Partial plunder, universal plunder, absence of plunder, amongst these we
have to make our choice. The law can only produce one of these results.
{16}
Partial plunder. This is the system that prevailed so long as the
elective privilege was partial; a system that is resorted to, to avoid
the invasion of socialism.
Universal plunder. We have been threatened by this system when the
elective privilege has become universal; the masses having conceived
the idea of making law, on the principle of legislators who had preceded
them.
Absence of plunder. This is the principle of justice, peace, order,
stability, conciliation, and of good sense, which I shall proclaim with
all the force of my lungs (which is very inadequate, alas!) till the day
of my death.
And, in all sincerity, can anything more be required at the hands of
the law? Can the law, whose necessary sanction is force, be reasonably
employed upon anything beyond securing to every one his right? I
defy anyone to remove it from this circle without perverting it, and
consequently turning force against right. And as this is the most fatal,
the most illogical social perversion that can possibly be imagined, it
must be admitted that the true solution, so much sought after, of the
social problem, is contained in these simple words--LAW IS ORGANIZED
JUSTICE.
Now it is important to remark, that to organize justice by law, that is
to say by force, excludes the idea of organizing by law, or by force any
manifestation whatever of human activity--labor, charity, agriculture,
commerce, industry, instruction, the fine arts, or religion; for any
one of these organizings would inevitably destroy the essential
organization. How, in fact, can we imagine force encroaching upon the
liberty of citizens without infringing upon justice, and so acting
against its proper aim?
Here I am taking on the most popular prejudice of our time. It is not
considered enough that law should be just,
{17}
it must be philanthropic. It is not sufficient that it should guarantee
to every citizen the free and inoffensive exercise of his faculties,
applied to his physical, intellectual, and moral development; it is
required to extend well-being, instruction, and morality, directly over
the nation. This is the fascinating side of socialism.
But, I repeat it, these two missions of the law contradict each other.
We have to choose between them. A citizen cannot at the same time be
free and not free. Mr. de Lamartine wrote to me one day thus: "Your
doctrine is only the half of my program; you have stopped at liberty, I
go on to fraternity." I answered him: "The second part of your program
will destroy the first." And in fact it is impossible for me to separate
the word fraternity from the word voluntary. I cannot possibly conceive
fraternity legally enforced, without liberty being legally destroyed,
and justice legally trampled under foot. Legal plunder has two roots:
one of them, as we have already seen, is in human greed; the other is in
misconceived philanthropy.
Before I proceed, I think I ought to explain myself upon the word
plunder.
I do not take it, as it often is taken, in a vague, undefined, relative,
or metaphorical sense. I use it in its scientific acceptation, and
as expressing the opposite idea to property. When a portion of wealth
passes out of the hands of him who has acquired it, without his consent,
and without compensation, to him who has not created it, whether by
force or by artifice, I say that property is violated, that plunder is
perpetrated. I say that this is exactly what the law ought to repress
always and everywhere. If the law itself performs the action it ought to
repress, I say that plunder is still perpetrated, and even, in a social
point of view, under aggravated circumstances. In this case,
{18}
however, he who profits from the plunder is not responsible for it;
it is the law, the lawgiver, society itself, and this is where the
political danger lies.
It is to be regretted that there is something offensive in the word. I
have sought in vain for another, for I would not wish at any time, and
especially just now, to add an irritating word to our disagreements;
therefore, whether I am believed or not, I declare that I do not mean
to impugn the intentions nor the morality of anybody. I am attacking
an idea that I believe to be false--a system that appears to me to
be unjust; and this is so independent of intentions, that each of us
profits by it without wishing it, and suffers from it without being
aware of the cause.
Any person must write under the influence of party spirit or of
fear, who would call into question the sincerity of protectionism, of
socialism, and even of communism, which are one and the same plant, in
three different periods of its growth. All that can be said is, that
plunder is more visible by its partiality in protectionism, [3] and
by its universality in communism; whence it follows that, of the three
systems, socialism is still the most vague, the most undefined, and
consequently the most sincere.
Be that as it may, to conclude that legal plunder has one of its roots
in misconceived philanthropy, is evidently to put intentions out of the
question.
{19}
With this understanding, let us examine the value, the origin, and
the tendency of this popular aspiration, which pretends to realize the
general good by general plunder.
The Socialists say, since the law organizes justice, why should it not
organize labor, instruction, and religion?
Why? Because it could not organize labor, instruction, and religion,
without disorganizing justice.
For remember, that law is force, and that consequently the domain of the
law cannot properly extend beyond the domain of force.
When law and force keep a man within the bounds of justice, they impose
nothing upon him but a mere negation. They only oblige him to abstain
from doing harm. They violate neither his personality, his liberty, nor
his property. They only guard the personality, the liberty, the property
of others. They hold themselves on the defensive; they defend the equal
right of all. They fulfill a mission whose harmlessness is evident,
whose utility is palpable, and whose legitimacy is not to be disputed.
This is so true that, as a friend of mine once remarked to me, to say
that the aim of the law is to cause justice to reign, is to use an
expression that is not rigorously exact. It ought to be said, the aim
of the law is to prevent injustice from reigning. In fact, it is not
justice that has an existence of its own, it is injustice. The one
results from the absence of the other.
But when the law, through the medium of its necessary
agent--force--imposes a form of labor, a method or a subject of
instruction, a creed, or a worship, it is no longer negative; it acts
positively upon men. It substitutes the will of the legislator for their
own will, the initiative of the legislator for their own initiative.
They have no need to consult, to compare, or to foresee; the law does
all that for them. The intellect is for them a useless
{20}
encumbrance; they cease to be men; they lose their personality, their
liberty, their property.
Try to imagine a form of labor imposed by force, that is not a violation
of liberty; a transmission of wealth imposed by force, that is not a
violation of property. If you cannot succeed in reconciling this, you
are bound to conclude that the law cannot organize labor and industry
without organizing injustice.
When, from the seclusion of his office, a politician takes a view of
society, he is struck with the spectacle of inequality that presents
itself. He mourns over the sufferings that are the lot of so many of our
brethren, sufferings whose aspect is rendered yet more sorrowful by the
contrast of luxury and wealth.
He ought, perhaps, to ask himself whether such a social state has not
been caused by the plunder of ancient times, exercised in the way of
conquests; and by plunder of more recent times, effected through the
medium of the laws? He ought to ask himself whether, granting the
aspiration of all men to well-being and improvement, the reign of
justice would not suffice to realize the greatest activity of progress,
and the greatest amount of equality compatible with that individual
responsibility that God has awarded as a just retribution of virtue and
vice?
He never gives this a thought. His mind turns towards combinations,
arrangements, legal or factitious organizations. He seeks the remedy in
perpetuating and exaggerating what has produced the evil.
For, justice apart, which we have seen is only a negation, is there any
one of these legal arrangements that does not contain the principle of
plunder?
You say, "There are men who have no money," and you apply to the law.
But the law is not a self-supplied
{21}
fountain, whence every stream may obtain supplies independently of
society. Nothing can enter the public treasury, in favor of one citizen
or one class, but what other citizens and other classes have been forced
to send to it. If everyone draws from it only the equivalent of what
he has contributed to it, your law, it is true, is no plunderer, but it
does nothing for men who want money--it does not promote equality. It
can only be an instrument of equalization as far as it takes from one
party to give to another, and then it is an instrument of plunder.
Examine, in this light, the protection of tariffs, subsidies, right
to profit, right to labor, right to assistance, free public education,
progressive taxation, gratuitousness of credit, social workshops, and
you will always find at the bottom legal plunder, organized injustice.
You say, "There are men who want knowledge," and you apply to the law.
But the law is not a torch that sheds light that originates within
itself. It extends over a society where there are men who have
knowledge, and others who have not; citizens who want to learn, and
others who are disposed to teach. It can only do one of two things:
either allow a free operation to this kind of transaction, i.e., let
this kind of want satisfy itself freely; or else preempt the will of
the people in the matter, and take from some of them sufficient to pay
professors commissioned to instruct others for free. But, in this second
case there cannot fail to be a violation of liberty and property--legal
plunder.
You say, "Here are men who are wanting in morality or religion," and
you apply to the law; but law is force, and need I say how far it is a
violent and absurd enterprise to introduce force in these matters?
{22}
As the result of its systems and of its efforts, it would seem that
socialism, notwithstanding all its self-complacency, can scarcely
help perceiving the monster of legal plunder. But what does it do?
It disguises it cleverly from others, and even from itself, under the
seductive names of fraternity, solidarity, organization, association.
And because we do not ask so much at the hands of the law, because
we only ask it for justice, it alleges that we reject fraternity,
solidarity, organization, and association; and they brand us with the
name of individualists.
We can assure them that what we repudiate is not natural organization,
but forced organization.
It is not free association, but the forms of association that they would
impose upon us.
It is not spontaneous fraternity, but legal fraternity.
It is not providential solidarity, but artificial solidarity, which is
only an unjust displacement of responsibility.
Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds
Government and society. And so, every time we object to a thing being
done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done
at all. We disapprove of education by the State--then we are against
education altogether. We object to a State religion--then we would have
no religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about by
the State then we are against equality, etc., etc. They might as
well accuse us of wishing men not to eat, because we object to the
cultivation of corn by the State.
How is it that the strange idea of making the law produce what it
does not contain--prosperity, in a positive sense, wealth, science,
religion--should ever have gained ground in the political world? The
modern politicians, particularly those of the Socialist school, found
their different
{23}
theories upon one common hypothesis; and surely a more strange, a more
presumptuous notion, could never have entered a human brain.
They divide mankind into two parts. Men in general, except one, form the
first; the politician himself forms the second, which is by far the most
important.
In fact, they begin by supposing that men are devoid of any principle of
action, and of any means of discernment in themselves; that they have no
initiative; that they are inert matter, passive particles, atoms without
impulse; at best a vegetation indifferent to its own mode of existence,
susceptible of assuming, from an exterior will and hand an infinite
number of forms, more or less symmetrical, artistic, and perfected.
Moreover, every one of these politicians does not hesitate to
assume that he himself is, under the names of organizer, discoverer,
legislator, institutor or founder, this will and hand, this universal
initiative, this creative power, whose sublime mission it is to gather
together these scattered materials, that is, men, into society.
Starting from these data, as a gardener according to his caprice shapes
his trees into pyramids, parasols, cubes, cones, vases, espaliers,
distaffs, or fans; so the Socialist, following his chimera, shapes poor
humanity into groups, series, circles, subcircles, honeycombs, or social
workshops, with all kinds of variations. And as the gardener, to bring
his trees into shape, needs hatchets, pruning hooks, saws, and shears,
so the politician, to bring society into shape, needs the forces which
he can only find in the laws; the law of tariffs, the law of taxation,
the law of assistance, and the law of education.
It is so true, that the Socialists look upon mankind as a subject for
social experiments, that if, by chance, they
{24}
are not quite certain of the success of these experiments, they will
request a portion of mankind, as a subject to experiment upon. It is
well known how popular the idea of trying all systems is, and one of
their chiefs has been known seriously to demand of the Constituent
Assembly a parish, with all its inhabitants, upon which to make his
experiments.
It is thus that an inventor will make a small machine before he makes
one of the regular size. Thus the chemist sacrifices some substances,
the agriculturist some seed and a corner of his field, to make trial of
an idea.
But think of the difference between the gardener and his trees, between
the inventor and his machine, between the chemist and his substances,
between the agriculturist and his seed! The Socialist thinks, in
all sincerity, that there is the same difference between himself and
mankind.
No wonder the politicians of the nineteenth century look upon society
as an artificial production of the legislator's genius. This idea,
the result of a classical education, has taken possession of all the
thinkers and great writers of our country.
To all these persons, the relations between mankind and the legislator
appear to be the same as those that exist between the clay and the
potter.
Moreover, if they have consented to recognize in the heart of man a
capability of action, and in his intellect a faculty of discernment,
they have looked upon this gift of God as a fatal one, and thought that
mankind, under these two impulses, tended fatally towards ruin. They
have taken it for granted that if abandoned to their own inclinations,
men would only occupy themselves with religion to arrive at atheism,
with instruction to come to ignorance, and with labor and exchange to be
extinguished in misery.
{25}
Happily, according to these writers, there are some men, termed
governors and legislators, upon whom Heaven has bestowed opposite
tendencies, not for their own sake only, but for the sake of the rest of
the world.
Whilst mankind tends to evil, they incline to good; whilst mankind is
advancing towards darkness, they are aspiring to enlightenment; whilst
mankind is drawn towards vice, they are attracted by virtue. And, this
granted, they demand the assistance of force, by means of which they are
to substitute their own tendencies for those of the human race.
It is only needful to open, almost at random, a book on philosophy,
politics, or history, to see how strongly this idea--the child of
classical studies and the mother of socialism--is rooted in our country;
that mankind is merely inert matter, receiving life, organization,
morality, and wealth from power; or, rather, and still worse--that
mankind itself tends towards degradation, and is only arrested in
its tendency by the mysterious hand of the legislator. Classical
conventionalism shows us everywhere, behind passive society, a
hidden power, under the names of Law, or Legislator (or, by a mode of
expression which refers to some person or persons of undisputed weight
and authority, but not named), which moves, animates, enriches, and
regenerates mankind.
We will give a quotation from Bossuet:
One of the things which was the most strongly impressed
(by whom?) upon the mind of the Egyptians, was the love of
their country.... Nobody was allowed to be useless to the
State; the law assigned to every one his employment, which
descended from father to son. No one was permitted to have
two professions, nor to adopt another.
... But there was one occupation which was
{26}
obliged to be common to all, this was the study of the laws and of
wisdom; ignorance of religion and the political regulations of the
country was excused in no condition of life. Moreover, every profession
had a district assigned to it (by whom?).... Amongst good laws, one
of the best things was, that everybody was taught to observe them
(by whom?). Egypt abounded with wonderful inventions, and nothing was
neglected which could render life comfortable and tranquil.
Thus men, according to Bossuet, derive nothing from themselves;
patriotism, wealth, inventions, husbandry, science--all come to them
by the operation of the laws, or by kings. All they have to do is to be
passive. It is on this ground that Bossuet takes exception when Diodorus
accuses the Egyptians of rejecting wrestling and music. "How is that
possible," says he, "since these arts were invented by Trismegistus?"
It is the same with the Persians:
One of the first cares of the prince was to encourage
agriculture.... As there were posts established for the
regulation of the armies, so there were offices for the
superintending of rural works....
The respect with which the Persians were inspired for royal authority
was excessive.
The Greeks, although full of mind, were no less strangers to their own
responsibilities; so much so, that of themselves, like dogs and horses,
they would not have ventured upon the most simple games. In a classical
sense, it is an undisputed thing that everything comes to the people
from without.
The Greeks, naturally full of spirit and courage, had
been early cultivated by kings and colonies who had come
from Egypt. From them they had
{27}
learned the exercises of the body, foot races, and horse and chariot
races.... The best thing that the Egyptians had taught them was to
become docile, and to allow themselves to be formed by the laws for the
public good.
FENELON--Reared in the study and admiration of antiquity and a witness
of the power of Louis XIV, Fenelon naturally adopted the idea
that mankind should be passive, and that its misfortunes and its
prosperities, its virtues and its vices, are caused by the external
influence that is exercised upon it by the law, or by the makers of
the law. Thus, in his Utopia of Salentum, he brings the men, with their
interests, their faculties, their desires, and their possessions, under
the absolute direction of the legislator. Whatever the subject may be,
they themselves have no voice in it--the prince judges for them. The
nation is just a shapeless mass, of which the prince is the soul. In him
resides the thought, the foresight, the principle of all organization,
of all progress; on him, therefore, rests all the responsibility.
In proof of this assertion, I might transcribe the whole of the tenth
book of _Telemachus_. I refer the reader to it, and shall content myself
with quoting some passages taken at random from this celebrated work, to
which, in every other respect, I am the first to render justice.
With the astonishing credulity that characterizes the classics, Fénelon,
against the authority of reason and of facts, admits the general
felicity of the Egyptians, and attributes it, not to their own wisdom,
but to that of their kings:
We could not turn our eyes to the two shores, without
perceiving rich towns and country seats, agreeably situated;
fields that were covered every year,
{28}
without intermission, with golden crops; meadows full of
flocks; laborers bending under the weight of fruits that the
earth lavished on its cultivators; and shepherds who made
the echoes around repeat the soft sounds of their pipes and
flutes. "Happy," said Mentor, "is that people who is
governed by a wise king."... Mentor afterwards desired me to
remark the happiness and abundance that was spread over all
the country of Egypt, where twenty-two thousand cities might
be counted. He admired the excellent police regulations of
the cities; the justice administered in favor of the poor
against the rich; the good education of the children, who
were accustomed to obedience, labor, and the love of arts
and letters; the exactness with which all the ceremonies of
religion were performed; the disinterestedness, the desire
of honor, the fidelity to men, and the fear of the gods,
with which every father inspired his children. He could not
sufficiently admire the prosperous state of the country.
"Happy" said he, "is the people whom a wise king rules in
such a manner."
Fénelon's idyll on Crete is still more fascinating. Mentor is made to
say:
All that you will see in this wonderful island is the
result of the laws of Minos. The education that the children
receive renders the body healthy and robust. They are
accustomed, from the first, to a frugal and laborious life;
it is supposed that all the pleasures of sense enervate the
body and the mind; no other pleasure is presented to them
but that of being invincible by virtue, that of acquiring
much glory... there they punish three vices that go
unpunished amongst other people--ingratitude, dissimulation,
and avarice. As to pomp and dissipation, there is no need to
punish these, for they are unknown in Crete.... No costly
furniture, no magnificent clothing, no delicious feasts, no
gilded palaces are allowed.
{29}
It is thus that Mentor prepares his scholar to mould and manipulate,
doubtless with the most philanthropic intentions, the people of
Ithaca, and, to confirm him in these ideas, he gives him the example of
Salentum.
So we receive our first political notions. We are taught to treat men
very much as Oliver de Serres teaches farmers to manage and to mix the
soil.