What Is Property?
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
[1840 / Part 13 of 16]
For the sake of brevity, I will disregard the testimony of
ecclesiastical history and Christian theology: this subject deserves
a separate treatise, and I propose hereafter to return to it. Moses
and Jesus Christ proscribed, under the names of usury and
inequality,[*]
[*] Pleonexia, -- greater property. The
Vulgate translates it avaritia.
... all sorts of profit and increase. The church
itself, in its purest teachings, has always condemned property; and
when I attacked, not only the authority of the church, but also its
infidelity to justice, I did it to the glory of religion. I wanted
to provoke a peremptory reply, and to pave the way for
Christianity's triumph, in spite of the innumerable attacks of which
it is at present the object. I hoped that an apologist would arise
forthwith, and, taking his stand upon the Scriptures, the Fathers,
the canons, and the councils and constitutions of the Popes, would
demonstrate that the church always has maintained the doctrine of
equality, and would attribute to temporary necessity the
contradictions of its discipline. Such a labor would serve the cause
of religion as well as that of equality. We must know, sooner or
later, whether Christianity is to be regenerated in the church or
out of it, and whether this church accepts the reproaches cast upon
it of hatred to liberty and antipathy to progress. Until then we
will suspend judgment, and content ourselves with placing before the
clergy the teachings of history.
When Lycurgus undertook to make laws for Sparta, in what condition
did he find this republic? On this point all historians agree. The
people and the nobles were at war. The city was in a confused state,
and divided by two parties, -- the party of the poor, and the party
of the rich. Hardly escaped from the barbarism of the heroic ages,
society was rapidly declining. The proletariat made war upon
property, which, in its turn, oppressed the proletariat. What did
Lycurgus do? His first measure was one of general security, at the
very idea of which our legislators would tremble. He abolished all
debts; then, employing by turns persuasion and force, he induced the
nobles to renounce their privileges, and re-established equality.
Lycurgus, in a word, hunted property out of Lacedæmon, seeing
no other way to harmonize liberty, equality, and law. I certainly
should not wish France to follow the example of Sparta; but it is
remarkable that the most ancient of Greek legislators, thoroughly
acquainted with the nature and needs of the people, more capable
than any one else of appreciating the legitimacy of the obligations
which he, in the exercise of his absolute authority, cancelled; who
had compared the legislative systems of his time, and whose wisdom
an oracle had proclaimed, -- it is remarkable, I say, that Lycurgus
should have judged the right of property incompatible with free
institutions, and should have thought it his duty to preface his
legislation by a coup d'état which destroyed all
distinctions of fortune.
Lycurgus understood perfectly that the luxury, the love of
enjoyments, and the inequality of fortunes, which property
engenders, are the bane of society; unfortunately the means which he
employed to preserve his republic were suggested to him by false
notions of political economy, and by a superficial knowledge of the
human heart. Accordingly, property, which this legislator wrongly
confounded with wealth, reentered the city together with the swarm
of evils which he was endeavoring to banish; and this time Sparta
was hopelessly corrupted.
"The introduction of wealth," says M. Pastoret, "was
one of the principal causes of the misfortunes which they
experienced. Against these, however, the laws had taken
extraordinary precautions, the best among which was the inculcation
of morals which tended to suppress desire."
The best of all precautions would have been the anticipation of
desire by satisfaction. Possession is the sovereign remedy for
cupidity, a remedy which would have been the less perilous to Sparta
because fortunes there were almost equal, and conditions were nearly
alike. As a general thing, fasting and abstinence are bad teachers
of moderation.
"There was a law," says M. Pastoret again, "to
prohibit the rich from wearing better clothing than the poor, from
eating more delicate food, and from owning elegant furniture, vases,
carpets, fine houses," &c. Lycurgus hoped, then, to
maintain equality by rendering wealth useless. How much wiser he
would have been if, in accordance with his military discipline, he
had organized industry and taught the people to procure by their own
labor the things which he tried in vain to deprive them of. In that
case, enjoying happy thoughts and pleasant feelings, the citizen
would have known no other desire than that with which the legislator
endeavored to inspire him, -- love of honor and glory, the triumphs
of talent and virtue.
"Gold and all kinds of ornaments were forbidden the women."
Absurd. After the death of Lycurgus, his institutions became
corrupted; and four centuries before the Christian era not a vestige
remained of the former simplicity. Luxury and the thirst for gold
were early developed among the Spartans in a degree as intense as
might have been expected from their enforced poverty and their
inexperience in the arts. Historians have accused Pausanias,
Lysander, Agesilaus, and others of having corrupted the morals of
their country by the introduction of wealth obtained in war. It is a
slander. The morals of the Spartans necessarily grew corrupt as soon
as the Lacedæmonian poverty came in contact with Persian
luxury and Athenian elegance. Lycurgus, then, made a fatal mistake
in attempting to inspire generosity and modesty by enforcing vain
and proud simplicity.
"Lycurgus was not frightened at idleness! A Lacedæmonian,
happening to be in Athens (where idleness was forbidden) during the
punishment of a citizen who had been found guilty, asked to see the
Athenian thus condemned for having exercised the rights of a free
man. . . . It was one of the principles of Lycurguss, acted upon for
several centuries, that free men should not follow lucrative
professions. . . . The women disdained domestic labor; they did not
spin their wool themselves, as did the other Greeks [they did not,
then, read Homer!]; they left their slaves to make their clothing
for them." -- Pastoret: History of Legislation.
Could any thing be more contradictory? Lycurgus proscribed
property among the citizens, and founded the means of subsistence on
the worst form of property, -- on property obtained by force. What
wonder, after that, that a lazy city, where no industry was carried
on, became a den of avarice? The Spartans succumbed the more easily
to the allurements of luxury and Asiatic voluptuousness, being
placed entirely at their mercy by their own coarseness. The same
thing happened to the Romans, when military success took them out of
Italy, -- a thing which the author of the prosopopoeia of Fabricius
could not explain. It is not the cultivation of the arts which
corrupts morals, but their degradation, induced by inactive and
luxurious opulence. The instinct of property is to make the industry
of Dædalus, as well as the talent of Phidias, subservient to
its own fantastic whims and disgraceful pleasures. Property, not
wealth, ruined the Spartans.
When Solon appeared, the anarchy caused by property was at its
height in the Athenian republic. "The inhabitants of Attica
were divided among themselves as to the form of government. Those
who lived on the mountains (the poor) preferred the popular form;
those of the plain (the middle class), the oligarchs; those by the
sea coast, a mixture of oligarchy and democracy. Other dissensions
were arising from the inequality of fortunes. The mutual antagonism
of the rich and poor had become so violent, that the one-man power
seemed the only safe-guard against the revolution with which the
republic was threatened." (Pastoret: History of Legislation.)
Quarrels between the rich and the poor, which seldom occur in
monarchies, because a well established power suppresses dissensions,
seem to be the life of popular governments. Aristotle had noticed
this. The oppression of wealth submitted to agrarian laws, or to
excessive taxation; the hatred of the lower classes for the upper
class, which is exposed always to libellous charges made in hopes of
confiscation, -- these were the features of the Athenian government
which were especially revolting to Aristotle, and which caused him
to favor a limited monarchy. Aristotle, if he had lived in our day,
would have supported the constitutional government. But, with all
deference to the Stagirite, a government which sacrifices the life
of the proletaire to that of the proprietor is quite as irrational
as one which supports the former by robbing the latter; neither of
them deserve the support of a free man, much less of a philosopher.
Solon followed the example of Lycurgus. He celebrated his
legislative inauguration by the abolition of debts, -- that is, by
bankruptcy. In other words, Solon wound up the governmental machine
for a longer or shorter time depending upon the rate of interest.
Consequently, when the spring relaxed and the chain became unwound,
the republic had either to perish, or to recover itself by a second
bankruptcy. This singular policy was pursued by all the ancients.
After the captivity of Babylon, Nehemiah, the chief of the Jewish
nation, abolished debts; Lycurgus abolished debts; Solon abolished
debts; the Roman people, after the expulsion of the kings until the
accession of the Cæsars, struggled with the Senate for the
abolition of debts. Afterwards, towards the end of the republic, and
long after the establishment of the empire, agriculture being
abandoned, and the provinces becoming depopulated in consequence of
the excessive rates of interest, the emperors freely granted the
lands to whoever would cultivate them, -- that is, they abolished
debts. No one, except Lycurgus, who went to the other extreme, ever
perceived that the great point was, not to release debtors by a coup
d'état, but to prevent the contraction of debts in
future. On the contrary, the most democratic governments were always
exclusively based upon individual property; so that the social
element of all these republics was war between the citizens.
Solon decreed that a census should be taken of all fortunes,
regulated political rights by the result, granted to the larger
proprietors more influence, established the balance of powers, -- in
a word, inserted in the constitution the most active leaven of
discord; as if, instead of a legislator chosen by the people, he had
been their greatest enemy. Is it not, indeed, the height of
imprudence to grant equality of political rights to men of unequal
conditions? If a manufacturer, uniting all his workmen in a
joint-stock company, should give to each of them a consultative and
deliberative voice, -- that is, should make all of them masters, --
would this equality of mastership secure continued inequality of
wages? That is the whole political system of Solon, reduced to its
simplest expression.
"In giving property a just preponderance," says M.
Pastoret, "Solon repaired, as far as he was able, his first
official act, -- the abolition of debts. . . . He thought he owed it
to public peace to make this great sacrifice of acquired rights and
natural equity. But the violation of individual property and written
contracts is a bad preface to a public code."
In fact, such violations are always cruelly punished. In '89 and
'93, the possessions of the nobility and the clergy were
confiscated, the clever proletaires were enriched; and to-day the
latter, having become aristocrats, are making us pay dearly for our
fathers' robbery. What, therefore, is to be done now? It is not for
us to violate right, but to restore it. Now, it would be a violation
of justice to dispossess some and endow others, and then stop there.
We must gradually lower the rate of interest, organize industry,
associate laborers and their functions, and take a census of the
large fortunes, not for the purpose of granting privileges, but that
we may effect their redemption by settling a life-annuity upon their
proprietors. We must apply on a large scale the principle of
collective production, give the State eminent domain over all
capital! make each producer responsible, abolish the custom-house,
and transform every profession and trade into a public function.
Thereby large fortunes will vanish without confiscation or violence;
individual possession will establish itself, without communism,
under the inspection of the republic; and equality of conditions
will no longer depend simply on the will of citizens.
Of the authors who have written upon the Romans, Bossuet and
Montesquieu occupy prominent positions in the first rank; the first
being generally regarded as the father of the philosophy of history,
and the second as the most profound writer upon law and politics.
Nevertheless, it could be shown that these two great writers, each
of them imbued with the prejudices of their century and their cloth,
have left the question of the causes of the rise and fall of the
Romans precisely where they found it.
Bossuet is admirable as long as he confines himself to
description: witness, among other passages, the picture which he has
given us of Greece before the Persian War, and which seems to have
inspired "Telemachus;" the parallel between Athens and
Sparta, drawn twenty times since Bossuet; the description of the
character and morals of the ancient Romans; and, finally, the
sublime peroration which ends the "Discourse on Universal
History." But when the famous historian deals with causes, his
philosophy is at fault.
"The tribunes always favored the division of captured lands,
or the proceeds of their sale, among the citizens. The Senate
steadfastly opposed those laws which were damaging to the State, and
wanted the price of lands to be awarded to the public treasury."
Thus, according to Bossuet, the first and greatest wrong of civil
wars was inflicted upon the people, who, dying of hunger, demanded
that the lands, which they had shed their blood to conquer, should
be given to them for cultivation. The patricians, who bought them to
deliver to their slaves, had more regard for justice and the public
interests. How little affects the opinions of men! If the rôles
of Cicero and the Gracchi had been inverted, Bossuet, whose
sympathies were aroused by the eloquence of the great orator more
than by the clamors of the tribunes, would have viewed the agrarian
laws in quite a different light. He then would have understood that
the interest of the treasury was only a pretext; that, when the
captured lands were put up at auction, the patricians hastened to
buy them, in order to profit by the revenues from them, -- certain,
moreover, that the price paid would come back to them sooner or
later, in exchange either for supplies furnished by them to the
republic, or for the subsistence of the multitude, who could buy
only of them, and whose services at one time, and poverty at
another, were rewarded by the State. For a State does not hoard; on
the contrary, the public funds always return to the people. If,
then, a certain number of men are the sole dealers in articles of
primary necessity, it follows that the public treasury, in passing
and repassing through their hands, deposits and accumulates real
property there.
When Menenius related to the people his fable of the limbs and the
stomach, if any one had remarked to this story-teller that the
stomach freely gives to the limbs the nourishment which it freely
receives, but that the patricians gave to the plebeians only for
cash, and lent to them only at usury, he undoubtedly would have
silenced the wily senator, and saved the people from a great
imposition. The Conscript Fathers were fathers only of their own
line. As for the common people, they were regarded as an impure
race, exploitable, taxable, and workable at the discretion and mercy
of their masters.
As a general thing, Bossuet shows little regard for the people.
His monarchical and theological instincts know nothing but
authority, obedience, and alms-giving, under the name of charity.
This unfortunate disposition constantly leads him to mistake
symptoms for causes; and his depth, which is so much admired, is
borrowed from his authors, and amounts to very little, after all.
When he says, for instance, that "the dissensions in the
republic, and finally its fall, were caused by the jealousies of its
citizens, and their love of liberty carried to an extreme and
intolerable extent," are we not tempted to ask him what caused
those jealousies? -- what inspired the people with that love
of liberty, extreme and intolerable? It would be useless to
reply, The corruption of morals; the disregard for the ancient
poverty; the debaucheries, luxury, and class jealousies; the
seditious character of the Gracchi, &c. Why did the morals
become corrupt, and whence arose those eternal dissensions between
the patricians and the plebeians?
In Rome, as in all other places, the dissension between the rich
and the poor was not caused directly by the desire for wealth
(people, as a general thing, do not covet that which they deem it
illegitimate to acquire), but by a natural instinct of the
plebeians, which led them to seek the cause of their adversity in
the constitution of the republic. So we are doing to-day; instead of
altering our public economy, we demand an electoral reform. The
Roman people wished to return to the social compact; they asked for
reforms, and demanded a revision of the laws, and a creation of new
magistracies. The patricians, who had nothing to complain of,
opposed every innovation. Wealth always has been conservative.
Nevertheless, the people overcame the resistance of the Senate; the
electoral right was greatly extended; the privileges of the
plebeians were increased, -- they had their representatives, their
tribunes, and their consuls; but, notwithstanding these reforms, the
republic could not be saved. When all political expedients had been
exhausted, when civil war had depleted the population, when the Cæsars
had thrown their bloody mantle over the cancer which was consuming
the empire, -- inasmuch as accumulated property always was
respected, and since the fire never stopped, the nation had to
perish in the flames. The imperial power was a compromise which
protected the property of the rich, and nourished the proletaires
with wheat from Africa and Sicily: a double error, which destroyed
the aristocrats by plethora and the commoners by famine. At last
there was but one real proprietor left, -- the emperor, -- whose
dependent, flatterer, parasite, or slave, each citizen became; and
when this proprietor was ruined, those who gathered the crumbs from
under his table, and laughed when he cracked his jokes, perished
also.
Montesquieu succeeded no better than Bossuet in fathoming the
causes of the Roman decline; indeed, it may be said that the
president has only developed the ideas of the bishop. If the Romans
had been more moderate in their conquests, more just to their
allies, more humane to the vanquished; if the nobles had been less
covetous, the emperors less lawless, the people less violent, and
all classes less corrupt; if . . . &c., -- perhaps the dignity
of the empire might have been preserved, and Rome might have
retained the sceptre of the world! That is all that can be gathered
from the teachings of Montesquieu. But the truth of history does not
lie there; the destinies of the world are not dependent upon such
trivial causes. The passions of men, like the contingencies of time
and the varieties of climate, serve to maintain the forces which
move humanity and produce all historical changes; but they do not
explain them. The grain of sand of which Pascal speaks would have
caused the death of one man only, had not prior action ordered the
events of which this death was the precursor.
Montesquieu has read extensively; he knows Roman history
thoroughly, is perfectly well acquainted with the people of whom he
speaks, and sees very clearly why they were able to conquer their
rivals and govern the world. While reading him we admire the Romans,
but we do not like them; we witness their triumphs without pleasure,
and we watch their fall without sorrow. Montesquieu's work, like the
works of all French writers, is skilfully composed, -- spirited,
witty, and filled with wise observations. He pleases, interests,
instructs, but leads to little reflection; he does not conquer by
depth of thought; he does not exalt the mind by elevated reason or
earnest feeling. In vain should we search his writings for knowledge
of antiquity, the character of primitive society, or a description
of the heroic ages, whose morals and prejudices lived until the last
days of the republic. Vico, painting the Romans with their horrible
traits, represents them as excusable, because he shows that all
their conduct was governed by preexisting ideas and customs, and
that they were informed, so to speak, by a superior genius of which
they were unconscious; in Montesquieu, the Roman atrocity revolts,
but is not explained. Therefore, as a writer, Montesquieu brings
greater credit upon French literature; as a philosopher, Vico bears
away the palm.
Originally, property in Rome was national, not private. Numa was
the first to establish individual property by distributing the lands
captured by Romulus. What was the dividend of this distribution
effected by Numa? What conditions were imposed upon individuals,
what powers reserved to the State? None whatever. Inequality of
fortunes, absolute abdication by the republic of its right of
eminent domain over the property of citizens, -- such were the first
results of the division of Numa, who justly may be regarded as the
originator of Roman revolutions. He it was who instituted the
worship of the god Terminus, -- the guardian of private possession,
and one of the most ancient gods of Italy. It was Numa who placed
property under the protection of Jupiter; who, in imitation of the
Etrurians, wished to make priests of the land-surveyors; who
invented a liturgy for cadastral operations, and ceremonies of
consecration for the marking of boundaries, -- who, in short, made a
religion of property.[*]
[*] Similar or analogous customs have existed
among all nations. Consult, among other works, "Origin of
French Law," by M. Michelet; and "Antiquities of German
Law," by Grimm. All these fancies would have been more
beneficial than dangerous, if the holy king had not forgotten one
essential thing; namely, to fix the amount that each citizen could
possess, and on what conditions he could possess it. For, since it
is the essence of property to continually increase by accession and
profit, and since the lender will take advantage of every
opportunity to apply this principle inherent in property, it follows
that properties tend, by means of their natural energy and the
religious respect which protects them, to absorb each other, and
fortunes to increase or diminish to an indefinite extent, -- a
process which necessarily results in the ruin of the people, and the
fall of the republic. Roman history is but the development of this
law.
Scarcely had the Tarquins been banished from Rome and the monarchy
abolished, when quarrels commenced between the orders. In the year
494 B.C., the secession of the commonalty to the Mons Sacer led to
the establishment of the tribunate. Of what did the plebeians
complain? That they were poor, exhausted by the interest which they
paid to the proprietors, -- foeneratoribus; that the
republic, administered for the benefit of the nobles, did nothing
for the people; that, delivered over to the mercy of their
creditors, who could sell them and their children, and having
neither hearth nor home, they were refused the means of subsistence,
while the rate of interest was kept at its highest point, &c.
For five centuries, the sole policy of the Senate was to evade these
just complaints; and, notwithstanding the energy of the tribunes,
notwithstanding the eloquence of the Gracchi, the violence of
Marius, and the triumph of Cæsar, this execrable policy
succeeded only too well. The Senate always temporized; the measures
proposed by the tribunes might be good, but they were inopportune.
It admitted that something should be done; but first it was
necessary that the people should resume the performance of their
duties, because the Senate could not yield to violence, and force
must be employed only by the law. If the people -- out of respect
for legality -- took this beautiful advice, the Senate conjured up a
difficulty; the reform was postponed, and that was the end of it. On
the contrary, if the demands of the proletaires became too pressing,
it declared a foreign war, and neighboring nations were deprived of
their liberty, to maintain the Roman aristocracy.
But the toils of war were only a halt for the plebeians in their
onward march towards pauperism. The lands confiscated from the
conquered nations were immediately added to the domain of the State,
to the ager publicus; and, as such, cultivated for the
benefit of the treasury; or, as was more often the case, they were
sold at auction. None of them were granted to the proletaires, who,
unlike the patricians and knights, were not supplied by the victory
with the means of buying them. War never enriched the soldier; the
extensive plundering has been done always by the generals. The vans
of Augereau, and of twenty others, are famous in our armies; but no
one ever heard of a private getting rich. Nothing was more common in
Rome than charges of peculation, extortion, embezzlement, and
brigandage, carried on in the provinces at the head of armies, and
in other public capacities. All these charges were quieted by
intrigue, bribery of the judges, or desistance of the accuser. The
culprit was allowed always in the end to enjoy his spoils in peace;
his son was only the more respected on account of his father's
crimes. And, in fact, it could not be otherwise. What would become
of us, if every deputy, peer, or public functionary should be called
upon to show his title to his fortune!
"The patricians arrogated the exclusive enjoyment of the ager
publicus; and, like the feudal seigniors, granted some portions
of their lands to their dependants, -- a wholly precarious
concession, revocable at the will of the grantor. The plebeians, on
the contrary, were entitled to the enjoyment of only a little
pasture-land left to them in common: an utterly unjust state of
things, since, in consequence of it, taxation -- census --
weighed more heavily upon the poor than upon the rich. The
patrician, in fact, always exempted himself from the tithe which he
owed as the price and as the acknowledgment of the concession of
domain; and, on the other hand, paid no taxes on his possessions,
if, as there is good reason to believe, only citizens' property was
taxed." -- Laboulaye: History of Property.
In order thoroughly to understand the preceding quotation, we must
know that the estates of citizens -- that is, estates
independent of the public domain, whether they were obtained in the
division of Numa, or had since been sold by the questors -- were
alone regarded as property; upon these a tax, or cense,
was imposed. On the contrary, the estates obtained by concessions of
the public domain, of the ager publicus (for which a light
rent was paid), were called possessions. Thus, among the
Romans, there was a right of property and a right of
possession regulating the administration of all estates. Now,
what did the proletaires wish? That the jus possessionis --
the simple right of possession -- should be extended to them at the
expense, as is evident, not of private property, but of the public
domain, -- agri publici. The proletaires, in short, demanded
that they should be tenants of the land which they had conquered.
This demand, the patricians in their avarice never would accede to.
Buying as much of this land as they could, they afterwards found
means of obtaining the rest as possessions. Upon this land
they employed their slaves. The people, who could not buy, on
account of the competition of the rich, nor hire, because --
cultivating with their own hands -- they could not promise a rent
equal to the revenue which the land would yield when cultivated by
slaves, were always deprived of possession and property.
Civil wars relieved, to some extent, the sufferings of the
multitude. "The people enrolled themselves under the banners of
the ambitious, in order to obtain by force that which the law
refused them, -- property. A colony was the reward of a victorious
legion. But it was no longer the ager publicus only; it was
all Italy that lay at the mercy of the legions. The ager
publicus disappeared almost entirely, . . . but the cause of the
evil -- accumulated property -- became more potent than ever."(Laboulaye:
History of Property.)
The author whom I quote does not tell us why this division of
territory which followed civil wars did not arrest the encroachments
of accumulated property; the omission is easily supplied. Land is
not the only requisite for cultivation; a working-stock is also
necessary, -- animals, tools, harnesses, a house, an advance, &c.
Where did the colonists, discharged by the dictator who rewarded
them, obtain these things? From the purse of the usurers; that is,
of the patricians, to whom all these lands finally returned, in
consequence of the rapid increase of usury, and the seizure of
estates. Sallust, in his account of the conspiracy of Catiline,
tells us of this fact. The conspirators were old soldiers of Sylla,
who, as a reward for their services, had received from him lands in
Cisalpine Gaul, Tuscany, and other parts of the peninsula Less than
twenty years had elapsed since these colonists, free of debt, had
left the service and commenced farming; and already they were
crippled by usury, and almost ruined. The poverty caused by the
exactions of creditors was the life of this conspiracy which
well-nigh inflamed all Italy, and which, with a worthier chief and
fairer means, possibly would have succeeded. In Rome, the mass of
the people were favorable to the conspirators -- cuncta plebes
Catilinæ incepta probabat; the allies were weary of the
patricians' robberies; deputies from the Allobroges (the Savoyards)
had come to Rome to appeal to the Senate in behalf of their
fellow-citizens involved in debt; in short, the complaint against
the large proprietors was universal. "We call men and gods to
witness," said the soldiers of Catiline, who were Roman
citizens with not a slave among them, "that we have taken arms
neither against the country, nor to attack any one, but in defence
of our lives and liberties. Wretched, poor, most of us deprived of
country, all of us of fame and fortune, by the violence and cruelty
of usurers, we have no rights, no property, no liberty."[*]
[*] Dees hominesque testamur, nos arma neque
contra patriam cepisse neque quo periculum aliis faceremus, sed uti
corpora nostra ab injuria tuta forent, qui miseri, egentes,
violentia atque crudelitate foeneraterum, plerique patriae, sed
omncsfarna atque fortunis expertes sumus; neque cuiquam nostrum
licuit, more majorum, lege uti, neque, amisso patrimonio, libferum
corpus habere. -- Sallus: Bellum Catilinarium.
The bad reputation of Catiline, and his atrocious designs, the
imprudence of his accomplices, the treason of several, the strategy
of Cicero, the angry outbursts of Cato, and the terror of the
Senate, baffled this enterprise, which, in furnishing a precedent
for expeditions against the rich, would perhaps have saved the
republic, and given peace to the world. But Rome could not evade her
destiny; the end of her expiations had not come. A nation never was
known to anticipate its punishment by a sudden and unexpected
conversion. Now, the long-continued crimes of the Eternal City could
not be atoned for by the massacre of a few hundred patricians.
Catiline came to stay divine vengeance; therefore his conspiracy
failed.
The encroachment of large proprietors upon small proprietors, by
the aid of usury, farm-rent, and profits of all sorts, was common
throughout the empire. The most honest citizens invested their money
at high rates of interest.[*]
[*] Fifty, sixty, and eighty per cent. -- Course
of M. Blanqui.
Cato, Cicero, Brutus, all the stoics so noted for their frugality,
viri frugi, -- Seneca, the teacher of virtue, -- levied
enormous taxes in the provinces, under the name of usury; and it is
something remarkable, that the last defenders of the republic, the
proud Pompeys, were all usurious aristocrats, and oppressors of the
poor. But the battle of Pharsalus, having killed men only, without
touching institutions, the encroachments of the large domains became
every day more active. Ever since the birth of Christianity, the
Fathers have opposed this invasion with all their might. Their
writings are filled with burning curses upon this crime of usury, of
which Christians are not always innocent. St. Cyprian complains of
certain bishops of his time, who, absorbed in disgraceful
stock-jobbing operations, abandoned their churches, and went about
the provinces appropriating lands by artifice and fraud, while
lending money and piling up interests upon interests.[*]
[*] Episcopi plurimi, quos et hortamento
esse oportet cæteris et exemplo, divina prouratione contempta,
procuratores rerum sæularium fieri, derelicta cathedra, plebe
leserta, per alienas provincias oberrantes, negotiationis
quaestuosae nundinas au uucu-, pari, esurientibus in ecclesia
fratribus habere argentum largitur velle, fundos insidi.sis
fraudibus rapere, usuris multiplicantibus foenus augere. -- Cyprian:
De Lapsis.
[*] In this passage, St. Cyprian alludes to
lending on mortgages and to compound interest.
Why, in the midst of this passion for accumulation, did not the
possession of the public land, like private property, become
concentrated in a few hands?
By law, the domain of the State was inalienable, and consequently
possession was always revocable; but the edict of the praetor
continued it indefinitely, so that finally the possessions of the
patricians were transformed into absolute property, though the name,
possessions, was still applied to them. This conversion, instigated
by senatorial avarice; owed its accomplishment to the most
deplorable and indiscreet policy. If, in the time of Tiberius
Gracchus, who wished to limit each citizen's possession of the ager
publicus to five hundred acres, the amount of this possession
had been fixed at as much as one family could cultivate, and granted
on the express condition that the possessor should cultivate it
himself, and should lease it to no one, the empire never would have
been desolated by large estates; and possession, instead of
increasing property, would have absorbed it. On what, then, depended
the establishment and maintenance of equality in conditions and
fortunes? On a more equitable division of the ager publicus,
a wiser distribution of the right of possession.
I insist upon this point, which is of the utmost importance,
because it gives us an opportunity to examine the history of this
individual possession, of which I said so much in my first memoir,
and which so few of my readers seem to have understood. The Roman
republic -- having, as it did, the power to dispose absolutely of
its territory, and to impose conditions upon possessors -- was
nearer to liberty and equality than any nation has been since. If
the Senate had been intelligent and just, -- if, at the time of the
retreat to the Mons Sacer, instead of the ridiculous farce enacted
by Menenius Agrippa, a solemn renunciation of the right to acquire
had been made by each citizen on attaining his share of possessions,
-- the republic, based upon equality of possessions and the duty of
labor, would not, in attaining its wealth, have degenerated in
morals; Fabricius would have enjoyed the arts without controlling
artists; and the conquests of the ancient Romans would have been the
means of spreading civilization, instead of the series of murders
and robberies that they were.
But property, having unlimited power to amass and to lease, was
daily increased by the addition of new possessions. From the time of
Nero, six individuals were the sole proprietors of one-half of Roman
Africa. In the fifth century, the wealthy families had incomes of no
less than two millions: some possessed as many as twenty thousand
slaves. All the authors who have written upon the causes of the fall
of the Roman republic concur. M. Giraud of Aix[*]
[*] "Inquiries concerning Property among the
Romans."
... quotes the testimony of Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch,
Olympiodorus, and Photius. Under Vespasian and Titus, Pliny, the
naturalist, exclaimed: "Large estates have ruined Italy, and
are ruining the provinces."
But it never has been understood that the extension of property
was effected then, as it is to-day, under the aegis of the law, and
by virtue of the constitution. When the Senate sold captured lands
at auction, it was in the interest of the treasury and of public
welfare. When the patricians bought up possessions and property,
they realized the purpose of the Senate's decrees; when they lent at
high rates of interest, they took advantage of a legal privilege. "Property,"
said the lender, "is the right to enjoy even to the extent of
abuse, jus utendi et abutendi; that is, the right to lend at
interest, -- to lease, to acquire, and then to lease and lend again."
But property is also the right to exchange, to transfer, and to
sell. If, then, the social condition is such that the proprietor,
ruined by usury, may be compelled to sell his possession, the means
of his subsistence, he will sell it; and, thanks to the law,
accumulated property -- devouring and anthropophagous property --
will be established.[*]
[*] "Its acquisitive nature works rapidly in
the sleep of the law. It is ready, at the word, to absorb every
thing. Witness the famous equivocation about the ox-hide which, when
cut up into thongs, was large enough to enclose the site of
Carthage. . . . The legend has reappeared several times since Dido.
. . . Such is the love of man for the land. Limited by tombs,
measured by the members of the human body, by the thumb, the foot,
and the arm, it harmonizes, as far as possible, with the very
proportions of man. Nor is be satisfied yet: he calls Heaven to
witness that it is his; he tries to or his land, to give it the form
of heaven. . . . In his titanic intoxication, he describes property
in the very terms which he employs in describing the Almighty --
fundus optimus maximus. . . . He shall make it his
couch, and they shall be separated no more, -- kai emignunto
Figothti." -- Michelet: Origin of French Law.
The immediate and secondary cause of the decline of the Romans
was, then, the internal dissensions between the two orders of the
republic, -- the patricians and the plebeians, -- dissensions which
gave rise to civil wars, proscriptions, and loss of liberty, and
finally led to the empire; but the primary and mediate cause of
their decline was the establishment by Numa of the institution of
property.
I end with an extract from a work which I have quoted several
times already, and which has recently received a prize from the
Academy of Moral and Political Sciences: --
"The concentration of property," says M. Laboulaye, "while
causing extreme poverty, forced the emperors to feed and amuse the
people, that they might forget their misery. Panem et circenses:
that was the Roman law in regard to the poor; a dire and perhaps a
necessary evil wherever a landed aristocracy exists.
"To feed these hungry mouths, grain was brought from Africa
and the provinces, and distributed gratuitously among the needy. In
the time of Cæsar, three hundred and twenty thousand people
were thus fed. Augustus saw that such a measure led directly to the
destruction of husbandry; but to abolish these distributions was to
put a weapon within the reach of the first aspirant for power. The
emperor shrank at the thought.
"While grain was gratuitous, agriculture was impossible.
Tillage gave way to pasturage, another cause of depopulation, even
among slaves.
"Finally, luxury, carried further and further every day,
covered the soil of Italy with elegant villas, which
occupied whole cantons. Gardens and groves replaced the fields, and
the free population fled to the towns. Husbandry disappeared almost
entirely, and with husbandry the husbandman. Africa furnished the
wheat, and Greece the wine. Tiberius complained bitterly of this
evil, which placed the lives of the Roman people at the mercy of the
winds and waves: that was his anxiety. One day ...
"This decline of Italy and the provinces did not stop. After
the reign of Nero, depopulation commenced in towns as noted as
Antium and Tarentum. Under the reign of Pertinax, there was so much
desert land that the emperor abandoned it, even that which belonged
to the treasury, to whoever would cultivate it, besides exempting
the farmers from taxation for a period of ten years. Senators were
compelled to invest one-third of their fortunes in real estate in
Italy; but this measure served only to increase the evil which they
wished to cure. To force the rich to possess in Italy was to
increase the large estates which had ruined the country. And must I
say, finally, that Aurelian wished to send the captives into the
desert lands of Etruria, and that Valentinian was forced to settle
the Alamanni on the fertile banks of the Po?"
If the reader, in running through this book, should complain of
meeting with nothing but quotations from other works, extracts from
journals and public lectures, comments upon laws, and
interpretations of them, I would remind him that the very object of
this memoir is to establish the conformity of my opinion concerning
property with that universally held; that, far from aiming at a
paradox, it has been my main study to follow the advice of the
world; and, finally, that my sole pretension is to clearly formulate
the general belief. I cannot repeat it too often, -- and I confess
it with pride, -- I teach absolutely nothing that is new; and I
should regard the doctrine which I advocate as radically erroneous,
if a single witness should testify against it.
Let us now trace the revolutions in property among the Barbarians.
As long as the German tribes dwelt in their forests, it did not
occur to them to divide and appropriate the soil. The land was held
in common: each individual could plow, sow, and reap. But, when the
empire was once invaded, they bethought themselves of sharing the
land, just as they shared spoils after a victory. "Hence,"
says M. Laboulaye, "the expressions sortes Burgundiorum
Gothorum and klhroi Ouandigwn; hence the German words allod,
allodium, and loos, lot, which are used in all modern
languages to designate the gifts of chance."
Allodial property, at least with the mass of coparceners, was
originally held, then, in equal shares; for all of the prizes were
equal, or, at least, equivalent. This property, like that of the
Romans, was wholly individual, independent, exclusive, transferable,
and consequently susceptible of accumulation and invasion. But,
instead of its being, as was the case among the Romans, the large
estate which, through increase and usury, subordinated and absorbed
the small one, among the Barbarians -- fonder of war than of wealth,
more eager to dispose of persons than to appropriate things -- it
was the warrior who, through superiority of arms, enslaved his
adversary. The Roman wanted matter; the Barbarian wanted man.
Consequently, in the feudal ages, rents were almost nothing, --
simply a hare, a partridge, a pie, a few pints of wine brought by a
little girl, or a Maypole set up within the suzerain's reach. In
return, the vassal or incumbent had to follow the seignior to battle
(a thing which happened almost every day), and equip and feed
himself at his own expense. "This spirit of the German tribes
-- this spirit of companionship and association -- governed the
territory as it governed individuals. The lands, like the men, were
secured to a chief or seignior by a bond of mutual protection and
fidelity. This subjection was the labor of the German epoch which
gave birth to feudalism. By fair means or foul, every proprietor who
could not be a chief was forced to be a vassal." (Laboulaye:
History of Property.)
By fair means or foul, every mechanic who cannot be a master has
to be a journeyman; every proprietor who is not an invader will be
invaded; every producer who cannot, by the exploitation of other
men, furnish products at less than their proper value, will lose his
labor. Corporations and masterships, which are hated so bitterly,
but which will reappear if we are not careful, are the necessary
results of the principle of competition which is inherent in
property; their organization was patterned formerly after that of
the feudal hierarchy, which was the result of the subordination of
men and possessions.
The times which paved the way for the advent of feudalism and the
reappearance of large proprietors were times of carnage and the most
frightful anarchy. Never before had murder and violence made such
havoc with the human race. The tenth century, among others, if my
memory serves me rightly, was called the century of iron.
His property, his life, and the honor of his wife and children
always in danger the small proprietor made haste to do homage to his
seignior, and to bestow something on the church of his freehold,
that he might receive protection and security.
"Both facts and laws bear witness that from the sixth to the
tenth century the proprietors of small freeholds were gradually
plundered, or reduced by the encroachments of large proprietors and
counts to the condition of either vassals or tributaries. The
Capitularies are full of repressive provisions; but the incessant
reiteration of these threats only shows the perseverance of the evil
and the impotency of the government. Oppression, moreover, varies
but little in its methods. The complaints of the free proprietors,
and the groans of the plebeians at the time of the Gracchi, were one
and the same. It is said that, whenever a poor man refused to give
his estate to the bishop, the curate, the count, the judge, or the
centurion, these immediately sought an opportunity to ruin him. They
made him serve in the army until, completely ruined, he was induced,
by fair means or foul, to give up his freehold." -- Laboulaye:
History of Property.
How many small proprietors and manufacturers have not been ruined
by large ones through chicanery, law-suits, and competition?
Strategy, violence, and usury, -- such are the proprietor's methods
of plundering the laborer.
Thus we see property, at all ages and in all its forms,
oscillating by virtue of its principle between two opposite terms,
-- extreme division and extreme accumulation.
Property, at its first term, is almost null. Reduced to personal
exploitation, it is property only potentially. At its second term,
it exists in its perfection; then it is truly property.
When property is widely distributed, society thrives, progresses,
grows, and rises quickly to the zenith of its power. Thus, the Jews,
after leaving Babylon with Esdras and Nehemiah, soon became richer
and more powerful than they had been under their kings. Sparta was
in a strong and prosperous condition during the two or three
centuries which followed the death of Lycurgus. The best days of
Athens were those of the Persian war; Rome, whose inhabitants were
divided from the beginning into two classes, -- the exploiters and
the exploited, -- knew no such thing as peace.
When property is concentrated, society, abusing itself, polluted,
so to speak, grows corrupt, wears itself out -- how shall I express
this horrible idea? -- plunges into long-continued and fatal luxury.
When feudalism was established, society had to die of the same
disease which killed it under the Cæsars, -- I mean
accumulated property. But humanity, created for an immortal destiny,
is deathless; the revolutions which disturb it are purifying crises,
invariably followed by more vigorous health. In the fifth century,
the invasion of the Barbarians partially restored the world to a
state of natural equality. In the twelfth century, a new spirit
pervading all society gave the slave his rights, and through justice
breathed new life into the heart of nations. It has been said, and
often repeated, that Christianity regenerated the world. That is
true; but it seems to me that there is a mistake in the date.
Christianity had no influence upon Roman society; when the
Barbarians came, that society had disappeared. For such is God's
curse upon property; every political organization based upon the
exploitation of man . shall perish: slave-labor is death to the race
of tyrants. The patrician families became extinct, as the feudal
families did, and as all aristocracies must.
It was in the middle ages, when a reactionary movement was
beginning to secretly undermine accumulated property, that the
influence of Christianity was first exercised to its full extent.
The destruction of feudalism, the conversion of the serf into the
commoner, the emancipation of the communes, and the admission of the
Third Estate to political power, were deeds accomplished by
Christianity exclusively. I say Christianity, not ecclesiasticism;
for the priests and bishops were themselves large proprietors, and
as such often persecuted the villeins. Without the Christianity of
the middle ages, the existence of modern society could not be
explained, and would not be possible. The truth of this assertion is
shown by the very facts which M. Laboulaye quotes, although this
author inclines to the opposite opinion.[*]
[*] M. Guizot denies that Christianity alone is
entitled to the glory of the abolition of slavery. "To this
end," he says, "many causes were necessary, -- the
evolution of other ideas and other principles of civilization."
So general an assertion cannot be refuted. Some of these ideas and
causes should have been pointed out, that we might judge whether
their source was not wholly Christian, or whether at least the
Christian spirit had not penetrated and thus citizen was effected,
then, by Christianity before the Barbarians set foot upon the soil
of the empire. We have only to trace the progress of this moral
revolution in the personnel of society. "But," M.
Laboulaye rightly says, "it did not change the condition of men
in a moment, any more than that of things; between slavery and
liberty there was an abyss which could not be filled in a day; the
transitional step was servitude."
1. Slavery among the Romans. -- "The Roman slave was,
in the eyes of the law, only a thing, -- no more than an ox or a
horse. He had neither property, family, nor personality; he was
defenceless against his master's cruelty, folly, or cupidity. `Sell
your oxen that are past use,' said Cato, `sell your calves, your
lambs, your wool, your hides, your old ploughs, your old iron, your
old slave, and your sick slave, and all that is of no use to you.'
When no market could be found for the slaves that were worn out by
sickness or old age, they were abandoned to starvation. Claudius was
the first defender of this shameful practice."
"Discharge your old workman," says the economist of the
proprietary school; "turn off that sick domestic, that
toothless and worn-out servant. Put away the unserviceable beauty;
to the hospital with the useless mouths!"
"The condition of these wretched beings improved but little
under the emperors; and the best that can be said of the goodness of
Antoninus is that he prohibited intolerable cruelty, as an abuse
of property. Expedit enim reipublicæ ne quis re re sua male
utatur, says Gaius.
"As soon as the Church met in council, it launched an
anathema against the masters who had exercised over their slaves
this terrible right of life and death. Were not the slaves, thanks
to the right of sanctuary and to their poverty, the dearest protégés
of religion? Constantine, who embodied in the laws the grand ideas
of Christianity, valued the life of a slave as highly as that of a
freeman, and declared the master, who had intentionally brought
death upon his slave, guilty of murder. Between this law and that of
Antoninus there is a complete revolution in moral ideas: the slave
was a thing; religion has made him a man."
Note the last words: "Between the law of the Gospel and that
of Antoninus there is a complete revolution in moral ideas: the
slave was a thing; religion has made him a man." The moral
revolution which transformed the slave into a fructified them. Most
of the emancipation charters begin with these words: "For the
love of God and the salvation of my soul." Now, we did not
commence to love God and to think of our salvation until after the
promulgation of the Gospel.
Now, what was servitude? In what did it differ from Roman slavery,
and whence came this difference? Let the same author answer.
2. Of Servitude. -- "I see, in the lord's manor,
slaves charged with domestic duties. Some are employed in the
personal service of the master; others are charged with household
cares. The women spin the wool; the men grind the grain, make the
bread, or practise, in the interest of the seignior, what little
they know of the industrial arts. The master punishes them when he
chooses, kills them with impunity, and sells them and theirs like so
many cattle. The slave has no personality, and consequently no wehrgeld[*]
[*] Weregild, -- the fine paid for the
murder of a man. So much for a count, so much for a baron, so much
for a freeman, so much for a priest; for a slave, nothing. His value
was restored to the proprietor.
peculiar to himself: he is a thing. The wehrgeld belongs
to the master as a compensation for the loss of his property.
Whether the slave is killed or stolen, the indemnity does not
change, for the injury is the same; but the indemnity increases or
diminishes according to the value of the serf. In all these
particulars Germanic slavery and Roman servitude are alike."
This similarity is worthy of notice. Slavery is always the same,
whether in a Roman villa or on a Barbarian farm. The man, like the
ox and the ass, is a part of the live-stock; a price is set upon his
head; he is a tool without a conscience, a chattel without
personality, an impeccable, irresponsible being, who has neither
rights nor duties.
Why did his condition improve?
"In good season . . ." [when ?] "the serf began to
be regarded as a man; and, as such, the law of the Visigoths, under
the influence of Christian ideas, punished with fine or banishment
any one who maimed or killed him."
Always Christianity, always religion, though we should like to
speak of the laws only. Did the philanthropy of the Visigoths make
its first appearance before or after the preaching of the Gospel?
This point must be cleared up.
"After the conquest, the serfs were scattered over the large
estates of the Barbarians, each having his house, his lot, and his
peculium, in return for which he paid rent and performed service.
They were rarely separated from their homes when their land was
sold; they and all that they had became the property of the
purchaser. The law favored this realization of the serf, in not
allowing him to be sold out of the country."
What inspired this law, destructive not only of slavery, but of
property itself? For, if the master cannot drive from his domain the
slave whom he has once established there, it follows that the slave
is proprietor, as well as the master.
"The Barbarians," again says M. Laboulaye, "were
the first to recognize the slave's rights of family and property, --
two rights which are incompatible with slavery."
But was this recognition the necessary result of the mode of
servitude in vogue among the Germanic nations previous to their
conversion to Christianity, or was it the immediate effect of that
spirit of justice infused with religion, by which the seignior was
forced to respect in the serf a soul equal to his own, a brother in
Jesus Christ, purified by the same baptism, and redeemed by the same
sacrifice of the Son of God in the form of man? For we must not
close our eyes to the fact that, though the Barbarian morals and the
ignorance and carelessness of the seigniors, who busied themselves
mainly with wars and battles, paying little or no attention to
agriculture, may have been great aids in the emancipation of the
serfs, still the vital principle of this emancipation was
essentially Christian. Suppose that the Barbarians had remained
Pagans in the midst of a Pagan world. As they did not change the
Gospel, so they would not have changed the polytheistic customs;
slavery would have remained what it was; they would have continued
to kill the slaves who were desirous of liberty, family, and
property; whole nations would have been reduced to the condition of
Helots; nothing would have changed upon the terrestrial stage,
except the actors. The Barbarians were less selfish, less imperious,
less dissolute, and less cruel than the Romans. Such was the nature
upon which, after the fall of the empire and the renovation of
society, Christianity was to act. But this nature, grounded as in
former times upon slavery and war, would, by its own energy, have
produced nothing but war and slavery.
"Gradually the serfs obtained the privilege of being
judged by the same standard as their masters. . . ."
When, how, and by what title did they obtain this privilege?
Gradually their duties were regulated."
Whence came the regulations? Who had the authority to introduce
them?
"The master took a part of the labor of the serf, -- three
days, for instance, -- and left the rest to him. As for Sunday, that
belonged to God."
And what established Sunday, if not religion? Whence I infer, that
the same power which took it upon itself to suspend hostilities and
to lighten the duties of the serf was also that which regulated the
judiciary and created a sort of law for the slave.
But this law itself, on what did it bear? -- what was its
principle? -- what was the philosophy of the councils and popes with
reference to this matter? The reply to all these questions, coming
from me alone, would be distrusted. The authority of M. Laboulaye
shall give credence to my words. This holy philosophy, to which the
slaves were indebted for every thing, this invocation of the Gospel,
was an anathema against property.
The proprietors of small freeholds, that is, the freemen of the
middle class, had fallen, in consequence of the tyranny of the
nobles, into a worse condition than that of the tenants and serfs. "The
expenses of war weighed less heavily upon the serf than upon the
freeman; and, as for legal protection, the seigniorial court, where
the serf was judged by his peers, was far preferable to the cantonal
assembly. It was better to have a noble for a seignior than for a
judge."
So it is better to-day to have a man of large capital for an
associate than for a rival. The honest tenant -- the laborer who
earns weekly a moderate but constant salary -- is more to be envied
than the independent but small farmer, or the poor licensed
mechanic.
At that time, all were either seigniors or serfs, oppressors or
oppressed. "Then, under the protection of convents, or of the
seigniorial turret, new societies were formed, which silently spread
over the soil made fertile by their hands, and which derived their
power from the annihilation of the free classes whom they enlisted
in their behalf. As tenants, these men acquired, from generation to
generation, sacred rights over the soil which they cultivated in the
interest of lazy and pillaging masters. As fast as the social
tempest abated, it became necessary to respect the union and
heritage of these villeins, who by their labor had truly prescribed
the soil for their own profit."
I ask how prescription could take effect where a contrary title
and possession already existed? M. Laboulaye is a lawyer. Where,
then, did he ever see the labor of the slave and the cultivation by
the tenant prescribe the soil for their own profit, to the detriment
of a recognized master daily acting as a proprietor? Let us not
disguise matters. As fast as the tenants and the serfs grew rich,
they wished to be independent and free; they commenced to associate,
unfurl their municipal banners, raise belfries, fortify their towns,
and refuse to pay their seigniorial dues. In doing these things they
were perfectly right; for, in fact, their condition was intolerable.
But in law -- I mean in Roman and Napoleonic law -- their refusal to
obey and pay tribute to their masters was illegitimate.
Now, this imperceptible usurpation of property by the commonalty
was inspired by religion.
The seignior had attached the serf to the soil; religion granted
the serf rights over the soil. The seignior imposed duties upon the
serf; religion fixed their limits. The seignior could kill the serf
with impunity, could deprive him of his wife, violate his daughter,
pillage his house, and rob him of his savings; religion checked his
invasions: it excommunicated the seignior. Religion was the real
cause of the ruin of feudal property. Why should it not be bold
enough to-day to resolutely condemn capitalistic property? Since the
middle ages, there has been no change in social economy except in
its forms; its relations remain unaltered.
The only result of the emancipation of the serfs was that property
changed hands; or, rather, that new proprietors were created. Sooner
or later the extension of privilege, far from curing the evil, was
to operate to the disadvantage of the plebeians. Nevertheless, the
new social organization did not meet with the same end in all
places. In Lombardy, for example, where the people rapidly growing
rich through commerce and industry soon conquered the authorities,
even to the exclusion of the nobles, -- first, the nobility became
poor and degraded, and were forced, in order to live and maintain
their credit, to gain admission to the guilds; then, the ordinary
subalternization of property leading to inequality of fortunes, to
wealth and poverty, to jealousies and hatreds, the cities passed
rapidly from the rankest democracy under the yoke of a few ambitious
leaders. Such was the fate of most of the Lombardic cities, --
Genoa, Florence, Bologna, Milan, Pisa, &c,. -- which afterwards
changed rulers frequently, but which have never since risen in favor
of liberty. The people can easily escape from the tyranny of
despots, but they do not know how to throw off the effects of their
own despotism; just as we avoid the assassin's steel, while we
succumb to a constitutional malady. As soon as a nation becomes
proprietor, either it must perish, or a foreign invasion must force
it again to begin its evolutionary round.[*]
[*] The spirit of despotism and monopoly which
animated the communes has not escaped the attention of historians. "The
formation of the commoners' associations," says Meyer, "did
not spring from the true spirit of liberty, but from the desire for
exemption from the charges of the seigniors, from individual
interests, and jealousy of the welfare of others. . . . Each commune
or corporation opposed the creation of every other; and this spirit
increased to such an extent that the King of England, Henry V.,
having established a university at Caen, in 1432, the city and
university of Paris opposed the registration of the edict.
"The communes once organized, the kings treated them as
superior vassals. Now, just as the under vassal had no communication
with the king except through the direct vassal, so also the
commoners could enter no complaints except through the commune.
"Like causes produce like effects. Each commune became a
small and separate State, governed by a few citizens, who sought to
extend their authority over the others; who, in their turn, revenged
themselves upon the unfortunate inhabitants who had not the right of
citizenship. Feudalism in unemancipated countries, and oligarchy in
the communes, made nearly the same ravages. There were
sub-associations, fraternities, tradesmen's associations in the
communes, and colleges in the universities. The oppression was so
great, that it was no rare thing to see the inhabitants of a commune
demanding its suppression. . . ." -- Meyer: Judicial
Institutions of Europe.
In France, the Revolution was much more gradual. The communes, in
taking refuge under the protection of the kings, had found them
masters rather than protectors. Their liberty had long since been
lost, or, rather, their emancipation had been suspended, when
feudalism received its death-blow at the hand of Richelieu. Then
liberty halted; the prince of the feudatories held sole and
undivided sway. The nobles, the clergy, the commoners, the
parliaments, every thing in short except a few seeming privileges,
were controlled by the king; who, like his early predecessors,
consumed regularly, and nearly always in advance, the revenues of
his domain, -- and that domain was France. Finally, '89 arrived;
liberty resumed its march; a century and a half had been required to
wear out the last form of feudal property, -- monarchy.
The French Revolution may be defined as the substitution of
real right for personal right; that is to say, in the days of
feudalism, the value of property depended upon the standing of the
proprietor, while, after the Revolution, the regard for the man was
proportional to his property. Now, we have seen from what has been
said in the preceding pages, that this recognition of the right of
laborers had been the constant aim of the serfs and communes, the
secret motive of their efforts. The movement of '89 was only the
last stage of that long insurrection. But it seems to me that we
have not paid sufficient attention to the fact that the Revolution
of 1789, instigated by the same causes, animated by the same spirit,
triumphing by the same struggles, was consummated in Italy four
centuries ago. Italy was the first to sound the signal of war
against feudalism; France has followed; Spain and England are
beginning to move; the rest still sleep. If a grand example should
be given to the world, the day of trial would be much abridged.
Note the following summary of the revolutions of property, from
the days of the Roman Empire down to the present time: -- 1. Fifth
Century. -- Barbarian invasions; division of the lands of the
empire into independent portions or freeholds. 2. From the fifth
to the eighth Century. -- Gradual concentration of freeholds, or
transformation of the small freeholds into fiefs, feuds, tenures, &c.
Large properties, small possessions. Charlemagne (771-814) decrees
that all freeholds are dependent upon the king of France. 3. From
the eighth to the tenth Century. -- The relation between the
crown and the superior dependents is broken; the latter becoming
freeholders, while the smaller dependents cease to recognize the
king, and adhere to the nearest suzerain. Feudal system. 4. Twelfth
Century. -- Movement of the serfs towards liberty; emancipation
of the communes. 5. Thirteenth Century. -- Abolition of
personal right, and of the feudal system in Italy. Italian
Republics. 6. Seventeenth Century. -- Abolition of feudalism
in France during Richelieu's ministry. Despotism. 7. 1789. --
Abolition of all privileges of birth, caste, provinces, and
corporations; equality of persons and of rights. French democracy.
8. 1830. -- The principle of concentration inherent in individual
property is remarked. Development of the idea of
association.
The more we reflect upon this series of transformations and
changes, the more clearly we see that they were necessary in their
principle, in their manifestations, and in their result.
It was necessary that inexperienced conquerors, eager for liberty,
should divide the Roman Empire into a multitude of estates, as free
and independent as themselves.
It was necessary that these men, who liked war even better than
liberty, should submit to their leaders; and, as the freehold
represented the man, that property should violate property.
It was necessary that, under the rule of a nobility always idle
when not fighting, there should grow up a body of laborers, who, by
the power of production, and by the division and circulation of
wealth, would gradually gain control over commerce, industry, and a
portion of the land, and who, having become rich, would aspire to
power and authority also.
It was necessary, finally, that liberty and equality of rights
having been achieved, and individual property still existing,
attended by robbery, poverty, social inequality, and oppression,
there should be an inquiry into the cause of this evil, and an idea
of universal association formed, whereby, on condition of labor, all
interests should be protected and consolidated.
"Evil, when carried too far," says a learned jurist, "cures
itself; and the political innovation which aims to increase the
power of the State, finally succumbs to the effects of its own work.
The Germans, to secure their independence, chose chiefs; and soon
they were oppressed by their kings and noblemen. The monarchs
surrounded themselves with volunteers, in order to control the
freemen; and they found themselves dependent upon their proud
vassals. The missi dominici were sent into the provinces to
maintain the power of the emperors, and to protect the people from
the oppressions of the noblemen; and not only did they usurp the
imperial power to a great extent, but they dealt more severely with
the inhabitants. The freemen became vassals, in order to get rid of
military service and court duty; and they were immediately involved
in all the personal quarrels of their seigniors, and compelled to do
jury duty in their courts. . . . The kings protected the cities and
the communes, in the hope of freeing them from the yoke of the grand
vassals, and of rendering their own power more absolute; and those
same communes have, in several European countries, procured the
establishment of a constitutional power, are now holding royalty in
check, and are giving rise to a universal desire for political
reform." -- Meyer: Judicial Institutions of Europe.
In recapitulation.
What was feudalism? A confederation of the grand seign iors
against the villeins, and against the king.[*]
[*] Feudalism was, in spirit and in its
providential destiny, a long protest of the human personality
against the monkish communism with which Europe, in the middle ages,
was overrun. After the orgies of Pagan selfishness, society --
carried to the opposite extreme by the Christian religion -- risked
its life by unlimited self-denial and absolute indifference to the
pleasures of the world. Feudalism was the balance-weight which saved
Europe from the combined influence of the religious communities and
the Manlchean sects which had sprung up since the fourth century
under different names and in different countries. Modern
civilization is indebted to feudalism for the definitive
establishment of the person, of marriage, of the family, and of
country. (See, on this subject, Guizot, "History of
Civilization in Europe.")
What is constitutional government? A confederation of the bourgeoisie
against the laborers, and against the king.[*]
[*] This was made evident in July, 1830, and the
years which followed it, when the electoral bourgeoisie
effected a revolution in order to get control over the king, and
suppressed the émeutes in order to restrain the
people. The bourgeoisie, through the jury, the magistracy,
its position in the army, and its municipal despotism, governs both
royalty and the people. It is the bourgeoisie which, more
than any other class, is conservative and retrogressive. It is the
bourgeoisie which makes and unmakes ministries. It is the
bourgeoisie which has destroyed the influence of the Upper
Chamber, and which will dethrone the King whenever he shall become
unsatisfactory to it. It is to please the bourgeoisie that
royalty makes itself unpopular. It is the bourgeoisie which
is troubled at the hopes of the people, and which hinders reform.
The journals of the bourgeoisie are the ones which preach
morality and religion to us, while reserving scepticism and
indifference for themselves; which attack personal government, and
favor the denial of the electoral privilege to those who have no
property. The bourgeoisie will accept any thing rather than
the emancipation of the proletariat. As soon as it thinks its
privileges threatened, it will unite with royalty; and who does not
know that at this very moment these two antagonists have suspended
their quarrels? . . . It has been a question of property.
How did feudalism end? In the union of the communes and the royal
authority. How will the bourgeoisie aristocracy end? In the
union of the proletariat and the sovereign power.
What was the immediate result of the struggle of the communes and
the king against the seigniors? The monarchical unity of Louis XIV.
What will be the result of the struggle of the proletariat and the
sovereign power combined against the bourgeoisie? The
absolute unity of the nation and the government.
It remains to be seen whether the nation, one and supreme, will be
represented in its executive and central power by one, by
five, by one hundred, or one thousand; that
is, it remains to be seen, whether the royalty of the barricades
intends to maintain itself by the people, or without the people, and
whether Louis Philippe wishes his reign to be the most famous in all
history.
I have made this statement as brief, but at the same time as
accurate as I could, neglecting facts and details, that I might give
the more attention to the economical relations of society. For the
study of history is like the study of the human organism; just as
the latter has its system, its organs, and its functions, which can
be treated separately, so the former has its ensemble, its
instruments, and its causes. Of course I do not pretend that the
principle of property is a complete résumé of
all the social forces; but, as in that wonderful machine which we
call our body, the harmony of the whole allows us to draw a general
conclusion from the consideration of a single function or organ, so,
in discussing historical causes, I have been able to reason with
absolute accuracy from a single order of facts, certain as I was of
the perfect correlation which exists between this special order and
universal history. As is the property of a nation, so is its family,
its marriage, its religion, its civil and military organization, and
its legislative and judicial institutions. History, viewed from this
standpoint, is a grand and sublime psychological study.
Well, sir, in writing against property, have I done more than
quote the language of history? I have said to modern society, -- the
daughter and heiress of all preceding societies, -- Age guod
agis: complete the task which for six thousand years you have
been executing under the inspiration and by the command of God;
hasten to finish your journey; turn neither to the right nor the
left, but follow the road which lies before you. You seek reason,
law, unity, and discipline; but hereafter you can find them only by
stripping off the veils of your infancy, and ceasing to follow
instinct as a guide. Awaken your sleeping conscience; open your eyes
to the pure light of reflection and science; behold the phantom
which troubled your dreams, and so long kept you in a state of
unutterable anguish. Know thyself, O long-deluded society[1] know
thy enemy! . . . And I have denounced property.
We often hear the defenders of the right of domain quote in
defence of their views the testimony of nations and ages. We can
judge, from what has just been said, how far this historical
argument conforms to the real facts and the conclusions of science.
To complete this apology, I must examine the various theories.
Neither politics, nor legislation, nor history, can be explained
and understood, without a positive theory which defines their
elements, and discovers their laws; in short, without a philosophy.
Now, the two principal schools, which to this day divide the
attention of the world, do not satisfy this condition.
The first, essentially practical in its character,
confined to a statement of facts, and buried in learning, cares very
little by what laws humanity develops itself. To it these laws are
the secret of the Almighty, which no one can fathom without a
commission from on high. In applying the facts of history to
government, this school does not reason; it does not anticipate; it
makes no comparison of the past with the present, in order to
predict the future. In its opinion, the lessons of experience teach
us only to repeat old errors, and its whole philosophy consists in
perpetually retracing the tracks of antiquity, instead of going
straight ahead forever in the direction in which they point.
The second school may be called either fatalistic or pantheistic.
To it the movements of empires and the revolutions of humanity are
the manifestations, the incarnations, of the Almighty. The human
race, identified with the divine essence, wheels in a circle of
appearances, informations, and destructions, which necessarily
excludes the idea of absolute truth, and destroys providence and
liberty.
