we believe that value is confined to any given substance. We believe
that property is the result, the consequence, of human labour which
has been incorporated in matter. As long as value conferred on land by
labour endures, so long the property has a _raison d’être_, and cannot
be contested. It is labour which has allowed the utilisation of the
productive faculty of the soil, and productive faculty remains, like the
property, as long as labour is bestowed in preserving, improving, and
increasing it.
M. le Hardy de Beaulieu adds that he could cite numerous examples of
lands abandoned or sold at a nominal price by their owners, either
because they had exhausted and rendered them unproductive by an
unintelligent culture, or because they had not been able to withstand
the competition of more fertile soils, recently brought into cultivation
or brought nearer the common centre of consumption by a considerable
reduction in the expense of transport.
We do not contest this fact, of which the exactness may be verified any
day in the increase or diminution of the value of property induced by the
various changes brought about either in the grouping of the population,
in the modes of culture, or in the means of transport. There are,
however, few lands completely abandoned; to find examples, we should
probably have to go back to those fatal times when by force of conquest
proprietors were removed or all their means of culture and production
were suddenly seized.
But we do not see how this can help the argument of M. le Hardy de
Beaulieu. It has small relation, it seems to us, to the question of
property in inventions, that—perpetual by law, as long as labour
continues and renews it—landed property should sometimes come to an end
by occurrences or violence such as we have been speaking of.
However, to state all our thoughts on the subject of landed property,
we must confess (and here may be seen in all its clearness the radical
difference between placing under culture, or cropping land, and working
an idea), the vindication of property is found in the fact that land
can only be cultivated by one at a time, must be subject to one will,
and under one direction. It would be to my injury and the injury of the
entire community that Peter should be allowed to plant potatoes in the
field where Paul has already sowed wheat, or that James should open a
quarry where John has built a house, and so on.
As we have already said, the power of the lever, the laws of gravity,
those of the expansion of steam, the attraction of the magnet, the
caloric of coal, the facility of traction imparted by the wheel, the
optical properties of glass, &c., may be utilised to the great profit of
all, in a thousand different ways, by a thousand individuals at once,
without the efforts of any one being diminished, hindered, obstructed,
or lessened, as to their useful result, except by the beneficent laws of
competition.
“The first cause of property,” says M. Matthieu Walkoff,[4] “is the
impossibility of matter being moved in more than one direction at one
time, or, to state it otherwise, of its being subject at one time to more
than one will.” “If matter,” says this eminent economist, “were gifted
with ubiquity, like ideas, knowledge, or truth, which several may use
simultaneously, and each in his own way, property would never have been
constituted; and it is even difficult to imagine how any idea on this
phenomenon could have arisen in men’s minds.” “In fact,” he adds, “to
preserve property in an idea would have required that it should never
have been expressed nor practised, to hinder it, being divulged, which
would have been equivalent to its non-existence.”
We do not go so far as M. Walkoff; we do not affirm that the
impossibility of matter being subject at one time to more than one will
is the _first cause_ of property; but we say it is the distinctive
character of property, and, like him, we cannot see a subject, for
property is a shape, plan, or system, which, to see once, as in a spade,
the wheel, the corkscrew, is to possess an indelible idea.
Besides, the author whom we have quoted expresses so clearly our opinion
on this subject, that we must further borrow from him the following
quotation, which will not be uncalled for at a time when property itself
is threatened. It is of importance that the lawful bounds should be
carefully marked:—
“Economists have too much neglected the first cause of the perpetual
subjection of matter to exclusive property. They made property to be
derived only from a man’s original possession; from himself and his acts;
that which leads to possession of the result of his activity. But this
reasoning only establishes the indisputable right of the appropriation
of that which he appropriates or produces; it does not explain why
exclusive property in material things is permanent, and does not show how
the very nature of things renders this possession inevitable. It is to
the incomplete understanding of the causes of property that is probably
attributable the contradictions of those economists who, while professing
the doctrine of free labour, are still in favour of the establishment of
artificial barriers against the free use by every one of ideas, skill,
progress, and other products of the mind, conceived and suggested, or
realised, by any one.”
Let us remark here that in fact the manufacturing community, more liberal
in practice than the economists in theory, are eager freely to submit
to inspection at exhibitions the processes in use at their different
factories.
“To require that an idea be subject to only one will,” continues M.
Walkoff, “is to require no less an impossibility than to pretend that
a material point can obey more than one will—that is to say, that it
can be moved in more than one direction at once. It is true that it is
not proposed to hinder ideas from being developed; it is desired simply
to convert their reproduction or their material realisation into an
indefinitely prolonged monopoly. But, in order completely to succeed in
anything, it is necessary that the object aimed at be in conformity with
the nature of things. Now, is it not placing oneself in opposition to
everything which is most natural, this denying to every one the use of
an idea? And even where this interdict is most successful, we soon find,
in a manner most unassailable by the law, works copied from those to
which the law has guaranteed a monopoly. The effect of the interdict is
here, as in all regulations contrary to the nature of things, essentially
demoralising; it begets fraud, entices to it, even forces to it, in
making it useful and often even indispensable. Forbid men, as was once
supposed by the witty author of the ‘Sophismes Economiques,’ the use of
the right hand, after a few hours, there would not remain, in the eye of
the law, a single honest man. It may be boldly affirmed that such a law
would be immoral, and all those which recklessly contradict the natural
order of things are incontestably such.”
In fact, we repeat, the field which I turned into a garden may not
be used by my neighbour as a pasture-land for his cattle; where I
have planted a vine another may not plant colza or beet-root; but the
steam-engine which I have invented, or the electric power which I have
discovered, may be applied to the grinding of corn, or the spinning of
cotton, or to the extraction of iron, or to the draining of a marsh,
or to traction by land or sea, without the productive force being
neutralised, wasted, or lost, like the application of the productive
force of the soil to different purposes.
Not only do the various applications of the idea not hinder the inventor
in the employment which he may make of it, but if the application made by
others is exactly the same as his, he is only subjected to the universal
law of competition—a law of progress, if ever there was one.
[4] Precis d’Economic Politique Rationale, page 44; Paris, 1868.
II.
The Hon. M. le Hardy de Beaulieu asks, “Why the effort which consists in
rendering productive some natural agent in which this quality was not
formerly recognised, should not entitle to a recompense of property in
the value given to the natural agent in rendering it productive, in the
same way that labour bestowed on barren land to render it productive,
to the profit of all, makes him proprietor of that portion of land who
performed this labour?”
Here is our answer: He who renders productive some natural agent has an
incontestable property in that agent which he has rendered productive,
but not in all similar or identical agents in nature; he who converts
a certain quantity of water into steam, to obtain a motive force, is
incontestably proprietor of the water he employs and of the steam, as
well as of the force which he obtains, but the remainder of the water,
and of the steam which may be produced from it, and the force which may
be derived from it, remain the common property of mankind; that is to
say, each should have it in his power to employ an unlimited quantity of
water to obtain the same results. The man who first broke up and sowed a
field never could have claimed as property all the ground in the world;
he only retained for himself, and that reasonably and justly, the portion
which he had reclaimed and rendered fertile by his labour.
We may add that he who renders productive some natural agent avails
himself in this work of all the acquired knowledge and all the work
previously done, and he would unduly monopolise it if the community
recognised his exclusive right to it.
It is said that Pascal invented the wheelbarrow; did he not borrow from
the social capital both the wheel and the axle, and the two arms, not to
speak of the species of box which forms with the other parts the whole
wheelbarrow?
Our learned opponent maintains “the perfect identity between the labour
of discovery, and of the putting the soil in culture, and of this same
labour applied to other natural agents which did not exist in indefinite
quantity; and he makes the deduction, having the same result, that
inventors placing at the disposal of mankind new quantities of gratuitous
utility, not hitherto available, deserve the same reward—property in the
natural agent, or portion of this agent, whose gratuitous services have
been acquired by mankind.”
We must allow that we do not know of any natural agent of which the
quantity is not indefinite, excepting only the earth; but steam,
wind, light, electricity, magnetism, the force of attraction, that of
weight, the affinity of particles, their divisibility, their different
properties, may be employed in whatsoever quantities, and still there
would be no perceptible diminution or restraint in the use of them
to any one. The only possible restraint is that which comes from the
unreflecting action of the law, from artificial hindrances and obstacles
which may be made law.
We believe, with Bastiat, that the greatest service that could be
conferred on mankind would be to remove the obstacles which stand between
his efforts and the supply of his wants.
How does M. le Hardy de Beaulieu not see that no one has the right to
make burdensome that which is naturally gratuitous, and that it is just
to exact that no one should appropriate any part of what constitutes
common property?
That learned Professor of the Brussels Museum tells us the inventor has
a right to say to the manufacturer, “Find out my process for yourself
if you can, search for it as I have done; but if you wish to spare
yourself this labour, and avoid the risk of spending it in vain, consent
to yield me a part of the expenses which I save you in simplifying your
appliances.” And he asks us if we find this demand unjust or unreasonable.
Not only do we find this demand just and reasonable, but we maintain
that it is the only one we can recognise. But M. le Hardy de Beaulieu
forgets that, according to the Patent-Laws, things are not thus arranged.
The inventor, with the law in his hand, and the law courts to support
him, says to the manufacturer, “It is forbidden to you to search and to
find; or if you search and find, you are forbidden to use the power or
the agent when you have found it: the process which I have invented is
my property, and no one has the right to use it, even if his researches,
his labour, enable him to discover it; even if he had commenced the
search before me, all his labour is lost. I alone am proprietor of this
agent, power, or process.” If this system be right, he who first rendered
productive the most indispensable natural agent could have confiscated
the whole world to his profit.
III.
M. le Hardy de Beaulieu acknowledges that the savage who first thought of
substituting a hut, as a habitation, for the cave, has not the right to
forbid the construction of others like it.
This concession is as important as the preceding, and we shall probably
end in agreeing. We must now inquire where may be found the exact limit
between inventions of which imitation is allowed, and those in which it
is forbidden.
The man who first made a canoe from the trunk of a tree, either naturally
hollow or artificially by fire, or otherwise,—may he forbid his
neighbours to make one like it?
If he may, where, then, is the difference between the hut and the boat?
If not, what is the reason for this prevention?
From the boat we might gradually go on, up to the latest Patent, by
invisible transitions; and we have still to find the exact point at
which M. le Hardy de Beaulieu might say, There is the limit!
We do not know whether, in the absence of all positive right which would
guarantee a recompense to the inventor of the hut, a natural sentiment
of justice would prompt the savages living in that country to make him
a present of some useful object as a reward for this service, as M. le
Hardy de Beaulieu suggests. We doubt it much; gratitude is an analytic
virtue. The savages would probably have a certain respect for this
man, whom they would look upon as gifted with superior qualities and
faculties, but the presents would only arrive when, the contemporary
generations being extinct, cheats and hypocrites would found on the
inventions of this man some system of religion.
Yes, we acknowledge the truth and justice of the principle in virtue of
which it is said, “Reward for merit.” But it must not be abused. Let a
cultivator make a thousand trials, a thousand experiments, to give to the
potatoes all the elementary qualities, all the nutritive virtue of wheat,
and arrive at the object of his researches—to what recompense will he be
entitled? According to the system of M. le Hardy de Beaulieu, no reward
could equal the service which this individual would have rendered to
mankind.
According to the system of non-property in inventions, this man would
only have made his trials and his experiments—he would only have risked
his advances of money, of time, and of labour—with the view of being able
to sell his potatoes at a higher price than before, and, in fact, they
would command a higher price, by means of which he would find himself
sufficiently rewarded. This man asks nothing of society; he requires
neither Patent, nor guarantee, nor monopoly, nor privilege; because the
law has wisely placed beyond the reach of Patents all improvements in
agriculture.[5] Does this imply that agriculture no longer progresses,
that the breeder of cattle does not improve, that they remain completely
_in statu quo_? It is not from M. le Hardy de Beaulieu that we learn that
the want of Patents does not hinder for an hour the progressive advance
of agriculture; quite the contrary.
Establish the same system for all that concerns manufactures, and
inventions will follow one another as rapidly as they now do. They will
be more serious, for those who are engaged in them will no longer be
excited by the allurements which the Patent-Laws dangle before their
eyes, and will no longer lose their time in running after useless things
and mere chimeras.
We do not wish to prolong too far this answer, but we cannot pass in
silence the arguments which M. le Hardy de Beaulieu thinks he has found
in the facts relating to the inventor of the mariner’s compass, and
to the discoveries of Lieutenant Maury. We will simply remind him of
the following passage from Bastiat: “He who can gain assistance from
a natural and gratuitous force confers his services more easily; but
for all that, he does not voluntarily renounce any portion of his
usual remuneration. In order to move him, there is required external
coercion—severe without being unjust. This coercion is put in force by
competition. So long as it has not interfered—so long as he who has
utilised a natural agent is master of his secret—his natural agent
is gratuitous, no doubt; but it is not yet _common_; the victory is
gained, but it is for the profit of a single man, or a single class.
It is not yet a benefit to all mankind. Nothing is yet changed for the
multitude, unless it be that a kind of _service_, though partly rid of
the burden of labour, exacts nevertheless full pay [_la rétribution
intégrale_]. There is, on one hand, a man who exacts of all his equals
the same labour as formerly, although he offers in exchange only his
reduced labour; there is, on the other hand, all mankind, which is still
obliged to make the same sacrifice of time and labour to obtain a product
which henceforth nature partly realises. If this state of things should
continue with every invention, a principle of indefinite inequality
would be introduced into the world. Not only we should not be able to
say, value is in proportion to labour; but we should no more be able
to say, value has a tendency to be in proportion to labour. All that
we have said of _gratuitous use_, of _progressive community_, would be
chimerical. It would not be true that labour [_les services_] is given in
exchange for labour [_des services_] in such a manner that the gifts of
God pass from hand to hand, _par-dessus le marché_, on the man intended
[_destinataire_], who is the consumer. Each one would always exact
payment for not only his labour, but also for that portion of the natural
forces which he had once succeeded in applying. In a word, humanity would
be constituted on the principle of a universal monopoly, in place of the
principle of progressive community.”—_Harmonies Economiques_, Vol. vi.,
p. 354.
We think, with Bastiat, that the use of natural agents ought to be
gratuitous, and that no one has the right to artificially monopolise in
such a way as to exact royalties [_prélever des redevances_], which are
not due, and which often are obstacles almost as insurmountable as those
which invention ought naturally to remove.
T. N. BENARD.
[5] Unfortunately, this is not true of British law. The illustration
founded on it is (like the rest of these papers) admirable.—R. A. M.
SPEECH OF MICHEL CHEVALIER, AT THE MEETING OF THE “SOCIÉTÉ D’ÉCONOMIE
POLITIQUE,” ON THE 5TH JUNE, 1869.
(From the June Number of the _Journal des Economistes_.)
M. MICHEL CHEVALIER, Senator, proposed to consider Patents in their
relation to freedom of labour [_la liberté du travail_], a corner-stone
of modern political economy, and to the principle of the law of property,
which is greatly respected by economists and which serves them as guide.
Does the principle of freedom of labour accommodate itself to that of
Patents? It may be doubted. All Patents constitute a monopoly; now, it is
indisputable that monopoly is the very negation of freedom of labour.
In the case of Patents, it is true, monopoly has a limited duration; but
in France this duration generally extends, if the Patent is worth it,
to fifteen years; which makes a long time in our day when the advances
of manufacturers are so rapid and so quickly succeed one another. A
hindrance or an obstacle which lasts fifteen years may greatly damage and
seriously compromise important interests.
It would be easy to exhibit by examples the extent and the importance of
these disadvantages.
In France the manufacturer to whom a new apparatus or a new machine is
offered is always in uncertainty whether the invention proposed is not
already the subject of some Patent, the property of a third party, in
which case he would be exposed to the annoyance of a law-suit at the
instance of this third party. It follows that he frequently hesitates
about adopting a machine, apparatus, or method of work, which would be an
advantage not only to the manufacturer, but to the community at large,
whom he might supply better and cheaper. Another case which occurs to us
is that of a manufacturer in whose factory an improvement has suggested
itself. He is forced to take out a Patent, and consequently to observe
formalities and undertake expenses with which he would rather dispense;
he is obliged, and becomes a patentee, whether he will or no; because,
if he did not, it might happen that the improvement might come under the
observation of one of the numerous class of Patent-hunters. This man
might take out a Patent, which is never refused to the first comer; and
once patented, he might annoy and exact damages from the manufacturer
with whom the invention, real or pretended, actually had its birth.
In France the annoyances which Patents may occasion are very serious.
It is well known that, by the French law, the patentee may seize not
only the factory of the maker, but also, wherever he may find it, the
machine or apparatus which he asserts to be a piracy of that for which he
has taken a Patent. He may take it away or put it under seal, which is
equivalent to forbidding the use of it. M. Michel Chevalier thinks that
this is a flagrant attack on the principle of the freedom of labour.
It can also be shown how, in another way, labour may be deprived of its
natural exercise by the monopoly with which patentees are invested.
When an individual has taken out a Patent for an invention, or what he
represents to be such, no one is allowed to produce the object patented,
or use it in his manufacture, without paying to the patentee a royalty,
of which he is allowed to be the assessor, and which sometimes assumes
large proportions. The result is, that the produce manufactured can only
be offered in foreign markets at a price so augmented that the foreigner
refuses it if some other producer, residing in a country where the Patent
is not acknowledged, establishes competition. Thus, for instance, France,
which worships Patent-right, cannot export the “Bessemer” steel to
Prussia, because there this product is not patented; whereas in France,
on the contrary, it is subject to a heavy royalty, on account of the
Patent.
The same thing may be said of velvets, which have been very much in
fashion, and for which a French manufacturer took out a Patent. The
effect of this Patent was, that French manufacturers of this stuff were
shut out from the foreign markets, because outside France they had to
encounter the competition of Prussia, whose manufacturers were not
subject to any royalty, the Patent not being acknowledged there.
In our day, when export trade excites so great an interest among all
manufacturing nations, and has so much influence on the prosperity of
internal commerce, M. Michel Chevalier believes that the observation
he is about to make ought to be taken into serious consideration. At
least it follows, according to him, that before approving and continuing
the present system of Patents, it would be necessary that they should
be subjected to uniform legislation in every country. Now there are
manufacturing nations—Switzerland, for instance—which absolutely refuse;
there are others where Patents are subjected to so many restrictions that
it is as if they did not exist; such is Prussia.