But although the monopoly of money is one of the most glaring violations
of men's natural right to make their own contracts, and one of the most
effective--perhaps _the_ most effective--for enabling a few men to rob
everybody else, and for keeping the great body of the people in poverty
and servitude, it is not the only one that our government practises, nor
the only one that has the same robbery in view.
The so-called taxes or duties, which the government levies upon imports,
are a practical violation both of men's natural right of property, and
of their natural right to make their own contracts.
A man has the same _natural_ right to traffic with another, who lives on
the opposite side of the globe, as he has to traffic with his next-door
neighbor. And any obstruction, price, or penalty, interposed by the
government, to the exercise of that right, is a practical violation of
the right itself.
The ten, twenty, or fifty per cent. of a man's property, which is taken
from him, for the reason that he purchased it in a foreign country, must
be considered either as the price he is required to pay for the
_privilege_ of buying property in that country, or else as a penalty for
having exercised his _natural right_ of buying it in that country.
Whether it be considered as a price paid for a privilege, or a penalty
for having exercised a natural right, it is a violation both of his
natural right of property, and of his natural right to make a contract
in that country.
In short, it is nothing but downright robbery.
And when a man seeks to avoid this robbery, by evading the government
robbers who are lying in wait for him,--that is, the so-called revenue
officers,--whom he has as perfect a right to evade, as he has to evade
any other robbers, who may be lying in wait for him,--the seizure of his
whole property,--instead of the ten, twenty, or fifty per cent. that
would otherwise have been taken from him,--is not merely adding so much
to the robbery itself, but is adding insult to the robbery. It is
punishing a man as a criminal, for simply trying to save his property
from robbers.
But it will be said that these taxes or duties are laid to raise revenue
for the support of the government.
Be it so, for the sake of the argument. All taxes, levied upon a man's
property for the support of government, without his consent, are mere
robbery; a violation of his natural right of property. And when a
government takes ten, twenty, or fifty per cent. of a man's property,
for the reason that he bought it in a foreign country, such taking is as
much a violation of his natural right of property, or of his natural
right to purchase property, as is the taking of property which he has
himself produced, or which he has bought in his own village.
A man's natural right of property, in a commodity he has bought in a
foreign country, is intrinsically as sacred and inviolable as it is in a
commodity produced at home. The foreign commodity is bought with the
commodity produced at home; and therefore stands on the same footing as
the commodity produced at home. And it is a plain violation of one's
right, for a government to make any distinction between them.
Government assumes to exist for the impartial protection of all rights
of property. If it really exists for that purpose, it is plainly bound
to make each kind of property pay its proper proportion, and only its
proper proportion, of the cost of protecting all kinds. To levy upon a
few kinds the cost of protecting all, is a naked robbery of the holders
of those few kinds, for the benefit of the holders of all other kinds.
But the pretence that heavy taxes are levied upon imports, solely, or
mainly, for the support of government, while light taxes, or no taxes at
all, are levied upon property at home, is an utterly false pretence.
They are levied upon the imported commodity, mainly, if not solely, for
the purpose of enabling the producers of competing home commodities to
extort from consumers a higher price than the home commodities would
bring in free and open market. And this additional price is sheer
robbery, and is known to be so. And the amount of this robbery--which
goes into the pockets of the home producers--is five, ten, twenty, or
fifty times greater than the amount that goes into the treasury, for the
support of the government, according as the amount of the home
commodities is five, ten, twenty, or fifty times greater than the amount
of the imported competing commodities.
Thus the amounts that go to the support of the government, and also the
amounts that go into the pockets of the home producers, in the higher
prices they get for their goods, are all sheer robberies; and nothing
else.
But it will be said that the heavy taxes are levied upon the foreign
commodity, not to put great wealth into a few pockets, but "_to protect
the home laborer against the competition of the pauper labor of other
countries_."
This is the great argument that is relied on to justify the robbery.
This argument must have originated with the employers of home labor, and
not with the home laborers themselves.
The home laborers themselves could never have originated it, because
they must have seen that, so far as they were concerned, the object of
the "protection," so-called, was, _at best_, only to benefit them, by
robbing others who were as poor as themselves, and who had as good a
right as themselves to live by their labor. That is, they must have seen
that the object of the "protection" was to rob the foreign laborers, in
whole, or in part, of the pittances on which they were already
necessitated to live; and, secondly, to rob consumers at home,--in the
increased prices of the protected commodities,--when many or most of
these home consumers were also laborers as poor as themselves.
Even if any class of laborers would have been so selfish and dishonest
as to wish to thus benefit themselves by injuring others, as poor as
themselves, they could have had no hope of carrying through such a
scheme, if they alone were to profit by it; because they could have had
no such influence with governments, as would be necessary to enable them
to carry it through, in opposition to the rights and interests of
consumers, both rich and poor, and much more numerous than themselves.
For these reasons it is plain that the argument originated with the
employers of home labor, and not with the home laborers themselves.
And why do the employers of home labor advocate this robbery? Certainly
not because they have such an intense compassion for their own laborers,
that they are willing to rob everybody else, rich and poor, for their
benefit. Nobody will suspect them of being influenced by any such
compassion as that. But they advocate it solely because they put into
their own pockets a very large portion certainly--probably
three-fourths, I should judge--of the increased prices their commodities
are thus made to bring in the market. The home laborers themselves
probably get not more than one-fourth of these increased prices.
Thus the argument for "protection" is really an argument for robbing
foreign laborers--as poor as our own--of their equal and rightful
chances in our markets; and also for robbing all the home consumers of
the protected article--the poor as well as the rich--in the prices they
are made to pay for it. And all this is done at the instigation, and
principally for the benefit, of the employers of home labor, and not for
the benefit of home laborers themselves.
Having now seen that this argument--of "protecting our home laborers
against the competition of the pauper labor of other countries"--is, of
itself, an utterly dishonest argument; that it is dishonest towards
foreign laborers and home consumers; that it must have originated with
the employers of home labor, and not with the home laborers themselves;
and that the employers of home labor, and not the home laborers
themselves, are to receive the principal profits of the robbery, let us
now see how utterly false is the argument itself.
1. The pauper laborers (if there are any such) of other countries have
just as good a right to live by their labor, and have an equal chance in
our own markets, and in all the markets of the world, as have the pauper
laborers, or any other laborers, of our own country.
Every human being has the same natural right to buy and sell, of and to,
any and all other people in the world, as he has to buy and sell, of and
to, the people of his own country. And none but tyrants and robbers deny
that right. And they deny it for their own benefit solely, and not for
the benefit of their laborers.
And if a man, in our own country--either from motives of profit to
himself, or from motives of pity towards the pauper laborers of other
countries--_chooses_ to buy the products of the foreign pauper labor,
rather than the products of the laborers of his own country, he has a
perfect legal right to do so. And for any government to forbid him to do
so, or to obstruct his doing so, or to punish him for doing so, is a
violation of his natural right of purchasing property of whom he
pleases, and from such motives as he pleases.
2. To forbid our own people to buy in the best markets, is equivalent to
forbidding them to sell the products of their own labor in the best
markets; for they can buy the products of foreign labor, only by giving
the products of their own labor in exchange. Therefore to deny our right
to buy in foreign markets, is to forbid us to sell in foreign markets.
And this is a plain violation of men's natural rights.
If, when a producer of cotton, tobacco, grain, beef, pork, butter,
cheese, or any other commodity, in our own country, has carried it
abroad, and exchanged it for iron or woolen goods, and has brought these
latter home, the government seizes one-half of them, because they were
manufactured abroad, the robbery committed upon the owner is the same as
if the government had seized one-half of his cotton, tobacco, or other
commodity, before he exported it; because the iron or woolen goods,
which he purchased abroad with the products of his own home labor, are
as much his own property, as was the commodity with which he purchased
them.
Therefore the tax laid upon foreign commodities, that have been bought
with the products of our home labor, is as much a robbery of the home
laborer, as the same tax would have been, if laid directly upon the
products of our home labor. It is, at best, only a robbery of one home
laborer--the producer of cotton, tobacco, grain, beef, pork, butter, or
cheese--for the benefit of another home laborer--the producer of iron or
woolen goods.
3. But this whole argument is a false one, for the further reason that
our home laborers do not have to compete with "_the pauper labor_" of
any country on earth; since the _actual paupers_ of no country on earth
are engaged in producing commodities for export to any other country.
They produce few, or no, other commodities than those they themselves
consume; and ordinarily not even those.
There are a great many millions of _actual paupers_ in the world. In
some of the large provinces of British India, for example, it is said
that nearly half the population are paupers. But I think that the
commodities they are producing for export to other countries than their
own, have never been heard of.
The term, "pauper labor," is therefore a false one. And when these
robbers--the employers of home labor--talk of protecting their laborers
against the competition of "_the pauper labor_" of other countries, they
do not mean that they are protecting them against the competition of
_actual paupers_; but only against the competition of that immense body
of laborers, in all parts of the world, _who are kept constantly on the
verge of pauperism, or starvation_; who have little, or no, means of
subsistence, except such as their employers see fit to give them,--which
means are usually barely enough to keep them in a condition to labor.
These are the only "pauper laborers," from whose competition our own
laborers are sought to be protected. They are quite as badly off as our
own laborers; and are in equal need of "protection."
What, then, is to be done? This policy of excluding foreign commodities
from our markets, is a game that all other governments can play at, as
well as our own. And if it is the duty of our government to "protect"
our laborers against the competition of "the pauper labor," so-called,
of all other countries, it is equally the duty of every other government
to "protect" its laborers against the competition of the so-called
"pauper labor" of all other countries. So that, according to this
theory, each nation must either shut out entirely from its markets the
products of all other countries; or, at least, lay such heavy duties
upon them, as will, _in some measure_, "protect" its own laborers from
the competition of the "pauper labor" of all other countries.
This theory, then, is that, instead of permitting all mankind to supply
each other's wants, by freely exchanging their respective products with
each other, the government of each nation should rob the people of every
other, by imposing heavy duties upon all commodities imported from them.
The natural effect of this scheme is to pit the so-called "pauper labor"
of each country against the so-called "pauper labor" of every other
country; and all for the benefit of their employers. And as it holds
that so-called "pauper labor" is cheaper than free labor, it gives the
employers in each country a constant motive for reducing their own
laborers to the lowest condition of poverty, consistent with their
ability to labor at all. In other words, the theory is, that the smaller
the portion of the products of labor, that is given to the laborers, the
larger will be the portion that will go into the pockets of the
employers.
Now, it is not a very honorable proceeding for any government to pit its
own so-called "pauper laborers"--or laborers that are on the verge of
pauperism--against similar laborers in all other countries: and all for
the sake of putting the principal proceeds of their labor into the
pockets of a few employers.
To set two bodies of "pauper laborers"--or of laborers on the verge of
pauperism--to robbing each other, for the profit of their employers, is
the next thing, in point of atrocity, to setting them to killing each
other, as governments have heretofore been in the habit of doing, for
the benefit of their rulers.
The laborers, who are paupers, or on the verge of pauperism--who are
destitute, or on the verge of destitution--comprise (with their
families) doubtless nine-tenths, probably nineteen-twentieths, of all
the people on the globe. They are not all wage laborers. Some of them
are savages, living only as savages do. Others are barbarians, living
only as barbarians do. But an immense number are mere wage laborers.
Much the larger portion of these have been reduced to the condition of
wage laborers, by the monopoly of land, which mere bands of robbers have
succeeded in securing for themselves by military power. This is the
condition of nearly all the Asiatics, and of probably one-half the
Europeans. But in those portions of Europe and the United States, where
manufactures have been most extensively introduced, and where, by
science and machinery, great wealth has been created, the laborers have
been kept in the condition of wage laborers, principally, if not wholly,
by the monopoly of money. This monopoly, established in all these
manufacturing countries, has made it impossible for the manufacturing
laborers to hire the money capital that was necessary to enable them to
do business for themselves; and has consequently compelled them to sell
their labor to the monopolists of money, for just such prices as these
latter should choose to give.
It is, then, by the monopoly of land, and the monopoly of money, that
more than a thousand millions of the earth's inhabitants--as savages,
barbarians, and wage laborers--are kept in a state of destitution, or on
the verge of destitution. Hundreds of millions of them are receiving,
for their labor, not more than three, five, or, at most, ten cents a
day.
In western Europe, and in the United States, where, within the last
hundred and fifty years, machinery has been introduced, and where alone
any considerable wealth is now created, the wage laborers, although they
get so small a portion of the wealth they create, are nevertheless in a
vastly better condition than are the laboring classes in other parts of
the world.
If, now, the employers of wage labor, in this country,--who are also the
monopolists of money,--and who are ostensibly so distressed lest their
own wage laborers should suffer from the competition of the pauper labor
of other countries,--have really any of that humanity, of which they
make such profession, they have before them a much wider field for the
display of it, than they seem to desire. That is to say, they have it in
their power, not only to elevate immensely the condition of the laboring
classes in this country, but also to set an example that will be very
rapidly followed in all other countries; and the result will be the
elevation of all oppressed laborers throughout the world. This they can
do, by simply abolishing the monopoly of money. The real producers of
wealth, with few or no exceptions, will then be able to hire all the
capital they need for their industries, and will do business for
themselves. They will also be able to hire their capital at very low
rates of interest; and will then put into their own pockets all the
proceeds of their labor, except what they pay as interest on their
capital. And this amount will be too small to obstruct materially their
rise to independence and wealth.