Is Law to enforce rigorous Justice, or to be the instrument of
Spoliation, organized with more or less adroitness?
It is very evident that the solution of these questions depends upon
our knowledge and study of the natural laws of society. We cannot
pronounce conclusively upon them until we have discovered whether
property, liberty, the combination of services freely and voluntarily
exchanged, lead to improvement and material prosperity, as the
economists believe, or to ruin and degradation, as the socialists
affirm.
In the first case, social evils must be attributed to disturbances of
the natural laws, to legal violations of liberty and property, and
these disturbances and violations must be put an end to. In that case
Political Economy is right.
In the second case, it may be said, we have not yet had enough of
Government interference. Forced and factitious combinations have not
yet sufficiently superseded free and natural combinations. These
three fatal principles, Justice, Liberty, Property, have still too
powerful a sway. Our legislators have not yet attacked them boldly
enough. We have not yet acted sufficiently on the maxim of ‹taking
from one in order to give to another›. Hitherto we have taken from
the many to give to the few. Now, we must take from all to give to
all. In a word, we must organize Spoliation, and from Socialism must
come our salvation.[28]
‹Fatal Illusions which spring from Exchange.›—Exchange is society.
Consequently, economic truth consists in a complete view of Exchange;
economic error in a partial view of it.
If man did not exchange, each economic phenomenon would be
accomplished in a single individual, and it would be very easy to
discover from observation its good and its bad effects.
But Exchange has given rise to the separation of occupations, or, in
other words, to the establishment of trades and professions. Each
service (or each product) has, then, two relations, one with the
person who furnishes it, and the other with the person who receives
it.
Undoubtedly, at the end of the evolution, man in a social state,
like man in a state of isolation, is at once producer and consumer,
but we must see clearly the difference. Man in an isolated state is
always the producer of the very thing he consumes, which almost never
happens with man in the social state. This is an unquestionable
fact, which every one can verify for himself. It [p129] follows,
moreover, from this that the social state consists in an interchange
of services.
We are all producers and consumers, not of the thing, but of the
value, that we have produced. In exchanging commodities we remain
always possessed of their value.
It is this which gives rise to all economic errors and illusions, and
it may not be useless to mark here the progress of the human mind in
this respect.
We give the general name of ‹obstacle› to everything which, being
interposed between our wants and our satisfactions, calls for the
intervention of our efforts.
The relations of these four elements—want, obstacle, effort,
satisfaction—are quite apparent, and easily understood in isolated
man. We should never think of saying—
“It is a pity that Robinson Crusoe did not encounter more
‹obstacles›, for in that case he would have had more opportunities of
exerting his energies—he would have been richer.”
“It is unfortunate that the sea should have cast upon the shore
of the desert island useful articles, such as timber, provisions,
arms, books; for this deprived him of the opportunity of exerting
himself—it made him less rich.”
“It is to be regretted that Robinson invented nets to take fish and
game, for that diminished by so much his efforts in relation to each
given result—it made him less rich.”
“It is a pity that Robinson was not more frequently sick, for then
he must have set to doctoring himself, which is labour; and as all
wealth comes from labour, he would have been more wealthy on that
account.”
“It is a pity that he succeeded in extinguishing the fire which
threatened his cabin. He lost thus a precious opportunity of work—and
was so much the poorer.”
“It is unfortunate that in the desert island the soil was not more
ungrateful, the spring at a greater distance, the day shorter. For
then Robinson must have exerted himself more to procure food, drink,
and light, and he would have been so much the richer by the exertion.”
I say that no one in his senses would ever think of putting forth
as oracles of truth propositions so absurd. It would be too glaring
an evidence that wealth does not depend upon the intensity of the
effort in proportion to the satisfaction obtained, and that it is
just the contrary which is true. We should then understand that
wealth consists neither in the Want, nor in the Obstacle, nor in
the Effort, but in the Satisfaction; and we should not hesitate to
[p130] acknowledge that, although Robinson Crusoe was both producer
and consumer, yet, in order to judge of his progress, we must have
reference, not to his labour, but to its results. In short, in laying
down the axiom that “the paramount interest is that of the consumer,”
we believe we are merely giving utterance to a ‹truism›.
Happy will it be for nations when they discern clearly how and why
what we have found true or false of man in a state of isolation is
equally true or false of man in his social state!
It is absolutely certain, however, that the five or six propositions
which have appeared to us not only false, but absurd, when applied
to the island of Juan Fernandez, appear, when applied to our own
country, so incontestably true, that they serve as the basis of
our whole economic legislation. On the other hand, the axiom which
appears to us to be truth itself when applied to an individual, is
never invoked in the name of society without calling forth a smile of
contempt.
Is it true, then, that Exchange so alters our individual organization
that what makes individual poverty constitutes social riches?
No, it is not true, but it is plausible—so very plausible as to be
generally believed.
Society consists in this—that we work for one another. The more
services we render, the more services we receive, and we receive more
in proportion as our own are more appreciated—more in demand. On the
other hand, the separation of occupations, the division of labour,
causes each of us to apply his efforts to the removal of obstacles
which stand in the way of the enjoyments of others. The agricultural
labourer combats the obstacle called hunger—the physician, the
obstacle called disease—the clergyman, the obstacle called vice—the
author, the obstacle called ignorance—the coal miner, the obstacle
called cold, etc., etc.
And as those around us are more disposed to remunerate our services
in proportion as they feel more keenly the particular obstacle which
stands in their own way, it follows that we are all disposed, in this
point of view, and as producers, to magnify the obstacle which it
is our peculiar business to overcome. We consider ourselves richer
if such obstacles are multiplied, and we reason from particulars
to generals—from our own individual advantage to the public
good.[29] . . . . [p131]
V.
OF VALUE.
All dissertations are wearisome—a dissertation on Value the most
wearisome of all.
What unpractised writer, who has had to face an Economic problem, but
has tried to resolve it without reference to any definition of value?
Yet he soon finds he has engaged in a vain attempt. The theory of
Value is to Political Economy what numeration is to arithmetic. In
what inextricable confusion would not Bezout have landed himself, if,
to save labour to his pupils, he had undertaken to teach them the
four rules and proportion, without having previously explained the
value which the figures derive from their form and position?
The truth is, if the reader could only foresee the beautiful
consequences deducible from the theory of Value, he would undertake
the labour of mastering the first principles of Economical Science
with the same cheerfulness that one submits to the drudgery of
Geometry, in prospect of the magnificent field which it opens to our
intelligence.
But this intuitive foresight is not to be expected; and the more
pains I should take to establish the distinction between Value and
Utility, or between Value and Labour, in order to show how natural it
is that this should form a stumbling-block at the very threshold of
the science, the more wearisome I should become. The reader would see
in such a discussion only barren and idle subtleties, calculated at
best to satisfy the curiosity of Economists by profession.
You are inquiring laboriously, it may be said, whether wealth
consists in the Utility of things, or in their Value, or in their
rarity. Is not this like the question of the schoolmen, Does form
reside in the substance or in the accident? Are you not afraid
[p132] that some street Molière will hold you up to public ridicule
at the Théâtre des Variétés?
Yet truth obliges me to say that, in an economical point of view,
Society is Exchange. The primary element of Exchange is the notion
of ‹Value›, so that every truth and every error which this word
introduces into men’s minds is a social truth or error.
I undertake in this work to demonstrate the Harmony of those laws
of Providence which govern human society. What makes these laws
harmonious and not discordant is, that all principles, all motives,
all springs of action, all interests, co-operate towards a grand
final result, which humanity will never reach by reason of its native
‹imperfection›, but to which it will always approximate more and more
by reason of its unlimited ‹capability of improvement›. And that
result is, the indefinite approximation of all classes towards a
level, which is always rising; in other words, the ‹equalization› of
individuals in the general ‹amelioration›.
But to attain my object. I must explain two things, namely,
‹1st›, That ‹Utility› has a tendency to become more and more
‹gratuitous›, more and more ‹common›, as it gradually recedes from
the domain of individual ‹appropriation›.
‹2d›, That ‹Value›, on the other hand, which alone is capable of
appropriation, which alone constitutes property legitimately and in
fact, has a tendency to diminish more and more in relation to the
utility to which it is attached.
Such a demonstration—founded on Property, but only on the property
of which Value is the subject, and on Community, but only on the
community of utility,—such a demonstration, I say, must satisfy
and reconcile all schools, by conceding to them that all have had
a glimpse of the truth, but only of partial truth, regarded from
different points of view.
Economists! you defend property. There is in the social order no
other property than that of which ‹Value› is the subject, and that is
immovable and unassailable.
Communists! you dream of Community. You have got it. The social order
renders all ‹utilities› common, provided the exchange of those values
which have been appropriated is free.
You are like architects who dispute about a monument of which each
has seen only one side. They don’t see ‹ill›, but they don’t see
‹all›. To make them agree, it is only necessary to ask them to walk
round the edifice.
But how am I to reconstruct the social edifice, so as to exhibit
to mankind all its beautiful harmony, if I reject its two corner
stones. Utility and Value? How can I bring about the desired [p133]
reconciliation of various schools upon the platform of truth if I
shun the analysis of these two ideas, although the dissidence has
arisen from the unhappy confusion which they have caused?
I have felt this kind of introduction necessary, in order, if
possible, to secure from the reader a moment’s attention, and relieve
him from fatigue and ennui. I am much mistaken if the consoling
beauty of the consequences will not amply make up for the dryness of
the premises. Had Newton allowed himself to be repulsed at the outset
by a distaste for elementary mathematics, never would his heart
have beat with rapture on beholding the harmonies of the celestial
mechanism; and I maintain that it is only necessary to make our
way manfully to an acquaintance with certain first principles, in
order to be convinced that God has displayed in the social mechanism
goodness no less touching, simplicity no less admirable, splendour no
less magnificent.
In the first chapter we viewed man as both ‹active› and ‹passive›,
and we saw that ‹Want› and ‹Satisfaction›, acting on ‹sensibility›
alone, were in their own nature personal, peculiar, and
intransmissible; that ‹Effort›, on the contrary, the connecting link
between Want and Satisfaction, the ‹mean› term between the motive
principle of action and the end we have in view, proceeding from our
‹activity›, our spontaneity, our will, was susceptible of conventions
and of transmission. I know that, metaphysically, no one can contest
this assertion, and maintain that Effort also is personal. I have no
desire to enter the territory of ideology, and I hope that my view
of the subject will be admitted without controversy when put in this
vulgar form:—We cannot ‹feel› the wants of others—we cannot ‹feel›
the satisfactions of others; but we can ‹render service› one to
another.
It is this transmission of efforts, this exchange of services, which
forms the subject of Political Economy; and since, on the other hand,
economical science is condensed and summed up in the word ‹Value›, of
which it is only a lengthened explanation, it follows that the notion
of value would be imperfectly, erroneously, conceived if we were
to found it upon the extreme phenomena of our sensibility—namely,
our ‹Wants› and ‹Satisfactions›—phenomena which are personal,
intransmissible, and ‹incommensurable› as between two individuals, in
place of founding it on the manifestations of our ‹activity›, upon
‹efforts›, upon reciprocal ‹services›, which are interchanged because
they are susceptible of being compared, appreciated, ‹estimated›,
and which are capable of being estimated precisely because they are
capable of being interchanged.