What Is Property?
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
[1840 / Part 12 of 16]
SECOND MEMOIR
A LETTER TO M. BLANQUI.
PARIS, April 1, 1841.
MONSIEUR, -- Before resuming my "Inquiries into Government
and Property," it is fitting, for the satisfaction of some
worthy people, and also in the interest of order, that I should make
to you a plain, straightforward explanation. In a much-governed
State, no one would be allowed to attack the external form of the
society, and the groundwork of its institutions, until he had
established his right to do so, -- first, by his morality; second,
by his capacity; and, third, by the purity of his intentions. Any
one who, wishing to publish a treatise upon the constitution of the
country, could not satisfy this threefold condition, would be
obliged to procure the endorsement of a responsible patron
possessing the requisite qualifications.
But we Frenchmen have the liberty of the press. This grand right
-- the sword of thought, which elevates the virtuous citizen to the
rank of legislator, and makes the malicious citizen an agent of
discord -- frees us from all preliminary responsibility to the law;
but it does not release us from our internal obligation to render a
public account of our sentiments and thoughts. I have used, in all
its fulness, and concerning an important question, the right which
the charter grants us. I come to-day, sir, to submit my conscience
to your judgment, and my feeble insight to your discriminating
reason. You have criticised in a kindly spirit -- I had almost said
with partiality for the writer -- a work which teaches a doctrine
that you thought it your duty to condemn. "The Academy of Moral
and Political Sciences," said you in your report, "can
accept the conclusions of the author only as far as it likes."
I venture to hope, sir, that, after you have read this letter, if
your prudence still restrains you, your fairness will induce you to
do me justice.
Men, equal in the dignity of their persons and equal before
the law, should be equal in their conditions, -- such is the
thesis which I maintained and developed in a memoir bearing the
title, "What is Property? or, An Inquiry into the Principle of
Right and of Government."
The idea of social equality, even in individual fortunes, has in
all ages besieged, like a vague presentiment, the human imagination.
Poets have sung of it in their hymns; philosophers have dreamed of
it in their Utopias; priests teach it, but only for the spiritual
world. The people, governed by it, never have had faith in it; and
the civil power is never more disturbed than by the fables of the
age of gold and the reign of Astrea. A year ago, however, this idea
received a scientific demonstration, which has not yet been
satisfactorily answered, and, permit me to add, never will be. This
demonstration, owing to its slightly impassioned style, its method
of reasoning, -- which was so at variance with that employed by the
generally recognized authorities, -- and the importance and novelty
of its conclusions, was of a nature to cause some alarm; and might
have been dangerous, had it not been -- as you, sir, so well said --
a sealed letter, so far as the general public was concerned,
addressed only to men of intelligence. I was glad to see that
through its metaphysical dress you recognized the wise foresight of
the author; and I thank you for it. May God grant that my
intentions, which are wholly peaceful, may never be charged upon me
as treasonable!
Like a stone thrown into a mass of serpents, the First Memoir on
Property excited intense animosity, and aroused the passions of
many. But, while some wished the author and his work to be publicly
denounced, others found in them simply the solution of the
fundamental problems of society; a few even basing evil speculations
upon the new light which they had obtained. It was not to be
expected that a system of inductions abstractly gathered together,
and still more abstractly expressed, would be understood with equal
accuracy in its ensemble and in each of its parts.
To find the law of equality, no longer in charity and
self-sacrifice (which are not binding in their nature), but in
justice; to base equality of functions upon equality of persons; to
determine the absolute principle of exchange; to neutralize the
inequality of individual faculties by collective force; to establish
an equation between property and robbery; to change the law of
succession without destroying the principle; to maintain the human
personality in a system of absolute association, and to save liberty
from the chains of communism; to synthetize the monarchical and
democratic forms of government; to reverse the division of powers;
to give the executive power to the nation, and to make legislation a
positive, fixed, and absolute science, -- what a series of
paradoxes! what a string of delusions! if I may not say, what a
chain of truths! But it is not my purpose here to pass upon the
theory of the right of possession. I discuss no dogmas. My only
object is to justify my views, and to show that, in writing as I
did, I not only exercised a right, but performed a duty.
Yes, I have attacked property, and shall attack it again; but,
sir, before demanding that I shall make the amende honorable
for having obeyed my conscience and spoken the exact truth,
condescend, I beg of you, to cast a glance at the events which are
happening around us; look at our deputies, our magistrates, our
philosophers, our ministers, our professors, and our publicists;
examine their methods of dealing with the matter of property; count
up with me the restrictions placed upon it every day in the name of
the public welfare; measure the breaches already made; estimate
those which society thinks of making hereafter; add the ideas
concerning property held by all theories in common; interrogate
history, and then tell me what will be left, half a century hence,
of this old right of property; and, thus perceiving that I have so
many accomplices, you will immediately declare me innocent.
What is the law of expropriation on the ground of public utility,
which everybody favors, and which is even thought too lenient?[*]
[*] In the Chamber of Deputies, during the
session of the fifth of January, 1841, M. Dufaure moved to renew the
expropriation bill, on the ground of public utility.
A flagrant violation of the right of property. Society
indemnifies, it is said, the dispossessed proprietor; but does it
return to him the traditional associations, the poetic charm, and
the family pride which accompany property? Naboth, and the miller of
Sans-Souci, would have protested against French law, as they
protested against the caprice of their kings. "It is the field
of our fathers," they would have cried, "and we will not
sell it!" Among the ancients, the refusal of the individual
limited the powers of the State. The Roman law bowed to the will of
the citizen, and an emperor -- Commodus, if I remember rightly --
abandoned the project of enlarging the forum out of respect for the
rights of the occupants who refused to abdicate. Property is a real
right, jus in re, -- a right inherent in the thing,
and whose principle lies in the external manifestation of man's
will. Man leaves his imprint, stamps his character, upon the objects
of his handiwork. This plastic force of man, as the modern jurists
say, is the seal which, set upon matter, makes it holy. Whoever lays
hands upon it, against the proprietor's will, does violence to the
latter's personality. And yet, when an administrative committee saw
fit to declare that public utility required it, property had to give
way to the general will. Soon, in the name of public utility,
methods of cultivation and conditions of enjoyment will be
prescribed; inspectors of agriculture and manufactures will be
appointed; property will be taken away from unskilful hands, and
entrusted to laborers who are more deserving of it; and a general
superintendence of production will be established. It is not two
years since I saw a proprietor destroy a forest more than five
hundred acres in extent. If public utility had interfered, that
forest -- the only one for miles around -- would still be standing.
But, it is said, expropriation on the ground of public utility is
only an exception which confirms the principle, and bears testimony
in favor of the right. Very well; but from this exception we will
pass to another, from that to a third, and so on from exceptions to
exceptions, until we have reduced the rule to a pure abstraction.
How many supporters do you think, sir, can be claimed for the
project of the conversion of the public funds? I venture to say that
everybody favors it, except the fund-holders. Now, this so-called
conversion is an extensive expropriation, and in this case with no
indemnity whatever. The public funds are so much real estate, the
income from which the proprietor counts upon with perfect safety,
and which owes its value to the tacit promise of the government to
pay interest upon it at the established rate, until the fund-holder
applies for redemption. For, if the income is liable to diminution,
it is less profitable than house-rent or farm-rent, whose rates may
rise or fall according to the fluctuations in the market; and in
that case, what inducement has the capitalist to invest his money in
the State? When, then, you force the fund-holder to submit to a
diminution of interest, you make him bankrupt to the extent of the
diminution; and since, in consequence of the conversion, an equally
profitable investment becomes impossible, you depreciate his
property.
That such a measure may be justly executed, it must be
generalized; that is, the law which provides for it must decree also
that interest on sums lent on deposit or on mortgage throughout the
realm, as well as house and farm-rents, shall be reduced to three
per cent. This simultaneous reduction of all kinds of income would
be not a whit more difficult to accomplish than the proposed
conversion; and, further, it would offer the advantage of
forestalling at one blow all objections to it, at the same time that
it would insure a just assessment of the land-tax. See! If at the
moment of conversion a piece of real estate yields an income of one
thousand francs, after the new law takes effect it will yield only
six hundred francs. Now, allowing the tax to be an aliquot part --
one-fourth for example -- of the income derived from each piece of
property, it is clear on the one hand that the proprietor would not,
in order to lighten his share of the tax, underestimate the value of
his property; since, house and farm-rents being fixed by the value
of the capital, and the latter being measured by the tax, to
depreciate his real estate would be to reduce his revenue. On the
other hand, it is equally evident that the same proprietors could
not overestimate the value of their property, in order to increase
their incomes beyond the limits of the law, since the tenants and
farmers, with their old leases in their hands, would enter a
protest.
Such, sir, must be the result sooner or later of the conversion
which has been so long demanded; otherwise, the financial operation
of which we are speaking would be a crying injustice, unless
intended as a stepping-stone. This last motive seems the most
plausible one; for in spite of the clamors of interested parties,
and the flagrant violation of certain rights, the public conscience
is bound to fulfil its desire, and is no more affected when charged
with attacking property, than when listening to the complaints of
the bondholders. In this case, instinctive justice belies legal
justice.
Who has not heard of the inextricable confusion into which the
Chamber of Deputies was thrown last year, while discussing the
question of colonial and native sugars? Did they leave these two
industries to themselves? The native manufacturer was ruined by the
colonist. To maintain the beet-root, the cane had to be taxed. To
protect the property of the one, it became necessary to violate the
property of the other. The most remarkable feature of this business
was precisely that to which the least attention was paid; namely,
that, in one way or another, property had to be violated. Did they
impose on each industry a proportional tax, so as to preserve a
balance in the market? They created a maximum price for each
variety of sugar; and, as this maximum price was not the
same, they attacked property in two ways, -- on the one hand,
interfering with the liberty of trade; on the other, disregarding
the equality of proprietors. Did they suppress the beet-root by
granting an indemnity to the manufacturer? They sacrificed the
property of the tax-payer. Finally, did they prefer to cultivate the
two varieties of sugar at the nation's expense, just as different
varieties of tobacco are cultivated? They abolished, so far as the
sugar industry was concerned, the right of property. This last
course, being the most social, would have been certainly the best;
but, if property is the necessary basis of civilization, how is this
deep-seated antagonism to be explained?[*]
[*] "What is Property?" Chap. IV.,
Ninth Proposition.
Not satisfied with the power of dispossessing a citizen on the
ground of public utility, they want also to dispossess him on the
ground of private utility. For a long time, a revision of
the law concerning mortgages was clamored for; a process was
demanded, in behalf of all kinds of credit and in the interest of
even the debtors themselves, which would render the expropriation of
real estate as prompt, as easy, and as effective as that which
follows a commercial protest. The Chamber of Deputies, in the early
part of this year, 1841, discussed this project, and the law was
passed almost unanimously. There is nothing more just, nothing more
reasonable, nothing more philosophical apparently, than the motives
which gave rise to this reform.
I. Formerly, the small proprietor whose obligation had arrived at
maturity, and who found himself unable to meet it, had to employ all
that he had left, after being released from his debt, in defraying
the legal costs. Henceforth, the promptness of expropriation will
save him from total ruin. 2. The difficulties in the way of payment
arrested credit, and prevented the employment of capital in
agricultural enterprises. This cause of distrust no longer existing,
capitalists will find new markets, agriculture will rapidly develop,
and farmers will be the first to enjoy the benefit of the new law.
3. Finally, it was iniquitous and absurd, that, on account of a
protested note, a poor manufacturer should see in twenty-four hours
his business arrested, his labor suspended, his merchandise seized,
his machinery sold at auction, and finally himself led off to
prison, while two years were sometimes necessary to expropriate the
most miserable piece of real estate. These arguments, and others
besides, you clearly stated, sir, in your first lectures of this
academic year.
But, when stating these excellent arguments, did you ask yourself,
sir, whither would tend such a transformation of our system of
mortgages? . . . To monetize, if I may say so, landed property; to
accumulate it within portfolios; to separate the laborer from the
soil, man from Nature; to make him a wanderer over the face of the
earth; to eradicate from his heart every trace of family feeling,
national pride, and love of country; to isolate him more and more;
to render him indifferent to all around him; to concentrate his love
upon one object, -- money; and, finally, by the dishonest practices
of usury, to monopolize the land to the profit of a financial
aristocracy, -- a worthy auxiliary of that industrial feudality
whose pernicious influence we begin to feel so bitterly. Thus,
little by little, the subordination of the laborer to the idler, the
restoration of abolished castes, and the distinction between
patrician and plebeian, would be effected; thus, thanks to the new
privileges granted to the property of the capitalists, that of the
small and intermediate proprietors would gradually disappear, and
with it the whole class of free and honest laborers. This certainly
is not my plan for the abolition of property. Far from mobilizing
the soil, I would, if possible, immobilize even the functions of
pure intelligence, so that society might be the fulfilment of the
intentions of Nature, who gave us our first possession, the land.
For, if the instrument or capital of production is the mark of the
laborer, it is also his pedestal, his support, his country, and, as
the Psalmist says, the place of his activity and his rest.[*]
[*] Tu cognovisti sessionem meam et
resurrectionem meam. Psalm 139.
Let us examine more closely still the inevitable and approaching
result of the last law concerning judicial sales and mortgages.
Under the system of competition which is killing us, and whose
necessary expression is a plundering and tyrannical government, the
farmer will need always capital in order to repair his losses, and
will be forced to contract loans. Always depending upon the future
for the payment of his debts, he will be deceived in his hope, and
surprised by maturity. For what is there more prompt, more
unexpected, more abbreviatory of space and time, than the maturity
of an obligation? I address this question to all whom this pitiless
Nemesis pursues, and even troubles in their dreams. Now, under the
new law, the expropriation of a debtor will be effected a hundred
times more rapidly; then, also, spoliation will be a hundred times
surer, and the free laborer will pass a hundred times sooner from
his present condition to that of a serf attached to the soil.
Formerly, the length of time required to effect the seizure curbed
the usurer's avidity, gave the borrower an opportunity to recover
himself, and gave rise to a transaction between him and his creditor
which might result finally in a complete release. Now, the debtor's
sentence is irrevocable: he has but a few days of grace.
And what advantages are promised by this law as an offset to this
sword of Damocles, suspended by a single hair over the head of the
unfortunate husbandman? The expenses of seizure will be much less,
it is said; but will the interest on the borrowed capital be less
exorbitant? For, after all, it is interest which impoverishes the
peasant and leads to his expropriation. That the law may be in
harmony with its principle, that it may be truly inspired by that
spirit of justice for which it is commended, it must -- while
facilitating expropriation -- lower the legal price of money.
Otherwise, the reform concerning mortgages is but a trap set for
small proprietors, -- a legislative trick.
Lower interest on money! But, as we have just seen, that is to
limit property. Here, sir, you shall make your own defence. More
than once, in your learned lectures, I have heard you deplore the
precipitancy of the Chambers, who, without previous study and
without profound knowledge of the subject, voted almost unanimously
to maintain the statutes and privileges of the Bank. Now these
privileges, these statutes, this vote of the Chambers, mean simply
this, -- that the market price of specie, at five or six per cent.,
is not too high, and that the conditions of exchange, discount, and
circulation, which generally double this interest, are none too
severe. So the government thinks. M. Blanqui -- a professor of
political economy, paid by the State -- maintains the contrary, and
pretends to demonstrate, by decisive arguments, the necessity of a
reform. Who, then, best understands the interests of property, --
the State, or M. Blanqui?
If specie could be borrowed at half the present rate, the revenues
from all sorts of property would soon be reduced one-half also. For
example: when it costs less to build a house than to hire one, when
it is cheaper to clear a field than to procure one already cleared,
competition inevitably leads to a reduction of house and farm-rents,
since the surest way to depreciate active capital is to increase its
amount. But it is a law of political economy that an increase of
production augments the mass of available capital, consequently
tends to raise wages, and finally to annihilate interest. Then,
proprietors are interested in maintaining the statutes and
privileges of the Bank; then, a reform in this matter would
compromise the right of increase; then, the peers and deputies are
better informed than Professor Blanqui.
But these same deputies, -- so jealous of their privileges
whenever the equalizing effects of a reform are within their
intellectual horizon, -- what did they do a few days before they
passed the law concerning judicial sales? They formed a conspiracy
against property! Their law to regulate the labor of children in
factories will, without doubt, prevent the manufacturer from
compelling a child to labor more than so many hours a day; but it
will not force him to increase the pay of the child, nor that of its
father. To-day, in the interest of health, we diminish the
subsistence of the poor; to-morrow it will be necessary to protect
them by fixing their minimum wages. But to fix their minimum
wages is to compel the proprietor, is to force the master to accept
his workman as an associate, which interferes with freedom and makes
mutual insurance obligatory. Once entered upon this path, we never
shall stop. Little by little the government will become
manufacturer, commission-merchant, and retail dealer. It will be the
sole proprietor. Why, at all epochs, have the ministers of State
been so reluctant to meddle with the question of wages? Why have
they always refused to interfere between the master and the workman?
Because they knew the touchy and jealous nature of property, and,
regarding it as the principle of all civilization, felt that to
meddle with it would be to unsettle the very foundations of society.
Sad condition of the proprietary régime, -- one of
inability to exercise charity without violating justice![*]
[*] The emperor Nicholas has just compelled all
the manufacturers in his empire to maintain, at their own expense,
within their establishments, small hospitals for the reception of
sick workmen, -- the number of beds in each being proportional to
the number of laborers in the factory. "You profit by man's
labor," the Czar could have said to his proprietors; "you
shall be responsible for man's life." M. Blanqui has said that
such a measure could not succeed in France. It would be an attack
upon property, -- a thing hardly conceivable even in Russia,
Scythia, or among the Cossacks; but among us, the oldest sons of
civilization! . . . I fear very much that this quality of age may
prove in the end a mark of decrepitude.
And, sir, this fatal consequence which necessity forces upon the
State is no mere imagination. Even now the legislative power is
asked, no longer simply to regulate the government of factories, but
to create factories itself. Listen to the millions of voices
shouting on all hands for the organisation of labor, the
creation of national workshops! The whole laboring class is
agitated: it has its journals, organs, and representatives. To
guarantee labor to the workingman, to balance production with sale,
to harmonize industrial proprietors, it advocates to-day -- as a
sovereign remedy -- one sole head, one national wardenship, one huge
manufacturing company. For, sir, all this is included in the idea of
national workshops. On this subject I wish to quote, as proof, the
views of an illustrious economist, a brilliant mind, a progressive
intellect, an enthusiastic soul, a true patriot, and yet an official
defender of the right of property.[*]
[*] Course of M. Blanqui. Lecture of Nov.
27,1840.
The honorable professor of the Conservatory proposes then, --
1. To check the continual emigration of laborers from the
country into the cities.
But, to keep the peasant in his village, his residence there must
be made endurable: to be just to all, the proletaire of the country
must be treated as well as the proletaire of the city. Reform is
needed, then, on farms as well as in factories; and, when the
government enters the workshop, the government must seize the
plough! What becomes, during this progressive invasion, of
independent cultivation, exclusive domain, property?
2. To fix for each profession a moderate salary, varying with
time and place and based upon certain data.
The object of this measure would be to secure to laborers their
subsistence, and to proprietors their profits, while obliging the
latter to sacrifice from motives of prudence, if for no other
reason, a portion of their income. Now, I say, that this portion, in
the long run, would swell until at last there would be an equality
of enjoyment between the proletaire and the proprietor. For, as we
have had occasion to remark several times already, the interest of
the capitalist -- in other words the increase of the idler -- tends,
on account of the power of labor, the multiplication of products and
exchanges, to continually diminish, and, by constant reduction, to
disappear. So that, in the society proposed by M. Blanqui, equality
would not be realized at first, but would exist potentially; since
property, though outwardly seeming to be industrial feudality, being
no longer a principle of exclusion and encroachment, but only a
privilege of division, would not be slow, thanks to the intellectual
and political emancipation of the proletariat, in passing into
absolute equality, -- as absolute at least as any thing can be on
this earth.
I omit, for the sake of brevity, the numerous considerations which
the professor adduces in support of what he calls, too modestly in
my opinion, his Utopia. They would serve only to prove beyond all
question that, of all the charlatans of radicalism who fatigue the
public ear, no one approaches, for depth and clearness of thought,
the audacious M. Blanqui.
3. National workshops should be in operation only during
periods of stagnation in ordinary industries; at such times they
should be opened as vast outlets to the flood of the laboring
population.
But, sir, the stoppage of private industry is the result of
over-production, and insufficient markets. If, then, production
continues in the national workshops, how will the crisis be
terminated? Undoubtedly, by the general depreciation of merchandise,
and, in the last analysis, by the conversion of private workshops
into national workshops. On the other hand, the government will need
capital with which to pay its workmen; now, how will this capital be
obtained? By taxation. And upon what will the tax be levied? Upon
property. Then you will have proprietary industry sustaining against
itself, and at its own expense, another industry with which it
cannot compete. What, think you, will become, in this fatal circle,
of the possibility of profit, -- in a word, of property?
Thank Heaven! equality of conditions is taught in the public
schools; let us fear revolutions no longer. The most implacable
enemy of property could not, if he wished to destroy it, go to work
in a wiser and more effective way. Courage, then, ministers,
deputies, economists! make haste to seize this glorious initiative;
let the watchwords of equality, uttered from the heights of science
and power, be repeated in the midst of the people; let them thrill
the breasts of the proletaires, and carry dismay into the ranks of
the last representatives of privilege!
The tendency of society in favor of compelling proprietors to
support national workshops and public manufactories is so strong
that for several years, under the name of electoral reform,
it has been exclusively the question of the day. What is, after all,
this electoral reform which the people grasp at, as if it were a
bait, and which so many ambitious persons either call for or
denounce? It is the acknowledgment of the right of the masses to a
voice in the assessment of taxes, and the making of the laws; which
laws, aiming always at the protection of material interests, affect,
in a greater or less degree, all questions of taxation or wages. Now
the people, instructed long since by their journals, their
dramas,[*]
[*] In "Mazaniello," the Neapolitan
fisherman demands, amid the applause of the galleries, that a tax be
levied upon luxuries.
and their songs,[*]
[2] Sème le champ, prolétaire;
C'est l l'oisif qui récoltera.
know to-day that taxation, to be equitably divided, must be
graduated, and must be borne mainly by the rich, -- that it must be
levied upon luxuries, &c. And be sure that the people, once in
the majority in the Chamber, will not fail to apply these lessons.
Already we have a minister of public works. National workshops will
follow; and soon, as a consequence, the excess of the proprietor's
revenue over the workingman's wages will be swallowed up in the
coffers of the laborers of the State. Do you not see that in this
way property is gradually reduced, as nobility was formerly, to a
nominal title, to a distinction purely honorary in its nature?
Either the electoral reform will fail to accomplish that which is
hoped from it, and will disappoint its innumerable partisans, or
else it will inevitably result in a transformation of the absolute
right under which we live into a right of possession; that is, that
while, at present, property makes the elector, after this reform is
accomplished, the citizen, the producer will be the possessor.[*]
[*] "In some countries, the enjoyment of
certain political rights depends upon the amount of property. But,
in these same countries, property is expressive, rather than
attributive, of the qualifications necessary to the exercise of
these rights. It is rather a conjectural proof than the cause of
these qualifications." -- Rossi: Treatise on Penal Law.
This assertion of M. Rossi is not borne out by history. Property
is the cause of the electoral right, not as a presumption of
capacity, -- an idea which never prevailed until lately, and
which is extremely absurd, -- but as a guarantee of
devotion to the established order. The electoral body is a
league of those interested in the maintenance of property, against
those not interested. There are thousands of documents, even
official documents, to prove this, if necessary. For the rest, the
present system is only a continuation of the municipal system,
which, in the middle ages, sprang up in connection with feudalism,
-- an oppressive, mischief-making system, full of petty passions and
base intrigues.
Consequently, the radicals are right in saying that the electoral
reform is in their eyes only a means; but, when they are silent as
to the end, they show either profound ignorance, or useless
dissimulation. There should be no secrets or reservations from
peoples and powers. He disgraces himself and fails in respect for
his fellows, who, in publishing his opinions, employs evasion and
cunning. Before the people act, they need to know the whole truth.
Unhappy he who shall dare to trifle with them! For the people are
credulous, but they are strong. Let us tell them, then, that this
reform which is proposed is only a means, -- a means often tried,
and hitherto without effect, -- but that the logical object of the
electoral reform is equality of fortunes; and that this equality
itself is only a new means having in view the superior and
definitive object of the salvation of society, the restoration of
morals and religion, and the revival of poetry and art.
It would be an abuse of the reader's patience to insist further
upon the tendency of our time towards equality. There are, moreover,
so many people who denounce the present age, that nothing is gained
by exposing to their view the popular, scientific, and
representative tendencies of the nation. Prompt to recognize the
accuracy of the inferences drawn from observation, they confine
themselves to a general censure of the facts, and an absolute denial
of their legitimacy. "What wonder," they say, "that
this atmosphere of equality intoxicates us, considering all that has
been said and done during the past ten years! . . . Do you not see
that society is dissolving, that a spirit of infatuation is carrying
us away? All these hopes of regeneration are but forebodings of
death; your songs of triumph are like the prayers of the departing,
your trumpet peals announce the baptism of a dying man. Civilization
is falling in ruin: Imus, imus, præcipites!"
Such people deny God. I might content myself with the reply that
the spirit of 1830 was the result of the maintenance of the violated
charter; that this charter arose from the Revolution of '89; that
'89 implies the States-General's right of remonstrance, and the
enfranchisement of the communes; that the communes suppose
feudalism, which in its turn supposes invasion, Roman law,
Christianity, &c.
But it is necessary to look further. We must penetrate to the very
heart of ancient institutions, plunge into the social depths, and
uncover this indestructible leaven of equality which the God of
justice breathed into our souls, and which manifests itself in all
our works.
Labor is man's contemporary; it is a duty, since it is a condition
of existence: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread."
It is more than a duty, it is a mission: "God put the man into
the garden to dress it." I add that labor is the cause and
means of equality.
Cast away upon a desert island two men: one large, strong, and
active; the other weak, timid, and domestic. The latter will die of
hunger; while the other, a skilful hunter, an expert fisherman, and
an indefatigable husbandman, will overstock himself with provisions.
What greater inequality, in this state of Nature so dear to the
heart of Jean Jacques, could be imagined! But let these two men meet
and associate themselves: the second immediately attends to the
cooking, takes charge of the household affairs, and sees to the
provisions, beds, and clothes; provided the stronger does not abuse
his superiority by enslaving and ill-treating his companion, their
social condition will be perfectly equal. Thus, through exchange of
services, the inequalities of Nature neutralize each other, talents
associate, and forces balance. Violence and inertia are found only
among the poor and the aristocratic. And in that lies the philosophy
of political economy, the mystery of human brotherhood. Hic est
sapientia. Let us pass from the hypothetical state of pure
Nature into civilization.
The proprietor of the soil, who produces, I will suppose with the
economists, by lending his instrument, receives at the foundation of
a society so many bushels of grain for each acre of arable land. As
long as labor is weak, and the variety of its products small, the
proprietor is powerful in comparison with the laborers; he has ten
times, one hundred times, the portion of an honest man. But let
labor, by multiplying its inventions, multiply its enjoyments and
wants, and the proprietor, if he wishes to enjoy the new products,
will be obliged to reduce his income every day; and since the first
products tend rather to depreciate than to rise in value, -- in
consequence of the continual addition of the new ones, which may be
regarded as supplements of the first ones, -- it follows that the
idle proprietor grows poor as fast as public prosperity increases. "Incomes"
(I like to quote you, sir, because it is impossible to give too good
an authority for these elementary principles of economy, and because
I cannot express them better myself), "incomes," you have
said, "tend to disappear as capital increases. He who possesses
to-day an income of twenty thousand pounds is not nearly as rich as
he who possessed the same amount fifty years ago. The time is coming
when all property will be a burden to the idle, and will necessarily
pass into the hands of the able and industrious.[*] . . ."
[*] Lecture of December 22
In order to live as a proprietor, or to consume without producing,
it is necessary, then, to live upon the labor of another; in other
words, it is necessary to kill the laborer. It is upon this
principle that proprietors of those varieties of capital which are
of primary necessity increase their farm-rents as fast as industry
develops, much more careful of their privileges in that respect,
than those economists who, in order to strengthen property, advocate
a reduction of interest. But the crime is unavailing: labor and
production increase; soon the proprietor will be forced to labor,
and then property is lost.
The proprietor is a man who, having absolute control of an
instrument of production, claims the right to enjoy the product of
the instrument without using it himself. To this end he lends it;
and we have just seen that from this loan the laborer derives a
power of exchange, which sooner or later will destroy the right of
increase. In the first place, the proprietor is obliged to allow the
laborer a portion of the product, for without it the laborer could
not live. Soon the latter, through the development of his industry,
finds a means of regaining the greater portion of that which he
gives to the proprietor; so that at last, the objects of enjoyment
increasing continually, while the income of the idler remains the
same, the proprietor, having exhausted his resources, begins to
think of going to work himself. Then the victory of the producer is
certain. Labor commences to tip the balance towards its own side,
and commerce leads to equilibrium.
Man's instinct cannot err; as, in liberty, exchange of functions
leads inevitably to equality among men, so commerce -- or exchange
of products, which is identical with exchange of functions -- is a
new cause of equality. As long as the proprietor does not labor,
however small his income, he enjoys a privilege; the laborer's
welfare may be equal to his, but equality of conditions does not
exist. But as soon as the proprietor becomes a producer, -- since he
can exchange his special product only with his tenant or his commandité,
-- sooner or later this tenant, this exploited man, if
violence is not done him, will make a profit out of the proprietor,
and will oblige him to restore -- in the exchange of their
respective products -- the interest on his capital. So that,
balancing one injustice by another, the contracting parties will be
equal. Labor and exchange, when liberty prevails, lead, then, to
equality of fortunes; mutuality of services neutralizes privilege.
That is why despots in all ages and countries have assumed control
of commerce; they wished to prevent the labor of their subjects from
becoming an obstacle to the rapacity of tyrants.
Up to this point, all takes place in the natural order; there is
no premeditation, no artifice. The whole proceeding is governed by
the laws of necessity alone. Proprietors and laborers act only in
obedience to their wants. Thus, the exercise of the right of
increase, the art of robbing the producer, depends -- during this
first period of civilization -- upon physical violence, murder, and
war. But at this point a gigantic and complicated conspiracy is
hatched against the capitalists. The weapon of the exploiters
is met by the exploited with the instrument of commerce, --
a marvellous invention, denounced at its origin by the moralists who
favored property, but inspired without doubt by the genius of labor,
by the Minerva of the proletaires.
The principal cause of the evil lay in the accumulation and
immobility of capital of all sorts, -- an immobility which prevented
labor, enslaved and subalternized by haughty idleness, from ever
acquiring it. The necessity was felt of dividing and mobilizing
wealth, of rendering it portable, of making it pass from the hands
of the possessor into those of the worker. Labor invented money.
Afterwards, this invention was revived and developed by the bill
of exchange and the Bank. For all these things are
substantially the same, and proceed from the same mind. The first
man who conceived the idea of representing a value by a shell, a
precious stone, or a certain weight of metal, was the real inventor
of the Bank. What is a piece of money, in fact? It is a bill of
exchange written upon solid and durable material, and carrying with
it its own redemption. By this means, oppressed equality was enabled
to laugh at the efforts of the proprietors, and the balance of
justice was adjusted for the first time in the tradesman's shop. The
trap was cunningly set, and accomplished its purpose so thoroughly
that in idle hands money became only dissolving wealth, a false
symbol, a shadow of riches. An excellent economist and profound
philosopher was that miser who took as his motto, "When a
guinea is exchanged, it evaporates." So it may be said, "When
real estate is converted into money, it is lost." This explains
the constant fact of history, that the nobles -- the unproductive
proprietors of the soil -- have every where been dispossessed by
industrial and commercial plebeians. Such was especially the case in
the formation of the Italian republics, born, during the middle
ages, of the impoverishment of the seigniors. I will not pursue the
interesting considerations which this matter suggests; I could only
repeat the testimony of historians, and present economical
demonstrations in an altered form.
The greatest enemy of the landed and industrial aristocracy
to-day, the incessant promoter of equality of fortunes, is the banker.
Through him immense plains are divided, mountains change their
positions, forests are grown upon the public squares, one hemisphere
produces for another, and every corner of the globe has its
usufructuaries. By means of the Bank new wealth is continually
created, the use of which (soon becoming indispensable to
selfishness) wrests the dormant capital from the hands of the
jealous proprietor. The banker is at once the most potent creator of
wealth, and the main distributor of the products of art and Nature.
And yet, by the strangest antinomy, this same banker is the most
relentless collector of profits, increase, and usury ever inspired
by the demon of property. The importance of the services which he
renders leads us to endure, though not without complaint, the taxes
which he imposes. Nevertheless, since nothing can avoid its
providential mission, since nothing which exists can escape the end
for which it exists the banker (the modern Croesus) must some day
become the restorer of equality. And following in your footsteps,
sir, I have already given the reason; namely, that profit decreases
as capital multiplies, since an increase of capital -- calling for
more laborers, without whom it remains unproductive -- always causes
an increase of wages. Whence it follows that the Bank, to-day the
suction-pump of wealth, is destined to become the steward of the
human race.
The phrase equality of fortunes chafes people, as if it
referred to a condition of the other world, unknown here below.
There are some persons, radicals as well as moderates, whom the very
mention of this idea fills with indignation. Let, then, these silly
aristocrats abolish mercantile societies and insurance companies,
which are founded by prudence for mutual assistance. For all these
social facts, so spontaneous and free from all levelling intentions,
are the legitimate fruits of the instinct of equality.
When the legislator makes a law, properly speaking he does not
make it, -- he does not create it: he describes
it. In legislating upon the moral, civil, and political relations of
citizens, he does not express an arbitrary notion: he states the
general idea, -- the higher principle which governs the matter which
he is considering; in a word, he is the proclaimer, not the
inventor, of the law. So, when two or more men form among
themselves, by synallagmatic contract, an industrial or an insurance
association, they recognize that their interests, formerly isolated
by a false spirit of selfishness and independence, are firmly
connected by their inner natures, and by the mutuality of their
relations. They do not really bind themselves by an act of their
private will: they swear to conform henceforth to a previously
existing social law hitherto disregarded by them. And this is proved
by the fact that these same men, could they avoid association, would
not associate. Before they can be induced to unite their interests,
they must acquire full knowledge of the dangers of competition and
isolation; hence the experience of evil is the only thing which
leads them into society.
Now I say that, to establish equality among men, it is only
necessary to generalize the principle upon which insurance,
agricultural, and commercial associations are based. I say that
competition, isolation of interests, monopoly, privilege,
accumulation of capital, exclusive enjoyment, subordination of
functions, individual production, the right of profit or increase,
the exploitation of man by man, and, to sum up all these species
under one head, that PROPERTY is the principal cause of misery and
crime. And, for having arrived at this offensive and
anti-proprietary conclusion, I am an abhorred monster; radicals and
conservatives alike point me out as a fit subject for prosecution;
the academies shower their censures upon me; the most worthy people
regard me as mad; and those are excessively tolerant who content
themselves with the assertion that I am a fool. Oh, unhappy the
writer who publishes the truth otherwise than as a performance of a
duty! If he has counted upon the applause of the crowd; if he has
supposed that avarice and self-interest would forget themselves in
admiration of him; if he has neglected to encase himself within
three thicknesses of brass, -- he will fail, as he ought, in his
selfish undertaking. The unjust criticisms, the sad disappointments,
the despair of his mistaken ambition, will kill him.
But, if I am no longer permitted to express my own personal
opinion concerning this interesting question of social equilibrium,
let me, at least, make known the thought of my masters, and develop
the doctrines advocated in the name of the government.
It never has been my intention, sir, in spite of the vigorous
censure which you, in behalf of your academy, have pronounced upon
the doctrine of equality of fortunes, to contradict and cope with
you. In listening to you, I have felt my inferiority too keenly to
permit me to enter upon such a discussion. And then, -- if it must
be said, -- however different your language is from mine, we believe
in the same principles; you share all my opinions. I do not mean to
insinuate thereby, sir, that you have (to use the phraseology of the
schools) an esoteric and an exoteric doctrine, --
that, secretly believing in equality, you defend property only from
motives of prudence and by command. I am not rash enough to regard
you as my colleague in my revolutionary projects; and I esteem you
too highly, moreover, to suspect you of dissimulation. I only mean
that the truths which methodical investigation and laborious
metaphysical speculation have painfully demonstrated to me, a
profound acquaintance with political economy and a long experience
reveal to you. While I have reached my belief in equality by long
reflection, and almost in spite of my desires, you hold yours, sir,
with all the zeal of faith, -- with all the spontaneity of genius.
That is why your course of lectures at the Conservatory is a
perpetual war upon property and inequality of fortunes; that is why
your most learned investigations, your most ingenious analyses, and
your innumerable observations always conclude in a formula of
progress and equality; that is why, finally, you are never more
admired and applauded than at those moments of inspiration when,
borne upon the wings of science, you ascend to those lofty truths
which cause plebeian hearts to beat with enthusiasm, and which chill
with horror men whose intentions are evil. How many times, from the
place where I eagerly drank in your eloquent words, have I inwardly
thanked Heaven for exempting you from the judgment passed by St.
Paul upon the philosophers of his time, -- "They have known the
truth, and have not made it known"! How many times have I
rejoiced at finding my own justification in each of your discourses!
No, no; I neither wish nor ask for any thing which you do not teach
yourself. I appeal to your numerous audience; let it belie me if, in
commenting upon you, I pervert your meaning.
A disciple of Say, what in your eyes is more anti-social than the
custom-houses; or, as you correctly call them, the barriers erected
by monopoly between nations? What is more annoying, more unjust, or
more absurd, than this prohibitory system which compels us to pay
forty sous in France for that which in England or Belgium would
bring us but fifteen? It is the custom-house, you once said, which
arrests the development of civilization by preventing the
specialization of industries; it is the custom-house which enriches
a hundred monopolists by impoverishing millions of citizens; it is
the custom-house which produces famine in the midst of abundance,
which makes labor sterile by prohibiting exchange, and which stifles
production in a mortal embrace. It is the custom-house which renders
nations jealous of, and hostile to, each other; four-fifths of the
wars of all ages were caused originally by the custom-house. And
then, at the highest pitch of your enthusiasm, you shouted: "Yes,
if to put an end to this hateful system, it should become necessary
for me to shed the last drop of my blood, I would joyfully spring
into the gap, asking only time enough to give thanks to God for
having judged me worthy of martyrdom!"
And, at that solemn moment, I said to myself: "Place in every
department of France such a professor as that, and the revolution is
avoided."
But, sir, by this magnificent theory of liberty of commerce you
render military glory impossible, -- you leave nothing for diplomacy
to do; you even take away the desire for conquest, while abolishing
profit altogether. What matters it, indeed, who restores
Constantinople, Alexandria, and Saint Jean d'Acre, if the Syrians,
Egyptians, and Turks are free to choose their masters; free to
exchange their products with whom they please? Why should Europe get
into such a turmoil over this petty Sultan and his old Pasha, if it
is only a question whether we or the English shall civilize the
Orient, -- shall instruct Egypt and Syria in the European arts, and
shall teach them to construct machines, dig canals, and build
railroads? For, if to national independence free trade is added, the
foreign influence of these two countries is thereafter exerted only
through a voluntary relationship of producer to producer, or
apprentice to journeyman.
Alone among European powers, France cheerfully accepted the task
of civilizing the Orient, and began an invasion which was quite
apostolic in its character, -- so joyful and high-minded do noble
thoughts render our nation! But diplomatic rivalry, national
selfishness, English avarice, and Russian ambition stood in her way.
To consummate a long-meditated usurpation, it was necessary to crush
a too generous ally: the robbers of the Holy Alliance formed a
league against dauntless and blameless France. Consequently, at the
news of this famous treaty, there arose among us a chorus of curses
upon the principle of property, which at that time was acting under
the hypocritical formulas of the old political system. The last hour
of property seemed to have struck by the side of Syria; from the
Alps to the ocean, from the Rhine to the Pyrenees, the popular
conscience was aroused. All France sang songs of war, and the
coalition turned pale at the sound of these shuddering cries: "War
upon the autocrat, who wishes to be proprietor of the old world! War
upon the English perjurer, the devourer of India, the poisoner of
China, the tyrant of Ireland, and the eternal enemy of France! War
upon the allies who have conspired against liberty and equality!
War! war! war upon property!"
By the counsel of Providence the emancipation of the nations is
postponed. France is to conquer, not by arms, but by example.
Universal reason does not yet understand this grand equation, which,
commencing with the abolition of slavery, and advancing over the
ruins of aristocracies and thrones, must end in equality of rights
and fortunes; but the day is not far off when the knowledge of this
truth will be as common as that of equality of origin. Already it
seems to be understood that the Oriental question is only a question
of custom-houses. Is it, then, so difficult for public opinion to
generalize this idea, and to comprehend, finally, that if the
suppression of custom-houses involves the abolition of national
property, it involves also, as a consequence, the abolition of
individual property?
In fact, if we suppress the custom-houses, the alliance of the
nations is declared by that very act; their solidarity is
recognized, and their equality proclaimed. If we suppress the
custom-houses, the principle of association will not be slow in
reaching from the State to the province, from the province to the
city, and from the city to the workshop. But, then, what becomes of
the privileges of authors and artists? Of what use are the patents
for invention, imagination, amelioration, and improvement? When our
deputies write a law of literary property by the side of a law which
opens a large breach in the custom-house they contradict themselves,
indeed, and pull down with one hand what they build up with the
other. Without the custom-house. literary property does not exist,
and the hopes of our starving authors are frustrated. For, certainly
you do not expect, with the good man Fourier, that literary property
will exercise itself in China to the profit of a French writer; and
that an ode of Lamartine, sold by privilege all over the world, will
bring in millions to its author! The poet's work is peculiar to the
climate in which he lives; every where else the reproduction of his
works, having no market value, should be frank and free. But what!
will it be necessary for nations to put themselves under mutual
surveillance for the sake of verses, statues, and elixirs? We shall
always have, then, an excise, a city-toll, rights of entrance and
transit, custom-houses finally; and then, as a reaction against
privilege, smuggling.
Smuggling! That word reminds me of one of the most horrible forms
of property. "Smuggling," you have said, sir,[*]
[*] Lecture of Jan. 15, 1841
"is an offence of political creation; it is the exercise of
natural liberty, defined as a crime in certain cases by the will of
the sovereign. The smuggler is a gallant man, -- a man of spirit,
who gaily busies himself in procuring for his neighbor, at a very
low price, a jewel, a shawl, or any other object of necessity or
luxury, which domestic monopoly renders excessively dear."
Then, to a very poetical monograph of the smuggler, you add this
dismal conclusion, -- that the smuggler belongs to the family of
Mandrin, and that the galleys should be his home!
But, sir, you have not called attention to the horrible
exploitation which is carried on in this way in the name of
property.
It is said, -- and I give this report only as an hypothesis and an
illustration, for I do not believe it, -- it is said that the
present minister of finances owes his fortune to smuggling. M.
Humann, of Strasbourg, sent out of France, it is said, enormous
quantities of sugar, for which he received the bounty on exportation
promised by the State; then, smuggling this sugar back again, he
exported it anew, receiving the bounty on exportation a second time,
and so on. Notice, sir, that I do not state this as a fact; I give
it only as it is told, not endorsing or even believing it. My sole
design is to fix the idea in the mind by an example. If I believed
that a minister had committed such a crime, that is, if I had
personal and authentic knowledge that he had, I would denounce M.
Humann, the minister of finances, to the Chamber of Deputies, and
would loudly demand his expulsion from the ministry.
But that which is undoubtedly false of M. Humann is true of many
others, as rich and no less honorable than he. Smuggling, organized
on a large scale by the eaters of human flesh, is carried on to the
profit of a few pashas at the risk and peril of their imprudent
victims. The inactive proprietor offers his merchandise for sale;
the actual smuggler risks his liberty, his honor, and his life. If
success crowns the enterprise, the courageous servant gets paid for
his journey; the profit goes to the coward. If fortune or treachery
delivers the instrument of this execrable traffic into the hands of
the custom-house officer, the master-smuggler suffers a loss which a
more fortunate voyage will soon repair. The agent, pronounced a
scoundrel, is thrown into prison in company with robbers; while his
glorious patron, a juror, elector, deputy, or minister, makes laws
concerning expropriation, monopoly, and custom-houses!
I promised, at the beginning of this letter, that no attack on
property should escape my pen, my only object being to justify
myself before the public by a general recrimination. But I could not
refrain from branding so odious a mode of exploitation, and I trust
that this short digression will be pardoned. Property does not
avenge, I hope, the injuries which smuggling suffers.
The conspiracy against property is general; it is flagrant; it
takes possession of all minds, and inspires all our laws; it lies at
the bottom of all theories. Here the proletaire pursues property in
the street, there the legislator lays an interdict upon it; now, a
professor of political economy or of industrial legislation,[*]
[*] MM. Blanqui and Wolowski.
paid to defend it, undermines it with redoubled blows; at another
-- time, an academy calls it in question,[*]
[*] Subject proposed by the Fourth Class of the
Institute, the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences: "What
would be the effect upon the working-class of the organization of
labor, according to the modern ideas of association?"
or inquires as to the progress of its demolition.[*]
[*] Subject proposed by the Academy of Besançon:
"The economical and moral consequences in France, up to the
present time, and those which seem likely to appear in future, of
the law concerning the equal division of hereditary property between
the children."
To-day there is not an idea, not an opinion, not a sect, which
does not dream of muzzling property. None confess it, because none
are yet conscious of it; there are too few minds capable of grasping
spontaneously this ensemble of causes and effects, of
principles and consequences, by which I try to demonstrate the
approaching disappearance of property; on the other hand, the ideas
that are generally formed of this right are too divergent and too
loosely determined to allow an admission, so soon, of the contrary
theory. Thus, in the middle and lower ranks of literature and
philosophy, no less than among the common people, it is thought
that, when property is abolished, no one will be able to enjoy the
fruit of his labor; that no one will have any thing peculiar to
himself, and that tyrannical communism will be established on the
ruins of family and liberty! -- chimeras, which are to support for a
little while longer the cause of privilege.
But, before determining precisely the idea of property, before
seeking amid the contradictions of systems for the common element
which must form the basis of the new right, let us cast a rapid
glance at the changes which, at the various periods of history,
property has undergone. The political forms of nations are the
expression of their beliefs. The mobility of these forms, their
modification and their destruction, are solemn experiences which
show us the value of ideas, and gradually eliminate from the
infinite variety of customs the absolute, eternal, and immutable
truth. Now, we shall see that every political institution tends,
necessarily, and on pain of death, to equalize conditions; that
every where and always equality of fortunes (like equality of
rights) has been the social aim, whether the plebeian classes have
endeavored to rise to political power by means of property, or
whether -- rulers already -- they have used political power to
overthrow property. We shall see, in short, by the progress of
society, that the consummation of justice lies in the extinction of
individual domain.
