The following is a list of his expenses:--

1st, Personal expenses 20,000 fr.

2nd, Benevolent objects 10,000

3rd, Offices of friendship 10,000

4th, Saving 10,000

Let us examine each of these items, and we shall see that not a single

farthing escapes the national labour.

1st. Personal expenses.--These, as far as workpeople and tradesmen are

concerned, have precisely the same effect as an equal sum spent by

Mondor. This is self-evident, therefore we shall say no more about it.

2nd. Benevolent objects.--The 10,000 francs devoted to this purpose

benefit trade in an equal degree; they reach the butcher, the baker, the

tailor, and the carpenter. The only thing is, that the bread, the meat,

and the clothing are not used by Aristus, but by those whom he has made

his substitutes. Now, this simple substitution of one consumer for

another in no way affects trade in general. It is all one, whether

Aristus spends a crown or desires some unfortunate person to spend it

instead.

3rd. Offices of friendship.--The friend to whom Aristus lends or gives

10,000 francs does not receive them to bury them; that would be against

the hypothesis. He uses them to pay for goods, or to discharge debts. In

the first case, trade is encouraged. Will any one pretend to say that it

gains more by Mondor's purchase of a thoroughbred horse for 10,000

francs than by the purchase of 10,000 francs' worth of stuffs by Aristus

or his friend? For if this sum serves to pay a debt, a third person

appears, viz., the creditor, who will certainly employ them upon

something in his trade, his household, or his farm. He forms another

medium between Aristus and the workmen. The names only are changed, the

expense remains, and also the encouragement to trade.

4th. Saving.--There remains now the 10,000 francs saved; and it is here,

as regards the encouragement to the arts, to trade, labour, and the

workmen, that Mondor appears far superior to Aristus, although, in a

moral point of view, Aristus shows himself, in some degree, superior to

Mondor.

I can never look at these apparent contradictions between the great laws

of nature without a feeling of physical uneasiness which amounts to

suffering. Were mankind reduced to the necessity of choosing between two

parties, one of whom injures his interest, and the other his conscience,

we should have nothing to hope from the future. Happily, this is not the

case; and to see Aristus regain his economical superiority, as well as

his moral superiority, it is sufficient to understand this consoling

maxim, which is no less true from having a paradoxical appearance, "To

save is to spend."

What is Aristus's object in saving 10,000 francs? Is it to bury them in

his garden? No, certainly; he intends to increase his capital and his

income; consequently, this money, instead of being employed upon his

own personal gratification, is used for buying land, a house, &c., or it

is placed in the hands of a merchant or a banker. Follow the progress of

this money in any one of these cases, and you will be convinced, that

through the medium of vendors or lenders, it is encouraging labour quite

as certainly as if Aristus, following the example of his brother, had

exchanged it for furniture, jewels, and horses.

For when Aristus buys lands or rents for 10,000 francs, he is determined

by the consideration that he does not want to spend this money. This is

why you complain of him.

But, at the same time, the man who sells the land or the rent, is

determined by the consideration that he does want to spend the 10,000

francs in some way; so that the money is spent in any case, either by

Aristus or by others in his stead.

With respect to the working class, to the encouragement of labour, there

is only one difference between the conduct of Aristus and that of

Mondor. Mondor spends the money himself, and around him, and therefore

the effect _is seen_. Aristus, spending it partly through intermediate

parties, and at a distance, the effect is _not seen_. But, in fact,

those who know how to attribute effects to their proper causes, will

perceive, that _what is not seen_ is as certain as _what is seen_. This

is proved by the fact, that in both cases the money circulates, and does

not lie in the iron chest of the wise man, any more than it does in

that of the spendthrift. It is, therefore, false to say that economy

does actual harm to trade; as described above, it is equally beneficial

with luxury.

But how far superior is it, if, instead of confining our thoughts to the

present moment, we let them embrace a longer period!

Ten years pass away. What is become of Mondor and his fortune and his

great popularity? Mondor is ruined. Instead of spending 60,000 francs

every year in the social body, he is, perhaps, a burden to it. In any

case, he is no longer the delight of shopkeepers; he is no longer the

patron of the arts and of trade; he is no longer of any use to the

workmen, nor are his successors, whom he has brought to want.

At the end of the same ten years Aristus not only continues to throw his

income into circulation, but he adds an increasing sum from year to year

to his expenses. He enlarges the national capital, that is, the fund

which supplies wages, and as it is upon the extent of this fund that the

demand for hands depends, he assists in progressively increasing the

remuneration of the working class; and if he dies, he leaves children

whom he has taught to succeed him in this work of progress and

civilization.

In a moral point of view, the superiority of frugality over luxury is

indisputable. It is consoling to think that it is so in political

economy, to every one who, not confining his views to the immediate

effects of phenomena, knows how to extend his investigations to their

final effects.

XII.--He Who Has a Right to Work Has a Right to Profit.

"Brethren, you must club together to find me work at your own price."

This is the right to work; _i.e._, elementary socialism of the first

degree.

"Brethren, you must club together to find me work at my own price." This

is the right to profit; _i.e._, refined socialism, or socialism of the

second degree.

Both of these live upon such of their effects as _are seen_. They will

die by means of those effects _which are not seen_.

That _which is seen_ is the labour and the profit excited by social

combination. _That which is not seen_ is the labour and the profit to

which this same combination would give rise, if it were left to the

tax-payers.

In 1848, the right to labour for a moment showed two faces. This was

sufficient to ruin it in public opinion.

One of these faces was called _national workshops_. The other,

_forty-five centimes_. Millions of francs went daily from the Rue Rivoli

to the national workshops. This was the fair side of the medal.

And this is the reverse. If millions are taken out of a cash-box, they

must first have been put into it. This is why the organisers of the

right to public labour apply to the tax-payers.

Now, the peasants said, "I must pay forty-five centimes; then I must

deprive myself of some clothing. I cannot manure my field; I cannot

repair my house."

And the country workmen said, "As our townsman deprives himself of some

clothing, there will be less work for the tailor; as he does not improve

his field, there will be less work for the drainer; as he does not

repair his house, there will be less work for the carpenter and mason."

It was then proved that two kinds of meal cannot come out of one sack,

and that the work furnished by the Government was done at the expense of

labour, paid for by the tax-payer. This was the death of the right to

labour, which showed itself as much a chimera as an injustice. And yet,

the right to profit, which is only an exaggeration of the right to

labour, is still alive and flourishing.

Ought not the protectionist to blush at the part he would make society

play?

He says to it, "You must give me work, and, more than that, lucrative

work. I have foolishly fixed upon a trade by which I lose ten per cent.

If you impose a tax of twenty francs upon my countrymen, and give it to

me, I shall be a gainer instead of a loser. Now, profit is my right; you

owe it me." Now, any society which would listen to this sophist, burden

itself with taxes to satisfy him, and not perceive that the loss to

which any trade is exposed is no less a loss when others are forced to

make up for it,--such a society, I say, would deserve the burden

inflicted upon it.

Thus we learn by the numerous subjects which I have treated, that, to

be ignorant of political economy is to allow ourselves to be dazzled by

the immediate effect of a phenomenon; to be acquainted with it is to

embrace in thought and in forethought the whole compass of effects.

I might subject a host of other questions to the same test; but I shrink

from the monotony of a constantly uniform demonstration, and I conclude

by applying to political economy what Chateaubriand says of history:--

"There are," he says, "two consequences in history; an immediate one,

which is instantly recognized, and one in the distance, which is not at

first perceived. These consequences often contradict each other; the

former are the results of our own limited wisdom, the latter, those of

that wisdom which endures. The providential event appears after the

human event. God rises up behind men. Deny, if you will, the supreme

counsel; disown its action; dispute about words; designate, by the term,

force of circumstances, or reason, what the vulgar call Providence; but

look to the end of an accomplished fact, and you will see that it has

always produced the contrary of what was expected from it, if it was not

established at first upon morality and justice."--_Chateaubriand's

Posthumous Memoirs_.

Government.

I wish some one would offer a prize--not of a hundred francs, but of a

million, with crowns, medals and ribbons--for a good, simple and

intelligible definition of the word "Government."

What an immense service it would confer on society!

The Government! what is it? where is it? what does it do? what ought it

to do? All we know is, that it is a mysterious personage; and,

assuredly, it is the most solicited, the most tormented, the most

overwhelmed, the most admired, the most accused, the most invoked, and

the most provoked, of any personage in the world.

I have not the pleasure of knowing my reader, but I would stake ten to

one, that for six months he has been making Utopias, and if so, that he

is looking to Government for the realization of them.

And should the reader happen to be a lady, I have no doubt that she is

sincerely desirous of seeing all the evils of suffering humanity

remedied, and that she thinks this might easily be done, if Government

would only undertake it.

But, alas! that poor unfortunate personage, like Figaro, knows not to

whom to listen, nor where to turn. The hundred thousand mouths of the

press and of the platform cry out all at once:--

"Organize labour and workmen.

"Do away with egotism.

"Repress insolence and the tyranny of capital.

"Make experiments upon manure and eggs.

"Cover the country with railways.

"Irrigate the plains.

"Plant the hills.

"Make model farms.

"Found social workshops.

"Colonize Algeria.

"Suckle children.

"Instruct the youth.

"Assist the aged.

"Send the inhabitants of towns into the country.

"Equalize the profits of all trades.

"Lend money without interest to all who wish to borrow."

"Emancipate Italy, Poland, and Hungary."

"Rear and perfect the saddle-horse."

"Encourage the arts, and provide us with musicians and dancers."

"Restrict commerce, and at the same time create a merchant navy."

"Discover truth, and put a grain of reason into our heads. The mission

of Government is to enlighten, to develop, to extend, to fortify, to

spiritualize, and to sanctify the soul of the people."

"Do have a little patience, gentlemen," says Government in a beseeching

tone. "I will do what I can to satisfy you, but for this I must have

resources. I have been preparing plans for five or six taxes, which are

quite new, and not at all oppressive. You will see how willingly people

will pay them."

Then comes a great exclamation:--"No! indeed! where is the merit of

doing a thing with resources? Why, it does not deserve the name of a

Government! So far from loading us with fresh taxes, we would have you

withdraw the old ones. You ought to suppress

"The salt tax,

"The tax on liquors,

"The tax on letters,

"Custom-house duties,

"Patents."

In the midst of this tumult, and now that the country has two or three

times changed its Government, for not having satisfied all its demands,

I wanted to show that they were contradictory. But what could I have

been thinking about? Could I not keep this unfortunate observation to

myself?

I have lost my character for ever! I am looked upon as a man without

_heart_ and without _feeling_--a dry philosopher, an individualist, a

plebeian--in a word, an economist of the English or American school.

But, pardon me, sublime writers, who stop at nothing, not even at

contradictions. I am wrong, without a doubt, and I would willingly

retract. I should be glad enough, you may be sure, if you had really

discovered a beneficent and inexhaustible being, calling itself the

Government, which has bread for all mouths, work for all hands, capital

for all enterprises, credit for all projects, oil for all wounds, balm

for all sufferings, advice for all perplexities, solutions for all

doubts, truths for all intellects, diversions for all who want them,

milk for infancy, and wine for old age--which can provide for all our

wants, satisfy all our curiosity, correct all our errors, repair all our

faults, and exempt us henceforth from the necessity for foresight,

prudence, judgment, sagacity, experience, order, economy, temperance and

activity.

What reason could I have for not desiring to see such a discovery made?

Indeed, the more I reflect upon it, the more do I see that nothing could

be more convenient than that we should all of us have within our reach

an inexhaustible source of wealth and enlightenment--a universal

physician, an unlimited treasure, and an infallible counsellor, such as

you describe Government to be. Therefore it is that I want to have it

pointed out and defined, and that a prize should be offered to the first

discoverer of the phœnix. For no one would think of asserting that this

precious discovery has yet been made, since up to this time everything

presenting itself under the name of the Government is immediately

overturned by the people, precisely because it does not fulfil the

rather contradictory conditions of the programme.

I will venture to say that I fear we are, in this respect, the dupes of

one of the strangest illusions which have ever taken possession of the

human mind.

Man recoils from trouble--from suffering; and yet he is condemned by

nature to the suffering of privation, if he does not take the trouble to

work. He has to choose, then, between these two evils. What means can he

adopt to avoid both? There remains now, and there will remain, only one

way, which is, _to enjoy the labour of others_. Such a course of conduct

prevents the trouble and the satisfaction from preserving their natural

proportion, and causes all the trouble to become the lot of one set of

persons, and all the satisfaction that of another. This is the origin of

slavery and of plunder, whatever its form may be--whether that of wars,

impositions, violence, restrictions, frauds, &c.--monstrous abuses, but

consistent with the thought which has given them birth. Oppression

should be detested and resisted--it can hardly be called absurd.

Slavery is subsiding, thank heaven! and on the other hand, our

disposition to defend our property prevents direct and open plunder from

being easy.

One thing, however, remains--it is the original inclination which exists

in all men to divide the lot of life into two parts, throwing the

trouble upon others, and keeping the satisfaction for themselves. It

remains to be shown under what new form this sad tendency is manifesting

itself.

The oppressor no longer acts directly and with his own powers upon his

victim. No, our conscience has become too sensitive for that. The tyrant

and his victim are still present, but there is an intermediate person

between them, which is the Government--that is, the Law itself. What

can be better calculated to silence our scruples, and, which is perhaps

better appreciated, to overcome all resistance? We all, therefore, put

in our claim, under some pretext or other, and apply to Government. We

say to it, "I am dissatisfied at the proportion between my labour and my

enjoyments. I should like, for the sake of restoring the desired

equilibrium, to take a part of the possessions of others. But this would

be dangerous. Could not you facilitate the thing for me? Could you not

find me a good place? or check the industry of my competitors? or,

perhaps, lend me gratuitously some capital, which you may take from its

possessor? Could you not bring up my children at the public expense? or

grant me some prizes? or secure me a competence when I have attained my

fiftieth year? By this means I shall gain my end with an easy

conscience, for the law will have acted for me, and I shall have all the

advantages of plunder, without its risk or its disgrace!"

As it is certain, on the one hand, that we are all making some similar

request to the Government; and as, on the other, it is proved that

Government cannot satisfy one party without adding to the labour of the

others, until I can obtain another definition of the word Government, I

feel authorised to give my own. Who knows but it may obtain the prize?

Here it is:

Government _is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavours to

live at the expense of everybody else_.

For now, as formerly, every one is, more or less, for profiting by the

labours of others. No one would dare to profess such a sentiment; he

even hides it from himself; and then what is done? A medium is thought

of; Government is applied to, and every class in its turn comes to it,

and says, "You, who can take justifiably and honestly, take from the

public, and we will partake." Alas! Government is only too much disposed

to follow this diabolical advice, for it is composed of ministers and

officials--of men, in short, who, like all other men, desire in their

hearts, and always seize every opportunity with eagerness, to increase

their wealth and influence. Government is not slow to perceive the

advantages it may derive from the part which is entrusted to it by the

public. It is glad to be the judge and the master of the destinies of

all; it will take much, for then a large share will remain for itself;

it will multiply the number of its agents; it will enlarge the circle of

its privileges; it will end by appropriating a ruinous proportion.

But the most remarkable part of it is the astonishing blindness of the

public through it all. When successful soldiers used to reduce the

vanquished to slavery, they were barbarous, but they were not absurd.

Their object, like ours, was to live at other people's expense, and they

did not fail to do so. What are we to think of a people who never seem

to suspect that _reciprocal plunder_ is no less plunder because it is

reciprocal; that it is no less criminal because it is executed legally

and with order; that it adds nothing to the public good; that it

diminishes it, just in proportion to the cost of the expensive medium

which we call the Government?

And it is this great chimera which we have placed, for the edification

of the people, as a frontispiece to the Constitution. The following is

the beginning of the introductory discourse:--

"France has constituted itself a republic for the purpose of raising all

the citizens to an ever-increasing degree of morality, enlightenment,

and well-being."

Thus it is France, or an abstraction, which is to raise the French, or

_realities_, to morality, well-being, &c. Is it not by yielding to this

strange delusion that we are led to expect everything from an energy not

our own? Is it not giving out that there is, independently of the

French, a virtuous, enlightened, and rich being, who can and will bestow

upon them its benefits? Is not this supposing, and certainly very

gratuitously, that there are between France and the French--between the

simple, abridged, and abstract denomination of all the individualities,

and these individualities themselves--relations as of father to son,

tutor to his pupil, professor to his scholar? I know it is often said,

metaphorically, "the country is a tender mother." But to show the

inanity of the constitutional proposition, it is only needed to show

that it may be reversed, not only without inconvenience, but even with

advantage. Would it be less exact to say--

"The French have constituted themselves a Republic, to raise France to

an ever-increasing degree of morality, enlightenment, and well-being."

Now, where is the value of an axiom where the subject and the attribute

may change places without inconvenience? Everybody understands what is

meant by this--"The mother will feed the child." But it would be

ridiculous to say--"The child will feed the mother."

The Americans formed another idea of the relations of the citizens with

the Government when they placed these simple words at the head of their

Constitution:--

"We, the people of the United States, for the purpose of forming a more

perfect union, of establishing justice, of securing interior

tranquillity, of providing for our common defence, of increasing the

general well-being, and of securing the benefits of liberty to ourselves

and to our posterity, decree," &c.

Here there is no chimerical creation, no _abstraction_, from which the

citizens may demand everything. They expect nothing except from

themselves and their own energy.

If I may be permitted to criticise the first words of our Constitution,

I would remark, that what I complain of is something more than a mere

metaphysical subtilty, as might seem at first sight.

I contend that this _personification_ of Government has been, in past

times, and will be hereafter, a fertile source of calamities and

revolutions.

There is the public on one side, Government on the other, considered as

two distinct beings; the latter bound to bestow upon the former, and the

former having the right to claim from the latter, all imaginable human

benefits. What will be the consequence?

In fact, Government is not maimed, and cannot be so. It has two

hands--one to receive and the other to give; in other words, it has a

rough hand and a smooth one. The activity of the second is necessarily

subordinate to the activity of the first. Strictly, Government may take

and not restore. This is evident, and may be explained by the porous and

absorbing nature of its hands, which always retain a part, and sometimes

the whole, of what they touch. But the thing that never was seen, and

never will be seen or conceived, is, that Government can restore more to

the public than it has taken from it. It is therefore ridiculous for us

to appear before it in the humble attitude of beggars. It is radically

impossible for it to confer a particular benefit upon any one of the

individualities which constitute the community, without inflicting a

greater injury upon the community as a whole.

Our requisitions, therefore, place it in a dilemma.

If it refuses to grant the requests made to it, it is accused of

weakness, ill-will, and incapacity. If it endeavours to grant them, it

is obliged to load the people with fresh taxes--to do more harm than

good, and to bring upon itself from another quarter the general

displeasure.

Thus, the public has two hopes, and Government makes two

promises--_many benefits and no taxes_. Hopes and promises, which, being

contradictory, can never be realised.

Now, is not this the cause of all our revolutions? For, between the

Government, which lavishes promises which it is impossible to perform,

and the public, which has conceived hopes which can never be realised,

two classes of men interpose--the ambitious and the Utopians. It is

circumstances which give these their cue. It is enough if these vassals

of popularity cry out to the people--"The authorities are deceiving you;

if we were in their place, we would load you with benefits and exempt

you from taxes."

And the people believe, and the people hope, and the people make a

revolution!

No sooner are their friends at the head of affairs, than they are called

upon to redeem their pledge. "Give us work, bread, assistance, credit,

instruction, colonies," say the people; "and withal deliver us, as you

promised, from the talons of the exchequer."

The new _Government_ is no less embarrassed than the former one, for it

soon finds that it is much more easy to promise than to perform. It

tries to gain time, for this is necessary for maturing its vast

projects. At first, it makes a few timid attempts: on one hand it

institutes a little elementary instruction; on the other, it makes a

little reduction in the liquor tax (1850). But the contradiction is for

ever starting up before it; if it would be philanthropic, it must

attend to its exchequer; if it neglects its exchequer, it must abstain

from being philanthropic.

These two promises are for ever clashing with each other; it cannot be

otherwise. To live upon credit, which is the same as exhausting the

future, is certainly a present means of reconciling them: an attempt is

made to do a little good now, at the expense of a great deal of harm in

future. But such proceedings call forth the spectre of bankruptcy, which

puts an end to credit. What is to be done then? Why, then, the new

Government takes a bold step; it unites all its forces in order to

maintain itself; it smothers opinion, has recourse to arbitrary

measures, ridicules its former maxims, declares that it is impossible to

conduct the administration except at the risk of being unpopular; in

short, it proclaims itself _governmental_. And it is here that other

candidates for popularity are waiting for it. They exhibit the same

illusion, pass by the same way, obtain the same success, and are soon

swallowed up in the same gulf.

We had arrived at this point in February.[5] At this time, the illusion

which is the subject of this article had made more way than at any

former period in the ideas of the people, in connexion with Socialist

doctrines. They expected, more firmly than ever, that _Government_,

under a republican form, would open in grand style the source of

benefits and close that of taxation. "We have often been deceived,"

said the people; "but we will see to it ourselves this time, and take

care not to be deceived again?"

What could the Provisional Government do? Alas! just that which always

is done in similar circumstances--make promises, and gain time. It did

so, of course; and to give its promises more weight, it announced them

publicly thus:--"Increase of prosperity, diminution of labour,

assistance, credit, gratuitous instruction, agricultural colonies,

cultivation of waste land, and, at the same time, reduction of the tax

on salt, liquor, letters, meat; all this shall be granted when the

National Assembly meets."

The National Assembly meets, and, as it is impossible to realise two

contradictory things, its task, its sad task, is to withdraw, as gently

as possible, one after the other, all the decrees of the Provisional

Government. However, in order somewhat to mitigate the cruelty of the

deception, it is found necessary to negotiate a little. Certain

engagements are fulfilled, others are, in a measure, begun, and

therefore the new administration is compelled to contrive some new

taxes.

Now, I transport myself, in thought, to a period a few months hence, and

ask myself, with sorrowful forebodings, what will come to pass when the

agents of the new Government go into the country to collect new taxes

upon legacies, revenues, and the profits of agricultural traffic? It is

to be hoped that my presentiments may not be verified, but I foresee a

difficult part for the candidates for popularity to play.

Read the last manifesto of the Montagnards--that which they issued on

the occasion of the election of the President. It is rather long, but at

length it concludes with these words:--"_Government ought to give a

great deal to the people, and take little from them_." It is always the

same tactics, or, rather, the same mistake.

"Government is bound to give gratuitous instruction and education to all

the citizens."

It is bound to give "A general and appropriate professional education,

as much as possible adapted to the wants, the callings, and the

capacities of each citizen."

It is bound "To teach every citizen his duty to God, to man, and to

himself; to develop his sentiments, his tendencies, and his faculties;

to teach him, in short, the scientific part of his labour; to make him

understand his own interests, and to give him a knowledge of his

rights."

It is bound "To place within the reach of all, literature and the arts,

the patrimony of thought, the treasures of the mind, and all those

intellectual enjoyments which elevate and strengthen the soul."

It is bound "To give compensation for every accident, from fire,

inundation, &c., experienced by a citizen." (The _et cætera_ means more

than it says.)

It is bound "To attend to the relations of capital with labour, and to

become the regulator of credit."

It is bound "To afford important encouragement and efficient protection

to agriculture."

It is bound "To purchase railroads, canals, and mines; and, doubtless,

to transact affairs with that industrial capacity which characterises

it."

It is bound "To encourage useful experiments, to promote and assist them

by every means likely to make them successful. As a regulator of credit,

it will exercise such extensive influence over industrial and

agricultural associations, as shall ensure them success."

Government is bound to do all this, in addition to the services to which

it is already pledged; and further, it is always to maintain a menacing

attitude towards foreigners; for, according to those who sign the

programme, "Bound together by this holy union, and by the precedents of

the French Republic, we carry our wishes and hopes beyond the boundaries

which despotism has placed between nations. The rights which we desire

for ourselves, we desire for all those who are oppressed by the yoke of

tyranny; we desire that our glorious army should still, if necessary, be

the army of liberty."

You see that the gentle hand of Government--that good hand which gives

and distributes, will be very busy under the government of the

Montagnards. You think, perhaps, that it will be the same with the rough

hand--that hand which dives into our pockets. Do not deceive yourselves.

The aspirants after popularity would not know their trade, if they had

not the art, when they show the gentle hand, to conceal the rough one.

Their reign will assuredly be the jubilee of the tax-payers.

"It is superfluities, not necessaries," they say "which ought to be

taxed."

Truly, it will be a good time when the exchequer, for the sake of

loading us with benefits, will content itself with curtailing our

superfluities!

This is not all. The Montagnards intend that "taxation shall lose its

oppressive character, and be only an act of fraternity." Good heavens! I

know it is the fashion to thrust fraternity in everywhere, but I did not

imagine it would ever be put into the hands of the tax-gatherer.

To come to the details:--Those who sign the programme say, "We desire

the immediate abolition of those taxes which affect the absolute

necessaries of life, as salt, liquors, &c., &c.

"The reform of the tax on landed property, customs, and patents.

"Gratuitous justice--that is, the simplification of its forms, and

reduction of its expenses," (This, no doubt, has reference to stamps.)

Thus, the tax on landed property, customs, patents, stamps, salt,

liquors, postage, all are included. These gentlemen have found out the

secret of giving an excessive activity to the _gentle hand_ of

Government, while they entirely paralyse its _rough hand_.

Well, I ask the impartial reader, is it not childishness, and more than

that, dangerous childishness? Is it not inevitable that we shall have

revolution after revolution, if there is a determination never to stop

till this contradiction is realised:--"To give nothing to Government and

to receive much from it?"

If the Montagnards were to come into power, would they not become the

victims of the means which they employed to take possession of it?

Citizens! In all times, two political systems have been in existence,

and each may be maintained by good reasons. According to one of them,

Government ought to do much, but then it ought to take much. According

to the other, this twofold activity ought to be little felt. We have to

choose between these two systems. But as regards the third system, which

partakes of both the others, and which consists in exacting everything

from Government, without giving it anything, it is chimerical, absurd,

childish, contradictory, and dangerous. Those who parade it, for the

sake of the pleasure of accusing all Governments of weakness, and thus

exposing them to your attacks, are only flattering and deceiving you,

while they are deceiving themselves.

For ourselves, we consider that Government is and ought to be nothing

whatever but _common force_ organized, not to be an instrument of

oppression and mutual plunder among citizens; but, on the contrary, to

secure to every one his own, and to cause justice and security to reign.

What Is Money?

"Hateful money! hateful money!" cried F----, the economist,

despairingly, as he came from the Committee of Finance, where a project

of paper money had just been discussed.

"What's the matter?" said I. "What is the meaning of this sudden dislike

to the most extolled of all the divinities of this world?"

F. Hateful money! hateful money!

B. You alarm me. I hear peace, liberty, and life cried down, and

Brutus went so far even as to say, "Virtue! thou art but a name!" But

what can have happened?

F. Hateful money! hateful money!

B. Come, come, exercise a little philosophy. What has happened to

you? Has Crœsus been affecting you? Has Mondor been playing you false?

or has Zoilus been libelling you in the papers?

F. I have nothing to do with Crœsus; my character, by its

insignificance, is safe from any slanders of Zoilus; and as to Mondor--

B. Ah! now I have it. How could I be so blind? You, too, are the

inventor of a social reorganization--of the _F---- system_, in fact.

Your society is to be more perfect than that of Sparta, and, therefore,

all money is to be rigidly banished from it. And the thing that troubles

you is, how to persuade your people to empty their purses. What would

you have? This is the rock on which all reorganizers split. There is not

one, but would do wonders, if he could only contrive to overcome all

resisting influences, and if all mankind would consent to become soft

wax in his fingers; but men are resolved not to be soft wax; they

listen, applaud, or reject, and--go on as before.

F. Thank heaven, I am still free from this fashionable mania. Instead

of inventing social laws, I am studying those which it has pleased

Providence to invent, and I am delighted to find them admirable in their

progressive development. This is why I exclaim, "Hateful money! hateful

money!"

B. You are a disciple of Proudhon, then? Well, there is a very simple

way for you to satisfy yourself. Throw your purse into the Seine, only

reserving a hundred sous, to take an action from the Bank of Exchange.

F. If I cry out against money, is it likely I should tolerate its

deceitful substitute?

B. Then I have only one more guess to make. You are a new Diogenes,

and are going to victimize me with a discourse _à la Seneca_, on the

contempt of riches.

F. Heaven preserve me from that! For riches, don't you see, are not a

little more or a little less money. They are bread for the hungry,

clothes for the naked, fuel to warm you, oil to lengthen the day, a

career open to your son, a certain portion for your daughter, a day of

rest after fatigue, a cordial for the faint, a little assistance slipped

into the hand of a poor man, a shelter from the storm, a diversion for a

brain worn by thought, the incomparable pleasure of making those happy

who are dear to us. Riches are instruction, independence, dignity,

confidence, charity; they are progress, and civilization. Riches are the

admirable civilizing result of two admirable agents, more civilizing

even than riches themselves--labour and exchange.

B. Well! now you seem to be singing the praises of riches, when, a

moment ago, you were loading them with imprecations!

F. Why, don't you see that it was only the whim of an economist? I cry

out against money, just because everybody confounds it, as you did just

now, with riches, and that this confusion is the cause of errors and

calamities without number. I cry out against it because its function in

society is not understood, and very difficult to explain. I cry out

against it, because it jumbles all ideas, causes the means to be taken

for the end, the obstacle for the cause, the alpha for the omega;

because its presence in the world, though in itself beneficial, has,

nevertheless, introduced a fatal notion, a perversion of principles, a

contradictory theory, which, in a multitude of forms, has impoverished

mankind and deluged the earth with blood. I cry out against it, because

I feel that I am incapable of contending against the error to which it

has given birth, otherwise than by a long and fastidious dissertation to

which no one would listen. Oh! if I could only find a patient and

benevolent listener!

B. Well, it shall not be said that for want of a victim you remain in

the state of irritation in which you now are. I am listening; speak,

lecture, do not restrain yourself in any way.

F. You promise to take an interest?

B. I promise to have patience.

F. That is not much.

B. It is all that I can give. Begin, and explain to me, at first, how

a mistake on the subject of cash, if mistake there be, is to be found at

the root of all economical errors?

F. Well, now, is it possible that you can conscientiously assure me,

that you have never happened to confound wealth with money?

B. I don't know; but, after all, what would be the consequence of such

a confusion?

F. Nothing very important. An error in your brain, which would have no

influence over your actions; for you see that, with respect to labour

and exchange, although there are as many opinions as there are heads, we

all act in the same way.

B. Just as we walk upon the same principle, although we are not agreed

upon the theory of equilibrium and gravitation.

F. Precisely. A person who argued himself into the opinion that

during the night our heads and feet changed places, might write very

fine books upon the subject, but still he would walk about like

everybody else.

B. So I think. Nevertheless, he would soon suffer the penalty of being

too much of a logician.

F. In the same way, a man would die of hunger, who having decided that

money is real wealth, should carry out the idea to the end. That is the

reason that this theory is false, for there is no true theory but such

as results from facts themselves, as manifested at all times, and in all

places.

B. I can understand, that practically, and under the influence of

personal interest, the fatal effects of the erroneous action would tend

to correct an error. But if that of which you speak has so little

influence, why does it disturb you so much?

F. Because, when a man, instead of acting for himself, decides for

others, personal interest, that ever watchful and sensible sentinel, is

no longer present to cry out, "Stop! the responsibility is misplaced."

It is Peter who is deceived, and John suffers; the false system of the

legislator necessarily becomes the rule of action of whole populations.

And observe the difference. When you have money, and are very hungry,

whatever your theory on cash may be, what do you do?

B. I go to a baker's, and buy some bread.

F. You do not hesitate about getting rid of your money?

B. The only use of money is to buy what one wants.

F. And if the baker should happen to be thirsty, what does he do?

B. He goes to the wine merchant's, and buys wine with the money I have

given him.

F. What! is he not afraid he shall ruin himself?

B. The real ruin would be to go without eating or drinking.

F. And everybody in the world, if he is free, acts in the same manner?

B. Without a doubt. Would you have them die of hunger for the sake of

laying by pence?

F. So far from it, that I consider they act wisely, and I only wish

that the theory was nothing but the faithful image of this universal

practice. But, suppose now that you were the legislator, the absolute

king of a vast empire, where there were no gold mines.

B. No unpleasant fiction.

F. Suppose, again, that you were perfectly convinced of this,--that

wealth consists solely and exclusively in cash; to what conclusion would

you come?

B. I should conclude that there was no other means for me to enrich my

people, or for them to enrich themselves, but to draw away the cash from

other nations.

F. That is to say, to impoverish them. The first conclusion, then, to

which you would arrive would be this,--a nation can only gain when

another loses.

B. This axiom has the authority of Bacon and Montaigne.

F. It is not the less sorrowful for that, for it implies--that

progress is impossible. Two nations, no more than two men, cannot

prosper side by side.

B. It would seem that such is the result of this principle.

F. And as all men are ambitious to enrich themselves, it follows that

all are desirous, according to a law of Providence, of ruining their

fellow-creatures.

B. This is not Christianity, but it is political economy.

F. Such a doctrine is detestable. But, to continue, I have made you an

absolute king. You must not be satisfied with reasoning, you must act.

There is no limit to your power. How would you treat this

doctrine,--wealth is money?

B. It would be my endeavour to increase, incessantly, among my people

the quantity of cash.

F. But there are no mines in your kingdom. How would you set about it?

What would you do?

B. I should do nothing: I should merely forbid, on pain of death, that

a single crown should leave the country.

F. And if your people should happen to be hungry as well as rich?

B. Never mind. In the system we are discussing, to allow them to

export crowns would be to allow them to impoverish themselves.

F. So that, by your own confession, you would force them to act upon a

principle equally opposite to that upon which you would yourself act

under similar circumstances. Why so?

B. Just because my own hunger touches me, and the hunger of a nation

does not touch legislators.

F. Well, I can tell you that your plan would fail, and that no

superintendence would be sufficiently vigilant, when the people were

hungry, to prevent the crowns from going out and the corn from coming

in.

B. If so, this plan, whether erroneous or not, would effect nothing;

it would do neither good nor harm, and therefore requires no further

consideration.

F. You forget that you are a legislator. A legislator must not be

disheartened at trifles, when he is making experiments on others. The

first measure not having succeeded, you ought to take some other means

of attaining your end.

B. What end?

F. You must have a bad memory. Why, that of increasing, in the midst

of your people, the quantity of cash, which is presumed to be true

wealth.

B. Ah! to be sure; I beg your pardon. But then you see, as they say of

music, a little is enough; and this may be said, I think, with still

more reason, of political economy. I must consider. But really I don't

know how to contrive--

F. Ponder it well. First, I would have you observe that your first

plan solved the problem only negatively. To prevent the crowns from

going out of the country is the way to prevent the wealth from

diminishing, but it is not the way to increase it.

B. Ah! now I am beginning to see ... the corn which is allowed to come

in ... a bright idea strikes me ... the contrivance is ingenious, the

means infallible; I am coming to it now.

F. Now, I, in turn, must ask you--to what?

B. Why, to a means of increasing the quantity of cash.

F. How would you set about it, if you please?

B. Is it not evident that if the heap of money is to be constantly

increasing, the first condition is that none must be taken from it?

F. Certainly.

B. And the second, that additions must constantly be made to it?

F.. To be sure.

B. Then the problem will be solved, either negatively or positively,

as the Socialists say, if on the one hand I prevent the foreigner from

taking from it, and on the other I oblige him to add to it.

F. Better and better.

B. And for this there must be two simple laws made, in which cash will

not even be mentioned. By the one, my subjects will be forbidden to buy

anything abroad; and by the other, they will be required to sell a

great deal.

F. A well-advised plan.

B. Is it new? I must take out a patent for the invention.

F. You need do no such thing; you have been forestalled. But you must

take care of one thing.

B. What is that?

F. I have made you an absolute king. I understand that you are going

to prevent your subjects from buying foreign productions. It will be

enough if you prevent them from entering the country. Thirty or forty

thousand custom-house officers will do the business.

B. It would be rather expensive. But what does that signify? The money

they receive will not go out of the country.

F. True; and in this system it is the grand point. But to ensure a

sale abroad, how would you proceed?

B. I should encourage it by prizes, obtained by means of some good

taxes laid upon my people.

F. In this case, the exporters, constrained by competition among

themselves, would lower their prices in proportion, and it would be like

making a present to the foreigner of the prizes or of the taxes.

B. Still, the money would not go out of the country.

F. Of course. That is understood. But if your system is beneficial,

the kings around you will adopt it. They will make similar plans to

yours; they will have their custom-house officers, and reject your

productions; so that with them, as with you, the heap of money may not

be diminished.

B. I shall have an army and force their barriers.

F. They will have an army and force yours.

B. I shall arm vessels, make conquests, acquire colonies, and create

consumers for my people, who will be obliged to eat our corn and drink

our wine.

F. The other kings will do the same. They will dispute your conquests,

your colonies, and your consumers; then on all sides there will be war,

and all will be uproar.

B. I shall raise my taxes, and increase my custom-house officers, my

army, and my navy.

F. The others will do the same.

B. I shall redouble my exertions.

F. The others will redouble theirs. In the meantime, we have no proof

that you would succeed in selling to a great extent.

B. It is but too true. It would be well if the commercial efforts

would neutralize each other.

F. And the military efforts also. And, tell me, are not these

custom-house officers, soldiers, and vessels, these oppressive taxes,

this perpetual struggle towards an impossible result, this permanent

state of open or secret war with the whole world, are they not the

logical and inevitable consequence of the legislators having adopted an

idea, which you admit is acted upon by no man who is his own master,

that "wealth is cash; and to increase cash, is to increase wealth?"

B. I grant it. Either the axiom is true, and then the legislator ought

to act as I have described, although universal war should be the

consequence; or it is false; and in this case men, in destroying each

other, only ruin themselves.

F. And, remember, that before you became a king, this same axiom had

led you by a logical process to the following maxims:--That which one

gains, another loses. The profit of one, is the loss of the

other:--which maxims imply an unavoidable antagonism amongst all men.

B. It is only too certain. Whether I am a philosopher or a legislator,

whether I reason or act upon the principle that money is wealth, I

always arrive at one conclusion, or one result:--universal war. It is

well that you pointed out the consequences before beginning a discussion

upon it; otherwise, I should never have had the courage to follow you to

the end of your economical dissertation, for, to tell you the truth, it

is not much to my taste.

F. What do you mean? I was just thinking of it when you heard me

grumbling against money! I was lamenting that my countrymen have not the

courage to study what it is so important that they should know.

B. And yet the consequences are frightful.

F. The consequences! As yet I have only mentioned one. I might have

told you of others still more fatal.

B. Yon make my hair stand on end! What other evils can have been

caused to mankind by this confusion between money and wealth?

F. It would take me a long time to enumerate them. This doctrine is

one of a very numerous family. The eldest, whose acquaintance we have

just made, is called the _prohibitive system_; the next, the _colonial

system_; the third, _hatred of capital_; the Benjamin, _paper money_.

B. What! does paper money proceed from the same error?

F. Yes, directly. When legislators, after having ruined men by war and

taxes, persevere in their idea, they say to themselves, "If the people

suffer, it is because there is not money enough. We must make some." And

as it is not easy to multiply the precious metals, especially when the

pretended resources of prohibition have been exhausted, they add, "We

will make fictitious money, nothing is more easy, and then every citizen

will have his pocket-book full of it, and they will all be rich."

B. In fact, this proceeding is more expeditious than the other, and

then it does not lead to foreign war.

F. No, but it leads to civil war.

B. You are a grumbler. Make haste and dive to the bottom of the

question. I am quite impatient, for the first time, to know if money (or

its sign) is wealth.

F. You will grant that men do not satisfy any of their wants

immediately with crown pieces. If they are hungry, they want bread; if

naked, clothing; if they are ill, they must have remedies; if they are

cold, they want shelter and fuel; if they would learn, they must have

books; if they would travel, they must have conveyances--and so on. The

riches of a country consist in the abundance and proper distribution of

all these things. Hence you may perceive and rejoice at the falseness of

this gloomy maxim of Bacon's, "_What one people gains, another

necessarily loses_:" a maxim expressed in a still more discouraging

manner by Montaigne, in these words: "_The profit of one is the loss of

another._" When Shem, Ham, and Japhet divided amongst themselves the

vast solitudes of this earth, they surely might each of them build,

drain, sow, reap, and obtain improved lodging, food and clothing, and

better instruction, perfect and enrich themselves--in short, increase

their enjoyments, without causing a necessary diminution in the

corresponding enjoyments of their brothers. It is the same with two

nations.

B. There is no doubt that two nations, the same as two men,

unconnected with each other, may, by working more, and working better,

prosper at the same time, without injuring each other. It is not this

which is denied by the axioms of Montaigne and Bacon. They only mean to

say, that in the transactions which take place between two nations or

two men, if one gains, the other must lose. And this is self-evident, as

exchange adds nothing by itself to the mass of those useful things of

which you were speaking; for if, after the exchange, one of the parties

is found to have gained something, the other will, of course, be found

to have lost something.

F. You have formed a very incomplete, nay a false idea of exchange. If

Shem is located upon a plain which is fertile in corn, Japhet upon a

slope adapted for growing the vine, Ham upon a rich pasturage,--the

distinction of their occupations, far from hurting any of them, might

cause all three to prosper more. It must be so, in fact, for the

distribution of labour, introduced by exchange, will have the effect of

increasing the mass of corn, wine, and meat, which is produced, and

which is to be shared. How can it be otherwise, if you allow liberty in

these transactions? From the moment that any one of the brothers should

perceive that labour in company, as it were, was a permanent loss,

compared to solitary labour, he would cease to exchange. Exchange brings

with it its claim to our gratitude. The fact of its being accomplished,

proves that it is a good thing.

B. But Bacon's axiom is true in the case of gold and silver. If we

admit that at a certain moment there exists in the world a given

quantity, it is perfectly clear that one purse cannot be filled without

another being emptied.

F. And if gold is considered to be riches, the natural conclusion is,

that displacements of fortune take place among men, but no general

progress. It is just what I said when I began. If, on the contrary, you

look upon an abundance of useful things, fit for satisfying our wants

and our tastes, as true riches, you will see that simultaneous

prosperity is possible. Cash serves only to facilitate the transmission

of these useful things from one to another, which may be done equally

well with an ounce of rare metal like gold, with a pound of more

abundant material as silver, or with a hundred-weight of still more

abundant metal, as copper. According to that, if the French had at their

disposal as much again of all these useful things, France would be twice

as rich, although the quantity of cash remained the same; but it would

not be the same if there were double the cash, for in that case the

amount of useful things would not increase.

B. The question to be decided is, whether the presence of a greater

number of crowns has not the effect, precisely, of augmenting the sum of

useful things?

F. What connexion can there be between these two terms? Food,

clothing, houses, fuel, all come from nature and from labour, from more

or less skilful labour exerted upon a more or less liberal nature.

B. You are forgetting one great force, which is--exchange. If you

acknowledge that this is a force, as you have admitted that crowns

facilitate it, you must also allow that they have an indirect power of

production.

F. But I have added, that a small quantity of rare metal facilitates

transactions as much as a large quantity of abundant metal; whence it

follows, that a people is not enriched by being _forced_ to give up

useful things for the sake of having more money.

B. Thus, it is your opinion that the treasures discovered in

California will not increase the wealth of the world?

F. I do not believe that, on the whole, they will add much to the

enjoyments, to the real satisfactions of mankind. If the Californian

gold merely replaces in the world that which has been lost and

destroyed, it may have its use. If it increases the amount of cash, it

will depreciate it. The gold diggers will be richer than they would have

been without it. But those in whose possession the gold is at the moment

of its depreciation, will obtain a smaller gratification for the same

amount. I cannot look upon this as an increase, but as a displacement of

true riches, as I have defined them.

B. All that is very plausible. But you will not easily convince me

that I am not richer (all other things being equal) if I have two

crowns, than if I had only one.

F. I do not deny it.

B. And what is true of me is true of my neighbour, and of the

neighbour of my neighbour, and so on, from one to another, all over the

country. Therefore, if every Frenchman has more crowns, France must be

more rich.

F. And here you fall into the common mistake of concluding that what

affects one affects all, and thus confusing the individual with the

general interest.

B. Why, what can be more conclusive? What is true of one, must be so

of all! What are all, but a collection of individuals? You might as well

tell me that every Frenchman could suddenly grow an inch taller, without

the average height of Frenchmen being increased.

F. Your reasoning is apparently sound, I grant you, and that is why

the illusion it conceals is so common. However, let us examine it a

little. Ten persons were at play. For greater ease, they had adopted the

plan of each taking ten counters, and against these they had placed a

hundred francs under a candlestick, so that each counter corresponded to

ten francs. After the game the winnings were adjusted, and the players

drew from the candlestick as many ten francs as would represent the

number of counters. Seeing this, one of them, a great arithmetician

perhaps, but an indifferent reasoner, said--"Gentlemen, experience

invariably teaches me that, at the end of the game, I find myself a

gainer in proportion to the number of my counters. Have you not observed

the same with regard to yourselves? Thus, what is true of me must be

true of each of you, and _what is true of each must be true of all_. We

should, therefore, all of us gain more, at the end of the game, if we

all had more counters. Now, nothing can be easier; we have only to

distribute twice the number." This was done; but when the game was

finished, and they came to adjust the winnings, it was found that the

thousand francs under the candlestick had not been miraculously

multiplied, according to the general expectation. They had to be divided

accordingly, and the only result obtained (chimerical enough) was

this;--every one had, it is true, his double number of counters, but

every counter, instead of corresponding to _ten_ francs, only

represented _five_. Thus it was clearly shown, that what is true of

each, is not always true of all.

B. I see; you are supposing a general increase of counters, without a

corresponding increase of the sum placed under the candlestick.

F. And you are supposing a general increase of crowns, without a

corresponding increase of things, the exchange of which is facilitated

by these crowns.

B. Do you compare the crowns to counters?

F. In any other point of view, certainly not; but in the case you

place before me, and which I have to argue against, I do. Remark one

thing. In order that there be a general increase of crowns in a country,

this country must have mines, or its commerce must be such as to give

useful things in exchange for cash. Apart from these two circumstances,

a universal increase is impossible, the crowns only changing hands; and

in this case, although it may be very true that each one, taken

individually, is richer in proportion to the number of crowns that he

has, we cannot draw the inference which you drew just now, because a

crown more in one purse implies necessarily a crown less in some other.

It is the same as with your comparison of the middle height. If each of

us grew only at the expense of others, it would be very true of each,

taken individually, that he would be a taller man if he had the chance,

but this would never be true of the whole taken collectively.

B. Be it so: but, in the two suppositions that you have made, the

increase is real, and you must allow that I am right.

F. To a certain point, gold and silver have a value. To obtain this,

men consent to give useful things which have a value also. When,

therefore, there are mines in a country, if that country obtains from

them sufficient gold to purchase a useful thing from abroad--a

locomotive, for instance--it enriches itself with all the enjoyments

which a locomotive can procure, exactly as if the machine had been made

at home. The question is, whether it spends more efforts in the former

proceeding than in the latter? For if it did not export this gold, it

would depreciate, and something worse would happen than what you see in

California, for there, at least, the precious metals are used to buy

useful things made elsewhere. Nevertheless, there is still a danger that

they may starve on heaps of gold. What would it be if the law prohibited

exportation? As to the second supposition--that of the gold which we

obtain by trade; it is an advantage, or the reverse, according as the

country stands more or less in need of it, compared to its wants of the

useful things which must be given up in order to obtain it. It is not

for the law to judge of this, but for those who are concerned in it; for

if the law should start upon this principle, that gold is preferable to

useful things, whatever may be their value, and if it should act

effectually in this sense, it would tend to make France another

California, where there would be a great deal of cash to spend, and

nothing to buy. It is the very same system which is represented by

Midas.

B. The gold which is imported implies that a _useful thing_ is

_ex_ported, and in this respect there is a satisfaction withdrawn from

the country. But is there not a corresponding benefit? And will not this

gold be the source of a number of new satisfactions, by circulating from

hand to hand, and inciting to labour and industry, until at length it

leaves the country in its turn, and causes the importation of some

useful thing?

F. Now you have come to the heart of the question. Is it true that a

crown is the principle which causes the production of all the objects

whose exchange it facilitates? It is very clear that a piece of five

francs is only _worth_ five francs; but we are led to believe that this

value has a particular character: that it is not consumed like other

things, or that it is exhausted very gradually; that it renews itself,

as it were, in each transaction; and that, finally this crown has been

worth five francs, as many times as it has accomplished

transactions--that it is of itself worth all the things for which it

has been successively exchanged; and this is believed, because it is

supposed that without this crown these things would never have been

produced. It is said, the shoemaker would have sold fewer shoes,

consequently he would have bought less of the butcher; the butcher would

not have gone so often to the grocer, the grocer to the doctor, the

doctor to the lawyer, and so on.

B. No one can dispute that.

F. This is the time, then, to analyse the true function of cash,

independently of mines and importations. You have a crown. What does it

imply in your hands? It is, as it were, the witness and proof that you

have, at some time or other, performed some labour, which, instead of

profiting by it, you have bestowed upon society in the person of your

client. This crown testifies that you have performed a _service_ for

society, and, moreover, it shows the value of it. It bears witness,

besides, that you have not yet obtained from society a _real_ equivalent

service, to which you have a right. To place you in a condition to

exercise this right, at the time and in the manner you please, society,

by means of your client, has given you an acknowledgment, a title, a

privilege from the republic, a counter, a crown in fact, which only

differs from executive titles by bearing its value in itself; and if you

are able to read with your mind's eye the inscriptions stamped upon it

you will distinctly decipher these words:--"_Pay the bearer a service

equivalent to what he has rendered to society, the value received being

shown, proved, and measured by that which is represented by me._" Now,

you give up your crown to me. Either my title to it is gratuitous, or it

is a claim. If you give it me as payment for a service, the following is

the result:--your account with society for real satisfactions is

regulated, balanced, and closed. You had rendered it a service for a

crown, you now restore the crown for a service; as far as you are

concerned, you are clear. As for me, I am just in the position in which

you were just now. It is I who am now in advance to society for the

service which I have just rendered it in your person. I am become its

creditor for the value of the labour which I have performed for you, and

which I might devote to myself. It is into my hands, then, that the

title of this credit--the proof of this social debt--ought to pass. You

cannot say that I am any richer; if I am entitled to receive, it is

because I have given. Still less can you say that society is a crown

richer, because one of its members has a crown more, and another has one

less. For if you let me have this crown gratis, it is certain that I

shall be so much the richer, but you will be so much the poorer for it;

and the social fortune, taken in a mass, will have undergone no change,

because as I have already said, this fortune consists in real services,

in effective satisfactions, in useful things. You were a creditor to

society, you made me a substitute to your rights, and it signifies

little to society, which owes a service, whether it pays the debt to you

or to me. This is discharged as soon as the bearer of the claim is paid.

B. But if we all had a great number of crowns we should obtain from

society many services. Would not that be very desirable?

F. You forget that in the process which I have described, and which is

a picture of the reality, we only obtain services from society because

we have bestowed some upon it. Whoever speaks of a _service_, speaks at

the same time of a service _received_ and _returned_, for these two

terms imply each other, so that the one must always be balanced by the

other. It is impossible for society to render more services than it

receives, and yet this is the chimera which is being pursued by means of

the multiplication of coins, of paper money, &c.

B. All that appears very reasonable in theory, but in practice I

cannot help thinking, when I see how things go, that if, by some

fortunate circumstance, the number of crowns could be multiplied in such

a way that each of us could see his little property doubled, we should

all be more at our ease; we should all make more purchases, and trade

would receive a powerful stimulus.

F. More purchases! and what should we buy? Doubtless,

useful articles--things likely to procure for us substantial

gratification--such as provisions, stuffs, houses, books, pictures. You

should begin, then, by proving that all these things create themselves;

you must suppose the Mint melting ingots of gold which have fallen from

the moon; or that the Board of Assignats be put in action at the

national printing office; for you cannot reasonably think that if the

quantity of corn, cloth, ships, hats and shoes remains the same, the

share of each of us can be greater, because we each go to market with a

greater number of real or fictitious money. Remember the players. In the

social order, the useful things are what the workers place under the

candlestick, and the crowns which circulate from hand to hand are the

counters. If you multiply the francs without multiplying the useful

things, the only result will be, that more francs will be required for

each exchange, just as the players required more counters for each

deposit. You have the proof of this in what passes for gold silver, and

copper. Why does the same exchange require more copper than silver, more

silver than gold? Is it not because these metals are distributed in the

world in different proportions? What reason have you to suppose that if

gold were suddenly to become as abundant as silver, it would not require

as much of one as of the other to buy a house?

B. You may be right, but I should prefer your being wrong. In the

midst of the sufferings which surround us, so distressing in themselves,

and so dangerous in their consequences, I have found some consolation in

thinking that there was an easy method of making all the members of the

community happy.

F. Even if gold and silver were true riches, it would be no easy

matter to increase the amount of them in a country where there are no

mines.

B. No, but it is easy to substitute something else. I agree with you

that gold and silver can do but little service, except as a mere means

of exchange. It is the same with paper money, bank-notes, &c. Then, if

we had all of us plenty of the latter, which it is so easy to create, we

might all buy a great deal, and should want for nothing. Your cruel

theory dissipates hopes, illusions, if you will, whose principle is

assuredly very philanthropic.

F. Yes, like all other barren dreams formed to promote universal

felicity. The extreme facility of the means which you recommend is quite

sufficient to expose its hollowness. Do you believe that if it were

merely needful to print bank-notes in order to satisfy all our wants,

our tastes and desires, that mankind would have been contented to go on

till now, without having recourse to this plan? I agree with you that

the discovery is tempting. It would immediately banish from the world,

not only plunder, in its diversified and deplorable forms, but even

labour itself, except the Board of Assignats. But we have yet to learn

how assignats are to purchase houses, which no one would have built;

corn, which no one would have raised; stuffs, which no one would have

taken the trouble to weave.

B. One thing strikes me in your argument. You say yourself, that if

there is no gain, at any rate there is no loss in multiplying the

instrument of exchange, as is seen by the instance of the players, who

were quits by a very mild deception. Why, then, refuse the philosopher's

stone, which would teach us the secret of changing flints into gold,

and, in the meantime, into paper money? Are you so blindly wedded to

your logic, that you would refuse to try an experiment where there can

be no risk? If you are mistaken, you are depriving the nation, as your

numerous adversaries believe, of an immense advantage. If the error is

on their side, no harm can result, as you yourself say, beyond the

failure of a hope. The measure, excellent in their opinion, in yours is

negative. Let it be tried, then, since the worst which can happen is not

the realization of an evil, but the non-realization of a benefit.

F. In the first place, the failure of a hope is a very great

misfortune to any people. It is also very undesirable that the

Government should announce the re-imposition of several taxes on the

faith of a resource which must infallibly fail. Nevertheless, your

remark would deserve some consideration, if, after the issue of paper

money and its depreciation, the equilibrium of values should instantly

and simultaneously take place, in all things and in every part of the

country. The measure would tend, as in my example of the players, to a

universal mystification, upon which the best thing we could do would be

to look at one another and laugh. But this is not in the course of

events. The experiment has been made, and every time a despot has

altered the money ...

B. Who says anything about altering the money?

F. Why, to force people to take in payment scraps of paper which have

been officially baptized _francs_, or to force them to receive, as

weighing five grains, a piece of silver which weighs only two and a

half, but which has been officially named a _franc_, is the same thing,

if not worse; and all the reasoning which can be made in favour of

assignats has been made in favour of legal false money. Certainly,

looking at it, as you did just now, and as you appear to be doing still,

if it is believed that to multiply the instruments of exchange is to

multiply the exchanges themselves as well as the things exchanged, it

might very reasonably be thought that the most simple means was to

double the crowns, and to cause the law to give to the half the name and

value of the whole. Well, in both cases, depreciation is inevitable. I

think I have told you the cause. I must also inform you, that this

depreciation, which, with paper, might go on till it came to nothing, is

effected by continually making dupes; and of these, poor people, simple

persons, workmen and countrymen are the chief.

B. I see; but stop a little. This dose of Economy is rather too strong

for once.

F. Be it so. We are agreed, then, upon this point,--that wealth is the

mass of useful things Which we produce by labour; or, still better, the

result of all the efforts which we make for the satisfaction of our

wants and tastes. These useful things are exchanged for each other,

according to the convenience of those to whom they belong. There are two

forms in these transactions; one is called barter: in this case, a

service is rendered for the sake of receiving an equivalent service

immediately. In this form, transactions would be exceedingly limited. In

order that they may be multiplied, and accomplished independently of

time and space amongst persons unknown to each other, and by infinite

fractions, an intermediate agent has been necessary,--this is cash. It

gives occasion for exchange, which is nothing else but a complicated

bargain. This is what has to be remarked and understood. Exchange

decomposes itself into two bargains, into two actors, sale and

purchase,--the reunion of which is needed to complete it. You _sell_ a

service, and receive a crown--then, with this crown, you _buy_ a

service. Then only is the bargain complete; it is not till then that

your effort has been followed by a real satisfaction. Evidently you only

work to satisfy the wants of others, that others may work to satisfy

yours. So long as you have only the crown which has been given you for

your work, you are only entitled to claim the work of another person.

When you have done so, the economical evolution will be accomplished as

far as you are concerned, since you will then only have obtained, by a

real satisfaction, the true reward for your trouble. The idea of a

bargain implies a service rendered, and a service received. Why should

it not be the same with exchange, which is merely a bargain in two

parts? And here there are two observations to be made. First,--It is a

very unimportant circumstance whether there be much or little cash in

the world. If there is much, much is required; if there is little,

little is wanted, for each transaction: that is all. The second

observation is this:--Because it is seen that cash always reappears in

every exchange, it has come to be regarded as the _sign_ and the

_measure_ of the things exchanged.

B. Will you still deny that cash is the _sign_ of the useful things of

which you speak?

F. A louis[6] is no more the sign of a sack of corn, than a sack of

corn is the sign of a louis.

B. What harm is there in looking at cash as the sign of wealth?

F. The inconvenience is this,--it leads to the idea that we have only

to increase the sign, in order to increase the things signified; and we

are in danger of adopting all the false measures which you took when I

made you an absolute king. We should go still further. Just as in money

we see the sign of wealth, we see also in paper money the sign of money;

and thence conclude that there is a very easy and simple method of

procuring for everybody the pleasures of fortune.

B. But you will not go so far as to dispute that cash is the _measure_

of values?

F. Yes, certainly, I do go as far as that, for

that is precisely where the illusion lies. It has become customary to

refer the value of everything to that of cash. It is said, this is

_worth_ five, ten, or twenty francs, as we say this _weighs_ five, ten,

or twenty grains; this _measures_ five, ten, or twenty yards; this

ground _contains_ five, ten, or twenty acres; and hence it has been

concluded, that cash is the _measure_ of _values_.

B. Well, it appears as if it was so.

F. Yes, it appears so, and it is this I complain of, and not of the

reality. A measure of length, size, surface, is a quantity agreed upon,

and unchangeable. It is not so with the value of gold and silver. This

varies as much as that of corn, wine, cloth, or labour, and from the

same causes, for it has the same source and obeys the same laws. Gold is

brought within our reach, just like iron, by the labour of miners, the

advances of capitalists, and the combination of merchants and seamen. It

costs more or less, according to the expense of its production,

according to whether there is much or little in the market, and whether

it is much or little in request; in a word, it undergoes the

fluctuations of all other human productions. But one circumstance is

singular, and gives rise to many mistakes. When the value of cash

varies, the variation is attributed by language to the other productions

for which it is exchanged. Thus, let us suppose that all the

circumstances relative to gold remain the same, and that the corn

harvest has failed. The price of corn will rise. It will be said, "The

quarter of corn, which was worth twenty francs, is now worth thirty;"

and this will be correct, for it is the value of the corn which has

varied, and language agrees with the fact. But let us reverse the

supposition: let us suppose that all the circumstances relative to corn

remain the same, and that half of all the gold in existence is swallowed

up; this time it is the price of gold which will rise. It would seem

that we ought to say,--"This Napoleon, which _was worth_ twenty francs,

_is now worth_ forty." Now, do you know how this is expressed? Just as

if it was the other objects of comparison which had fallen in price, it

is said,--"Corn, which _was worth_ twenty francs, _is now only worth_

ten."

B. It all comes to the same thing in the end.

F. No doubt; but only think what disturbances, what cheatings are

produced in exchanges, when the value of the medium varies, without our

becoming aware of it by a change in the name. Old pieces are issued, or

notes bearing the name of twenty _francs_, and which will bear that name

through every subsequent depreciation. The value will be reduced a

quarter, a half, but they will still be called _pieces_ or _notes of

twenty francs_. Clever persons will take care not to part with their

goods unless for a larger number of notes--in other words, they will ask

forty francs for what they would formerly have sold for twenty; but

simple persons will be taken in. Many years must pass before all the

values will find their proper level. Under the influence of ignorance

and _custom_, the day's pay of a country labourer will remain for a

long time at a franc, while the saleable price of all the articles of

consumption around him will be rising. He will sink into destitution

without being able to discover the cause. In short, since you wish me to

finish, I must beg you, before we separate, to fix your whole attention

upon this essential point:--When once false money (under whatever form

it may take) is put into circulation, depreciation will ensue, and

manifest itself by the universal rise of every thing which is capable of

being sold. But this rise in prices is not instantaneous and equal for

all things. Sharp men, brokers, and men of business, will not suffer by

it; for it is their trade to watch the fluctuations of prices, to

observe the cause, and even to speculate upon it. But little tradesmen,

countrymen, and workmen, will bear the whole weight of it. The rich man

is not any the richer for it, but the poor man becomes poorer by it.

Therefore, expedients of this kind have the effect of increasing the

distance which separates wealth from poverty, of paralysing the social

tendencies which are incessantly bringing men to the same level, and it

will require centuries for the suffering classes to regain the ground

which they have lost in their advance towards _equality of condition_.

B. Good morning; I shall go and meditate upon the lecture you have

been giving me.

F. Have you finished your own dissertation? As for me, I have scarcely

begun mine. I have not yet spoken of the _hatred_ of capital, of

gratuitous credit--a fatal notion, a deplorable mistake, which takes

its rise from the same source.

B. What! does this frightful commotion of the populace against

capitalists arise from money being confounded with wealth?

F. It is the result of different causes. Unfortunately, certain

capitalists have arrogated to themselves monopolies and privileges which

are quite sufficient to account for this feeling. But when the theorists

of democracy have wished to justify it, to systematize it, to give it

the appearance of a reasonable opinion, and to turn it against the very

nature of capital, they have had recourse to that false political

economy at whose root the same confusion is always to be found. They

have said to the people:--"Take a crown, put it under a glass; forget it

for a year; then go and look at it, and you will be convinced that it

has not produced ten sous, nor five sous, nor any fraction of a sou.

Therefore, money produces no interest." Then, substituting for the word

money its pretended sign, _capital_, they have made it by their logic

undergo this modification--"Then capital produces no interest." Then

follow this series of consequences--"Therefore he who lends a capital

ought to obtain nothing from it; therefore he who lends you a capital,

if he gains something by it, is robbing you; therefore all capitalists

are robbers; therefore wealth, which ought to serve gratuitously those

who borrow it, belongs in reality to those to whom it does not belong;

therefore there is no such thing as property; therefore everything

belongs to everybody; therefore ..."

B. This is very serious; the more so, from the syllogism being so

admirably formed. I should very much like to be enlightened on the

subject. But, alas! I can no longer command my attention. There is such

a confusion in my head of the words _cash_, _money_, _services_,

_capital_, _interest_, that, really, I hardly know where I am. We will,

if you please, resume the conversation another day.

F. In the meantime, here is a little work entitled _Capital and Rent_.

It may perhaps remove some of your doubts. Just look at it, when you are

in want of a little amusement.

B. To amuse me?

F. Who knows? One nail drives in another; one wearisome thing drives

away another.

B. I have not yet made up my mind that your views upon cash and

political economy in general are correct. But, from your conversation,

this is what I have gathered:--That these questions are of the highest

importance; for peace or war, order or anarchy, the union or the

antagonism of citizens, are at the root of the answer to them. How is it

that, in France, a science which concerns us all so nearly, and the

diffusion of which would have so decisive an influence upon the fate of

mankind, is so little known? Is it that the State does not teach it

sufficiently?

F. Not exactly. For, without knowing it, it applies itself to loading

everybody's brain with prejudices, and everybody's heart with

sentiments favourable to the spirit of anarchy, war, and hatred; so

that, when a doctrine of order, peace, and union presents itself, it is

in vain that it has clearness and truth on its side,--it cannot gain

admittance.

B. Decidedly, you are a frightful grumbler. What interest can the

State have in mystifying people's intellects in favour of revolutions,

and civil and foreign wars? There must certainly be a great deal of

exaggeration in what you say.

F. Consider. At the period when our intellectual faculties begin to

develop themselves, at the age when impressions are liveliest, when

habits of mind are formed with the greatest ease--when we might look at

society and understand it--in a word, as soon as we are seven or eight

years old, what does the State do? It puts a bandage over our eyes,

takes us gently from the midst of the social circle which surrounds us,

to plunge us, with our susceptible faculties, our impressible hearts,

into the midst of Roman society. It keeps us there for ten years at

least, long enough to make an ineffaceable impression on the brain. Now

observe, that Roman society is directly opposed to what our society

ought to be. There they lived upon war; here we ought to hate war. There

they hated labour; here we ought to live upon labour. There the means of

subsistence were founded upon slavery and plunder; here they should be

drawn from free industry. Roman society was organised in consequence of

its principle. It necessarily admired what made it prosper. There they

considered as virtue, what we look upon as vice. Its poets and

historians had to exalt what we ought to despise. The very words,

_liberty_, _order_, _justice_, _people_, _honour_, _influence_, _&c._,

could not have the same signification at Rome, as they have, or ought to

have, at Paris. How can you expect that all these youths who have been

at university or conventual schools, with Livy and Quintus Curtius for

their catechism, will not understand liberty like the Gracchi, virtue

like Cato, patriotism like Cæsar? How can you expect them not to be

factious and warlike? How can you expect them to take the slightest

interest in the mechanism of our social order? Do you think that their

minds have been prepared to understand it? Do you not see that, in order

to do so, they must get rid of their present impressions, and receive

others entirely opposed to them?

B. What do you conclude from that?

F. I will tell you. The most urgent necessity is, not that the State

should teach, but that it should _allow_ education. All monopolies are

detestable, but the worst of all is the monopoly of education.

The Law.

The law perverted! The law--and, in its wake, all the collective forces

of the nation--the law, I say, not only diverted from its proper

direction, but made to pursue one entirely contrary! The law become the

tool of every kind of avarice, instead of being its check! The law

guilty of that very iniquity which it was its mission to punish! Truly,

this is a serious fact, if it exists, and one to which I feel bound to

call the attention of my fellow-citizens.

We hold from God the gift which, as far as we are concerned, contains

all others, Life--physical, intellectual, and moral life.

But life cannot support itself. He who has bestowed it, has entrusted us

with the care of supporting it, of developing it, and of perfecting it.

To that end, He has provided us with a collection of wonderful

faculties; He has plunged us into the midst of a variety of elements. It

is by the application of our faculties to these elements, that the

phenomena of assimilation and of appropriation, by which life pursues

the circle which has been assigned to it, are realized.

Existence, faculties, assimilation--in other words, personality,

liberty, property--this is man. It is of these three things that it may

be said, apart from all demagogue subtlety, that they are anterior and

superior to all human legislation.

It is not because men have made laws, that personality, liberty, and

property exist. On the contrary, it is because personality, liberty, and

property exist beforehand, that men make laws.

What, then, is law? As I have said elsewhere, it is the collective

organization of the individual right to lawful defence.

Nature, or rather God, has bestowed upon every one of us the right to

defend his person, his liberty, and his property, since these are the

three constituent or preserving elements of life; elements, each of

which is rendered complete by the others, and cannot be understood

without them. For what are our faculties, but the extension of our

personality? and what is property, but an extension of our faculties?

If every man has the right of defending, even by force, his person, his

liberty, and his property, a number of men have the right to combine

together, to extend, to organize a common force, to provide regularly

for this defence.

Collective right, then, has its principle, its reason for existing, its

lawfulness, in individual right; and the common force cannot rationally

have any other end, or any other mission, than that of the isolated

forces for which it is substituted. Thus, as the force of an individual

cannot lawfully touch the person, the liberty, or the property of

another individual--for the same reason, the common force cannot

lawfully be used to destroy the person, the liberty, or the property of

individuals or of classes.

For this perversion of force would be, in one case as in the other, in

contradiction to our premises. For who will dare to say that force has

been given to us, not to defend our rights, but to annihilate the equal

rights of our brethren? And if this be not true of every individual

force, acting independently, how can it be true of the collective force,

which is only the organized union of isolated forces?

Nothing, therefore, can be more evident than this:--The law is the

organization of the natural right of lawful defence; it is the

substitution of collective for individual forces, for the purpose of

acting in the sphere in which they have a right to act, of doing what

they have a right to do, to secure persons, liberties, and properties,

and to maintain each in its right, so as to cause justice to reign over

all.

And if a people established upon this basis were to exist, it seems to

me that order would prevail among them in their acts as well as in their

ideas. It seems to me that such a people would have the most simple, the

most economical, the least oppressive, the least to be felt, the least

responsible, the most just, and, consequently, the most solid Government

which could be imagined, whatever its political form might be.

For, under such an administration, every one would feel that he

possessed all the fulness, as well as all the responsibility of his

existence. So long as personal safety was ensured, so long as labour

was free, and the fruits of labour secured against all unjust attacks,

no one would have any difficulties to contend with in the State. When

prosperous, we should not, it is true, have to thank the State for our

success; but when unfortunate, we should no more think of taxing it with

our disasters, than our peasants think of attributing to it the arrival

of hail or of frost. We should know it only by the inestimable blessing

of Safety.

It may further be affirmed, that, thanks to the non-intervention of the

State in private affairs, our wants and their satisfactions would

develop themselves in their natural order. We should not see poor

families seeking for literary instruction before they were supplied with

bread. We should not see towns peopled at the expense of rural

districts, nor rural districts at the expense of towns. We should not

see those great displacements of capital, of labour, and of population,

which legislative measures occasion; displacements, which render so

uncertain and precarious the very sources of existence, and thus

aggravate to such an extent the responsibility of Governments.

Unhappily, law is by no means confined to its own department. Nor is it

merely in some indifferent and debateable views that it has left its

proper sphere. It has done more than this. It has acted in direct

opposition to its proper end; it has destroyed its own object; it has

been employed in annihilating that justice which it ought to have

established, in effacing amongst Rights, that limit which was its true

mission to respect; it has placed the collective force in the service of

those who wish to traffic, without risk, and without scruple, in the

persons, the liberty, and the property of others; it has converted

plunder into a right, that it may protect it, and lawful defence into a

crime, that it may punish it.

How has this perversion of law been accomplished? And what has resulted

from it?

The law has been perverted through the influence of two very different

causes--bare egotism and false philanthropy.

Let us speak of the former.

Self-preservation and development is the common aspiration of all men,

in such a way that if every one enjoyed the free exercise of his

faculties and the free disposition of their fruits, social progress

would be incessant, uninterrupted, inevitable.

But there is also another disposition which is common to them. This is,

to live and to develop, when they can, at the expense of one another.

This is no rash imputation, emanating from a gloomy, uncharitable

spirit. History bears witness to the truth of it, by the incessant wars,

the migrations of races, sacerdotal oppressions, the universality of

slavery, the frauds in trade, and the monopolies with which its annals

abound. This fatal disposition has its origin in the very constitution

of man--in that primitive, and universal, and invincible sentiment which

urges it towards its well-being, and makes it seek to escape pain.

Man can only derive life and enjoyment from a perpetual search and

appropriation; that is, from a perpetual application of his faculties to

objects, or from labour. This is the origin of property.

But yet he may live and enjoy, by seizing and appropriating the

productions of the faculties of his fellow-men. This is the origin of

plunder.

Now, labour being in itself a pain, and man being naturally inclined to

avoid pain, it follows, and history proves it, that wherever plunder is

less burdensome than labour, it prevails; and neither religion nor

morality can, in this case, prevent it from prevailing.

When does plunder cease, then? When it becomes less burdensome and more

dangerous than labour. It is very evident that the proper aim of law is

to oppose the powerful obstacle of collective force to this fatal

tendency; that all its measures should be in favour of property, and

against plunder.

But the law is made, generally, by one man, or by one class of men. And

as law cannot exist without the sanction and the support of a

preponderating force, it must finally place this force in the hands of

those who legislate.

This inevitable phenomenon, combined with the fatal tendency which, we

have said, exists in the heart of man, explains the almost universal

perversion of law. It is easy to conceive that, instead of being a

check upon injustice, it becomes its most invincible instrument. It is

easy to conceive that, according to the power of the legislator, it

destroys for its own profit, and in different degrees, amongst the rest

of the community, personal independence by slavery, liberty by

oppression, and property by plunder.

It is in the nature of men to rise against the injustice of which they

are the victims. When, therefore, plunder is organised by law, for the

profit of those who perpetrate it, all the plundered classes tend,

either by peaceful or revolutionary means, to enter in some way into the

manufacturing of laws. These classes, according to the degree of

enlightenment at which they have arrived, may propose to themselves two

very different ends, when they thus attempt the attainment of their

political rights; either they may wish to put an end to lawful plunder,

or they may desire to take part in it.

Woe to the nation where this latter thought prevails amongst the masses,

at the moment when they, in their turn, seize upon the legislative

power!

Up to that time, lawful plunder has been exercised by the few upon the

many, as is the case in countries where the right of legislating is

confined to a few hands. But now it has become universal, and the

equilibrium is sought in universal plunder. The injustice which society

contains, instead of being rooted out of it, is generalised. As soon as

the injured classes have recovered their political rights, their first

thought is, not to abolish plunder (this would suppose them to possess

enlightenment, which they cannot have), but to organise against the

other classes, and to their own detriment, a system of reprisals,--as if

it was necessary, before the reign of justice arrives, that all should

undergo a cruel retribution,--some for their iniquity and some for their

ignorance.

It would be impossible, therefore, to introduce into society a greater

change and a greater evil than this--the conversion of the law into an

instrument of plunder.

What would be the consequences of such a perversion? It would require

volumes to describe them all. We must content ourselves with pointing

out the most striking.

In the first place, it would efface from everybody's conscience the

distinction between justice and injustice.

No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree,

but the safest way to make them respected is to make them respectable.

When law and morality are in contradiction to each other, the citizen

finds himself in the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense,

or of losing his respect for the law--two evils of equal magnitude,

between which it would be difficult to choose.

It is so much in the nature of law to support justice, that in the minds

of the masses they are one and the same. There is in all of us a strong

disposition to regard what is lawful as legitimate, so much so, that

many falsely derive all justice from law. It is sufficient, then, for

the law to order and sanction plunder, that it may appear to many

consciences just and sacred. Slavery, protection, and monopoly find

defenders, not only in those who profit by them, but in those who suffer

by them. If you suggest a doubt as to the morality of these

institutions, it is said directly--"You are a dangerous innovator, a

utopian, a theorist, a despiser of the laws; you would shake the basis

upon which society rests."

If you lecture upon morality, or political economy, official bodies will

be found to make this request to the Government:--

"That henceforth science be taught not only with sole reference to free

exchange (to liberty, property, and justice), as has been the case up to

the present time, but also, and especially, with reference to the facts

and legislation (contrary to liberty, property, and justice) which

regulate French industry.

"That, in public pulpits salaried by the treasury, the professor abstain

rigorously from endangering in the slightest degree the respect due to

the laws now in force."[7]

So that if a law exists which sanctions slavery or monopoly, oppression

or plunder, in any form whatever, it must not even be mentioned--for how

can it be mentioned without damaging the respect which it inspires?

Still further, morality and political economy must be taught in

connexion with this law--that is, under the supposition that it must be

just, only because it is law.

Another effect of this deplorable perversion of the law is, that it

gives to human passions and to political struggles, and, in general, to

politics, properly so called, an exaggerated preponderance.

I could prove this assertion in a thousand ways. But I shall confine

myself, by way of illustration, to bringing it to bear upon a subject

which has of late occupied everybody's mind--universal suffrage.

Whatever may be thought of it by the adepts of the school of Rousseau,

which professes to be _very far advanced_, but which I consider twenty

centuries _behind, universal_ suffrage (taking the word in its strictest

sense) is not one of those sacred dogmas with respect to which

examination and doubt are crimes.

Serious objections may be made to it.

In the first place, the word _universal_ conceals a gross sophism. There

are, in France, 36,000,000 of inhabitants. To make the right of suffrage

universal, 36,000,000 of electors should be reckoned. The most extended

system reckons only 9,000,000. Three persons out of four, then, are

excluded; and more than this, they are excluded by the fourth. Upon what

principle is this exclusion founded? Upon the principle of incapacity.

Universal suffrage, then, means--universal suffrage of those who are

capable. In point of fact, who are the capable? Are age, sex, and

judicial condemnations the only conditions to which incapacity is to be

attached?

On taking a nearer view of the subject, we may soon perceive the motive

which causes the right of suffrage to depend upon the presumption of

incapacity; the most extended system differing only in this respect from

the most restricted, by the appreciation of those conditions on which

this incapacity depends, and which constitutes, not a difference in

principle, but in degree.

This motive is, that the elector does not stipulate for himself, but for

everybody.

If, as the republicans of the Greek and Roman tone pretend, the right of

suffrage had fallen to the lot of every one at his birth, it would be an

injustice to adults to prevent women and children from voting. Why are

they prevented? Because they are presumed to be incapable. And why is

incapacity a motive for exclusion? Because the elector does not reap

alone the responsibility of his vote; because every vote engages and

affects the community at large; because the community has a right to

demand some securities, as regards the acts upon which his well-being

and his existence depend.

I know what might be said in answer to this. I know what might be

objected. But this is not the place to exhaust a controversy of this

kind. What I wish to observe is this, that this same controversy (in

common with the greater part of political questions) which agitates,

excites, and unsettles the nations, would lose almost all its importance

if the law had always been what it ought to be.

In fact, if law were confined to causing all persons, all liberties, and

all properties to be respected--if it were merely the organisation of

individual right and individual defence--if it were the obstacle, the

check, the chastisement opposed to all oppression, to all plunder--is it

likely that we should dispute much, as citizens, on the subject of the

greater or less universality of suffrage? Is it likely that it would

compromise that greatest of advantages, the public peace? Is it likely

that the excluded classes would not quietly wait for their turn? Is it

likely that the enfranchised classes would be very jealous of their

privilege? And is it not clear, that the interest of all being one and

the same, some would act without much inconvenience to the others?

But if the fatal principle should come to be introduced, that, under

pretence of organisation, regulation, protection, or encouragement, the

law may take from one party in order to give to another, help itself to

the wealth acquired by all the classes that it may increase that of one

class, whether that of the agriculturists, the manufacturers, the

shipowners, or artists and comedians; then certainly, in this case,

there is no class which may not pretend, and with reason, to place its

hand upon the law, which would not demand with fury its right of

election and eligibility, and which would overturn society rather than

not obtain it. Even beggars and vagabonds will prove to you that they

have an incontestable title to it. They will say--"We never buy wine,

tobacco, or salt, without paying the tax, and a part of this tax is

given by law in perquisites and gratuities to men who are richer than we

are. Others make use of the law to create an artificial rise in the

price of bread, meat, iron, or cloth. Since everybody traffics in law

for his own profit, we should like to do the same. We should like to

make it produce the _right to assistance_, which is the poor man's

plunder. To effect this, we ought to be electors and legislators, that

we may organise, on a large scale, alms for our own class, as you have

organised, on a large scale, protection for yours. Don't tell us that

you will take our cause upon yourselves, and throw to us 600,000 francs

to keep us quiet, like giving us a bone to pick. We have other claims,

and, at any rate, we wish to stipulate for ourselves, as other classes

have stipulated for themselves!" How is this argument to be answered?

Yes, as long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its

true mission, that it may violate property instead of securing it,

everybody will be wanting to manufacture law, either to defend himself

against plunder, or to organise it for his own profit. The political

question will always be prejudicial, predominant, and absorbing; in a

word, there will be fighting around the door of the Legislative Palace.

The struggle will be no less furious within it. To be convinced of

this, it is hardly necessary to look at what passes in the Chambers in

France and in England; it is enough to know how the question stands.

Is there any need to prove that this odious perversion of law is a

perpetual source of hatred and discord,--that it even tends to social

disorganisation? Look at the United States. There is no country in the

world where the law is kept more within its proper domain--which is, to

secure to every one his liberty and his property. Therefore, there is no

country in the world where social order appears to rest upon a more

solid basis. Nevertheless, even in the United States, there are two

questions, and only two, which from the beginning have endangered

political order. And what are these two questions? That of slavery and

that of tariffs; that is, precisely the only two questions in which,

contrary to the general spirit of this republic, law has taken the

character of a plunderer. Slavery is a violation, sanctioned by law, of

the rights of the person. Protection is a violation perpetrated by the

law upon the rights of property; and certainly it is very remarkable

that, in the midst of so many other debates, this double _legal

scourge_, the sorrowful inheritance of the Old World, should be the only

one which can, and perhaps will, cause the rupture of the Union. Indeed,

a more astounding fact, in the heart of society, cannot be conceived

than this:--That _law should have become an instrument of injustice_.

And if this fact occasions consequences so formidable to the United

States, where there is but one exception, what must it be with us in

Europe, where it is a principle--a system?

M. Montalembert, adopting the thought of a famous proclamation of M.

Carlier, said, "We must make war against socialism." And by socialism,

according to the definition of M. Charles Dupin, he meant plunder.

But what plunder did he mean? For there are two sorts--_extra-legal_ and

_legal plunder_.

As to extra-legal plunder, such as theft, or swindling, which is

defined, foreseen, and punished by the penal code, I do not think it can

be adorned by the name of socialism. It is not this which systematically

threatens the foundations of society. Besides, the war against this kind

of plunder has not waited for the signal of M. Montalembert or M.

Carlier. It has gone on since the beginning of the world; France was

carrying it on long before the revolution of February--long before the

appearance of socialism--with all the ceremonies of magistracy, police,

gendarmerie, prisons, dungeons, and scaffolds. It is the law itself

which is conducting this war, and it is to be wished, in my opinion,

that the law should always maintain this attitude with respect to

plunder.

But this is not the case. The law sometimes takes its own part.

Sometimes it accomplishes it with its own hands, in order to save the

parties benefited the shame, the danger, and the scruple. Sometimes it

places all this ceremony of magistracy, police, gendarmerie, and

prisons, at the service of the plunderer, and treats the plundered

party, when he defends himself, as the criminal. In a word, there is a

_legal plunder_, and it is, no doubt, this which is meant by M.

Montalembert.

This plunder may be only an exceptional blemish in the legislation of a

people, and in this case, the best thing that can be done is, without so

many speeches and lamentations, to do away with it as soon as possible,

notwithstanding the clamours of interested parties. But how is it to be

distinguished? Very easily. See whether the law takes from some persons

that which belongs to them, to give to others what does not belong to

them. See whether the law performs, for the profit of one citizen, and,

to the injury of others, an act which this citizen cannot perform

without committing a crime. Abolish this law without delay; it is not

merely an iniquity--it is a fertile source of iniquities, for it invites

reprisals; and if you do not take care, the exceptional case will

extend, multiply, and become systematic. No doubt the party benefited

will exclaim loudly; he will assert his _acquired rights_. He will say

that the State is bound to protect and encourage his industry; he will

plead that it is a good thing for the State to be enriched, that it may

spend the more, and thus shower down salaries upon the poor workmen.

Take care not to listen to this sophistry, for it is just by the

systematising of these arguments that legal plunder becomes

systematised.

And this is what has taken place. The delusion of the day is to enrich

all classes at the expense of each other; it is to generalise plunder

under pretence of organising it. Now, legal plunder may be exercised in

an infinite multitude of ways. Hence come an infinite multitude of plans

for organisation; tariffs, protection, perquisites, gratuities,

encouragements, progressive taxation, gratuitous instruction, right to

labour, right to profit, right to wages, right to assistance, right to

instruments of labour, gratuity of credit, &c., &c. And it is all these

plans, taken as a whole, with what they have in common, legal, plunder,

which takes the name of socialism.

Now socialism, thus defined, and forming a doctrinal body, what other

war would you make against it than a war of doctrine? You find this

doctrine false, absurd, abominable. Refute it. This will be all the more

easy, the more false, the more absurd and the more abominable it is.

Above all, if you wish to be strong, begin by rooting out of your

legislation every particle of socialism which may have crept into

it,--and this will be no light work.

M. Montalembert has been reproached with wishing to turn brute force

against socialism. He ought to be exonerated from this reproach, for he

has plainly said:--"The war which we must make against socialism must be

one which is compatible with the law, honour, and justice."

But how is it that M. Montalembert does not see that he is placing

himself in a vicious circle? You would oppose law to socialism. But it

is the law which socialism invokes. It aspires to legal, not extra-legal

plunder. It is of the law itself, like monopolists of all kinds, that it

wants to make an instrument; and when once it has the law on its side,

how will you be able to turn the law against it? How will you place it

under the power of your tribunals, your gendarmes, and of your prisons?

What will you do then? You wish to prevent it from taking any part in

the making of laws. You would keep it outside the Legislative Palace. In

this you will not succeed, I venture to prophesy, so long as legal

plunder is the basis of the legislation within.

It is absolutely necessary that this question of legal plunder should be

determined, and there are only three solutions of it:--