attention of Jonathan, he set about finding a tenant for his land.
The dialogue which took place between the two contracting parties
was curious, and would throw much light on the subject under
consideration were I to give it entire.
Here is part of it:
‹Proprietor.› What! you would give me no greater rent than the
interest, at the current rate, of the capital I have actually laid
out?
‹Farmer.› Not a cent more.
‹Proprietor.› Why so, pray?
‹Farmer.› Just for this reason, that, with the outlay of an equal
capital, I can put as much land in as good condition as yours.
‹Proprietor.› That seems conclusive. But consider that when you
become my tenant, it is not only my capital which will work for you,
but also ‹the productive and indestructible powers of the soil›. You
will have enlisted in your service the marvellous influences of the
sun and the moon, of affinity and electricity. Am I to give you all
these things for nothing?
‹Farmer.› Why not, since they cost you nothing, and since you derive
nothing from them, any more than I do? [p264]
‹Proprietor.› Derive nothing from them? I derive everything from
them. Zounds! without these admirable phenomena, all my industry
could not raise a blade of grass.
‹Farmer.› Undoubtedly. But remember the Yankee you met at market. He
would not give you a farthing for all this co-operation of nature any
more than, when you were a water-carrier, the housewives of New York
would give you a farthing for the admirable elaboration by means of
which nature supplied the spring.
‹Proprietor.› Ricardo and Proudhon, however, . . . .
‹Farmer.› A fig for Ricardo. We must either treat on the basis which
I have laid down, ‹or I shall proceed to clear land› alongside yours,
where the sun and the moon will work for me gratis.
It was always the same argument, and Jonathan began to see that God
had wisely arranged so as to make it difficult for man to intercept
His gifts.
Disgusted with the trade of proprietor, Jonathan resolved to employ
his energies in some other department, and he determined to put up
his land to ‹sale›.
It is needless to say that no one would give him more for it than it
cost himself. In vain he cited Ricardo, and represented the inherent
value of the indestructible powers of the soil—the answer always
was, “There are other lands close by;” and these few words put an
extinguisher on his exactions and on his illusions.
There is, moreover, in this transaction a fact of great Economic
importance, and to which little attention has been paid.
It is easy to understand that if a manufacturer desires, after ten
or fifteen years, to sell his apparatus and materials, even in their
new state, he will probably be forced to submit to a loss. The
reason is obvious. Ten or fifteen years can scarcely elapse without
considerable improvements in machinery taking place. This is the
reason why the man who sends to market machinery fifteen years old
cannot expect a return exactly equal to the labour he has expended;
for with an equal expenditure of labour the purchaser could, owing to
the progress subsequently made, procure himself machinery of improved
construction—which, we may remark in passing, proves more and more
clearly that value is not in proportion to labour, but to services.
Hence we may conclude that machinery and instruments of labour have a
tendency to lose part of their value in consequence of the mere lapse
of time, without taking into account their deterioration by use—and
we may lay down this formula, that “‹one of the effects of progress
is to diminish the value of all existing instruments›.” [p265]
It is clear, in fact, that the more rapid that progress is, the
greater difficulty will the former instruments have in sustaining the
rivalry of new and improved ones.
I shall not stop here to remark the harmony exhibited by the results
of this law. What I desire you to observe at present is, that landed
property no more escapes from the operation of this law than any
other kind of property.
Brother Jonathan experiences this. He holds this language to the
purchaser—“What I have expended on this property in permanent
improvements represents a thousand days’ labour. I expect that you
will, in the first place, reimburse me for these thousand days’ work,
and then add something for the value which is inherent in the soil
and independent of all human exertion.”
The purchaser replies:
“In the first place, I shall give you nothing for the value inherent
in the soil, which is simply utility, which the adjoining property
possesses as well as yours. Such native superhuman utility I can
obtain gratis, which proves that it possesses no value.
“In the second place, since your books show that you have expended
a thousand days’ work in bringing your land to its present state,
I shall give you only 800 days’ labour; and my reason for it is,
that with 800 days’ labour I can now-a-days accomplish the same
improvements on the adjoining land as you have executed with 1000
days’ labour on yours. Pray consider that in the course of fifteen
years the art of draining, clearing, building, sinking wells,
designing farm-offices, transporting materials, has made great
progress. Less labour is now required to effect each given result,
and I cannot consent to give you ten for what I can get for eight,
more especially as the price of grain has fallen in proportion to
this progress, which is a profit neither to you nor to me, but to
mankind at large.”
Thus Jonathan was left no alternative but to sell his land at a loss,
or to keep it.
Undoubtedly the value of land is not affected by one circumstance
exclusively. Other circumstances—such as the construction of a canal,
or the erection of a town—may act in an opposite direction, and raise
its value, but the improvements of which I have spoken, which are
general and inevitable, always necessarily tend to depress it.
The conclusion to be deduced from all I have said is, that as long
as there exists in a country abundance of land to be cleared and
brought under cultivation, the proprietor, whether he cultivates,
or lets, or sells it, enjoys no privilege, no monopoly, no
exceptional [p266] advantage,—above all, that he levies no tax
upon the gratuitous liberality of nature. How could it be so,
if we suppose men to be free? Have not people who are possessed
of capital and energy a perfect right to make a choice between
agriculture, manufactures, commerce, fisheries, navigation, the
arts, or the learned professions? Will not capital and industry
always tend to those departments which give extraordinary returns?
Will they not desert those which entail loss? Is this inevitable
shifting and redistribution of human efforts not sufficient to
establish, according to our hypothesis, an equilibrium of profit and
remuneration? Do agriculturists in the United States make fortunes
more rapidly than merchants, shipowners, bankers, or physicians,—as
would necessarily happen if they received the wages of their labour
like other people, and the recompense of nature’s work into the
bargain?
Would you like to know how a proprietor even in the United States
could establish for himself a monopoly? I shall try to explain it.
Suppose Jonathan to assemble all the proprietors of the United
States, and hold this language to them:
“I desired to sell my crops, and I found no one who would give me
a high enough price for them. I wished then to let my land, and
encountered the same difficulty. I resolved to sell it, but still
experienced the same disappointment. My exactions have always
been met by their telling me, that ‹there is more land in the
neighbourhood›; so that, horrible to say, my services are estimated
by the community like the services of other people, ‹at what they
are worth›, in spite of the flattering promises of theorists. They
will give me nothing, absolutely nothing, for those productive and
indestructible powers of the soil, for those natural agents, for
the solar and lunar rays, for the rain, the wind, the dew, the
frost, which I was led to believe were mine, but of which I turn
out to be only the nominal proprietor. Is it not an iniquitous
thing that I am remunerated only for my services, and at a rate,
too, reduced by competition? You are all suffering under the same
oppression, you are all alike the victims of anarchical competition.
It would be no longer so, you may easily perceive, if we ‹organized›
landed property, if we laid our heads together to prevent anyone
henceforward from clearing a yard of American soil. In that case,
population pressing, by its increase, on a nearly fixed amount of
subsistence, we should be able to make our own prices and attain
immense wealth, which would be a great boon for all other classes;
for being rich, we should provide them with work.”
If, in consequence of this discourse, the combined proprietors
[p267] seized the reins of government, and passed an act
interdicting all new clearances, the consequence undoubtedly would
be a temporary increase of their profits. I say temporary, for the
natural laws of society would be wanting in harmony if the punishment
of such a crime did not spring naturally from the crime itself.
Speaking with scientific exactitude, I should not say that the new
law we have supposed would impart value to the powers of the soil,
or to natural agents (were this the case, the law would do harm to
no one);—but I should say, that the equilibrium of services had been
violently upset; that one class robbed all other classes, and that
slavery had been introduced into that country.
Take another hypothesis, which indeed represents the actual state of
things among the civilized nations of Europe—and suppose all the land
to have passed into the domain of private property.
We are to inquire whether in that case the mass of consumers, or the
‹community›, would continue to be the gratuitous usufructuary of the
productive powers of the soil, and of natural agents; whether the
proprietors of land would be owners of anything else than of its
‹value›, that is to say, of their services fairly estimated according
to the laws of competition; and whether, when they are recompensed
for those services, they are not forced like everyone else to give
the gifts of God into the bargain.
Suppose, then, the entire territory of Arkansas alienated by the
government, parcelled into private domains, and subjected to culture.
When Jonathan brings his grain or his land to market, can he not
now take advantage of the productive power of the soil, and make it
an element of value? He could no longer be met, as in the preceding
case, with the overwhelming answer. “There is more uncultivated land
adjacent to yours.”
This new state of things presupposes an increase of population,
which may be divided into two classes: 1st, That which furnishes
to the community agricultural services; 2dly, That which furnishes
manufacturing, intellectual, or other services.
Now this appears to me quite evident. Labourers (other than owners
of land) who wished to procure supplies of grain, being perfectly
free to apply either to Jonathan or to his neighbours, or to the
proprietors of adjoining states, being in circumstances even to
proceed to clear lands beyond the territory of Arkansas, it would
be absolutely impossible for Jonathan to impose an unjust law upon
them. The very fact that lands which have no value exist elsewhere
would oppose to monopoly an invincible obstacle, and we should be
landed again in the preceding hypothesis. Agricultural services are
subject to the law of Universal Competition, [p268] and it is quite
impossible to make them pass for more than they ‹are worth›. I add,
that they are worth no more (‹cæteris paribus›) than services of
any other description. As the manufacturer, after charging for his
time, his anxiety, his trouble, his risk, his advances, his skill
(all which things constitute human service, and are represented
by value), can demand no recompense for the law of gravitation,
the expansibility of steam, the assistance of which he has availed
himself of,—so in the same way, Jonathan can include in the value
of his grain only the sum total of the personal services, anterior
or recent, and not the assistance he has derived from the laws of
vegetable physiology. The equilibrium of services is not impaired
so long as they are freely exchanged, the one for the other, at an
agreed price; and the gifts of God, of which these services are the
vehicle, given on both sides into the bargain, remain in the domain
of community.
It may be said, no doubt, that in point of fact the value of the
soil is constantly increasing; and this is true. In proportion as
population becomes more dense and the people more wealthy, and the
means of communication more easy, the landed proprietor derives
more advantage from his services. Is this law peculiar to him?
Does the same thing not hold of all other producers? With equal
labour, does not a physician, a lawyer, a singer, a painter, a day
labourer, procure a greater amount of enjoyments in the nineteenth
than he could in the fourth century? in Paris than in Brittany? in
France than in Morocco? But is this increased enjoyment obtained at
the expense of any other body? That is the point. For the rest, we
shall investigate still farther this law of value (using the word
metonymically) of the soil, in a subsequent part of the work, when we
come to consider the theory of Ricardo.
At present it is sufficient to show that Jonathan, in the case we
have put, can exercise no oppression over the industrial classes,
provided the exchange of services is free, and that labour can,
without any legal impediment, be distributed, either in Arkansas or
elsewhere, among different kinds of production. This liberty renders
it impossible for the proprietors to intercept, for their own profit,
the gratuitous benefits of nature.
It would no longer be the same thing if Jonathan and his brethren,
availing themselves of their legislative powers, were to proscribe
or shackle the liberty of trade,—were they to decree, for example,
that not a grain of foreign corn should be allowed to enter the
territory of Arkansas. In that case the value of services exchanged
between proprietors and non-proprietors would no longer be regulated
by justice. The one party could no longer control the [p269]
pretensions of the other. Such a legislative measure would be as
iniquitous as the one to which we have just alluded. The effect would
be quite the same as if Jonathan, having carried to market a sack
of corn, which in other circumstances would have sold for fifteen
francs, should present a pistol at the purchaser’s head, and say,
Give me three francs more, or I will blow out your brains.
This (to give the thing its right name) is ‹extortion›. ‹Brutal› or
‹legal›, the character of the transaction is the same. Brutal, as
in the case of the pistol, it violates property; legal, as in the
case of the prohibition, it still violates property, and repudiates,
moreover, the very principle upon which property is founded. The
exclusive subject of property, as we have seen, is value, and
Value is the appreciation of two services freely and voluntarily
exchanged. It is impossible, then, to conceive anything more directly
antagonistic to the very principle of property, than that which, in
the name of right, destroys the equivalence of services.
It may not be out of place to add, that laws of this description are
iniquitous and injurious, whatever may be the opinions entertained
by those who impose them, or by those who are oppressed by their
operation. In certain countries we find the working-classes standing
up for these restrictions, because they enrich the proprietors.
They do not perceive that it is at their expense, and I know from
experience that it is not always safe to tell them so.
Strange! that people should listen willingly to sectaries who preach
Communism, which is slavery; for when a man is no longer master of
his own services, he is a slave;—and that they should look askance at
those who are always and everywhere the defenders of Liberty, which
is the Community of the gifts of God.
We now come to the third hypothesis, which assumes that all the land
capable of cultivation throughout the world has passed into the
domain of individual appropriation.
We have still to do with two classes—those who possess land—and those
who do not. Will the first not oppress the second? and will the
latter not be always obliged to give more labour in exchange for the
same amount of subsistence?
I notice this objection merely for argument’s sake, for hundreds of
years must elapse before this hypothesis can become a reality.
Everything forewarns us, however, that the time must at last come
when the exactions of proprietors can no longer be met by the words,
There are other lands to clear.
I pray the reader to remark, that this hypothesis implies another—it
implies that at the same epoch population will have reached [p270]
the extreme limit of the means of subsistence which the earth can
afford.
This is a new and important element in the question. It is very much
as if one should put the question, What will happen when there is no
longer enough of oxygen in the atmosphere to supply the lungs of a
redundant population?
Whatever view we take of the principle of population, it is at
least certain that population is capable of ‹increase›, nay, that
it has a ‹tendency› to increase, since in point of fact it does
increase. All the economic arrangements of society appear to have
been organized with the previous knowledge of this tendency, and are
in perfect harmony with it. The landed proprietor always endeavours
to get paid for the natural agents which he has appropriated, but
he is as constantly foiled in this foolish and unjust pretension
by the abundance of analogous natural agents which have not been
appropriated. The liberality of nature, which is comparatively
indefinite, constitutes him a simple custodier. But now you drive me
into a corner, by supposing a period at which this liberality reaches
its limit. Men have then no longer anything to expect from that
quarter. The consequence is inevitable, that the tendency of mankind
to increase will be paralyzed, that the progress of population will
be arrested. No economic régime can obviate this necessity. According
to the hypothesis we have laid down, every increase of population
would be repressed by mortality. No philanthropy, no optimism, can
make us believe that the increase of human beings can continue
its progression when the progressive increase of subsistence has
conclusively terminated.
Here, then, we have a new order of things and the harmony of the
social laws might be called in question, had they not provided for a
state of matters the existence of which is possible, although very
different from that which now obtains.
The difficulty we have to deal with, then, comes to this: When a
ship in mid-ocean cannot reach land in less than a month, and has
only a fortnight’s provisions on board, what is to be done? Clearly
this, reduce the allowance of each sailor. This is not cruelty—it is
prudence and justice.
In the same way, when population shall have reached the extreme limit
that all the land in the world can maintain, a law which, by gentle
and infallible means prevents the further multiplication of mankind,
cannot be considered either harsh or unjust. Now, it is landed
property still which affords us solution of the difficulty. The
institution of property, by applying the stimulant of self-interest,
causes the land to produce the greatest possible [p271] quantity of
subsistence, and by the division of inheritances puts each family
in a situation to estimate the danger to itself of an imprudent
multiplication. It is very clear that any other régime—Communism, for
example—would be at once a less effective spur to production, and a
less powerful curb to population.
After all, it appears to me that Political Economy has discharged
her duty when she has proved that the great and just law of the
‹mutuality of services› operates harmoniously, so long as human
progress is not conclusively arrested. Is it not consoling to think
that up to that point, and under the empire of freedom, it is not
in the power of one class to oppress another? Is economic Science
bound to solve this further problem: Given the tendency of mankind
to multiply, what will take place when there is no longer room in
the world for new inhabitants? Does God hold in reserve for that
epoch some creative cataclasm, some marvellous manifestation of His
almighty power? Or, as Christians, do we believe in the doctrine
of the world’s destruction? These evidently are not economical
problems, and there is no science which does not encounter similar
difficulties. Natural philosophers know well, that all bodies which
move on the surface of the earth have a tendency to descend, not to
ascend. After all, a day must come when the mountains shall have
filled up the valleys, when the embouchure of our rivers will be on
the same level as their source, when the waters can no longer flow,
etc., etc. What will happen then? Is Natural Science to cease to
observe and to admire the harmony of the actual world because she
cannot divine by what other harmony God will provide for a state of
things far distant, no doubt, but inevitable? It seems to me that
at this point the Economist, like the natural philosopher, should
substitute for an exercise of curiosity an exercise of faith. He who
has so marvellously arranged the medium in which we now live, knows
best how to prepare another medium suitable to other circumstances.
We judge of the productiveness of the soil and of human skill by
the facts of which we are witnesses. Is this a rational mode of
proceeding? Then, adopting it, we may say, Since it has required six
thousand years to bring a tenth part of the earth to the sorry state
of cultivation in which we find it, how many hundreds of ages must
elapse before its entire surface shall be converted into a garden?
Yet in this appreciation, comforting as it is, we suppose merely
the more general diffusion of our present knowledge, or rather our
present ignorance, of agriculture. But is this, I repeat, an [p272]
admissible rule? Does not analogy tell us that an impenetrable
veil conceals from us the power—the indefinite power it may be—of
art? The savage who lives by the chase requires a square league of
territory. What would be his surprise were he told that the pastoral
life enables ten times the number of men to subsist upon the same
space? The nomad shepherd would, in like manner, be quite astonished
to be told that a system of triennial cultivation [‹la culture
triennale›] admits easily of a population ten times greater still.
Tell the peasant accustomed to this routine that the same progress
will again be the result of alternate culture[60] [‹la culture
alterne›], and he will not believe you. Alternate culture is for us
the latest improvement—Is it the latest improvement for the human
race? Let us comfort ourselves regarding the future destiny of the
species—a long tract of ages is before us. At all events, let us not
require Political Economy to resolve problems which are not within
her domain—and let us with confidence commit the destinies of future
races to the keeping of that great and good and wise Being who shall
have called them into existence.
* * * * *
Let us recapitulate the ideas contained in this chapter.
These two phenomena, Utility and Value—the co-operation of nature
and the co-operation of man, consequently Community and Property—are
combined in the work of agriculture, as in every other department of
industry.
In the production of corn which appeases our hunger, we remark
something analogous to what takes place in the formation of water
which quenches our thirst. The ocean, which is the theme of the
poet’s inspiration, offers to the Economist also a fine subject of
meditation. It is this vast reservoir which gives drink to all human
creatures. And yet how can that be, when many of them are situated
at a great distance from its shores, and when its water is besides
undrinkable? It is here that we have to admire the marvellous
industry of nature. We mark how the sun warms the heaving mass, and
subjects it to a slow evaporation. The water takes the form of gas,
and, disengaged from the salt, which rendered it unfit for use,
it rises into the high regions of the atmosphere. Gales of wind,
increasing in all directions, drift it towards inhabited continents.
There it encounters cold, which condenses it, and attaches it in a
solid form to the sides of mountains. By-and-by the gentle heat of
spring melts it. Carried along by its weight, [p273] it is filtered
and purified through beds of schist and gravel. It ramifies and
distributes itself, and supplies and feeds refreshing springs in all
parts of the world. Here we have an immense and ingenious industry
carried on by nature for the benefit of the human race. Change of
form, change of place, utility, nothing is wanting. But where is
‹value›? Value has not yet come into existence; and if what we must
call the work of God is to be paid for (it would be paid for if it
possessed exchangeable ‹value›)—who could tell the ‹value› of a
single drop of this precious liquid?
All men, however, have not a spring of pure water at their door. In
order to quench their thirst they must take pains, make efforts,
exert foresight and skill. It is this ‹supplementary› human labour
which gives rise to arrangements, transactions, ‹estimates›. It is
here, then, that we discover the origin and foundation of value.
Man is originally ignorant. Knowledge is acquired. At the beginning,
then, he is forced to carry water, to accomplish the supplementary
labour which nature has left him to execute with the ‹maximum› of
trouble. It is at this stage that water has the greatest ‹value› in
exchange. By degrees the water-carrier invents a barrow and wheels,
trains horses, constructs pipes, discovers the law of the siphon,
etc.; in short, he transfers part of his labour to the gratuitous
forces of nature; and, in proportion as he does so, the value of
water, but not its utility, is diminished.
There is here, however, a circumstance which it is necessary
thoroughly to comprehend, if we would not see discordance where there
is in reality only harmony. It is this, that the purchaser of water
obtains it on easier terms, that is to say, gives a less amount of
labour in exchange for a given quantity of it, each time that a step
of progress of this kind is gained, although in such circumstances
he has to give a remuneration for the instrument by means of which
nature is constrained to act. Formerly he paid for the labour of
carrying the water; now he pays not only for that, but for the labour
expended in constructing the barrow, the wheel, and the pipe—and yet,
‹everything included›, he pays less; and this shows us how false and
futile the reasoning is which would persuade us that that part of
the remuneration which is applicable to capital is a burden on the
consumer. Will these reasoners never understand that, for each result
obtained, capital supersedes more labour than it exacts?
All that I have said is equally applicable to the production of
corn. In that case also, anterior to all human labour, there has
[p274] been an immense, a measureless, amount of natural industry at
work, the secrets of which the most advanced science can yet give
no account of. Gases, salts, are diffused through the soil and the
atmosphere. Electricity, affinity, the wind, the rain, light, heat,
vegetable life, play successively their parts, often unknown to us,
in transporting, transforming, uniting, dividing, combining these
elements; and this marvellous industry, the activity and utility of
which elude our appreciation and even our imagination, has yet no
‹value›. Value makes its appearance at the first intervention of
the labour of man, who has, in this, more perhaps than in the other
instance we have given, a ‹supplementary› labour to perform, in order
to complete what nature has begun.
To direct these natural forces, and remove the obstacles which impede
their action, man takes possession of an instrument, which is the
soil, and he does so without injury to anyone; for this instrument
had previously no value. This is not a matter of argument, but a
matter of fact. Show me, in any part of the world you choose, land
which has not been subjected directly or indirectly to human action,
and I will show you land destitute of value.[61] [p275]
In the meantime, the agriculturist, in order to effect, in
conjunction with nature, the production of corn, executes two kinds
of labour which are quite distinct. The one kind is applicable
directly and immediately to the crop of the year—is applicable only
to that, and must be paid for by that—such as sowing, weeding,
reaping, etc. The other, as building, clearing, draining, enclosing,
is applicable to an indefinite series of crops, and must be charged
to and spread over a course of years, and calculated according to
the tables of interest and annuities. The crops constitute the
remuneration of the agriculturist if he consumes them himself. If
he exchanges them, it is for services of another kind, and the
appreciation of the services so exchanged constitutes their value.
Now it is easy to see that this class of permanent works executed
by the agriculturist upon the land is a ‹value› which has not yet
received its entire recompense, but which cannot fail to receive
it. It cannot be supposed that he is to throw up his land and allow
another to step into his shoes without compensation. The value has
been incorporated and mixed up with the soil, and this is the reason
why we can with propriety employ a metonymy and say ‹the land has
value›. It has value, in fact, because it can be no longer acquired
without giving in exchange the equivalent for this labour. But what
I contend for is, that this land, on which its natural productive
power had not originally conferred any value, [p276] has no value
yet in this respect. This natural power, which was gratuitous then,
is gratuitous now, and will be always gratuitous. We may say, indeed,
that the land has ‹value›, but when we go to the root of the matter
we find, that what possesses value is the human labour which has
improved the land, and the capital which has been expended on it.
Hence it is rigorously exact to say that the proprietor of the land
is, after all, the proprietor only of a value which he has created,
of services which he has rendered; and what property can be more
legitimate? It is property created at no one’s expense, and neither
intercepts nor taxes the gifts of God.
Nor is this all. The capital which has been advanced, and the
interest of which is spread over the crop of successive years, is so
far from increasing the price of the produce, and forming a burden
on the consumers, that the latter acquire agricultural products
cheaper in proportion as this capital is augmented, that is to say,
in proportion as the value of the soil is increased. I have no doubt
that this assertion will be thought paradoxical and tainted with
exaggerated optimism, so much have people been accustomed to regard
the value of land as a calamity, if not a piece of injustice. For my
own part, I affirm, that it is not enough to say that the value of
the soil has been created at no one’s expense; it is not enough to
say that it injures no one; we should rather say that it benefits
everybody. It is not only legitimate, but advantageous, even to those
who possess no property.
We have here, in fact, the phenomenon of our previous illustration
reproduced. We remarked that from the moment the water-carrier
invented the barrow and the wheel, the purchaser of the water had
to pay for two kinds of labour: 1st, The labour employed in making
the barrow and the wheel, or rather the interest of the capital, and
an annual contribution to a sinking fund to replace that capital
when worn out; 2d, The direct labour which the water-carrier must
still perform. But it is equally true that these two kinds of labour
united do not equal in amount the labour which had to be undergone
before the invention. Why? because a portion of the work has now been
handed over to the gratuitous forces of nature. It is, indeed, in
consequence of this diminution of human labour that the invention has
been called forth and adopted.
All this takes place in exactly the same way in the case of land and
the production of corn. As often as an agriculturist expends capital
in permanent ameliorations, it is certain that the successive crops
are burdened with the interest of that capital. But it is [p277]
equally certain that the other species of labour—rude, unskilled,
present, direct labour—is rendered unnecessary in a still greater
proportion; so that each crop is obtained by the proprietor, and
consequently by the consumer, on easier terms, on less onerous
conditions—the proper action of capital consisting precisely in
substituting natural and gratuitous co-operation for human labour
which must be paid for.
Here is an example of it. In order to obtain a good crop, it is
necessary that the field should be freed from superfluous moisture.
Suppose this species of labour to be still included in the first
category. Suppose that the cultivator goes every morning with a jar
to carry off the stagnant water where it is productive of injury.
It is clear that at the year’s end the land would have acquired no
additional ‹value›, but the price of the grain would be enormously
enhanced. It would be the same in the case of all those who followed
the same process while the art of draining was in this primitive
state. If the proprietor were to make a drain, that moment the
land would acquire ‹value›, for this labour pertains to the second
category—that which is incorporated with the land—and must be
reimbursed by the products of consecutive years; and no one could
expect to acquire the land without recompensing this work. Is it not
true, however, that it would tend to lower the value of the crop?
Is it not true that although during the first year it exacted an
extraordinary exertion, it saves in the long-run more labour than it
has occasioned? Is it not true that the draining thenceforth will be
executed by the gratuitous law of hydrostatics more economically than
it could be by muscular force? Is it not true that the purchasers
of corn will benefit by this operation? Is it not true that they
should esteem themselves fortunate in this new value acquired by
the soil? And, having reference to more general considerations, is
it not true, in fine, that the value of the soil attests a progress
realized, not for the advantage of the proprietor only, but for that
of society at large? How absurd, then, and suicidal in society to
exclaim: The additional price charged for corn, to meet the interest
of the capital expended on this drain, and ultimately to replace that
capital, or its equivalent, as represented in the value of the land,
is a privilege, a monopoly, a theft! At this rate, to cease to be a
monopolist and a thief, the proprietor should have only to fill up
his drain and betake himself to his jar. Would the man who has no
property, and lives by wages, be any gainer by that?
Review all the permanent ameliorations of which the sum total makes
up the value of land, and you will find that to each of them [p278]
the same remark applies. Having filled up the drain, demolish the
fence, and so force the agriculturist to mount guard upon his field;
destroy the well, pull down the barn, dig up the road, burn the
plough, efface the levelling, remove the artificial mould; replace
in the field the loose stones, the weeds, the roots of trees; you
will then have realized the Utopia of Equality. The land, and the
human race along with it, wall have reverted to the primitive state,
and will have no longer any value. The crops will have no longer any
connexion with capital. Their price will be freed from that accursed
element called interest. Everything, literally everything, will be
done by actual labour, visible to the naked eye. Political Economy
will be much simplified. Our country will support a man to the square
league. The rest of her inhabitants will have died of hunger;—but
then it can no longer be said that property is a monopoly, an
injustice, and a theft.
Let us not be insensible, then, to those economic harmonies which
unfold themselves to our view more and more as we analyze the ideas
of exchange, of value, of capital, of interest, of property, of
community.—Will it indeed be given me to describe the entire circle,
and complete the demonstration?—But we have already, perhaps,
advanced sufficiently far to be convinced that the social world, not
less than the material world, bears the impress of a Divine hand,
from which flows wisdom and goodness, and towards which we should
raise our eyes in gratitude and admiration.
I cannot forbear reverting here to the view of this subject taken by
M. Considérant.
Setting out with the proposition, that the soil has a proper value,
independent of all human labour, that it constitutes ‹primitive and
uncreated capital›, he concludes, in perfect consistency with his own
views, that ‹appropriation› is ‹usurpation›. This supposed iniquity
leads him to indulge in violent tirades against the institutions
of modern society. On the other hand, he allows that permanent
ameliorations confer an ‹additional value› on this primitive capital,
an accessory so mixed up with the principal that we cannot separate
them. What are we to do, then? for we have here a total value
composed of two elements, of which one, the fruit of labour, is
legitimate property; and the other, the gift of God, appropriated by
man, is an iniquitous usurpation.
This is no trifling difficulty. M. Considérant resolves it by
reference to the Right to Employment [‹Droit au travail›].
“The development of Mankind evidently demands that the Soil shall
not be left in its wild and uncultivated state. The destiny of the
human race is opposed to property in land retaining ‹its rude and
primitive form›.
“In the midst of forests and savannas, the savage enjoys four
natural rights, [p279] namely, the rights of Hunting, of Fishing,
of Gathering the fruits, of Pasturing. Such is the primitive form of
property in land.
“In all civilized societies, the working-classes, the Prolétaires,
who inherit nothing and possess nothing, are simply despoiled of
these rights. We cannot say that the primitive Right has changed its
form, for it no longer exists. The form and the substance have alike
disappeared.
“Now in what Form can such Rights be reconciled with the conditions
of an industrial Society? The answer is plain:
“In the savage state, in order to avail himself of his Right, man is
‹obliged to act›. The ‹labour› of Fishing, of Hunting, of Gathering,
of Pasturing are the conditions of the exercise of his Right. The
primitive Right, then, is a Right ‹to engage in these employments›.
“Very well, let an industrial Society, which has appropriated the
land, and taken away from man the power of exercising freely and
at will his four natural Rights, let this society cede to the
individual, in compensation for those Rights, of which it had
despoiled him, the ‹Right to Employment›. On this principle, rightly
understood and applied, the individual has no longer any reason to
complain.
“The condition ‹sine quâ non›, then, of the Legitimacy of Property
is, that Society should concede to the Prolétaire—the man who has
no property—the ‹Right to Employment›; and, in exchange for a given
exertion of activity, ‹assure› him of means of subsistence, at
least as adequate as such exercise ‹could› have procured him in the
primitive state.”
I cannot, without being guilty of tiresome repetition, discuss this
question with M. Considérant in all its bearings. If I demonstrate,
that what he terms ‹uncreated capital› is no capital at all;
that what he terms the ‹additional value› of the soil, is not an
additional value, but the ‹total value›; he must acknowledge that
his argument has fallen to pieces, and, with it, all his complaints
of the way in which mankind have judged it proper to live since the
days of Adam. But this controversy would oblige me to repeat all that
I have already said upon the essentially and indelibly gratuitous
character of natural agents.
I shall only remark, that if M. Considérant speaks in behalf of the
non-proprietary class, he is so very accommodating that they may
think themselves betrayed. What! proprietors have usurped the soil,
and all the miracles of vegetation which it displays! they have
usurped the sun, the rain, the dew, oxygen, hydrogen, and azote, so
far at least as these co-operate in the production of agricultural
products—and you ask them to assure to the man who has no property,
as a compensation, at least as much of the means of subsistence, in
exchange for a given exertion of activity, as that exertion could
have procured him in the primitive and savage state!
But do you not see that landed property has not waited for your
injunctions in order to be a million times more generous? for to what
is your demand limited?
In the primitive state, your four rights of fishing, hunting,
gathering the fruits, and pasturing, maintain in existence, or rather
in a state of vegetation, amid all the horrors of destitution, nearly
one man to the square league of territory. The usurpation of the
[p280] land will then be legitimate, according to you, when those
who have been guilty of that usurpation support one man for every
square league, exacting from him at the same time as much activity
as is displayed by a Huron or an Iroquois. Pray remark, that France
consists of only thirty thousand square leagues; that consequently,
if its whole territory supports thirty thousand inhabitants in that
condition of existence which the savage state affords, you renounce
in behalf of the non-proprietary class all farther demands upon
property. Now, there are thirty millions of Frenchmen who have not an
inch of land, and among the number we meet with many—the president of
the republic, ministers, magistrates, bankers, merchants, notaries,
advocates, physicians, brokers, soldiers, sailors, professors,
journalists, etc.—who would certainly not be disposed to exchange
their condition for that of an Ioway. Landed property, then, must
do much more for us than you exact from it. You demand from it the
‹Right to Employment›, up to a certain point—that is to say, until it
yields to the masses—and in exchange for a given amount of labour,
too—as much subsistence as they could earn in a state of barbarism.
Landed property does much more than that—it gives more than the Right
to employment—it gives Employment itself, and did it only clear the
land-tax, it would do a hundred times more than you ask it to do.
I find to my great regret that I have not yet done with landed
property and its value. I have still to state, and to refute, in
as few words as possible, an objection which is specious and even
formidable.
It is said,
“Your theory is contradicted by facts. Undoubtedly, as long as there
is in a country abundance of uncultivated land, the existence of
such land will of itself hinder the cultivated land from acquiring
an undue value. It is also beyond doubt, that even when all the land
has passed into the appropriated domain, if neighbouring nations have
extensive tracts ready for the plough, freedom of trade is sufficient
to restrain the value of landed property within just limits. In these
two cases it would seem that the Price of land can only represent the
capital advanced, and the Rent of land the interest of that capital.
Whence we must conclude, as you do, that the proper action of the
soil and the intervention of natural agents, going for nothing,
and not influencing the value of the crops, remain gratuitous, and
therefore common. All this is specious. We may have difficulty in
discovering the error, and yet this reasoning is erroneous. In order
to be convinced of it, it [p281] is sufficient to point to the fact,
that there are in France cultivated lands which are worth from 100
francs to 6000 francs the hectare, an enormous difference, which is
much easier explained by the difference of fertility than by the
difference of the anterior labour applied to these lands. It is vain
to deny, then, that fertility has its own value, for not a sale
takes place which does not attest it. Every one who purchases a land
estate examines its quality, and pays for it accordingly. If, of two
properties which lie alongside each other, the one consists of a
rich alluvium, and the other of barren sand, the first is surely of
more value than the second, although both may have absorbed the same
capital, and to say truth, the purchaser gives himself no trouble
on that score. His attention is fixed upon the future, and not upon
the past. What he looks at is not what the land has cost, but what
it will yield, and he knows that its yield will be in proportion to
its fertility. Then this fertility has a proper and intrinsic value
which is independent of all human labour. To maintain the contrary is
to endeavour to base the legitimacy of individual appropriation on a
subtilty, or rather on a paradox.”
Let us inquire, then, what is the true foundation of the value of
land.
I pray the reader not to forget that this question is of grave
importance at the present moment. Hitherto it has been neglected or
glossed over by Economists, as a question of mere curiosity. The
legitimacy of individual appropriation was not formerly contested,
but this is no longer the case. Theories which have obtained but too
much success have created doubts in the minds of our best thinkers on
the institution of property. And upon what do the authors of these
theories found their complaints? Why, exactly upon the assertion
contained in the objection which I have just explained—upon the
fact, unfortunately admitted by all schools, that the soil, by
reason of its fertility, possesses an inherent value communicated to
it by nature and not by human means. Now value is not transferred
gratuitously. The very word excludes the idea of gratuitousness. We
say to the proprietor, then—you demand from me a value which is the
fruit of my labour, and you offer me in exchange a value which is not
the fruit of your labour, or of any labour, but of the liberality of
nature.
Be assured that this would be a fearful complaint were it well
founded. It did not originate with Messieurs Considérant and
Proudhon. We find it in the works of Smith, of Ricardo, of Senior, of
all the Economists without exception, not as a theory [p282] merely,
but as a subject of complaint. These authors have not only attributed
to the soil an extra-human value, they have boldly deduced the
consequence, and branded landed property as a privilege, a monopoly,
a usurpation. No doubt, after thus branding it, they have defended it
on the plea of ‹necessity›. But what does such a defence amount to,
but an error of reasoning which the Communist logicians have lost no
time in rectifying?
It is not, then, to indulge an unhappy love for subtilties that I
enter on this delicate subject. I should have wished to save both the
reader and myself the ennui which even now I feel hovering over the
conclusion of this chapter.
The answer to the objection now under consideration is to be found in
the theory of Value, explained in the ‹fifth› chapter of this work. I
there said that value does not essentially imply labour; still less
is it necessarily proportionate to labour. I have shown that the
foundation of value is not so much the ‹pains taken› by the person
who transfers it as the ‹pains saved› to the person who receives it;
and it is for that reason that I have made it to reside in something
which embraces these two elements—in ‹service›. I have said that a
person may render a great service with very little effort, or that
with a great effort one may render a very trifling service. The sole
result is, that labour does not obtain necessarily a remuneration
which is always in proportion to its intensity, in the case either of
man in an isolated condition, or of man in the social state.
Value is determined by a bargain between two contracting parties. In
making that bargain, each has his own views. You offer to sell me
corn. What matters it to me the time and pains it may have cost you
to produce it? What I am concerned about is the time and pains it
would have cost me to procure it from another quarter. The knowledge
you have of my situation may render you more or less exacting; the
knowledge I have of yours may render me more or less anxious to make
the purchase. There is no necessary measure, then, of the recompense
which you are to derive from your labour. That depends upon the
circumstances, and the value which these circumstances confer upon
the two services which we are desirous to exchange. By-and-by we
shall call attention to an external force called Competition,
whose mission is to regulate values, and render them more and more
proportional to efforts. Still this proportion is not of the essence
of value, seeing that the proportion is established under the
pressure of a contingent fact.
Keeping this in view, I maintain that the value of land arises,
fluctuates, and is determined, like that of gold, iron, water, the
[p283] lawyer’s advice, the physician’s consultation, the singer’s
or dancer’s performance, the artist’s picture—in short, like all
other values; that it is subject to no exceptional laws; that it
constitutes a property the same in origin, the same in nature, and
as legitimate, as any other property. But it does not at all follow,
as you must now see, that, of two exertions of labour applied to the
soil, one should not be much better remunerated than the other.
Let us revert again to that industry, the most simple of all, and the
best fitted to show us the delicate point which separates the onerous
labour of man from the gratuitous co-operation of nature. I allude to
the humble industry of the water-carrier.
A man procures and brings home a barrel of water. Does he become
possessed of a value necessarily proportionate to his labour? In that
case, the value would be independent of the service the water may
render. Nay more, it would be fixed; for the labour, once over, is no
longer susceptible of increase or diminution.
Well, the day after he procures and brings home this barrel of water,
it may lose its value, if, for example, it has rained during the
night. In that case every one is provided—the water can render no
service, and is no longer wanted. In economic language, it has ceased
to be in demand.
On the other hand, it may acquire considerable value, if
extraordinary wants, unforeseen and pressing, come to manifest
themselves.
What is the consequence? that man, working for the future, is not
exactly aware beforehand what value the future will attach to his
labour. Value incorporated in a material object will be higher or
lower, according as it renders more or less service, or, to express
it more clearly, human labour, which is the source of value, receives
according to circumstances a higher or lower remuneration. Such
eventualities are an exercise for foresight, and foresight also has a
right to remuneration.
But what connexion is there, I would ask, between these fluctuations
of value, between these variations in the recompense of labour, and
that marvellous natural industry, those admirable physical laws,
which without our participation have brought the water of the ocean
to the spring? Because the value of this barrel of water varies
according to circumstances, are we to conclude that nature charges
sometimes more, sometimes less, sometimes nothing at all, for
evaporation, for carrying the clouds from the ocean to the mountains,
for freezing, melting, and the whole of that admirable industry which
supplies the spring? [p284]
It is exactly the same thing in the case of agricultural products.
The value of the soil, or rather of the capital applied to the soil,
is made up not of one element but of two. It depends not only on the
labour which has been employed, but also on the ability which society
possesses to remunerate that labour—on Demand as well as on Supply.
Take the case of a field. Not a year passes, perhaps, in which
there is not some labour bestowed upon it, the effects of which are
permanent, and of course an increase of value is the result.
Roads of access, besides, are improved and made more direct, the
security of person and property becomes more complete, markets are
extended, population increases in number and in wealth—different
systems of culture are introduced, and a new career is opened to
intelligence and skill; the effect of this change of medium, of this
general prosperity, being to confer additional value on both the
present and the anterior labour, and consequently on the field.
There is here no injustice, no exception in favour of landed
property. No species of labour, from that of the banker to that of
the day-labourer, fails to exhibit the same phenomenon. No one fails
to see his remuneration improved by the improvement of the society
in which his work is carried on. This action and reaction of the
prosperity of each on the prosperity of all, and ‹vice versa›, is the
very law of value. So false is the conclusion which imputes to the
soil and its productive powers an imaginary value, that intellectual
labour, professions and trades which have no connexion with matter or
the co-operation of physical laws, enjoy the same advantage, which in
fact is not exceptional but universal. The lawyer, the physician, the
professor, the artist, the poet, receive a higher remuneration for
an equal amount of labour, in proportion as the town or country to
which they belong increases in wealth and prosperity, in proportion
as the taste or demand for their services becomes more generally
diffused, in proportion as the public is more able and more willing
to remunerate them. The acquisition of clients and customers is
regulated by this principle. It is still more apparent in the case of
the Basque Giant and Tom Thumb, who lived by the simple exhibition
of their exceptional stature, and reap a much better harvest, from
the curiosity of the numerous and wealthy crowds of our large towns,
than from that of a few poor and straggling villagers. In this case,
demand not only enhances value, it creates it. Why, then, should
we think it exceptional or unjust that demand should also exert an
influence on the value of land and of agricultural products? [p285]
Is it alleged that land may thus attain an exaggerated value? They
who say so have never reflected on the immense amount of labour
which arable land has absorbed. I dare affirm, that there is not a
field in this country which ‹is worth› what it has cost, which could
be exchanged for as much labour as has been expended in bringing
it to its present state of productiveness. If this observation is
well founded, it is conclusive. It frees landed property from the
slightest taint of injustice. For this reason, I shall return to the
subject when I come to examine Ricardo’s theory of Rent, and I shall
show that we must apply to agricultural capital the law which I have
stated in these terms: In proportion as capital increases, products
are divided between capitalists or proprietors and labourers, in such
a way that the ‹relative› share of the former goes on continually
diminishing, although their ‹absolute› share is increased, whilst the
share of the latter is increased both absolutely and relatively.
The illusion which has induced men to believe that the productive
powers of the soil have an independent value, because they possess
Utility, has led to many errors and catastrophes. It has driven them
frequently to the premature establishment of colonies, the history
of which is nothing else than a lamentable martyrology. They have
reasoned in this way: In our own country we can obtain value only
by labour, and when we have done our work, we have obtained a value
which is only proportionate to our labour. If we emigrate to Guiana,
to the banks of the Mississippi, to Australia, to Africa, we shall
obtain possession of vast territories, uncultivated but fertile; and
our reward will be, that we shall become possessed not of the value
we have created, but also of the inherent and independent value of
the land we may reclaim. They set out, and a cruel experience soon
confirms the truth of the theory which I am now explaining. They
labour, they clear, they exhaust themselves; they are exposed to
privations, to sufferings, to diseases; and then if they wish to
dispose of the land which they have rendered fit for production, they
cannot obtain for it what it has cost them, and they are forced to
acknowledge that value is of human creation. I defy you to give me
an instance of the establishment of a colony which has not at the
beginning been attended with disaster.
“Upwards of a thousand labourers were sent out to the Swan River
Colony; but the extreme cheapness of land (eighteenpence, or less
than two francs, an acre) and the extravagant rate of wages,
afforded them such facilities and inducements to become landowners,
that capitalists could no longer get any one to cultivate their
lands. A capital of £200,000 (five millions of francs) was lost
in consequence, and the colony became a scene of desolation. The
labourers having left their employers from the delusive desire
to become landowners, agricultural implements were allowed to
rust—seeds rotted—and sheep, cattle, and horses perished for
want of attention. A frightful famine [p286] cured the labourers
of their infatuation, and they returned to ask employment from
the capitalists; but it was too late.”—‹Proceedings of the South
Australian Association.›
The association, attributing this disaster to the cheapness of
land, raised its price to 12s. an acre. But, adds Carey, from whom
I borrow this quotation, the real cause was, that the labourers,
being persuaded that land possesses an ‹inherent› value, apart from
the labour bestowed on it, were anxious to exercise “the power of
appropriation,” to which the power to demand Rent is attributed.
What follows supplies us with an argument still more conclusive:
“In 1836, the landed estates in the colony of Swan River were to be
purchased from the original settlers at one shilling an acre.”—‹New
Monthly Magazine.›
Thus the land which was sold by the company at 12s.—upon which the
settlers had bestowed much labour and money—was disposed of by them
at one shilling! What then became of the value of ‹the natural and
indestructible productive powers of the soil›?[62]
I feel that the vast and important subject of the Value of Land has
not been exhausted in this chapter, written by snatches and amid many
distractions. I shall return to it hereafter; but in the meantime
I cannot resist submitting one observation to my readers, and more
especially to Economists.
The illustrious ‹savants› who have done so much to advance
the science, whose lives and writings breathe benevolence and
philanthropy, and who have disclosed to us, at least in a certain
aspect, and within the limits of their researches, the true solution
of the social problem—the Quesnays, the Turgots, the Smiths, the
Malthuses, the Says—have not however escaped, I do not say from
refutation, for that is always legitimate, but from calumny,
disparagement, and insult. To attack their writings, and even their
motives, has become fashionable. It may be said, perhaps, that in
this chapter I am furnishing arms to their detractors, and truly
the moment would be ill chosen for me to turn against those whom I
candidly acknowledge as my initiators, my masters, and my guides.
But supreme homage is, after all, due to Truth, or what I regard as
Truth. No book was ever written without some admixture of error.
Now, a single error in Political Economy, if we press it, torture
it, deduce from it rigorously its logical consequences, involves
all kinds of errors—in fact, lands us in chaos. There never was a
book from which we could not extract one proposition, isolated,
incomplete, false, including consequently a whole world [p287]
of errors and confusion. In my conscience, I believe that the
definition which the Economists have given of the word ‹Value› is of
this number. We have just seen that this definition has led them to
cast a serious doubt on the legitimacy of property in land, and, by
consequence, in capital; and they have only been stopped short on
this fatal road by an inconsistency. This inconsistency has saved
them. They have resumed their march on the road of Truth; and their
error, if it be one, is, in their works, an isolated blot. Then the
Socialists have come to lay hold of this false definition, not to
refute it, but to adopt it, strengthen it, make it the foundation
of their propaganda, and deduce from it all its consequences. Hence
has arisen in our day an imminent social danger; and it is for that
reason that I have thought it my duty to be explicit on this subject,
and trace the erroneous theory to its source. If you conclude that I
have separated myself from my masters Smith and Say, from my friends
Blanqui and Garnier, because, by an oversight in their learned and
admirable works, they have made, as I think, an erroneous application
of the word ‹value›; if you conclude from this that I have no longer
faith in Political Economy and Political Economists, I can only
protest, and appeal to the very title of the present volume. [p288]
X.
COMPETITION.
There is not in the whole vocabulary of Political Economy a word
which has roused the fury of modern reformers so much as the word
‹Competition›, which, in order to render it the more odious, they
never fail to couple with the epithet ‹anarchical›.
What is the meaning of ‹anarchical competition›? I really don’t know.
What could we substitute for it? I am equally ignorant.
I hear people, indeed, calling out ‹Organization! Association!›
What does that mean? Let us come to an understanding, once for all.
I desire to know what sort of authority these writers intend to
exercise over me, and all other living men; for I acknowledge only
one species of authority, that of reason, if indeed they have it
on their side. Is it their wish then to deprive me of the right of
exercising my judgment on what concerns my own subsistence? Is their
object to take from me the power of comparing the services which I
render with those which I receive? Do they mean that I should act
under the influence of restraint, exerted over me by them and not
by my own intelligence? If they leave me my liberty, Competition
remains. If they deprive me of freedom, I am their slave. Association
will be ‹free and voluntary›, they say. Be it so. But then each
group of associates will, as regards all other groups, be just what
individuals now are in relation to each other, and we shall still
have ‹Competition›. The association will be ‹integral›. A good joke
truly. What! Anarchical Competition is now desolating society, and
we must wait for a remedy, until, by dint of your persuasion, all
the nations of the earth—Frenchmen, Englishmen, Chinese, Japanese,
Caffres, Hottentots, Laplanders, Cossacks, Patagonians—make up
their minds to unite in one of the forms of association which
you have devised? Why, this is just to avow that competition is
indestructible; and will you venture to say that a phenomenon which
[p289] is indestructible, and consequently providential, can be
mischievous?
After all, what is Competition? Is it a thing which exists and is
self-acting like the cholera? No, Competition is only the absence of
constraint. In what concerns my own interest, I desire to choose for
myself, not that another should choose for me, or in spite of me—that
is all. And if any one pretends to substitute his judgment for mine
in what concerns me, I should ask to substitute mine for his in what
concerns him. What guarantee have we that things would go on better
in this way? It is evident that Competition is Liberty. To take away
the liberty of acting is to destroy the possibility, and consequently
the power, of choosing, of judging, of comparing; it is to annihilate
intelligence, to annihilate thought, to annihilate man. From whatever
quarter they set out, to this point all modern reformers tend—to
ameliorate society they begin by annihilating the individual, under
the pretext that all evils come from this source—as if all good did
not come from it too.
We have seen that services are exchanged for services. In reality,
every man comes into the world charged with the responsibility of
providing for his satisfactions by his efforts. When another man
saves us an effort, we ought to save him an effort in return. He
imparts to us a satisfaction resulting from his effort; we ought to
do the same for him.
But who is to make the comparison? for between these efforts, these
pains, these services exchanged, there is necessarily a comparison
to be made, in order to arrive at equivalence, at justice;—unless
indeed injustice, inequality, chance, is to be our rule, which would
just be another way of putting human intelligence ‹hors de cause›.
We must, then, have a judge; and who is this judge to be? Is it
not quite natural that in every case wants should be judged of by
those who experience them, satisfactions by those who seek them,
efforts by those who exchange them? And is it seriously proposed to
substitute for this universal vigilance of the parties interested,
a social authority (suppose that of the reformer himself), charged
with determining in all parts of the world the delicate conditions
of these countless acts of interchange? Do you not see that this
would be to set up the most fallible, the most universal, the most
arbitrary, the most inquisitorial, the most insupportable—we are
fortunately able to add, the most impossible—of all despotisms ever
conceived in the brain of pasha or mufti?
It is sufficient to know that Competition is nothing else than
[p290] the absence of an arbitrary authority as judge of exchanges,
in order to be satisfied that it is indestructible. Illegitimate
force may no doubt restrain, counteract, trammel the liberty of
exchanging, as it may the liberty of walking; but it can annihilate
neither the one nor the other without annihilating man. This being
so, it remains for us to inquire whether Competition tends to the
happiness or misery of mankind; a question which amounts to this,—Is
the human race naturally progressive, or are its tendencies fatally
retrograde?
I hesitate not to say that Competition, which, indeed, we might
denominate Liberty, despite the repulsion which it excites, despite
the declamations to which it has given rise, is a law which is
democratical in its essence. Of all the laws to which Providence has
confided the progress of human society, it is the most progressive,
levelling, and ‹communautaire›. It is this law which brings
successively into the ‹common› domain the use and enjoyment of
commodities which nature has accorded gratuitously only to certain
countries. It is this law, again, which brings into the ‹common›
domain all the conquests which the genius of each age bequeaths to
succeeding generations, leaving them only supplementary labours to
execute, which last they continue to exchange with one another,
without succeeding, as they desire, in obtaining a recompense for
the co-operation of natural agents; and if these labours, as happens
always in the beginning, possess a value which is not proportionate
to their intensity, it is still Competition which, by its incessant
but unperceived action, restores an equilibrium which is sanctioned
by justice, and which is more exact than any that the fallible
sagacity of a human magistracy could by possibility establish. Far
from Competition leading to inequality, as has been erroneously
alleged, we may assert that all ‹factitious› inequality is imputable
to its absence; and if the gulf between the Grand Lama and a Paria is
more profound than that which separates the President from an artisan
of the United States, the reason is this, that Competition (or
Liberty), which is curbed and put down in Asia, is not so in America.
This is the reason why, whilst the Socialists see in Competition
the source of all that is evil, we trace to the attacks which have
been made upon it the disturbance of all that is good. Although this
great law has been misunderstood by the Socialists and their adepts;
although it is frequently harsh in its operation, no law is more
fertile in social harmonies, more beneficent in general results;
no law attests more brilliantly the measureless superiority of the
designs of God over the vain and powerless combinations of men.
[p291]
I must here remind the reader of that singular but unquestionable
result of the social order to which I have already invited his
attention,[63] and which the power of habit hides too frequently from
our view. It is this, ‹that the sum total of satisfactions which
falls to each member of society is much superior to those which he
could procure for himself by his own efforts›. In other words, there
is an evident disproportion between our consumption and our labour.
This phenomenon, which all of us can easily verify, if we turn our
regards upon ourselves, ought, it seems to me, to inspire some
gratitude to society, to which we owe it.
We come into this world destitute of everything, tormented with
numerous wants, and provided with nothing but faculties to enable
us to struggle against them. ‹A priori›, it would seem that all we
could expect would be to obtain satisfactions proportionate to our
labour. If we obtain more, infinitely more, to what do we owe the
excess? Precisely to that natural organization against which we are
constantly declaiming, when we are not engaged in seeking to subvert
it.
In itself the phenomenon is truly extraordinary. That certain men
consume more than they produce is easily explained, if in one way
or other they usurp the rights of other people—if they receive
services without rendering them. But how can that be true of all men
at the same time? How happens it that, after having exchanged their
services without constraint, without spoliation, upon a footing of
‹equivalence›, each man can say to himself with truth, I consume in a
day more than I could produce in a century?
The reader has seen that the additional element which resolves the
problem is the co-operation of natural agents, constantly becoming
more and more effective in the work of production; it is gratuitous
utility falling continually into the domain of ‹Community›; it is the
labour of heat and of cold, of light, of gravitation, of affinity, of
elasticity, coming progressively to be added to the labour of man,
diminishing the value of services by rendering them more easy.
I must have but feebly explained the theory of ‹value› if the reader
imagines that value diminishes immediately and of its own accord,
by the simple fact of the co-operation of natural forces, and the
relief thereby afforded to human labour. It is not so; for then we
might say with the English Economists that value is proportional
to labour. The man who is aided by a natural and gratuitous force
renders his services more easily; but he does not [p292] on that
account renounce voluntarily any portion whatever of his accustomed
remuneration. To induce him to do that, external coercion—pressure
from without—severe but not unjust pressure—is necessary. It is
Competition which exerts this pressure. As long as Competition does
not intervene, as long as the man who has availed himself of a
natural agent preserves his secret, that natural agent is gratuitous,
but it is not yet ‹common›. The victory has been gained, but to the
profit only of a single man, or a single class. It is not yet a
benefit to mankind at large. No change has yet taken place, except
that one description of ‹services›, although partly relieved from the
pain of muscular exertion, still exacts all its former remuneration.
We have, on the one hand, a man who exacts from all his fellows the
same amount of labour as formerly, although he offers them a limited
amount of his own labour in return. On the other, we have mankind at
large, who are still obliged to make the same sacrifice of time and
of labour in order to obtain a product now realized in part by nature.
Were things to remain in this state, a principle of indefinite
inequality would be introduced into the world with every new
invention. Not only could we not say that value is proportional to
labour; we could not even say that value tends to become proportional
to labour. All that we have said in the preceding chapters about
‹gratuitous utility› and ‹progressive community› would be chimerical.
It would not be true that services are exchanged against services,
in such a way that the gifts of God are transferred gratuitously
from one man to another, down to the ultimate recipient, who is the
consumer. Each would continue to be paid, not only for his labour,
but for the natural forces which he had once succeeded in setting
to work; in a word, society would be constituted on the principle
of universal Monopoly, in place of on the principle of progressive
Community.
But it is not so. God, who has bestowed on all His creatures heat,
light, gravitation, air, water, the soil, the marvels of vegetable
life, electricity, and countless other benefits which it is beyond
my power to enumerate,—God, who has placed in the human breast the
feeling of ‹personal interest›, which, like a magnet, attracts
everything to itself,—God, I say, has placed also in the bosom of
society another spring of action, which He has charged with the care
of preserving to His benefits their original destination, which was,
that they should be gratuitous and common. This spring of action is
Competition.
Thus, Personal Interest is that irrepressible force belonging to the
individual which urges us on to progress and discovery, which [p293]
spurs us on to exertion, but leads also to monopoly. Competition is
that force belonging to the species which is not less irrepressible,
and which snatches progress, as it is realized, from individual
hands, and makes it the common inheritance of the great family of
mankind. These two forces, in each of which, considered individually,
we might find something to blame, thus constitute social Harmony, by
the play of their combinations, when regarded in conjunction.
And we may remark, in passing, that we ought not to be at all
surprised that the individual interests of men, considered as
producers, should from the beginning have risen up against
Competition, should have rebuked it, and sought to destroy it—calling
in for this purpose the assistance of force, fraud, privilege,
sophistry, monopoly, restriction, legislative protection, etc. The
morality of the means shows us clearly enough the morality of the
end. But the astonishing and melancholy thing is, that science
herself—false science, it is true—propagated with so much zeal by
the socialist schools, in the name of philanthropy, equality, and
fraternity, should have espoused the cause of Individualism, in its
narrowest and most exclusive manifestation, and should have deserted
the cause of humanity.