Total Share of Share of
Product. Capitalist. Labourer.
First period, 1000 500 500
Second period, 2000 800 1200
Third period, 3000 1050 1950
Fourth period, 4000 1200 2800
Such is the great, admirable, reassuring, necessary, and ‹inflexible›
law of Capital. To demonstrate it, appears to me to be the true way
to strike with discredit the declamations which have so long been
dinned into our ears against the ‹avidity›, the ‹tyranny›, of the
most powerful instrument of civilisation and of ‹equality› which has
ever proceeded from the human faculties.
The demonstration is twofold. First of all, we must prove that the
‹relative› share of the product falling to the capitalist goes on
continually diminishing. This is not difficult; for it only amounts
to saying that ‹the more abundant capital becomes, the more interest
falls›. Now, this is a matter of fact, incontestable and uncontested.
Not only does science explain it—it is self-evident. Schools the most
eccentric admit it. It forms the basis of their theory, for it is
from this very fall of interest that they infer the necessary, the
inevitable annihilation of what they choose to brand as ‹infernal›
Capital. Now, say they, inasmuch as this annihilation is necessary,
is inevitable, and must take place in a given time; and, moreover,
implies the realization of a positive good, it is incumbent on us
to hasten it and insure it. I am not concerned to refute these
principles, or the deductions drawn from them. It is enough that
Economists of all schools, as well as socialists, ‹egalitaires›,
and others, all admit, in point of fact, that interest falls in
proportion as capital becomes more abundant. Whether they admit it
or not, indeed, the fact is not the less certain. It rests upon
the authority of universal experience, and on the acquiescence,
involuntary it may be, of all the capitalists in the world. It is a
fact that the interest of capital is lower in Spain than in Mexico,
in France than in Spain, in England than in France, in Holland than
in England. Now, when interest falls from 20 to 15 per cent., and
then to 10, to 8, to 6, to 5, to 4½, to 4, to 3½, to 3 per cent.,
what does that mean in relation to the question which now engages us?
It means that capital, as the recompense of its co-operation in the
work of production, in the realization of wealth, is content, or, if
you will, is forced to be content, with a smaller and smaller share
of the product in proportion as capital increases. Does it constitute
one-third of the value of corn, of cloth, of houses, of ships, of
[p214] canals? in other words, when these things are sold, does
one-third of the price fall to the capitalist, and two-thirds to the
labourer? By degrees, the capitalist receives no more than a fourth,
a fifth, a sixth. His ‹relative› share goes on diminishing, while
that of the labourer goes on increasing in the same proportion; and
the first part of my demonstration is complete.
It remains for me to prove that the ‹absolute› share falling to
the capitalist goes on constantly increasing. It is very true that
the tendency of interest is to fall. But when, and why? When, and
because, the capital becomes more abundant. It is then quite possible
that the total product should be increased while the ‹percentage› is
diminished. A man has a larger income with 200,000 francs at four per
cent., than with 100,000 francs at five per cent., although, in the
first case, he charges less to the manufacturer for the use of his
capital. The same thing holds of a nation, and of the world at large.
Now, I maintain that the ‹percentage›, in its tendency to fall,
neither does nor can follow a progression so rapid that the ‹sum
total› of interest should be smaller when capital is abundant than
when it is scarce. I admit, indeed, that if the capital of mankind be
represented by 100 and interest by 5,—this interest will amount to
no more than 4 when the capital shall have mounted to 200. Here we
see the simultaneousness of the two effects. The less the ‹relative›
part, the greater the ‹absolute› part. But my hypothesis does not
admit that the increase of capital from 100 to 200 is sufficient to
make interest fall from 5 to 2 per cent., for example; because, if it
were so, the capitalist who had an income of 5000 francs with 100,000
francs of capital, would have no greater income than 4000 francs with
200,000 francs of capital. A result so contradictory and impossible,
an anomaly so strange, would be met with the simplest and most
agreeable of remedies; for then, in order to increase your income,
it would only be necessary to consume half your capital. A happy and
whimsical age it would be when men could enrich by impoverishing
themselves!
We must take care, then, not to lose sight of the combination of
these two correlative facts. The increase of capital, and the fall
of interest, take place ‹necessarily› in such a way that the total
product is continually augmented.
And let us remark in passing, that this completely exposes the
fallacy of those who imagine that because interest falls, it tends to
annihilation. The effect of that would be, that a time would arrive
when capital would be so much increased as to yield nothing to its
possessors. Keep your mind easy on that score—before [p215] that
time comes, capitalists will dissipate the stock in order to ensure
the reappearance of interest.
Such is the great law of Capital and Labour in what concerns the
distribution of the product of their joint agency. Each of them has a
greater and greater ‹absolute› share, but the ‹proportional› share of
the capitalist is continually diminished as compared with that of the
labourers.
Cease, then, capitalists and workmen, to regard each other with
an eye of envy and distrust. Shut your ears against those absurd
declamations which proceed from ignorance and presumption, which,
under pretence of insuring future prosperity, blow the flame
of present discord. Be assured that your interests are one and
identical; that they are indisputably knit together; that they tend
together towards the realization of the public good; that the toils
of the present generation mingle with the labours of generations
which are past; that all who co-operate in the work of production
receive their share of the produce; and that the most ingenious and
most equitable distribution is effected among you by the wise laws of
Providence, and under the empire of freedom, independently altogether
of a parasite sentimentalism, which would impose upon you its decrees
at the expense of your well-being, your liberty, your security, and
your self-respect.
Capital has its root in these attributes of man—Foresight,
Intelligence, and Frugality. To set about the creation of capital
we must look forward to the future, and sacrifice the present to
it—we must exercise a noble empire over ourselves and over our
appetites; we must resist the seduction of present enjoyments, the
impulses of vanity and the caprices of fashion and of public opinion,
always so indulgent to the thoughtless and the prodigal. We must
study cause and effect, in order to discover by what processes, by
what instruments, nature can be made to co-operate in the work of
production. We must be animated by love for our families, and not
grudge present sacrifices for the sake of those who are dear to us,
and who will reap the fruits after we ourselves have disappeared from
the scene. To create capital is to prepare food, clothing, shelter,
leisure, instruction, independence, dignity, for future generations.
Nothing of all this can be effected without bringing into play
motives which are eminently social, and, what is more, converting
these virtues into habits.
And yet it is very usual to attribute to capital a sort of fatal
efficacy, the effect of which is to introduce egotism, austerity,
Machiavelism, into the hearts of those who aspire to possess it.
But let us not be misunderstood. There are countries where [p216]
labour is of little value, and the little that is earned is shared
by the government. In order to snatch from you the fruit of your
toil, what is called the State surrounds you with a multitude of
trammels. It interferes with all your actions, and mixes itself up
in all your concerns. It domineers over your mind and your faith.
It disarranges all interests, and places them in an artificial and
precarious position. It enervates individual energy and activity, by
usurping the direction of all affairs. It makes the responsibility
of actions fall upon people with whom it amounts to nothing, so that
by degrees all notions of what is just or unjust are effaced. By its
diplomacy it embroils the nation in quarrels with all the world, and
then the army and navy are brought into play. It warps the popular
mind as much as it can upon all economical questions; for it is
necessary to make the masses believe that its foolish expenditure,
its unjust aggressions, its conquests, its colonies, are for them a
source of riches. In such countries it is difficult to create capital
by natural means. The great object is to purloin it by force or by
fraud from those who have created it. We there see men enriching
themselves by war, by places at court, by gambling, by purveying,
by stockjobbing, by commercial frauds, by hazardous enterprises, by
public contracts, etc. The qualities requisite for thus snatching
capital from the hands of those who create it are precisely the
opposite of those necessary for its formation. It cannot surprise us,
then, that in countries so situated an association is established
between these two ideas—‹capital› and ‹egotism›; and this association
becomes ineradicable when all the moral ideas of the country exhaust
themselves on ancient and mediæval history.
But when we turn our regards, not to this abstraction and abuse of
capital, but to its creation by intelligence and activity, foresight
and frugality, it is impossible not to perceive that a moral and
social virtue is attached to its acquisition.
Nor is there less moral and social virtue in the action of capital
than in its formation. Its peculiar effect is to procure us the
co-operation of nature, to set us free from all that is most
material, muscular, brutal, in the work of production; to render
the intelligent principle more and more predominant; to enlarge
the domain, I do not say of idleness, but of leisure; to render
less imperious the physical wants of our nature, by rendering
their satisfaction more easy, and to substitute for them wants and
enjoyments of a nature more elevated, more delicate, more refined,
more artistic, more spiritual.
Thus, in whatever point of view we place ourselves, whether [p217]
we regard Capital in connexion with our wants, which it ennobles;
with our efforts, which it facilitates; with our enjoyments, which
it purifies; with nature, which it enlists in our service; with
morality, which it converts into habit; with sociability, which
it develops; with equality, which it promotes; with freedom, in
which it lives; with equity, which it realizes by methods the most
ingenious—everywhere, always, provided that it is created and acts
in the regular order of things, and is not diverted from its natural
uses, we recognise in Capital what forms the indubitable note and
stamp of all great providential laws,—Harmony. [p218]
VIII.
PROPERTY—COMMUNITY.
Recognising in the soil, in natural agents, and in instruments of
labour, what they incontestably possess, the gift of engendering
Utility, I have endeavoured to denude them of what has been
erroneously attributed to them, namely, the faculty of creating
Value,—a faculty which pertains exclusively to the Services which men
exchange with each other.
This simple rectification, whilst it strengthens and confirms
Property, by restoring to it its true character, brings to light a
most important fact, hitherto, if I am not mistaken, overlooked by
Economic science—the fact that there exists a real, essential, and
‹progressive› Community,—the natural result of every social system in
which liberty prevails, and the evident design of which is to conduct
all men, as brethren, from primitive Equality, which is the equality
of ignorance and destitution, towards an ultimate Equality in the
possession of truth and material prosperity.
If this radical distinction between the Utility of things and the
value of services be true in itself, and in the consequences which
have been deduced from it, it is impossible to misunderstand its
bearing; for it leads to nothing less than the absorption of utopian
theories in science, and the reconcilement of antagonistic schools in
a common faith, which satisfies all minds and all aspirations.
Men of Property and leisure!—whatever be your rank in the social
scale, whatever step of the social ladder you may have reached by
dint of activity, probity, order, and economy—whence come the fears
which have seized upon you? The perfumed but poisoned breath of
Utopia menaces your existence. You are loudly told that the fortune
you have amassed for the purpose of securing a little repose in
your old age, and food, instruction, and an outset in life for your
children, has been acquired by you at the expense of your brethren;
that you have placed yourselves [p219] between the gifts of God and
the poor; that, like greedy tax-gatherers, you have levied a tribute
on those gifts, under the name of Property, of Interest, and of Rent;
that you have intercepted the benefits which the common Father has
bestowed on his children, in order to make merchandise of them. You
are called upon for restitution; and what augments your terror is,
that your advocates, in conducting your defence, feel themselves
too often obliged to avow that the usurpation is flagrant, but that
it is necessary. Such accusations I meet with a direct and emphatic
negative. You have not intercepted the gifts of God. You have
received them gratuitously, it is true, at the hands of nature; but
you have also gratuitously transferred them to your brethren without
receiving anything. They have acted the same way towards you; and the
only things which have been reciprocally ‹compensated› are physical
or intellectual efforts, toils undergone, dangers braved, skill
exercised, privations submitted to, pains taken, ‹services rendered
and received›. You may perhaps have thought only of yourselves and
your own selfish interest, but that very selfish interest has been an
instrument in the hand of an infinitely prescient and wise Providence
to enlarge unceasingly among men the domain of Community; for without
your efforts all those ‹useful effects› which you have obtained
from nature, in order to distribute them without remuneration
among your brethren, would have remained for ever inert. I say
‹without remuneration›, because what you have received is simply the
recompense of your efforts, and not at all the price of the gifts
of God. Live, then, in peace, without fear and without misgiving.
You have no other property in the world but your right to services,
in exchange for other services, by you faithfully rendered, and by
your brethren voluntarily accepted. Such property is legitimate,
unassailable; no Utopia can prevail against it, for it enters into
the very constitution of our being. No theory can ever succeed in
blighting or in shaking it.
Men of toil and privations! you cannot shut your eyes to this truth,
that the primitive condition of the human race is that of an entire
Community,—a perfect Equality,—of poverty, of destitution, and of
ignorance. Man redeems himself from this estate by the sweat of his
brow, and directs his course towards another Community, that of the
gifts of God, successively obtained with less effort,—towards another
Equality, that of material prosperity, knowledge, and moral dignity.
The progress of men on the road of improvement is unequal, indeed;
and you could not complain were the more hurried and precipitate
march of the vanguard of progress to retard in some measure your
own advance. But in [p220] truth it is quite the reverse. No ray of
light penetrates a single mind without in some degree enlightening
yours. No step of progress, prompted by the conscious possession of
property, but is a step of progress for you. No wealth is created
which does not tend to your enfranchisement; no capital, which
does not increase your enjoyments in proportion to your labour; no
acquisition, which does not increase your facilities of acquisition;
no Property, which does not tend to enlarge, for your benefit,
the domain of Community. The natural social order has been so
skillfully arranged by the Divine Architect, that those who are more
advanced on the road of civilisation hold out to you, voluntarily
or unconsciously, a helping hand; for the order of things has been
so disposed that no man can work honestly for himself without at
the same time working for all. And it is rigorously true to affirm
that every attack upon this marvellous order would on your part be
not only a homicide, but a suicide. Human nature is an admirable
chain, which exhibits this standing miracle, that the first links
communicate to all the others a progressive movement more and more
rapid, onwards to the last.
Men of philanthropy! lovers of equality! blind defenders, dangerous
friends of the suffering classes, who are yet far behind on the road
of civilisation, you who expect the reign of Community in this world,
why do you begin by unsettling all interests and shaking all received
opinions? Why, in your pride, should you seek to subjugate men’s
wills, and bring them under the yoke of your social inventions? Do
you not see that this Community after which you sigh, and which is to
inaugurate the kingdom of God upon earth, has been already thought
of and provided for by God himself? Does He want your aid to provide
a patrimony for his children? Has He need either of your conceptions
or of your violence? Do you not see that this Community is realized
more and more every day, in virtue of His admirable decrees; that
for the execution of these decrees He has not trusted to your
chance services and puerile arrangements, nor even to the growing
expression of the sympathetic principle manifested by charity; but
that He has confided the realization of His providential designs to
the most active, the most personal, the most permanent of all our
energies—Self-interest,—a principle imbedded in our inmost nature,
and which never flags, never takes rest? Study, then, the social
mechanism as it comes from the hand of the Great Mechanician, and
you will find that it testifies to a universal solicitude, which
far outstrips your dreams and chimeras. You will then, I hope, in
place of presumptuously pretending [p221] to reconstruct the divine
workmanship, be content to admire and to bless it.
I say not that there is no room in this world of ours for reforms
and reformers. I say not that mankind are not to call to their
service, and encourage with their gratitude, men of investigation, of
science, and of earnestness,—hearts faithful to the people. Such are
still but too much wanted,—not to overturn the social laws,—but to
combat the artificial obstacles which disturb and reverse the action
of these laws. In truth, it is difficult to understand why people
should keep repeating such commonplaces as this: “Political Economy
is an optimist, as far as existing facts are concerned; and affirms
that whatever is is right. At the sight of what is evil, as at the
sight of what is good. Economists are content to exclaim, ‹Laissez
faire›.” Optimists with reference to existing facts! Then we must be
ignorant that the primitive condition of man is poverty, ignorance,
the reign of brute force! We must be ignorant that the moving spring
of human nature is aversion to all suffering, to all fatigue; and
that labour being fatigue, the earliest manifestation of selfishness
among men is shown in their effort to throw this painful burden on
the shoulders of each other! The words cannibalism, war, slavery,
privilege, monopoly, fraud, spoliation, imposture, must either have
never reached our ears, or else we must see in these abominations
the necessary machinery of progress! But is there not in all this
a certain amount of wilful misrepresentation, a confounding of all
things for the purpose of accusing us of confounding them? When we
admire the providential laws which govern human transactions—when we
assert that men’s interests are harmonious—when we thence conclude
that they naturally tend and gravitate towards the realization of
relative equality and general progress—it is surely from the play and
action of these laws, not from their perturbations and disturbances,
that we educe harmony. When we say ‹laissez faire›, we surely mean,
‹allow these laws to act›, not, ‹allow these laws to be disturbed›.
According as we conform to these laws or violate them, good or evil
is produced; in other words, men’s interests are in harmony, provided
right prevail, and services are freely and voluntarily exchanged
against services. But does this imply that we are ignorant of the
perpetual struggle of Wrong against Right? Does this imply that we
lose sight of, or approve, the efforts which have been made in all
ages, and which are still making, to alter, by force or fraud, the
natural equivalence of services? This is exactly when we repudiate
as a violation of the natural social laws, as an attack upon
property,—for, in our view, the terms, free exchange of services,
justice, property, liberty, [p222] security, all express the same
idea under different aspects. It is not the principle of Property
which we contest, but the antagonistic principle of Spoliation.
Proprietors of all ranks! reformers of all schools! this is the
mission which should reconcile and unite us.
It is time, high time, that this crusade should begin. A mere
theoretical war against Property is by no means the most virulent
or the most dangerous. Since the beginning of the world there has
existed a practical conspiracy against it which is not likely soon
to cease. War, slavery, imposture, oppressive imposts, monopolies,
privileges, commercial frauds, colonies, right to employment, right
to credit, right to assistance, right to instruction, progressive
taxation imposed in direct or inverse proportion to our power of
bearing it, are so many battering-rams directed against the tottering
edifice; and if the truth must come out, would you tell me whether
there are many men in France, even among those who think themselves
conservative, who do not, in one form or another, lend a hand to this
work of destruction?
There are people to whose optics property never appears in any other
form than that of a field or a bag of crown-pieces. If you do not
overstep sacred landmarks, or sensibly empty their pockets, they
feel quite comfortable. But is there no other kind of Property? Is
there not the Property of muscular force and intellectual power, of
faculties, of ideas—in a word, the Property of Services? When I throw
a service into the social scale, is it not my right that it should
be held there, if I may use the expression, suspended, according
to the laws of its natural equivalence; that it may there form a
counterpoise to any other service which my neighbour may consent to
throw into the opposite scale and tender me in exchange? The law of
common consent agreed to establish a public force for the protection
of property thus understood. But in what situation are we placed
if this very force assumes to itself the mission of disturbing the
equilibrium, under the socialist pretext that liberty gives birth
to monopoly, and that the doctrine of ‹laissez faire› is odious and
heartless? When things go on in this way, individual theft may be
rare, and may be severely punished, but spoliation is organized,
legalized, and erected into a system. Comfort yourselves, Reformers!
your work is not yet done—only try to understand what that work
really is.
* * * * *
But before proceeding to analyze spoliation, whether public or
private, legal or illegal, and to consider its bearing as an element
in the social problem, and the part which it plays in the business
[p223] of the world, it is necessary to form just ideas, if
possible, of Community and Property; for, as we shall by-and-by see,
spoliation forms a limit to property, just as property forms a limit
to community.
From the preceding Chapters, especially that which treats of Utility
and Value, we may deduce this formula:
‹Every man enjoys› «GRATUITOUSLY» ‹all the utilities furnished or
created by nature, on condition of taking the trouble to appropriate
them, or of returning an equivalent service to those who render him
the service of taking that trouble for him›.
Here we have two facts combined and mixed up together, although in
their own nature distinct.
We have the gifts of nature—gratuitous materials, gratuitous forces.
This is the domain of ‹Community›.
We have also human efforts devoted to the appropriation of these
materials, to the direction of these forces,—efforts which are
exchanged, ‹estimated›, and compensated. This is the domain of
‹Property›.
In other words, as regards both, we are not owners of the Utility of
things, but of their Value, and value is simply the appreciation of
reciprocal services.
Property, Community, are two ideas correlative to the ideas of
‹onerosity› and ‹gratuitousness›, on which they are founded.
That which is ‹gratuitous› is ‹common›, for every one enjoys a
portion of it, and enjoys it unconditionally.
That which is ‹onerous› is ‹appropriated›, because trouble taken,
effort made, is the condition of its enjoyment, as the enjoyment is
the reason for taking the trouble, or making the effort.
Does an exchange intervene? It is effected by a comparative estimate
of the two efforts or the two services.
This reference to trouble, to pains, implies the existence of
an Obstacle. We may then conclude that the object sought for
approximates more nearly to the gratuitous and the common, in
proportion as the obstacle is less; as, by hypothesis, the complete
absence of obstacle would render it perfectly gratuitous and common.
Now, with reference to human nature, which is progressive and
perfectible, the obstacle can never be regarded as an absolute and
invariable quantity. It diminishes. Then the pains taken diminish
along with it—and the service with the pains—and value with the
service—and property with value.
And the Utility remains the same. Then the gratuitous and the common
have gained all that onerosity and property have lost. [p224]
To determine man to labour he must have a motive, and that motive
is the satisfaction he has in view, or utility. His undoubted
and irrepressible tendency is to realize the greatest possible
satisfaction with the least possible labour, to cause the greatest
amount of utility to correspond with the greatest amount of property.
Whence it follows that the mission of Property, or rather of the
spirit of property, is to realize, in a greater and greater degree,
Community.
The starting point of the human race being the maximum of poverty,
or the maximum of obstacles to be overcome, it is clear that for all
that is gained from one age to another we are indebted to the spirit
of property.
This being so, is there to be found in the world a single theoretical
adversary of the institution of property? Is it possible to imagine
a social force at once so just and so popular? The fundamental dogma
of Proudhon himself is the ‹mutuality of services›. On this point
we are agreed. What we differ upon is, that I give this the name
of ‹Property›, because, on going to the root of the matter, I am
convinced that men, if they are free, neither have, nor can have, any
other property than that of value, or of services. On the contrary,
Proudhon, like most Economists, thinks that certain natural agents
have ‹a value which is inherent in them›, and that in consequence of
that they are ‹appropriated›. But as regards property in services,
far from contesting it, he adopts it as his creed. Do you wish to
go still farther? to go the length of asserting that a man should
not have a right of property in his own exertions? Will it be said
that by exchange it is not enough to transfer gratuitously the
co-operation of natural agents, but also to cede gratuitously one’s
own efforts? This is indeed a dangerous doctrine; it is to glorify
slavery; for to assert that certain men must render, is to assert
that other men must receive, services which are not remunerated, and
that is slavery. But if you say that this gratuitous interchange must
be reciprocal, you get into an incomprehensible logomachy; for either
there is some equity in exchange, and then the services will, in one
way or another, be ‹estimated› and compensated; or they will not be
estimated and compensated,—in which case the one party will render a
great amount of service, and the other a small amount, and you will
fall back again into slavery.
But it is impossible to contest the legitimate nature of Property
in services which are exchanged on the principle of equivalence.
To explain their legitimacy we have no need to have recourse
to philosophy, or jurisprudence, or metaphysics. Socialists,
Economists, [p225] Advocates of Equality and Fraternity,—I defy
the whole body, numerous as it is, to raise even the shadow of an
objection against the ‹legitimate mutuality of voluntary services›,
and consequently against Property, such as I have defined it, such as
it actually exists in the natural social order.
I know very well that in practice the reign of Property is far from
being an undivided sway, and that we have always to deal with an
antagonistic fact. There are services which are not voluntary; there
is remuneration which is not freely stipulated; there are services
whose equivalence is impaired by force or by fraud; in a word, there
is Spoliation. The legitimate principle of Property, however, is
not thereby invalidated but confirmed. The very fact of its being
violated proves its existence. If we put faith in anything in this
world—in facts, in justice, in universal assent, in human language—we
must admit that these two words, Property and Spoliation, express
ideas which are as opposite, as irreconcilable, as far from being
identical as yes and no, light and darkness, good and evil, harmony
and discord. Taken literally, the celebrated formula that ‹property
is theft› is absurd in the very highest degree. It would not be more
monstrous to say that ‹theft is property›, that what is legitimate is
illegitimate, that what is is not, etc. The author of this whimsical
aphorism probably wished to show how ingeniously he could support a
paradox, and meant no more than this, that certain men are paid not
only for work which they do but for work which they don’t do, thus
appropriating to themselves, exclusively, gratuitous utility—the
gifts vouchsafed by God for the good of all. In this case all that we
have to do is to prove the assertion, and substitute the truism that
‹theft is theft›.
To ‹steal› means, in ordinary language, to appropriate, by force
or fraud, a value, to the prejudice and without the consent of the
person who has created that value. It is easy to see how a false
Political Economy has succeeded in enlarging the sense of that ugly
word ‹steal›. You begin by confounding utility with value. Then, as
nature co-operates in the creation of utility, you conclude that
nature also concurs in the creation of Value, and you say that this
portion of value, being the fruit of no one’s labour, belongs to
all. At length, finding that value is never transferred without
remuneration, you add, that the man who exacts a recompense for
a value which is the creation of nature, which is independent of
all human labour, which is ‹inherent in things›, and is by the
destination of Providence one of their ‹intrinsic qualities›, like
weight or porosity, form or colour, ‹commits a robbery›.
An exact analysis of value overturns this scaffolding of [p226]
subtilties intended to prop up a monstrous assimilation of Property
with Spoliation.
God has placed certain Materials and certain Forces at the disposal
of man. In order to obtain possession of these materials and forces,
Labour is necessary, or it is not. If it be not necessary, no one
will voluntarily consent to purchase from another, by means of an
effort, what, without any effort, he can obtain from the hands of
Nature. In this case, services, exchange, value, ‹Property›, are
out of the question. If, on the other hand, labour be necessary, in
equity it falls upon the person who is to receive the satisfaction;
whence it follows that the satisfaction is the recompense of the
pains taken, the effort made, the labour undergone. Here you have
the principle of Property. This being so, a man takes pains, or
submits to labour, for his own benefit, and becomes possessed of
the whole utility realized by this labour co-operating with nature.
He takes pains, or submits to labour, for another, and in that case
he bargains to receive in return an equivalent service, which is
likewise the vehicle of utility, and the result exhibits two Efforts,
two Utilities which have changed hands, and two Satisfactions. But
we must not lose sight of this, that the transaction is effected by
the comparison, by the ‹appreciation›, not of the two utilities (they
cannot be brought to this test), but of the two services exchanged.
It is then exact to say that, in a personal point of view, man, by
means of labour, becomes proprietor of natural utility (that is the
object of his labour), whatever be the relation (which may vary ‹ad
infinitum›) of labour to utility. But in a ‹social› point of view,
or in reference to each other, men are never proprietors except of
value, the foundation of which is not the liberality of nature, but
human service, pains taken, danger encountered, skill displayed,
in securing that liberality. In a word, in what concerns natural
and gratuitous utility, the last acquirer, the person who is the
recipient of the satisfaction, is placed, by exchange, in the shoes
of the first labourer. The latter has found himself in presence of
a gratuitous utility which he has taken the pains to appropriate;
the former returns him an equivalent service, and thus substitutes
himself in the other’s right and place; utility is acquired by him by
the same title, that is to say, by a gratuitous title, on condition
of pains taken. There is here, neither in fact nor in appearance, any
improper interception of the gifts of God.