inherent faculty, like feeling,
irritability, or intelligence. The wolf and the fox who recognize
the traps in which they have been caught, and who avoid them; the
dog and the horse, who understand the meaning of several of our
words, and who obey us, -- thereby show intelligence. The
dog who hides the remains of his dinner, the bee who constructs his
cell, the bird who builds his nest, act only from instinct.
Even man has instincts: it is a special instinct which leads the
new-born child to suck. But, in man, almost every thing is
accomplished by intelligence; and intelligence supplements instinct.
The opposite is true of animals: their instinct is given them as a
supplement to their intelligence.' " -- Flourens:
Analytical Summary of the Observations of F. Cuvier.
"We can form a clear idea of instinct only by admitting that
animals have in their sensorium, images or innate and
constant sensations, which influence their actions in the same
manner that ordinary and accidental sensations commonly do. It is a
sort of dream, or vision, which always follows them and in all which
relates to instinct they may be regarded as somnambulists." --
F. Cuvier: Introduction to the Animal Kingdom.
Intelligence and instinct being common, then, though in different
degrees, to animals and man, what is the distinguishing
characteristic of the latter? According to F. Cuvier, it is reflection
or the power of intellectually considering our own modifications by
a survey of ourselves.
This lacks clearness, and requires an explanation.
If we grant intelligence to animals, we must also grant them, in
some degree, reflection; for, the first cannot exist without the
second, as F. Cuvier himself has proved by numerous examples. But
notice that the learned observer defines the kind of reflection
which distinguishes us from the animals as the power of
considering our own modifications. This I shall endeavour to
interpret, by developing to the best of my ability the laconism of
the philosophical naturalist.
The intelligence acquired by animals never modifies the operations
which they perform by instinct: it is given them only as a provision
against unexpected accidents which might disturb these operations.
In man, on the contrary, instinctive action is constantly changing
into deliberate action. Thus, man is social by instinct, and is
every day becoming social by reflection and choice. At first, he
formed his words by instinct;[*]
[*] "The problem of the origin of language
is solved by the distinction made by Frederic Cuvier between
instinct and intelligence. Language is not a premeditated,
arbitrary, or conventional device; nor is it communicated or
revealed to us by God. Language is an instinctive and unpremeditated
creation of man, as the hive is of the bee. In this sense, it may be
said that language is not the work of man, since it is not the work
of his mind. Further, the mechanism of language seems more wonderful
and ingenious when it is not regarded as the result of reflection.
This fact is one of the most curious and indisputable which
philology has observed. See, among other works, a Latin essay by F.
G. Bergmann (Strasbourg, 1839), in which the learned author explains
how the phonetic germ is born of sensation; how language passes
through three successive stages of development; why man, endowed at
birth with the instinctive faculty of creating a language, loses
this faculty as fast as his mind develops; and that the study of
languages is real natural history, -- in fact, a science. France
possesses to-day several philologists of the first rank, endowed
with rare talents and deep philosophic insight, -- modest savants
developing a science almost without the knowledge of the public;
devoting themselves to studies which are scornfully looked down
upon, and seeming to shun applause as much as others seek it."
All that he does from instinct man despises; or, if he admires it,
it is as Nature's work, not as his own. This explains the obscurity
which surrounds the names of early inventors; it explains also our
indifference to religious matters, and the ridicule heaped upon
religious customs. Man esteems only the products of reflection and
of reason. The most wonderful works of instinct are, in his eyes,
only lucky god-sends; he reserves the name discovery
-- I had almost said creation -- for the works of intelligence.
Instinct is the source of passion and enthusiasm; it is intelligence
which causes crime and virtue.
In developing his intelligence, man makes use of not only his own
observations, but also those of others. He keeps an account of his
experience, and preserves the record; so that the race, as well as
the individual, becomes more and more intelligent. The animals do
not transmit their knowledge; that which each individual accumulates
dies with him.
It is not enough, then, to say that we are distinguished from the
animals by reflection, unless we mean thereby the constant
tendency of our instinct to become intelligence. While man is
governed by instinct, he is unconscious of his acts. He never would
deceive himself, and never would be troubled by errors, evils, and
disorder, if, like the animals, instinct were his only guide. But
the Creator has endowed us with reflection, to the end that our
instinct might become intelligence; and since this reflection and
resulting knowledge pass through various stages, it happens that in
the beginning our instinct is opposed, rather than guided, by
reflection; consequently, that our power of thought leads us to act
in opposition to our nature and our end; that, deceiving ourselves,
we do and suffer evil, until instinct which points us towards good,
and reflection which makes us stumble into evil, are replaced by the
science of good and evil, which invariably causes us to seek the one
and avoid the other.
Thus, evil -- or error and its consequences -- is the firstborn
son of the union of two opposing faculties, instinct and reflection;
good, or truth, must inevitably be the second child. Or, to again
employ the figure, evil is the product of incest between adverse
powers; good will sooner or later be the legitimate child of their
holy and mysterious union.
Property, born of the reasoning faculty, intrenches itself behind
comparisons. But, just as reflection and reason are subsequent to
spontaneity, observation to sensation, and experience to instinct,
so property is subsequent to communism. Communism -- or association
in a simple form -- is the necessary object and original aspiration
of the social nature, the spontaneous movement by which it manifests
and establishes itself. It is the first phase of human civilization.
In this state of society, -- which the jurists have called negative
communism -- man draws near to man, and shares with him the
fruits of the field and the milk and flesh of animals. Little by
little this communism -- negative as long as man does not produce --
tends to become positive and organic through the development of
labor and industry. But it is then that the sovereignty of thought,
and the terrible faculty of reasoning logically or illogically,
teach man that, if equality is the sine qua non of society,
communism is the first species of slavery. To express this idea by
an Hegelian formula, I will say:
Communism -- the first expression of the social nature -- is the
first term of social development, -- the thesis; property,
the reverse of communism, is the second term, -- the antithesis.
When we have discovered the third term, the synthesis, we
shall have the required solution. Now, this synthesis necessarily
results from the correction of the thesis by the antithesis.
Therefore it is necessary, by a final examination of their
characteristics, to eliminate those features which are hostile to
sociability. The union of the two remainders will give us the true
form of human association.
2. -- Characteristics of Communism and of Property.
I. I ought not to conceal the fact that property and communism
have been considered always the only possible forms of society. This
deplorable error has been the life of property. The disadvantages of
communism are so obvious that its critics never have needed to
employ much eloquence to thoroughly disgust men with it. The
irreparability of the injustice which it causes, the violence which
it does to attractions and repulsions, the yoke of iron which it
fastens upon the will, the moral torture to which it subjects the
conscience, the debilitating effect which it has upon society; and,
to sum it all up, the pious and stupid uniformity which it enforces
upon the free, active, reasoning, unsubmissive personality of man,
have shocked common sense, and condemned communism by an irrevocable
decree.
The authorities and examples cited in its favor disprove it. The
communistic republic of Plato involved slavery; that of Lycurgus
employed Helots, whose duty it was to produce for their masters,
thus enabling the latter to devote themselves exclusively to
athletic sports and to war. Even J. J. Rousseau -- confounding
communism and equality -- has said somewhere that, without slavery,
he did not think equality of conditions possible. The communities of
the early Church did not last the first century out, and soon
degenerated into monasteries. In those of the Jesuits of Paraguay,
the condition of the blacks is said by all travellers to be as
miserable as that of slaves; and it is a fact that the good Fathers
were obliged to surround themselves with ditches and walls to
prevent their new converts from escaping. The followers of Baboeuf
-- guided by a lofty horror of property rather than by any definite
belief -- were ruined by exaggeration of their principles; the St.
Simonians, lumping communism and inequality, passed away like a
masquerade. The greatest danger to which society is exposed to-day
is that of another shipwreck on this rock.
Singularly enough, systematic communism -- the deliberate negation
of property -- is conceived under the direct influence of the
proprietary prejudice; and property is the basis of all communistic
theories.
The members of a community, it is true, have no private property;
but the community is proprietor, and proprietor not only of the
goods, but of the persons and wills. In consequence of this
principle of absolute property, labor, which should be only a
condition imposed upon man by Nature, becomes in all communities a
human commandment, and therefore odious. Passive obedience,
irreconcilable with a reflecting will, is strictly enforced.
Fidelity to regulations, which are always defective, however wise
they may be thought, allows of no complaint. Life, talent, and all
the human faculties are the property of the State, which has the
right to use them as it pleases for the common good. Private
associations are sternly prohibited, in spite of the likes and
dislikes of different natures, because to tolerate them would be to
introduce small communities within the large one, and consequently
private property; the strong work for the weak, although this ought
to be left to benevolence, and not enforced, advised, or enjoined;
the industrious work for the lazy, although this is unjust; the
clever work for the foolish, although this is absurd; and, finally,
man -- casting aside his personality, his spontaneity, his genius,
and his affections -- humbly annihilates himself at the feet of the
majestic and inflexible Commune!
Communism is inequality, but not as property is. Property is the
exploitation of the weak by the strong. Communism is the
exploitation of the strong by the weak. In property, inequality of
conditions is the result of force, under whatever name it be
disguised: physical and mental force; force of events, chance, fortune;
force of accumulated property, &c. In communism, inequality
springs from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence. This
damaging equation is repellent to the conscience, and causes merit
to complain; for, although it may be the duty of the strong to aid
the weak, they prefer to do it out of generosity, -- they never will
endure a comparison. Give them equal opportunities of labor, and
equal wages, but never allow their jealousy to be awakened by mutual
suspicion of unfaithfulness in the performance of the common task.
Communism is oppression and slavery. Man is very willing to obey
the law of duty, serve his country, and oblige his friends; but he
wishes to labor when he pleases, where he pleases, and as much as he
pleases. He wishes to dispose of his own time, to be governed only
by necessity, to choose his friendships, his recreation, and his
discipline; to act from judgment, not by command; to sacrifice
himself through selfishness, not through servile obligation.
Communism is essentially opposed to the free exercise of our
faculties, to our noblest desires, to our deepest feelings. Any plan
which could be devised for reconciling it with the demands of the
individual reason and will would end only in changing the thing
while preserving the name. Now, if we are honest truth-seekers, we
shall avoid disputes about words.
Thus, communism violates the sovereignty of the conscience, and
equality: the first, by restricting spontaneity of mind and heart,
and freedom of thought and action; the second, by placing labor and
laziness, skill and stupidity, and even vice and virtue on an
equality in point of comfort. For the rest, if property is
impossible on account of the desire to accumulate, communism would
soon become so through the desire to shirk.
II. Property, in its turn, violates equality by the rights of
exclusion and increase, and freedom by despotism. The former effect
of property having been sufficiently developed in the last three
chapters, I will content myself here with establishing by a final
comparison, its perfect identity with robbery.
The Latin words for robber are fur and latro; the
former taken from the Greek for, from GREEK or fhrw, Latin fero,
I carry away; the latter from laqrw, I play the part of a brigand,
which is derived from lhqw, Latin lateo, I conceal myself.
The Greeks have also klepths, from kleptw, I filch, whose radical
consonants are the same as those of kalnptw, I cover, I conceal.
Thus, in these languages, the idea of a robber is that of a man who
conceals, carries away, or diverts, in any manner whatever, a thing
which does not belong to him.
The Hebrews expressed the same idea by the word gannab, --
robber, -- from the verb ganab, which means to put away, to
turn aside: lo thi-gnob (Decalogue: Eighth Commandment),
thou shalt not steal, -- that is, thou shalt not hold back, thou
shalt not put away any thing for thyself. That is the act of a man
who, on entering into a society into which he agrees to bring all
that he has, secretly reserves a portion, as did the celebrated
disciple Ananias.
The etymology of the French verb voler is still more
significant. Voler, or faire la vole (from the Latin
vola, palm of the hand), means to take all the tricks in a
game of ombre; so that le voleur, the robber, is the
capitalist who takes all, who gets the lion's share. Probably this
verb voler had its origin in the professional slang of
thieves, whence it has passed into common use, and, consequently
into the phraseology of the law.
Robbery is committed in a variety of ways, which have been very
cleverly distinguished and classified by legislators according to
their heinousness or merit, to the end that some robbers may be
honored, while others are punished.
We rob, -- 1. By murder on the highway; 2. Alone, or in a band; 3.
By breaking into buildings, or scaling walls; 4. By abstraction; 5.
By fraudulent bankruptcy; 6. By forgery of the handwriting of public
officials or private individuals; 7. By manufacture of counterfeit
money.
This species includes all robbers who practise their profession
with no other aid than force and open fraud. Bandits, brigands,
pirates, rovers by land and sea, -- these names were gloried in by
the ancient heroes, who thought their profession as noble as it was
lucrative. Nimrod, Theseus, Jason and his Argonauts; Jephthah,
David, Cacus, Romulus, Clovis and all his Merovingian descendants;
Robert Guiscard, Tancred de Hauteville, Bohemond, and most of the
Norman heroes, -- were brigands and robbers. The heroic character of
the robber is expressed in this line from Horace, in reference to
Achilles, -- "Jura neget sibi nata, nihil non arroget
armis,"[*]
[*] "My right is my lance and my buckler."
General de Brossard said, like Achilles: "I get wine, gold, and
women with my lance and my buckler."
... and by this sentence from the dying words of Jacob (Gen.
xlviii.), which the Jews apply to David, and the Christians to their
Christ: Manus ejus contra omnes. In our day, the robber --
the warrior of the ancients -- is pursued with the utmost vigor. His
profession, in the language of the code, entails ignominious and
corporal penalties, from imprisonment to the scaffold. A sad change
in opinions here below!
We rob, -- 8. By cheating; 9. By swindling; 10. By abuse of trust;
11. By games and lotteries.
This second species was encouraged by the laws of Lycurgus, in
order to sharpen the wits of the young. It is the kind practised by
Ulysses, Solon, and Sinon; by the ancient and modern Jews, from
Jacob down to Deutz; and by the Bohemians, the Arabs, and all savage
tribes. Under Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., it was not considered
dishonorable to cheat at play. To do so was a part of the game; and
many worthy people did not scruple to correct the caprice of Fortune
by dexterous jugglery. To-day even, and in all countries, it is
thought a mark of merit among peasants, merchants, and shopkeepers
to know how to make a bargain, -- that is, to deceive one's
man. This is so universally accepted, that the cheated party takes
no offence. It is known with what reluctance our government resolved
upon the abolition of lotteries. It felt that it was dealing a stab
thereby at property. The pickpocket, the blackleg, and the charlatan
make especial use of their dexterity of hand, their subtlety of
mind, the magic power of their eloquence, and their great fertility
of invention. Sometimes they offer bait to cupidity. Therefore the
penal code -- which much prefers intelligence to muscular vigor --
has made, of the four varieties mentioned above, a second category,
liable only to correctional, not to Ignominious, punishments.
Let them now accuse the law of being materialistic and atheistic.
We rob, -- 12. By usury.
This species of robbery, so odious and so severely punished since
the publication of the Gospel, is the connecting link between
forbidden and authorized robbery. Owing to its ambiguous nature, it
has given rise to a multitude of contradictions in the laws and in
morals, -- contradictions which have been very cleverly turned to
account by lawyers, financiers, and merchants. Thus the usurer, who
lends on mortgage at ten, twelve, and fifteen per cent., is heavily
fined when detected; while the banker, who receives the same
interest (not, it is true, upon a loan, but in the way of exchange
or discount, -- that is, of sale), is protected by royal privilege.
But the distinction between the banker and the usurer is a purely
nominal one. Like the usurer, who lends on property, real or
personal, the banker lends on business paper; like the usurer, he
takes his interest in advance; like the usurer, he can recover from
the borrower if the property is destroyed (that is, if the note is
not redeemed), -- a circumstance which makes him a money-lender, not
a money-seller. But the banker lends for a short time only, while
the usurer's loan may be for one, two, three, or more years. Now, a
difference in the duration of the loan, or the form of the act, does
not alter the nature of the transaction. As for the capitalists who
invest their money, either with the State or in commercial
operations, at three, four, and five per cent., -- that is, who lend
on usury at a little lower rate than the bankers and usurers, --
they are the flower of society, the cream of honesty! Moderation in
robbery is the height of virtue![*]
[*] It would be interesting and profitable to
review the authors who have written on usury, or, to use the gentler
expression which some prefer, lending at interest. The theologians
always have opposed usury; but, since they have admitted always the
legitimacy of rent, and since rent is evidently identical with
interest, they have lost themselves in a labyrinth of subtle
distinctions, and have finally reached a pass where they do not know
what to think of usury. The Church -- the teacher of morality, so
jealous and so proud of the purity of her doctrine -- has always
been ignorant of the real nature of property and usury. She even has
proclaimed through her pontiffs the most deplorable errors. Non
potest mutuum, said Benedict XIV., locationi ullo pacto
comparari. "Rent," says Bossuet, "is as far from
usury as heaven is from the earth." How, on [sic] such a
doctrine, condemn lending at interest? how justify the Gospel, which
expressly forbids usury? The difficulty of theologians is a very
serious one. Unable to refute the economical demonstrations, which
rightly assimilate interest to rent, they no longer dare to condemn
interest, and they can say only that there must be such a thing as
usury, since the Gospel forbids it. But what, then, is usury?
Nothing is more amusing than to see these instructors of nations
hesitate between the authority of the Gospel, which, they say, never
can have spoken in vain, and the authority of economical
demonstrations. Nothing, to my mind, is more creditable to the
Gospel than this old infidelity of its pretended teachers.
Salmasius, having assimilated interest to rent, was refuted
by Grotius, Pufendorf, Burlamaqui, Wolf, and Heineccius; and, what
is more curious still, Salmasius admitted his error. Instead
of inferring from this doctrine of Salmasius that all increase is
illegitimate, and proceeding straight on to the demonstration of
Gospel equality, they arrived at just the opposite conclusion;
namely, that since everybody acknowledges that rent is permissible,
if we allow that interest does not differ from rent, there is
nothing left which can be called usury. and, consequently, that the
commandment of Jesus Christ is an illusion, and amounts to
nothing, which is an impious conclusion.
If this memoir had appeared in the time of
Bossuet, that great theologian would have proved by
scripture, the fathers, traditions, councils, and popes, that
property exists by Divine right, while usury is an invention of the
devil; and the heretical work would have been burned, and the author
imprisoned.
We rob, -- 13. By farm-rent, house-rent, and leases of all kinds.
The author of the "Provincial Letters" entertained the
honest Christians of the seventeenth century at the expense of
Escobar, the Jesuit, and the contract Mohatra." The
contract Mohatra," said Escobar, "is a contract by
which goods are bought, at a high price and on credit, to be again
sold at the same moment to the same person, cash down, and at a
lower price." Escobar found a way to justify this kind of
usury. Pascal and all the Jansenists laughed at him. But what would
the satirical Pascal, the learned Nicole, and the invincible Arnaud
have said, if Father Antoine Escobar de Valladolid had answered them
thus: "A lease is a contract by which real estate is bought, at
a high price and on credit, to be again sold, at the expiration of a
certain time, to the same person, at a lower price; only, to
simplify the transaction, the buyer is content to pay the difference
between the first sale and the second. Either deny the identity of
the lease and the contract Mohatra, and then I will
annihilate you in a moment; or, if you admit the similarity, admit
also the soundness of my doctrine: otherwise you proscribe both
interest and rent at one blow"?
In reply to this overwhelming argument of the Jesuit, the sire of
Montalte would have sounded the tocsin, and would have shouted that
society was in peril, -- that the Jesuits were sapping its very
foundations.
We rob, -- 14. By commerce, when the profit of the merchant
exceeds his legitimate salary.
Everybody knows the definition of commerce -- The art of
buying for three francs that which is worth six, and of selling for
six that which is worth three. Between commerce thus defined and
vol a l'americaine, the only difference is in the relative
proportion of the values exchanged, -- in short, in the amount of
the profit.
We rob, -- 15. By making profit on our product, by accepting
sinecures, and by exacting exorbitant wages.
The farmer, who sells a certain amount of corn to the consumer,
and who during the measurement thrusts his hand into the bushel and
takes out a handful of grains, robs; the professor, whose lectures
are paid for by the State, and who through the intervention of a
bookseller sells them to the public a second time, robs; the
sinecurist, who receives an enormous product in exchange for his
vanity, robs; the functionary, the laborer, whatever he may be, who
produces only one and gets paid four, one hundred, or one thousand,
robs; the publisher of this book, and I, its author, -- we rob, by
charging for it twice as much as it is worth.
In recapitulation: --
Justice, after passing through the state of negative communism,
called by the ancient poets the age of gold, commences as
the right of the strongest. In a society which is trying to organize
itself, inequality of faculties calls up the idea of merit; équité
suggests the plan of proportioning not only esteem, but also
material comforts, to personal merit; and since the highest and
almost the only merit then recognized is physical strength, the
strongest, apistos, and consequently the best, apistos, is entitled
to the largest share; and if it is refused him, he very naturally
takes it by force. From this to the assumption of the right of
property in all things, it is but one step.
Such was justice in the heroic age, preserved, at least by
tradition, among the Greeks and Romans down to the last days of
their republics. Plato, in the "Gorgias," introduces a
character named Callicles, who spiritedly defends the right of the
strongest, which Socrates, the advocate of equality, ton ison,
seriously refutes. It is related of the great Pompey, that he
blushed easily, and, nevertheless, these words once escaped his
lips: "Why should I respect the laws, when I have arms in my
hand?" This shows him to have been a man in whom the moral
sense and ambition were struggling for the mastery, and who sought
to justify his violence by the motto of the hero and the brigand.
From the right of the strongest springs the exploitation of man by
man, or bondage; usury, or the tribute levied upon the conquered by
the conqueror; and the whole numerous family of taxes, duties,
monarchical prerogatives, house-rents, farm-rents, &c.; in one
word, -- property.
Force was followed by artifice, the second manifestation of
justice, which was detested by the ancient heroes, who, not
excelling in that direction, were heavy losers by it. Force was
still employed, but mental force instead of physical. Skill in
deceiving an enemy by treacherous propositions seemed deserving of
reward; nevertheless, the strong always prided themselves upon their
honesty. In those days, oaths were observed and promises kept
according to the letter rather than the spirit: Uti lingua
nuncupassit, ita jus esto, -- "As the tongue has spoken, so
must the right be," says the law of the Twelve Tables.
Artifice, or rather perfidy, was the main element in the politics of
ancient Rome. Among other examples, Vico cites the following, also
quoted by Montesquieu: The Romans had guaranteed to the
Carthaginians the preservation of their goods and their city,
-- intentionally using the word civitas, that is, the
society, the State; the Carthaginians, on the contrary, understood
them to mean the material city, urbs, and accordingly began
to rebuild their walls. They were immediately attacked on account of
their violation of the treaty, by the Romans, who, acting upon the
old heroic idea of right, did not imagine that, in taking advantage
of an equivocation to surprise their enemies, they were waging
unjust war.
From artifice sprang the profits of manufactures, commerce, and
banking, mercantile frauds, and pretensions which are honored with
the beautiful names of talent and genius, but which
ought to be regarded as the last degree of knavery and deception;
and, finally, all sorts of social inequalities.
In those forms of robbery which are prohibited by law, force and
artifice are employed alone and undisguised; in the authorized
forms, they conceal themselves within a useful product, which they
use as a tool to plunder their victim.
The direct use of violence and stratagem was early and universally
condemned; but no nation has yet got rid of that kind of robbery
which acts through talent, labor, and possession, and which is the
source of all the dilemmas of casuistry and the innumerable
contradictions of jurisprudence.
The right of force and the right of artifice -- glorified by the
rhapsodists in the poems of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey"
-- inspired the legislation of the Greeks and Romans, from which
they passed into our morals and codes. Christianity has not changed
at all. The Gospel should not be blamed, because the priests, as
stupid as the legists, have been unable either to expound or to
understand it. The ignorance of councils and popes upon all
questions of morality is equal to that of the market-place and the
money-changers; and it is this utter ignorance of right, justice,
and society, which is killing the Church, and discrediting its
teachings for ever. The infidelity of the Roman church and other
Christian churches is flagrant; all have disregarded the precept of
Jesus; all have erred in moral and doctrinal points; all are guilty
of teaching false and absurd dogmas, which lead straight to
wickedness and murder. Let it ask pardon of God and men, -- this
church which called itself infallible, and which has grown so
corrupt in morals; let its reformed sisters humble themselves, . . .
and the people, undeceived, but still religious and merciful, will
begin to think.[*]
[*] "I preach the Gospel, I live by the
Gospel," said the Apostle; meaning thereby that he lived by his
labor. The Catholic clergy prefer to live by property. The struggles
in the communes of the middle ages between the priests and bishops
and the large proprietors and seigneurs are famous. The papal
excommunications fulminated in defence of ecclesiastical revenues
are no less so. Even to-day, the official organs of the Gallican
clergy still maintain that the pay received by the clergy is not a
salary, but an indemnity for goods of which they were once
proprietors, and which were taken from them in '89 by the Third
Estate. The clergy prefer to live by the right of increase rather
than by labor.
One of the main causes of Ireland's poverty to-day is the immense
revenues of the English clergy. So heretics and orthodox --
Protestants and Papists -- cannot reproach each other. All have
strayed from the path of justice; all have disobeyed the eighth
commandment of the Decalogue: "Thou shalt not steal."
The development of right has followed the same order, in its
various expressions, that property has in its forms. Every where we
see justice driving robbery before it and confining it within
narrower and narrower limits. Hitherto the victories of justice over
injustice, and of equality over inequality, have been won by
instinct and the simple force of things; but the final triumph of
our social nature will be due to our reason, or else we shall fall
back into feudal chaos. Either this glorious height is reserved for
our intelligence, or this miserable depth for our baseness.
The second effect of property is despotism. Now, since despotism
is inseparably connected with the idea of legitimate authority, in
explaining the natural causes of the first, the principle of the
second will appear.
What is to be the form of government in the future? hear some of
my younger readers reply: "Why, how can you ask such a
question? You are a republican." "A republican! Yes; but
that word specifies nothing. Res publica; that is, the
public thing. Now, whoever is interested in public affairs -- no
matter under what form of government -- may call himself a
republican. Even kings are republicans." --
"Well! you are a democrat?" -- "No." -- "What!
you would have a monarchy." -- "No." -- "A
constitutionalist?" -- "God forbid!" -- "You are
then an aristocrat?" -- "Not at all." -- "You
want a mixed government?" -- "Still less." -- "What
are you, then?" -- "I am an anarchist."
"Oh! I understand you; you speak satirically. This is a hit
at the government." -- "By no means. I have just given you
my serious and well-considered profession of faith. Although a firm
friend of order, I am (in the full force of the term) an anarchist.
Listen to me."
In all species of sociable animals, "the weakness of the
young is the principle of their obedience to the old, who are
strong; and from habit, which is a kind of conscience with them, the
power remains with the oldest, although he finally becomes the
weakest. Whenever the society is under the control of a chief, this
chief is almost always the oldest of the troop. I say almost always,
because the established order may be disturbed by violent outbreaks.
Then the authority passes to another; and, having been
re-established by force, it is again maintained by habit. Wild
horses go in herds: they have a chief who marches at their head,
whom they confidently follow, and who gives the signal for flight or
battle.
"The sheep which we have raised follows us, but it follows in
company with the flock in the midst of which it was born. It regards
man as the chief of its flock. . . . Man is regarded by
domestic animals as a member of their society. All that he has to do
is to get himself accepted by them as an associate: he soon becomes
their chief, in consequence of his superior intelligence. He does
not, then, change the natural condition of these animals, as
Buffon has said. On the contrary, he uses this natural condition to
his own advantage; in other words, he finds sociable
animals, and renders them domestic by becoming their
associate and chief. Thus, the domesticity of animals is
only a special condition, a simple modification, a definitive
consequence of their sociability. All domestic animals are
by nature sociable animals." . . . -- Flourens: Summary of
the Observations of F. Cuvier.
Sociable animals follow their chief by instinct; but take
notice of the fact (which F. Cuvier omitted to state), that the
function of the chief is altogether one of intelligence. The
chief does not teach the others to associate, to unite under his
lead, to reproduce their kind, to take to flight, or to defend
themselves. Concerning each of these particulars, his subordinates
are as well informed as he. But it is the chief who, by his
accumulated experience, provides against accidents; he it is whose
private intelligence supplements, in difficult situations, the
general instinct; he it is who deliberates, decides, and leads; he
it is, in short, whose enlightened prudence regulates the public
routine for the greatest good of all.
Man (naturally a sociable being) naturally follows a chief.
Originally, the chief is the father, the patriarch, the elder; in
other words, the good and wise man, whose functions, consequently,
are exclusively of a reflective and intellectual nature. The human
race -- like all other races of sociable animals -- has its
instincts, its innate faculties, its general ideas, and its
categories of sentiment and reason. Its chiefs, legislators, or
kings have devised nothing, supposed nothing, imagined nothing. They
have only guided society by their accumulated experience, always
however in conformity with opinions and beliefs.
Those philosophers who (carrying into morals and into history
their gloomy and factious whims) affirm that the human race had
originally neither chiefs nor kings, know nothing of the nature of
man. Royalty, and absolute royalty, is -- as truly and more truly
than democracy -- a primitive form of government. Perceiving that,
in the remotest ages, crowns and kingships were worn by heroes,
brigands, and knight-errants, they confound the two things, --
royalty and despotism. But royalty dates from the creation of man;
it existed in the age of negative communism. Ancient heroism (and
the despotism which it engendered) commenced only with the first
manifestation of the idea of justice; that is, with the reign of
force. As soon as the strongest, in the comparison of merits, was
decided to be the best, the oldest had to abandon his position, and
royalty became despotic.
The spontaneous, instinctive, and -- so to speak -- physiological
origin of royalty gives it, in the beginning, a superhuman
character. The nations connected it with the gods, from whom they
said the first kings descended. This notion was the origin of the
divine genealogies of royal families, the incarnations of gods, and
the messianic fables. From it sprang the doctrine of divine right,
which is still championed by a few singular characters.
Royalty was at first elective, because -- at a time when man
produced but little and possessed nothing -- property was too weak
to establish the principle of heredity, and secure to the son the
throne of his father; but as soon as fields were cleared, and cities
built, each function was, like every thing else, appropriated, and
hereditary kingships and priesthoods were the result. The principle
of heredity was carried into even the most ordinary professions, --
a circumstance which led to class distinctions, pride of station,
and abjection of the common people, and which confirms my assertion,
concerning the principle of patrimonial succession, that it is a
method suggested by Nature of filling vacancies in business, and
completing unfinished tasks.
From time to time, ambition caused usurpers, or supplanters
of kings, to start up; and, in consequence, some were called kings
by right, or legitimate kings, and others tyrants. But we
must not let these names deceive us. There have been execrable
kings, and very tolerable tyrants. Royalty may always be good, when
it is the only possible form of government; legitimate it is never.
Neither heredity, nor election, nor universal suffrage, nor the
excellence of the sovereign, nor the consecration of religion and of
time, can make royalty legitimate. Whatever form it takes, --
monarchic, oligarchic, or democratic, -- royalty, or the government
of man by man, is illegitimate and absurd.
Man, in order to procure as speedily as possible the most thorough
satisfaction of his wants, seeks rule. In the beginning,
this rule is to him living, visible, and tangible. It is his father,
his master, his king. The more ignorant man is, the more obedient he
is, and the more absolute is his confidence in his guide. But, it
being a law of man's nature to conform to rule, -- that is, to
discover it by his powers of reflection and reason, -- man reasons
upon the commands of his chiefs. Now, such reasoning as that is a
protest against authority, -- a beginning of disobedience. At the
moment that man inquires into the motives which govern the will of
his sovereign, -- at that moment man revolts. If he obeys no longer
because the king commands, but because the king demonstrates the
wisdom of his commands, it may be said that henceforth he will
recognize no authority, and that he has become his own king. Unhappy
he who shall dare to command him, and shall offer, as his authority,
only the vote of the majority; for, sooner or later, the minority
will become the majority, and this imprudent despot will be
overthrown, and all his laws annihilated.
In proportion as society becomes enlightened, royal authority
diminishes. That is a fact to which all history bears witness. At
the birth of nations, men reflect and reason in vain. Without
methods, without principles, not knowing how to use their reason,
they cannot judge of the justice of their conclusions. Then the
authority of kings is immense, no knowledge having been acquired
with which to contradict it. But, little by little, experience
produces habits, which develop into customs; then the customs are
formulated in maxims, laid down as principles, -- in short,
transformed into laws, to which the king, the living law, has to
bow. There comes a time when customs and laws are so numerous that
the will of the prince is, so to speak, entwined by the public will;
and that, on taking the crown, he is obliged to swear that he will
govern in conformity with established customs and usages; and that
he is but the executive power of a society whose laws are made
independently of him.
Up to this point, all is done instinctively, and, as it were,
unconsciously; but see where this movement must end.
By means of self-instruction and the acquisition of ideas, man
finally acquires the idea of science, -- that is, of a
system of knowledge in harmony with the reality of things, and
inferred from observation. He searches for the science, or the
system, of inanimate bodies, -- the system of organic bodies, the
system of the human mind, and the system of the universe: why should
he not also search for the system of society? But, having reached
this height, he comprehends that political truth, or the science of
politics, exists quite independently of the will of sovereigns, the
opinion of majorities, and popular beliefs, -- that kings,
ministers, magistrates, and nations, as wills, have no connection
with the science, and are worthy of no consideration. He
comprehends, at the same time, that, if man is born a sociable
being, the authority of his father over him ceases on the day when,
his mind being formed and his education finished, he becomes the
associate of his father; that his true chief and his king is the
demonstrated truth; that politics is a science, not a stratagem; and
that the function of the legislator is reduced, in the last
analysis, to the methodical search for truth.
Thus, in a given society, the authority of man over man is
inversely proportional to the stage of intellectual development
which that society has reached; and the probable duration of that
authority can be calculated from the more or less general desire for
a true government, -- that is, for a scientific government. And just
as the right of force and the right of artifice retreat before the
steady advance of justice, and must finally be extinguished in
equality, so the sovereignty of the will yields to the sovereignty
of the reason, and must at last be lost in scientific socialism.
Property and royalty have been crumbling to pieces ever since the
world began. As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks
order in anarchy.
Anarchy, -- the absence of a master, of a sovereign,[*]
[*] The meaning ordinarily attached to the word "anarchy"
is absence of principle, absence of rule; consequently, it has been
regarded as synonymous with "disorder."
– such is the form of government to which we are every day
approximating, and which our accustomed habit of taking man for our
rule, and his will for law, leads us to regard as the height of
disorder and the expression of chaos. The story is told, that a
citizen of Paris in the seventeenth century having heard it said
that in Venice there was no king, the good man could not recover
from his astonishment, and nearly died from laughter at the mere
mention of so ridiculous a thing. So strong is our prejudice. As
long as we live, we want a chief or chiefs; and at this very moment
I hold in my hand a brochure, whose author -- a zealous
communist -- dreams, like a second Marat, of the dictatorship. The
most advanced among us are those who wish the greatest possible
number of sovereigns, -- their most ardent wish is for the royalty
of the National Guard. Soon, undoubtedly, some one, jealous of the
citizen militia, will say, "Everybody is king." But, when
he has spoken, I will say, in my turn, "Nobody is king; we are,
whether we will or no, associated." Every question of domestic
politics must be decided by departmental statistics; every question
of foreign politics is an affair of international statistics. The
science of government rightly belongs to one of the sections of the
Academy of Sciences, whose permanent secretary is necessarily prime
minister; and, since every citizen may address a memoir to the
Academy, every citizen is a legislator. But, as the opinion of no
one is of any value until its truth has been proven, no one can
substitute his will for reason, -- nobody is king.
All questions of legislation and politics are matters of science,
not of opinion. The legislative power belongs only to the reason,
methodically recognized and demonstrated. To attribute to any power
whatever the right of veto or of sanction, is the last degree of
tyranny. Justice and legality are two things as independent of our
approval as is mathematical truth. To compel, they need only to be
known; to be known, they need only to be considered and studied.
What, then, is the nation, if it is not the sovereign, -- if it is
not the source of the legislative power? The nation is the guardian
of the law -- the nation is the executive power. Every
citizen may assert: "This is true; that is just; "but his
opinion controls no one but himself. That the truth which he
proclaims may become a law, it must be recognized. Now, what is it
to recognize a law? It is to verify a mathematical or a metaphysical
calculation; it is to repeat an experiment, to observe a phenomenon,
to establish a fact. Only the nation has the right to say, "Be
it known and decreed."
I confess that this is an overturning of received ideas, and that
I seem to be attempting to revolutionize our political system; but I
beg the reader to consider that, having begun with a paradox, I
must, if I reason correctly, meet with paradoxes at every step, and
must end with paradoxes. For the rest, I do not see how the liberty
of citizens would be endangered by entrusting to their hands,
instead of the pen of the legislator, the sword of the law. The
executive power, belonging properly to the will, cannot be confided
to too many proxies. That is the true sovereignty of the nation.[*]
[*] If such ideas are ever forced into the minds
of the people, it will be by representative government and the
tyranny of talkers. Once science, thought, and speech were
characterized by the same expression. To designate a thoughtful and
a learned man, they said, "a man quick to speak and powerful in
discourse. "For a long time, speech has been abstractly
distinguished from science and reason. Gradually, this abstraction
is becoming realized, as the logicians say, in society; so that we
have to-day savants of many kinds who talk but little, and
talkers who are not even savants in the science of
speech. Thus a philosopher is no longer a savant: he is a
talker. Legislators and poets were once profound and sublime
characters: now they are talkers. A talker is a sonorous bell, whom
the least shock suffices to set in perpetual motion. With the
talker, the flow of speech is always directly proportional to the
poverty of thought. Talkers govern the world; they stun us, they
bore us, they worry us, they suck our blood, and laugh at us. As for
the savants, they keep silence: if they wish to say a word,
they are cut short. Let them write.
The proprietor, the robber, the hero, the sovereign -- for all
these titles are synonymous -- imposes his will as law, and suffers
neither contradiction nor control; that is, he pretends to be the
legislative and the executive power at once. Accordingly, the
substitution of the scientific and true law for the royal will is
accomplished only by a terrible struggle; and this constant
substitution is, after property, the most potent element in history,
the most prolific source of political disturbances. Examples are too
numerous and too striking to require enumeration.
Now, property necessarily engenders despotism, -- the government
of caprice, the reign of libidinous pleasure. That is so clearly the
essence of property that, to be convinced of it, one need but
remember what it is, and observe what happens around him. Property
is the right to use and abuse. If, then, government
is economy, -- if its object is production and consumption, and the
distribution of labor and products, -- how is government possible
while property exists? And if goods are property, why should not the
proprietors be kings, and despotic kings -- kings in proportion to
their facultés bonitaires? And if each proprietor is
sovereign lord within the sphere of his property, absolute king
throughout his own domain, how could a government of proprietors be
any thing but chaos and confusion?
3. -- Determination of the third form of Society. Conclusion.
Then, no government, no public economy, no administration, is
possible, which is based upon property.
Communism seeks equality and law. Property, born
of the sovereignty of the reason, and the sense of personal merit,
wishes above all things independence and proportionality.
But communism, mistaking uniformity for law, and levelism for
equality, becomes tyrannical and unjust. Property, by its despotism
and encroachments, soon proves itself oppressive and anti-social.
The objects of communism and property are good -- their results
are bad. And why? Because both are exclusive, and each disregards
two elements of society. Communism rejects independence and
proportionality; property does not satisfy equality and law.
Now, if we imagine a society based upon these four principles, --
equality, law, independence, and proportionality, -- we find: --
1. That equality, consisting only in equality of
conditions, that is, of means, and not in equality
of comfort, -- which it is the business of the laborers to
achieve for themselves, when provided with equal means, -- in no way
violates justice and équité.
2. That law, resulting from the knowledge of facts, and
consequently based upon necessity itself, never clashes with
independence.
3. That individual independence, or the autonomy of the
private reason, originating in the difference in talents and
capacities, can exist without danger within the limits of the law.
4. That proportionality, being admitted only in the sphere
of intelligence and sentiment, and not as regards material objects,
may be observed without violating justice or social equality.
This third form of society, the synthesis of communism and
property, we will call liberty.[*]
[*] libertas, librare, libratio, libra,
-- liberty, to liberate, libration, balance (pound), -- words which
have a common derivation. Liberty is the balance of rights and
duties. To make a man free is to balance him with others, -- that
is, to put him or their level.
In determining the nature of liberty, we do not unite communism
and property indiscriminately; such a process would be absurd
eclecticism. We search by analysis for those elements in each which
are true, and in harmony with the laws of Nature and society,
disregarding the rest altogether; and the result gives us an
adequate expression of the natural form of human society, -- in one
word, liberty.
Liberty is equality, because liberty exists only in society; and
in the absence of equality there is no society.
Liberty is anarchy, because it does not admit the government of
the will, but only the authority of the law; that is, of necessity.
Liberty is infinite variety, because it respects all wills within
the limits of the law.
Liberty is proportionality, because it allows the utmost latitude
to the ambition for merit, and the emulation of glory.
We can now say, in the words of M. Cousin: "Our principle is
true; it is good, it is social; let us not fear to push it to its
ultimate."
Man's social nature becoming justice through reflection,
équité through the classification of
capacities, and having liberty for its formula, is the true
basis of morality, -- the principle and regulator of all our
actions. This is the universal motor, which philosophy is searching
for, which religion strengthens, which egotism supplants, and whose
place pure reason never can fill. Duty and right are
born of need, which, when considered in connection with
others, is a right, and when considered in connection with
ourselves, a duty.
We need to eat and sleep. It is our right to procure those things
which are necessary to rest and nourishment. It is our duty to use
them when Nature requires it.
We need to labor in order to live. To do so is both our right and
our duty.
We need to love our wives and children. It is our duty to protect
and support them. It is our right to be loved in preference to all
others. Conjugal fidelity is justice. Adultery is high treason
against society.
We need to exchange our products for other products. It is our
right that this exchange should be one of equivalents; and since we
consume before we produce, it would be our duty, if we could control
the matter, to see to it that our last product shall follow our last
consumption. Suicide is fraudulent bankruptcy.
We need to live our lives according to the dictates of our reason.
It is our right to maintain our freedom. It is our duty to respect
that of others.
We need to be appreciated by our fellows. It is our duty to
deserve their praise. It is our right to be judged by our works.
Liberty is not opposed to the rights of succession and bequest. It
contents itself with preventing violations of equality. "Choose,"
it tells us, "between two legacies, but do not take them both."
All our legislation concerning transmissions, entailments,
adoptions, and, if I may venture to use such a word, coadjutoreries,
requires remodelling.
Liberty favors emulation, instead of destroying it. In social
equality, emulation consists in accomplishing under like conditions;
it is its own reward. No one suffers by the victory.
Liberty applauds self-sacrifice, and honors it with its votes, but
it can dispense with it. Justice alone suffices to maintain the
social equilibrium. Self-sacrifice is an act of supererogation.
Happy, however, the man who can say, "I sacrifice myself."[*]
[*] In a monthly publication, the first number
of which has just appeared under the name of "L'Egalitaire,"
self-sacrifice is laid down as a principle of equality. This is a
confusion of ideas. Self-sacrifice, taken alone, is the last degree
of inequality. To seek equality in self-sacrifice is to confess that
equality is against nature. Equality must be based upon justice,
upon strict right, upon the principles invoked by the proprietor
himself; otherwise it will never exist. Self-sacrifice is superior
to justice; but it cannot be imposed as law, because it is of such a
nature as to admit of no reward. It is, indeed, desirable that
everybody shall recognize the necessity of self-sacrifice, and the
idea of "L'Egalitaire" is an excellent example.
Unfortunately, it can have no effect. What would you reply, indeed,
to a man who should say to you, "I do not want to sacrifice
myself"? Is he to be compelled to do so? When self-sacrifice is
forced, it becomes oppression, slavery, the exploitation of man by
man. Thus have the proletaires sacrificed themselves to property.
Liberty is essentially an organizing force. To
insure equality between men and peace among nations, agriculture and
industry, and the centres of education, business, and storage, must
be distributed according to the climate and the geographical
position of the country, the nature of the products, the character
and natural talents of the inhabitants, &c., in proportions so
just, so wise, so harmonious, that in no place shall there ever be
either an excess or a lack of population, consumption, and products.
There commences the science of public and private right, the true
political economy. It is for the writers on jurisprudence,
henceforth unembarrassed by the false principle of property, to
describe the new laws, and bring peace upon earth. Knowledge and
genius they do not lack; the foundation is now laid for them.
The disciples of Fourier have long seemed to me
the most advanced of all modern socialists, and almost the only ones
worthy of the name. If they had understood the nature of their task,
spoken to the people, awakened their sympathies, and kept silence
when they did not understand; if they had made less extravagant
pretensions, and had shown more respect for public intelligence, --
perhaps the reform would now, thanks to them, be in progress. But
why are these earnest reformers continually bowing to power and
wealth, -- that is, to all that is anti-reformatory? How, in a
thinking age, can they fail to see that the world must be converted
by demonstration, not by myths and allegories? Why do they,
the deadly enemies of civilization, borrow from it, nevertheless,
its most pernicious fruits, -- property, inequality of fortune and
rank, gluttony, concubinage, prostitution, what do I know? theurgy,
magic, and sorcery? Why these endless denunciations of morality,
metaphysics, and psychology, when the abuse of these sciences, which
they do not understand, constitutes their whole system? Why this
mania for deifying a man whose principal merit consisted in talking
nonsense about things whose names, even, he did not know, in the
strongest language ever put upon paper? Whoever admits the
infallibility of a man becomes thereby incapable of instructing
others. Whoever denies his own reason will soon proscribe free
thought. The phalansterians would not fail to do it if they had the
power. Let them condescend to reason, let them proceed
systematically, let them give us demonstrations instead of
revelations, and we will listen willingly. Then let them organize
manufactures, agriculture, and commerce; let them make labor
attractive, and the most humble functions honorable, and our praise
shall be theirs. Above all, let them throw off that Illuminism which
gives them the appearance of impostors or dupes, rather than
believers and apostles.
I have accomplished my task; property is conquered, never again to
arise. Wherever this work is read and discussed, there will be
deposited the germ of death to property; there, sooner or later,
privilege and servitude will disappear, and the despotism of will
will give place to the reign of reason. What sophisms, indeed, what
prejudices (however obstinate) can stand before the simplicity of
the following propositions:
I. Individual possession[*]
[*] Individual possession is no obstacle to
extensive cultivation and unity of exploitation. If I have not
spoken of the drawbacks arising from small estates, it is because I
thought it useless to repeat what so many others have said, and what
by this time all the world must know. But I am surprised that the
economists, who have so clearly shown the disadvantages of
spade-husbandry, have failed to see that it is caused entirely by
property; above all, that they have not perceived that their plan
for mobilizing the soil is a first step towards the abolition of
property.
... is the condition of social life; five thousand years of
property demonstrate it. Property is the suicide of society.
Possession is a right; property is against right. Suppress property
while maintaining possession, and, by this simple modification of
the principle, you will revolutionize law, government, economy, and
institutions; you will drive evil from the face of the earth.
II. All having an equal right of occupancy, possession varies with
the number of possessors; property cannot establish itself.
III. The effect of labor being the same for all, property is lost
in the common prosperity.
IV. All human labor being the result of collective force, all
property becomes, in consequence, collective and unitary. To speak
more exactly, labor destroys property.
V. Every capacity for labor being, like every instrument of labor,
an accumulated capital, and a collective property, inequality of
wages and fortunes (on the ground of inequality of capacities) is,
therefore, injustice and robbery.
VI. The necessary conditions of commerce are the liberty of the
contracting parties and the equivalence of the products exchanged.
Now, value being expressed by the amount of time and outlay which
each product costs, and liberty being inviolable, the wages of
laborers (like their rights and duties) should be equal.
VII. Products are bought only by products. Now, the condition of
all exchange being equivalence of products, profit is impossible and
unjust. Observe this elementary principle of economy, and pauperism,
luxury, oppression, vice, crime, and hunger will disappear from our
midst.
VIII. Men are associated by the physical and mathematical law of
production, before they are voluntarily associated by choice.
Therefore, equality of conditions is demanded by justice; that is,
by strict social law: esteem, friendship, gratitude, admiration, all
fall within the domain of equitable or proportional
law only.
IX. Free association, liberty -- whose sole function is to
maintain equality in the means of production and equivalence in
exchanges -- is the only possible, the only just, the only true form
of society.
X. Politics is the science of liberty. The government of man by
man (under whatever name it be disguised) is oppression. Society
finds its highest perfection in the union of order with anarchy.
The old civilization has run its race; a new sun is rising, and
will soon renew the face of the earth. Let the present generation
perish, let the old prevaricators die in the desert!
... the holy earth shall not cover their bones. Young man,
exasperated by the corruption of the age, and absorbed in your zeal
for justice! -- if your country is dear to you, and if you have the
interests of humanity at heart, have the courage to espouse the
cause of liberty! Cast off your old selfishness, and plunge into the
rising flood of popular equality! There your regenerate soul will
acquire new life and vigor; your enervated genius will recover
unconquerable energy; and your heart, perhaps already withered, will
be rejuvenated! Every thing will wear a different look to your
illuminated vision; new sentiments will engender new ideas within
you; religion, morality, poetry, art, language will appear before
you in nobler and fairer forms; and thenceforth, sure of your faith,
and thoughtfully enthusiastic, you will hail the dawn of universal
regeneration!
And you, sad victims of an odious law! -- you, whom a jesting
world despoils and outrages! -- you, whose labor has always been
fruitless, and whose rest has been without hope, -- take courage!
your tears are numbered! The fathers have sown in affliction, the
children shall reap in rejoicings!
O God of liberty! God of equality! Thou who didst place in my
heart the sentiment of justice, before my reason could comprehend
it, hear my ardent prayer! Thou hast dictated all that I have
written; Thou hast shaped my thought; Thou hast directed my studies;
Thou hast weaned my mind from curiosity and my heart from
attachment, that I might publish Thy truth to the master and the
slave. I have spoken with what force and talent Thou hast given me:
it is Thine to finish the work. Thou knowest whether I seek my
welfare or Thy glory, O God of liberty! Ah! perish my memory, and
let humanity be free! Let me see from my obscurity the people at
last instructed; let noble teachers enlighten them; let generous
spirits guide them! Abridge, if possible, the time of our trial;
stifle pride and avarice in equality; annihilate this love of glory
which enslaves us; teach these poor children that in the bosom of
liberty there are neither heroes nor great men! Inspire the powerful
man, the rich man, him whose name my lips shall never pronounce in
Thy presence, with a horror of his crimes; let him be the first to
apply for admission to the redeemed society; let the promptness of
his repentance be the ground of his forgiveness! Then, great and
small, wise and foolish, rich and poor, will unite in an ineffable
fraternity; and, singing in unison a new hymn, will rebuild Thy
altar, O God of liberty and equality!
END OF FIRST MEMOIR.
