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+Project Gutenberg's Essays on Political Economy, by Frederic Bastiat
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Essays on Political Economy
+
+Author: Frederic Bastiat
+
+Release Date: May 31, 2005 [EBook #15962]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+[Third (People's) Edition]
+
+Essays on Political Economy.
+
+By the late M. Frederic Bastiat,
+Member of The Institute of France.
+
+New York:
+G. P. Putnams & Sons,
+Fourth Avenue, and Twenty-Third Street.
+1874.
+
+
+
+
+London:
+Printed for Provost and Co.,
+Henrietta Street, W. C.
+
+
+
+
+Contents.
+
+
+
+Capital and Interest.
+  Introduction                                                        1
+  Capital and Interest                                                5
+  The Sack of Corn                                                   19
+  The House                                                          22
+  The Plane                                                          24
+
+That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen.
+  Introduction                                                       49
+  The Broken Window                                                  50
+  The Disbanding of Troops                                           54
+  Taxes                                                              58
+  Theatres, Fine Arts                                                63
+  Public Works                                                       71
+  The Intermediates                                                  74
+  Restrictions                                                       83
+  Machinery                                                          90
+  Credit                                                             97
+  Algeria                                                           102
+  Frugality and Luxury                                              107
+  Work and Profit                                                   116
+
+Government                                                          119
+
+What Is Money?                                                      136
+
+The Law                                                             173
+
+
+
+
+Capital and Interest.
+
+
+
+My object in this treatise is to examine into the real nature of the
+Interest of Capital, for the purpose of proving that it is lawful, and
+explaining why it should be perpetual. This may appear singular, and
+yet, I confess, I am more afraid of being too plain than too obscure. I
+am afraid I may weary the reader by a series of mere truisms. But it is
+no easy matter to avoid this danger, when the facts with which we have
+to deal are known to every one by personal, familiar, and daily
+experience.
+
+But, then, you will say, "What is the use of this treatise? Why explain
+what everybody knows?"
+
+But, although this problem appears at first sight so very simple, there
+is more in it than you might suppose. I shall endeavour to prove this by
+an example. Mondor lends an instrument of labour to-day, which will be
+entirely destroyed in a week, yet the capital will not produce the less
+interest to Mondor or his heirs, through all eternity. Reader, can you
+honestly say that you understand the reason of this?
+
+It would be a waste of time to seek any satisfactory explanation from
+the writings of economists. They have not thrown much light upon the
+reasons of the existence of interest. For this they are not to be
+blamed; for at the time they wrote, its lawfulness was not called in
+question. Now, however, times are altered; the case is different. Men,
+who consider themselves to be in advance of their age, have organised an
+active crusade against capital and interest; it is the productiveness of
+capital which they are attacking; not certain abuses in the
+administration of it, but the principle itself.
+
+A journal has been established to serve as a vehicle for this crusade.
+It is conducted by M. Proudhon, and has, it is said, an immense
+circulation. The first number of this periodical contains the electoral
+manifesto of the _people_. Here we read, "The productiveness of capital,
+which is condemned by Christianity under the name of usury, is the true
+cause of misery, the true principle of destitution, the eternal obstacle
+to the establishment of the Republic."
+
+Another journal, _La Ruche Populaire_, after having said some excellent
+things on labour, adds, "But, above all, labour ought to be free; that
+is, it ought to be organised in such a manner, _that money-lenders and
+patrons, or masters, should not be paid_ for this liberty of labour,
+this right of labour, which is raised to so high a price by the
+traffickers of men." The only thought that I notice here, is that
+expressed by the words in italics, which imply a denial of the right to
+interest. The remainder of the article explains it.
+
+It is thus that the democratic Socialist, Thoré expresses himself:--
+
+"The revolution will always have to be recommenced, so long as we occupy
+ourselves with consequences only, without having the logic or the
+courage to attack the principle itself. This principle is capital, false
+property, interest, and usury, which by the old _régime_, is made to
+weigh upon labour.
+
+"Ever since the aristocrats invented the incredible fiction, _that
+capital possesses the power of reproducing itself_, the workers have
+been at the mercy of the idle.
+
+"At the end of a year, will you find an additional crown in a bag of one
+hundred shillings? At the end of fourteen years, will your shillings
+have doubled in your bag?
+
+"Will a work of industry or of skill produce another, at the end of
+fourteen years?
+
+"Let us begin, then, by demolishing this fatal fiction."
+
+I have quoted the above, merely for the sake of establishing the fact,
+that many persons consider the productiveness of capital a false, a
+fatal, and an iniquitous principle. But quotations are superfluous; it
+is well known that the people attribute their sufferings to what they
+call _the trafficking in man by man_. In fact, the phrase, _tyranny of
+capital_, has become proverbial.
+
+I believe there is not a man in the world, who is aware of the whole
+importance of this question:--
+
+"Is the interest of capital natural, just, and lawful, and as useful to
+the payer as to the receiver?"
+
+You answer, No; I answer, Yes. Then we differ entirely; but it is of the
+utmost importance to discover which of us is in the right, otherwise we
+shall incur the danger of making a false solution of the question, a
+matter of opinion. If the error is on my side, however, the evil would
+not be so great. It must be inferred that I know nothing about the true
+interests of the masses, or the march of human progress; and that all my
+arguments are but as so many grains of sand, by which the car of the
+revolution will certainly not be arrested.
+
+But if, on the contrary, MM. Proudhon and Thoré are deceiving
+themselves, it follows that they are leading the people astray--that
+they are showing them the evil where it does not exist; and thus giving
+a false direction to their ideas, to their antipathies, to their
+dislikes, and to their attacks. It follows that the misguided people are
+rushing into a horrible and absurd struggle, in which victory would be
+more fatal than defeat; since, according to this supposition, the result
+would be the realisation of universal evils, the destruction of every
+means of emancipation, the consummation of its own misery.
+
+This is just what M. Proudhon has acknowledged, with perfect good
+faith. "The foundation stone," he told me, "of my system is the
+_gratuitousness of credit_. If I am mistaken in this, Socialism is a
+vain dream." I add, it is a dream, in which the people are tearing
+themselves to pieces. Will it, therefore, be a cause for surprise, if,
+when they awake, they find themselves mangled and bleeding? Such a
+danger as this is enough to justify me fully, if, in the course of the
+discussion, I allow myself to be led into some trivialities and some
+prolixity.
+
+
+
+Capital and Interest.
+
+
+I address this treatise to the workmen of Paris, more especially to
+those who have enrolled themselves under the banner of Socialist
+democracy. I proceed to consider these two questions:--
+
+1st. Is it consistent with the nature of things, and with justice, that
+capital should produce interest?
+
+2nd. Is it consistent with the nature of things, and with justice, that
+the interest of capital should be perpetual?
+
+The working men of Paris will certainly acknowledge that a more
+important subject could not be discussed.
+
+Since the world began, it has been allowed, at least in part, that
+capital ought to produce interest. But latterly it has been affirmed,
+that herein lies the very social error which is the cause of pauperism
+and inequality. It is, therefore, very essential to know now on what
+ground we stand.
+
+For if levying interest from capital is a sin, the workers have a right
+to revolt against social order, as it exists. It is in vain to tell them
+that they ought to have recourse to legal and pacific means: it would be
+a hypocritical recommendation. When on the one side there is a strong
+man, poor, and a victim of robbery--on the other, a weak man, but rich,
+and a robber--it is singular enough that we should say to the former,
+with a hope of persuading him, "Wait till your oppressor voluntarily
+renounces oppression, or till it shall cease of itself." This cannot be;
+and those who tell us that capital is by nature unproductive, ought to
+know that they are provoking a terrible and immediate struggle.
+
+If, on the contrary, the interest of capital is natural, lawful,
+consistent with the general good, as favourable to the borrower as to
+the lender, the economists who deny it, the tribunes who traffic in this
+pretended social wound, are leading the workmen into a senseless and
+unjust struggle, which can have no other issue than the misfortune of
+all. In fact, they are arming labour against capital. So much the
+better, if these two powers are really antagonistic; and may the
+struggle soon be ended! But, if they are in harmony, the struggle is the
+greatest evil which can be inflicted on society. You see, then, workmen,
+that there is not a more important question than this:--"Is the interest
+of capital lawful or not?" In the former case, you must immediately
+renounce the struggle to which you are being urged; in the second, you
+must carry it on bravely, and to the end.
+
+Productiveness of capital--perpetuity of interest. These are difficult
+questions. I must endeavour to make myself clear. And for that purpose I
+shall have recourse to example rather than to demonstration; or rather,
+I shall place the demonstration in the example. I begin by acknowledging
+that, at first sight, it may appear strange that capital should pretend
+to a remuneration, and above all, to a perpetual remuneration. You will
+say, "Here are two men. One of them works from morning till night, from
+one year's end to another; and if he consumes all which he has gained,
+even by superior energy, he remains poor. When Christmas comes he is no
+forwarder than he was at the beginning of the year, and has no other
+prospect but to begin again. The other man does nothing, either with his
+hands or his head; or at least, if he makes use of them at all, it is
+only for his own pleasure; it is allowable for him to do nothing, for he
+has an income. He does not work, yet he lives well; he has everything in
+abundance; delicate dishes, sumptuous furniture, elegant equipages; nay,
+he even consumes, daily, things which the workers have been obliged to
+produce by the sweat of their brow, for these things do not make
+themselves; and, as far as he is concerned, he has had no hand in their
+production. It is the workmen who have caused this corn to grow,
+polished this furniture, woven these carpets; it is our wives and
+daughters who have spun, cut out, sewed, and embroidered these stuffs.
+We work, then, for him and for ourselves; for him first, and then for
+ourselves, if there is anything left. But here is something more
+striking still. If the former of these two men, the worker, consumes
+within the year any profit which may have been left him in that year, he
+is always at the point from which he started, and his destiny condemns
+him to move incessantly in a perpetual circle, and a monotony of
+exertion. Labour, then, is rewarded only once. But if the other, the
+'gentleman,' consumes his yearly income in the year, he has, the year
+after, in those which follow, and through all eternity, an income always
+equal, inexhaustible, _perpetual_. Capital, then, is remunerated, not
+only once or twice, but an indefinite number of times! So that, at the
+end of a hundred years, a family which has placed 20,000 francs,[1] at
+five per cent., will have had 100,000 francs; and this will not prevent
+it from having 100,000 more, in the following century. In other words,
+for 20,000 francs, which represent its labour, it will have levied, in
+two centuries, a tenfold value on the labour of others. In this social
+arrangement, is there not a monstrous evil to be reformed? And this is
+not all. If it should please this family to curtail its enjoyments a
+little--to spend, for example, only 900 francs, instead of 1,000--it
+may, without any labour, without any other trouble beyond that of
+investing 100 francs a year, increase its capital and its income in such
+rapid progression, that it will soon be in a position to consume as much
+as a hundred families of industrious workmen. Does not all this go to
+prove that society itself has in its bosom a hideous cancer, which ought
+to be eradicated at the risk of some temporary suffering?"
+
+These are, it appears to me, the sad and irritating reflections which
+must be excited in your minds by the active and superficial crusade
+which is being carried on against capital and interest. On the other
+hand, there are moments in which, I am convinced, doubts are awakened in
+your minds, and scruples in your conscience. You say to yourselves
+sometimes, "But to assert that capital ought not to produce interest, is
+to say that he who has created instruments of labour, or materials, or
+provisions of any kind, ought to yield them up without compensation. Is
+that just? And then, if it is so, who would lend these instruments,
+these materials, these provisions? who would take care of them? who even
+would create them? Every one would consume his proportion, and the human
+race would never advance a step. Capital would be no longer formed,
+since there would be no interest in forming it. It would become
+exceedingly scarce. A singular step towards gratuitous loans! A singular
+means of improving the condition of borrowers, to make it impossible for
+them to borrow at any price! What would become of labour itself? for
+there will be no money advanced, and not one single kind of labour can
+be mentioned, not even the chase, which can be pursued without money in
+hand. And, as for ourselves, what would become of us? What! we are not
+to be allowed to borrow, in order to work in the prime of life, nor to
+lend, that we may enjoy repose in its decline? The law will rob us of
+the prospect of laying by a little property, because it will prevent us
+from gaining any advantage from it. It will deprive us of all stimulus
+to save at the present time, and of all hope of repose for the future.
+It is useless to exhaust ourselves with fatigue: we must abandon the
+idea of leaving our sons and daughters a little property, since modern
+science renders it useless, for we should become traffickers in men if
+we were to lend it on interest. Alas! the world which these persons
+would open before us, as an imaginary good, is still more dreary and
+desolate than that which they condemn, for hope, at any rate, is not
+banished from the latter." Thus, in all respects, and in every point of
+view, the question is a serious one. Let us hasten to arrive at a
+solution.
+
+Our civil code has a chapter entitled, "On the manner of transmitting
+property." I do not think it gives a very complete nomenclature on this
+point. When a man by his labour has made some useful thing--in other
+words, when he has created a _value_--it can only pass into the hands of
+another by one of the following modes--as a gift, by the right of
+inheritance, by exchange, loan, or theft. One word upon each of these,
+except the last, although it plays a greater part in the world than we
+may think. A gift needs no definition. It is essentially voluntary and
+spontaneous. It depends exclusively upon the giver, and the receiver
+cannot be said to have any right to it. Without a doubt, morality and
+religion make it a duty for men, especially the rich, to deprive
+themselves voluntarily of that which they possess, in favour of their
+less fortunate brethren. But this is an entirely moral obligation. If it
+were to be asserted on principle, admitted in practice, or sanctioned by
+law, that every man has a right to the property of another, the gift
+would have no merit--charity and gratitude would be no longer virtues.
+Besides, such a doctrine would suddenly and universally arrest labour
+and production, as severe cold congeals water and suspends animation;
+for who would work if there was no longer to be any connection between
+labour and the satisfying of our wants? Political economy has not
+treated of gifts. It has hence been concluded that it disowns them, and
+that it is therefore a science devoid of heart. This is a ridiculous
+accusation. That science which treats of the laws resulting from the
+_reciprocity of services_, had no business to inquire into the
+consequences of generosity with respect to him who receives, nor into
+its effects, perhaps still more precious, on him who gives: such
+considerations belong evidently to the science of morals. We must allow
+the sciences to have limits; above all, we must not accuse them of
+denying or undervaluing what they look upon as foreign to their
+department.
+
+The right of inheritance, against which so much has been objected of
+late, is one of the forms of gift, and assuredly the most natural of
+all. That which a man has produced, he may consume, exchange, or give.
+What can be more natural than that he should give it to his children? It
+is this power, more than any other, which inspires him with courage to
+labour and to save. Do you know why the principle of right of
+inheritance is thus called in question? Because it is imagined that the
+property thus transmitted is plundered from the masses. This is a fatal
+error. Political economy demonstrates, in the most peremptory manner,
+that all value produced is a creation which does no harm to any person
+whatever. For that reason it may be consumed, and, still more,
+transmitted, without hurting any one; but I shall not pursue these
+reflections, which do not belong to the subject.
+
+Exchange is the principal department of political economy, because it is
+by far the most frequent method of transmitting property, according to
+the free and voluntary agreements of the laws and effects of which this
+science treats.
+
+Properly speaking, exchange is the reciprocity of services. The parties
+say between themselves, "Give me this, and I will give you that;" or,
+"Do this for me, and I will do that for you." It is well to remark (for
+this will throw a new light on the notion of value) that the second
+form is always implied in the first. When it is said, "Do this for me,
+and I will do that for you," an exchange of service for service is
+proposed. Again, when it is said, "Give me this, and I will give you
+that," it is the same as saying, "I yield to you what I have done, yield
+to me what you have done." The labour is past, instead of present; but
+the exchange is not the less governed by the comparative valuation of
+the two services: so that it is quite correct to say that the principle
+of _value_ is in the services rendered and received on account of the
+productions exchanged, rather than in the productions themselves.
+
+In reality, services are scarcely ever exchanged directly. There is a
+medium, which is termed _money_. Paul has completed a coat, for which he
+wishes to receive a little bread, a little wine, a little oil, a visit
+from a doctor, a ticket for the play, &c. The exchange cannot be
+effected in kind, so what does Paul do? He first exchanges his coat for
+some money, which is called _sale_; then he exchanges this money again
+for the things which he wants, which is called _purchase_; and now,
+only, has the reciprocity of services completed its circuit; now, only,
+the labour and the compensation are balanced in the same individual,--"I
+have done this for society, it has done that for me." In a word, it is
+only now that the exchange is actually accomplished. Thus, nothing can
+be more correct than this observation of J. B. Say:--"Since the
+introduction of money, every exchange is resolved into two elements,
+_sale_ and _purchase_. It is the reunion of these two elements which
+renders the exchange complete."
+
+We must remark, also, that the constant appearance of money in every
+exchange has overturned and misled all our ideas: men have ended in
+thinking that money was true riches, and that to multiply it was to
+multiply services and products. Hence the prohibitory system; hence
+paper money; hence the celebrated aphorism, "What one gains the other
+loses;" and all the errors which have ruined the earth, and embrued it
+with blood.[2] After much research it has been found, that in order to
+make the two services exchanged of equivalent value, and in order to
+render the exchange _equitable_, the best means was to allow it to be
+free. However plausible, at first sight, the intervention of the State
+might be, it was soon perceived that it is always oppressive to one or
+other of the contracting parties. When we look into these subjects, we
+are always compelled to reason upon this maxim, that _equal value_
+results from liberty. We have, in fact, no other means of knowing
+whether, at a given moment, two services are of the same value, but that
+of examining whether they can be readily and freely exchanged. Allow the
+State, which is the same thing as force, to interfere on one side or the
+other, and from that moment all the means of appreciation will be
+complicated and entangled, instead of becoming clear. It ought to be
+the part of the State to prevent, and, above all, to repress artifice
+and fraud; that is, to secure liberty, and not to violate it. I have
+enlarged a little upon exchange, although loan is my principal object:
+my excuse is, that I conceive that there is in a loan an actual
+exchange, an actual service rendered by the lender, and which makes the
+borrower liable to an equivalent service,--two services, whose
+comparative value can only be appreciated, like that of all possible
+services, by freedom. Now, if it is so, the perfect lawfulness of what
+is called house-rent, farm-rent, interest, will be explained and
+justified. Let us consider the case of _loan_.
+
+Suppose two men exchange two services or two objects, whose equal value
+is beyond all dispute. Suppose, for example, Peter says to Paul, "Give
+me ten sixpences, I will give you a five-shilling piece." We cannot
+imagine an equal value more unquestionable. When the bargain is made,
+neither party has any claim upon the other. The exchanged services are
+equal. Thus it follows, that if one of the parties wishes to introduce
+into the bargain an additional clause, advantageous to himself, but
+unfavourable to the other party, he must agree to a second clause, which
+shall re-establish the equilibrium, and the law of justice. It would be
+absurd to deny the justice of a second clause of compensation. This
+granted, we will suppose that Peter, after having said to Paul, "Give me
+ten sixpences, I will give you a crown," adds, "You shall give me the
+ten sixpences _now_, and I will give you the crown-piece _in a year_;"
+it is very evident that this new proposition alters the claims and
+advantages of the bargain; that it alters the proportion of the two
+services. Does it not appear plainly enough, in fact, that Peter asks of
+Paul a new and an additional service; one of a different kind? Is it not
+as if he had said, "Render me the service of allowing me to use for my
+profit, for a year, five shillings which belong to you, and which you
+might have used for yourself?" And what good reason have you to maintain
+that Paul is bound to render this especial service gratuitously; that he
+has no right to demand anything more in consequence of this requisition;
+that the State ought to interfere to force him to submit? Is it not
+incomprehensible that the economist, who preaches such a doctrine to the
+people, can reconcile it with his principle of _the reciprocity of
+services_? Here I have introduced cash; I have been led to do so by a
+desire to place, side by side, two objects of exchange, of a perfect and
+indisputable equality of value. I was anxious to be prepared for
+objections; but, on the other hand, my demonstration would have been
+more striking still, if I had illustrated my principle by an agreement
+for exchanging the services or the productions themselves.
+
+Suppose, for example, a house and a vessel of a value so perfectly equal
+that their proprietors are disposed to exchange them even-handed,
+without excess or abatement. In fact let the bargain be settled by a
+lawyer. At the moment of each taking possession, the shipowner says to
+the citizen, "Very well; the transaction is completed, and nothing can
+prove its perfect equity better than our free and voluntary consent. Our
+conditions thus fixed, I shall propose to you a little practical
+modification. You shall let me have your house to-day, but I shall not
+put you in possession of my ship for a year; and the reason I make this
+demand of you is, that, during this year of _delay_, I wish to use the
+vessel." That we may not be embarrassed by considerations relative to
+the deterioration of the thing lent, I will suppose the shipowner to
+add, "I will engage, at the end of the year, to hand over to you the
+vessel in the state in which it is to-day." I ask of every candid man, I
+ask of M. Proudhon himself, if the citizen has not a right to answer,
+"The new clause which you propose entirely alters the proportion or the
+equal value of the exchanged services. By it, I shall be deprived, for
+the space of a year, both at once of my house and of your vessel. By it,
+you will make use of both. If, in the absence of this clause, the
+bargain was just, for the same reason the clause is injurious to me. It
+stipulates for a loss to me, and a gain to you. You are requiring of me
+a new service; I have a right to refuse, or to require of you, as a
+compensation, an equivalent service." If the parties are agreed upon
+this compensation, the principle of which is incontestable, we can
+easily distinguish two transactions in one, two exchanges of service in
+one. First, there is the exchange of the house for the vessel; after
+this, there is the delay granted by one of the parties, and the
+compensation correspondent to this delay yielded by the other. These two
+new services take the generic and abstract names of _credit_ and
+_interest_. But names do not change the nature of things; and I defy any
+one to dare to maintain that there exists here, when all is done, a
+service for a service, or a reciprocity of services. To say that one of
+these services does not challenge the other, to say that the first ought
+to be rendered gratuitously, without injustice, is to say that injustice
+consists in the reciprocity of services,--that justice consists in one
+of the parties giving and not receiving, which is a contradiction in
+terms.
+
+To give an idea of interest and its mechanism, allow me to make use of
+two or three anecdotes. But, first, I must say a few words upon capital.
+
+There are some persons who imagine that capital is money, and this is
+precisely the reason why they deny its productiveness; for, as M. Thoré
+says, crowns are not endowed with the power of reproducing themselves.
+But it is not true that capital and money are the same thing. Before the
+discovery of the precious metals, there were capitalists in the world;
+and I venture to say that at that time, as now, everybody was a
+capitalist, to a certain extent.
+
+What is capital, then? It is composed of three things:--
+
+1st. Of the materials upon which men operate, when these materials have
+already a value communicated by some human effort, which has bestowed
+upon them the principle of remuneration--wool, flax, leather, silk,
+wood, &c.
+
+2nd. Instruments which are used for working--tools, machines, ships,
+carriages, &c.
+
+3rd. Provisions which are consumed during labour--victuals, stuffs,
+houses, &c.
+
+Without these things the labour of man would be unproductive and almost
+void; yet these very things have required much work, especially at
+first. This is the reason that so much value has been attached to the
+possession of them, and also that it is perfectly lawful to exchange and
+to sell them, to make a profit of them if used, to gain remuneration
+from them if lent.
+
+Now for my anecdotes.
+
+
+
+The Sack of Corn.
+
+
+Mathurin, in other respects as poor as Job, and obliged to earn his
+bread by day-labour, became nevertheless, by some inheritance, the owner
+of a fine piece of uncultivated land. He was exceedingly anxious to
+cultivate it. "Alas!" said he, "to make ditches, to raise fences, to
+break the soil, to clear away the brambles and stones, to plough it, to
+sow it, might bring me a living in a year or two; but certainly not
+to-day, or to-morrow. It is impossible to set about farming it, without
+previously saving some provisions for my subsistence until the harvest;
+and I know, by experience, that preparatory labour is indispensable, in
+order to render present labour productive." The good Mathurin was not
+content with making these reflections. He resolved to work by the day,
+and to save something from his wages to buy a spade and a sack of corn;
+without which things, he must give up his fine agricultural projects. He
+acted so well, was so active and steady, that he soon saw himself in
+possession of the wished-for sack of corn. "I shall take it to the
+mill," said he, "and then I shall have enough to live upon till my field
+is covered with a rich harvest." Just as he was starting, Jerome came to
+borrow his treasure of him. "If you will lend me this sack of corn,"
+said Jerome, "you will do me a great service; for I have some very
+lucrative work in view, which I cannot possibly undertake, for want of
+provisions to live upon until it is finished." "I was in the same case,"
+answered Mathurin, "and if I have now secured bread for several months,
+it is at the expense of my arms and my stomach. Upon what principle of
+justice can it be devoted to the realisation of _your_ enterprise
+instead of _mine?_"
+
+You may well believe that the bargain was a long one. However, it was
+finished at length, and on these conditions:--
+
+First--Jerome promised to give back, at the end of the year, a sack of
+corn of the same quality, and of the same weight, without missing a
+single grain. "This first clause is perfectly just," said he, "for
+without it Mathurin would _give_, and not _lend_."
+
+Secondly--He engaged to deliver _five litres_ on _every hectolitre_.
+"This clause is no less just than the other," thought he; "for without
+it Mathurin would do me a service without compensation; he would inflict
+upon himself a privation--he would renounce his cherished enterprise--he
+would enable me to accomplish mine--he would cause me to enjoy for a
+year the fruits of his savings, and all this gratuitously. Since he
+delays the cultivation of his land, since he enables me to realise a
+lucrative labour, it is quite natural that I should let him partake, in
+a certain proportion, of the profits which I shall gain by the sacrifice
+he makes of his own."
+
+On his side, Mathurin, who was something of a scholar, made this
+calculation:--"Since, by virtue of the first clause, the sack of corn
+will return to me at the end of a year," he said to himself, "I shall be
+able to lend it again; it will return to me at the end of the second
+year; I may lend it again, and so on, to all eternity. However, I cannot
+deny that it will have been eaten long ago. It is singular that I should
+be perpetually the owner of a sack of corn, although the one I have lent
+has been consumed for ever. But this is explained thus:--It will be
+consumed in the service of Jerome. It will put it into the power of
+Jerome to produce a superior value; and, consequently, Jerome will be
+able to restore me a sack of corn, or the value of it, without having
+suffered the slightest injury: but quite the contrary. And as regards
+myself, this value ought to be my property, as long as I do not consume
+it myself. If I had used it to clear my land, I should have received it
+again in the form of a fine harvest. Instead of that, I lend it, and
+shall recover it in the form of repayment.
+
+"From the second clause, I gain another piece of information. At the end
+of the year I shall be in possession of five litres of corn over the one
+hundred that I have just lent. If, then, I were to continue to work by
+the day, and to save part of my wages, as I have been doing, in the
+course of time I should be able to lend two sacks of corn; then three;
+then four; and when I should have gained a sufficient number to enable
+me to live on these additions of five litres over and above each, I
+shall be at liberty to take a little repose in my old age. But how is
+this? In this case, shall I not be living at the expense of others? No,
+certainly, for it has been proved that in lending I perform a service; I
+complete the labour of my borrowers, and only deduct a trifling part of
+the excess of production, due to my lendings and savings. It is a
+marvellous thing that a man may thus realise a leisure which injures no
+one, and for which he cannot be envied without injustice."
+
+
+
+The House.
+
+
+Mondor had a house. In building it, he had extorted nothing from any one
+whatever. He owed it to his own personal labour, or, which is the same
+thing, to labour justly rewarded. His first care was to make a bargain
+with an architect, in virtue of which, by means of a hundred crowns a
+year, the latter engaged to keep the house in constant good repair.
+Mondor was already congratulating himself on the happy days which he
+hoped to spend in this retreat, declared sacred by our Constitution. But
+Valerius wished to make it his residence.
+
+"How can you think of such a thing?" said Mondor to Valerius. "It is I
+who have built it; it has cost me ten years of painful labour, and now
+you would enjoy it!" They agreed to refer the matter to judges. They
+chose no profound economists,--there were none such in the country. But
+they found some just and sensible men; it all comes to the same thing;
+political economy, justice, good sense, are all the same thing. Now here
+is the decision made by the judges:--If Valerius wishes to occupy
+Mondor's house for a year, he is bound to submit to three conditions.
+The first is to quit at the end of the year, and to restore the house in
+good repair, saving the inevitable decay resulting from mere duration.
+The second, to refund to Mondor the 300 francs which the latter pays
+annually to the architect to repair the injuries of time; for these
+injuries taking place whilst the house is in the service of Valerius, it
+is perfectly just that he should bear the consequences. The third, that
+he should render to Mondor a service equivalent to that which he
+receives. As to this equivalence of services, it must be freely
+discussed between Mondor and Valerius.
+
+
+
+The Plane.
+
+
+A very long time ago there lived, in a poor village, a joiner, who was a
+philosopher, as all my heroes are in their way. James worked from
+morning till night with his two strong arms, but his brain was not idle
+for all that. He was fond of reviewing his actions, their causes, and
+their effects. He sometimes said to himself, "With my hatchet, my saw,
+and my hammer, I can make only coarse furniture, and can only get the
+pay for such. If I only had a _plane_, I should please my customers
+more, and they would pay me more. It is quite just; I can only expect
+services proportioned to those which I render myself. Yes! I am
+resolved, I will make myself a _plane_."
+
+However, just as he was setting to work, James reflected further:--"I
+work for my customers 300 days in the year. If I give ten to making my
+plane, supposing it lasts me a year, only 290 days will remain for me to
+make my furniture. Now, in order that I be not the loser in this matter,
+I must gain henceforth, with the help of the plane, as much in 290 days,
+as I now do in 300. I must even gain more; for unless I do so, it would
+not be worth my while to venture upon any innovations." James began to
+calculate. He satisfied himself that he should sell his finished
+furniture at a price which would amply compensate for the ten days
+devoted to the plane; and when no doubt remained on this point, he set
+to work. I beg the reader to remark, that the power which exists in the
+tool to increase the productiveness of labour, is the basis of the
+solution which follows.
+
+At the end of ten days, James had in his possession an admirable plane,
+which he valued all the more for having made it himself. He danced for
+joy,--for, like the girl with her basket of eggs, he reckoned all the
+profits which he expected to derive from the ingenious instrument; but,
+more fortunate than she, he was not reduced to the necessity of saying
+good-bye to calf, cow, pig, and eggs, together. He was building his fine
+castles in the air, when he was interrupted by his acquaintance William,
+a joiner in the neighbouring village. William having admired the plane,
+was struck with the advantages which might be gained from it. He said to
+James:--
+
+W. You must do me a service.
+
+J. What service?
+
+W. Lend me the plane for a year.
+
+As might be expected, James at this proposal did not fail to cry out,
+"How can you think of such a thing, William? Well, if I do you this
+service, what will you do for me in return?"
+
+W. Nothing. Don't you know that a loan ought to be gratuitous? Don't
+you know that capital is naturally unproductive? Don't you know
+fraternity has been proclaimed. If you only do me a service for the
+sake of receiving one from me in return, what merit would you have?
+
+J. William, my friend, fraternity does not mean that all the
+sacrifices are to be on one side; if so, I do not see why they should
+not be on yours. Whether a loan should be gratuitous I don't know; but I
+do know that if I were to lend you my plane for a year it would be
+giving it you. To tell you the truth, that was not what I made it for.
+
+W. Well, we will say nothing about the modern maxims discovered by the
+Socialist gentlemen. I ask you to do me a service; what service do you
+ask me in return?
+
+J. First, then, in a year, the plane will be done for, it will be good
+for nothing. It is only just, that you should let me have another
+exactly like it; or that you should give me money enough to get it
+repaired; or that you should supply me the ten days which I must devote
+to replacing it.
+
+W. This is perfectly just. I submit to these conditions. I engage to
+return it, or to let you have one like it, or the value of the same. I
+think you must be satisfied with this, and can require nothing further.
+
+J. I think otherwise. I made the plane for myself, and not for you. I
+expected to gain some advantage from it, by my work being better
+finished and better paid, by an improvement in my condition. What reason
+is there that I should make the plane, and you should gain the profit? I
+might as well ask you to give me your saw and hatchet! What a
+confusion! Is it not natural that each should keep what he has made with
+his own hands, as well as his hands themselves? To use without
+recompense the hands of another, I call slavery; to use without
+recompense the plane of another, can this be called fraternity?
+
+W. But, then, I have agreed to return it to you at the end of a year,
+as well polished and as sharp as it is now.
+
+J. We have nothing to do with next year; we are speaking of this year.
+I have made the plane for the sake of improving my work and condition;
+if you merely return it to me in a year, it is you who will gain the
+profit of it during the whole of that time. I am not bound to do you
+such a service without receiving anything from you in return: therefore,
+if you wish for my plane, independently of the entire restoration
+already bargained for, you must do me a service which we will now
+discuss; you must grant me remuneration.
+
+And this was done thus:--William granted a remuneration calculated in
+such a way that, at the end of the year, James received his plane quite
+new, and in addition, a compensation, consisting of a new plank, for the
+advantages of which he had deprived himself, and which he had yielded to
+his friend.
+
+It was impossible for any one acquainted with the transaction to
+discover the slightest trace in it of oppression or injustice.
+
+The singular part of it is, that, at the end of the year, the plane came
+into James's possession, and he lent it again; recovered it, and lent
+it a third and fourth time. It has passed into the hands of his son, who
+still lends it. Poor plane! how many times has it changed, sometimes its
+blade, sometimes its handle. It is no longer the same plane, but it has
+always the same value, at least for James's posterity. Workmen! let us
+examine into these little stories.
+
+I maintain, first of all, that the _sack of corn_ and the _plane_ are
+here the type, the model, a faithful representation, the symbol of all
+capital; as the five litres of corn and the plank are the type, the
+model, the representation, the symbol of all interest. This granted, the
+following are, it seems to me, a series of consequences, the justice of
+which it is impossible to dispute.
+
+1st. If the yielding of a plank by the borrower to the lender is a
+natural, equitable, lawful remuneration, the just price of a real
+service, we may conclude that, as a general rule, it is in the nature of
+capital to produce interest. When this capital, as in the foregoing
+examples, takes the form of an _instrument of labour_, it is clear
+enough that it ought to bring an advantage to its possessor, to him who
+has devoted to it his time, his brains, and his strength. Otherwise, why
+should he have made it? No necessity of life can be immediately
+satisfied with instruments of labour; no one eats planes or drinks saws,
+except, indeed, he be a conjuror. If a man determines to spend his time
+in the production of such things, he must have been led to it by the
+consideration of the power which these instruments add to his power; of
+the time which they save him; of the perfection and rapidity which they
+give to his labour; in a word, of the advantages which they procure for
+him. Now, these advantages, which have been prepared by labour, by the
+sacrifice of time which might have been used in a more immediate manner,
+are we bound, as soon as they are ready to be enjoyed, to confer them
+gratuitously upon another? Would it be an advance in social order, if
+the law decided thus, and citizens should pay officials for causing such
+a law to be executed by force? I venture to say, that there is not one
+amongst you who would support it. It would be to legalize, to organize,
+to systematize injustice itself, for it would be proclaiming that there
+are men born to render, and others born to receive, gratuitous services.
+Granted, then, that interest is just, natural, and lawful.
+
+2nd. A second consequence, not less remarkable than the former, and, if
+possible, still more conclusive, to which I call your attention, is
+this:--_Interest is not injurious to the borrower_. I mean to say, the
+obligation in which the borrower finds himself, to pay a remuneration
+for the use of capital, cannot do any harm to his condition. Observe, in
+fact, that James and William are perfectly free, as regards the
+transaction to which the plane gave occasion. The transaction cannot be
+accomplished without the consent of the one as well as of the other. The
+worst which can happen is, that James may be too exacting; and in this
+case, William, refusing the loan, remains as he was before. By the fact
+of his agreeing to borrow, he proves that he considers it an advantage
+to himself; he proves, that after every calculation, including the
+remuneration, whatever it may be, required of him, he still finds it
+more profitable to borrow than not to borrow. He only determines to do
+so because he has compared the inconveniences with the advantages. He
+has calculated that the day on which he returns the plane, accompanied
+by the remuneration agreed upon, he will have effected more work, with
+the same labour, thanks to this tool. A profit will remain to him,
+otherwise he would not have borrowed. The two services of which we are
+speaking are exchanged according to the law which governs all exchanges,
+the law of supply and demand. The claims of James have a natural and
+impassable limit. This is the point in which the remuneration demanded
+by him would absorb all the advantage which William might find in making
+use of a plane. In this case, the borrowing would not take place.
+William would be bound either to make a plane for himself, or to do
+without one, which would leave him in his original condition. He
+borrows, because he gains by borrowing. I know very well what will be
+told me. You will say, William may be deceived, or, perhaps, he may be
+governed by necessity, and be obliged to submit to a harsh law.
+
+It may be so. As to errors in calculation, they belong to the infirmity
+of our nature, and to argue from this against the transaction in
+question, is objecting the possibility of loss in all imaginable
+transactions, in every human act. Error is an accidental fact, which is
+incessantly remedied by experience. In short, everybody must guard
+against it. As far as those hard necessities are concerned, which force
+persons to burdensome borrowings, it is clear that these necessities
+exist previously to the borrowing. If William is in a situation in which
+he cannot possibly do without a plane, and must borrow one at any price,
+does this situation result from James having taken the trouble to make
+the tool? Does it not exist independently of this circumstance? However
+harsh, however severe James may be, he will never render the supposed
+condition of William worse than it is. Morally, it is true, the lender
+will be to blame; but, in an economical point of view, the loan itself
+can never be considered responsible for previous necessities, which it
+has not created, and which it relieves to a certain extent.
+
+But this proves something to which I shall return. The evident interests
+of William, representing here the borrowers, there are many Jameses and
+planes, in other words, lenders and capitals. It is very evident, that
+if William can say to James,--"Your demands are exorbitant; there is no
+lack of planes in the world;" he will be in a better situation than if
+James's plane was the only one to be borrowed. Assuredly, there is no
+maxim more true than this--service for service. But left us not forget
+that no service has a fixed and absolute value, compared with others.
+The contracting parties are free. Each carries his requisitions to the
+farthest possible point, and the most favourable circumstance for these
+requisitions is the absence of rivalship. Hence it follows, that if
+there is a class of men more interested than any other in the formation,
+multiplication, and abundance of capitals, it is mainly that of the
+borrowers. Now, since capitals can only be formed and increased by the
+stimulus and the prospect of remuneration, let this class understand the
+injury they are inflicting on themselves when they deny the lawfulness
+of interest, when they proclaim that credit should be gratuitous, when
+they declaim against the pretended tyranny of capital, when they
+discourage saving, thus forcing capitals to become scarce, and
+consequently interests to rise.
+
+3rd. The anecdote I have just related enables you to explain this
+apparently singular phenomenon, which is termed the duration or
+perpetuity of interest. Since, in lending his plane, James has been
+able, very lawfully, to make it a condition that it should be returned
+to him, at the end of a year, in the same state in which it was when he
+lent it, is it not evident that he may, at the expiration of the term,
+lend it again on the same conditions? If he resolves upon the latter
+plan, the plane will return to him at the end of every year, and that
+without end. James will then be in a condition to lend it without end;
+that is, he may derive from it a perpetual interest. It will be said,
+that the plane will be worn out. That is true; but it will be worn out
+by the hand and for the profit of the borrower. The latter has taken
+into account this gradual wear, and taken upon himself, as he ought, the
+consequences. He has reckoned that he shall derive from this tool an
+advantage, which will allow him to restore it in its original condition,
+after having realised a profit from it. As long as James does not use
+this capital himself, or for his own advantage--as long as he renounces
+the advantages which allow it to be restored to its original
+condition--he will have an incontestable right to have it restored, and
+that independently of interest.
+
+Observe, besides, that if, as I believe I have shown, James, far from
+doing any harm to William, has done him a _service_ in lending him his
+plane for a year; for the same reason, he will do no harm to a second, a
+third, a fourth borrower, in the subsequent periods. Hence you may
+understand that the interest of a capital is as natural, as lawful, as
+useful, in the thousandth year, as in the first. We may go still
+further. It may happen that James lends more than a single plane. It is
+possible, that by means of working, of saving, of privations, of order,
+of activity, he may come to lend a multitude of planes and saws; that is
+to say, to do a multitude of services. I insist upon this point,--that
+if the first loan has been a social good, it will be the same with all
+the others; for they are all similar, and based upon the same
+principle. It may happen, then, that the amount of all the remunerations
+received by our honest operative, in exchange for services rendered by
+him, may suffice to maintain him. In this case, there will be a man in
+the world who has a right to live without working. I do not say that he
+would be doing right to give himself up to idleness--but I say, that he
+has a right to do so; and if he does so, it will be at nobody's expense,
+but quite the contrary. If society at all understands the nature of
+things, it will acknowledge that this man subsists on services which he
+receives certainly (as we all do), but which he lawfully receives in
+exchange for other services, which he himself has rendered, that he
+continues to render, and which are quite real, inasmuch as they are
+freely and voluntarily accepted.
+
+And here we have a glimpse of one of the finest harmonies in the social
+world. I allude to _leisure:_ not that leisure that the warlike and
+tyrannical classes arrange for themselves by the plunder of the workers,
+but that leisure which is the lawful and innocent fruit of past activity
+and economy. In expressing myself thus, I know that I shall shock many
+received ideas. But see! Is not leisure an essential spring in the
+social machine? Without it, the world would never have had a Newton, a
+Pascal, a Fenelon; mankind would have been ignorant of all arts,
+sciences, and of those wonderful inventions prepared originally by
+investigations of mere curiosity; thought would have been inert--man
+would have made no progress. On the other hand, if leisure could only be
+explained by plunder and oppression--if it were a benefit which could
+only be enjoyed unjustly, and at the expense of others, there would be
+no middle path between these two evils; either mankind would be reduced
+to the necessity of stagnating in a vegetable and stationary life, in
+eternal ignorance, from the absence of wheels to its machine--or else it
+would have to acquire these wheels at the price of inevitable injustice,
+and would necessarily present the sad spectacle, in one form or other,
+of the antique classification of human beings into masters and slaves. I
+defy any one to show me, in this case, any other alternative. We should
+be compelled to contemplate the Divine plan which governs society, with
+the regret of thinking that it presents a deplorable chasm. The stimulus
+of progress would be forgotten, or, which is worse, this stimulus would
+be no other than injustice itself. But no! God has not left such a chasm
+in His work of love. We must take care not to disregard His wisdom and
+power; for those whose imperfect meditations cannot explain the
+lawfulness of leisure, are very much like the astronomer who said, at a
+certain point in the heavens there ought to exist a planet which will be
+at last discovered, for without it the celestial world is not harmony,
+but discord.
+
+Well, I say that, if well understood, the history of my humble plane,
+although very modest, is sufficient to raise us to the contemplation of
+one of the most consoling, but least understood of the social
+harmonies.
+
+It is not true that we must choose between the denial or the
+unlawfulness of leisure; thanks to rent and its natural duration,
+leisure may arise from labour and saving. It is a pleasing prospect,
+which every one may have in view; a noble recompense, to which each may
+aspire. It makes its appearance in the world; it distributes itself
+proportionably to the exercise of certain virtues; it opens all the
+avenues to intelligence; it ennobles, it raises the morals; it
+spiritualizes the soul of humanity, not only without laying any weight
+on those of our brethren whose lot in life devotes them to severe
+labour, but relieving them gradually from the heaviest and most
+repugnant part of this labour. It is enough that capitals should be
+formed, accumulated, multiplied; should be lent on conditions less and
+less burdensome; that they should descend, penetrate into every social
+circle, and that by an admirable progression, after having liberated the
+lenders, they should hasten the liberation of the borrowers themselves.
+For that end, the laws and customs ought all to be favourable to
+economy, the source of capital. It is enough to say, that the first of
+all these conditions is, not to alarm, to attack, to deny that which is
+the stimulus of saving and the reason of its existence--interest.
+
+As long as we see nothing passing from hand to hand, in the character of
+loan, but _provisions_, _materials_, _instruments_, things indispensable
+to the productiveness of labour itself, the ideas thus far exhibited
+will not find many opponents. Who knows, even, that I may not be
+reproached for having made a great effort to burst what may be said to
+be an open door. But as soon as _cash_ makes its appearance as the
+subject of the transaction (and it is this which appears almost always),
+immediately a crowd of objections are raised. Money, it will be said,
+will not reproduce it self, like your _sack of corn_; it does not assist
+labour, like your _plane_; it does not afford an immediate satisfaction,
+like your _house_. It is incapable, by its nature, of producing
+interest, of multiplying itself, and the remuneration it demands is a
+positive extortion.
+
+Who cannot see the sophistry of this? Who does not see that cash is only
+a transient form, which men give at the time to other _values_, to real
+objects of usefulness, for the sole object of facilitating their
+arrangements? In the midst of social complications, the man who is in a
+condition to lend, scarcely ever has the exact thing which the borrower
+wants. James, it is true, has a plane; but, perhaps, William wants a
+saw. They cannot negotiate; the transaction favourable to both cannot
+take place, and then what happens? It happens that James first exchanges
+his plane for money; he lends the money to William, and William
+exchanges the money for a saw. The transaction is no longer a simple
+one; it is decomposed into two parts, as I explained above in speaking
+of exchange. But, for all that, it has not changed its nature; it still
+contains all the elements of a direct loan. James has still got rid of a
+tool which was useful to him; William has still received an instrument
+which perfects his work and increases his profits; there is still a
+service rendered by the lender, which entitles him to receive an
+equivalent service from the borrower; this just balance is not the less
+established by free mutual bargaining. The very natural obligation to
+restore at the end of the term the entire _value_, still constitutes the
+principle of the duration of interest.
+
+At the end of a year, says M. Thoré, will you find an additional crown
+in a bag of a hundred pounds?
+
+No, certainly, if the borrower puts the bag of one hundred pounds on the
+shelf. In such a case, neither the plane nor the sack of corn would
+reproduce themselves. But it is not for the sake of leaving the money in
+the bag, nor the plane on the hook, that they are borrowed. The plane is
+borrowed to be used, or the money to procure a plane. And if it is
+clearly proved that this tool enables the borrower to obtain profits
+which he would not have made without it, if it is proved that the lender
+has renounced creating for himself this excess of profits, we may
+understand how the stipulation of a part of this excess of profits in
+favour of the lender, is equitable and lawful.
+
+Ignorance of the true part which cash plays in human transactions, is
+the source of the most fatal errors. I intend devoting an entire
+pamphlet to this subject. From what we may infer from the writings of
+M. Proudhon, that which has led him to think that gratuitous credit was
+a logical and definite consequence of social progress, is the
+observation of the phenomenon which shows a decreasing interest, almost
+in direct proportion to the rate of civilisation. In barbarous times it
+is, in fact, cent, per cent., and more. Then it descends to eighty,
+sixty, fifty, forty, twenty, ten, eight, five, four, and three per cent.
+In Holland, it has even been as low as two per cent. Hence it is
+concluded, that "in proportion as society comes to perfection, it will
+descend to zero by the time civilisation is complete. In other words,
+that which characterises social perfection is the gratuitousness of
+credit. When, therefore, we shall have abolished interest, we shall have
+reached the last step of progress." This is mere sophistry, and as such
+false arguing may contribute to render popular the unjust, dangerous,
+and destructive dogma, that credit should be gratuitous, by representing
+it as coincident with social perfection, with the reader's permission I
+will examine in a few words this new view of the question.
+
+What is _interest_? It is the service rendered, after a free bargain, by
+the borrower to the lender, in remuneration for the service he has
+received by the loan. By what law is the rate of these remunerative
+services established? By the general law which regulates the equivalent
+of all services; that is, by the law of supply and demand.
+
+The more easily a thing is procured, the smaller is the service rendered
+by yielding it or lending it. The man who gives me a glass of water in
+the Pyrenees, does not render me so great a service as he who allows me
+one in the desert of Sahara. If there are many planes, sacks of corn, or
+houses, in a country, the use of them is obtained, other things being
+equal, on more favourable conditions than if they were few; for the
+simple reason, that the lender renders in this case a smaller _relative
+service_.
+
+It is not surprising, therefore, that the more abundant capitals are,
+the lower is the interest.
+
+Is this saying that it will ever reach zero? No; because, I repeat it,
+the principle of a remuneration is in the loan. To say that interest
+will be annihilated, is to say that there will never be any motive for
+saving, for denying ourselves, in order to form new capitals, nor even
+to preserve the old ones. In this case, the waste would immediately
+bring a void, and interest would directly reappear.
+
+In that, the nature of the services of which we are speaking does not
+differ from any other. Thanks to industrial progress, a pair of
+stockings, which used to be worth six francs, has successively been
+worth only four, three, and two. No one can say to what point this value
+will descend; but we can affirm that it will never reach zero, unless
+the stockings finish by producing themselves spontaneously. Why? Because
+the principle of remuneration is in labour; because he who works for
+another renders a service, and ought to receive a service. If no one
+paid for stockings, they would cease to be made; and, with the scarcity,
+the price would not fail to reappear.
+
+The sophism which I am now combating has its root in the infinite
+divisibility which belongs to _value_, as it does to matter.
+
+It appears at first paradoxical, but it is well known to all
+mathematicians, that, through all eternity, fractions may be taken from
+a weight without the weight ever being annihilated. It is sufficient
+that each successive fraction be less than the preceding one, in a
+determined and regular proportion.
+
+There are countries where people apply themselves to increasing the size
+of horses, or diminishing in sheep the size of the head. It is
+impossible to say precisely to what point they will arrive in this. No
+one can say that he has seen the largest horse or the smallest sheep's
+head that will ever appear in the world. But he may safely say that the
+size of horses will never attain to infinity, nor the heads of sheep to
+nothing.
+
+In the same way, no one can say to what point the price of stockings nor
+the interest of capitals will come down; but we may safely affirm, when
+we know the nature of things, that neither the one nor the other will
+ever arrive at zero, for labour and capital can no more live without
+recompense than a sheep without a head.
+
+The arguments of M. Proudhon reduce themselves, then, to this:--Since
+the most skilful agriculturists are those who have reduced the heads of
+sheep to the smallest size, we shall have arrived at the highest
+agricultural perfection when sheep have no longer any heads. Therefore,
+in order to realise the perfection, let us behead them.
+
+I have now done with this wearisome discussion. Why is it that the
+breath of false doctrine has made it needful to examine into the
+intimate nature of interest? I must not leave off without remarking upon
+a beautiful moral which may be drawn from this law:--"The depression of
+interest is proportioned to the abundance of capitals." This law being
+granted, if there is a class of men to whom it is more important than to
+any other that capitals be formed, accumulate, multiply, abound, and
+superabound, it is certainly the class which borrows them directly or
+indirectly; it is those men who operate upon _materials_, who gain
+assistance by _instruments_, who live upon _provisions_, produced and
+economised by other men.
+
+Imagine, in a vast and fertile country, a population of a thousand
+inhabitants, destitute of all capital thus defined. It will assuredly
+perish by the pangs of hunger. Let us suppose a case hardly less cruel.
+Let us suppose that ten of these savages are provided with instruments
+and provisions sufficient to work and to live themselves until harvest
+time, as well as to remunerate the services of eighty labourers. The
+inevitable result will be the death of nine hundred human beings. It is
+clear, then, that since 990 men, urged by want, will crowd upon the
+supports which would only maintain a hundred, the ten capitalists will
+be masters of the market. They will obtain labour on the hardest
+conditions, for they will put it up to auction, or the highest bidder.
+And observe this,--if these capitalists entertain such pious sentiments
+as would induce them to impose personal privations on themselves, in
+order to diminish the sufferings of some of their brethren, this
+generosity, which attaches to morality, will be as noble in its
+principle as useful in its effects. But if, duped by that false
+philosophy which persons wish so inconsiderately to mingle with economic
+laws, they take to remunerating labour largely, far from doing good,
+they will do harm. They will give double wages, it may be. But then,
+forty-five men will be better provided for, whilst forty-five others
+will come to augment the number of those who are sinking into the grave.
+Upon this supposition, it is not the lowering of wages which is the
+mischief, it is the scarcity of capital. Low wages are not the cause,
+but the effect of the evil. I may add, that they are to a certain extent
+the remedy. It acts in this way: it distributes the burden of suffering
+as much as it can, and saves as many lives as a limited quantity of
+sustenance permits.
+
+Suppose now, that instead of ten capitalists, there should be a hundred,
+two hundred, five hundred,--is it not evident that the condition of the
+whole population, and, above all, that of the "prolétaires,"[3] will be
+more and more improved? Is it not evident that, apart from every
+consideration of generosity, they would obtain more work and better pay
+for it?--that they themselves will be in a better condition, to form
+capitals, without being able to fix the limits to this ever-increasing
+facility of realising equality and well-being? Would it not be madness
+in them to admit such doctrines, and to act in a way which would drain
+the source of wages, and paralyse the activity and stimulus of saving?
+Let them learn this lesson, then; doubtless, capitals are good for those
+who possess them: who denies it? But they are also useful to those who
+have not yet been able to form them; and it is important to those who
+have them not, that others should have them.
+
+Yes, if the "prolétaires" knew their true interests, they would seek,
+with the greatest care, what circumstances are, and what are not
+favourable to saving, in order to favour the former and to discourage
+the latter. They would sympathise with every measure which tends to the
+rapid formation of capitals. They would be enthusiastic promoters of
+peace, liberty, order, security, the union of classes and peoples,
+economy, moderation in public expenses, simplicity in the machinery of
+government; for it is under the sway of all these circumstances that
+saving does its work, brings plenty within the reach of the masses,
+invites those persons to become the formers of capital who were formerly
+under the necessity of borrowing upon hard conditions. They would repel
+with energy the warlike spirit, which diverts from its true course so
+large a part of human labour; the monopolising spirit, which deranges
+the equitable distribution of riches, in the way by which liberty alone
+can realise it; the multitude of public services, which attack our
+purses only to check our liberty; and, in short, those subversive,
+hateful, thoughtless doctrines, which alarm capital, prevent its
+formation, oblige it to flee, and finally to raise its price, to the
+especial disadvantage of the workers, who bring it into operation. Well,
+and in this respect is not the revolution of February a hard lesson? Is
+it not evident that the insecurity it has thrown into the world of
+business on the one hand; and, on the other, the advancement of the
+fatal theories to which I have alluded, and which, from the clubs, have
+almost penetrated into the regions of the legislature, have everywhere
+raised the rate of interest? Is it not evident, that from that time the
+"prolétaires" have found greater difficulty in procuring those
+materials, instruments, and provisions, without which labour is
+impossible? Is it not that which has caused stoppages; and do not
+stoppages, in their turn, lower wages? Thus there is a deficiency of
+labour to the "prolétaires," from the same cause which loads the objects
+they consume with an increase of price, in consequence of the rise of
+interest. High interest, low wages, means in other words that the same
+article preserves its price, but that the part of the capitalist has
+invaded, without profiting himself, that of the workmen.
+
+A friend of mine, commissioned to make inquiry into Parisian industry,
+has assured me that the manufacturers have revealed to him a very
+striking fact, which proves, better than any reasoning can, how much
+insecurity and uncertainty injure the formation of capital. It was
+remarked, that during the most distressing period, the popular expenses
+of mere fancy had not diminished. The small theatres, the fighting
+lists, the public-houses, and tobacco depots, were as much frequented as
+in prosperous times. In the inquiry, the operatives themselves explained
+this phenomenon thus:--"What is the use of pinching? Who knows what will
+happen to us? Who knows that interest will not be abolished? Who knows
+but that the State will become a universal and gratuitous lender, and
+that it will wish to annihilate all the fruits which we might expect
+from our savings?" Well! I say, that if such ideas could prevail during
+two single years, it would be enough to turn our beautiful France into a
+Turkey--misery would become general and endemic, and, most assuredly,
+the poor would be the first upon whom it would fall.
+
+Workmen! they talk to you a great deal upon the _artificial_
+organisation of labour;--do you know why they do so? Because they are
+ignorant of the laws of its _natural_ organisation; that is, of the
+wonderful organisation which results from liberty. You are told, that
+liberty gives rise to what is called the radical antagonism of classes;
+that it creates, and makes to clash, two opposite interests--that of the
+capitalists and that of the "prolétaires." But we ought to begin by
+proving that this antagonism exists by a law of nature; and afterwards
+it would remain to be shown how far the arrangements of restraint are
+superior to those of liberty, for between liberty and restraint I see no
+middle path. Again, it would remain to be proved that restraint would
+always operate to your advantage, and to the prejudice of the rich.
+But, no; this radical antagonism, this natural opposition of interests,
+does not exist. It is only an evil dream of perverted and intoxicated
+imaginations. No; a plan so defective has not proceeded from the Divine
+Mind. To affirm it, we must begin by denying the existence of God. And
+see how, by means of social laws, and because men exchange amongst
+themselves their labours and their productions, see what a harmonious
+tie attaches the classes one to the other! There are the landowners;
+what is their interest? That the soil be fertile, and the sun
+beneficent: and what is the result? That corn abounds, that it falls in
+price, and the advantage turns to the profit of those who have had no
+patrimony. There are the manufacturers--what is their constant thought?
+To perfect their labour, to increase the power of their machines, to
+procure for themselves, upon the best terms, the raw material. And to
+what does all this tend? To the abundance and the low price of produce;
+that is, that all the efforts of the manufacturers, and without their
+suspecting it, result in a profit to the public consumer, of which each
+of you is one. It is the same with every profession. Well, the
+capitalists are not exempt from this law. They are very busy making
+schemes, economising, and turning them to their advantage. This is all
+very well; but the more they succeed, the more do they promote the
+abundance of capital, and, as a necessary consequence, the reduction of
+interest. Now, who is it that profits by the reduction of interest? Is
+it not the borrower first, and finally, the consumers of the things
+which the capitals contribute to produce?
+
+It is therefore certain that the final result of the efforts of each
+class is the common good of all.
+
+You are told that capital tyrannises over labour. I do not deny that
+each one endeavours to draw the greatest possible advantage from his
+situation; but, in this sense, he realises only that which is possible.
+Now, it is never more possible for capitals to tyrannise over labour,
+than when they are scarce; for then it is they who make the law--it is
+they who regulate the rate of sale. Never is this tyranny more
+impossible to them, than when they are abundant; for, in that case, it
+is labour which has the command.
+
+Away, then, with the jealousies of classes, ill-will, unfounded hatreds,
+unjust suspicions. These depraved passions injure those who nourish them
+in their hearts. This is no declamatory morality; it is a chain of
+causes and effects, which is capable of being rigorously, mathematically
+demonstrated. It is not the less sublime, in that it satisfies the
+intellect as well as the feelings.
+
+I shall sum up this whole dissertation with these words:--Workmen,
+labourers, "prolétaires," destitute and suffering classes, will you
+improve your condition? You will not succeed by strife, insurrection,
+hatred, and error. But there are three things which cannot perfect the
+entire community, without extending these benefits to yourselves; these
+things are--peace, liberty, and security.
+
+
+
+
+That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen
+
+
+
+In the department of economy, an act, a habit, an institution, a law,
+gives birth not only to an effect, but to a series of effects. Of these
+effects, the first only is immediate; it manifests itself simultaneously
+with its cause--_it is seen_. The others unfold in succession--_they are
+not seen_: it is well for us if they are _foreseen_. Between a good and
+a bad economist this constitutes the whole difference--the one takes
+account of the _visible_ effect; the other takes account both of the
+effects which are _seen_ and also of those which it is necessary to
+_foresee_. Now this difference is enormous, for it almost always happens
+that when the immediate consequence is favourable, the ultimate
+consequences are fatal, _and the converse_. Hence it follows that the
+bad economist pursues a small present good, which will be followed by a
+great evil to come, while the true economist pursues a great good to
+come, at the risk of a small present evil.
+
+In fact, it is the same in the science of health, arts, and in that of
+morals. If often happens, that the sweeter the first fruit of a habit
+is, the more bitter are the consequences. Take, for example, debauchery,
+idleness, prodigality. When, therefore, a man, absorbed in the effect
+which _is seen_, has not yet learned to discern those which are not
+seen, he gives way to fatal habits, not only by inclination, but by
+calculation.
+
+This explains the fatally grievous condition of mankind. Ignorance
+surrounds its cradle: then its actions are determined by their first
+consequences, the only ones which, in its first stage, it can see. It is
+only in the long run that it learns to take account of the others. It
+has to learn this lesson from two very different masters--experience and
+foresight. Experience teaches effectually, but brutally. It makes us
+acquainted with all the effects of an action, by causing us to feel
+them; and we cannot fail to finish by knowing that fire burns, if we
+have burned ourselves. For this rough teacher, I should like, if
+possible, to substitute a more gentle one. I mean Foresight. For this
+purpose I shall examine the consequences of certain economical
+phenomena, by placing in opposition to each other those _which are
+seen_, and those _which are not seen_.
+
+
+
+I.--The Broken Window.
+
+
+Have you ever witnessed the anger of the good shopkeeper, James B., when
+his careless son happened to break a pane of glass? If you have been
+present at such a scene, you will most assuredly bear witness to the
+fact, that every one of the spectators, were there even thirty of them,
+by common consent apparently, offered the unfortunate owner this
+invariable consolation--"It is an ill wind that blows nobody good.
+Everybody must live, and what would become of the glaziers if panes of
+glass were never broken?"
+
+Now, this form of condolence contains an entire theory, which it will be
+well to show up in this simple case, seeing that it is precisely the
+same as that which, unhappily, regulates the greater part of our
+economical institutions.
+
+Suppose it cost six francs to repair the damage, and you say that the
+accident brings six francs to the glazier's trade--that it encourages
+that trade to the amount of six francs--I grant it; I have not a word to
+say against it; you reason justly. The glazier comes, performs his task,
+receives his six francs, rubs his hands, and, in his heart, blesses the
+careless child. All this is _that which is seen_.
+
+But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often
+the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money
+to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be
+the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, "Stop there! your
+theory is confined to that _which is seen_; it takes no account of that
+_which is not seen_."
+
+_It is not seen_ that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one
+thing, he cannot spend them upon another. _It is not seen_ that if he
+had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his
+old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have
+employed his six francs in some way which this accident has prevented.
+
+Let us take a view of industry in general, as affected by this
+circumstance. The window being broken, the glazier's trade is encouraged
+to the amount of six francs: _this is that which is seen_.
+
+If the window had not been broken, the shoemaker's trade (or some other)
+would have been encouraged to the amount of six francs: this is _that
+which is not seen_.
+
+And if _that which is not seen_ is taken into consideration, because it
+is a negative fact, as well as that which is seen, because it is a
+positive fact, it will be understood that neither industry _in general_,
+nor the sum total of _national labour_, is affected, whether windows are
+broken or not.
+
+Now let us consider James B. himself. In the former supposition, that of
+the window being broken, he spends six francs, and has neither more nor
+less than he had before, the enjoyment of a window.
+
+In the second, where we suppose the window not to have been broken, he
+would have spent six francs in shoes, and would have had at the same
+time the enjoyment of a pair o shoes and of a window.
+
+Now, as James B. forms a part of society, we must come to the
+conclusion, that, taking it altogether, and making an estimate of its
+enjoyments and its labours, it has lost the value of the broken window.
+
+Whence we arrive at this unexpected conclusion: "Society loses the value
+of things which are uselessly destroyed;" and we must assent to a maxim
+which will make the hair of protectionists stand on end--To break, to
+spoil, to waste, is not to encourage national labour; or, more briefly,
+"destruction is not profit."
+
+What will you say, _Moniteur Industriel_--what will you say, disciples
+of good M. F. Chamans, who has calculated with so much precision how
+much trade would gain by the burning of Paris, from the number of houses
+it would be necessary to rebuild?
+
+I am sorry to disturb these ingenious calculations, as far as their
+spirit has been introduced into our legislation; but I beg him to begin
+them again, by taking into the account _that which is not seen_, and
+placing it alongside of _that which is seen_.
+
+The reader must take care to remember that there are not two persons
+only, but three concerned in the little scene which I have submitted to
+his attention. One of them, James B., represents the consumer, reduced,
+by an act of destruction, to one enjoyment instead of two. Another,
+under the title of the glazier, shows us the producer, whose trade is
+encouraged by the accident. The third is the shoemaker (or some other
+tradesman), whose labour suffers proportionably by the same cause. It
+is this third person who is always kept in the shade, and who,
+personating _that which is not seen_, is a necessary element of the
+problem. It is he who shows us how absurd it is to think we see a profit
+in an act of destruction. It is he who will soon teach us that it is not
+less absurd to see a profit in a restriction, which is, after all,
+nothing else than a partial destruction. Therefore, if you will only go
+to the root of all the arguments which are adduced in its favour, all
+you will find will be the paraphrase of this vulgar saying--_What would
+become of the glaziers, if nobody ever broke windows_?
+
+
+
+II.--The Disbanding of Troops.
+
+
+It is the same with a people as it is with a man. If it wishes to give
+itself some gratification, it naturally considers whether it is worth
+what it costs. To a nation, security is the greatest of advantages. If,
+in order to obtain it, it is necessary to have an army of a hundred
+thousand men, I have nothing to say against it. It is an enjoyment
+bought by a sacrifice. Let me not be misunderstood upon the extent of my
+position. A member of the assembly proposes to disband a hundred
+thousand men, for the sake of relieving the tax-payers of a hundred
+millions.
+
+If we confine ourselves to this answer--"The hundred millions of men,
+and these hundred millions of money, are indispensable to the national
+security: it is a sacrifice; but without this sacrifice, France would
+be torn by factions or invaded by some foreign power,"--I have nothing
+to object to this argument, which may be true or false in fact, but
+which theoretically contains nothing which militates against economy.
+The error begins when the sacrifice itself is said to be an advantage
+because it profits somebody.
+
+Now I am very much mistaken if, the moment the author of the proposal
+has taken his seat, some orator will not rise and say--"Disband a
+hundred thousand men! Do you know what you are saying? What will become
+of them? Where will they get a living? Don't you know that work is
+scarce everywhere? That every field is over-stocked? Would you turn them
+out of doors to increase competition and to weigh upon the rate of
+wages? Just now, when it is a hard matter to live at all, it would be a
+pretty thing if the State must find bread for a hundred thousand
+individuals? Consider, besides, that the army consumes wine, arms,
+clothing--that it promotes the activity of manufactures in garrison
+towns--that it is, in short, the godsend of innumerable purveyors. Why,
+any one must tremble at the bare idea of doing away with this immense
+industrial movement."
+
+This discourse, it is evident, concludes by voting the maintenance of a
+hundred thousand soldiers, for reasons drawn from the necessity of the
+service, and from economical considerations. It is these considerations
+only that I have to refute.
+
+A hundred thousand men, costing the tax-payers a hundred millions of
+money, live and bring to the purveyors as much as a hundred millions can
+supply. This is that _which is seen_.
+
+But, a hundred millions taken from the pockets of the tax-payers, cease
+to maintain these tax-payers and the purveyors, as far as a hundred
+millions reach. This is _that which is not seen_. Now make your
+calculations. Cast up, and tell me what profit there is for the masses?
+
+I will tell you where the _loss_ lies; and to simplify it, instead of
+speaking of a hundred thousand men and a million of money, it shall be
+of one man and a thousand francs.
+
+We will suppose that we are in the village of A. The recruiting
+sergeants go their round, and take off a man. The tax-gatherers go their
+round, and take off a thousand francs. The man and the sum of money are
+taken to Metz, and the latter is destined to support the former for a
+year without doing anything. If you consider Metz only, you are quite
+right; the measure is a very advantageous one: but if you look towards
+the village of A., you will judge very differently; for, unless you are
+very blind indeed, you will see that that village has lost a worker, and
+the thousand francs which would remunerate his labour, as well as the
+activity which, by the expenditure of those thousand francs, it would
+spread around it.
+
+At first sight, there would seem to be some compensation. What took
+place at the village, now takes place at Metz, that is all. But the
+loss is to be estimated in this way:--At the village, a man dug and
+worked; he was a worker. At Metz, he turns to the right about and to the
+left about; he is a soldier. The money and the circulation are the same
+in both cases; but in the one there were three hundred days of
+productive labour, in the other there are three hundred days of
+unproductive labour, supposing, of course, that a part of the army is
+not indispensable to the public safety.
+
+Now, suppose the disbanding to take place. You tell me there will be a
+surplus of a hundred thousand workers, that competition will be
+stimulated, and it will reduce the rate of wages. This is what you see.
+
+But what you do not see is this. You do not see that to dismiss a
+hundred thousand soldiers is not to do away with a million of money, but
+to return it to the tax-payers. You do not see that to throw a hundred
+thousand workers on the market, is to throw into it, at the same moment,
+the hundred millions of money needed to pay for their labour: that,
+consequently, the same act which increases the supply of hands,
+increases also the demand; from which it follows, that your fear of a
+reduction of wages is unfounded. You do not see that, before the
+disbanding as well as after it, there are in the country a hundred
+millions of money corresponding with the hundred thousand men. That the
+whole difference consists in this: before the disbanding, the country
+gave the hundred millions to the hundred thousand men for doing nothing;
+and that after it, it pays them the same sum for working. You do not
+see, in short, that when a tax-payer gives his money either to a soldier
+in exchange for nothing, or to a worker in exchange for something, all
+the ultimate consequences of the circulation of this money are the same
+in the two cases; only, in the second case the tax-payer receives
+something, in the former he receives nothing. The result is--a dead loss
+to the nation.
+
+The sophism which I am here combating will not stand the test of
+progression, which is the touchstone of principles. If, when every
+compensation is made, and all interests satisfied, there is a _national
+profit_ in increasing the army, why not enrol under its banners the
+entire male population of the country?
+
+
+
+III.--Taxes.
+
+
+Have you never chanced to hear it said: "There is no better investment
+than taxes. Only see what a number of families it maintains, and
+consider how it reacts upon industry: it is an inexhaustible stream, it
+is life itself."
+
+In order to combat this doctrine, I must refer to my preceding
+refutation. Political economy knew well enough that its arguments were
+not so amusing that it could be said of them, _repetitions please_. It
+has, therefore, turned the proverb to its own use, well convinced that,
+in its mouth, _repetitions teach_.
+
+The advantages which officials advocate are _those which are seen_. The
+benefit which accrues to the providers _is still that which is seen_.
+This blinds all eyes.
+
+But the disadvantages which the tax-payers have to get rid of are _those
+which are not seen_. And the injury which results from it to the
+providers is still that _which is not seen_, although this ought to be
+self-evident.
+
+When an official spends for his own profit an extra hundred sous, it
+implies that a tax-payer spends for his profit a hundred sous less. But
+the expense of the official _is seen_, because the act is performed,
+while that of the tax-payer _is not seen_, because, alas! he is
+prevented from performing it.
+
+You compare the nation, perhaps to a parched tract of land, and the tax
+to a fertilising rain. Be it so. But you ought also to ask yourself
+where are the sources of this rain, and whether it is not the tax itself
+which draws away the moisture from the ground and dries it up?
+
+Again, you ought to ask yourself whether it is possible that the soil
+can receive as much of this precious water by rain as it loses by
+evaporation?
+
+There is one thing very certain, that when James B. counts out a hundred
+sous for the tax-gatherer, he receives nothing in return. Afterwards,
+when an official spends these hundred sous, and returns them to James
+B., it is for an equal value in corn or labour. The final result is a
+loss to James B. of five francs.
+
+It is very true that often, perhaps very often, the official performs
+for James B. an equivalent service. In this case there is no loss on
+either side; there is merely an exchange. Therefore, my arguments do not
+at all apply to useful functionaries. All I say is,--if you wish to
+create an office, prove its utility. Show that its value to James B., by
+the services which it performs for him, is equal to what it costs him.
+But, apart from this intrinsic utility, do not bring forward as an
+argument the benefit which it confers upon the official, his family, and
+his providers; do not assert that it encourages labour.
+
+When James B. gives a hundred sous to a Government officer for a really
+useful service, it is exactly the same as when he gives a hundred sous
+to a shoemaker for a pair of shoes.
+
+But when James B. gives a hundred sous to a Government officer, and
+receives nothing for them unless it be annoyances, he might as well give
+them to a thief. It is nonsense to say that the Government officer will
+spend these hundred sous to the great profit of _national labour_; the
+thief would do the same; and so would James B., if he had not been
+stopped on the road by the extra-legal parasite, nor by the lawful
+sponger.
+
+Let us accustom ourselves, then, to avoid judging of things by _what is
+seen_ only, but to judge of them by _that which is not seen_.
+
+Last year I was on the Committee of Finance, for under the constituency
+the members of the Opposition were not systematically excluded from all
+the Commissions: in that the constituency acted wisely. We have heard M.
+Thiers say--"I have passed my life in opposing the legitimist party and
+the priest party. Since the common danger has brought us together, now
+that I associate with them and know them, and now that we speak face to
+face, I have found out that they are not the monsters I used to imagine
+them."
+
+Yes, distrust is exaggerated, hatred is fostered among parties who never
+mix; and if the majority would allow the minority to be present at the
+Commissions, it would perhaps be discovered that the ideas of the
+different sides are not so far removed from each other; and, above all,
+that their intentions are not so perverse as is supposed. However, last
+year I was on the Committee of Finance. Every time that one of our
+colleagues spoke of fixing at a moderate figure the maintenance of the
+President of the Republic, that of the ministers, and of the
+ambassadors, it was answered:--
+
+"For the good of the service, it is necessary to surround certain
+offices with splendour and dignity, as a means of attracting men of
+merit to them. A vast number of unfortunate persons apply to the
+President of the Republic, and it would be placing him in a very painful
+position to oblige him to be constantly refusing them. A certain style
+in the ministerial saloons is a part of the machinery of constitutional
+Governments."
+
+Although such arguments may be controverted, they certainly deserve a
+serious examination. They are based upon the public interest, whether
+rightly estimated or not; and as far as I am concerned, I have much more
+respect for them than many of our Catos have, who are actuated by a
+narrow spirit of parsimony or of jealousy.
+
+But what revolts the economical part of my conscience, and makes me
+blush for the intellectual resources of my country, is when this absurd
+relic of feudalism is brought forward, which it constantly is, and it is
+favourably received too:--
+
+"Besides, the luxury of great Government officers encourages the arts,
+industry, and labour. The head of the State and his ministers cannot
+give banquets and soirées without causing life to circulate through all
+the veins of the social body. To reduce their means, would starve
+Parisian industry, and consequently that of the whole nation."
+
+I must beg you, gentlemen, to pay some little regard to arithmetic, at
+least; and not to say before the National Assembly in France, lest to
+its shame it should agree with you, that an addition gives a different
+sum, according to whether it is added up from the bottom to the top, or
+from the top to the bottom of the column.
+
+For instance, I want to agree with a drainer to make a trench in my
+field for a hundred sous. Just as we have concluded our arrangement the
+tax-gatherer comes, takes my hundred sous, and sends them to the
+Minister of the Interior; my bargain is at end, but the minister will
+have another dish added to his table. Upon what ground will you dare to
+affirm that this official expense helps the national industry? Do you
+not see, that in this there is only a reversing of satisfaction and
+labour? A minister has his table better covered, it is true; but it is
+just as true that an agriculturist has his field worse drained. A
+Parisian tavern-keeper has gained a hundred sous, I grant you; but then
+you must grant me that a drainer has been prevented from gaining five
+francs. It all comes to this,--that the official and the tavern-keeper
+being satisfied, is _that which is seen_; the field undrained, and the
+drainer deprived of his job, is _that which is not seen_. Dear me! how
+much trouble there is in proving that two and two make four; and if you
+succeed in proving it, it is said "the thing is so plain it is quite
+tiresome," and they vote as if you had proved nothing at all.
+
+
+
+IV.--Theatres, Fine Arts.
+
+
+Ought the State to support the arts?
+
+There is certainly much to be said on both sides of this question. It
+may be said, in favour of the system of voting supplies for this
+purpose, that the arts enlarge, elevate, and harmonize the soul of a
+nation; that they divert it from too great an absorption in material
+occupations; encourage in it a love for the beautiful; and thus act
+favourably on its manners, customs, morals, and even on its industry. It
+may be asked, what would become of music in France without her Italian
+theatre and her Conservatoire; of the dramatic art, without her
+Théâtre-Français; of painting and sculpture, without our collections,
+galleries, and museums? It might even be asked, whether, without
+centralisation, and consequently the support of the fine arts, that
+exquisite taste would be developed which is the noble appendage of
+French labour, and which introduces its productions to the whole world?
+In the face of such results, would it not be the height of imprudence to
+renounce this moderate contribution from all her citizens, which, in
+fact, in the eyes of Europe, realises their superiority and their glory?
+
+To these and many other reasons, whose force I do not dispute, arguments
+no less forcible may be opposed. It might first of all be said, that
+there is a question of distributive justice in it. Does the right of the
+legislator extend to abridging the wages of the artisan, for the sake
+of, adding to the profits of the artist? M. Lamartine said, "If you
+cease to support the theatre, where will you stop? Will you not
+necessarily be led to withdraw your support from your colleges, your
+museums, your institutes, and your libraries? It might be answered, if
+you desire to support everything which is good and useful, where will
+you stop? Will you not necessarily be led to form a civil list for
+agriculture, industry, commerce, benevolence, education? Then, is it
+certain that Government aid favours the progress of art? This question
+is far from being settled, and we see very well that the theatres which
+prosper are those which depend upon their own resources. Moreover, if we
+come to higher considerations, we may observe that wants and desires
+arise the one from the other, and originate in regions which are more
+and more refined in proportion as the public wealth allows of their
+being satisfied; that Government ought not to take part in this
+correspondence, because in a certain condition of present fortune it
+could not by taxation stimulate the arts of necessity without checking
+those of luxury, and thus interrupting the natural course of
+civilisation. I may observe, that these artificial transpositions of
+wants, tastes, labour, and population, place the people in a precarious
+and dangerous position, without any solid basis."
+
+These are some of the reasons alleged by the adversaries of State
+intervention in what concerns the order in which citizens think their
+wants and desires should be satisfied, and to which, consequently, their
+activity should be directed. I am, I confess, one of those who think
+that choice and impulse ought to come from below and not from above,
+from the citizen and not from the legislator; and the opposite doctrine
+appears to me to tend to the destruction of liberty and of human
+dignity.
+
+But, by a deduction as false as it is unjust, do you know what
+economists are accused of? It is, that when we disapprove of government
+support, we are supposed to disapprove of the thing itself whose support
+is discussed; and to be the enemies of every kind of activity, because
+we desire to see those activities, on the one hand free, and on the
+other seeking their own reward in themselves. Thus, if we think that the
+State should not interfere by taxation in religious affairs, we are
+atheists. If we think the State ought not to interfere by taxation in
+education, we are hostile to knowledge. If we say that the State ought
+not by taxation to give a fictitious value to land, or to any particular
+branch of industry, we are enemies to property and labour. If we think
+that the State ought not to support artists, we are barbarians, who look
+upon the arts as useless.
+
+Against such conclusions as these I protest with all my strength. Far
+from entertaining the absurd idea of doing away with religion,
+education, property, labour, and the arts, when we say that the State
+ought to protect the free development of all these kinds of human
+activity, without helping some of them at the expense of others--we
+think, on the contrary, that all these living powers of society would
+develop themselves more harmoniously under the influence of liberty; and
+that, under such an influence no one of them would, as is now the case,
+be a source of trouble, of abuses, of tyranny, and disorder.
+
+Our adversaries consider that an activity which is neither aided by
+supplies, nor regulated by government, is an activity destroyed. We
+think just the contrary. Their faith is in the legislator, not in
+mankind; ours is in mankind, not in the legislator.
+
+Thus M. Lamartine said, "Upon this principle we must abolish the public
+exhibitions, which are the honour and the wealth of this country." But I
+would say to M. Lamartine,--According to your way of thinking, not to
+support is to abolish; because, setting out upon the maxim that nothing
+exists independently of the will of the State, you conclude that nothing
+lives but what the State causes to live. But I oppose to this assertion
+the very example which you have chosen, and beg you to remark, that the
+grandest and noblest of exhibitions, one which has been conceived in the
+most liberal and universal spirit--and I might even make use of the term
+humanitary, for it is no exaggeration--is the exhibition now preparing
+in London; the only one in which no government is taking any part, and
+which is being paid for by no tax.
+
+To return to the fine arts. There are, I repeat, many strong reasons to
+be brought, both for and against the system of government assistance.
+The reader must see that the especial, object of this work leads me
+neither to explain these reasons, nor to decide in their favour, nor
+against them.
+
+But M. Lamartine has advanced one argument which I cannot pass by in
+silence, for it is closely connected with this economic study. "The
+economical question, as regards theatres, is comprised in one
+word--labour. It matters little what is the nature of this labour; it is
+as fertile, as productive a labour as any other kind of labour in the
+nation. The theatres in France, you know, feed and salary no less than
+80,000 workmen of different kinds; painters, masons, decorators,
+costumers, architects, &c., which constitute the very life and movement
+of several parts of this capital, and on this account they ought to have
+your sympathies." Your sympathies! say rather your money.
+
+And further on he says: "The pleasures of Paris are the labour and the
+consumption of the provinces, and the luxuries of the rich are the wages
+and bread of 200,000 workmen of every description, who live by the
+manifold industry of the theatres on the surface of the republic, and
+who receive from these noble pleasures, which render France illustrious,
+the sustenance of their lives and the necessaries of their families and
+children. It is to them that you will give 60,000 francs." (Very well;
+very well. Great applause.) For my part I am constrained to say, "Very
+bad! very bad!" confining this opinion, of course, within the bounds of
+the economical question which we are discussing.
+
+Yes, it is to the workmen of the theatres that a part, at least, of
+these 60,000 francs will go; a few bribes, perhaps, may be abstracted on
+the way. Perhaps, if we were to look a little more closely into the
+matter, we might find that the cake had gone another way, and that those
+workmen were fortunate who had come in for a few crumbs. But I will
+allow, for the sake of argument, that the entire sum does go to the
+painters, decorators, &c.
+
+_This is that which is seen._ But whence does it come? This is the other
+side of the question, and quite as important as the former. Where do
+these 60,000 francs spring from? and where would they go, if a vote of
+the legislature did not direct them first towards the Rue Rivoli and
+thence towards the Rue Grenelle? This _is what is not seen_. Certainly,
+nobody will think of maintaining that the legislative vote has caused
+this sum to be hatched in a ballot urn; that it is a pure addition made
+to the national wealth; that but for this miraculous vote these 60,000
+francs would have been for ever invisible and impalpable. It must be
+admitted that all that the majority can do is to decide that they shall
+be taken from one place to be sent to another; and if they take one
+direction, it is only because they have been diverted from another.
+
+This being the case, it is clear that the tax-payer, who has contributed
+one franc, will no longer have this franc at his own disposal. It is
+clear that he will be deprived of some gratification to the amount of
+one franc; and that the workman, whoever he may be, who would have
+received it from him, will be deprived of a benefit to that amount. Let
+us not, therefore, be led by a childish illusion into believing that the
+vote of the 60,000 francs may add anything whatever to the well-being
+of the country, and to national labour. It displaces enjoyments, it
+transposes wages--that is all.
+
+Will it be said that for one kind of gratification, and one kind of
+labour, it substitutes more urgent, more moral, more reasonable
+gratifications and labour? I might dispute this; I might say, by taking
+60,000 francs from the tax-payers, you diminish the wages of labourers,
+drainers, carpenters, blacksmiths, and increase in proportion those of
+the singers.
+
+There is nothing to prove that this latter class calls for more sympathy
+than the former. M. Lamartine does not say that it is so. He himself
+says that the labour of the theatres is _as_ fertile, _as_ productive as
+any other (not more so); and this may be doubted; for the best proof
+that the latter is not so fertile as the former lies in this, that the
+other is to be called upon to assist it.
+
+But this comparison between the value and the intrinsic merit of
+different kinds of labour forms no part of my present subject. All I
+have to do here is to show, that if M. Lamartine and those persons who
+commend his line of argument have seen on one side the salaries gained
+by the _providers_ of the comedians, they ought on the other to have
+seen the salaries lost by the _providers_ of the taxpayers: for want of
+this, they have exposed themselves to ridicule by mistaking a
+_displacement_ for a _gain_. If they were true to their doctrine, there
+would be no limits to their demands for government aid; for that which
+is true of one franc and of 60,000 is true, under parallel
+circumstances, of a hundred millions of francs.
+
+When taxes are the subject of discussion, you ought to prove their
+utility by reasons from the root of the matter, but not by this unlucky
+assertion--"The public expenses support the working classes." This
+assertion disguises the important fact, that _public expenses always_
+supersede _private expenses_, and that therefore we bring a livelihood
+to one workman instead of another, but add nothing to the share of the
+working class as a whole. Your arguments are fashionable enough, but
+they are too absurd to be justified by anything like reason.
+
+
+
+V.--Public Works.
+
+
+Nothing is more natural than that a nation, after having assured itself
+that an enterprise will benefit the community, should have it executed
+by means of a general assessment. But I lose patience, I confess, when I
+hear this economic blunder advanced in support of such a
+project--"Besides, it will be a means of creating labour for the
+workmen."
+
+The State opens a road, builds a palace, straightens a street, cuts a
+canal, and so gives work to certain workmen--_this is what is seen_: but
+it deprives certain other workmen of work--and this is what _is not
+seen_.
+
+The road is begun. A thousand workmen come every morning, leave every
+evening, and take their wages--this is certain. If the road had not been
+decreed, if the supplies had not been voted, these good people would
+have had neither work nor salary there; this also is certain.
+
+But is this all? Does not the operation, as a whole, contain something
+else? At the moment when M. Dupin pronounces the emphatic words, "The
+Assembly has adopted," do the millions descend miraculously on a
+moonbeam into the coffers of MM. Fould and Bineau? In order that the
+evolution may be complete, as it is said, must not the State organise
+the receipts as well as the expenditure? must it not set its
+tax-gatherers and tax-payers to work, the former to gather and the
+latter to pay?
+
+Study the question, now, in both its elements. While you state the
+destination given by the State to the millions voted, do not neglect to
+state also the destination which the tax-payer would have given, but
+cannot now give, to the same. Then you will understand that a public
+enterprise is a coin with two sides. Upon one is engraved a labourer at
+work, with this device, _that which is seen_; on the other is a labourer
+out of work, with the device, _that which is not seen_.
+
+The sophism which this work is intended to refute is the more dangerous
+when applied to public works, inasmuch as it serves to justify the most
+wanton enterprises and extravagance. When a railroad or a bridge are of
+real utility, it is sufficient to mention this utility. But if it does
+not exist, what do they do? Recourse is had to this mystification: "We
+must find work for the workmen."
+
+Accordingly, orders are given that the drains in the Champ-de-Mars be
+made and unmade. The great Napoleon, it is said, thought he was doing a
+very philanthropic work by causing ditches to be made and then filled
+up. He said, therefore, "What signifies the result? All we want is to
+see wealth spread among the labouring classes."
+
+But let us go to the root of the matter. We are deceived by money. To
+demand the co-operation of all the citizens in a common work, in the
+form of money, is in reality to demand a concurrence in kind; for every
+one procures, by his own labour, the sum to which he is taxed. Now, if
+all the citizens were to be called together, and made to execute, in
+conjunction, a work useful to all, this would be easily understood;
+their reward would be found in the results of the work itself.
+
+But after having called them together, if you force them to make roads
+which no one will pass through, palaces which no one will inhabit, and
+this under the pretext of finding them work, it would be absurd, and
+they would have a right to argue, "With this labour we have nothing to
+do; we prefer working on our own account."
+
+A proceeding which consists in making the citizens co-operate in giving
+money but not labour, does not, in any way, alter the general results.
+The only thing is, that the loss would react upon all parties. By the
+former, those whom the State employs, escape their part of the loss, by
+adding it to that which their fellow-citizens have already suffered.
+
+There is an article in our constitution which says:--"Society favours
+and encourages the development of labour--by the establishment of public
+works, by the State, the departments, and the parishes, as a means of
+employing persons who are in want of work."
+
+As a temporary measure, on any emergency, during a hard winter, this
+interference with the tax-payers may have its use. It acts in the same
+way as securities. It adds nothing either to labour or to wages, but it
+takes labour and wages from ordinary times to give them, at a loss it is
+true, to times of difficulty.
+
+As a permanent, general, systematic measure, it is nothing else than a
+ruinous mystification, an impossibility, which shows a little excited
+labour _which is seen_, and hides a great deal of prevented labour
+_which is not seen_.
+
+
+
+VI.--The Intermediates.
+
+
+Society is the total of the forced or voluntary services which men
+perform for each other; that is to say, of _public services_ and
+_private services_.
+
+The former, imposed and regulated by the law, which it is not always
+easy to change, even when it is desirable, may survive with it their own
+usefulness, and still preserve the name of _public services_, even when
+they are no longer services at all, but rather _public annoyances_. The
+latter belong to the sphere of the will, of individual responsibility.
+Every one gives and receives what he wishes, and what he can, after a
+debate. They have always the presumption of real utility, in exact
+proportion to their comparative value.
+
+This is the reason why the former description of services so often
+become stationary, while the latter obey the law of progress.
+
+While the exaggerated development of public services, by the waste of
+strength which it involves, fastens upon society a fatal sycophancy, it
+is a singular thing that several modern sects, attributing this
+character to free and private services, are endeavouring to transform
+professions into functions.
+
+These sects violently oppose what they call intermediates. They would
+gladly suppress the capitalist, the banker, the speculator, the
+projector, the merchant, and the trader, accusing them of interposing
+between production and consumption, to extort from both, without giving
+either anything in return. Or rather, they would transfer to the State
+the work which they accomplish, for this work cannot be suppressed.
+
+The sophism of the Socialists on this point is, showing to the public
+what it pays to the intermediates in exchange for their services, and
+concealing from it what is necessary to be paid to the State. Here is
+the usual conflict between what is before our eyes and what is
+perceptible to the mind only; between _what is seen_ and _what is not
+seen_.
+
+It was at the time of the scarcity, in 1847, that the Socialist schools
+attempted and succeeded in popularizing their fatal theory. They knew
+very well that the most absurd notions have always a chance with people
+who are suffering; _malisunda fames_.
+
+Therefore, by the help of the fine words, "trafficking in men by men,
+speculation on hunger, monopoly," they began to blacken commerce, and to
+cast a veil over its benefits.
+
+"What can be the use," they say, "of leaving to the merchants the care
+of importing food from the United States and the Crimea? Why do not the
+State, the departments, and the towns, organize a service for provisions
+and a magazine for stores? They would sell at a _return price_, and the
+people, poor things, would be exempted from the tribute which they pay
+to free, that is, to egotistical, individual, and anarchical commerce."
+
+The tribute paid by the people to commerce is _that which is seen_. The
+tribute which the people would pay to the State, or to its agents, in
+the Socialist system, is _what is not seen_.
+
+In what does this pretended tribute, which the people pay to commerce,
+consist? In this: that two men render each other a mutual service, in
+all freedom, and under the pressure of competition and reduced prices.
+
+When the hungry stomach is at Paris, and corn which can satisfy it is at
+Odessa, the suffering cannot cease till the corn is brought into
+contact with the stomach. There are three means by which this contact
+may be effected. 1st. The famished men may go themselves and fetch the
+corn. 2nd. They may leave this task to those to whose trade it belongs.
+3rd. They may club together, and give the office in charge to public
+functionaries. Which of these three methods possesses the greatest
+advantages? In every time, in all countries, and the more free,
+enlightened, and experienced they are, men have _voluntarily_ chosen the
+second. I confess that this is sufficient, in my opinion, to justify
+this choice. I cannot believe that mankind, as a whole, is deceiving
+itself upon a point which touches it so nearly. But let us now consider
+the subject.
+
+For thirty-six millions of citizens to go and fetch the corn they want
+from Odessa, is a manifest impossibility. The first means, then, goes
+for nothing. The consumers cannot act for themselves. They must, of
+necessity, have recourse to _intermediates_, officials or agents.
+
+But observe, that the first of these three means would be the most
+natural. In reality, the hungry man has to fetch his corn. It is a task
+which concerns himself, a service due to himself. If another person, on
+whatever ground, performs this service for him, takes the task upon
+himself, this latter has a claim upon him for a compensation. I mean by
+this to say that intermediates contain in themselves the principle of
+remuneration.
+
+However that may be, since we must refer to what the Socialists call a
+parasite, I would ask, which of the two is the most exacting parasite
+the merchant or the official?
+
+Commerce (free, of course, otherwise I could not reason upon it),
+commerce, I say, is led by its own interests to study the seasons, to
+give daily statements of the state of the crops, to receive information
+from every part of the globe, to foresee wants, to take precautions
+beforehand. It has vessels always ready, correspondents everywhere; and
+it is its immediate interest to buy at the lowest possible price, to
+economize in all the details of its operations, and to attain the
+greatest results by the smallest efforts. It is not the French merchants
+only who are occupied in procuring provisions for France in time of
+need, and if their interest leads them irresistibly to accomplish their
+task at the smallest possible cost, the competition which they create
+amongst each other leads them no less irresistibly to cause the
+consumers to partake of the profits of those realised savings. The corn
+arrives: it is to the interest of commerce to sell it as soon as
+possible, so as to avoid risks, to realise its funds, and begin again
+the first opportunity.
+
+Directed by the comparison of prices, it distributes food over the whole
+surface of the country, beginning always at the highest, price, that is,
+where the demand is the greatest. It is impossible to imagine an
+organisation more completely calculated to meet the interest of those
+who are in want; and the beauty of this organisation, unperceived as it
+is by the Socialists, results from the very fact that it is free. It is
+true, the consumer is obliged to reimburse commerce for the expenses of
+conveyance, freight, store-room, commission, &c.; but can any system be
+devised in which he who eats corn is not obliged to defray the expenses,
+whatever they may be, of bringing it within his reach? The remuneration
+for the service performed has to be paid also; but as regards its
+amount, this is reduced to the smallest possible sum by competition; and
+as regards its justice, it would be very strange if the artizans of
+Paris would not work for the artizans of Marseilles, when the merchants
+of Marseilles work for the artizans of Paris.
+
+If, according to the Socialist invention, the State were to stand in the
+stead of commerce, what would happen? I should like to be informed where
+the saving would be to the public? Would it be in the price of purchase?
+Imagine the delegates of 40,000 parishes arriving at Odessa on a given
+day, and on the day of need: imagine the effect upon prices. Would the
+saving be in the expenses? Would fewer vessels be required; fewer
+sailors, fewer transports, fewer sloops? or would you be exempt from the
+payment of all these things? Would it be in the profits of the
+merchants? Would your officials go to Odessa for nothing? Would they
+travel and work on the principle of fraternity? Must they not live? Must
+not they be paid for their time? And do you believe that these expenses
+would not exceed a thousand times the two or three per cent. which the
+merchant gains, at the rate at which he is ready to treat?
+
+And then consider the difficulty of levying so many taxes, and of
+dividing so much food. Think of the injustice, of the abuses inseparable
+from such an enterprise. Think of the responsibility which would weigh
+upon the Government.
+
+The Socialists who have invented these follies, and who, in the days of
+distress, have introduced them into the minds of the masses, take to
+themselves literally the title of _advanced men_; and it is not without
+some danger that custom, that tyrant of tongues, authorizes the term,
+and the sentiment which it involves. _Advanced!_ This supposes that
+these gentlemen can see further than the common people; that their only
+fault is that they are too much in advance of their age; and if the time
+is not yet come for suppressing certain free services, pretended
+parasites, the fault is to be attributed to the public which is in the
+rear of Socialism. I say, from my soul and my conscience, the reverse is
+the truth; and I know not to what barbarous age we should have to go
+back, if we would find the level of Socialist knowledge on this subject.
+These modern sectarians incessantly oppose association to actual
+society. They overlook the fact that society, under a free regulation,
+is a true association, far superior to any of those which proceed from
+their fertile imaginations.
+
+Let me illustrate this by an example. Before a mutual services, and to
+helping each other in a common object, and that all may be considered,
+with respect to others, _intermediates_. If, for instance, in the course
+of the operation, the conveyance becomes important enough to occupy one
+person, the spinning another, the weaving another, why should the first
+be considered a _parasite_ more than the other two? The conveyance must
+be made, must it not? Does not he who performs it devote to it his time
+and trouble? and by so doing does he not spare that of his colleagues?
+Do these do more or other than this for him? Are they not equally
+dependent for remuneration, that is, for the division of the produce,
+upon the law of reduced price? Is it not in all liberty, for the common
+good, that this separation of work takes place, and that these
+arrangements are entered into? What do we want with a Socialist then,
+who, under pretence of organising for us, comes despotically to break up
+our voluntary arrangements, to check the division of labour, to
+substitute isolated efforts for combined ones, and to send civilisation
+back? Is association, as I describe it here, in itself less association,
+because every one enters and leaves it freely, chooses his place in it,
+judges and bargains for himself on his own responsibility, and brings
+with him the spring and warrant of personal interest? That it may
+deserve this name, is it necessary that a pretended reformer should come
+and impose upon us his plan and his will, and, as it were, to
+concentrate mankind in himself?
+
+The more we examine these _advanced schools_, the more do we become
+convinced that there is but one thing at the root of them: ignorance
+proclaiming itself infallible, and claiming despotism in the name of
+this infallibility.
+
+I hope the reader will excuse this digression. It may not be altogether
+useless, at a time when declamations, springing from St. Simonian,
+Phalansterian, and Icarian books, are invoking the press and the
+tribune, and which seriously threaten the liberty of labour and
+commercial transactions.
+
+
+
+VII.--Restrictions.
+
+
+M. Prohibant (it was not I who gave him this name, but M. Charles Dupin)
+devoted his time and capital to converting the ore found on his land
+into iron. As nature had been more lavish towards the Belgians, they
+furnished the French with iron cheaper than M. Prohibant; which means,
+that all the French, or France, could obtain a given quantity of iron
+with less labour by buying it of the honest Flemings. Therefore, guided
+by their own interest, they did not fail to do so; and every day there
+might be seen a multitude of nail-smiths, blacksmiths, cartwrights,
+machinists, farriers, and labourers, going themselves, or sending
+intermediates, to supply themselves in Belgium. This displeased M.
+Prohibant exceedingly.
+
+At first, it occurred to him to put an end to this abuse by his own
+efforts: it was the least he could do, for he was the only sufferer. "I
+will take my carbine," said he; "I will put four pistols into my belt; I
+will fill my cartridge box; I will gird on my sword, and go thus
+equipped to the frontier. There, the first blacksmith, nail-smith,
+farrier, machinist, or locksmith, who presents himself to do his own
+business and not mine, I will kill, to teach him how to live." At the
+moment of starting, M. Prohibant made a few reflections which calmed
+down his warlike ardour a little. He said to himself, "In the first
+place, it is not absolutely impossible that the purchasers of iron, my
+countrymen and enemies, should take the thing ill, and, instead of
+letting me kill them, should kill me instead; and then, even were I to
+call out all my servants, we should not be able to defend the passages.
+In short, this proceeding would cost me very dear, much more so than the
+result would be worth."
+
+M. Prohibant was on the point of resigning himself to his sad fate, that
+of being only as free as the rest of the world, when a ray of light
+darted across his brain. He recollected that at Paris there is a great
+manufactory of laws. "What is a law?" said he to himself. "It is a
+measure to which, when once it is decreed, be it good or bad, everybody
+is bound to conform. For the execution of the same a public force is
+organised, and to constitute the said public force, men and money are
+drawn from the whole nation. If, then, I could only get the great
+Parisian manufactory to pass a little law, 'Belgian iron is
+prohibited,' I should obtain the following results:--The Government
+would replace the few valets that I was going to send to the frontier by
+20,000 of the sons of those refractory blacksmiths, farriers, artizans,
+machinists, locksmiths, nail-smiths, and labourers. Then to keep these
+20,000 custom-house officers in health and good humour, it would
+distribute among them 25,000,000 of francs taken from these blacksmiths,
+nail-smiths, artizans, and labourers. They would guard the frontier much
+better; would cost me nothing; I should not be exposed to the brutality
+of the brokers; should sell the iron at my own price, and have the sweet
+satisfaction of seeing our great people shamefully mystified. That would
+teach them to proclaim themselves perpetually the harbingers and
+promoters of progress in Europe. Oh! it would be a capital joke, and
+deserves to be tried."
+
+So M. Prohibant went to the law manufactory. Another time, perhaps, I
+shall relate the story of his underhand dealings, but now I shall merely
+mention his visible proceedings. He brought the following consideration
+before the view of the legislating gentlemen.
+
+"Belgian iron is sold in France at ten francs, which obliges me to sell
+mine at the same price. I should like to sell at fifteen, but cannot do
+so on account of this Belgian iron, which I wish was at the bottom of
+the Red Sea. I beg you will make a law that no more Belgian iron shall
+enter France. Immediately I raise my price five francs, and these are
+the consequences:--
+
+"For every hundred-weight of iron that I shall deliver to the public, I
+shall receive fifteen francs instead of ten; I shall grow rich more
+rapidly, extend my traffic, and employ more workmen. My workmen and I
+shall spend much more freely, to the great advantage of our tradesmen
+for miles around. These latter, having more custom, will furnish more
+employment to trade, and activity on both sides will increase in the
+country. This fortunate piece of money, which you will drop into my
+strong-box, will, like a stone thrown into a lake, give birth to an
+infinite number of concentric circles."
+
+Charmed with his discourse, delighted to learn that it is so easy to
+promote, by legislating, the prosperity of a people, the law-makers
+voted the restriction. "Talk of labour and economy," they said, "what is
+the use of these painful means of increasing the national wealth, when
+all that is wanted for this object is a decree?"
+
+And, in fact, the law produced all the consequences announced by M.
+Prohibant: the only thing was, it produced others which he had not
+foreseen. To do him justice, his reasoning was not false, but only
+incomplete. In endeavouring to obtain a privilege, he had taken
+cognizance of the effects _which are seen_, leaving in the background
+those _which are not seen_. He had pointed out only two personages,
+whereas there are three concerned in the affair. It is for us to supply
+this involuntary or premeditated omission.
+
+It is true, the crown-piece, thus directed by law into M. Prohibant's
+strong-box, is advantageous to him and to those whose labour it would
+encourage; and if the Act had caused the crown-piece to descend from the
+moon, these good effects would not have been counterbalanced by any
+corresponding evils. Unfortunately, the mysterious piece of money does
+not come from the moon, but from the pocket of a blacksmith, or a
+nail-smith, or a cartwright, or a farrier, or a labourer, or a
+shipwright; in a word, from James B., who gives it now without receiving
+a grain more of iron than when he was paying ten francs. Thus, we can
+see at a glance that this very much alters the state of the case; for it
+is very evident that M. Prohibant's _profit_ is compensated by James
+B.'s _loss_, and all that M. Prohibant can do with the crown-piece, for
+the encouragement of national labour, James B. might have done himself.
+The stone has only been thrown upon one part of the lake, because the
+law has prevented it from being thrown upon another.
+
+Therefore, _that which is not seen_ supersedes _that which is seen_, and
+at this point there remains, as the residue of the operation, a piece of
+injustice, and, sad to say, a piece of injustice perpetrated by the law!
+
+This is not all. I have said that there is always a third person left
+in the background. I must now bring him forward, that he may reveal to
+us a _second loss_ of five francs. Then we shall have the entire results
+of the transaction.
+
+James B. is the possessor of fifteen francs, the fruit of his labour. He
+is now free. What does he do with his fifteen francs? He purchases some
+article of fashion for ten francs, and with it he pays (or the
+intermediate pay for him) for the hundred-weight of Belgian iron. After
+this he has five francs left. He does not throw them into the river, but
+(and this is _what is not seen_) he gives them to some tradesman in
+exchange for some enjoyment; to a bookseller, for instance, for
+Bossuet's "Discourse on Universal History."
+
+Thus, as far as national labour is concerned, it is encouraged to the
+amount of fifteen francs, viz.:--ten francs for the Paris article, five
+francs to the bookselling trade.
+
+As to James B., he obtains for his fifteen francs two gratifications,
+viz.:--
+
+1st. A hundred-weight of iron.
+
+2nd. A book.
+
+The decree is put in force. How does it affect the condition of James
+B.? How does it affect the national labour?
+
+James B. pays every centime of his five francs to M. Prohibant, and
+therefore is deprived of the pleasure of a book, or of some other thing
+of equal value. He loses five francs. This must be admitted; it cannot
+fail to be admitted, that when the restriction raises the price of
+things, the consumer loses the difference.
+
+But, then, it is said, _national labour_ is the gainer.
+
+No, it is not the gainer; for since the Act, it is no more encouraged
+than it was before, to the amount of fifteen francs.
+
+The only thing is that, since the Act, the fifteen francs of James B. go
+to the metal trade, while before it was put in force, they were divided
+between the milliner and the bookseller.
+
+The violence used by M. Prohibant on the frontier, or that which he
+causes to be used by the law, may be judged very differently in a moral
+point of view. Some persons consider that plunder is perfectly
+justifiable, if only sanctioned by law. But, for myself, I cannot
+imagine anything more aggravating. However it may be, the economical
+results are the same in both cases.
+
+Look at the thing as you will; but if you are impartial, you will see
+that no good can come of legal or illegal plunder. We do not deny that
+it affords M. Prohibant, or his trade, or, if you will, national
+industry, a profit of five francs. But we affirm that it causes two
+losses, one to James B., who pays fifteen francs where he otherwise
+would have paid ten; the other to national industry, which does not
+receive the difference. Take your choice of these two losses, and
+compensate with it the profit which we allow. The other will prove not
+the less a _dead loss_. Here is the moral: To take by violence is not to
+produce, but to destroy. Truly, if taking by violence was producing,
+this country of ours would be a little richer than she is.
+
+
+
+VIII.--Machinery.
+
+
+"A curse on machines! Every year, their increasing power devotes
+millions of workmen to pauperism, by depriving them of work, and
+therefore of wages and bread. A curse on machines!"
+
+This is the cry which is raised by vulgar prejudice, and echoed in the
+journals.
+
+But to curse machines is to curse the spirit of humanity!
+
+It puzzles me to conceive how any man can feel any satisfaction in such
+a doctrine.
+
+For, if true, what is its inevitable consequence? That there is no
+activity, prosperity, wealth, or happiness possible for any people,
+except for those who are stupid and inert, and to whom God has not
+granted the fatal gift of knowing how to think, to observe, to combine,
+to invent, and to obtain the greatest results with the smallest means.
+On the contrary, rags, mean huts, poverty, and inanition, are the
+inevitable lot of every nation which seeks and finds in iron, fire,
+wind, electricity, magnetism, the laws of chemistry and mechanics, in a
+word, in the powers of nature, an assistance to its natural powers. We
+might as well say with Rousseau--"Every man that thinks is a depraved
+animal."
+
+This is not all. If this doctrine is true, since all men think and
+invent, since all, from first to last, and at every moment of their
+existence, seek the co-operation of the powers of nature, and try to
+make the most of a little, by reducing either the work of their hands or
+their expenses, so as to obtain the greatest possible amount of
+gratification with the smallest possible amount of labour, it must
+follow, as a matter of course, that the whole of mankind is rushing
+towards its decline, by the same mental aspiration towards progress,
+which torments each of its members.
+
+Hence, it ought to be made known, by statistics, that the inhabitants of
+Lancashire, abandoning that land of machines, seek for work in Ireland,
+where they are unknown; and, by history, that barbarism darkens the
+epochs of civilisation, and that civilisation shines in times of
+ignorance and barbarism.
+
+There is evidently in this mass of contradictions something which
+revolts us, and which leads us to suspect that the problem contains
+within it an element of solution which has not been sufficiently
+disengaged.
+
+Here is the whole mystery: behind _that which is seen_ lies something
+_which is not seen_. I will endeavour to bring it to light. The
+demonstration I shall give will only be a repetition of the preceding
+one, for the problems are one and the same.
+
+Men have a natural propensity to make the best bargain they can, when
+not prevented by an opposing force; that is, they like to obtain as much
+as they possibly can for their labour, whether the advantage is
+obtained from a _foreign producer_ or a skilful _mechanical producer_.
+
+The theoretical objection which is made to this propensity is the same
+in both cases. In each case it is reproached with the apparent
+inactivity which it causes to labour. Now, labour rendered available,
+not inactive, is the very thing which determines it. And, therefore, in
+both cases, the same practical obstacle--force, is opposed to it also.
+
+The legislator prohibits foreign competition, and forbids mechanical
+competition. For what other means can exist for arresting a propensity
+which is natural to all men, but that of depriving them of their
+liberty?
+
+In many countries, it is true, the legislator strikes at only one of
+these competitions, and confines himself to grumbling at the other. This
+only proves one thing, that is, that the legislator is inconsistent.
+
+We need not be surprised at this. On a wrong road, inconsistency is
+inevitable; if it were not so, mankind would be sacrificed. A false
+principle never has been, and never will be, carried out to the end.
+
+Now for our demonstration, which shall not be a long one.
+
+James B. had two francs which he had gained by two workmen; but it
+occurs to him that an arrangement of ropes and weights might be made
+which would diminish the labour by half. Therefore he obtains the same
+advantage, saves a franc, and discharges a workman.
+
+He discharges a workman: _this is that which is seen_.
+
+And seeing this only, it is said, "See how misery attends civilisation;
+this is the way that liberty is fatal to equality. The human mind has
+made a conquest, and immediately a workman is cast into the gulf of
+pauperism. James B. may possibly employ the two workmen, but then he
+will give them only half their wages, for they will compete with each
+other, and offer themselves at the lowest price. Thus the rich are
+always growing richer, and the poor, poorer. Society wants remodelling."
+A very fine conclusion, and worthy of the preamble.
+
+Happily, preamble and conclusion are both false, because, behind the
+half of the phenomenon _which is seen_, lies the other half _which is
+not seen_.
+
+The franc saved by James B. is not seen, no more are the necessary
+effects of this saving.
+
+Since, in consequence of his invention, James B. spends only one franc
+on hand labour in the pursuit of a determined advantage, another franc
+remains to him.
+
+If, then, there is in the world a workman with unemployed arms, there is
+also in the world a capitalist with an unemployed franc. These two
+elements meet and combine, and it is as clear as daylight, that between
+the supply and demand of labour, and between the supply and demand of
+wages, the relation is in no way changed.
+
+The invention and the workman paid with the first franc, now perform
+the work which was formerly accomplished by two workmen. The second
+workman, paid with the second franc, realises a new kind of work.
+
+What is the change, then, which has taken place? An additional national
+advantage has been gained; in other words, the invention is a gratuitous
+triumph--a gratuitous profit for mankind.
+
+From the form which I have given to my demonstration, the following
+inference might be drawn:--
+
+"It is the capitalist who reaps all the advantage from machinery. The
+working class, if it suffers only temporarily, never profits by it,
+since, by your own showing, they displace a portion of the national
+labour, without diminishing it, it is true, but also without increasing
+it."
+
+I do not pretend, in this slight treatise, to answer every objection;
+the only end I have in view, is to combat a vulgar, widely spread, and
+dangerous prejudice. I want to prove that a new machine only causes the
+discharge of a certain number of hands, when the remuneration which pays
+them is abstracted by force. These hands and this remuneration would
+combine to produce what it was impossible to produce before the
+invention; whence it follows, that the final result is _an increase of
+advantages for equal labour_.
+
+Who is the gainer by these additional advantages?
+
+First, it is true, the capitalist, the inventor; the first who succeeds
+in using the machine; and this is the reward of his genius and courage.
+In this case, as we have just seen, he effects a saving upon the expense
+of production, which, in whatever way it may be spent (and it always is
+spent), employs exactly as many hands as the machine caused to be
+dismissed.
+
+But soon competition obliges him to lower his prices in proportion to
+the saving itself; and then it is no longer the inventor who reaps the
+benefit of the invention--it is the purchaser of what is produced, the
+consumer, the public, including the workman; in a word, mankind.
+
+And _that which is not seen_ is, that the saving thus procured for all
+consumers creates a fund whence wages may be supplied, and which
+replaces that which the machine has exhausted.
+
+Thus, to recur to the forementioned example, James B. obtains a profit
+by spending two francs in wages. Thanks to his invention, the hand
+labour costs him only one franc. So long as he sells the thing produced
+at the same price, he employs one workman less in producing this
+particular thing, and that is _what is seen_; but there is an additional
+workman employed by the franc which James B. has saved. This is _that
+which is not seen_.
+
+When, by the natural progress of things, James B. is obliged to lower
+the price of the thing produced by one franc, then he no longer realises
+a saving; then he has no longer a franc to dispose of to procure for the
+national labour a new production. But then another gainer takes his
+place, and this gainer is mankind. Whoever buys the thing he has
+produced, pays a franc less, and necessarily adds this saving to the
+fund of wages; and this, again, is _what is not seen_.
+
+Another solution, founded upon facts, has been given of this problem of
+machinery.
+
+It was said, machinery reduces the expense of production, and lowers the
+price of the thing produced. The reduction of the profit causes an
+increase of consumption, which necessitates an increase of production;
+and, finally, the introduction of as many workmen, or more, after the
+invention as were necessary before it. As a proof of this, printing,
+weaving, &c., are instanced.
+
+This demonstration is not a scientific one. It would lead us to
+conclude, that if the consumption of the particular production of which
+we are speaking remains stationary, or nearly so, machinery must injure
+labour. This is not the case.
+
+Suppose that in a certain country all the people wore hats. If, by
+machinery, the price could be reduced half, it would not _necessarily
+follow_ that the consumption would be doubled.
+
+Would you say that in this case a portion of the national labour had
+been paralyzed? Yes, according to the vulgar demonstration; but,
+according to mine, No; for even if not a single hat more should be
+bought in the country, the entire fund of wages would not be the less
+secure. That which failed to go to the hat-making trade would be found
+to have gone to the economy realised by all the consumers, and would
+thence serve to pay for all the labour which the machine had rendered
+useless, and to excite a new development of all the trades. And thus it
+is that things go on. I have known newspapers to cost eighty francs, now
+we pay forty-eight: here is a saving of thirty-two francs to the
+subscribers. It is not certain, or at least necessary, that the
+thirty-two francs should take the direction of the journalist trade; but
+it is certain, and necessary too, that if they do not take this
+direction they will take another. One makes use of them for taking in
+more newspapers; another, to get better living; another, better clothes;
+another, better furniture. It is thus that the trades are bound
+together. They form a vast whole, whose different parts communicate by
+secret canals: what is saved by one, profits all. It is very important
+for us to understand that savings never take place at the expense of
+labour and wages.
+
+
+
+IX.--Credit.
+
+
+In all times, but more especially of late years, attempts have been made
+to extend wealth by the extension of credit.
+
+I believe it is no exaggeration to say, that since the revolution of
+February, the Parisian presses have issued more than 10,000 pamphlets,
+crying up this solution of the _social problem_.
+
+The only basis, alas! of this solution, is an optical delusion--if,
+indeed, an optical delusion can be called a basis at all.
+
+The first thing done is to confuse cash with produce, then paper money
+with cash; and from these two confusions it is pretended that a reality
+can be drawn.
+
+It is absolutely necessary in this question to forget money, coin,
+bills, and the other instruments by means of which productions pass from
+hand to hand. Our business is with the productions themselves, which are
+the real objects of the loan; for when a farmer borrows fifty francs to
+buy a plough, it is not, in reality, the fifty francs which are lent to
+him, but the plough; and when a merchant borrows 20,000 francs to
+purchase a house, it is not the 20,000 francs which he owes, but the
+house. Money only appears for the sake of facilitating the arrangements
+between the parties.
+
+Peter may not be disposed to lend his plough, but James may be willing
+to lend his money. What does William do in this case? He borrows money
+of James, and with this money he buys the plough of Peter.
+
+But, in point of fact, no one borrows money for the sake of the money
+itself; money is only the medium by which to obtain possession of
+productions. Now, it is impossible in any country to transmit from one
+person to another more productions than that country contains.
+
+Whatever may be the amount of cash and of paper which is in circulation,
+the whole of the borrowers cannot receive more ploughs, houses, tools,
+and supplies of raw material, than the lenders altogether can furnish;
+for we must take care not to forget that every borrower supposes a
+lender, and that what is once borrowed implies a loan.
+
+This granted, what advantage is there in institutions of credit? It is,
+that they facilitate, between borrowers and lenders, the means of
+finding and treating with each other; but it is not in their power to
+cause an instantaneous increase of the things to be borrowed and lent.
+And yet they ought to be able to do so, if the aim of the reformers is
+to be attained, since they aspire to nothing less than to place ploughs,
+houses, tools, and provisions in the hands of all those who desire them.
+
+And how do they intend to effect this?
+
+By making the State security for the loan.
+
+Let us try and fathom the subject, for it contains _something which is
+seen_, and also _something which is not seen_. We must endeavour to look
+at both.
+
+We will suppose that there is but one plough in the world, and that two
+farmers apply for it.
+
+Peter is the possessor of the only plough which is to be had in France;
+John and James wish to borrow it. John, by his honesty, his property,
+and good reputation, offers security. He _inspires confidence_; he has
+_credit_. James inspires little or no confidence. It naturally happens
+that Peter lends his plough to John.
+
+But now, according to the Socialist plan, the State interferes, and says
+to Peter, "Lend your plough to James, I will be security for its
+return, and this security will be better than that of John, for he has
+no one to be responsible for him but himself; and I, although it is true
+that I have nothing, dispose of the fortune of the tax-payers, and it is
+with their money that, in case of need, I shall pay you the principal
+and interest." Consequently, Peter lends his plough to James: _this is
+what is seen_.
+
+And the Socialists rub their hands, and say, "See how well our plan has
+answered. Thanks to the intervention of the State, poor James has a
+plough. He will no longer be obliged to dig the ground; he is on the
+road to make a fortune. It is a good thing for him, and an advantage to
+the nation as a whole."
+
+Indeed, it is no such thing; it is no advantage to the nation, for there
+is something behind _which is not seen_.
+
+_It is not seen_, that the plough is in the hands of James, only because
+it is not in those of John.
+
+_It is not seen_, that if James farms instead of digging, John will be
+reduced to the necessity of digging instead of farming.
+
+That, consequently, what was considered an increase of loan, is nothing
+but a displacement of loan. Besides, _it is not seen_ that this
+displacement implies two acts of deep injustice.
+
+It is an injustice to John, who, after having deserved and obtained
+_credit_ by his honesty and activity, sees himself robbed of it.
+
+It is an injustice to the tax-payers, who are made to pay a debt which
+is no concern of theirs.
+
+Will any one say, that Government offers the same facilities to John as
+it does to James? But as there is only one plough to be had, two cannot
+be lent. The argument always maintains that, thanks to the intervention
+of the State, more will be borrowed than there are things to be lent;
+for the plough represents here the bulk of available capitals.
+
+It is true, I have reduced the operation to the most simple expression
+of it, but if you submit the most complicated Government institutions of
+credit to the same test, you will be convinced that they can have but
+one result; viz., to displace credit, not to augment it. In one country,
+and in a given time, there is only a certain amount of capital
+available, and all are employed. In guaranteeing the non-payers, the
+State may, indeed, increase the number of borrowers, and thus raise the
+rate of interest (always to the prejudice of the tax-payer), but it has
+no power to increase the number of lenders, and the importance of the
+total of the loans.
+
+There is one conclusion, however, which I would not for the world be
+suspected of drawing. I say, that the law ought not to favour,
+artificially, the power of borrowing, but I do not say that it ought not
+to restrain them artificially. If, in our system of mortgage, or in any
+other, there be obstacles to the diffusion of the application of credit,
+let them be got rid of; nothing can be better or more just than this.
+But this is all which is consistent with liberty, and it is all that any
+who are worthy of the name of reformers will ask.
+
+
+
+X.--Algeria.
+
+
+Here are four orators disputing for the platform. First, all the four
+speak at once; then they speak one after the other. What have they said?
+Some very fine things, certainly, about the power and the grandeur of
+France; about the necessity of sowing, if we would reap; about the
+brilliant future of our gigantic colony; about the advantage of
+diverting to a distance the surplus of our population, &c. &c.
+Magnificent pieces of eloquence, and always adorned with this
+conclusion:--"Vote fifty millions, more or less, for making ports and
+roads in Algeria; for sending emigrants thither; for building houses and
+breaking up land. By so doing, you will relieve the French workman,
+encourage African labour, and give a stimulus to the commerce of
+Marseilles. It would be profitable every way."
+
+Yes, it is all very true, if you take no account of the fifty millions
+until the moment when the State begins to spend them; if you only see
+where they go, and not whence they come; if you look only at the good
+they are to do when they come out of the tax-gatherer's bag, and not at
+the harm which has been done, and the good which has been prevented, by
+putting them into it. Yes, at this limited point of view, all is profit.
+The house which is built in Barbary is _that which is seen_; the
+harbour made in Barbary is _that which is seen_; the work caused in
+Barbary is _what is seen_; a few less hands in France is _what is seen_;
+a great stir with goods at Marseilles is still _that which is seen_.
+
+But, besides all this, there is something _which is not seen_. The fifty
+millions expended by the State cannot be spent, as they otherwise would
+have been, by the tax-payers. It is necessary to deduct, from all the
+good attributed to the public expenditure which has been effected, all
+the harm caused by the prevention of private expense, unless we say that
+James B. would have done nothing with the crown that he had gained, and
+of which the tax had deprived him; an absurd assertion, for if he took
+the trouble to earn it, it was because he expected the satisfaction of
+using it. He would have repaired the palings in his garden, which he
+cannot now do, and this is _that which is not seen_. He would have
+manured his field, which now he cannot do, and this is _what is not
+seen_. He would have added another story to his cottage, which he cannot
+do now, and this is _what is not seen_. He might have increased the
+number of his tools, which he cannot do now, and this is _what is not
+seen_. He would have been better fed, better clothed, have given a
+better education to his children, and increased his daughter's marriage
+portion; this is _what is not seen_. He would have become a member of
+the Mutual Assistance Society, but now he cannot; this is _what is not
+seen_. On one hand, are the enjoyments of which he has been deprived,
+and the means of action which have been destroyed in his hands; on the
+other, are the labour of the drainer, the carpenter, the smith, the
+tailor, the village schoolmaster, which he would have encouraged, and
+which are now prevented--all this is _what is not seen_.
+
+Much is hoped from the future prosperity of Algeria; be it so. But the
+drain to which France is being subjected ought not to be kept entirely
+out of sight. The commerce of Marseilles is pointed out to me; but if
+this is to be brought about by means of taxation, I shall always show
+that an equal commerce is destroyed thereby in other parts of the
+country. It is said, "There is an emigrant transported into Barbary;
+this is a relief to the population which remains in the country," I
+answer, "How can that be, if, in transporting this emigrant to Algiers,
+you also transport two or three times the capital which would have
+served to maintain him in France?"[4]
+
+The only object I have in view is to make it evident to the reader, that
+in every public expense, behind the apparent benefit, there is an evil
+which it is not so easy to discern. As far as in me lies, I would make
+him form a habit of seeing both, and taking account of both.
+
+When a public expense is proposed, it ought to be examined in itself,
+separately from the pretended encouragement of labour which results from
+it, for tins encouragement is a delusion. Whatever is done in this way
+at the public expense, private expense would have done all the same;
+therefore, the interest of labour is always out of the question.
+
+It is not the object of this treatise to criticise the intrinsic merit
+of the public expenditure as applied to Algeria, but I cannot withhold a
+general observation. It is, that the presumption is always unfavourable
+to collective expenses by way of tax. Why? For this reason:--First,
+justice always suffers from it in some degree. Since James B. had
+laboured to gain his crown, in the hope of receiving a gratification
+from it, it is to be regretted that the exchequer should interpose, and
+take from James B. this gratification, to bestow it upon another.
+Certainly, it behoves the exchequer, or those who regulate it, to give
+good reasons for this. It has been shown that the State gives a very
+provoking one, when it says, "With this crown I shall employ workmen;"
+for James B. (as soon as he sees it) will be sure to answer, "It is all
+very fine, but with this crown I might employ them myself."
+
+Apart from this reason, others present themselves without disguise, by
+which the debate between the exchequer and poor James becomes much
+simplified. If the State says to him, "I take your crown to pay the
+gendarme, who saves you the trouble of providing for your own personal
+safety; for paving the street which you are passing through every day;
+for paying the magistrate who causes your property and your liberty to
+be respected; to maintain the soldier who maintains our
+frontiers,"--James B., unless I am much mistaken, will pay for all this
+without hesitation. But if the State were to say to him, "I take this
+crown that I may give you a little prize in case you cultivate your
+field well; or that I may teach your son something that you have no wish
+that he should learn; or that the Minister may add another to his score
+of dishes at dinner; I take it to build a cottage in Algeria, in which
+case I must take another crown every year to keep an emigrant in it, and
+another hundred to maintain a soldier to guard this emigrant, and
+another crown to maintain a general to guard this soldier," &c., &c.,--I
+think I hear poor James exclaim, "This system of law is very much like a
+system of cheat!" The State foresees the objection, and what does it do?
+It jumbles all things together, and brings forward just that provoking
+reason which ought to have nothing whatever to do with the question. It
+talks of the effect of this crown upon labour; it points to the cook and
+purveyor of the Minister; it shows an emigrant, a soldier, and a
+general, living upon the crown; it shows, in fact, _what is seen_, and
+if James B. has not learned to take into the account _what is not seen_,
+James B. will be duped. And this is why I want to do all I can to
+impress it upon his mind, by repeating it over and over again.
+
+As the public expenses displace labour without increasing it, a second
+serious presumption presents itself against them. To displace labour is
+to displace labourers, and to disturb the natural laws which regulate
+the distribution of the population over the country. If 50,000,000
+francs are allowed to remain in the possession of the tax-payers since
+the tax-payers are everywhere, they encourage labour in the 40,000
+parishes in France. They act like a natural tie, which keeps every one
+upon his native soil; they distribute themselves amongst all imaginable
+labourers and trades. If the State, by drawing off these 60,000,000
+francs from the citizens, accumulates them, and expends them on some
+given point, it attracts to this point a proportional quantity of
+displaced labour, a corresponding number of labourers, belonging to
+other parts; a fluctuating population, which is out of its place, and I
+venture to say dangerous when the fund is exhausted. Now here is the
+consequence (and this confirms all I have said): this feverish activity
+is, as it were, forced into a narrow space; it attracts the attention of
+all; it is _what is seen_. The people applaud; they are astonished at
+the beauty and facility of the plan, and expect to have it continued and
+extended. _That which they do not see_ is, that an equal quantity of
+labour, which would probably be more valuable, has been paralyzed over
+the rest of France.
+
+
+
+XI.--Frugality and Luxury.
+
+
+It is not only in the public expenditure that _what is seen_ eclipses
+_what is not seen_. Setting aside what relates to political economy,
+this phenomenon leads to false reasoning. It causes nations to consider
+their moral and their material interests as contradictory to each other.
+What can be more discouraging or more dismal?
+
+For instance, there is not a father of a family who does not think it
+his duty to teach his children order, system, the habits of carefulness,
+of economy, and of moderation in spending money.
+
+There is no religion which does not thunder against pomp and luxury.
+This is as it should be; but, on the other hand, how frequently do we
+hear the following remarks:--
+
+"To hoard, is to drain the veins of the people."
+
+"The luxury of the great is the comfort of the little."
+
+"Prodigals ruin themselves, but they enrich the State."
+
+"It is the superfluity of the rich which makes bread for the poor."
+
+Here, certainly, is a striking contradiction between the moral and the
+social idea. How many eminent spirits, after having made the assertion,
+repose in peace. It is a thing I never could understand, for it seems to
+me that nothing can be more distressing than to discover two opposite
+tendencies in mankind. Why, it comes to degradation at each of the
+extremes: economy brings it to misery; prodigality plunges it into moral
+degradation. Happily, these vulgar maxims exhibit economy and luxury in
+a false light, taking account, as they do, of those immediate
+consequences _which are seen_, and not of the remote ones, _which are
+not seen_. Let us see if we can rectify this incomplete view of the
+case.
+
+Mondor and his brother Aristus, after dividing the parental inheritance,
+have each an income of 50,000 francs. Mondor practises the fashionable
+philanthropy. He is what is called a squanderer of money. He renews his
+furniture several times a year; changes his equipages every month.
+People talk of his ingenious contrivances to bring them sooner to an
+end: in short, he surpasses the fast livers of Balzac and Alexander
+Dumas.
+
+Thus everybody is singing his praises. It is, "Tell us about Mondor!
+Mondor for ever! He is the benefactor of the workman; a blessing to the
+people. It is true, he revels in dissipation; he splashes the
+passers-by; his own dignity and that of human nature are lowered a
+little; but what of that? He does good with his fortune, if not with
+himself. He causes money to circulate; he always sends the tradespeople
+away satisfied. Is not money made round that it may roll?"
+
+Aristus has adopted a very different plan of life. If he is not an
+egotist, he is, at any rate, an _individualist_, for he considers
+expense, seeks only moderate and reasonable enjoyments, thinks of his
+children's prospects, and, in fact, he _economises_.
+
+And what do people say of him? "What is the good of a rich fellow like
+him? He is a skinflint. There is something imposing, perhaps, in the
+simplicity of his life; and he is humane, too, and benevolent, and
+generous, but he _calculates_. He does not spend his income; his house
+is neither brilliant nor bustling. What good does he do to the
+paper-hangers, the carriage makers, the horse dealers, and the
+confectioners?"
+
+These opinions, which are fatal to morality, are founded upon what
+strikes the eye:--the expenditure of the prodigal; and another, which is
+out of sight, the equal and even superior expenditure of the economist.
+
+But things have been so admirably arranged by the Divine inventor of
+social order, that in this, as in everything else, political economy and
+morality, far from clashing, agree; and the wisdom of Aristus is not
+only more dignified, but still more _profitable_, than the folly of
+Mondor. And when I say profitable, I do not mean only profitable to
+Aristus, or even to society in general, but more profitable to the
+workmen themselves--to the trade of the time.
+
+To prove it, it is only necessary to turn the mind's eye to those hidden
+consequences of human actions, which the bodily eye does not see.
+
+Yes, the prodigality of Mondor has visible effects in every point of
+view. Everybody can see his landaus, his phaetons, his berlins, the
+delicate paintings on his ceilings, his rich carpets, the brilliant
+effects of his house. Every one knows that his horses run upon the turf.
+The dinners which he gives at the Hotel de Paris attract the attention
+of the crowds on the Boulevards; and it is said, "That is a generous
+man; far from saving his income, he is very likely breaking into his
+capital." That is _what is seen_.
+
+It is not so easy to see, with regard to the interest of workers, what
+becomes of the income of Aristus. If we were to trace it carefully,
+however, we should see that the whole of it, down to the last farthing,
+affords work to the labourers, as certainly as the fortune of Mondor.
+Only there is this difference: the wanton extravagance of Mondor is
+doomed to be constantly decreasing, and to come to an end without fail;
+whilst the wise expenditure of Aristus will go on increasing from year
+to year. And if this is the case, then, most assuredly, the public
+interest will be in unison with morality.
+
+Aristus spends upon himself and his household 20,000 francs a year. If
+that is not sufficient to content him, he does not deserve to be called
+a wise man. He is touched by the miseries which oppress the poorer
+classes; he thinks he is bound in conscience to afford them some relief,
+and therefore he devotes 10,000 francs to acts of benevolence. Amongst
+the merchants, the manufacturers, and the agriculturists, he has friends
+who are suffering under temporary difficulties; he makes himself
+acquainted with their situation, that he may assist them with prudence
+and efficiency, and to this work he devotes 10,000 francs more. Then he
+does not forget that he has daughters to portion, and sons for whose
+prospects it is his duty to provide, and therefore he considers it a
+duty to lay by and put out to interest 10,000 francs every year.
+
+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:--
+
+     1. When the few plunder the many.
+
+     2. When everybody plunders everybody else.
+
+     3. When nobody plunders anybody.
+
+Partial plunder, universal plunder, absence of plunder, amongst these we
+have to make our choice. The law can only produce one of these results.
+
+_Partial_ plunder.--This is the system which prevailed so long as the
+elective privilege was _partial_--a system which 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
+any one 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 which 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 ORGANISED
+JUSTICE.
+
+Now it is important to remark, that to organise justice by law, that is
+to say by force, excludes the idea of organising by law, or by force any
+manifestation whatever of human activity--labour, charity, agriculture,
+commerce, industry, instruction, the fine arts, or religion; for any one
+of these organisations would inevitably destroy the essential
+organisation. 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 encountering the most popular prejudice of our time. It is
+not considered enough that law should be just, 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. M. de Lamartine wrote to me one day thus:--"Your
+doctrine is only the half of my programme; you have stopped at liberty,
+I go on to fraternity." I answered him:--"The second part of your
+programme 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
+egotism; the other is in false philanthropy.
+
+Before I proceed, I think I ought to explain myself upon the word
+plunder.[8]
+
+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, 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 dissensions;
+therefore, whether I am believed or not, I declare that I do not mean to
+accuse the intentions nor the morality of anybody. I am attacking an
+idea which I believe to be false--a system which 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 in 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,[9] 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 it as it may, to conclude that legal plunder has one of its roots in
+false philanthropy, is evidently to put intentions out of the question.
+
+With this understanding, let us examine the value, the origin, and the
+tendency of this popular aspiration, which pretends to realise the
+general good by general plunder.
+
+The Socialists say, since the law organises justice, why should it not
+organise labour, instruction, and religion?
+
+Why? Because it could not organise labour, instruction, and religion,
+without disorganising justice.
+
+For, remember, that law is force, and that consequently the domain of
+the law cannot lawfully 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 fulfil 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 which 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 which 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 labour, 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 lumber; they cease to be men; they
+lose their personality, their liberty, their property.
+
+Endeavour to imagine a form of labour imposed by force, which is not a
+violation of liberty; a transmission of wealth imposed by force, which
+is not a violation of property. If you cannot succeed in reconciling
+this, you are bound to conclude that the law cannot organise labour and
+industry without organising injustice.
+
+When, from the seclusion of his cabinet, a politician takes a view of
+society, he is struck with the spectacle of inequality which presents
+itself. He mourns over the sufferings which 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 later times, effected through the medium of
+the laws? He ought to ask himself whether, granting the aspiration of
+all men after well-being and perfection, the reign of justice would not
+suffice to realise the greatest activity of progress, and the greatest
+amount of equality compatible with that individual responsibility which
+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 organisations. 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 which 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 fountain, whence every stream may
+obtain supplies independently of society. Nothing can enter the public
+treasury, in favour of one citizen or one class, but what other citizens
+and other classes have been _forced_ to send to it. If every one 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
+equalisation 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, prizes for encouragement, right to profit, right
+to labour, right to assistance, right to instruction, progressive
+taxation, gratuitousness of credit, social workshops, and you will
+always find at the bottom legal plunder, organised injustice.
+
+You say, "There are men who want knowledge," and you apply to the law.
+But the law is not a torch which sheds light abroad which is peculiar to
+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 force the will of the
+people in the matter, and take from some of them sufficient to pay
+professors commissioned to instruct others gratuitously. 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?
+
+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, organisation, association.
+And because we do not ask so much at the hands of the law, because we
+only ask it for justice, it supposes that we reject fraternity,
+solidarity, organisation, and association; and they brand us with the
+name of _individualists_.
+
+We can assure them that what we repudiate is, not natural organisation,
+but forced organisation.
+
+It is not free association, but the forms of association which 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, &c., &c. 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 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
+moving spring in them; that they are inert matter, passive particles,
+atoms without impulse; at best a vegetation indifferent to its own mode
+of existence, susceptible of receiving, 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 scruple to imagine
+that he himself is, under the names of organiser, discoverer,
+legislator, institutor or founder, this will and hand, this universal
+spring, 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, sub-circles,
+honeycombs, or social workshops, with all kinds of variations. And as
+the gardener, to bring his trees into shape, wants hatchets,
+pruning-hooks, saws, and shears, so the politician, to bring society
+into shape, wants the forces which he can only find in the laws; the law
+of customs, the law of taxation, the law of assistance, and the law of
+instruction.
+
+It is so true, that the Socialists look upon mankind as a subject for
+social combinations, that if, by chance, they are not quite certain of
+the success of these combinations, 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, then, think of the immeasurable distance 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 distance between
+himself and mankind.
+
+It is not to be wondered at that 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 which exist between the clay and the
+potter.
+
+Moreover, if they have consented to recognise in the heart of man a
+principle of action, and in his intellect a principle 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 labour and exchange to
+be extinguished in misery.
+
+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,
+polities, 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, organisation,
+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 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 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 which 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 organisation,
+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 which characterizes the classics,
+Fenelon, 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 which were
+     covered every year, without intermission, with golden crops;
+     meadows full of flocks; labourers bending under the weight of
+     fruits which 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 which is governed
+     by a wise king.'.... Mentor afterwards desired me to remark the
+     happiness and abundance which 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 favour of the poor _against_ the rich; the good
+     education of the children, who were accustomed to obedience,
+     labour, and the love of arts and letters; the exactness with which
+     all the ceremonies of religion were performed; the
+     disinterestedness, the desire of honour, 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_.'"
+
+Fenelon's idyl 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 which 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 which 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."
+
+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.
+
+It is thus that 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.
+
+     _Montesquieu_.--"To sustain the spirit of commerce, it is necessary
+     that all the laws should favour it; that these same laws, by their
+     regulations in dividing the fortunes in proportion as commerce
+     enlarges them, should place every poor citizen in sufficiently easy
+     circumstances to enable him to work like the others, and every rich
+     citizen in such mediocrity that he must work, in order to retain or
+     to acquire."
+
+Thus the laws are to dispose of all fortunes.
+
+     "Although, in a democracy, real equality be the soul of the State,
+     yet it is so difficult to establish, that an extreme exactness in
+     this matter would not always be desirable. It is sufficient that a
+     census be established to reduce or fix the differences to a certain
+     point. After which, it is for particular laws to equalise, as it
+     were, the inequality, by burdens imposed upon the rich, and reliefs
+     granted to the poor."
+
+Here, again, we see the equalisation of fortunes by law, that is, by
+force.
+
+     "There were, in Greece, two kinds of republics. One was military,
+     as Lacedæmon; the other commercial, as Athens. In the one it was
+     wished (by whom?) that the citizens should be idle: in the other,
+     the love of labour was encouraged.
+
+     "It is worth our while to pay a little attention to the extent of
+     genius required by these legislators, that we may see how, by
+     confounding all the virtues, they showed their wisdom to the world.
+     Lycurgus, blending theft with the spirit of justice, the hardest
+     slavery with extreme liberty, the most atrocious sentiments with
+     the greatest moderation, gave stability to his city. He seemed to
+     deprive it of all its resources, arts, commerce, money, and walls;
+     there Was ambition without the hope of rising; there were natural
+     sentiments where the individual was neither child, nor husband,
+     nor father. Chastity even was deprived of modesty. _By this road
+     Sparta was led on to grandeur and to glory_.
+
+     "The phenomenon which we observe in the institutions of Greece has
+     been seen in the midst of the _degeneracy and corruption of our
+     modern times_. An honest legislator has formed a people where
+     probity has appeared as natural as bravery among the Spartans. Mr.
+     Penn is a true Lycurgus, and although the former had peace for his
+     object, and the latter war, they resemble each other in the
+     singular path along which they have led _their_ people, in their
+     influence over free men, in the prejudices which they have
+     overcome, the passions they have subdued.
+
+     "Paraguay furnishes us with another example. _Society_ has been
+     accused of the crime of regarding the pleasure of commanding as the
+     only good of life; but it will always be a noble thing to govern
+     men by making them happy.
+
+     "_Those who desire to form similar institutions_, will establish
+     community of property, as in the republic of Plato, the same
+     reverence which he enjoined for the gods, separation from strangers
+     for the preservation of morality, and make the city and not the
+     citizens create commerce: they should give our arts without our
+     luxury, our wants without our desires."
+
+Vulgar infatuation may exclaim, if it likes:--"It is Montesquieu!
+magnificent! sublime!" I am not afraid to express my opinion, and to
+say:--"What! you have the face to call that fine? It is frightful! it is
+abominable! and these extracts, which I might multiply, show that,
+according to Montesquieu, the persons, the liberties, the property,
+mankind itself, are nothing but materials to exercise the sagacity of
+lawgivers."
+
+_Rousseau_.--Although this politician, the paramount authority of the
+Democrats, makes the social edifice rest upon the _general will_, no one
+has so completely admitted the hypothesis of the entire passiveness of
+human nature in the presence of the lawgiver:--
+
+     "If it is true that a great prince is a rare thing, how much more
+     so must a great lawgiver be? The former has only to follow the
+     pattern proposed to him by the latter. _This latter is the
+     mechanician who invents the machine_; the former is merely the
+     workman who sets it in motion."
+
+And what part have men to act in all this? That of the machine, which is
+set in motion; or rather, are they not the brute matter of which the
+machine is made? Thus, between the legislator and the prince, between
+the prince and his subjects, there are the same relations as those which
+exist between the agricultural writer and the agriculturist, the
+agriculturist and the clod. At what a vast height, then, is the
+politician placed, who rules over legislators themselves, and teaches
+them their trade in such imperative terms as the following:--
+
+     "Would you give consistency to the State? Bring the extremes
+     together as much as possible. Suffer neither wealthy persons nor
+     beggars.
+
+     "If the soil is poor and barren, or the country too much confined
+     for the inhabitants, turn to industry and the arts, whose
+     productions you will exchange for the provisions which you
+     require.... On a good soil, if _you are short_ of inhabitants, give
+     all your attention to agriculture, which multiplies men, and
+     _banish_ the arts, which only serve to depopulate the country....
+     Pay attention to extensive and convenient coasts. _Cover the sea_
+     with vessels, and you will have a brilliant and short existence. If
+     your seas wash only inaccessible rocks, let the people _be
+     barbarous_, and eat fish; they will live more quietly, perhaps
+     better, and, most certainly, more happily. In short, besides those
+     maxims which are common to all, every people has its own particular
+     circumstances, which demand a legislation peculiar to itself.
+
+     "It was thus that the Hebrews formerly, and the Arabs more
+     recently, had religion for their principal object; that of the
+     Athenians was literature; that of Carthage and Tyre, commerce; of
+     Rhodes, naval affairs; of Sparta, war; and of Rome, virtue. The
+     author of the 'Spirit of Laws' has shown the art _by which the
+     legislator should frame his institutions towards each of these
+     objects_.... But if the legislator, mistaking his object, should
+     take up a principle different from that which arises from the
+     nature of things; if one should tend to slavery, and the other to
+     liberty; if one to wealth, and the other to population; one to
+     peace, and the other to conquests; the laws will insensibly become
+     enfeebled, the Constitution will be impaired, and the State will be
+     subject to incessant agitations until it is destroyed, or becomes
+     changed, and invincible Nature regains her empire."
+
+But if Nature is sufficiently invincible to _regain_ its empire, why
+does not Kousseau admit that it had no need of the legislator to _gain_
+its empire from the beginning? Why does he not allow that, by obeying
+their own impulse, men would, of themselves, apply agriculture to a
+fertile district, and commerce to extensive and commodious coasts,
+without the interference of a Lycurgus, a Solon, or a Rousseau, who
+would undertake it at the risk of _deceiving themselves_?
+
+Be that as it may, we see with what a terrible responsibility Rousseau
+invests inventors, institutors, conductors, and manipulators of
+societies. He is, therefore, very exacting with regard to them.
+
+     "He who dares to undertake the institutions of a people, ought to
+     feel that he can, as it were, transform every individual, who is by
+     himself a perfect and solitary whole, receiving his life and being
+     from a larger whole of which he forms a part; he must feel that he
+     can change the constitution of man, to fortify it, and substitute a
+     partial and moral existence for the physical and independent one
+     which we have all received from nature. In a word, he must deprive
+     man of his own powers, to give him others which are foreign to
+     him."
+
+Poor human nature! What would become of its dignity if it were
+entrusted to the disciples of Rousseau?
+
+     _Raynal_.--"The climate, that is, the air and the soil, is the
+     first element for the legislator. _His_ resources prescribe to him
+     his duties. First, he must consult _his_ local position. A
+     population dwelling upon maritime shores must have laws fitted for
+     navigation.... If the colony is located in an inland region, a
+     legislator must provide for the nature of the soil, and for its
+     degree of fertility....
+
+     "It is more especially in the distribution of property that the
+     wisdom of legislation will appear. As a general rule, and in every
+     country, when a new colony is founded, land should be given to each
+     man, sufficient for the support of his family....
+
+     "In an uncultivated island, which _you_ are colonizing with
+     children, it will only be needful to let the germs of truth expand
+     in the developments of reason! But when _you_ establish old people
+     in a new country, the skill consists in _only allowing it_ those
+     injurious opinions and customs which it is impossible to cure and
+     correct. If _you_ wish to prevent them from being perpetuated, you
+     will act upon the rising generation by a general and public
+     education of the children. A prince, or legislator, ought never to
+     found a colony without previously sending wise men there to
+     instruct the youth.... In a new colony, every facility is open to
+     the precautions of the legislator who desires _to purify the tone
+     and the manners of the people_. If he has genius and virtue, the
+     lands and the men which are _at his disposal_ will inspire his soul
+     with a plan of society which a writer can only vaguely trace, and
+     in a way which would be subject to the instability of all
+     hypotheses, which are varied and complicated by an infinity of
+     circumstances too difficult to foresee and to combine."
+
+One would think it was a professor of agriculture who was saying to his
+pupils--"The climate is the only rule for the agriculturist. _His_
+resources dictate to him his duties. The first thing he has to consider
+is his local position. If he is on a clayey soil, he must do so and so.
+If he has to contend with sand, this is the way in which he must set
+about it. Every facility is open to the agriculturist who wishes to
+clear and improve his soil. If he only has the skill, the manure which
+he has _at his disposal_ will suggest to him a plan of operation, which
+a professor can only vaguely trace, and in a way that would be subject
+to the uncertainty of all hypotheses, which vary and are complicated by
+an infinity of circumstances too difficult to foresee and to combine."
+
+But, oh! sublime writers, deign to remember sometimes that this clay,
+this sand, this manure, of which you are disposing in so arbitrary a
+manner, are men, your equals, intelligent and free beings like
+yourselves, who have received from God, as you have, the faculty of
+seeing, of foreseeing, of thinking, and of judging for themselves!
+
+_Mably_. (He is supposing the laws to be worn out by time and by the
+neglect of security, and continues thus):--
+
+     "Under these circumstances, we must be convinced that the springs
+     of Government are relaxed. _Give them_ a new tension (it is the
+     reader who is addressed), and the evil will be remedied.... Think
+     lees of punishing the faults than of encouraging the virtues _which
+     you want_. By this method you will bestow upon _your republic_ the
+     vigour of youth. Through ignorance of this, a free people has lost
+     its liberty! But if the evil has made so much way that the ordinary
+     magistrates are unable to remedy it effectually, _have recourse_ to
+     an extraordinary magistracy, whose time should be short, and its
+     power considerable. The imagination of the citizens requires to be
+     impressed."
+
+In this style he goes on through twenty volumes.
+
+There was a time when, under the influence of teaching like this, which
+is the root of classical education, every one was for placing himself
+beyond and above mankind, for the sake of arranging, organising, and
+instituting it in his own way.
+
+     _Condillac_.--"Take upon yourself, my lord, the character of
+     Lycurgus or of Solon. Before you finish reading this essay, amuse
+     yourself with giving laws to some wild people in America or in
+     Africa. Establish these roving men in fixed dwellings; teach them
+     to keep flocks.... Endeavour to develop the social qualities which
+     nature has implanted in them.... Make them begin to practise the
+     duties of humanity.... Cause the pleasures of the passions to
+     become distasteful to them by punishments, and you will see these
+     barbarians, with every plan of your legislation, lose a vice and
+     gain a virtue.
+
+     "All these people have had laws. But few among them have been
+     happy. Why is this? Because legislators have almost always been
+     ignorant of the object of society, which is, to unite families by a
+     common interest.
+
+     "Impartiality in law consists in two things:--in establishing
+     equality in the fortunes and in the dignity of the citizens.... In
+     proportion to the degree of equality established by the laws, the
+     dearer will they become to every citizen.... How can avarice,
+     ambition, dissipation, idleness, sloth, envy, hatred, or jealousy,
+     agitate men who are equal in fortune and dignity, and to whom the
+     laws leave no hope of disturbing their equality?
+
+     "What has been told you of the republic of Sparta ought to
+     enlighten you on this question. No other State has had laws more in
+     accordance with the order of nature or of equality."
+
+It is not to be wondered at that the 17th and 18th centuries should have
+looked upon the human race as inert matter, ready to receive everything,
+form, figure, impulse, movement, and life, from a great prince, or a
+great legislator, or a great genius. These ages were reared in the study
+of antiquity, and antiquity presents everywhere, in Egypt, Persia,
+Greece, and Rome, the spectacle of a few men moulding mankind according
+to their fancy, and mankind to this end enslaved by force or by
+imposture. And what does this prove? That because men and society are
+improvable, error, ignorance, despotism, slavery, and superstition must
+be more prevalent in early times. The mistake of the writers quoted
+above, is not that they have asserted this fact, but that they have
+proposed it, as a rule, for the admiration and imitation of future
+generations. Their mistake has been, with an inconceivable absence of
+discernment, and upon the faith of a puerile conventionalism, that they
+have admitted what is inadmissible, viz., the grandeur, dignity,
+morality, and well-being of the artificial societies of the ancient
+world; they have not understood that time produces and spreads
+enlightenment; and that in proportion to the increase of enlightenment,
+right ceases to be upheld by force, and society regains possession of
+herself.
+
+And, in fact, what is the political work which we are endeavouring to
+promote? It is no other than the instinctive effort of every people
+towards liberty. And what is liberty, whose name can make every heart
+beat, and which can agitate the world, but the union of all liberties,
+the liberty of conscience, of instruction, of association, of the press,
+of locomotion, of labour, and of exchange; in other words, the free
+exercise, for all, of all the inoffensive faculties; and again, in other
+words, the destruction of all despotisms, even of legal despotism, and
+the reduction of law to its only rational sphere, which is to regulate
+the individual right of legitimate defence, or to repress injustice?
+
+This tendency of the human race, it must be admitted, is greatly
+thwarted, particularly in our country, by the fatal disposition,
+resulting from classical teaching, and common to all politicians, of
+placing themselves beyond mankind, to arrange, organise, and regulate
+it, according to their fancy.
+
+For whilst society is struggling to realise liberty, the great men who
+place themselves at its head, imbued with the principles of the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, think only of subjecting it to the
+philanthropic despotism of their social inventions, and making it bear
+with docility, according to the expression of Rousseau, the yoke of
+public felicity, as pictured in their own imaginations.
+
+This was particularly the case in 1789. No sooner was the old system
+destroyed, than society was to be submitted to other artificial
+arrangements, always with the same starting-point--the omnipotence of
+the law.
+
+     _Saint Just_.--"The legislator commands the future. It is for him
+     to _will_ for the good of mankind. It is for him to make men what
+     he wishes them to be."
+
+     _Robespierre_.--"The function of Government is to direct the
+     physical and moral powers of the nation towards the object of its
+     institution."
+
+     _Billaud Varennes_.--"A people who are to be restored to liberty
+     must be formed anew. Ancient prejudices must be destroyed,
+     antiquated customs changed, depraved affections corrected,
+     inveterate vices eradicated. For this, a strong force and a
+     vehement impulse will be necessary.... Citizens, the inflexible
+     austerity of Lycurgus created the firm basis of the Spartan
+     republic. The feeble and trusting disposition of Solon plunged
+     Athens into slavery. This parallel contains the whole science of
+     Government."
+
+     _Lepelletier._--"Considering the extent of human degradation, I am
+     convinced of the necessity of effecting an entire regeneration of
+     the race, and, if I may so express myself, of creating a new
+     people."
+
+Men, therefore, are nothing but raw material. It is not for them to
+_will their own improvement_. They are not capable of it; according to
+Saint Just, it is only the legislator who is. Men are merely to be what
+he _wills_ that they should be. According to Robespierre, who copies
+Rousseau literally, the legislator is to begin by assigning the aim of
+the _institutions of the nation_. After this, the Government has only to
+direct all its _physical_ and _moral forces_ towards this end. All this
+time the nation itself is to remain perfectly passive; and Billaud
+Varennes would teach us that it ought to have no prejudices, affections,
+nor wants, but such as are authorised by the legislator. He even goes so
+far as to say that the inflexible austerity of a man is the basis of a
+republic.
+
+We have seen that, in cases where the evil is so great that the ordinary
+magistrates are unable to remedy it, Mably recommends a dictatorship, to
+promote virtue. "_Have recourse_," says he, "to an extraordinary
+magistracy, whose time shall be short, and his power considerable. The
+imagination of the people requires to be impressed." This doctrine has
+not been neglected. Listen to Robespierre:--
+
+     "The principle of the Republican Government is virtue, and the
+     means to be adopted, during its establishment, is terror. We want
+     to substitute, in our country, morality for egotism, probity for
+     honour, principles for customs, duties for decorum, the empire of
+     reason for the tyranny of fashion, contempt of vice for contempt of
+     misfortune, pride for insolence, greatness of soul for vanity,
+     love of glory for love of money, good people for good company,
+     merit for intrigue, genius for wit, truth for glitter, the charm of
+     happiness for the weariness of pleasure, the greatness of man for
+     the littleness of the great, a magnanimous, powerful, happy people,
+     for one that is easy, frivolous, degraded; that is to say, we would
+     substitute all the virtues and miracles of a republic for all the
+     vices and absurdities of monarchy."
+
+At what a vast height above the rest of mankind does Robespierre place
+himself here! And observe the arrogance with which he speaks. He is not
+content with expressing a desire for a great renovation of the human
+heart, he does not even expect such a result from a regular Government.
+No; he intends to effect it himself, and by means of terror. The object
+of the discourse from which this puerile and laborious mass of
+antithesis is extracted, was to exhibit the _principles of morality
+which ought to direct a revolutionary Government_. Moreover, when
+Robespierre asks for a dictatorship, it is not merely for the purpose of
+repelling a foreign enemy, or of putting down factions; it is that he
+may establish, by means of terror, and as a preliminary to the game of
+the Constitution, his own principles of morality. He pretends to nothing
+short of extirpating from the country, by means of terror, _egotism,
+honour, customs, decorum, fashion, vanity, the love of money, good
+company, intrigue, wit, luxury, and misery_. It is not until after he,
+Robespierre, shall have accomplished these _miracles_, as he rightly
+calls them, that he will allow the law to regain her empire. Truly, it
+would be well if these visionaries, who think so much of themselves and
+so little of mankind, who want to renew everything, would only be
+content with trying to reform themselves, the task would be arduous
+enough for them. In general, however, these gentlemen, the reformers,
+legislators, and politicians, do not desire to exercise an immediate
+despotism over mankind. No, they are too moderate and too philanthropic
+for that. They only contend for the despotism, the absolutism, the
+omnipotence of the law. They aspire only to make the law.
+
+To show how universal this strange disposition has been in France, I had
+need not only to have copied the whole of the works of Mably, Raynal,
+Rousseau, Fenelon, and to have made long extracts from Bossuet and
+Montesquieu, but to have given the entire transactions of the sittings
+of the Convention, I shall do no such thing, however, but merely refer
+the reader to them.
+
+It is not to be wondered at that this idea should have suited Buonaparte
+exceedingly well. He embraced it with ardour, and put it in practice
+with energy. Playing the part of a chemist, Europe was to him the
+material for his experiments. But this material reacted against him.
+More than half undeceived, Buonaparte, at St. Helena, seemed to admit
+that there is an initiative in every people, and he became less hostile
+to liberty. Yet this did not prevent him from giving this lesson to his
+son in his will:--"To govern, is to diffuse morality, education, and
+well-being."
+
+After all this, I hardly need show, by fastidious quotations, the
+opinions of Morelly, Babeuf, Owen, Saint Simon, and Fourier. I shall
+confine myself to a few extracts from Louis Blanc's book on the
+organisation of labour.
+
+"In our project, society receives the impulse of power." (Page 126.)
+
+In what does the impulse which power gives to society consist? In
+imposing upon it the _project_ of M. Louis Blanc.
+
+On the other hand, society is the human race. The human race, then, is
+to receive its impulse from M. Louis Blanc.
+
+It is at liberty to do so or not, it will be said. Of course the human
+race is at liberty to take advice from anybody, whoever it may be. But
+this is not the way in which M. Louis Blanc understands the thing. He
+means that his project should be converted into _law_, and,
+consequently, forcibly imposed by power.
+
+     "In our project, the State has only to give a legislation to
+     labour, by means of which the industrial movement may and ought to
+     be accomplished _in all liberty_. It (the State) merely places
+     society on an incline (_that is all_) that it may descend, when
+     once it is placed there, by the mere force of things, and by the
+     natural course of the _established mechanism_."
+
+But what is this incline? One indicated by M. Louis Blanc. Does it not
+lead to an abyss? No, it leads to happiness. Why, then, does not society
+go there of itself? Because it does not know what it wants, and it
+requires an impulse. What is to give it this impulse? Power. And who is
+to give the impulse to power? The inventor of the machine, M. Louis
+Blanc.
+
+We shall never get out of this circle--mankind passive, and a great man
+moving it by the intervention of the law.
+
+Once on this incline, will society enjoy something like liberty? Without
+a doubt. And what is liberty?
+
+     "Once for all: liberty consists, not only in the right granted, but
+     in the power given to man, to exercise, to develop his faculties
+     under the empire of justice, and under the protection of the law.
+
+     "And this is no vain distinction; there is a deep meaning in it,
+     and its consequences are not to be estimated. For when once it is
+     admitted that man, to be truly free, must have the power to
+     exercise and develop his faculties, it follows that every member of
+     society has a claim upon it for such instruction as shall _enable_
+     it to display itself, and for the instruments of labour, without
+     which human activity can find no scope. Now, by whose intervention
+     is society to give to each of its members the requisite instruction
+     and the necessary instruments of labour, unless by that of the
+     State?"
+
+Thus, liberty is power. In what does this power consist? In possessing
+instruction and instruments of labour. Who is to give instruction and
+instruments of labour? Society, _who owes them_. By whose intervention
+is society to give instruments of labour to those who do not possess
+them?
+
+By the _intervention of the State_. From whom is the State to obtain
+them?
+
+It is for the reader to answer this question, and to notice whither all
+this tends.
+
+One of the strangest phenomena of our time, and one which will probably
+be a matter of astonishment to our descendants, is the doctrine which is
+founded upon this triple hypothesis: the radical passiveness of
+mankind,--the omnipotence of the law,--the infallibility of the
+legislator:--this is the sacred symbol of the party which proclaims
+itself exclusively democratic.
+
+It is true that it professes also to be _social_.
+
+So far as it is democratic, it, has an unlimited faith in mankind.
+
+So far as it is social, it places it beneath the mud.
+
+Are political rights under discussion? Is a legislator to be chosen? Oh!
+then the people possess science by instinct: they are gifted with an
+admirable tact; _their will is always right_; the general _will cannot
+err_. Suffrage cannot be too _universal_. Nobody is under any
+responsibility to society. The will and the capacity to choose well are
+taken for granted. Can the people be mistaken? Are we not living in an
+age of enlightenment? What! are the people to be always kept in leading
+strings? Have they not acquired their rights at the cost of effort and
+sacrifice? Have they not given sufficient proof of intelligence and
+wisdom? Are they not arrived at maturity? Are they not in a state to
+judge for themselves? Do they not know their own interest? Is there a
+man or a class who would dare to claim the right of putting himself in
+the place of the people, of deciding and of acting for them? No, no; the
+people would be _free_, and they shall be so. They wish to conduct their
+own affairs, and they shall do so.
+
+But when once the legislator is duly elected, then indeed the style of
+his speech alters. The nation is sent back into passiveness, inertness,
+nothingness, and the legislator takes possession of omnipotence. It is
+for him to invent, for him to direct, for him to impel, for him to
+organise. Mankind has nothing to do but to submit; the hour of despotism
+has struck. And we must observe that this is decisive; for the people,
+just before so enlightened, so moral, so perfect, have no inclinations
+at all, or, if they have any, they all lead them downwards towards
+degradation. And yet they ought to have a little liberty! But are we not
+assured, by M. Considerant, that _liberty leads fatally to monopoly_?
+Are we not told that liberty is competition? and that competition,
+according to M. Louis Blanc, _is a system of extermination for the
+people, and of ruination for trade_? For that reason people are
+exterminated and ruined in proportion as they are free--take, for
+example, Switzerland, Holland, England, and the United States? Does not
+M. Louis Blanc tell us again, that _competition leads to monopoly, and
+that, for the same reason, cheapness leads to exorbitant prices? That
+competition tends to drain the sources of consumption, and urges
+production to a destructive activity? That competition forces production
+to increase, and consumption to decrease_;--whence it follows that free
+people produce for the sake of not consuming; that there is nothing but
+_oppression and madness_ among them; and that it is absolutely necessary
+for M. Louis Blanc to see to it?
+
+What sort of liberty should be allowed to men? Liberty of
+conscience?--But we should see them all profiting by the permission to
+become atheists. Liberty of education?--But parents would be paying
+professors to teach their sons immorality and error; besides, if we are
+to believe M. Thiers, education, if left to the national liberty, would
+cease to be national, and we should be educating our children in the
+ideas of the Turks or Hindoos, instead of which, thanks to the legal
+despotism of the universities, they have the good fortune to be educated
+in the noble ideas of the Romans. Liberty of labour?--But this is only
+competition, whose effect is to leave all productions unconsumed, to
+exterminate the people, and to ruin the tradesmen. The liberty of
+exchange?--But it is well known that the protectionists have shown, over
+and over again, that a man must be ruined when he exchanges freely, and
+that to become rich it is necessary to exchange without liberty. Liberty
+of association?--But, according to the socialist doctrine, liberty and
+association exclude each other, for the liberty of men is attacked just
+to force them to associate.
+
+You must see, then, that the socialist democrats cannot in conscience
+allow men any liberty, because, by their own nature, they tend in every
+instance to all kinds of degradation and demoralisation.
+
+We are therefore left to conjecture, in this case, upon what foundation
+universal suffrage is claimed for them with so much importunity.
+
+The pretensions of organisers suggest another question, which I have
+often asked them, and to which I am not aware that I ever received an
+answer:--Since the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is
+not safe to allow them liberty, how comes it to pass that the tendencies
+of organisers are always good? Do not the legislators and their agents
+form a part of the human race? Do they consider that they are composed
+of different materials from the rest of mankind? They say that society,
+when left to itself, rushes to inevitable destruction, because its
+instincts are perverse. They pretend, to stop it in its downward course,
+and to give it a better direction. They have, therefore, received from
+heaven, intelligence and virtues which place them beyond and above
+mankind: let them show their title to this superiority. They would be
+our shepherds, and we are to be their flock. This arrangement
+presupposes in them a natural superiority, the right to which we are
+fully justified in calling upon them to prove.
+
+You must observe that I am not contending against their right to invent
+social combinations, to propagate them, to recommend them, and to try
+them upon themselves, at their own expense and risk; but I do dispute
+their right to impose them upon us through the medium of the law, that
+is, by force and by public taxes.
+
+I would not insist upon the Cabetists, the Fourierists, the
+Proudhonians, the Universitaries, and the Protectionists renouncing
+their own particular ideas; I would only have them renounce that idea
+which is common to them all,--viz., that of subjecting us by force to
+their own groups and series to their social workshops, to their
+gratuitous bank to their Græco-Romano morality, and to their commercial
+restrictions. I would ask them to allow us the faculty of judging of
+their plans, and not to oblige us to adopt them, if we find that they
+hurt our interests or are repugnant to our consciences.
+
+To presume to have recourse to power and taxation, besides being
+oppressive and unjust, implies further, the injurious supposition that
+the organiser is infallible, and mankind incompetent.
+
+And if mankind is not competent to judge for itself, why do they talk so
+much about universal suffrage?
+
+This contradiction in ideas is unhappily to be found also in facts; and
+whilst the French nation has preceded all others in obtaining its
+rights, or rather its political claims, this has by no means prevented
+it from being more governed, and directed, and imposed upon, and
+fettered, and cheated, than any other nation. It is also the one, of all
+others, where revolutions are constantly to be dreaded, and it is
+perfectly natural that it should be so.
+
+So long as this idea is retained, which is admitted by all our
+politicians, and so energetically expressed by M. Louis Blanc in these
+words--"Society receives its impulse from power;" so long as men
+consider themselves as capable of feeling, yet passive--incapable of
+raising themselves by their own discernment and by their own energy to
+any morality, or well-being, and while they expect everything from the
+law; in a word, while they admit that their relations with the State are
+the same as those of the flock with the shepherd, it is clear that the
+responsibility of power is immense. Fortune and misfortune, wealth and
+destitution, equality and inequality, all proceed from it. It is charged
+with everything, it undertakes everything, it does everything; therefore
+it has to answer for everything. If we are happy, it has a right to
+claim our gratitude; but if we are miserable, it alone must bear the
+blame. Are not our persons and property, in fact, at its disposal? Is
+not the law omnipotent? In creating the universitary monopoly, it has
+engaged to answer the expectations of fathers of families who have been
+deprived of liberty; and if these expectations are disappointed, whose
+fault is it? In regulating industry, it has engaged to make it prosper,
+otherwise it would have been absurd to deprive it of its liberty; and if
+it suffers, whose fault is it? In pretending to adjust the balance of
+commerce by the game of tariffs, it engages to make it prosper; and if,
+so far from prospering, it is destroyed, whose fault is it? In granting
+its protection to maritime armaments in exchange for their liberty, it
+has engaged to render them lucrative; if they become burdensome, whose
+fault is it?
+
+Thus, there is not a grievance in the nation for which the Government
+does not voluntarily make itself responsible. Is it to be wondered at
+that every failure threatens to cause a revolution?
+
+And what is the remedy proposed? To extend indefinitely the dominion of
+the law, _i.e._, the responsibility of Government. But if the Government
+engages to raise and to regulate wages, and is not able to do it; if it
+engages to assist all those who are in want, and is not able to do it;
+if it engages to provide an asylum for every labourer, and is not able
+to do it; if it engages to offer to all such as are eager to borrow,
+gratuitous credit, and is not able to do it; if, in words which we
+regret should have escaped the pen of M. de Lamartine, "the State
+considers that its mission is to enlighten, to develop, to enlarge, to
+strengthen, to spiritualize, and to sanctify the soul of the
+people,"--if it fails in this, is it not evident that after every
+disappointment, which, alas! is more than probable, there will be a no
+less inevitable revolution?
+
+I shall now resume the subject by remarking, that immediately after the
+economical part[10] of the question, and at the entrance of the
+political part, a leading question presents itself? It is the
+following:--
+
+What is law? What ought it to be? What is its domain? What are its
+limits? Where, in fact, does the prerogative of the legislator stop?
+
+I have no hesitation in answering, _Law is common force organised to
+prevent injustice_;--in short, Law is Justice.
+
+It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons
+and property, since they pre-exist, and his work is only to secure them
+from injury.
+
+It is not true that the mission of the law is to regulate our
+consciences, our ideas, our will, our education, our sentiments, our
+works, our exchanges, our gifts, our enjoyments. Its mission is to
+prevent the rights of one from interfering with those of another, in any
+one of these things.
+
+Law, because it has force for its necessary sanction, can only have as
+its lawful domain the domain of force, which is justice.
+
+And as every individual has a right to have recourse to force only in
+cases of lawful defence, so collective force, which is only the union of
+individual forces, cannot be rationally used for any other end.
+
+The law, then, is solely the organisation of individual rights, which
+existed before legitimate defence.
+
+Law is justice.
+
+So far from being able to oppress the persons of the people, or to
+plunder their property, even for a philanthropic end, its mission is to
+protect the former, and to secure to them the possession of the latter.
+
+It must not be said, either, that it may be philanthropic, so long as it
+abstains from all oppression; for this is a contradiction. The law
+cannot avoid acting upon our persons and property; if it does not secure
+them, it violates them if it touches them.
+
+The law is justice.
+
+Nothing can be more clear and simple, more perfectly defined and
+bounded, or more visible to every eye; for justice is a given quantity,
+immutable and unchangeable, and which admits of neither _increase_ or
+_diminution_.
+
+Depart from this point, make the law religious, fraternal, equalising,
+industrial, literary, or artistic, and you will be lost in vagueness and
+uncertainty; you will be upon unknown ground, in a forced Utopia, or,
+which is worse, in the midst of a multitude of Utopias, striving to gain
+possession of the law, and to impose it upon you; for fraternity and
+philanthropy have no fixed limits, like justice. Where will you stop?
+Where is the law to stop? One person, as M. de Saint Cricq, will only
+extend his philanthropy to some of the industrial classes, and will
+require the law to _dispose of the consumers in favour of the
+producers_. Another, like M. Considerant, will take up the cause of the
+working classes, and claim for them by means of the law, at a fixed
+rate, _clothing, lodging, food, and everything necessary for the support
+of life_. A third, as, M. Louis Blanc, will say, and with reason, that
+this would be an incomplete fraternity, and that the law ought to
+provide them with instruments of labour and the means of instruction. A
+fourth will observe that such an arrangement still leaves room for
+inequality, and that the law ought to introduce into the most remote
+hamlets luxury, literature, and the arts. This is the high road to
+communism; in other words, legislation will be--what it now is--the
+battle-field for everybody's dreams and everybody's covetousness.
+
+Law is justice.
+
+In this proposition we represent to ourselves a simple, immovable
+Government. And I defy any one to tell me whence the thought of a
+revolution, an insurrection, or a simple disturbance could arise against
+a public force confined to the repression of injustice. Under such a
+system, there would be more well-being, and this well-being would be
+more equally distributed; and as to the sufferings inseparable from
+humanity, no one would think of accusing the Government of them, for it
+would be as innocent of them as it is of the variations of the
+temperature. Have the people ever been known to rise against the court
+of repeals, or assail the justices of the peace, for the sake of
+claiming the rate of wages, gratuitous credit, instruments of labour,
+the advantages of the tariff, or the social workshop? They know
+perfectly well that these combinations are beyond the jurisdiction of
+the justices of the peace, and they would soon learn that they are not
+within the jurisdiction of the law.
+
+But if the law were to be made upon the principle of fraternity, if it
+were to be proclaimed that from it proceed all benefits and all
+evils--that it is responsible for every individual grievance and for
+every social inequality--then you open the door to an endless succession
+of complaints, irritations, troubles, and revolutions.
+
+Law is justice.
+
+And it would be very strange if it could properly be anything else! Is not
+justice right? Are not rights equal? With what show of right can the law
+interfere to subject me to the social plans of MM. Mimerel, de Melun,
+Thiers, or Louis Blanc, rather than to subject these gentlemen to _my_
+plans? Is it to be supposed that Nature has not bestowed upon ME
+sufficient imagination to invent a Utopia too? Is it for the law to make
+choice of one amongst so many fancies, and to make use of the public
+force in its service?
+
+Law is justice.
+
+And let it not be said, as it continually is, that the law, in this
+sense, would be atheistic, individual, and heartless, and that it would
+make mankind wear its own image. This is an absurd conclusion, quite
+worthy of the governmental infatuation which sees mankind in the law.
+
+What then? Does it follow that, if we are free, we shall cease to act?
+Does it follow, that if we do not receive an impulse from the law, we
+shall receive no impulse at all? Does it follow, that if the law
+confines itself to securing to us the free exercise of our faculties,
+our faculties will be paralyzed? Does it follow, that if the law does
+not impose upon us forms of religion, modes of association, methods of
+instruction, rules for labour, directions for exchange, and plans for
+charity, we shall plunge eagerly into atheism, isolation, ignorance,
+misery, and egotism? Does it follow, that we shall no longer recognise
+the power and goodness of God; that we shall cease to associate
+together, to help each other, to love and assist our unfortunate
+brethren, to study the secrets of nature, and to aspire after perfection
+in our existence?
+
+Law is justice.
+
+And it is under the law of justice, under the reign of right, under the
+influence of liberty, security, stability, and responsibility, that
+every man will attain to the measure of his worth, to all the dignity of
+his being, and that mankind will accomplish, with order and with
+calmness--slowly, it is true, but with certainty--the progress decreed
+to it.
+
+I believe that my theory is correct; for whatever be the question upon
+which I am arguing, whether it be religious, philosophical, political,
+or economical; whether it affects well-being, morality, equality, right,
+justice, progress, responsibility, property, labour, exchange, capital,
+wages, taxes, population, credit, or Government; at whatever point of
+the scientific horizon I start from, I invariably come to the same
+thing--the solution of the social problem is in liberty.
+
+And have I not experience on my side? Cast your eye over the globe.
+Which are the happiest, the most moral, and the most peaceable nations?
+Those where the law interferes the least with private activity; where
+the Government is the least felt; where individuality has the most
+scope, and public opinion the most influence; where the machinery of the
+administration is the least important and the least complicated; where
+taxation is lightest and least unequal, popular discontent the least
+excited and the least justifiable; where the responsibility of
+individuals and classes is the most active, and where, consequently, if
+morals are not in a perfect state, at any rate they tend incessantly to
+correct themselves; where transactions, meetings, and associations are
+the least fettered; where labour, capital, and production suffer the
+least from artificial displacements; where mankind follows most
+completely its own natural course; where the thought of God prevails the
+most over the inventions of men; those, in short, who realise the most
+nearly this idea--That within the limits of right, all should flow from
+the free, perfectible, and voluntary action of man; nothing be attempted
+by the law or by force, except the administration of universal justice.
+
+I cannot avoid coming to this conclusion--that there are too many great
+men in the world; there are too many legislators, organisers,
+institutors of society, conductors of the people, fathers of nations,
+&c., &c. Too many persons place themselves above mankind, to rule and
+patronize it; too many persons make a trade of attending to it. It will
+be answered:--"You yourself are occupied upon it all this time." Very
+true. But it must be admitted that it is in another sense entirely that
+I am speaking; and if I join the reformers it is solely for the purpose
+of inducing them to relax their hold.
+
+I am not doing as Vaucauson did with his automaton, but as a
+physiologist does with the organisation of the human frame; I would
+study and admire it.
+
+I am acting with regard to it in the spirit which animated a celebrated
+traveller. He found himself in the midst of a savage tribe. A child had
+just been born, and a crowd of soothsayers, magicians, and quacks were
+around it, armed with rings, hooks, and bandages. One said--"This child
+will never smell the perfume of a calumet, unless I stretch his
+nostrils." Another said--"He will be without the sense of hearing,
+unless I draw his ears down to his shoulders." A third said--"He will
+never see the light of the sun, unless I give his eyes an oblique
+direction." A fourth said--"He will never be upright, unless I bend his
+legs." A fifth said--"He will not be able to think, unless I press his
+brain." "Stop!" said the traveller. "Whatever God does, is well done; do
+not pretend to know more than He; and as He has given organs to this
+frail creature, allow those organs to develop themselves, to strengthen
+themselves by exercise, use, experience, and liberty."
+
+God has implanted in mankind, also, all that is necessary to enable it
+to accomplish its destinies. There is a providential social physiology,
+as well as a providential human physiology. The social organs are
+constituted so as to enable them to develop harmoniously in the grand
+air of liberty. Away, then, with quacks and organisers! Away with their
+rings, and their chains, and their hooks, and their pincers! Away with
+their artificial methods! Away with their social workshops, their
+governmental whims, their centralization, their tariffs, their
+universities, their State religions, their gratuitous or monopolising
+banks, their limitations, their restrictions, their moralisations, and
+their equalisation by taxation! And now, after having vainly inflicted
+upon the social body so many systems, let them end where they ought to
+have begun--reject all systems, and make trial of liberty--of liberty,
+which is an act of faith in God and in His work.
+
+
+
+
+Footnotes
+
+
+
+[1] A franc is 10d. of our money.
+
+[2] This error will be combated in a pamphlet, entitled "_Cursed
+Money_."
+
+[3] Common people.
+
+[4] The Minister of War has lately asserted that every individual
+transported to Algeria has cost the State 8,000 francs. Now it is
+certain that these poor creatures could have lived very well in France
+on a capital of 4,000 francs. I ask, how the French population is
+relieved, when it is deprived of a man, and of the means of subsistence
+of two men?
+
+[5] This was written in 1849.
+
+[6] Twenty francs.
+
+[7] General Council of Manufactures, Agriculture, and Commerce, 6th. of
+May, 1850.
+
+[8] The French word is _spoliation_.
+
+[9] If protection were only granted in France to a single class, to the
+engineers, for instance, it would be so absurdly plundering, as to be
+unable to maintain itself. Thus we see all the protected trades combine,
+make common cause, and even recruit themselves in such a way as to
+appear to embrace the mass of the _national labour_. They feel
+instinctively that plunder is slurred ever by being generalised.
+
+[10] Political economy precedes politics: the former has to discover
+whether human interests are harmonious or antagonistic, a fact which
+must have been decided upon before the latter can determine the
+prerogatives of Government.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Essays on Political Economy, by Frederic Bastiat
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+Project Gutenberg's Essays on Political Economy, by Frederic Bastiat
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Essays on Political Economy
+
+Author: Frederic Bastiat
+
+Release Date: May 31, 2005 [EBook #15962]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+[Third (People's) Edition]
+
+Essays on Political Economy.
+
+By the late M. Frederic Bastiat,
+Member of The Institute of France.
+
+New York:
+G. P. Putnams & Sons,
+Fourth Avenue, and Twenty-Third Street.
+1874.
+
+
+
+
+London:
+Printed for Provost and Co.,
+Henrietta Street, W. C.
+
+
+
+
+Contents.
+
+
+
+Capital and Interest.
+  Introduction                                                        1
+  Capital and Interest                                                5
+  The Sack of Corn                                                   19
+  The House                                                          22
+  The Plane                                                          24
+
+That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen.
+  Introduction                                                       49
+  The Broken Window                                                  50
+  The Disbanding of Troops                                           54
+  Taxes                                                              58
+  Theatres, Fine Arts                                                63
+  Public Works                                                       71
+  The Intermediates                                                  74
+  Restrictions                                                       83
+  Machinery                                                          90
+  Credit                                                             97
+  Algeria                                                           102
+  Frugality and Luxury                                              107
+  Work and Profit                                                   116
+
+Government                                                          119
+
+What Is Money?                                                      136
+
+The Law                                                             173
+
+
+
+
+Capital and Interest.
+
+
+
+My object in this treatise is to examine into the real nature of the
+Interest of Capital, for the purpose of proving that it is lawful, and
+explaining why it should be perpetual. This may appear singular, and
+yet, I confess, I am more afraid of being too plain than too obscure. I
+am afraid I may weary the reader by a series of mere truisms. But it is
+no easy matter to avoid this danger, when the facts with which we have
+to deal are known to every one by personal, familiar, and daily
+experience.
+
+But, then, you will say, "What is the use of this treatise? Why explain
+what everybody knows?"
+
+But, although this problem appears at first sight so very simple, there
+is more in it than you might suppose. I shall endeavour to prove this by
+an example. Mondor lends an instrument of labour to-day, which will be
+entirely destroyed in a week, yet the capital will not produce the less
+interest to Mondor or his heirs, through all eternity. Reader, can you
+honestly say that you understand the reason of this?
+
+It would be a waste of time to seek any satisfactory explanation from
+the writings of economists. They have not thrown much light upon the
+reasons of the existence of interest. For this they are not to be
+blamed; for at the time they wrote, its lawfulness was not called in
+question. Now, however, times are altered; the case is different. Men,
+who consider themselves to be in advance of their age, have organised an
+active crusade against capital and interest; it is the productiveness of
+capital which they are attacking; not certain abuses in the
+administration of it, but the principle itself.
+
+A journal has been established to serve as a vehicle for this crusade.
+It is conducted by M. Proudhon, and has, it is said, an immense
+circulation. The first number of this periodical contains the electoral
+manifesto of the _people_. Here we read, "The productiveness of capital,
+which is condemned by Christianity under the name of usury, is the true
+cause of misery, the true principle of destitution, the eternal obstacle
+to the establishment of the Republic."
+
+Another journal, _La Ruche Populaire_, after having said some excellent
+things on labour, adds, "But, above all, labour ought to be free; that
+is, it ought to be organised in such a manner, _that money-lenders and
+patrons, or masters, should not be paid_ for this liberty of labour,
+this right of labour, which is raised to so high a price by the
+traffickers of men." The only thought that I notice here, is that
+expressed by the words in italics, which imply a denial of the right to
+interest. The remainder of the article explains it.
+
+It is thus that the democratic Socialist, Thoré expresses himself:--
+
+"The revolution will always have to be recommenced, so long as we occupy
+ourselves with consequences only, without having the logic or the
+courage to attack the principle itself. This principle is capital, false
+property, interest, and usury, which by the old _régime_, is made to
+weigh upon labour.
+
+"Ever since the aristocrats invented the incredible fiction, _that
+capital possesses the power of reproducing itself_, the workers have
+been at the mercy of the idle.
+
+"At the end of a year, will you find an additional crown in a bag of one
+hundred shillings? At the end of fourteen years, will your shillings
+have doubled in your bag?
+
+"Will a work of industry or of skill produce another, at the end of
+fourteen years?
+
+"Let us begin, then, by demolishing this fatal fiction."
+
+I have quoted the above, merely for the sake of establishing the fact,
+that many persons consider the productiveness of capital a false, a
+fatal, and an iniquitous principle. But quotations are superfluous; it
+is well known that the people attribute their sufferings to what they
+call _the trafficking in man by man_. In fact, the phrase, _tyranny of
+capital_, has become proverbial.
+
+I believe there is not a man in the world, who is aware of the whole
+importance of this question:--
+
+"Is the interest of capital natural, just, and lawful, and as useful to
+the payer as to the receiver?"
+
+You answer, No; I answer, Yes. Then we differ entirely; but it is of the
+utmost importance to discover which of us is in the right, otherwise we
+shall incur the danger of making a false solution of the question, a
+matter of opinion. If the error is on my side, however, the evil would
+not be so great. It must be inferred that I know nothing about the true
+interests of the masses, or the march of human progress; and that all my
+arguments are but as so many grains of sand, by which the car of the
+revolution will certainly not be arrested.
+
+But if, on the contrary, MM. Proudhon and Thoré are deceiving
+themselves, it follows that they are leading the people astray--that
+they are showing them the evil where it does not exist; and thus giving
+a false direction to their ideas, to their antipathies, to their
+dislikes, and to their attacks. It follows that the misguided people are
+rushing into a horrible and absurd struggle, in which victory would be
+more fatal than defeat; since, according to this supposition, the result
+would be the realisation of universal evils, the destruction of every
+means of emancipation, the consummation of its own misery.
+
+This is just what M. Proudhon has acknowledged, with perfect good
+faith. "The foundation stone," he told me, "of my system is the
+_gratuitousness of credit_. If I am mistaken in this, Socialism is a
+vain dream." I add, it is a dream, in which the people are tearing
+themselves to pieces. Will it, therefore, be a cause for surprise, if,
+when they awake, they find themselves mangled and bleeding? Such a
+danger as this is enough to justify me fully, if, in the course of the
+discussion, I allow myself to be led into some trivialities and some
+prolixity.
+
+
+
+Capital and Interest.
+
+
+I address this treatise to the workmen of Paris, more especially to
+those who have enrolled themselves under the banner of Socialist
+democracy. I proceed to consider these two questions:--
+
+1st. Is it consistent with the nature of things, and with justice, that
+capital should produce interest?
+
+2nd. Is it consistent with the nature of things, and with justice, that
+the interest of capital should be perpetual?
+
+The working men of Paris will certainly acknowledge that a more
+important subject could not be discussed.
+
+Since the world began, it has been allowed, at least in part, that
+capital ought to produce interest. But latterly it has been affirmed,
+that herein lies the very social error which is the cause of pauperism
+and inequality. It is, therefore, very essential to know now on what
+ground we stand.
+
+For if levying interest from capital is a sin, the workers have a right
+to revolt against social order, as it exists. It is in vain to tell them
+that they ought to have recourse to legal and pacific means: it would be
+a hypocritical recommendation. When on the one side there is a strong
+man, poor, and a victim of robbery--on the other, a weak man, but rich,
+and a robber--it is singular enough that we should say to the former,
+with a hope of persuading him, "Wait till your oppressor voluntarily
+renounces oppression, or till it shall cease of itself." This cannot be;
+and those who tell us that capital is by nature unproductive, ought to
+know that they are provoking a terrible and immediate struggle.
+
+If, on the contrary, the interest of capital is natural, lawful,
+consistent with the general good, as favourable to the borrower as to
+the lender, the economists who deny it, the tribunes who traffic in this
+pretended social wound, are leading the workmen into a senseless and
+unjust struggle, which can have no other issue than the misfortune of
+all. In fact, they are arming labour against capital. So much the
+better, if these two powers are really antagonistic; and may the
+struggle soon be ended! But, if they are in harmony, the struggle is the
+greatest evil which can be inflicted on society. You see, then, workmen,
+that there is not a more important question than this:--"Is the interest
+of capital lawful or not?" In the former case, you must immediately
+renounce the struggle to which you are being urged; in the second, you
+must carry it on bravely, and to the end.
+
+Productiveness of capital--perpetuity of interest. These are difficult
+questions. I must endeavour to make myself clear. And for that purpose I
+shall have recourse to example rather than to demonstration; or rather,
+I shall place the demonstration in the example. I begin by acknowledging
+that, at first sight, it may appear strange that capital should pretend
+to a remuneration, and above all, to a perpetual remuneration. You will
+say, "Here are two men. One of them works from morning till night, from
+one year's end to another; and if he consumes all which he has gained,
+even by superior energy, he remains poor. When Christmas comes he is no
+forwarder than he was at the beginning of the year, and has no other
+prospect but to begin again. The other man does nothing, either with his
+hands or his head; or at least, if he makes use of them at all, it is
+only for his own pleasure; it is allowable for him to do nothing, for he
+has an income. He does not work, yet he lives well; he has everything in
+abundance; delicate dishes, sumptuous furniture, elegant equipages; nay,
+he even consumes, daily, things which the workers have been obliged to
+produce by the sweat of their brow, for these things do not make
+themselves; and, as far as he is concerned, he has had no hand in their
+production. It is the workmen who have caused this corn to grow,
+polished this furniture, woven these carpets; it is our wives and
+daughters who have spun, cut out, sewed, and embroidered these stuffs.
+We work, then, for him and for ourselves; for him first, and then for
+ourselves, if there is anything left. But here is something more
+striking still. If the former of these two men, the worker, consumes
+within the year any profit which may have been left him in that year, he
+is always at the point from which he started, and his destiny condemns
+him to move incessantly in a perpetual circle, and a monotony of
+exertion. Labour, then, is rewarded only once. But if the other, the
+'gentleman,' consumes his yearly income in the year, he has, the year
+after, in those which follow, and through all eternity, an income always
+equal, inexhaustible, _perpetual_. Capital, then, is remunerated, not
+only once or twice, but an indefinite number of times! So that, at the
+end of a hundred years, a family which has placed 20,000 francs,[1] at
+five per cent., will have had 100,000 francs; and this will not prevent
+it from having 100,000 more, in the following century. In other words,
+for 20,000 francs, which represent its labour, it will have levied, in
+two centuries, a tenfold value on the labour of others. In this social
+arrangement, is there not a monstrous evil to be reformed? And this is
+not all. If it should please this family to curtail its enjoyments a
+little--to spend, for example, only 900 francs, instead of 1,000--it
+may, without any labour, without any other trouble beyond that of
+investing 100 francs a year, increase its capital and its income in such
+rapid progression, that it will soon be in a position to consume as much
+as a hundred families of industrious workmen. Does not all this go to
+prove that society itself has in its bosom a hideous cancer, which ought
+to be eradicated at the risk of some temporary suffering?"
+
+These are, it appears to me, the sad and irritating reflections which
+must be excited in your minds by the active and superficial crusade
+which is being carried on against capital and interest. On the other
+hand, there are moments in which, I am convinced, doubts are awakened in
+your minds, and scruples in your conscience. You say to yourselves
+sometimes, "But to assert that capital ought not to produce interest, is
+to say that he who has created instruments of labour, or materials, or
+provisions of any kind, ought to yield them up without compensation. Is
+that just? And then, if it is so, who would lend these instruments,
+these materials, these provisions? who would take care of them? who even
+would create them? Every one would consume his proportion, and the human
+race would never advance a step. Capital would be no longer formed,
+since there would be no interest in forming it. It would become
+exceedingly scarce. A singular step towards gratuitous loans! A singular
+means of improving the condition of borrowers, to make it impossible for
+them to borrow at any price! What would become of labour itself? for
+there will be no money advanced, and not one single kind of labour can
+be mentioned, not even the chase, which can be pursued without money in
+hand. And, as for ourselves, what would become of us? What! we are not
+to be allowed to borrow, in order to work in the prime of life, nor to
+lend, that we may enjoy repose in its decline? The law will rob us of
+the prospect of laying by a little property, because it will prevent us
+from gaining any advantage from it. It will deprive us of all stimulus
+to save at the present time, and of all hope of repose for the future.
+It is useless to exhaust ourselves with fatigue: we must abandon the
+idea of leaving our sons and daughters a little property, since modern
+science renders it useless, for we should become traffickers in men if
+we were to lend it on interest. Alas! the world which these persons
+would open before us, as an imaginary good, is still more dreary and
+desolate than that which they condemn, for hope, at any rate, is not
+banished from the latter." Thus, in all respects, and in every point of
+view, the question is a serious one. Let us hasten to arrive at a
+solution.
+
+Our civil code has a chapter entitled, "On the manner of transmitting
+property." I do not think it gives a very complete nomenclature on this
+point. When a man by his labour has made some useful thing--in other
+words, when he has created a _value_--it can only pass into the hands of
+another by one of the following modes--as a gift, by the right of
+inheritance, by exchange, loan, or theft. One word upon each of these,
+except the last, although it plays a greater part in the world than we
+may think. A gift needs no definition. It is essentially voluntary and
+spontaneous. It depends exclusively upon the giver, and the receiver
+cannot be said to have any right to it. Without a doubt, morality and
+religion make it a duty for men, especially the rich, to deprive
+themselves voluntarily of that which they possess, in favour of their
+less fortunate brethren. But this is an entirely moral obligation. If it
+were to be asserted on principle, admitted in practice, or sanctioned by
+law, that every man has a right to the property of another, the gift
+would have no merit--charity and gratitude would be no longer virtues.
+Besides, such a doctrine would suddenly and universally arrest labour
+and production, as severe cold congeals water and suspends animation;
+for who would work if there was no longer to be any connection between
+labour and the satisfying of our wants? Political economy has not
+treated of gifts. It has hence been concluded that it disowns them, and
+that it is therefore a science devoid of heart. This is a ridiculous
+accusation. That science which treats of the laws resulting from the
+_reciprocity of services_, had no business to inquire into the
+consequences of generosity with respect to him who receives, nor into
+its effects, perhaps still more precious, on him who gives: such
+considerations belong evidently to the science of morals. We must allow
+the sciences to have limits; above all, we must not accuse them of
+denying or undervaluing what they look upon as foreign to their
+department.
+
+The right of inheritance, against which so much has been objected of
+late, is one of the forms of gift, and assuredly the most natural of
+all. That which a man has produced, he may consume, exchange, or give.
+What can be more natural than that he should give it to his children? It
+is this power, more than any other, which inspires him with courage to
+labour and to save. Do you know why the principle of right of
+inheritance is thus called in question? Because it is imagined that the
+property thus transmitted is plundered from the masses. This is a fatal
+error. Political economy demonstrates, in the most peremptory manner,
+that all value produced is a creation which does no harm to any person
+whatever. For that reason it may be consumed, and, still more,
+transmitted, without hurting any one; but I shall not pursue these
+reflections, which do not belong to the subject.
+
+Exchange is the principal department of political economy, because it is
+by far the most frequent method of transmitting property, according to
+the free and voluntary agreements of the laws and effects of which this
+science treats.
+
+Properly speaking, exchange is the reciprocity of services. The parties
+say between themselves, "Give me this, and I will give you that;" or,
+"Do this for me, and I will do that for you." It is well to remark (for
+this will throw a new light on the notion of value) that the second
+form is always implied in the first. When it is said, "Do this for me,
+and I will do that for you," an exchange of service for service is
+proposed. Again, when it is said, "Give me this, and I will give you
+that," it is the same as saying, "I yield to you what I have done, yield
+to me what you have done." The labour is past, instead of present; but
+the exchange is not the less governed by the comparative valuation of
+the two services: so that it is quite correct to say that the principle
+of _value_ is in the services rendered and received on account of the
+productions exchanged, rather than in the productions themselves.
+
+In reality, services are scarcely ever exchanged directly. There is a
+medium, which is termed _money_. Paul has completed a coat, for which he
+wishes to receive a little bread, a little wine, a little oil, a visit
+from a doctor, a ticket for the play, &c. The exchange cannot be
+effected in kind, so what does Paul do? He first exchanges his coat for
+some money, which is called _sale_; then he exchanges this money again
+for the things which he wants, which is called _purchase_; and now,
+only, has the reciprocity of services completed its circuit; now, only,
+the labour and the compensation are balanced in the same individual,--"I
+have done this for society, it has done that for me." In a word, it is
+only now that the exchange is actually accomplished. Thus, nothing can
+be more correct than this observation of J. B. Say:--"Since the
+introduction of money, every exchange is resolved into two elements,
+_sale_ and _purchase_. It is the reunion of these two elements which
+renders the exchange complete."
+
+We must remark, also, that the constant appearance of money in every
+exchange has overturned and misled all our ideas: men have ended in
+thinking that money was true riches, and that to multiply it was to
+multiply services and products. Hence the prohibitory system; hence
+paper money; hence the celebrated aphorism, "What one gains the other
+loses;" and all the errors which have ruined the earth, and embrued it
+with blood.[2] After much research it has been found, that in order to
+make the two services exchanged of equivalent value, and in order to
+render the exchange _equitable_, the best means was to allow it to be
+free. However plausible, at first sight, the intervention of the State
+might be, it was soon perceived that it is always oppressive to one or
+other of the contracting parties. When we look into these subjects, we
+are always compelled to reason upon this maxim, that _equal value_
+results from liberty. We have, in fact, no other means of knowing
+whether, at a given moment, two services are of the same value, but that
+of examining whether they can be readily and freely exchanged. Allow the
+State, which is the same thing as force, to interfere on one side or the
+other, and from that moment all the means of appreciation will be
+complicated and entangled, instead of becoming clear. It ought to be
+the part of the State to prevent, and, above all, to repress artifice
+and fraud; that is, to secure liberty, and not to violate it. I have
+enlarged a little upon exchange, although loan is my principal object:
+my excuse is, that I conceive that there is in a loan an actual
+exchange, an actual service rendered by the lender, and which makes the
+borrower liable to an equivalent service,--two services, whose
+comparative value can only be appreciated, like that of all possible
+services, by freedom. Now, if it is so, the perfect lawfulness of what
+is called house-rent, farm-rent, interest, will be explained and
+justified. Let us consider the case of _loan_.
+
+Suppose two men exchange two services or two objects, whose equal value
+is beyond all dispute. Suppose, for example, Peter says to Paul, "Give
+me ten sixpences, I will give you a five-shilling piece." We cannot
+imagine an equal value more unquestionable. When the bargain is made,
+neither party has any claim upon the other. The exchanged services are
+equal. Thus it follows, that if one of the parties wishes to introduce
+into the bargain an additional clause, advantageous to himself, but
+unfavourable to the other party, he must agree to a second clause, which
+shall re-establish the equilibrium, and the law of justice. It would be
+absurd to deny the justice of a second clause of compensation. This
+granted, we will suppose that Peter, after having said to Paul, "Give me
+ten sixpences, I will give you a crown," adds, "You shall give me the
+ten sixpences _now_, and I will give you the crown-piece _in a year_;"
+it is very evident that this new proposition alters the claims and
+advantages of the bargain; that it alters the proportion of the two
+services. Does it not appear plainly enough, in fact, that Peter asks of
+Paul a new and an additional service; one of a different kind? Is it not
+as if he had said, "Render me the service of allowing me to use for my
+profit, for a year, five shillings which belong to you, and which you
+might have used for yourself?" And what good reason have you to maintain
+that Paul is bound to render this especial service gratuitously; that he
+has no right to demand anything more in consequence of this requisition;
+that the State ought to interfere to force him to submit? Is it not
+incomprehensible that the economist, who preaches such a doctrine to the
+people, can reconcile it with his principle of _the reciprocity of
+services_? Here I have introduced cash; I have been led to do so by a
+desire to place, side by side, two objects of exchange, of a perfect and
+indisputable equality of value. I was anxious to be prepared for
+objections; but, on the other hand, my demonstration would have been
+more striking still, if I had illustrated my principle by an agreement
+for exchanging the services or the productions themselves.
+
+Suppose, for example, a house and a vessel of a value so perfectly equal
+that their proprietors are disposed to exchange them even-handed,
+without excess or abatement. In fact let the bargain be settled by a
+lawyer. At the moment of each taking possession, the shipowner says to
+the citizen, "Very well; the transaction is completed, and nothing can
+prove its perfect equity better than our free and voluntary consent. Our
+conditions thus fixed, I shall propose to you a little practical
+modification. You shall let me have your house to-day, but I shall not
+put you in possession of my ship for a year; and the reason I make this
+demand of you is, that, during this year of _delay_, I wish to use the
+vessel." That we may not be embarrassed by considerations relative to
+the deterioration of the thing lent, I will suppose the shipowner to
+add, "I will engage, at the end of the year, to hand over to you the
+vessel in the state in which it is to-day." I ask of every candid man, I
+ask of M. Proudhon himself, if the citizen has not a right to answer,
+"The new clause which you propose entirely alters the proportion or the
+equal value of the exchanged services. By it, I shall be deprived, for
+the space of a year, both at once of my house and of your vessel. By it,
+you will make use of both. If, in the absence of this clause, the
+bargain was just, for the same reason the clause is injurious to me. It
+stipulates for a loss to me, and a gain to you. You are requiring of me
+a new service; I have a right to refuse, or to require of you, as a
+compensation, an equivalent service." If the parties are agreed upon
+this compensation, the principle of which is incontestable, we can
+easily distinguish two transactions in one, two exchanges of service in
+one. First, there is the exchange of the house for the vessel; after
+this, there is the delay granted by one of the parties, and the
+compensation correspondent to this delay yielded by the other. These two
+new services take the generic and abstract names of _credit_ and
+_interest_. But names do not change the nature of things; and I defy any
+one to dare to maintain that there exists here, when all is done, a
+service for a service, or a reciprocity of services. To say that one of
+these services does not challenge the other, to say that the first ought
+to be rendered gratuitously, without injustice, is to say that injustice
+consists in the reciprocity of services,--that justice consists in one
+of the parties giving and not receiving, which is a contradiction in
+terms.
+
+To give an idea of interest and its mechanism, allow me to make use of
+two or three anecdotes. But, first, I must say a few words upon capital.
+
+There are some persons who imagine that capital is money, and this is
+precisely the reason why they deny its productiveness; for, as M. Thoré
+says, crowns are not endowed with the power of reproducing themselves.
+But it is not true that capital and money are the same thing. Before the
+discovery of the precious metals, there were capitalists in the world;
+and I venture to say that at that time, as now, everybody was a
+capitalist, to a certain extent.
+
+What is capital, then? It is composed of three things:--
+
+1st. Of the materials upon which men operate, when these materials have
+already a value communicated by some human effort, which has bestowed
+upon them the principle of remuneration--wool, flax, leather, silk,
+wood, &c.
+
+2nd. Instruments which are used for working--tools, machines, ships,
+carriages, &c.
+
+3rd. Provisions which are consumed during labour--victuals, stuffs,
+houses, &c.
+
+Without these things the labour of man would be unproductive and almost
+void; yet these very things have required much work, especially at
+first. This is the reason that so much value has been attached to the
+possession of them, and also that it is perfectly lawful to exchange and
+to sell them, to make a profit of them if used, to gain remuneration
+from them if lent.
+
+Now for my anecdotes.
+
+
+
+The Sack of Corn.
+
+
+Mathurin, in other respects as poor as Job, and obliged to earn his
+bread by day-labour, became nevertheless, by some inheritance, the owner
+of a fine piece of uncultivated land. He was exceedingly anxious to
+cultivate it. "Alas!" said he, "to make ditches, to raise fences, to
+break the soil, to clear away the brambles and stones, to plough it, to
+sow it, might bring me a living in a year or two; but certainly not
+to-day, or to-morrow. It is impossible to set about farming it, without
+previously saving some provisions for my subsistence until the harvest;
+and I know, by experience, that preparatory labour is indispensable, in
+order to render present labour productive." The good Mathurin was not
+content with making these reflections. He resolved to work by the day,
+and to save something from his wages to buy a spade and a sack of corn;
+without which things, he must give up his fine agricultural projects. He
+acted so well, was so active and steady, that he soon saw himself in
+possession of the wished-for sack of corn. "I shall take it to the
+mill," said he, "and then I shall have enough to live upon till my field
+is covered with a rich harvest." Just as he was starting, Jerome came to
+borrow his treasure of him. "If you will lend me this sack of corn,"
+said Jerome, "you will do me a great service; for I have some very
+lucrative work in view, which I cannot possibly undertake, for want of
+provisions to live upon until it is finished." "I was in the same case,"
+answered Mathurin, "and if I have now secured bread for several months,
+it is at the expense of my arms and my stomach. Upon what principle of
+justice can it be devoted to the realisation of _your_ enterprise
+instead of _mine?_"
+
+You may well believe that the bargain was a long one. However, it was
+finished at length, and on these conditions:--
+
+First--Jerome promised to give back, at the end of the year, a sack of
+corn of the same quality, and of the same weight, without missing a
+single grain. "This first clause is perfectly just," said he, "for
+without it Mathurin would _give_, and not _lend_."
+
+Secondly--He engaged to deliver _five litres_ on _every hectolitre_.
+"This clause is no less just than the other," thought he; "for without
+it Mathurin would do me a service without compensation; he would inflict
+upon himself a privation--he would renounce his cherished enterprise--he
+would enable me to accomplish mine--he would cause me to enjoy for a
+year the fruits of his savings, and all this gratuitously. Since he
+delays the cultivation of his land, since he enables me to realise a
+lucrative labour, it is quite natural that I should let him partake, in
+a certain proportion, of the profits which I shall gain by the sacrifice
+he makes of his own."
+
+On his side, Mathurin, who was something of a scholar, made this
+calculation:--"Since, by virtue of the first clause, the sack of corn
+will return to me at the end of a year," he said to himself, "I shall be
+able to lend it again; it will return to me at the end of the second
+year; I may lend it again, and so on, to all eternity. However, I cannot
+deny that it will have been eaten long ago. It is singular that I should
+be perpetually the owner of a sack of corn, although the one I have lent
+has been consumed for ever. But this is explained thus:--It will be
+consumed in the service of Jerome. It will put it into the power of
+Jerome to produce a superior value; and, consequently, Jerome will be
+able to restore me a sack of corn, or the value of it, without having
+suffered the slightest injury: but quite the contrary. And as regards
+myself, this value ought to be my property, as long as I do not consume
+it myself. If I had used it to clear my land, I should have received it
+again in the form of a fine harvest. Instead of that, I lend it, and
+shall recover it in the form of repayment.
+
+"From the second clause, I gain another piece of information. At the end
+of the year I shall be in possession of five litres of corn over the one
+hundred that I have just lent. If, then, I were to continue to work by
+the day, and to save part of my wages, as I have been doing, in the
+course of time I should be able to lend two sacks of corn; then three;
+then four; and when I should have gained a sufficient number to enable
+me to live on these additions of five litres over and above each, I
+shall be at liberty to take a little repose in my old age. But how is
+this? In this case, shall I not be living at the expense of others? No,
+certainly, for it has been proved that in lending I perform a service; I
+complete the labour of my borrowers, and only deduct a trifling part of
+the excess of production, due to my lendings and savings. It is a
+marvellous thing that a man may thus realise a leisure which injures no
+one, and for which he cannot be envied without injustice."
+
+
+
+The House.
+
+
+Mondor had a house. In building it, he had extorted nothing from any one
+whatever. He owed it to his own personal labour, or, which is the same
+thing, to labour justly rewarded. His first care was to make a bargain
+with an architect, in virtue of which, by means of a hundred crowns a
+year, the latter engaged to keep the house in constant good repair.
+Mondor was already congratulating himself on the happy days which he
+hoped to spend in this retreat, declared sacred by our Constitution. But
+Valerius wished to make it his residence.
+
+"How can you think of such a thing?" said Mondor to Valerius. "It is I
+who have built it; it has cost me ten years of painful labour, and now
+you would enjoy it!" They agreed to refer the matter to judges. They
+chose no profound economists,--there were none such in the country. But
+they found some just and sensible men; it all comes to the same thing;
+political economy, justice, good sense, are all the same thing. Now here
+is the decision made by the judges:--If Valerius wishes to occupy
+Mondor's house for a year, he is bound to submit to three conditions.
+The first is to quit at the end of the year, and to restore the house in
+good repair, saving the inevitable decay resulting from mere duration.
+The second, to refund to Mondor the 300 francs which the latter pays
+annually to the architect to repair the injuries of time; for these
+injuries taking place whilst the house is in the service of Valerius, it
+is perfectly just that he should bear the consequences. The third, that
+he should render to Mondor a service equivalent to that which he
+receives. As to this equivalence of services, it must be freely
+discussed between Mondor and Valerius.
+
+
+
+The Plane.
+
+
+A very long time ago there lived, in a poor village, a joiner, who was a
+philosopher, as all my heroes are in their way. James worked from
+morning till night with his two strong arms, but his brain was not idle
+for all that. He was fond of reviewing his actions, their causes, and
+their effects. He sometimes said to himself, "With my hatchet, my saw,
+and my hammer, I can make only coarse furniture, and can only get the
+pay for such. If I only had a _plane_, I should please my customers
+more, and they would pay me more. It is quite just; I can only expect
+services proportioned to those which I render myself. Yes! I am
+resolved, I will make myself a _plane_."
+
+However, just as he was setting to work, James reflected further:--"I
+work for my customers 300 days in the year. If I give ten to making my
+plane, supposing it lasts me a year, only 290 days will remain for me to
+make my furniture. Now, in order that I be not the loser in this matter,
+I must gain henceforth, with the help of the plane, as much in 290 days,
+as I now do in 300. I must even gain more; for unless I do so, it would
+not be worth my while to venture upon any innovations." James began to
+calculate. He satisfied himself that he should sell his finished
+furniture at a price which would amply compensate for the ten days
+devoted to the plane; and when no doubt remained on this point, he set
+to work. I beg the reader to remark, that the power which exists in the
+tool to increase the productiveness of labour, is the basis of the
+solution which follows.
+
+At the end of ten days, James had in his possession an admirable plane,
+which he valued all the more for having made it himself. He danced for
+joy,--for, like the girl with her basket of eggs, he reckoned all the
+profits which he expected to derive from the ingenious instrument; but,
+more fortunate than she, he was not reduced to the necessity of saying
+good-bye to calf, cow, pig, and eggs, together. He was building his fine
+castles in the air, when he was interrupted by his acquaintance William,
+a joiner in the neighbouring village. William having admired the plane,
+was struck with the advantages which might be gained from it. He said to
+James:--
+
+W. You must do me a service.
+
+J. What service?
+
+W. Lend me the plane for a year.
+
+As might be expected, James at this proposal did not fail to cry out,
+"How can you think of such a thing, William? Well, if I do you this
+service, what will you do for me in return?"
+
+W. Nothing. Don't you know that a loan ought to be gratuitous? Don't
+you know that capital is naturally unproductive? Don't you know
+fraternity has been proclaimed. If you only do me a service for the
+sake of receiving one from me in return, what merit would you have?
+
+J. William, my friend, fraternity does not mean that all the
+sacrifices are to be on one side; if so, I do not see why they should
+not be on yours. Whether a loan should be gratuitous I don't know; but I
+do know that if I were to lend you my plane for a year it would be
+giving it you. To tell you the truth, that was not what I made it for.
+
+W. Well, we will say nothing about the modern maxims discovered by the
+Socialist gentlemen. I ask you to do me a service; what service do you
+ask me in return?
+
+J. First, then, in a year, the plane will be done for, it will be good
+for nothing. It is only just, that you should let me have another
+exactly like it; or that you should give me money enough to get it
+repaired; or that you should supply me the ten days which I must devote
+to replacing it.
+
+W. This is perfectly just. I submit to these conditions. I engage to
+return it, or to let you have one like it, or the value of the same. I
+think you must be satisfied with this, and can require nothing further.
+
+J. I think otherwise. I made the plane for myself, and not for you. I
+expected to gain some advantage from it, by my work being better
+finished and better paid, by an improvement in my condition. What reason
+is there that I should make the plane, and you should gain the profit? I
+might as well ask you to give me your saw and hatchet! What a
+confusion! Is it not natural that each should keep what he has made with
+his own hands, as well as his hands themselves? To use without
+recompense the hands of another, I call slavery; to use without
+recompense the plane of another, can this be called fraternity?
+
+W. But, then, I have agreed to return it to you at the end of a year,
+as well polished and as sharp as it is now.
+
+J. We have nothing to do with next year; we are speaking of this year.
+I have made the plane for the sake of improving my work and condition;
+if you merely return it to me in a year, it is you who will gain the
+profit of it during the whole of that time. I am not bound to do you
+such a service without receiving anything from you in return: therefore,
+if you wish for my plane, independently of the entire restoration
+already bargained for, you must do me a service which we will now
+discuss; you must grant me remuneration.
+
+And this was done thus:--William granted a remuneration calculated in
+such a way that, at the end of the year, James received his plane quite
+new, and in addition, a compensation, consisting of a new plank, for the
+advantages of which he had deprived himself, and which he had yielded to
+his friend.
+
+It was impossible for any one acquainted with the transaction to
+discover the slightest trace in it of oppression or injustice.
+
+The singular part of it is, that, at the end of the year, the plane came
+into James's possession, and he lent it again; recovered it, and lent
+it a third and fourth time. It has passed into the hands of his son, who
+still lends it. Poor plane! how many times has it changed, sometimes its
+blade, sometimes its handle. It is no longer the same plane, but it has
+always the same value, at least for James's posterity. Workmen! let us
+examine into these little stories.
+
+I maintain, first of all, that the _sack of corn_ and the _plane_ are
+here the type, the model, a faithful representation, the symbol of all
+capital; as the five litres of corn and the plank are the type, the
+model, the representation, the symbol of all interest. This granted, the
+following are, it seems to me, a series of consequences, the justice of
+which it is impossible to dispute.
+
+1st. If the yielding of a plank by the borrower to the lender is a
+natural, equitable, lawful remuneration, the just price of a real
+service, we may conclude that, as a general rule, it is in the nature of
+capital to produce interest. When this capital, as in the foregoing
+examples, takes the form of an _instrument of labour_, it is clear
+enough that it ought to bring an advantage to its possessor, to him who
+has devoted to it his time, his brains, and his strength. Otherwise, why
+should he have made it? No necessity of life can be immediately
+satisfied with instruments of labour; no one eats planes or drinks saws,
+except, indeed, he be a conjuror. If a man determines to spend his time
+in the production of such things, he must have been led to it by the
+consideration of the power which these instruments add to his power; of
+the time which they save him; of the perfection and rapidity which they
+give to his labour; in a word, of the advantages which they procure for
+him. Now, these advantages, which have been prepared by labour, by the
+sacrifice of time which might have been used in a more immediate manner,
+are we bound, as soon as they are ready to be enjoyed, to confer them
+gratuitously upon another? Would it be an advance in social order, if
+the law decided thus, and citizens should pay officials for causing such
+a law to be executed by force? I venture to say, that there is not one
+amongst you who would support it. It would be to legalize, to organize,
+to systematize injustice itself, for it would be proclaiming that there
+are men born to render, and others born to receive, gratuitous services.
+Granted, then, that interest is just, natural, and lawful.
+
+2nd. A second consequence, not less remarkable than the former, and, if
+possible, still more conclusive, to which I call your attention, is
+this:--_Interest is not injurious to the borrower_. I mean to say, the
+obligation in which the borrower finds himself, to pay a remuneration
+for the use of capital, cannot do any harm to his condition. Observe, in
+fact, that James and William are perfectly free, as regards the
+transaction to which the plane gave occasion. The transaction cannot be
+accomplished without the consent of the one as well as of the other. The
+worst which can happen is, that James may be too exacting; and in this
+case, William, refusing the loan, remains as he was before. By the fact
+of his agreeing to borrow, he proves that he considers it an advantage
+to himself; he proves, that after every calculation, including the
+remuneration, whatever it may be, required of him, he still finds it
+more profitable to borrow than not to borrow. He only determines to do
+so because he has compared the inconveniences with the advantages. He
+has calculated that the day on which he returns the plane, accompanied
+by the remuneration agreed upon, he will have effected more work, with
+the same labour, thanks to this tool. A profit will remain to him,
+otherwise he would not have borrowed. The two services of which we are
+speaking are exchanged according to the law which governs all exchanges,
+the law of supply and demand. The claims of James have a natural and
+impassable limit. This is the point in which the remuneration demanded
+by him would absorb all the advantage which William might find in making
+use of a plane. In this case, the borrowing would not take place.
+William would be bound either to make a plane for himself, or to do
+without one, which would leave him in his original condition. He
+borrows, because he gains by borrowing. I know very well what will be
+told me. You will say, William may be deceived, or, perhaps, he may be
+governed by necessity, and be obliged to submit to a harsh law.
+
+It may be so. As to errors in calculation, they belong to the infirmity
+of our nature, and to argue from this against the transaction in
+question, is objecting the possibility of loss in all imaginable
+transactions, in every human act. Error is an accidental fact, which is
+incessantly remedied by experience. In short, everybody must guard
+against it. As far as those hard necessities are concerned, which force
+persons to burdensome borrowings, it is clear that these necessities
+exist previously to the borrowing. If William is in a situation in which
+he cannot possibly do without a plane, and must borrow one at any price,
+does this situation result from James having taken the trouble to make
+the tool? Does it not exist independently of this circumstance? However
+harsh, however severe James may be, he will never render the supposed
+condition of William worse than it is. Morally, it is true, the lender
+will be to blame; but, in an economical point of view, the loan itself
+can never be considered responsible for previous necessities, which it
+has not created, and which it relieves to a certain extent.
+
+But this proves something to which I shall return. The evident interests
+of William, representing here the borrowers, there are many Jameses and
+planes, in other words, lenders and capitals. It is very evident, that
+if William can say to James,--"Your demands are exorbitant; there is no
+lack of planes in the world;" he will be in a better situation than if
+James's plane was the only one to be borrowed. Assuredly, there is no
+maxim more true than this--service for service. But left us not forget
+that no service has a fixed and absolute value, compared with others.
+The contracting parties are free. Each carries his requisitions to the
+farthest possible point, and the most favourable circumstance for these
+requisitions is the absence of rivalship. Hence it follows, that if
+there is a class of men more interested than any other in the formation,
+multiplication, and abundance of capitals, it is mainly that of the
+borrowers. Now, since capitals can only be formed and increased by the
+stimulus and the prospect of remuneration, let this class understand the
+injury they are inflicting on themselves when they deny the lawfulness
+of interest, when they proclaim that credit should be gratuitous, when
+they declaim against the pretended tyranny of capital, when they
+discourage saving, thus forcing capitals to become scarce, and
+consequently interests to rise.
+
+3rd. The anecdote I have just related enables you to explain this
+apparently singular phenomenon, which is termed the duration or
+perpetuity of interest. Since, in lending his plane, James has been
+able, very lawfully, to make it a condition that it should be returned
+to him, at the end of a year, in the same state in which it was when he
+lent it, is it not evident that he may, at the expiration of the term,
+lend it again on the same conditions? If he resolves upon the latter
+plan, the plane will return to him at the end of every year, and that
+without end. James will then be in a condition to lend it without end;
+that is, he may derive from it a perpetual interest. It will be said,
+that the plane will be worn out. That is true; but it will be worn out
+by the hand and for the profit of the borrower. The latter has taken
+into account this gradual wear, and taken upon himself, as he ought, the
+consequences. He has reckoned that he shall derive from this tool an
+advantage, which will allow him to restore it in its original condition,
+after having realised a profit from it. As long as James does not use
+this capital himself, or for his own advantage--as long as he renounces
+the advantages which allow it to be restored to its original
+condition--he will have an incontestable right to have it restored, and
+that independently of interest.
+
+Observe, besides, that if, as I believe I have shown, James, far from
+doing any harm to William, has done him a _service_ in lending him his
+plane for a year; for the same reason, he will do no harm to a second, a
+third, a fourth borrower, in the subsequent periods. Hence you may
+understand that the interest of a capital is as natural, as lawful, as
+useful, in the thousandth year, as in the first. We may go still
+further. It may happen that James lends more than a single plane. It is
+possible, that by means of working, of saving, of privations, of order,
+of activity, he may come to lend a multitude of planes and saws; that is
+to say, to do a multitude of services. I insist upon this point,--that
+if the first loan has been a social good, it will be the same with all
+the others; for they are all similar, and based upon the same
+principle. It may happen, then, that the amount of all the remunerations
+received by our honest operative, in exchange for services rendered by
+him, may suffice to maintain him. In this case, there will be a man in
+the world who has a right to live without working. I do not say that he
+would be doing right to give himself up to idleness--but I say, that he
+has a right to do so; and if he does so, it will be at nobody's expense,
+but quite the contrary. If society at all understands the nature of
+things, it will acknowledge that this man subsists on services which he
+receives certainly (as we all do), but which he lawfully receives in
+exchange for other services, which he himself has rendered, that he
+continues to render, and which are quite real, inasmuch as they are
+freely and voluntarily accepted.
+
+And here we have a glimpse of one of the finest harmonies in the social
+world. I allude to _leisure:_ not that leisure that the warlike and
+tyrannical classes arrange for themselves by the plunder of the workers,
+but that leisure which is the lawful and innocent fruit of past activity
+and economy. In expressing myself thus, I know that I shall shock many
+received ideas. But see! Is not leisure an essential spring in the
+social machine? Without it, the world would never have had a Newton, a
+Pascal, a Fenelon; mankind would have been ignorant of all arts,
+sciences, and of those wonderful inventions prepared originally by
+investigations of mere curiosity; thought would have been inert--man
+would have made no progress. On the other hand, if leisure could only be
+explained by plunder and oppression--if it were a benefit which could
+only be enjoyed unjustly, and at the expense of others, there would be
+no middle path between these two evils; either mankind would be reduced
+to the necessity of stagnating in a vegetable and stationary life, in
+eternal ignorance, from the absence of wheels to its machine--or else it
+would have to acquire these wheels at the price of inevitable injustice,
+and would necessarily present the sad spectacle, in one form or other,
+of the antique classification of human beings into masters and slaves. I
+defy any one to show me, in this case, any other alternative. We should
+be compelled to contemplate the Divine plan which governs society, with
+the regret of thinking that it presents a deplorable chasm. The stimulus
+of progress would be forgotten, or, which is worse, this stimulus would
+be no other than injustice itself. But no! God has not left such a chasm
+in His work of love. We must take care not to disregard His wisdom and
+power; for those whose imperfect meditations cannot explain the
+lawfulness of leisure, are very much like the astronomer who said, at a
+certain point in the heavens there ought to exist a planet which will be
+at last discovered, for without it the celestial world is not harmony,
+but discord.
+
+Well, I say that, if well understood, the history of my humble plane,
+although very modest, is sufficient to raise us to the contemplation of
+one of the most consoling, but least understood of the social
+harmonies.
+
+It is not true that we must choose between the denial or the
+unlawfulness of leisure; thanks to rent and its natural duration,
+leisure may arise from labour and saving. It is a pleasing prospect,
+which every one may have in view; a noble recompense, to which each may
+aspire. It makes its appearance in the world; it distributes itself
+proportionably to the exercise of certain virtues; it opens all the
+avenues to intelligence; it ennobles, it raises the morals; it
+spiritualizes the soul of humanity, not only without laying any weight
+on those of our brethren whose lot in life devotes them to severe
+labour, but relieving them gradually from the heaviest and most
+repugnant part of this labour. It is enough that capitals should be
+formed, accumulated, multiplied; should be lent on conditions less and
+less burdensome; that they should descend, penetrate into every social
+circle, and that by an admirable progression, after having liberated the
+lenders, they should hasten the liberation of the borrowers themselves.
+For that end, the laws and customs ought all to be favourable to
+economy, the source of capital. It is enough to say, that the first of
+all these conditions is, not to alarm, to attack, to deny that which is
+the stimulus of saving and the reason of its existence--interest.
+
+As long as we see nothing passing from hand to hand, in the character of
+loan, but _provisions_, _materials_, _instruments_, things indispensable
+to the productiveness of labour itself, the ideas thus far exhibited
+will not find many opponents. Who knows, even, that I may not be
+reproached for having made a great effort to burst what may be said to
+be an open door. But as soon as _cash_ makes its appearance as the
+subject of the transaction (and it is this which appears almost always),
+immediately a crowd of objections are raised. Money, it will be said,
+will not reproduce it self, like your _sack of corn_; it does not assist
+labour, like your _plane_; it does not afford an immediate satisfaction,
+like your _house_. It is incapable, by its nature, of producing
+interest, of multiplying itself, and the remuneration it demands is a
+positive extortion.
+
+Who cannot see the sophistry of this? Who does not see that cash is only
+a transient form, which men give at the time to other _values_, to real
+objects of usefulness, for the sole object of facilitating their
+arrangements? In the midst of social complications, the man who is in a
+condition to lend, scarcely ever has the exact thing which the borrower
+wants. James, it is true, has a plane; but, perhaps, William wants a
+saw. They cannot negotiate; the transaction favourable to both cannot
+take place, and then what happens? It happens that James first exchanges
+his plane for money; he lends the money to William, and William
+exchanges the money for a saw. The transaction is no longer a simple
+one; it is decomposed into two parts, as I explained above in speaking
+of exchange. But, for all that, it has not changed its nature; it still
+contains all the elements of a direct loan. James has still got rid of a
+tool which was useful to him; William has still received an instrument
+which perfects his work and increases his profits; there is still a
+service rendered by the lender, which entitles him to receive an
+equivalent service from the borrower; this just balance is not the less
+established by free mutual bargaining. The very natural obligation to
+restore at the end of the term the entire _value_, still constitutes the
+principle of the duration of interest.
+
+At the end of a year, says M. Thoré, will you find an additional crown
+in a bag of a hundred pounds?
+
+No, certainly, if the borrower puts the bag of one hundred pounds on the
+shelf. In such a case, neither the plane nor the sack of corn would
+reproduce themselves. But it is not for the sake of leaving the money in
+the bag, nor the plane on the hook, that they are borrowed. The plane is
+borrowed to be used, or the money to procure a plane. And if it is
+clearly proved that this tool enables the borrower to obtain profits
+which he would not have made without it, if it is proved that the lender
+has renounced creating for himself this excess of profits, we may
+understand how the stipulation of a part of this excess of profits in
+favour of the lender, is equitable and lawful.
+
+Ignorance of the true part which cash plays in human transactions, is
+the source of the most fatal errors. I intend devoting an entire
+pamphlet to this subject. From what we may infer from the writings of
+M. Proudhon, that which has led him to think that gratuitous credit was
+a logical and definite consequence of social progress, is the
+observation of the phenomenon which shows a decreasing interest, almost
+in direct proportion to the rate of civilisation. In barbarous times it
+is, in fact, cent, per cent., and more. Then it descends to eighty,
+sixty, fifty, forty, twenty, ten, eight, five, four, and three per cent.
+In Holland, it has even been as low as two per cent. Hence it is
+concluded, that "in proportion as society comes to perfection, it will
+descend to zero by the time civilisation is complete. In other words,
+that which characterises social perfection is the gratuitousness of
+credit. When, therefore, we shall have abolished interest, we shall have
+reached the last step of progress." This is mere sophistry, and as such
+false arguing may contribute to render popular the unjust, dangerous,
+and destructive dogma, that credit should be gratuitous, by representing
+it as coincident with social perfection, with the reader's permission I
+will examine in a few words this new view of the question.
+
+What is _interest_? It is the service rendered, after a free bargain, by
+the borrower to the lender, in remuneration for the service he has
+received by the loan. By what law is the rate of these remunerative
+services established? By the general law which regulates the equivalent
+of all services; that is, by the law of supply and demand.
+
+The more easily a thing is procured, the smaller is the service rendered
+by yielding it or lending it. The man who gives me a glass of water in
+the Pyrenees, does not render me so great a service as he who allows me
+one in the desert of Sahara. If there are many planes, sacks of corn, or
+houses, in a country, the use of them is obtained, other things being
+equal, on more favourable conditions than if they were few; for the
+simple reason, that the lender renders in this case a smaller _relative
+service_.
+
+It is not surprising, therefore, that the more abundant capitals are,
+the lower is the interest.
+
+Is this saying that it will ever reach zero? No; because, I repeat it,
+the principle of a remuneration is in the loan. To say that interest
+will be annihilated, is to say that there will never be any motive for
+saving, for denying ourselves, in order to form new capitals, nor even
+to preserve the old ones. In this case, the waste would immediately
+bring a void, and interest would directly reappear.
+
+In that, the nature of the services of which we are speaking does not
+differ from any other. Thanks to industrial progress, a pair of
+stockings, which used to be worth six francs, has successively been
+worth only four, three, and two. No one can say to what point this value
+will descend; but we can affirm that it will never reach zero, unless
+the stockings finish by producing themselves spontaneously. Why? Because
+the principle of remuneration is in labour; because he who works for
+another renders a service, and ought to receive a service. If no one
+paid for stockings, they would cease to be made; and, with the scarcity,
+the price would not fail to reappear.
+
+The sophism which I am now combating has its root in the infinite
+divisibility which belongs to _value_, as it does to matter.
+
+It appears at first paradoxical, but it is well known to all
+mathematicians, that, through all eternity, fractions may be taken from
+a weight without the weight ever being annihilated. It is sufficient
+that each successive fraction be less than the preceding one, in a
+determined and regular proportion.
+
+There are countries where people apply themselves to increasing the size
+of horses, or diminishing in sheep the size of the head. It is
+impossible to say precisely to what point they will arrive in this. No
+one can say that he has seen the largest horse or the smallest sheep's
+head that will ever appear in the world. But he may safely say that the
+size of horses will never attain to infinity, nor the heads of sheep to
+nothing.
+
+In the same way, no one can say to what point the price of stockings nor
+the interest of capitals will come down; but we may safely affirm, when
+we know the nature of things, that neither the one nor the other will
+ever arrive at zero, for labour and capital can no more live without
+recompense than a sheep without a head.
+
+The arguments of M. Proudhon reduce themselves, then, to this:--Since
+the most skilful agriculturists are those who have reduced the heads of
+sheep to the smallest size, we shall have arrived at the highest
+agricultural perfection when sheep have no longer any heads. Therefore,
+in order to realise the perfection, let us behead them.
+
+I have now done with this wearisome discussion. Why is it that the
+breath of false doctrine has made it needful to examine into the
+intimate nature of interest? I must not leave off without remarking upon
+a beautiful moral which may be drawn from this law:--"The depression of
+interest is proportioned to the abundance of capitals." This law being
+granted, if there is a class of men to whom it is more important than to
+any other that capitals be formed, accumulate, multiply, abound, and
+superabound, it is certainly the class which borrows them directly or
+indirectly; it is those men who operate upon _materials_, who gain
+assistance by _instruments_, who live upon _provisions_, produced and
+economised by other men.
+
+Imagine, in a vast and fertile country, a population of a thousand
+inhabitants, destitute of all capital thus defined. It will assuredly
+perish by the pangs of hunger. Let us suppose a case hardly less cruel.
+Let us suppose that ten of these savages are provided with instruments
+and provisions sufficient to work and to live themselves until harvest
+time, as well as to remunerate the services of eighty labourers. The
+inevitable result will be the death of nine hundred human beings. It is
+clear, then, that since 990 men, urged by want, will crowd upon the
+supports which would only maintain a hundred, the ten capitalists will
+be masters of the market. They will obtain labour on the hardest
+conditions, for they will put it up to auction, or the highest bidder.
+And observe this,--if these capitalists entertain such pious sentiments
+as would induce them to impose personal privations on themselves, in
+order to diminish the sufferings of some of their brethren, this
+generosity, which attaches to morality, will be as noble in its
+principle as useful in its effects. But if, duped by that false
+philosophy which persons wish so inconsiderately to mingle with economic
+laws, they take to remunerating labour largely, far from doing good,
+they will do harm. They will give double wages, it may be. But then,
+forty-five men will be better provided for, whilst forty-five others
+will come to augment the number of those who are sinking into the grave.
+Upon this supposition, it is not the lowering of wages which is the
+mischief, it is the scarcity of capital. Low wages are not the cause,
+but the effect of the evil. I may add, that they are to a certain extent
+the remedy. It acts in this way: it distributes the burden of suffering
+as much as it can, and saves as many lives as a limited quantity of
+sustenance permits.
+
+Suppose now, that instead of ten capitalists, there should be a hundred,
+two hundred, five hundred,--is it not evident that the condition of the
+whole population, and, above all, that of the "prolétaires,"[3] will be
+more and more improved? Is it not evident that, apart from every
+consideration of generosity, they would obtain more work and better pay
+for it?--that they themselves will be in a better condition, to form
+capitals, without being able to fix the limits to this ever-increasing
+facility of realising equality and well-being? Would it not be madness
+in them to admit such doctrines, and to act in a way which would drain
+the source of wages, and paralyse the activity and stimulus of saving?
+Let them learn this lesson, then; doubtless, capitals are good for those
+who possess them: who denies it? But they are also useful to those who
+have not yet been able to form them; and it is important to those who
+have them not, that others should have them.
+
+Yes, if the "prolétaires" knew their true interests, they would seek,
+with the greatest care, what circumstances are, and what are not
+favourable to saving, in order to favour the former and to discourage
+the latter. They would sympathise with every measure which tends to the
+rapid formation of capitals. They would be enthusiastic promoters of
+peace, liberty, order, security, the union of classes and peoples,
+economy, moderation in public expenses, simplicity in the machinery of
+government; for it is under the sway of all these circumstances that
+saving does its work, brings plenty within the reach of the masses,
+invites those persons to become the formers of capital who were formerly
+under the necessity of borrowing upon hard conditions. They would repel
+with energy the warlike spirit, which diverts from its true course so
+large a part of human labour; the monopolising spirit, which deranges
+the equitable distribution of riches, in the way by which liberty alone
+can realise it; the multitude of public services, which attack our
+purses only to check our liberty; and, in short, those subversive,
+hateful, thoughtless doctrines, which alarm capital, prevent its
+formation, oblige it to flee, and finally to raise its price, to the
+especial disadvantage of the workers, who bring it into operation. Well,
+and in this respect is not the revolution of February a hard lesson? Is
+it not evident that the insecurity it has thrown into the world of
+business on the one hand; and, on the other, the advancement of the
+fatal theories to which I have alluded, and which, from the clubs, have
+almost penetrated into the regions of the legislature, have everywhere
+raised the rate of interest? Is it not evident, that from that time the
+"prolétaires" have found greater difficulty in procuring those
+materials, instruments, and provisions, without which labour is
+impossible? Is it not that which has caused stoppages; and do not
+stoppages, in their turn, lower wages? Thus there is a deficiency of
+labour to the "prolétaires," from the same cause which loads the objects
+they consume with an increase of price, in consequence of the rise of
+interest. High interest, low wages, means in other words that the same
+article preserves its price, but that the part of the capitalist has
+invaded, without profiting himself, that of the workmen.
+
+A friend of mine, commissioned to make inquiry into Parisian industry,
+has assured me that the manufacturers have revealed to him a very
+striking fact, which proves, better than any reasoning can, how much
+insecurity and uncertainty injure the formation of capital. It was
+remarked, that during the most distressing period, the popular expenses
+of mere fancy had not diminished. The small theatres, the fighting
+lists, the public-houses, and tobacco depots, were as much frequented as
+in prosperous times. In the inquiry, the operatives themselves explained
+this phenomenon thus:--"What is the use of pinching? Who knows what will
+happen to us? Who knows that interest will not be abolished? Who knows
+but that the State will become a universal and gratuitous lender, and
+that it will wish to annihilate all the fruits which we might expect
+from our savings?" Well! I say, that if such ideas could prevail during
+two single years, it would be enough to turn our beautiful France into a
+Turkey--misery would become general and endemic, and, most assuredly,
+the poor would be the first upon whom it would fall.
+
+Workmen! they talk to you a great deal upon the _artificial_
+organisation of labour;--do you know why they do so? Because they are
+ignorant of the laws of its _natural_ organisation; that is, of the
+wonderful organisation which results from liberty. You are told, that
+liberty gives rise to what is called the radical antagonism of classes;
+that it creates, and makes to clash, two opposite interests--that of the
+capitalists and that of the "prolétaires." But we ought to begin by
+proving that this antagonism exists by a law of nature; and afterwards
+it would remain to be shown how far the arrangements of restraint are
+superior to those of liberty, for between liberty and restraint I see no
+middle path. Again, it would remain to be proved that restraint would
+always operate to your advantage, and to the prejudice of the rich.
+But, no; this radical antagonism, this natural opposition of interests,
+does not exist. It is only an evil dream of perverted and intoxicated
+imaginations. No; a plan so defective has not proceeded from the Divine
+Mind. To affirm it, we must begin by denying the existence of God. And
+see how, by means of social laws, and because men exchange amongst
+themselves their labours and their productions, see what a harmonious
+tie attaches the classes one to the other! There are the landowners;
+what is their interest? That the soil be fertile, and the sun
+beneficent: and what is the result? That corn abounds, that it falls in
+price, and the advantage turns to the profit of those who have had no
+patrimony. There are the manufacturers--what is their constant thought?
+To perfect their labour, to increase the power of their machines, to
+procure for themselves, upon the best terms, the raw material. And to
+what does all this tend? To the abundance and the low price of produce;
+that is, that all the efforts of the manufacturers, and without their
+suspecting it, result in a profit to the public consumer, of which each
+of you is one. It is the same with every profession. Well, the
+capitalists are not exempt from this law. They are very busy making
+schemes, economising, and turning them to their advantage. This is all
+very well; but the more they succeed, the more do they promote the
+abundance of capital, and, as a necessary consequence, the reduction of
+interest. Now, who is it that profits by the reduction of interest? Is
+it not the borrower first, and finally, the consumers of the things
+which the capitals contribute to produce?
+
+It is therefore certain that the final result of the efforts of each
+class is the common good of all.
+
+You are told that capital tyrannises over labour. I do not deny that
+each one endeavours to draw the greatest possible advantage from his
+situation; but, in this sense, he realises only that which is possible.
+Now, it is never more possible for capitals to tyrannise over labour,
+than when they are scarce; for then it is they who make the law--it is
+they who regulate the rate of sale. Never is this tyranny more
+impossible to them, than when they are abundant; for, in that case, it
+is labour which has the command.
+
+Away, then, with the jealousies of classes, ill-will, unfounded hatreds,
+unjust suspicions. These depraved passions injure those who nourish them
+in their hearts. This is no declamatory morality; it is a chain of
+causes and effects, which is capable of being rigorously, mathematically
+demonstrated. It is not the less sublime, in that it satisfies the
+intellect as well as the feelings.
+
+I shall sum up this whole dissertation with these words:--Workmen,
+labourers, "prolétaires," destitute and suffering classes, will you
+improve your condition? You will not succeed by strife, insurrection,
+hatred, and error. But there are three things which cannot perfect the
+entire community, without extending these benefits to yourselves; these
+things are--peace, liberty, and security.
+
+
+
+
+That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen
+
+
+
+In the department of economy, an act, a habit, an institution, a law,
+gives birth not only to an effect, but to a series of effects. Of these
+effects, the first only is immediate; it manifests itself simultaneously
+with its cause--_it is seen_. The others unfold in succession--_they are
+not seen_: it is well for us if they are _foreseen_. Between a good and
+a bad economist this constitutes the whole difference--the one takes
+account of the _visible_ effect; the other takes account both of the
+effects which are _seen_ and also of those which it is necessary to
+_foresee_. Now this difference is enormous, for it almost always happens
+that when the immediate consequence is favourable, the ultimate
+consequences are fatal, _and the converse_. Hence it follows that the
+bad economist pursues a small present good, which will be followed by a
+great evil to come, while the true economist pursues a great good to
+come, at the risk of a small present evil.
+
+In fact, it is the same in the science of health, arts, and in that of
+morals. If often happens, that the sweeter the first fruit of a habit
+is, the more bitter are the consequences. Take, for example, debauchery,
+idleness, prodigality. When, therefore, a man, absorbed in the effect
+which _is seen_, has not yet learned to discern those which are not
+seen, he gives way to fatal habits, not only by inclination, but by
+calculation.
+
+This explains the fatally grievous condition of mankind. Ignorance
+surrounds its cradle: then its actions are determined by their first
+consequences, the only ones which, in its first stage, it can see. It is
+only in the long run that it learns to take account of the others. It
+has to learn this lesson from two very different masters--experience and
+foresight. Experience teaches effectually, but brutally. It makes us
+acquainted with all the effects of an action, by causing us to feel
+them; and we cannot fail to finish by knowing that fire burns, if we
+have burned ourselves. For this rough teacher, I should like, if
+possible, to substitute a more gentle one. I mean Foresight. For this
+purpose I shall examine the consequences of certain economical
+phenomena, by placing in opposition to each other those _which are
+seen_, and those _which are not seen_.
+
+
+
+I.--The Broken Window.
+
+
+Have you ever witnessed the anger of the good shopkeeper, James B., when
+his careless son happened to break a pane of glass? If you have been
+present at such a scene, you will most assuredly bear witness to the
+fact, that every one of the spectators, were there even thirty of them,
+by common consent apparently, offered the unfortunate owner this
+invariable consolation--"It is an ill wind that blows nobody good.
+Everybody must live, and what would become of the glaziers if panes of
+glass were never broken?"
+
+Now, this form of condolence contains an entire theory, which it will be
+well to show up in this simple case, seeing that it is precisely the
+same as that which, unhappily, regulates the greater part of our
+economical institutions.
+
+Suppose it cost six francs to repair the damage, and you say that the
+accident brings six francs to the glazier's trade--that it encourages
+that trade to the amount of six francs--I grant it; I have not a word to
+say against it; you reason justly. The glazier comes, performs his task,
+receives his six francs, rubs his hands, and, in his heart, blesses the
+careless child. All this is _that which is seen_.
+
+But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often
+the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money
+to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be
+the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, "Stop there! your
+theory is confined to that _which is seen_; it takes no account of that
+_which is not seen_."
+
+_It is not seen_ that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one
+thing, he cannot spend them upon another. _It is not seen_ that if he
+had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his
+old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have
+employed his six francs in some way which this accident has prevented.
+
+Let us take a view of industry in general, as affected by this
+circumstance. The window being broken, the glazier's trade is encouraged
+to the amount of six francs: _this is that which is seen_.
+
+If the window had not been broken, the shoemaker's trade (or some other)
+would have been encouraged to the amount of six francs: this is _that
+which is not seen_.
+
+And if _that which is not seen_ is taken into consideration, because it
+is a negative fact, as well as that which is seen, because it is a
+positive fact, it will be understood that neither industry _in general_,
+nor the sum total of _national labour_, is affected, whether windows are
+broken or not.
+
+Now let us consider James B. himself. In the former supposition, that of
+the window being broken, he spends six francs, and has neither more nor
+less than he had before, the enjoyment of a window.
+
+In the second, where we suppose the window not to have been broken, he
+would have spent six francs in shoes, and would have had at the same
+time the enjoyment of a pair o shoes and of a window.
+
+Now, as James B. forms a part of society, we must come to the
+conclusion, that, taking it altogether, and making an estimate of its
+enjoyments and its labours, it has lost the value of the broken window.
+
+Whence we arrive at this unexpected conclusion: "Society loses the value
+of things which are uselessly destroyed;" and we must assent to a maxim
+which will make the hair of protectionists stand on end--To break, to
+spoil, to waste, is not to encourage national labour; or, more briefly,
+"destruction is not profit."
+
+What will you say, _Moniteur Industriel_--what will you say, disciples
+of good M. F. Chamans, who has calculated with so much precision how
+much trade would gain by the burning of Paris, from the number of houses
+it would be necessary to rebuild?
+
+I am sorry to disturb these ingenious calculations, as far as their
+spirit has been introduced into our legislation; but I beg him to begin
+them again, by taking into the account _that which is not seen_, and
+placing it alongside of _that which is seen_.
+
+The reader must take care to remember that there are not two persons
+only, but three concerned in the little scene which I have submitted to
+his attention. One of them, James B., represents the consumer, reduced,
+by an act of destruction, to one enjoyment instead of two. Another,
+under the title of the glazier, shows us the producer, whose trade is
+encouraged by the accident. The third is the shoemaker (or some other
+tradesman), whose labour suffers proportionably by the same cause. It
+is this third person who is always kept in the shade, and who,
+personating _that which is not seen_, is a necessary element of the
+problem. It is he who shows us how absurd it is to think we see a profit
+in an act of destruction. It is he who will soon teach us that it is not
+less absurd to see a profit in a restriction, which is, after all,
+nothing else than a partial destruction. Therefore, if you will only go
+to the root of all the arguments which are adduced in its favour, all
+you will find will be the paraphrase of this vulgar saying--_What would
+become of the glaziers, if nobody ever broke windows_?
+
+
+
+II.--The Disbanding of Troops.
+
+
+It is the same with a people as it is with a man. If it wishes to give
+itself some gratification, it naturally considers whether it is worth
+what it costs. To a nation, security is the greatest of advantages. If,
+in order to obtain it, it is necessary to have an army of a hundred
+thousand men, I have nothing to say against it. It is an enjoyment
+bought by a sacrifice. Let me not be misunderstood upon the extent of my
+position. A member of the assembly proposes to disband a hundred
+thousand men, for the sake of relieving the tax-payers of a hundred
+millions.
+
+If we confine ourselves to this answer--"The hundred millions of men,
+and these hundred millions of money, are indispensable to the national
+security: it is a sacrifice; but without this sacrifice, France would
+be torn by factions or invaded by some foreign power,"--I have nothing
+to object to this argument, which may be true or false in fact, but
+which theoretically contains nothing which militates against economy.
+The error begins when the sacrifice itself is said to be an advantage
+because it profits somebody.
+
+Now I am very much mistaken if, the moment the author of the proposal
+has taken his seat, some orator will not rise and say--"Disband a
+hundred thousand men! Do you know what you are saying? What will become
+of them? Where will they get a living? Don't you know that work is
+scarce everywhere? That every field is over-stocked? Would you turn them
+out of doors to increase competition and to weigh upon the rate of
+wages? Just now, when it is a hard matter to live at all, it would be a
+pretty thing if the State must find bread for a hundred thousand
+individuals? Consider, besides, that the army consumes wine, arms,
+clothing--that it promotes the activity of manufactures in garrison
+towns--that it is, in short, the godsend of innumerable purveyors. Why,
+any one must tremble at the bare idea of doing away with this immense
+industrial movement."
+
+This discourse, it is evident, concludes by voting the maintenance of a
+hundred thousand soldiers, for reasons drawn from the necessity of the
+service, and from economical considerations. It is these considerations
+only that I have to refute.
+
+A hundred thousand men, costing the tax-payers a hundred millions of
+money, live and bring to the purveyors as much as a hundred millions can
+supply. This is that _which is seen_.
+
+But, a hundred millions taken from the pockets of the tax-payers, cease
+to maintain these tax-payers and the purveyors, as far as a hundred
+millions reach. This is _that which is not seen_. Now make your
+calculations. Cast up, and tell me what profit there is for the masses?
+
+I will tell you where the _loss_ lies; and to simplify it, instead of
+speaking of a hundred thousand men and a million of money, it shall be
+of one man and a thousand francs.
+
+We will suppose that we are in the village of A. The recruiting
+sergeants go their round, and take off a man. The tax-gatherers go their
+round, and take off a thousand francs. The man and the sum of money are
+taken to Metz, and the latter is destined to support the former for a
+year without doing anything. If you consider Metz only, you are quite
+right; the measure is a very advantageous one: but if you look towards
+the village of A., you will judge very differently; for, unless you are
+very blind indeed, you will see that that village has lost a worker, and
+the thousand francs which would remunerate his labour, as well as the
+activity which, by the expenditure of those thousand francs, it would
+spread around it.
+
+At first sight, there would seem to be some compensation. What took
+place at the village, now takes place at Metz, that is all. But the
+loss is to be estimated in this way:--At the village, a man dug and
+worked; he was a worker. At Metz, he turns to the right about and to the
+left about; he is a soldier. The money and the circulation are the same
+in both cases; but in the one there were three hundred days of
+productive labour, in the other there are three hundred days of
+unproductive labour, supposing, of course, that a part of the army is
+not indispensable to the public safety.
+
+Now, suppose the disbanding to take place. You tell me there will be a
+surplus of a hundred thousand workers, that competition will be
+stimulated, and it will reduce the rate of wages. This is what you see.
+
+But what you do not see is this. You do not see that to dismiss a
+hundred thousand soldiers is not to do away with a million of money, but
+to return it to the tax-payers. You do not see that to throw a hundred
+thousand workers on the market, is to throw into it, at the same moment,
+the hundred millions of money needed to pay for their labour: that,
+consequently, the same act which increases the supply of hands,
+increases also the demand; from which it follows, that your fear of a
+reduction of wages is unfounded. You do not see that, before the
+disbanding as well as after it, there are in the country a hundred
+millions of money corresponding with the hundred thousand men. That the
+whole difference consists in this: before the disbanding, the country
+gave the hundred millions to the hundred thousand men for doing nothing;
+and that after it, it pays them the same sum for working. You do not
+see, in short, that when a tax-payer gives his money either to a soldier
+in exchange for nothing, or to a worker in exchange for something, all
+the ultimate consequences of the circulation of this money are the same
+in the two cases; only, in the second case the tax-payer receives
+something, in the former he receives nothing. The result is--a dead loss
+to the nation.
+
+The sophism which I am here combating will not stand the test of
+progression, which is the touchstone of principles. If, when every
+compensation is made, and all interests satisfied, there is a _national
+profit_ in increasing the army, why not enrol under its banners the
+entire male population of the country?
+
+
+
+III.--Taxes.
+
+
+Have you never chanced to hear it said: "There is no better investment
+than taxes. Only see what a number of families it maintains, and
+consider how it reacts upon industry: it is an inexhaustible stream, it
+is life itself."
+
+In order to combat this doctrine, I must refer to my preceding
+refutation. Political economy knew well enough that its arguments were
+not so amusing that it could be said of them, _repetitions please_. It
+has, therefore, turned the proverb to its own use, well convinced that,
+in its mouth, _repetitions teach_.
+
+The advantages which officials advocate are _those which are seen_. The
+benefit which accrues to the providers _is still that which is seen_.
+This blinds all eyes.
+
+But the disadvantages which the tax-payers have to get rid of are _those
+which are not seen_. And the injury which results from it to the
+providers is still that _which is not seen_, although this ought to be
+self-evident.
+
+When an official spends for his own profit an extra hundred sous, it
+implies that a tax-payer spends for his profit a hundred sous less. But
+the expense of the official _is seen_, because the act is performed,
+while that of the tax-payer _is not seen_, because, alas! he is
+prevented from performing it.
+
+You compare the nation, perhaps to a parched tract of land, and the tax
+to a fertilising rain. Be it so. But you ought also to ask yourself
+where are the sources of this rain, and whether it is not the tax itself
+which draws away the moisture from the ground and dries it up?
+
+Again, you ought to ask yourself whether it is possible that the soil
+can receive as much of this precious water by rain as it loses by
+evaporation?
+
+There is one thing very certain, that when James B. counts out a hundred
+sous for the tax-gatherer, he receives nothing in return. Afterwards,
+when an official spends these hundred sous, and returns them to James
+B., it is for an equal value in corn or labour. The final result is a
+loss to James B. of five francs.
+
+It is very true that often, perhaps very often, the official performs
+for James B. an equivalent service. In this case there is no loss on
+either side; there is merely an exchange. Therefore, my arguments do not
+at all apply to useful functionaries. All I say is,--if you wish to
+create an office, prove its utility. Show that its value to James B., by
+the services which it performs for him, is equal to what it costs him.
+But, apart from this intrinsic utility, do not bring forward as an
+argument the benefit which it confers upon the official, his family, and
+his providers; do not assert that it encourages labour.
+
+When James B. gives a hundred sous to a Government officer for a really
+useful service, it is exactly the same as when he gives a hundred sous
+to a shoemaker for a pair of shoes.
+
+But when James B. gives a hundred sous to a Government officer, and
+receives nothing for them unless it be annoyances, he might as well give
+them to a thief. It is nonsense to say that the Government officer will
+spend these hundred sous to the great profit of _national labour_; the
+thief would do the same; and so would James B., if he had not been
+stopped on the road by the extra-legal parasite, nor by the lawful
+sponger.
+
+Let us accustom ourselves, then, to avoid judging of things by _what is
+seen_ only, but to judge of them by _that which is not seen_.
+
+Last year I was on the Committee of Finance, for under the constituency
+the members of the Opposition were not systematically excluded from all
+the Commissions: in that the constituency acted wisely. We have heard M.
+Thiers say--"I have passed my life in opposing the legitimist party and
+the priest party. Since the common danger has brought us together, now
+that I associate with them and know them, and now that we speak face to
+face, I have found out that they are not the monsters I used to imagine
+them."
+
+Yes, distrust is exaggerated, hatred is fostered among parties who never
+mix; and if the majority would allow the minority to be present at the
+Commissions, it would perhaps be discovered that the ideas of the
+different sides are not so far removed from each other; and, above all,
+that their intentions are not so perverse as is supposed. However, last
+year I was on the Committee of Finance. Every time that one of our
+colleagues spoke of fixing at a moderate figure the maintenance of the
+President of the Republic, that of the ministers, and of the
+ambassadors, it was answered:--
+
+"For the good of the service, it is necessary to surround certain
+offices with splendour and dignity, as a means of attracting men of
+merit to them. A vast number of unfortunate persons apply to the
+President of the Republic, and it would be placing him in a very painful
+position to oblige him to be constantly refusing them. A certain style
+in the ministerial saloons is a part of the machinery of constitutional
+Governments."
+
+Although such arguments may be controverted, they certainly deserve a
+serious examination. They are based upon the public interest, whether
+rightly estimated or not; and as far as I am concerned, I have much more
+respect for them than many of our Catos have, who are actuated by a
+narrow spirit of parsimony or of jealousy.
+
+But what revolts the economical part of my conscience, and makes me
+blush for the intellectual resources of my country, is when this absurd
+relic of feudalism is brought forward, which it constantly is, and it is
+favourably received too:--
+
+"Besides, the luxury of great Government officers encourages the arts,
+industry, and labour. The head of the State and his ministers cannot
+give banquets and soirées without causing life to circulate through all
+the veins of the social body. To reduce their means, would starve
+Parisian industry, and consequently that of the whole nation."
+
+I must beg you, gentlemen, to pay some little regard to arithmetic, at
+least; and not to say before the National Assembly in France, lest to
+its shame it should agree with you, that an addition gives a different
+sum, according to whether it is added up from the bottom to the top, or
+from the top to the bottom of the column.
+
+For instance, I want to agree with a drainer to make a trench in my
+field for a hundred sous. Just as we have concluded our arrangement the
+tax-gatherer comes, takes my hundred sous, and sends them to the
+Minister of the Interior; my bargain is at end, but the minister will
+have another dish added to his table. Upon what ground will you dare to
+affirm that this official expense helps the national industry? Do you
+not see, that in this there is only a reversing of satisfaction and
+labour? A minister has his table better covered, it is true; but it is
+just as true that an agriculturist has his field worse drained. A
+Parisian tavern-keeper has gained a hundred sous, I grant you; but then
+you must grant me that a drainer has been prevented from gaining five
+francs. It all comes to this,--that the official and the tavern-keeper
+being satisfied, is _that which is seen_; the field undrained, and the
+drainer deprived of his job, is _that which is not seen_. Dear me! how
+much trouble there is in proving that two and two make four; and if you
+succeed in proving it, it is said "the thing is so plain it is quite
+tiresome," and they vote as if you had proved nothing at all.
+
+
+
+IV.--Theatres, Fine Arts.
+
+
+Ought the State to support the arts?
+
+There is certainly much to be said on both sides of this question. It
+may be said, in favour of the system of voting supplies for this
+purpose, that the arts enlarge, elevate, and harmonize the soul of a
+nation; that they divert it from too great an absorption in material
+occupations; encourage in it a love for the beautiful; and thus act
+favourably on its manners, customs, morals, and even on its industry. It
+may be asked, what would become of music in France without her Italian
+theatre and her Conservatoire; of the dramatic art, without her
+Théâtre-Français; of painting and sculpture, without our collections,
+galleries, and museums? It might even be asked, whether, without
+centralisation, and consequently the support of the fine arts, that
+exquisite taste would be developed which is the noble appendage of
+French labour, and which introduces its productions to the whole world?
+In the face of such results, would it not be the height of imprudence to
+renounce this moderate contribution from all her citizens, which, in
+fact, in the eyes of Europe, realises their superiority and their glory?
+
+To these and many other reasons, whose force I do not dispute, arguments
+no less forcible may be opposed. It might first of all be said, that
+there is a question of distributive justice in it. Does the right of the
+legislator extend to abridging the wages of the artisan, for the sake
+of, adding to the profits of the artist? M. Lamartine said, "If you
+cease to support the theatre, where will you stop? Will you not
+necessarily be led to withdraw your support from your colleges, your
+museums, your institutes, and your libraries? It might be answered, if
+you desire to support everything which is good and useful, where will
+you stop? Will you not necessarily be led to form a civil list for
+agriculture, industry, commerce, benevolence, education? Then, is it
+certain that Government aid favours the progress of art? This question
+is far from being settled, and we see very well that the theatres which
+prosper are those which depend upon their own resources. Moreover, if we
+come to higher considerations, we may observe that wants and desires
+arise the one from the other, and originate in regions which are more
+and more refined in proportion as the public wealth allows of their
+being satisfied; that Government ought not to take part in this
+correspondence, because in a certain condition of present fortune it
+could not by taxation stimulate the arts of necessity without checking
+those of luxury, and thus interrupting the natural course of
+civilisation. I may observe, that these artificial transpositions of
+wants, tastes, labour, and population, place the people in a precarious
+and dangerous position, without any solid basis."
+
+These are some of the reasons alleged by the adversaries of State
+intervention in what concerns the order in which citizens think their
+wants and desires should be satisfied, and to which, consequently, their
+activity should be directed. I am, I confess, one of those who think
+that choice and impulse ought to come from below and not from above,
+from the citizen and not from the legislator; and the opposite doctrine
+appears to me to tend to the destruction of liberty and of human
+dignity.
+
+But, by a deduction as false as it is unjust, do you know what
+economists are accused of? It is, that when we disapprove of government
+support, we are supposed to disapprove of the thing itself whose support
+is discussed; and to be the enemies of every kind of activity, because
+we desire to see those activities, on the one hand free, and on the
+other seeking their own reward in themselves. Thus, if we think that the
+State should not interfere by taxation in religious affairs, we are
+atheists. If we think the State ought not to interfere by taxation in
+education, we are hostile to knowledge. If we say that the State ought
+not by taxation to give a fictitious value to land, or to any particular
+branch of industry, we are enemies to property and labour. If we think
+that the State ought not to support artists, we are barbarians, who look
+upon the arts as useless.
+
+Against such conclusions as these I protest with all my strength. Far
+from entertaining the absurd idea of doing away with religion,
+education, property, labour, and the arts, when we say that the State
+ought to protect the free development of all these kinds of human
+activity, without helping some of them at the expense of others--we
+think, on the contrary, that all these living powers of society would
+develop themselves more harmoniously under the influence of liberty; and
+that, under such an influence no one of them would, as is now the case,
+be a source of trouble, of abuses, of tyranny, and disorder.
+
+Our adversaries consider that an activity which is neither aided by
+supplies, nor regulated by government, is an activity destroyed. We
+think just the contrary. Their faith is in the legislator, not in
+mankind; ours is in mankind, not in the legislator.
+
+Thus M. Lamartine said, "Upon this principle we must abolish the public
+exhibitions, which are the honour and the wealth of this country." But I
+would say to M. Lamartine,--According to your way of thinking, not to
+support is to abolish; because, setting out upon the maxim that nothing
+exists independently of the will of the State, you conclude that nothing
+lives but what the State causes to live. But I oppose to this assertion
+the very example which you have chosen, and beg you to remark, that the
+grandest and noblest of exhibitions, one which has been conceived in the
+most liberal and universal spirit--and I might even make use of the term
+humanitary, for it is no exaggeration--is the exhibition now preparing
+in London; the only one in which no government is taking any part, and
+which is being paid for by no tax.
+
+To return to the fine arts. There are, I repeat, many strong reasons to
+be brought, both for and against the system of government assistance.
+The reader must see that the especial, object of this work leads me
+neither to explain these reasons, nor to decide in their favour, nor
+against them.
+
+But M. Lamartine has advanced one argument which I cannot pass by in
+silence, for it is closely connected with this economic study. "The
+economical question, as regards theatres, is comprised in one
+word--labour. It matters little what is the nature of this labour; it is
+as fertile, as productive a labour as any other kind of labour in the
+nation. The theatres in France, you know, feed and salary no less than
+80,000 workmen of different kinds; painters, masons, decorators,
+costumers, architects, &c., which constitute the very life and movement
+of several parts of this capital, and on this account they ought to have
+your sympathies." Your sympathies! say rather your money.
+
+And further on he says: "The pleasures of Paris are the labour and the
+consumption of the provinces, and the luxuries of the rich are the wages
+and bread of 200,000 workmen of every description, who live by the
+manifold industry of the theatres on the surface of the republic, and
+who receive from these noble pleasures, which render France illustrious,
+the sustenance of their lives and the necessaries of their families and
+children. It is to them that you will give 60,000 francs." (Very well;
+very well. Great applause.) For my part I am constrained to say, "Very
+bad! very bad!" confining this opinion, of course, within the bounds of
+the economical question which we are discussing.
+
+Yes, it is to the workmen of the theatres that a part, at least, of
+these 60,000 francs will go; a few bribes, perhaps, may be abstracted on
+the way. Perhaps, if we were to look a little more closely into the
+matter, we might find that the cake had gone another way, and that those
+workmen were fortunate who had come in for a few crumbs. But I will
+allow, for the sake of argument, that the entire sum does go to the
+painters, decorators, &c.
+
+_This is that which is seen._ But whence does it come? This is the other
+side of the question, and quite as important as the former. Where do
+these 60,000 francs spring from? and where would they go, if a vote of
+the legislature did not direct them first towards the Rue Rivoli and
+thence towards the Rue Grenelle? This _is what is not seen_. Certainly,
+nobody will think of maintaining that the legislative vote has caused
+this sum to be hatched in a ballot urn; that it is a pure addition made
+to the national wealth; that but for this miraculous vote these 60,000
+francs would have been for ever invisible and impalpable. It must be
+admitted that all that the majority can do is to decide that they shall
+be taken from one place to be sent to another; and if they take one
+direction, it is only because they have been diverted from another.
+
+This being the case, it is clear that the tax-payer, who has contributed
+one franc, will no longer have this franc at his own disposal. It is
+clear that he will be deprived of some gratification to the amount of
+one franc; and that the workman, whoever he may be, who would have
+received it from him, will be deprived of a benefit to that amount. Let
+us not, therefore, be led by a childish illusion into believing that the
+vote of the 60,000 francs may add anything whatever to the well-being
+of the country, and to national labour. It displaces enjoyments, it
+transposes wages--that is all.
+
+Will it be said that for one kind of gratification, and one kind of
+labour, it substitutes more urgent, more moral, more reasonable
+gratifications and labour? I might dispute this; I might say, by taking
+60,000 francs from the tax-payers, you diminish the wages of labourers,
+drainers, carpenters, blacksmiths, and increase in proportion those of
+the singers.
+
+There is nothing to prove that this latter class calls for more sympathy
+than the former. M. Lamartine does not say that it is so. He himself
+says that the labour of the theatres is _as_ fertile, _as_ productive as
+any other (not more so); and this may be doubted; for the best proof
+that the latter is not so fertile as the former lies in this, that the
+other is to be called upon to assist it.
+
+But this comparison between the value and the intrinsic merit of
+different kinds of labour forms no part of my present subject. All I
+have to do here is to show, that if M. Lamartine and those persons who
+commend his line of argument have seen on one side the salaries gained
+by the _providers_ of the comedians, they ought on the other to have
+seen the salaries lost by the _providers_ of the taxpayers: for want of
+this, they have exposed themselves to ridicule by mistaking a
+_displacement_ for a _gain_. If they were true to their doctrine, there
+would be no limits to their demands for government aid; for that which
+is true of one franc and of 60,000 is true, under parallel
+circumstances, of a hundred millions of francs.
+
+When taxes are the subject of discussion, you ought to prove their
+utility by reasons from the root of the matter, but not by this unlucky
+assertion--"The public expenses support the working classes." This
+assertion disguises the important fact, that _public expenses always_
+supersede _private expenses_, and that therefore we bring a livelihood
+to one workman instead of another, but add nothing to the share of the
+working class as a whole. Your arguments are fashionable enough, but
+they are too absurd to be justified by anything like reason.
+
+
+
+V.--Public Works.
+
+
+Nothing is more natural than that a nation, after having assured itself
+that an enterprise will benefit the community, should have it executed
+by means of a general assessment. But I lose patience, I confess, when I
+hear this economic blunder advanced in support of such a
+project--"Besides, it will be a means of creating labour for the
+workmen."
+
+The State opens a road, builds a palace, straightens a street, cuts a
+canal, and so gives work to certain workmen--_this is what is seen_: but
+it deprives certain other workmen of work--and this is what _is not
+seen_.
+
+The road is begun. A thousand workmen come every morning, leave every
+evening, and take their wages--this is certain. If the road had not been
+decreed, if the supplies had not been voted, these good people would
+have had neither work nor salary there; this also is certain.
+
+But is this all? Does not the operation, as a whole, contain something
+else? At the moment when M. Dupin pronounces the emphatic words, "The
+Assembly has adopted," do the millions descend miraculously on a
+moonbeam into the coffers of MM. Fould and Bineau? In order that the
+evolution may be complete, as it is said, must not the State organise
+the receipts as well as the expenditure? must it not set its
+tax-gatherers and tax-payers to work, the former to gather and the
+latter to pay?
+
+Study the question, now, in both its elements. While you state the
+destination given by the State to the millions voted, do not neglect to
+state also the destination which the tax-payer would have given, but
+cannot now give, to the same. Then you will understand that a public
+enterprise is a coin with two sides. Upon one is engraved a labourer at
+work, with this device, _that which is seen_; on the other is a labourer
+out of work, with the device, _that which is not seen_.
+
+The sophism which this work is intended to refute is the more dangerous
+when applied to public works, inasmuch as it serves to justify the most
+wanton enterprises and extravagance. When a railroad or a bridge are of
+real utility, it is sufficient to mention this utility. But if it does
+not exist, what do they do? Recourse is had to this mystification: "We
+must find work for the workmen."
+
+Accordingly, orders are given that the drains in the Champ-de-Mars be
+made and unmade. The great Napoleon, it is said, thought he was doing a
+very philanthropic work by causing ditches to be made and then filled
+up. He said, therefore, "What signifies the result? All we want is to
+see wealth spread among the labouring classes."
+
+But let us go to the root of the matter. We are deceived by money. To
+demand the co-operation of all the citizens in a common work, in the
+form of money, is in reality to demand a concurrence in kind; for every
+one procures, by his own labour, the sum to which he is taxed. Now, if
+all the citizens were to be called together, and made to execute, in
+conjunction, a work useful to all, this would be easily understood;
+their reward would be found in the results of the work itself.
+
+But after having called them together, if you force them to make roads
+which no one will pass through, palaces which no one will inhabit, and
+this under the pretext of finding them work, it would be absurd, and
+they would have a right to argue, "With this labour we have nothing to
+do; we prefer working on our own account."
+
+A proceeding which consists in making the citizens co-operate in giving
+money but not labour, does not, in any way, alter the general results.
+The only thing is, that the loss would react upon all parties. By the
+former, those whom the State employs, escape their part of the loss, by
+adding it to that which their fellow-citizens have already suffered.
+
+There is an article in our constitution which says:--"Society favours
+and encourages the development of labour--by the establishment of public
+works, by the State, the departments, and the parishes, as a means of
+employing persons who are in want of work."
+
+As a temporary measure, on any emergency, during a hard winter, this
+interference with the tax-payers may have its use. It acts in the same
+way as securities. It adds nothing either to labour or to wages, but it
+takes labour and wages from ordinary times to give them, at a loss it is
+true, to times of difficulty.
+
+As a permanent, general, systematic measure, it is nothing else than a
+ruinous mystification, an impossibility, which shows a little excited
+labour _which is seen_, and hides a great deal of prevented labour
+_which is not seen_.
+
+
+
+VI.--The Intermediates.
+
+
+Society is the total of the forced or voluntary services which men
+perform for each other; that is to say, of _public services_ and
+_private services_.
+
+The former, imposed and regulated by the law, which it is not always
+easy to change, even when it is desirable, may survive with it their own
+usefulness, and still preserve the name of _public services_, even when
+they are no longer services at all, but rather _public annoyances_. The
+latter belong to the sphere of the will, of individual responsibility.
+Every one gives and receives what he wishes, and what he can, after a
+debate. They have always the presumption of real utility, in exact
+proportion to their comparative value.
+
+This is the reason why the former description of services so often
+become stationary, while the latter obey the law of progress.
+
+While the exaggerated development of public services, by the waste of
+strength which it involves, fastens upon society a fatal sycophancy, it
+is a singular thing that several modern sects, attributing this
+character to free and private services, are endeavouring to transform
+professions into functions.
+
+These sects violently oppose what they call intermediates. They would
+gladly suppress the capitalist, the banker, the speculator, the
+projector, the merchant, and the trader, accusing them of interposing
+between production and consumption, to extort from both, without giving
+either anything in return. Or rather, they would transfer to the State
+the work which they accomplish, for this work cannot be suppressed.
+
+The sophism of the Socialists on this point is, showing to the public
+what it pays to the intermediates in exchange for their services, and
+concealing from it what is necessary to be paid to the State. Here is
+the usual conflict between what is before our eyes and what is
+perceptible to the mind only; between _what is seen_ and _what is not
+seen_.
+
+It was at the time of the scarcity, in 1847, that the Socialist schools
+attempted and succeeded in popularizing their fatal theory. They knew
+very well that the most absurd notions have always a chance with people
+who are suffering; _malisunda fames_.
+
+Therefore, by the help of the fine words, "trafficking in men by men,
+speculation on hunger, monopoly," they began to blacken commerce, and to
+cast a veil over its benefits.
+
+"What can be the use," they say, "of leaving to the merchants the care
+of importing food from the United States and the Crimea? Why do not the
+State, the departments, and the towns, organize a service for provisions
+and a magazine for stores? They would sell at a _return price_, and the
+people, poor things, would be exempted from the tribute which they pay
+to free, that is, to egotistical, individual, and anarchical commerce."
+
+The tribute paid by the people to commerce is _that which is seen_. The
+tribute which the people would pay to the State, or to its agents, in
+the Socialist system, is _what is not seen_.
+
+In what does this pretended tribute, which the people pay to commerce,
+consist? In this: that two men render each other a mutual service, in
+all freedom, and under the pressure of competition and reduced prices.
+
+When the hungry stomach is at Paris, and corn which can satisfy it is at
+Odessa, the suffering cannot cease till the corn is brought into
+contact with the stomach. There are three means by which this contact
+may be effected. 1st. The famished men may go themselves and fetch the
+corn. 2nd. They may leave this task to those to whose trade it belongs.
+3rd. They may club together, and give the office in charge to public
+functionaries. Which of these three methods possesses the greatest
+advantages? In every time, in all countries, and the more free,
+enlightened, and experienced they are, men have _voluntarily_ chosen the
+second. I confess that this is sufficient, in my opinion, to justify
+this choice. I cannot believe that mankind, as a whole, is deceiving
+itself upon a point which touches it so nearly. But let us now consider
+the subject.
+
+For thirty-six millions of citizens to go and fetch the corn they want
+from Odessa, is a manifest impossibility. The first means, then, goes
+for nothing. The consumers cannot act for themselves. They must, of
+necessity, have recourse to _intermediates_, officials or agents.
+
+But observe, that the first of these three means would be the most
+natural. In reality, the hungry man has to fetch his corn. It is a task
+which concerns himself, a service due to himself. If another person, on
+whatever ground, performs this service for him, takes the task upon
+himself, this latter has a claim upon him for a compensation. I mean by
+this to say that intermediates contain in themselves the principle of
+remuneration.
+
+However that may be, since we must refer to what the Socialists call a
+parasite, I would ask, which of the two is the most exacting parasite
+the merchant or the official?
+
+Commerce (free, of course, otherwise I could not reason upon it),
+commerce, I say, is led by its own interests to study the seasons, to
+give daily statements of the state of the crops, to receive information
+from every part of the globe, to foresee wants, to take precautions
+beforehand. It has vessels always ready, correspondents everywhere; and
+it is its immediate interest to buy at the lowest possible price, to
+economize in all the details of its operations, and to attain the
+greatest results by the smallest efforts. It is not the French merchants
+only who are occupied in procuring provisions for France in time of
+need, and if their interest leads them irresistibly to accomplish their
+task at the smallest possible cost, the competition which they create
+amongst each other leads them no less irresistibly to cause the
+consumers to partake of the profits of those realised savings. The corn
+arrives: it is to the interest of commerce to sell it as soon as
+possible, so as to avoid risks, to realise its funds, and begin again
+the first opportunity.
+
+Directed by the comparison of prices, it distributes food over the whole
+surface of the country, beginning always at the highest, price, that is,
+where the demand is the greatest. It is impossible to imagine an
+organisation more completely calculated to meet the interest of those
+who are in want; and the beauty of this organisation, unperceived as it
+is by the Socialists, results from the very fact that it is free. It is
+true, the consumer is obliged to reimburse commerce for the expenses of
+conveyance, freight, store-room, commission, &c.; but can any system be
+devised in which he who eats corn is not obliged to defray the expenses,
+whatever they may be, of bringing it within his reach? The remuneration
+for the service performed has to be paid also; but as regards its
+amount, this is reduced to the smallest possible sum by competition; and
+as regards its justice, it would be very strange if the artizans of
+Paris would not work for the artizans of Marseilles, when the merchants
+of Marseilles work for the artizans of Paris.
+
+If, according to the Socialist invention, the State were to stand in the
+stead of commerce, what would happen? I should like to be informed where
+the saving would be to the public? Would it be in the price of purchase?
+Imagine the delegates of 40,000 parishes arriving at Odessa on a given
+day, and on the day of need: imagine the effect upon prices. Would the
+saving be in the expenses? Would fewer vessels be required; fewer
+sailors, fewer transports, fewer sloops? or would you be exempt from the
+payment of all these things? Would it be in the profits of the
+merchants? Would your officials go to Odessa for nothing? Would they
+travel and work on the principle of fraternity? Must they not live? Must
+not they be paid for their time? And do you believe that these expenses
+would not exceed a thousand times the two or three per cent. which the
+merchant gains, at the rate at which he is ready to treat?
+
+And then consider the difficulty of levying so many taxes, and of
+dividing so much food. Think of the injustice, of the abuses inseparable
+from such an enterprise. Think of the responsibility which would weigh
+upon the Government.
+
+The Socialists who have invented these follies, and who, in the days of
+distress, have introduced them into the minds of the masses, take to
+themselves literally the title of _advanced men_; and it is not without
+some danger that custom, that tyrant of tongues, authorizes the term,
+and the sentiment which it involves. _Advanced!_ This supposes that
+these gentlemen can see further than the common people; that their only
+fault is that they are too much in advance of their age; and if the time
+is not yet come for suppressing certain free services, pretended
+parasites, the fault is to be attributed to the public which is in the
+rear of Socialism. I say, from my soul and my conscience, the reverse is
+the truth; and I know not to what barbarous age we should have to go
+back, if we would find the level of Socialist knowledge on this subject.
+These modern sectarians incessantly oppose association to actual
+society. They overlook the fact that society, under a free regulation,
+is a true association, far superior to any of those which proceed from
+their fertile imaginations.
+
+Let me illustrate this by an example. Before a mutual services, and to
+helping each other in a common object, and that all may be considered,
+with respect to others, _intermediates_. If, for instance, in the course
+of the operation, the conveyance becomes important enough to occupy one
+person, the spinning another, the weaving another, why should the first
+be considered a _parasite_ more than the other two? The conveyance must
+be made, must it not? Does not he who performs it devote to it his time
+and trouble? and by so doing does he not spare that of his colleagues?
+Do these do more or other than this for him? Are they not equally
+dependent for remuneration, that is, for the division of the produce,
+upon the law of reduced price? Is it not in all liberty, for the common
+good, that this separation of work takes place, and that these
+arrangements are entered into? What do we want with a Socialist then,
+who, under pretence of organising for us, comes despotically to break up
+our voluntary arrangements, to check the division of labour, to
+substitute isolated efforts for combined ones, and to send civilisation
+back? Is association, as I describe it here, in itself less association,
+because every one enters and leaves it freely, chooses his place in it,
+judges and bargains for himself on his own responsibility, and brings
+with him the spring and warrant of personal interest? That it may
+deserve this name, is it necessary that a pretended reformer should come
+and impose upon us his plan and his will, and, as it were, to
+concentrate mankind in himself?
+
+The more we examine these _advanced schools_, the more do we become
+convinced that there is but one thing at the root of them: ignorance
+proclaiming itself infallible, and claiming despotism in the name of
+this infallibility.
+
+I hope the reader will excuse this digression. It may not be altogether
+useless, at a time when declamations, springing from St. Simonian,
+Phalansterian, and Icarian books, are invoking the press and the
+tribune, and which seriously threaten the liberty of labour and
+commercial transactions.
+
+
+
+VII.--Restrictions.
+
+
+M. Prohibant (it was not I who gave him this name, but M. Charles Dupin)
+devoted his time and capital to converting the ore found on his land
+into iron. As nature had been more lavish towards the Belgians, they
+furnished the French with iron cheaper than M. Prohibant; which means,
+that all the French, or France, could obtain a given quantity of iron
+with less labour by buying it of the honest Flemings. Therefore, guided
+by their own interest, they did not fail to do so; and every day there
+might be seen a multitude of nail-smiths, blacksmiths, cartwrights,
+machinists, farriers, and labourers, going themselves, or sending
+intermediates, to supply themselves in Belgium. This displeased M.
+Prohibant exceedingly.
+
+At first, it occurred to him to put an end to this abuse by his own
+efforts: it was the least he could do, for he was the only sufferer. "I
+will take my carbine," said he; "I will put four pistols into my belt; I
+will fill my cartridge box; I will gird on my sword, and go thus
+equipped to the frontier. There, the first blacksmith, nail-smith,
+farrier, machinist, or locksmith, who presents himself to do his own
+business and not mine, I will kill, to teach him how to live." At the
+moment of starting, M. Prohibant made a few reflections which calmed
+down his warlike ardour a little. He said to himself, "In the first
+place, it is not absolutely impossible that the purchasers of iron, my
+countrymen and enemies, should take the thing ill, and, instead of
+letting me kill them, should kill me instead; and then, even were I to
+call out all my servants, we should not be able to defend the passages.
+In short, this proceeding would cost me very dear, much more so than the
+result would be worth."
+
+M. Prohibant was on the point of resigning himself to his sad fate, that
+of being only as free as the rest of the world, when a ray of light
+darted across his brain. He recollected that at Paris there is a great
+manufactory of laws. "What is a law?" said he to himself. "It is a
+measure to which, when once it is decreed, be it good or bad, everybody
+is bound to conform. For the execution of the same a public force is
+organised, and to constitute the said public force, men and money are
+drawn from the whole nation. If, then, I could only get the great
+Parisian manufactory to pass a little law, 'Belgian iron is
+prohibited,' I should obtain the following results:--The Government
+would replace the few valets that I was going to send to the frontier by
+20,000 of the sons of those refractory blacksmiths, farriers, artizans,
+machinists, locksmiths, nail-smiths, and labourers. Then to keep these
+20,000 custom-house officers in health and good humour, it would
+distribute among them 25,000,000 of francs taken from these blacksmiths,
+nail-smiths, artizans, and labourers. They would guard the frontier much
+better; would cost me nothing; I should not be exposed to the brutality
+of the brokers; should sell the iron at my own price, and have the sweet
+satisfaction of seeing our great people shamefully mystified. That would
+teach them to proclaim themselves perpetually the harbingers and
+promoters of progress in Europe. Oh! it would be a capital joke, and
+deserves to be tried."
+
+So M. Prohibant went to the law manufactory. Another time, perhaps, I
+shall relate the story of his underhand dealings, but now I shall merely
+mention his visible proceedings. He brought the following consideration
+before the view of the legislating gentlemen.
+
+"Belgian iron is sold in France at ten francs, which obliges me to sell
+mine at the same price. I should like to sell at fifteen, but cannot do
+so on account of this Belgian iron, which I wish was at the bottom of
+the Red Sea. I beg you will make a law that no more Belgian iron shall
+enter France. Immediately I raise my price five francs, and these are
+the consequences:--
+
+"For every hundred-weight of iron that I shall deliver to the public, I
+shall receive fifteen francs instead of ten; I shall grow rich more
+rapidly, extend my traffic, and employ more workmen. My workmen and I
+shall spend much more freely, to the great advantage of our tradesmen
+for miles around. These latter, having more custom, will furnish more
+employment to trade, and activity on both sides will increase in the
+country. This fortunate piece of money, which you will drop into my
+strong-box, will, like a stone thrown into a lake, give birth to an
+infinite number of concentric circles."
+
+Charmed with his discourse, delighted to learn that it is so easy to
+promote, by legislating, the prosperity of a people, the law-makers
+voted the restriction. "Talk of labour and economy," they said, "what is
+the use of these painful means of increasing the national wealth, when
+all that is wanted for this object is a decree?"
+
+And, in fact, the law produced all the consequences announced by M.
+Prohibant: the only thing was, it produced others which he had not
+foreseen. To do him justice, his reasoning was not false, but only
+incomplete. In endeavouring to obtain a privilege, he had taken
+cognizance of the effects _which are seen_, leaving in the background
+those _which are not seen_. He had pointed out only two personages,
+whereas there are three concerned in the affair. It is for us to supply
+this involuntary or premeditated omission.
+
+It is true, the crown-piece, thus directed by law into M. Prohibant's
+strong-box, is advantageous to him and to those whose labour it would
+encourage; and if the Act had caused the crown-piece to descend from the
+moon, these good effects would not have been counterbalanced by any
+corresponding evils. Unfortunately, the mysterious piece of money does
+not come from the moon, but from the pocket of a blacksmith, or a
+nail-smith, or a cartwright, or a farrier, or a labourer, or a
+shipwright; in a word, from James B., who gives it now without receiving
+a grain more of iron than when he was paying ten francs. Thus, we can
+see at a glance that this very much alters the state of the case; for it
+is very evident that M. Prohibant's _profit_ is compensated by James
+B.'s _loss_, and all that M. Prohibant can do with the crown-piece, for
+the encouragement of national labour, James B. might have done himself.
+The stone has only been thrown upon one part of the lake, because the
+law has prevented it from being thrown upon another.
+
+Therefore, _that which is not seen_ supersedes _that which is seen_, and
+at this point there remains, as the residue of the operation, a piece of
+injustice, and, sad to say, a piece of injustice perpetrated by the law!
+
+This is not all. I have said that there is always a third person left
+in the background. I must now bring him forward, that he may reveal to
+us a _second loss_ of five francs. Then we shall have the entire results
+of the transaction.
+
+James B. is the possessor of fifteen francs, the fruit of his labour. He
+is now free. What does he do with his fifteen francs? He purchases some
+article of fashion for ten francs, and with it he pays (or the
+intermediate pay for him) for the hundred-weight of Belgian iron. After
+this he has five francs left. He does not throw them into the river, but
+(and this is _what is not seen_) he gives them to some tradesman in
+exchange for some enjoyment; to a bookseller, for instance, for
+Bossuet's "Discourse on Universal History."
+
+Thus, as far as national labour is concerned, it is encouraged to the
+amount of fifteen francs, viz.:--ten francs for the Paris article, five
+francs to the bookselling trade.
+
+As to James B., he obtains for his fifteen francs two gratifications,
+viz.:--
+
+1st. A hundred-weight of iron.
+
+2nd. A book.
+
+The decree is put in force. How does it affect the condition of James
+B.? How does it affect the national labour?
+
+James B. pays every centime of his five francs to M. Prohibant, and
+therefore is deprived of the pleasure of a book, or of some other thing
+of equal value. He loses five francs. This must be admitted; it cannot
+fail to be admitted, that when the restriction raises the price of
+things, the consumer loses the difference.
+
+But, then, it is said, _national labour_ is the gainer.
+
+No, it is not the gainer; for since the Act, it is no more encouraged
+than it was before, to the amount of fifteen francs.
+
+The only thing is that, since the Act, the fifteen francs of James B. go
+to the metal trade, while before it was put in force, they were divided
+between the milliner and the bookseller.
+
+The violence used by M. Prohibant on the frontier, or that which he
+causes to be used by the law, may be judged very differently in a moral
+point of view. Some persons consider that plunder is perfectly
+justifiable, if only sanctioned by law. But, for myself, I cannot
+imagine anything more aggravating. However it may be, the economical
+results are the same in both cases.
+
+Look at the thing as you will; but if you are impartial, you will see
+that no good can come of legal or illegal plunder. We do not deny that
+it affords M. Prohibant, or his trade, or, if you will, national
+industry, a profit of five francs. But we affirm that it causes two
+losses, one to James B., who pays fifteen francs where he otherwise
+would have paid ten; the other to national industry, which does not
+receive the difference. Take your choice of these two losses, and
+compensate with it the profit which we allow. The other will prove not
+the less a _dead loss_. Here is the moral: To take by violence is not to
+produce, but to destroy. Truly, if taking by violence was producing,
+this country of ours would be a little richer than she is.
+
+
+
+VIII.--Machinery.
+
+
+"A curse on machines! Every year, their increasing power devotes
+millions of workmen to pauperism, by depriving them of work, and
+therefore of wages and bread. A curse on machines!"
+
+This is the cry which is raised by vulgar prejudice, and echoed in the
+journals.
+
+But to curse machines is to curse the spirit of humanity!
+
+It puzzles me to conceive how any man can feel any satisfaction in such
+a doctrine.
+
+For, if true, what is its inevitable consequence? That there is no
+activity, prosperity, wealth, or happiness possible for any people,
+except for those who are stupid and inert, and to whom God has not
+granted the fatal gift of knowing how to think, to observe, to combine,
+to invent, and to obtain the greatest results with the smallest means.
+On the contrary, rags, mean huts, poverty, and inanition, are the
+inevitable lot of every nation which seeks and finds in iron, fire,
+wind, electricity, magnetism, the laws of chemistry and mechanics, in a
+word, in the powers of nature, an assistance to its natural powers. We
+might as well say with Rousseau--"Every man that thinks is a depraved
+animal."
+
+This is not all. If this doctrine is true, since all men think and
+invent, since all, from first to last, and at every moment of their
+existence, seek the co-operation of the powers of nature, and try to
+make the most of a little, by reducing either the work of their hands or
+their expenses, so as to obtain the greatest possible amount of
+gratification with the smallest possible amount of labour, it must
+follow, as a matter of course, that the whole of mankind is rushing
+towards its decline, by the same mental aspiration towards progress,
+which torments each of its members.
+
+Hence, it ought to be made known, by statistics, that the inhabitants of
+Lancashire, abandoning that land of machines, seek for work in Ireland,
+where they are unknown; and, by history, that barbarism darkens the
+epochs of civilisation, and that civilisation shines in times of
+ignorance and barbarism.
+
+There is evidently in this mass of contradictions something which
+revolts us, and which leads us to suspect that the problem contains
+within it an element of solution which has not been sufficiently
+disengaged.
+
+Here is the whole mystery: behind _that which is seen_ lies something
+_which is not seen_. I will endeavour to bring it to light. The
+demonstration I shall give will only be a repetition of the preceding
+one, for the problems are one and the same.
+
+Men have a natural propensity to make the best bargain they can, when
+not prevented by an opposing force; that is, they like to obtain as much
+as they possibly can for their labour, whether the advantage is
+obtained from a _foreign producer_ or a skilful _mechanical producer_.
+
+The theoretical objection which is made to this propensity is the same
+in both cases. In each case it is reproached with the apparent
+inactivity which it causes to labour. Now, labour rendered available,
+not inactive, is the very thing which determines it. And, therefore, in
+both cases, the same practical obstacle--force, is opposed to it also.
+
+The legislator prohibits foreign competition, and forbids mechanical
+competition. For what other means can exist for arresting a propensity
+which is natural to all men, but that of depriving them of their
+liberty?
+
+In many countries, it is true, the legislator strikes at only one of
+these competitions, and confines himself to grumbling at the other. This
+only proves one thing, that is, that the legislator is inconsistent.
+
+We need not be surprised at this. On a wrong road, inconsistency is
+inevitable; if it were not so, mankind would be sacrificed. A false
+principle never has been, and never will be, carried out to the end.
+
+Now for our demonstration, which shall not be a long one.
+
+James B. had two francs which he had gained by two workmen; but it
+occurs to him that an arrangement of ropes and weights might be made
+which would diminish the labour by half. Therefore he obtains the same
+advantage, saves a franc, and discharges a workman.
+
+He discharges a workman: _this is that which is seen_.
+
+And seeing this only, it is said, "See how misery attends civilisation;
+this is the way that liberty is fatal to equality. The human mind has
+made a conquest, and immediately a workman is cast into the gulf of
+pauperism. James B. may possibly employ the two workmen, but then he
+will give them only half their wages, for they will compete with each
+other, and offer themselves at the lowest price. Thus the rich are
+always growing richer, and the poor, poorer. Society wants remodelling."
+A very fine conclusion, and worthy of the preamble.
+
+Happily, preamble and conclusion are both false, because, behind the
+half of the phenomenon _which is seen_, lies the other half _which is
+not seen_.
+
+The franc saved by James B. is not seen, no more are the necessary
+effects of this saving.
+
+Since, in consequence of his invention, James B. spends only one franc
+on hand labour in the pursuit of a determined advantage, another franc
+remains to him.
+
+If, then, there is in the world a workman with unemployed arms, there is
+also in the world a capitalist with an unemployed franc. These two
+elements meet and combine, and it is as clear as daylight, that between
+the supply and demand of labour, and between the supply and demand of
+wages, the relation is in no way changed.
+
+The invention and the workman paid with the first franc, now perform
+the work which was formerly accomplished by two workmen. The second
+workman, paid with the second franc, realises a new kind of work.
+
+What is the change, then, which has taken place? An additional national
+advantage has been gained; in other words, the invention is a gratuitous
+triumph--a gratuitous profit for mankind.
+
+From the form which I have given to my demonstration, the following
+inference might be drawn:--
+
+"It is the capitalist who reaps all the advantage from machinery. The
+working class, if it suffers only temporarily, never profits by it,
+since, by your own showing, they displace a portion of the national
+labour, without diminishing it, it is true, but also without increasing
+it."
+
+I do not pretend, in this slight treatise, to answer every objection;
+the only end I have in view, is to combat a vulgar, widely spread, and
+dangerous prejudice. I want to prove that a new machine only causes the
+discharge of a certain number of hands, when the remuneration which pays
+them is abstracted by force. These hands and this remuneration would
+combine to produce what it was impossible to produce before the
+invention; whence it follows, that the final result is _an increase of
+advantages for equal labour_.
+
+Who is the gainer by these additional advantages?
+
+First, it is true, the capitalist, the inventor; the first who succeeds
+in using the machine; and this is the reward of his genius and courage.
+In this case, as we have just seen, he effects a saving upon the expense
+of production, which, in whatever way it may be spent (and it always is
+spent), employs exactly as many hands as the machine caused to be
+dismissed.
+
+But soon competition obliges him to lower his prices in proportion to
+the saving itself; and then it is no longer the inventor who reaps the
+benefit of the invention--it is the purchaser of what is produced, the
+consumer, the public, including the workman; in a word, mankind.
+
+And _that which is not seen_ is, that the saving thus procured for all
+consumers creates a fund whence wages may be supplied, and which
+replaces that which the machine has exhausted.
+
+Thus, to recur to the forementioned example, James B. obtains a profit
+by spending two francs in wages. Thanks to his invention, the hand
+labour costs him only one franc. So long as he sells the thing produced
+at the same price, he employs one workman less in producing this
+particular thing, and that is _what is seen_; but there is an additional
+workman employed by the franc which James B. has saved. This is _that
+which is not seen_.
+
+When, by the natural progress of things, James B. is obliged to lower
+the price of the thing produced by one franc, then he no longer realises
+a saving; then he has no longer a franc to dispose of to procure for the
+national labour a new production. But then another gainer takes his
+place, and this gainer is mankind. Whoever buys the thing he has
+produced, pays a franc less, and necessarily adds this saving to the
+fund of wages; and this, again, is _what is not seen_.
+
+Another solution, founded upon facts, has been given of this problem of
+machinery.
+
+It was said, machinery reduces the expense of production, and lowers the
+price of the thing produced. The reduction of the profit causes an
+increase of consumption, which necessitates an increase of production;
+and, finally, the introduction of as many workmen, or more, after the
+invention as were necessary before it. As a proof of this, printing,
+weaving, &c., are instanced.
+
+This demonstration is not a scientific one. It would lead us to
+conclude, that if the consumption of the particular production of which
+we are speaking remains stationary, or nearly so, machinery must injure
+labour. This is not the case.
+
+Suppose that in a certain country all the people wore hats. If, by
+machinery, the price could be reduced half, it would not _necessarily
+follow_ that the consumption would be doubled.
+
+Would you say that in this case a portion of the national labour had
+been paralyzed? Yes, according to the vulgar demonstration; but,
+according to mine, No; for even if not a single hat more should be
+bought in the country, the entire fund of wages would not be the less
+secure. That which failed to go to the hat-making trade would be found
+to have gone to the economy realised by all the consumers, and would
+thence serve to pay for all the labour which the machine had rendered
+useless, and to excite a new development of all the trades. And thus it
+is that things go on. I have known newspapers to cost eighty francs, now
+we pay forty-eight: here is a saving of thirty-two francs to the
+subscribers. It is not certain, or at least necessary, that the
+thirty-two francs should take the direction of the journalist trade; but
+it is certain, and necessary too, that if they do not take this
+direction they will take another. One makes use of them for taking in
+more newspapers; another, to get better living; another, better clothes;
+another, better furniture. It is thus that the trades are bound
+together. They form a vast whole, whose different parts communicate by
+secret canals: what is saved by one, profits all. It is very important
+for us to understand that savings never take place at the expense of
+labour and wages.
+
+
+
+IX.--Credit.
+
+
+In all times, but more especially of late years, attempts have been made
+to extend wealth by the extension of credit.
+
+I believe it is no exaggeration to say, that since the revolution of
+February, the Parisian presses have issued more than 10,000 pamphlets,
+crying up this solution of the _social problem_.
+
+The only basis, alas! of this solution, is an optical delusion--if,
+indeed, an optical delusion can be called a basis at all.
+
+The first thing done is to confuse cash with produce, then paper money
+with cash; and from these two confusions it is pretended that a reality
+can be drawn.
+
+It is absolutely necessary in this question to forget money, coin,
+bills, and the other instruments by means of which productions pass from
+hand to hand. Our business is with the productions themselves, which are
+the real objects of the loan; for when a farmer borrows fifty francs to
+buy a plough, it is not, in reality, the fifty francs which are lent to
+him, but the plough; and when a merchant borrows 20,000 francs to
+purchase a house, it is not the 20,000 francs which he owes, but the
+house. Money only appears for the sake of facilitating the arrangements
+between the parties.
+
+Peter may not be disposed to lend his plough, but James may be willing
+to lend his money. What does William do in this case? He borrows money
+of James, and with this money he buys the plough of Peter.
+
+But, in point of fact, no one borrows money for the sake of the money
+itself; money is only the medium by which to obtain possession of
+productions. Now, it is impossible in any country to transmit from one
+person to another more productions than that country contains.
+
+Whatever may be the amount of cash and of paper which is in circulation,
+the whole of the borrowers cannot receive more ploughs, houses, tools,
+and supplies of raw material, than the lenders altogether can furnish;
+for we must take care not to forget that every borrower supposes a
+lender, and that what is once borrowed implies a loan.
+
+This granted, what advantage is there in institutions of credit? It is,
+that they facilitate, between borrowers and lenders, the means of
+finding and treating with each other; but it is not in their power to
+cause an instantaneous increase of the things to be borrowed and lent.
+And yet they ought to be able to do so, if the aim of the reformers is
+to be attained, since they aspire to nothing less than to place ploughs,
+houses, tools, and provisions in the hands of all those who desire them.
+
+And how do they intend to effect this?
+
+By making the State security for the loan.
+
+Let us try and fathom the subject, for it contains _something which is
+seen_, and also _something which is not seen_. We must endeavour to look
+at both.
+
+We will suppose that there is but one plough in the world, and that two
+farmers apply for it.
+
+Peter is the possessor of the only plough which is to be had in France;
+John and James wish to borrow it. John, by his honesty, his property,
+and good reputation, offers security. He _inspires confidence_; he has
+_credit_. James inspires little or no confidence. It naturally happens
+that Peter lends his plough to John.
+
+But now, according to the Socialist plan, the State interferes, and says
+to Peter, "Lend your plough to James, I will be security for its
+return, and this security will be better than that of John, for he has
+no one to be responsible for him but himself; and I, although it is true
+that I have nothing, dispose of the fortune of the tax-payers, and it is
+with their money that, in case of need, I shall pay you the principal
+and interest." Consequently, Peter lends his plough to James: _this is
+what is seen_.
+
+And the Socialists rub their hands, and say, "See how well our plan has
+answered. Thanks to the intervention of the State, poor James has a
+plough. He will no longer be obliged to dig the ground; he is on the
+road to make a fortune. It is a good thing for him, and an advantage to
+the nation as a whole."
+
+Indeed, it is no such thing; it is no advantage to the nation, for there
+is something behind _which is not seen_.
+
+_It is not seen_, that the plough is in the hands of James, only because
+it is not in those of John.
+
+_It is not seen_, that if James farms instead of digging, John will be
+reduced to the necessity of digging instead of farming.
+
+That, consequently, what was considered an increase of loan, is nothing
+but a displacement of loan. Besides, _it is not seen_ that this
+displacement implies two acts of deep injustice.
+
+It is an injustice to John, who, after having deserved and obtained
+_credit_ by his honesty and activity, sees himself robbed of it.
+
+It is an injustice to the tax-payers, who are made to pay a debt which
+is no concern of theirs.
+
+Will any one say, that Government offers the same facilities to John as
+it does to James? But as there is only one plough to be had, two cannot
+be lent. The argument always maintains that, thanks to the intervention
+of the State, more will be borrowed than there are things to be lent;
+for the plough represents here the bulk of available capitals.
+
+It is true, I have reduced the operation to the most simple expression
+of it, but if you submit the most complicated Government institutions of
+credit to the same test, you will be convinced that they can have but
+one result; viz., to displace credit, not to augment it. In one country,
+and in a given time, there is only a certain amount of capital
+available, and all are employed. In guaranteeing the non-payers, the
+State may, indeed, increase the number of borrowers, and thus raise the
+rate of interest (always to the prejudice of the tax-payer), but it has
+no power to increase the number of lenders, and the importance of the
+total of the loans.
+
+There is one conclusion, however, which I would not for the world be
+suspected of drawing. I say, that the law ought not to favour,
+artificially, the power of borrowing, but I do not say that it ought not
+to restrain them artificially. If, in our system of mortgage, or in any
+other, there be obstacles to the diffusion of the application of credit,
+let them be got rid of; nothing can be better or more just than this.
+But this is all which is consistent with liberty, and it is all that any
+who are worthy of the name of reformers will ask.
+
+
+
+X.--Algeria.
+
+
+Here are four orators disputing for the platform. First, all the four
+speak at once; then they speak one after the other. What have they said?
+Some very fine things, certainly, about the power and the grandeur of
+France; about the necessity of sowing, if we would reap; about the
+brilliant future of our gigantic colony; about the advantage of
+diverting to a distance the surplus of our population, &c. &c.
+Magnificent pieces of eloquence, and always adorned with this
+conclusion:--"Vote fifty millions, more or less, for making ports and
+roads in Algeria; for sending emigrants thither; for building houses and
+breaking up land. By so doing, you will relieve the French workman,
+encourage African labour, and give a stimulus to the commerce of
+Marseilles. It would be profitable every way."
+
+Yes, it is all very true, if you take no account of the fifty millions
+until the moment when the State begins to spend them; if you only see
+where they go, and not whence they come; if you look only at the good
+they are to do when they come out of the tax-gatherer's bag, and not at
+the harm which has been done, and the good which has been prevented, by
+putting them into it. Yes, at this limited point of view, all is profit.
+The house which is built in Barbary is _that which is seen_; the
+harbour made in Barbary is _that which is seen_; the work caused in
+Barbary is _what is seen_; a few less hands in France is _what is seen_;
+a great stir with goods at Marseilles is still _that which is seen_.
+
+But, besides all this, there is something _which is not seen_. The fifty
+millions expended by the State cannot be spent, as they otherwise would
+have been, by the tax-payers. It is necessary to deduct, from all the
+good attributed to the public expenditure which has been effected, all
+the harm caused by the prevention of private expense, unless we say that
+James B. would have done nothing with the crown that he had gained, and
+of which the tax had deprived him; an absurd assertion, for if he took
+the trouble to earn it, it was because he expected the satisfaction of
+using it. He would have repaired the palings in his garden, which he
+cannot now do, and this is _that which is not seen_. He would have
+manured his field, which now he cannot do, and this is _what is not
+seen_. He would have added another story to his cottage, which he cannot
+do now, and this is _what is not seen_. He might have increased the
+number of his tools, which he cannot do now, and this is _what is not
+seen_. He would have been better fed, better clothed, have given a
+better education to his children, and increased his daughter's marriage
+portion; this is _what is not seen_. He would have become a member of
+the Mutual Assistance Society, but now he cannot; this is _what is not
+seen_. On one hand, are the enjoyments of which he has been deprived,
+and the means of action which have been destroyed in his hands; on the
+other, are the labour of the drainer, the carpenter, the smith, the
+tailor, the village schoolmaster, which he would have encouraged, and
+which are now prevented--all this is _what is not seen_.
+
+Much is hoped from the future prosperity of Algeria; be it so. But the
+drain to which France is being subjected ought not to be kept entirely
+out of sight. The commerce of Marseilles is pointed out to me; but if
+this is to be brought about by means of taxation, I shall always show
+that an equal commerce is destroyed thereby in other parts of the
+country. It is said, "There is an emigrant transported into Barbary;
+this is a relief to the population which remains in the country," I
+answer, "How can that be, if, in transporting this emigrant to Algiers,
+you also transport two or three times the capital which would have
+served to maintain him in France?"[4]
+
+The only object I have in view is to make it evident to the reader, that
+in every public expense, behind the apparent benefit, there is an evil
+which it is not so easy to discern. As far as in me lies, I would make
+him form a habit of seeing both, and taking account of both.
+
+When a public expense is proposed, it ought to be examined in itself,
+separately from the pretended encouragement of labour which results from
+it, for tins encouragement is a delusion. Whatever is done in this way
+at the public expense, private expense would have done all the same;
+therefore, the interest of labour is always out of the question.
+
+It is not the object of this treatise to criticise the intrinsic merit
+of the public expenditure as applied to Algeria, but I cannot withhold a
+general observation. It is, that the presumption is always unfavourable
+to collective expenses by way of tax. Why? For this reason:--First,
+justice always suffers from it in some degree. Since James B. had
+laboured to gain his crown, in the hope of receiving a gratification
+from it, it is to be regretted that the exchequer should interpose, and
+take from James B. this gratification, to bestow it upon another.
+Certainly, it behoves the exchequer, or those who regulate it, to give
+good reasons for this. It has been shown that the State gives a very
+provoking one, when it says, "With this crown I shall employ workmen;"
+for James B. (as soon as he sees it) will be sure to answer, "It is all
+very fine, but with this crown I might employ them myself."
+
+Apart from this reason, others present themselves without disguise, by
+which the debate between the exchequer and poor James becomes much
+simplified. If the State says to him, "I take your crown to pay the
+gendarme, who saves you the trouble of providing for your own personal
+safety; for paving the street which you are passing through every day;
+for paying the magistrate who causes your property and your liberty to
+be respected; to maintain the soldier who maintains our
+frontiers,"--James B., unless I am much mistaken, will pay for all this
+without hesitation. But if the State were to say to him, "I take this
+crown that I may give you a little prize in case you cultivate your
+field well; or that I may teach your son something that you have no wish
+that he should learn; or that the Minister may add another to his score
+of dishes at dinner; I take it to build a cottage in Algeria, in which
+case I must take another crown every year to keep an emigrant in it, and
+another hundred to maintain a soldier to guard this emigrant, and
+another crown to maintain a general to guard this soldier," &c., &c.,--I
+think I hear poor James exclaim, "This system of law is very much like a
+system of cheat!" The State foresees the objection, and what does it do?
+It jumbles all things together, and brings forward just that provoking
+reason which ought to have nothing whatever to do with the question. It
+talks of the effect of this crown upon labour; it points to the cook and
+purveyor of the Minister; it shows an emigrant, a soldier, and a
+general, living upon the crown; it shows, in fact, _what is seen_, and
+if James B. has not learned to take into the account _what is not seen_,
+James B. will be duped. And this is why I want to do all I can to
+impress it upon his mind, by repeating it over and over again.
+
+As the public expenses displace labour without increasing it, a second
+serious presumption presents itself against them. To displace labour is
+to displace labourers, and to disturb the natural laws which regulate
+the distribution of the population over the country. If 50,000,000
+francs are allowed to remain in the possession of the tax-payers since
+the tax-payers are everywhere, they encourage labour in the 40,000
+parishes in France. They act like a natural tie, which keeps every one
+upon his native soil; they distribute themselves amongst all imaginable
+labourers and trades. If the State, by drawing off these 60,000,000
+francs from the citizens, accumulates them, and expends them on some
+given point, it attracts to this point a proportional quantity of
+displaced labour, a corresponding number of labourers, belonging to
+other parts; a fluctuating population, which is out of its place, and I
+venture to say dangerous when the fund is exhausted. Now here is the
+consequence (and this confirms all I have said): this feverish activity
+is, as it were, forced into a narrow space; it attracts the attention of
+all; it is _what is seen_. The people applaud; they are astonished at
+the beauty and facility of the plan, and expect to have it continued and
+extended. _That which they do not see_ is, that an equal quantity of
+labour, which would probably be more valuable, has been paralyzed over
+the rest of France.
+
+
+
+XI.--Frugality and Luxury.
+
+
+It is not only in the public expenditure that _what is seen_ eclipses
+_what is not seen_. Setting aside what relates to political economy,
+this phenomenon leads to false reasoning. It causes nations to consider
+their moral and their material interests as contradictory to each other.
+What can be more discouraging or more dismal?
+
+For instance, there is not a father of a family who does not think it
+his duty to teach his children order, system, the habits of carefulness,
+of economy, and of moderation in spending money.
+
+There is no religion which does not thunder against pomp and luxury.
+This is as it should be; but, on the other hand, how frequently do we
+hear the following remarks:--
+
+"To hoard, is to drain the veins of the people."
+
+"The luxury of the great is the comfort of the little."
+
+"Prodigals ruin themselves, but they enrich the State."
+
+"It is the superfluity of the rich which makes bread for the poor."
+
+Here, certainly, is a striking contradiction between the moral and the
+social idea. How many eminent spirits, after having made the assertion,
+repose in peace. It is a thing I never could understand, for it seems to
+me that nothing can be more distressing than to discover two opposite
+tendencies in mankind. Why, it comes to degradation at each of the
+extremes: economy brings it to misery; prodigality plunges it into moral
+degradation. Happily, these vulgar maxims exhibit economy and luxury in
+a false light, taking account, as they do, of those immediate
+consequences _which are seen_, and not of the remote ones, _which are
+not seen_. Let us see if we can rectify this incomplete view of the
+case.
+
+Mondor and his brother Aristus, after dividing the parental inheritance,
+have each an income of 50,000 francs. Mondor practises the fashionable
+philanthropy. He is what is called a squanderer of money. He renews his
+furniture several times a year; changes his equipages every month.
+People talk of his ingenious contrivances to bring them sooner to an
+end: in short, he surpasses the fast livers of Balzac and Alexander
+Dumas.
+
+Thus everybody is singing his praises. It is, "Tell us about Mondor!
+Mondor for ever! He is the benefactor of the workman; a blessing to the
+people. It is true, he revels in dissipation; he splashes the
+passers-by; his own dignity and that of human nature are lowered a
+little; but what of that? He does good with his fortune, if not with
+himself. He causes money to circulate; he always sends the tradespeople
+away satisfied. Is not money made round that it may roll?"
+
+Aristus has adopted a very different plan of life. If he is not an
+egotist, he is, at any rate, an _individualist_, for he considers
+expense, seeks only moderate and reasonable enjoyments, thinks of his
+children's prospects, and, in fact, he _economises_.
+
+And what do people say of him? "What is the good of a rich fellow like
+him? He is a skinflint. There is something imposing, perhaps, in the
+simplicity of his life; and he is humane, too, and benevolent, and
+generous, but he _calculates_. He does not spend his income; his house
+is neither brilliant nor bustling. What good does he do to the
+paper-hangers, the carriage makers, the horse dealers, and the
+confectioners?"
+
+These opinions, which are fatal to morality, are founded upon what
+strikes the eye:--the expenditure of the prodigal; and another, which is
+out of sight, the equal and even superior expenditure of the economist.
+
+But things have been so admirably arranged by the Divine inventor of
+social order, that in this, as in everything else, political economy and
+morality, far from clashing, agree; and the wisdom of Aristus is not
+only more dignified, but still more _profitable_, than the folly of
+Mondor. And when I say profitable, I do not mean only profitable to
+Aristus, or even to society in general, but more profitable to the
+workmen themselves--to the trade of the time.
+
+To prove it, it is only necessary to turn the mind's eye to those hidden
+consequences of human actions, which the bodily eye does not see.
+
+Yes, the prodigality of Mondor has visible effects in every point of
+view. Everybody can see his landaus, his phaetons, his berlins, the
+delicate paintings on his ceilings, his rich carpets, the brilliant
+effects of his house. Every one knows that his horses run upon the turf.
+The dinners which he gives at the Hotel de Paris attract the attention
+of the crowds on the Boulevards; and it is said, "That is a generous
+man; far from saving his income, he is very likely breaking into his
+capital." That is _what is seen_.
+
+It is not so easy to see, with regard to the interest of workers, what
+becomes of the income of Aristus. If we were to trace it carefully,
+however, we should see that the whole of it, down to the last farthing,
+affords work to the labourers, as certainly as the fortune of Mondor.
+Only there is this difference: the wanton extravagance of Mondor is
+doomed to be constantly decreasing, and to come to an end without fail;
+whilst the wise expenditure of Aristus will go on increasing from year
+to year. And if this is the case, then, most assuredly, the public
+interest will be in unison with morality.
+
+Aristus spends upon himself and his household 20,000 francs a year. If
+that is not sufficient to content him, he does not deserve to be called
+a wise man. He is touched by the miseries which oppress the poorer
+classes; he thinks he is bound in conscience to afford them some relief,
+and therefore he devotes 10,000 francs to acts of benevolence. Amongst
+the merchants, the manufacturers, and the agriculturists, he has friends
+who are suffering under temporary difficulties; he makes himself
+acquainted with their situation, that he may assist them with prudence
+and efficiency, and to this work he devotes 10,000 francs more. Then he
+does not forget that he has daughters to portion, and sons for whose
+prospects it is his duty to provide, and therefore he considers it a
+duty to lay by and put out to interest 10,000 francs every year.
+
+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 phoenix. 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 Croesus 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 Croesus; 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:--
+
+     1. When the few plunder the many.
+
+     2. When everybody plunders everybody else.
+
+     3. When nobody plunders anybody.
+
+Partial plunder, universal plunder, absence of plunder, amongst these we
+have to make our choice. The law can only produce one of these results.
+
+_Partial_ plunder.--This is the system which prevailed so long as the
+elective privilege was _partial_--a system which 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
+any one 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 which 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 ORGANISED
+JUSTICE.
+
+Now it is important to remark, that to organise justice by law, that is
+to say by force, excludes the idea of organising by law, or by force any
+manifestation whatever of human activity--labour, charity, agriculture,
+commerce, industry, instruction, the fine arts, or religion; for any one
+of these organisations would inevitably destroy the essential
+organisation. 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 encountering the most popular prejudice of our time. It is
+not considered enough that law should be just, 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. M. de Lamartine wrote to me one day thus:--"Your
+doctrine is only the half of my programme; you have stopped at liberty,
+I go on to fraternity." I answered him:--"The second part of your
+programme 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
+egotism; the other is in false philanthropy.
+
+Before I proceed, I think I ought to explain myself upon the word
+plunder.[8]
+
+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, 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 dissensions;
+therefore, whether I am believed or not, I declare that I do not mean to
+accuse the intentions nor the morality of anybody. I am attacking an
+idea which I believe to be false--a system which 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 in 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,[9] 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 it as it may, to conclude that legal plunder has one of its roots in
+false philanthropy, is evidently to put intentions out of the question.
+
+With this understanding, let us examine the value, the origin, and the
+tendency of this popular aspiration, which pretends to realise the
+general good by general plunder.
+
+The Socialists say, since the law organises justice, why should it not
+organise labour, instruction, and religion?
+
+Why? Because it could not organise labour, instruction, and religion,
+without disorganising justice.
+
+For, remember, that law is force, and that consequently the domain of
+the law cannot lawfully 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 fulfil 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 which 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 which 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 labour, 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 lumber; they cease to be men; they
+lose their personality, their liberty, their property.
+
+Endeavour to imagine a form of labour imposed by force, which is not a
+violation of liberty; a transmission of wealth imposed by force, which
+is not a violation of property. If you cannot succeed in reconciling
+this, you are bound to conclude that the law cannot organise labour and
+industry without organising injustice.
+
+When, from the seclusion of his cabinet, a politician takes a view of
+society, he is struck with the spectacle of inequality which presents
+itself. He mourns over the sufferings which 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 later times, effected through the medium of
+the laws? He ought to ask himself whether, granting the aspiration of
+all men after well-being and perfection, the reign of justice would not
+suffice to realise the greatest activity of progress, and the greatest
+amount of equality compatible with that individual responsibility which
+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 organisations. 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 which 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 fountain, whence every stream may
+obtain supplies independently of society. Nothing can enter the public
+treasury, in favour of one citizen or one class, but what other citizens
+and other classes have been _forced_ to send to it. If every one 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
+equalisation 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, prizes for encouragement, right to profit, right
+to labour, right to assistance, right to instruction, progressive
+taxation, gratuitousness of credit, social workshops, and you will
+always find at the bottom legal plunder, organised injustice.
+
+You say, "There are men who want knowledge," and you apply to the law.
+But the law is not a torch which sheds light abroad which is peculiar to
+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 force the will of the
+people in the matter, and take from some of them sufficient to pay
+professors commissioned to instruct others gratuitously. 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?
+
+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, organisation, association.
+And because we do not ask so much at the hands of the law, because we
+only ask it for justice, it supposes that we reject fraternity,
+solidarity, organisation, and association; and they brand us with the
+name of _individualists_.
+
+We can assure them that what we repudiate is, not natural organisation,
+but forced organisation.
+
+It is not free association, but the forms of association which 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, &c., &c. 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 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
+moving spring in them; that they are inert matter, passive particles,
+atoms without impulse; at best a vegetation indifferent to its own mode
+of existence, susceptible of receiving, 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 scruple to imagine
+that he himself is, under the names of organiser, discoverer,
+legislator, institutor or founder, this will and hand, this universal
+spring, 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, sub-circles,
+honeycombs, or social workshops, with all kinds of variations. And as
+the gardener, to bring his trees into shape, wants hatchets,
+pruning-hooks, saws, and shears, so the politician, to bring society
+into shape, wants the forces which he can only find in the laws; the law
+of customs, the law of taxation, the law of assistance, and the law of
+instruction.
+
+It is so true, that the Socialists look upon mankind as a subject for
+social combinations, that if, by chance, they are not quite certain of
+the success of these combinations, 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, then, think of the immeasurable distance 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 distance between
+himself and mankind.
+
+It is not to be wondered at that 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 which exist between the clay and the
+potter.
+
+Moreover, if they have consented to recognise in the heart of man a
+principle of action, and in his intellect a principle 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 labour and exchange to
+be extinguished in misery.
+
+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,
+polities, 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, organisation,
+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 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 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 which 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 organisation,
+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 which characterizes the classics,
+Fenelon, 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 which were
+     covered every year, without intermission, with golden crops;
+     meadows full of flocks; labourers bending under the weight of
+     fruits which 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 which is governed
+     by a wise king.'.... Mentor afterwards desired me to remark the
+     happiness and abundance which 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 favour of the poor _against_ the rich; the good
+     education of the children, who were accustomed to obedience,
+     labour, and the love of arts and letters; the exactness with which
+     all the ceremonies of religion were performed; the
+     disinterestedness, the desire of honour, 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_.'"
+
+Fenelon's idyl 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 which 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 which 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."
+
+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.
+
+It is thus that 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.
+
+     _Montesquieu_.--"To sustain the spirit of commerce, it is necessary
+     that all the laws should favour it; that these same laws, by their
+     regulations in dividing the fortunes in proportion as commerce
+     enlarges them, should place every poor citizen in sufficiently easy
+     circumstances to enable him to work like the others, and every rich
+     citizen in such mediocrity that he must work, in order to retain or
+     to acquire."
+
+Thus the laws are to dispose of all fortunes.
+
+     "Although, in a democracy, real equality be the soul of the State,
+     yet it is so difficult to establish, that an extreme exactness in
+     this matter would not always be desirable. It is sufficient that a
+     census be established to reduce or fix the differences to a certain
+     point. After which, it is for particular laws to equalise, as it
+     were, the inequality, by burdens imposed upon the rich, and reliefs
+     granted to the poor."
+
+Here, again, we see the equalisation of fortunes by law, that is, by
+force.
+
+     "There were, in Greece, two kinds of republics. One was military,
+     as Lacedæmon; the other commercial, as Athens. In the one it was
+     wished (by whom?) that the citizens should be idle: in the other,
+     the love of labour was encouraged.
+
+     "It is worth our while to pay a little attention to the extent of
+     genius required by these legislators, that we may see how, by
+     confounding all the virtues, they showed their wisdom to the world.
+     Lycurgus, blending theft with the spirit of justice, the hardest
+     slavery with extreme liberty, the most atrocious sentiments with
+     the greatest moderation, gave stability to his city. He seemed to
+     deprive it of all its resources, arts, commerce, money, and walls;
+     there Was ambition without the hope of rising; there were natural
+     sentiments where the individual was neither child, nor husband,
+     nor father. Chastity even was deprived of modesty. _By this road
+     Sparta was led on to grandeur and to glory_.
+
+     "The phenomenon which we observe in the institutions of Greece has
+     been seen in the midst of the _degeneracy and corruption of our
+     modern times_. An honest legislator has formed a people where
+     probity has appeared as natural as bravery among the Spartans. Mr.
+     Penn is a true Lycurgus, and although the former had peace for his
+     object, and the latter war, they resemble each other in the
+     singular path along which they have led _their_ people, in their
+     influence over free men, in the prejudices which they have
+     overcome, the passions they have subdued.
+
+     "Paraguay furnishes us with another example. _Society_ has been
+     accused of the crime of regarding the pleasure of commanding as the
+     only good of life; but it will always be a noble thing to govern
+     men by making them happy.
+
+     "_Those who desire to form similar institutions_, will establish
+     community of property, as in the republic of Plato, the same
+     reverence which he enjoined for the gods, separation from strangers
+     for the preservation of morality, and make the city and not the
+     citizens create commerce: they should give our arts without our
+     luxury, our wants without our desires."
+
+Vulgar infatuation may exclaim, if it likes:--"It is Montesquieu!
+magnificent! sublime!" I am not afraid to express my opinion, and to
+say:--"What! you have the face to call that fine? It is frightful! it is
+abominable! and these extracts, which I might multiply, show that,
+according to Montesquieu, the persons, the liberties, the property,
+mankind itself, are nothing but materials to exercise the sagacity of
+lawgivers."
+
+_Rousseau_.--Although this politician, the paramount authority of the
+Democrats, makes the social edifice rest upon the _general will_, no one
+has so completely admitted the hypothesis of the entire passiveness of
+human nature in the presence of the lawgiver:--
+
+     "If it is true that a great prince is a rare thing, how much more
+     so must a great lawgiver be? The former has only to follow the
+     pattern proposed to him by the latter. _This latter is the
+     mechanician who invents the machine_; the former is merely the
+     workman who sets it in motion."
+
+And what part have men to act in all this? That of the machine, which is
+set in motion; or rather, are they not the brute matter of which the
+machine is made? Thus, between the legislator and the prince, between
+the prince and his subjects, there are the same relations as those which
+exist between the agricultural writer and the agriculturist, the
+agriculturist and the clod. At what a vast height, then, is the
+politician placed, who rules over legislators themselves, and teaches
+them their trade in such imperative terms as the following:--
+
+     "Would you give consistency to the State? Bring the extremes
+     together as much as possible. Suffer neither wealthy persons nor
+     beggars.
+
+     "If the soil is poor and barren, or the country too much confined
+     for the inhabitants, turn to industry and the arts, whose
+     productions you will exchange for the provisions which you
+     require.... On a good soil, if _you are short_ of inhabitants, give
+     all your attention to agriculture, which multiplies men, and
+     _banish_ the arts, which only serve to depopulate the country....
+     Pay attention to extensive and convenient coasts. _Cover the sea_
+     with vessels, and you will have a brilliant and short existence. If
+     your seas wash only inaccessible rocks, let the people _be
+     barbarous_, and eat fish; they will live more quietly, perhaps
+     better, and, most certainly, more happily. In short, besides those
+     maxims which are common to all, every people has its own particular
+     circumstances, which demand a legislation peculiar to itself.
+
+     "It was thus that the Hebrews formerly, and the Arabs more
+     recently, had religion for their principal object; that of the
+     Athenians was literature; that of Carthage and Tyre, commerce; of
+     Rhodes, naval affairs; of Sparta, war; and of Rome, virtue. The
+     author of the 'Spirit of Laws' has shown the art _by which the
+     legislator should frame his institutions towards each of these
+     objects_.... But if the legislator, mistaking his object, should
+     take up a principle different from that which arises from the
+     nature of things; if one should tend to slavery, and the other to
+     liberty; if one to wealth, and the other to population; one to
+     peace, and the other to conquests; the laws will insensibly become
+     enfeebled, the Constitution will be impaired, and the State will be
+     subject to incessant agitations until it is destroyed, or becomes
+     changed, and invincible Nature regains her empire."
+
+But if Nature is sufficiently invincible to _regain_ its empire, why
+does not Kousseau admit that it had no need of the legislator to _gain_
+its empire from the beginning? Why does he not allow that, by obeying
+their own impulse, men would, of themselves, apply agriculture to a
+fertile district, and commerce to extensive and commodious coasts,
+without the interference of a Lycurgus, a Solon, or a Rousseau, who
+would undertake it at the risk of _deceiving themselves_?
+
+Be that as it may, we see with what a terrible responsibility Rousseau
+invests inventors, institutors, conductors, and manipulators of
+societies. He is, therefore, very exacting with regard to them.
+
+     "He who dares to undertake the institutions of a people, ought to
+     feel that he can, as it were, transform every individual, who is by
+     himself a perfect and solitary whole, receiving his life and being
+     from a larger whole of which he forms a part; he must feel that he
+     can change the constitution of man, to fortify it, and substitute a
+     partial and moral existence for the physical and independent one
+     which we have all received from nature. In a word, he must deprive
+     man of his own powers, to give him others which are foreign to
+     him."
+
+Poor human nature! What would become of its dignity if it were
+entrusted to the disciples of Rousseau?
+
+     _Raynal_.--"The climate, that is, the air and the soil, is the
+     first element for the legislator. _His_ resources prescribe to him
+     his duties. First, he must consult _his_ local position. A
+     population dwelling upon maritime shores must have laws fitted for
+     navigation.... If the colony is located in an inland region, a
+     legislator must provide for the nature of the soil, and for its
+     degree of fertility....
+
+     "It is more especially in the distribution of property that the
+     wisdom of legislation will appear. As a general rule, and in every
+     country, when a new colony is founded, land should be given to each
+     man, sufficient for the support of his family....
+
+     "In an uncultivated island, which _you_ are colonizing with
+     children, it will only be needful to let the germs of truth expand
+     in the developments of reason! But when _you_ establish old people
+     in a new country, the skill consists in _only allowing it_ those
+     injurious opinions and customs which it is impossible to cure and
+     correct. If _you_ wish to prevent them from being perpetuated, you
+     will act upon the rising generation by a general and public
+     education of the children. A prince, or legislator, ought never to
+     found a colony without previously sending wise men there to
+     instruct the youth.... In a new colony, every facility is open to
+     the precautions of the legislator who desires _to purify the tone
+     and the manners of the people_. If he has genius and virtue, the
+     lands and the men which are _at his disposal_ will inspire his soul
+     with a plan of society which a writer can only vaguely trace, and
+     in a way which would be subject to the instability of all
+     hypotheses, which are varied and complicated by an infinity of
+     circumstances too difficult to foresee and to combine."
+
+One would think it was a professor of agriculture who was saying to his
+pupils--"The climate is the only rule for the agriculturist. _His_
+resources dictate to him his duties. The first thing he has to consider
+is his local position. If he is on a clayey soil, he must do so and so.
+If he has to contend with sand, this is the way in which he must set
+about it. Every facility is open to the agriculturist who wishes to
+clear and improve his soil. If he only has the skill, the manure which
+he has _at his disposal_ will suggest to him a plan of operation, which
+a professor can only vaguely trace, and in a way that would be subject
+to the uncertainty of all hypotheses, which vary and are complicated by
+an infinity of circumstances too difficult to foresee and to combine."
+
+But, oh! sublime writers, deign to remember sometimes that this clay,
+this sand, this manure, of which you are disposing in so arbitrary a
+manner, are men, your equals, intelligent and free beings like
+yourselves, who have received from God, as you have, the faculty of
+seeing, of foreseeing, of thinking, and of judging for themselves!
+
+_Mably_. (He is supposing the laws to be worn out by time and by the
+neglect of security, and continues thus):--
+
+     "Under these circumstances, we must be convinced that the springs
+     of Government are relaxed. _Give them_ a new tension (it is the
+     reader who is addressed), and the evil will be remedied.... Think
+     lees of punishing the faults than of encouraging the virtues _which
+     you want_. By this method you will bestow upon _your republic_ the
+     vigour of youth. Through ignorance of this, a free people has lost
+     its liberty! But if the evil has made so much way that the ordinary
+     magistrates are unable to remedy it effectually, _have recourse_ to
+     an extraordinary magistracy, whose time should be short, and its
+     power considerable. The imagination of the citizens requires to be
+     impressed."
+
+In this style he goes on through twenty volumes.
+
+There was a time when, under the influence of teaching like this, which
+is the root of classical education, every one was for placing himself
+beyond and above mankind, for the sake of arranging, organising, and
+instituting it in his own way.
+
+     _Condillac_.--"Take upon yourself, my lord, the character of
+     Lycurgus or of Solon. Before you finish reading this essay, amuse
+     yourself with giving laws to some wild people in America or in
+     Africa. Establish these roving men in fixed dwellings; teach them
+     to keep flocks.... Endeavour to develop the social qualities which
+     nature has implanted in them.... Make them begin to practise the
+     duties of humanity.... Cause the pleasures of the passions to
+     become distasteful to them by punishments, and you will see these
+     barbarians, with every plan of your legislation, lose a vice and
+     gain a virtue.
+
+     "All these people have had laws. But few among them have been
+     happy. Why is this? Because legislators have almost always been
+     ignorant of the object of society, which is, to unite families by a
+     common interest.
+
+     "Impartiality in law consists in two things:--in establishing
+     equality in the fortunes and in the dignity of the citizens.... In
+     proportion to the degree of equality established by the laws, the
+     dearer will they become to every citizen.... How can avarice,
+     ambition, dissipation, idleness, sloth, envy, hatred, or jealousy,
+     agitate men who are equal in fortune and dignity, and to whom the
+     laws leave no hope of disturbing their equality?
+
+     "What has been told you of the republic of Sparta ought to
+     enlighten you on this question. No other State has had laws more in
+     accordance with the order of nature or of equality."
+
+It is not to be wondered at that the 17th and 18th centuries should have
+looked upon the human race as inert matter, ready to receive everything,
+form, figure, impulse, movement, and life, from a great prince, or a
+great legislator, or a great genius. These ages were reared in the study
+of antiquity, and antiquity presents everywhere, in Egypt, Persia,
+Greece, and Rome, the spectacle of a few men moulding mankind according
+to their fancy, and mankind to this end enslaved by force or by
+imposture. And what does this prove? That because men and society are
+improvable, error, ignorance, despotism, slavery, and superstition must
+be more prevalent in early times. The mistake of the writers quoted
+above, is not that they have asserted this fact, but that they have
+proposed it, as a rule, for the admiration and imitation of future
+generations. Their mistake has been, with an inconceivable absence of
+discernment, and upon the faith of a puerile conventionalism, that they
+have admitted what is inadmissible, viz., the grandeur, dignity,
+morality, and well-being of the artificial societies of the ancient
+world; they have not understood that time produces and spreads
+enlightenment; and that in proportion to the increase of enlightenment,
+right ceases to be upheld by force, and society regains possession of
+herself.
+
+And, in fact, what is the political work which we are endeavouring to
+promote? It is no other than the instinctive effort of every people
+towards liberty. And what is liberty, whose name can make every heart
+beat, and which can agitate the world, but the union of all liberties,
+the liberty of conscience, of instruction, of association, of the press,
+of locomotion, of labour, and of exchange; in other words, the free
+exercise, for all, of all the inoffensive faculties; and again, in other
+words, the destruction of all despotisms, even of legal despotism, and
+the reduction of law to its only rational sphere, which is to regulate
+the individual right of legitimate defence, or to repress injustice?
+
+This tendency of the human race, it must be admitted, is greatly
+thwarted, particularly in our country, by the fatal disposition,
+resulting from classical teaching, and common to all politicians, of
+placing themselves beyond mankind, to arrange, organise, and regulate
+it, according to their fancy.
+
+For whilst society is struggling to realise liberty, the great men who
+place themselves at its head, imbued with the principles of the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, think only of subjecting it to the
+philanthropic despotism of their social inventions, and making it bear
+with docility, according to the expression of Rousseau, the yoke of
+public felicity, as pictured in their own imaginations.
+
+This was particularly the case in 1789. No sooner was the old system
+destroyed, than society was to be submitted to other artificial
+arrangements, always with the same starting-point--the omnipotence of
+the law.
+
+     _Saint Just_.--"The legislator commands the future. It is for him
+     to _will_ for the good of mankind. It is for him to make men what
+     he wishes them to be."
+
+     _Robespierre_.--"The function of Government is to direct the
+     physical and moral powers of the nation towards the object of its
+     institution."
+
+     _Billaud Varennes_.--"A people who are to be restored to liberty
+     must be formed anew. Ancient prejudices must be destroyed,
+     antiquated customs changed, depraved affections corrected,
+     inveterate vices eradicated. For this, a strong force and a
+     vehement impulse will be necessary.... Citizens, the inflexible
+     austerity of Lycurgus created the firm basis of the Spartan
+     republic. The feeble and trusting disposition of Solon plunged
+     Athens into slavery. This parallel contains the whole science of
+     Government."
+
+     _Lepelletier._--"Considering the extent of human degradation, I am
+     convinced of the necessity of effecting an entire regeneration of
+     the race, and, if I may so express myself, of creating a new
+     people."
+
+Men, therefore, are nothing but raw material. It is not for them to
+_will their own improvement_. They are not capable of it; according to
+Saint Just, it is only the legislator who is. Men are merely to be what
+he _wills_ that they should be. According to Robespierre, who copies
+Rousseau literally, the legislator is to begin by assigning the aim of
+the _institutions of the nation_. After this, the Government has only to
+direct all its _physical_ and _moral forces_ towards this end. All this
+time the nation itself is to remain perfectly passive; and Billaud
+Varennes would teach us that it ought to have no prejudices, affections,
+nor wants, but such as are authorised by the legislator. He even goes so
+far as to say that the inflexible austerity of a man is the basis of a
+republic.
+
+We have seen that, in cases where the evil is so great that the ordinary
+magistrates are unable to remedy it, Mably recommends a dictatorship, to
+promote virtue. "_Have recourse_," says he, "to an extraordinary
+magistracy, whose time shall be short, and his power considerable. The
+imagination of the people requires to be impressed." This doctrine has
+not been neglected. Listen to Robespierre:--
+
+     "The principle of the Republican Government is virtue, and the
+     means to be adopted, during its establishment, is terror. We want
+     to substitute, in our country, morality for egotism, probity for
+     honour, principles for customs, duties for decorum, the empire of
+     reason for the tyranny of fashion, contempt of vice for contempt of
+     misfortune, pride for insolence, greatness of soul for vanity,
+     love of glory for love of money, good people for good company,
+     merit for intrigue, genius for wit, truth for glitter, the charm of
+     happiness for the weariness of pleasure, the greatness of man for
+     the littleness of the great, a magnanimous, powerful, happy people,
+     for one that is easy, frivolous, degraded; that is to say, we would
+     substitute all the virtues and miracles of a republic for all the
+     vices and absurdities of monarchy."
+
+At what a vast height above the rest of mankind does Robespierre place
+himself here! And observe the arrogance with which he speaks. He is not
+content with expressing a desire for a great renovation of the human
+heart, he does not even expect such a result from a regular Government.
+No; he intends to effect it himself, and by means of terror. The object
+of the discourse from which this puerile and laborious mass of
+antithesis is extracted, was to exhibit the _principles of morality
+which ought to direct a revolutionary Government_. Moreover, when
+Robespierre asks for a dictatorship, it is not merely for the purpose of
+repelling a foreign enemy, or of putting down factions; it is that he
+may establish, by means of terror, and as a preliminary to the game of
+the Constitution, his own principles of morality. He pretends to nothing
+short of extirpating from the country, by means of terror, _egotism,
+honour, customs, decorum, fashion, vanity, the love of money, good
+company, intrigue, wit, luxury, and misery_. It is not until after he,
+Robespierre, shall have accomplished these _miracles_, as he rightly
+calls them, that he will allow the law to regain her empire. Truly, it
+would be well if these visionaries, who think so much of themselves and
+so little of mankind, who want to renew everything, would only be
+content with trying to reform themselves, the task would be arduous
+enough for them. In general, however, these gentlemen, the reformers,
+legislators, and politicians, do not desire to exercise an immediate
+despotism over mankind. No, they are too moderate and too philanthropic
+for that. They only contend for the despotism, the absolutism, the
+omnipotence of the law. They aspire only to make the law.
+
+To show how universal this strange disposition has been in France, I had
+need not only to have copied the whole of the works of Mably, Raynal,
+Rousseau, Fenelon, and to have made long extracts from Bossuet and
+Montesquieu, but to have given the entire transactions of the sittings
+of the Convention, I shall do no such thing, however, but merely refer
+the reader to them.
+
+It is not to be wondered at that this idea should have suited Buonaparte
+exceedingly well. He embraced it with ardour, and put it in practice
+with energy. Playing the part of a chemist, Europe was to him the
+material for his experiments. But this material reacted against him.
+More than half undeceived, Buonaparte, at St. Helena, seemed to admit
+that there is an initiative in every people, and he became less hostile
+to liberty. Yet this did not prevent him from giving this lesson to his
+son in his will:--"To govern, is to diffuse morality, education, and
+well-being."
+
+After all this, I hardly need show, by fastidious quotations, the
+opinions of Morelly, Babeuf, Owen, Saint Simon, and Fourier. I shall
+confine myself to a few extracts from Louis Blanc's book on the
+organisation of labour.
+
+"In our project, society receives the impulse of power." (Page 126.)
+
+In what does the impulse which power gives to society consist? In
+imposing upon it the _project_ of M. Louis Blanc.
+
+On the other hand, society is the human race. The human race, then, is
+to receive its impulse from M. Louis Blanc.
+
+It is at liberty to do so or not, it will be said. Of course the human
+race is at liberty to take advice from anybody, whoever it may be. But
+this is not the way in which M. Louis Blanc understands the thing. He
+means that his project should be converted into _law_, and,
+consequently, forcibly imposed by power.
+
+     "In our project, the State has only to give a legislation to
+     labour, by means of which the industrial movement may and ought to
+     be accomplished _in all liberty_. It (the State) merely places
+     society on an incline (_that is all_) that it may descend, when
+     once it is placed there, by the mere force of things, and by the
+     natural course of the _established mechanism_."
+
+But what is this incline? One indicated by M. Louis Blanc. Does it not
+lead to an abyss? No, it leads to happiness. Why, then, does not society
+go there of itself? Because it does not know what it wants, and it
+requires an impulse. What is to give it this impulse? Power. And who is
+to give the impulse to power? The inventor of the machine, M. Louis
+Blanc.
+
+We shall never get out of this circle--mankind passive, and a great man
+moving it by the intervention of the law.
+
+Once on this incline, will society enjoy something like liberty? Without
+a doubt. And what is liberty?
+
+     "Once for all: liberty consists, not only in the right granted, but
+     in the power given to man, to exercise, to develop his faculties
+     under the empire of justice, and under the protection of the law.
+
+     "And this is no vain distinction; there is a deep meaning in it,
+     and its consequences are not to be estimated. For when once it is
+     admitted that man, to be truly free, must have the power to
+     exercise and develop his faculties, it follows that every member of
+     society has a claim upon it for such instruction as shall _enable_
+     it to display itself, and for the instruments of labour, without
+     which human activity can find no scope. Now, by whose intervention
+     is society to give to each of its members the requisite instruction
+     and the necessary instruments of labour, unless by that of the
+     State?"
+
+Thus, liberty is power. In what does this power consist? In possessing
+instruction and instruments of labour. Who is to give instruction and
+instruments of labour? Society, _who owes them_. By whose intervention
+is society to give instruments of labour to those who do not possess
+them?
+
+By the _intervention of the State_. From whom is the State to obtain
+them?
+
+It is for the reader to answer this question, and to notice whither all
+this tends.
+
+One of the strangest phenomena of our time, and one which will probably
+be a matter of astonishment to our descendants, is the doctrine which is
+founded upon this triple hypothesis: the radical passiveness of
+mankind,--the omnipotence of the law,--the infallibility of the
+legislator:--this is the sacred symbol of the party which proclaims
+itself exclusively democratic.
+
+It is true that it professes also to be _social_.
+
+So far as it is democratic, it, has an unlimited faith in mankind.
+
+So far as it is social, it places it beneath the mud.
+
+Are political rights under discussion? Is a legislator to be chosen? Oh!
+then the people possess science by instinct: they are gifted with an
+admirable tact; _their will is always right_; the general _will cannot
+err_. Suffrage cannot be too _universal_. Nobody is under any
+responsibility to society. The will and the capacity to choose well are
+taken for granted. Can the people be mistaken? Are we not living in an
+age of enlightenment? What! are the people to be always kept in leading
+strings? Have they not acquired their rights at the cost of effort and
+sacrifice? Have they not given sufficient proof of intelligence and
+wisdom? Are they not arrived at maturity? Are they not in a state to
+judge for themselves? Do they not know their own interest? Is there a
+man or a class who would dare to claim the right of putting himself in
+the place of the people, of deciding and of acting for them? No, no; the
+people would be _free_, and they shall be so. They wish to conduct their
+own affairs, and they shall do so.
+
+But when once the legislator is duly elected, then indeed the style of
+his speech alters. The nation is sent back into passiveness, inertness,
+nothingness, and the legislator takes possession of omnipotence. It is
+for him to invent, for him to direct, for him to impel, for him to
+organise. Mankind has nothing to do but to submit; the hour of despotism
+has struck. And we must observe that this is decisive; for the people,
+just before so enlightened, so moral, so perfect, have no inclinations
+at all, or, if they have any, they all lead them downwards towards
+degradation. And yet they ought to have a little liberty! But are we not
+assured, by M. Considerant, that _liberty leads fatally to monopoly_?
+Are we not told that liberty is competition? and that competition,
+according to M. Louis Blanc, _is a system of extermination for the
+people, and of ruination for trade_? For that reason people are
+exterminated and ruined in proportion as they are free--take, for
+example, Switzerland, Holland, England, and the United States? Does not
+M. Louis Blanc tell us again, that _competition leads to monopoly, and
+that, for the same reason, cheapness leads to exorbitant prices? That
+competition tends to drain the sources of consumption, and urges
+production to a destructive activity? That competition forces production
+to increase, and consumption to decrease_;--whence it follows that free
+people produce for the sake of not consuming; that there is nothing but
+_oppression and madness_ among them; and that it is absolutely necessary
+for M. Louis Blanc to see to it?
+
+What sort of liberty should be allowed to men? Liberty of
+conscience?--But we should see them all profiting by the permission to
+become atheists. Liberty of education?--But parents would be paying
+professors to teach their sons immorality and error; besides, if we are
+to believe M. Thiers, education, if left to the national liberty, would
+cease to be national, and we should be educating our children in the
+ideas of the Turks or Hindoos, instead of which, thanks to the legal
+despotism of the universities, they have the good fortune to be educated
+in the noble ideas of the Romans. Liberty of labour?--But this is only
+competition, whose effect is to leave all productions unconsumed, to
+exterminate the people, and to ruin the tradesmen. The liberty of
+exchange?--But it is well known that the protectionists have shown, over
+and over again, that a man must be ruined when he exchanges freely, and
+that to become rich it is necessary to exchange without liberty. Liberty
+of association?--But, according to the socialist doctrine, liberty and
+association exclude each other, for the liberty of men is attacked just
+to force them to associate.
+
+You must see, then, that the socialist democrats cannot in conscience
+allow men any liberty, because, by their own nature, they tend in every
+instance to all kinds of degradation and demoralisation.
+
+We are therefore left to conjecture, in this case, upon what foundation
+universal suffrage is claimed for them with so much importunity.
+
+The pretensions of organisers suggest another question, which I have
+often asked them, and to which I am not aware that I ever received an
+answer:--Since the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is
+not safe to allow them liberty, how comes it to pass that the tendencies
+of organisers are always good? Do not the legislators and their agents
+form a part of the human race? Do they consider that they are composed
+of different materials from the rest of mankind? They say that society,
+when left to itself, rushes to inevitable destruction, because its
+instincts are perverse. They pretend, to stop it in its downward course,
+and to give it a better direction. They have, therefore, received from
+heaven, intelligence and virtues which place them beyond and above
+mankind: let them show their title to this superiority. They would be
+our shepherds, and we are to be their flock. This arrangement
+presupposes in them a natural superiority, the right to which we are
+fully justified in calling upon them to prove.
+
+You must observe that I am not contending against their right to invent
+social combinations, to propagate them, to recommend them, and to try
+them upon themselves, at their own expense and risk; but I do dispute
+their right to impose them upon us through the medium of the law, that
+is, by force and by public taxes.
+
+I would not insist upon the Cabetists, the Fourierists, the
+Proudhonians, the Universitaries, and the Protectionists renouncing
+their own particular ideas; I would only have them renounce that idea
+which is common to them all,--viz., that of subjecting us by force to
+their own groups and series to their social workshops, to their
+gratuitous bank to their Græco-Romano morality, and to their commercial
+restrictions. I would ask them to allow us the faculty of judging of
+their plans, and not to oblige us to adopt them, if we find that they
+hurt our interests or are repugnant to our consciences.
+
+To presume to have recourse to power and taxation, besides being
+oppressive and unjust, implies further, the injurious supposition that
+the organiser is infallible, and mankind incompetent.
+
+And if mankind is not competent to judge for itself, why do they talk so
+much about universal suffrage?
+
+This contradiction in ideas is unhappily to be found also in facts; and
+whilst the French nation has preceded all others in obtaining its
+rights, or rather its political claims, this has by no means prevented
+it from being more governed, and directed, and imposed upon, and
+fettered, and cheated, than any other nation. It is also the one, of all
+others, where revolutions are constantly to be dreaded, and it is
+perfectly natural that it should be so.
+
+So long as this idea is retained, which is admitted by all our
+politicians, and so energetically expressed by M. Louis Blanc in these
+words--"Society receives its impulse from power;" so long as men
+consider themselves as capable of feeling, yet passive--incapable of
+raising themselves by their own discernment and by their own energy to
+any morality, or well-being, and while they expect everything from the
+law; in a word, while they admit that their relations with the State are
+the same as those of the flock with the shepherd, it is clear that the
+responsibility of power is immense. Fortune and misfortune, wealth and
+destitution, equality and inequality, all proceed from it. It is charged
+with everything, it undertakes everything, it does everything; therefore
+it has to answer for everything. If we are happy, it has a right to
+claim our gratitude; but if we are miserable, it alone must bear the
+blame. Are not our persons and property, in fact, at its disposal? Is
+not the law omnipotent? In creating the universitary monopoly, it has
+engaged to answer the expectations of fathers of families who have been
+deprived of liberty; and if these expectations are disappointed, whose
+fault is it? In regulating industry, it has engaged to make it prosper,
+otherwise it would have been absurd to deprive it of its liberty; and if
+it suffers, whose fault is it? In pretending to adjust the balance of
+commerce by the game of tariffs, it engages to make it prosper; and if,
+so far from prospering, it is destroyed, whose fault is it? In granting
+its protection to maritime armaments in exchange for their liberty, it
+has engaged to render them lucrative; if they become burdensome, whose
+fault is it?
+
+Thus, there is not a grievance in the nation for which the Government
+does not voluntarily make itself responsible. Is it to be wondered at
+that every failure threatens to cause a revolution?
+
+And what is the remedy proposed? To extend indefinitely the dominion of
+the law, _i.e._, the responsibility of Government. But if the Government
+engages to raise and to regulate wages, and is not able to do it; if it
+engages to assist all those who are in want, and is not able to do it;
+if it engages to provide an asylum for every labourer, and is not able
+to do it; if it engages to offer to all such as are eager to borrow,
+gratuitous credit, and is not able to do it; if, in words which we
+regret should have escaped the pen of M. de Lamartine, "the State
+considers that its mission is to enlighten, to develop, to enlarge, to
+strengthen, to spiritualize, and to sanctify the soul of the
+people,"--if it fails in this, is it not evident that after every
+disappointment, which, alas! is more than probable, there will be a no
+less inevitable revolution?
+
+I shall now resume the subject by remarking, that immediately after the
+economical part[10] of the question, and at the entrance of the
+political part, a leading question presents itself? It is the
+following:--
+
+What is law? What ought it to be? What is its domain? What are its
+limits? Where, in fact, does the prerogative of the legislator stop?
+
+I have no hesitation in answering, _Law is common force organised to
+prevent injustice_;--in short, Law is Justice.
+
+It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons
+and property, since they pre-exist, and his work is only to secure them
+from injury.
+
+It is not true that the mission of the law is to regulate our
+consciences, our ideas, our will, our education, our sentiments, our
+works, our exchanges, our gifts, our enjoyments. Its mission is to
+prevent the rights of one from interfering with those of another, in any
+one of these things.
+
+Law, because it has force for its necessary sanction, can only have as
+its lawful domain the domain of force, which is justice.
+
+And as every individual has a right to have recourse to force only in
+cases of lawful defence, so collective force, which is only the union of
+individual forces, cannot be rationally used for any other end.
+
+The law, then, is solely the organisation of individual rights, which
+existed before legitimate defence.
+
+Law is justice.
+
+So far from being able to oppress the persons of the people, or to
+plunder their property, even for a philanthropic end, its mission is to
+protect the former, and to secure to them the possession of the latter.
+
+It must not be said, either, that it may be philanthropic, so long as it
+abstains from all oppression; for this is a contradiction. The law
+cannot avoid acting upon our persons and property; if it does not secure
+them, it violates them if it touches them.
+
+The law is justice.
+
+Nothing can be more clear and simple, more perfectly defined and
+bounded, or more visible to every eye; for justice is a given quantity,
+immutable and unchangeable, and which admits of neither _increase_ or
+_diminution_.
+
+Depart from this point, make the law religious, fraternal, equalising,
+industrial, literary, or artistic, and you will be lost in vagueness and
+uncertainty; you will be upon unknown ground, in a forced Utopia, or,
+which is worse, in the midst of a multitude of Utopias, striving to gain
+possession of the law, and to impose it upon you; for fraternity and
+philanthropy have no fixed limits, like justice. Where will you stop?
+Where is the law to stop? One person, as M. de Saint Cricq, will only
+extend his philanthropy to some of the industrial classes, and will
+require the law to _dispose of the consumers in favour of the
+producers_. Another, like M. Considerant, will take up the cause of the
+working classes, and claim for them by means of the law, at a fixed
+rate, _clothing, lodging, food, and everything necessary for the support
+of life_. A third, as, M. Louis Blanc, will say, and with reason, that
+this would be an incomplete fraternity, and that the law ought to
+provide them with instruments of labour and the means of instruction. A
+fourth will observe that such an arrangement still leaves room for
+inequality, and that the law ought to introduce into the most remote
+hamlets luxury, literature, and the arts. This is the high road to
+communism; in other words, legislation will be--what it now is--the
+battle-field for everybody's dreams and everybody's covetousness.
+
+Law is justice.
+
+In this proposition we represent to ourselves a simple, immovable
+Government. And I defy any one to tell me whence the thought of a
+revolution, an insurrection, or a simple disturbance could arise against
+a public force confined to the repression of injustice. Under such a
+system, there would be more well-being, and this well-being would be
+more equally distributed; and as to the sufferings inseparable from
+humanity, no one would think of accusing the Government of them, for it
+would be as innocent of them as it is of the variations of the
+temperature. Have the people ever been known to rise against the court
+of repeals, or assail the justices of the peace, for the sake of
+claiming the rate of wages, gratuitous credit, instruments of labour,
+the advantages of the tariff, or the social workshop? They know
+perfectly well that these combinations are beyond the jurisdiction of
+the justices of the peace, and they would soon learn that they are not
+within the jurisdiction of the law.
+
+But if the law were to be made upon the principle of fraternity, if it
+were to be proclaimed that from it proceed all benefits and all
+evils--that it is responsible for every individual grievance and for
+every social inequality--then you open the door to an endless succession
+of complaints, irritations, troubles, and revolutions.
+
+Law is justice.
+
+And it would be very strange if it could properly be anything else! Is not
+justice right? Are not rights equal? With what show of right can the law
+interfere to subject me to the social plans of MM. Mimerel, de Melun,
+Thiers, or Louis Blanc, rather than to subject these gentlemen to _my_
+plans? Is it to be supposed that Nature has not bestowed upon ME
+sufficient imagination to invent a Utopia too? Is it for the law to make
+choice of one amongst so many fancies, and to make use of the public
+force in its service?
+
+Law is justice.
+
+And let it not be said, as it continually is, that the law, in this
+sense, would be atheistic, individual, and heartless, and that it would
+make mankind wear its own image. This is an absurd conclusion, quite
+worthy of the governmental infatuation which sees mankind in the law.
+
+What then? Does it follow that, if we are free, we shall cease to act?
+Does it follow, that if we do not receive an impulse from the law, we
+shall receive no impulse at all? Does it follow, that if the law
+confines itself to securing to us the free exercise of our faculties,
+our faculties will be paralyzed? Does it follow, that if the law does
+not impose upon us forms of religion, modes of association, methods of
+instruction, rules for labour, directions for exchange, and plans for
+charity, we shall plunge eagerly into atheism, isolation, ignorance,
+misery, and egotism? Does it follow, that we shall no longer recognise
+the power and goodness of God; that we shall cease to associate
+together, to help each other, to love and assist our unfortunate
+brethren, to study the secrets of nature, and to aspire after perfection
+in our existence?
+
+Law is justice.
+
+And it is under the law of justice, under the reign of right, under the
+influence of liberty, security, stability, and responsibility, that
+every man will attain to the measure of his worth, to all the dignity of
+his being, and that mankind will accomplish, with order and with
+calmness--slowly, it is true, but with certainty--the progress decreed
+to it.
+
+I believe that my theory is correct; for whatever be the question upon
+which I am arguing, whether it be religious, philosophical, political,
+or economical; whether it affects well-being, morality, equality, right,
+justice, progress, responsibility, property, labour, exchange, capital,
+wages, taxes, population, credit, or Government; at whatever point of
+the scientific horizon I start from, I invariably come to the same
+thing--the solution of the social problem is in liberty.
+
+And have I not experience on my side? Cast your eye over the globe.
+Which are the happiest, the most moral, and the most peaceable nations?
+Those where the law interferes the least with private activity; where
+the Government is the least felt; where individuality has the most
+scope, and public opinion the most influence; where the machinery of the
+administration is the least important and the least complicated; where
+taxation is lightest and least unequal, popular discontent the least
+excited and the least justifiable; where the responsibility of
+individuals and classes is the most active, and where, consequently, if
+morals are not in a perfect state, at any rate they tend incessantly to
+correct themselves; where transactions, meetings, and associations are
+the least fettered; where labour, capital, and production suffer the
+least from artificial displacements; where mankind follows most
+completely its own natural course; where the thought of God prevails the
+most over the inventions of men; those, in short, who realise the most
+nearly this idea--That within the limits of right, all should flow from
+the free, perfectible, and voluntary action of man; nothing be attempted
+by the law or by force, except the administration of universal justice.
+
+I cannot avoid coming to this conclusion--that there are too many great
+men in the world; there are too many legislators, organisers,
+institutors of society, conductors of the people, fathers of nations,
+&c., &c. Too many persons place themselves above mankind, to rule and
+patronize it; too many persons make a trade of attending to it. It will
+be answered:--"You yourself are occupied upon it all this time." Very
+true. But it must be admitted that it is in another sense entirely that
+I am speaking; and if I join the reformers it is solely for the purpose
+of inducing them to relax their hold.
+
+I am not doing as Vaucauson did with his automaton, but as a
+physiologist does with the organisation of the human frame; I would
+study and admire it.
+
+I am acting with regard to it in the spirit which animated a celebrated
+traveller. He found himself in the midst of a savage tribe. A child had
+just been born, and a crowd of soothsayers, magicians, and quacks were
+around it, armed with rings, hooks, and bandages. One said--"This child
+will never smell the perfume of a calumet, unless I stretch his
+nostrils." Another said--"He will be without the sense of hearing,
+unless I draw his ears down to his shoulders." A third said--"He will
+never see the light of the sun, unless I give his eyes an oblique
+direction." A fourth said--"He will never be upright, unless I bend his
+legs." A fifth said--"He will not be able to think, unless I press his
+brain." "Stop!" said the traveller. "Whatever God does, is well done; do
+not pretend to know more than He; and as He has given organs to this
+frail creature, allow those organs to develop themselves, to strengthen
+themselves by exercise, use, experience, and liberty."
+
+God has implanted in mankind, also, all that is necessary to enable it
+to accomplish its destinies. There is a providential social physiology,
+as well as a providential human physiology. The social organs are
+constituted so as to enable them to develop harmoniously in the grand
+air of liberty. Away, then, with quacks and organisers! Away with their
+rings, and their chains, and their hooks, and their pincers! Away with
+their artificial methods! Away with their social workshops, their
+governmental whims, their centralization, their tariffs, their
+universities, their State religions, their gratuitous or monopolising
+banks, their limitations, their restrictions, their moralisations, and
+their equalisation by taxation! And now, after having vainly inflicted
+upon the social body so many systems, let them end where they ought to
+have begun--reject all systems, and make trial of liberty--of liberty,
+which is an act of faith in God and in His work.
+
+
+
+
+Footnotes
+
+
+
+[1] A franc is 10d. of our money.
+
+[2] This error will be combated in a pamphlet, entitled "_Cursed
+Money_."
+
+[3] Common people.
+
+[4] The Minister of War has lately asserted that every individual
+transported to Algeria has cost the State 8,000 francs. Now it is
+certain that these poor creatures could have lived very well in France
+on a capital of 4,000 francs. I ask, how the French population is
+relieved, when it is deprived of a man, and of the means of subsistence
+of two men?
+
+[5] This was written in 1849.
+
+[6] Twenty francs.
+
+[7] General Council of Manufactures, Agriculture, and Commerce, 6th. of
+May, 1850.
+
+[8] The French word is _spoliation_.
+
+[9] If protection were only granted in France to a single class, to the
+engineers, for instance, it would be so absurdly plundering, as to be
+unable to maintain itself. Thus we see all the protected trades combine,
+make common cause, and even recruit themselves in such a way as to
+appear to embrace the mass of the _national labour_. They feel
+instinctively that plunder is slurred ever by being generalised.
+
+[10] Political economy precedes politics: the former has to discover
+whether human interests are harmonious or antagonistic, a fact which
+must have been decided upon before the latter can determine the
+prerogatives of Government.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Essays on Political Economy, by Frederic Bastiat
+
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+Project Gutenberg's Essays on Political Economy, by Frederic Bastiat
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+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
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+Title: Essays on Political Economy
+
+Author: Frederic Bastiat
+
+Release Date: May 31, 2005 [EBook #15962]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY ***
+
+
+
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+Produced by Distributed Proofreaders
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+</pre>
+
+
+<div id="tp">
+
+<p>[<i>Third (People's) Edition</i>]</p>
+
+<h1 class="title">Essays on Political Economy.</h1>
+
+<h2 class="author">By the late M. Frederic Bastiat,</h2>
+<p>Member of The Institute of France.</p>
+
+<h4>New York:<br />
+G. P. Putnams &amp; Sons,<br />
+Fourth Avenue, and Twenty-Third Street.<br />
+1874.</h4>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="verso">
+<p>London:<br />
+Printed for Provost and Co.,<br />
+Henrietta Street, W. C.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="toc">
+<h2>Contents.</h2>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li>Capital and Interest.
+ <ul>
+  <li><a href="#e1">Introduction</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#e1-c1">Capital and Interest</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#e1-c2">The Sack of Corn</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#e1-c3">The House</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#e1-c4">The Plane</a></li>
+ </ul>
+</li>
+
+<li>That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen.
+ <ul>
+  <li><a href="#e2">Introduction</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#e2-c1">The Broken Window</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#e2-c2">The Disbanding of Troops</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#e2-c3">Taxes</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#e2-c4">Theatres, Fine Arts</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#e2-c5">Public Works</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#e2-c6">The Intermediates</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#e2-c7">Restrictions</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#e2-c8">Machinery</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#e2-c9">Credit</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#e2-c10">Algeria</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#e2-c11">Frugality and Luxury</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#e2-c12">Work and Profit</a></li>
+ </ul>
+</li>
+
+<li><a href="#e3">Government</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#e4">What Is Money?</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#e5">The Law</a></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<div id="e1" class="chapter">
+<h2>Capital and Interest.</h2>
+
+
+
+<p>My object in this treatise is to examine into the real nature of the
+Interest of Capital, for the purpose of proving that it is lawful, and
+explaining why it should be perpetual. This may appear singular, and
+yet, I confess, I am more afraid of being too plain than too obscure. I
+am afraid I may weary the reader by a series of mere truisms. But it is
+no easy matter to avoid this danger, when the facts with which we have
+to deal are known to every one by personal, familiar, and daily
+experience.</p>
+
+<p>But, then, you will say, "What is the use of this treatise? Why explain
+what everybody knows?"</p>
+
+<p>But, although this problem appears at first sight so very simple, there
+is more in it than you might suppose. I shall endeavour to prove this by
+an example. Mondor lends an instrument of labour to-day, which will be
+entirely destroyed in a week, yet the capital will not produce the less
+interest to Mondor or his heirs, through all eternity. Reader, can you
+honestly say that you understand the reason of this?</p>
+
+<p>It would be a waste of time to seek any satisfactory explanation from
+the writings of economists. They have not thrown much light upon the
+reasons of the existence of interest. For this they are not to be
+blamed; for at the time they wrote, its lawfulness was not called in
+question. Now, however, times are altered; the case is different. Men,
+who consider themselves to be in advance of their age, have organised an
+active crusade against capital and interest; it is the productiveness of
+capital which they are attacking; not certain abuses in the
+administration of it, but the principle itself.</p>
+
+<p>A journal has been established to serve as a vehicle for this crusade.
+It is conducted by M. Proudhon, and has, it is said, an immense
+circulation. The first number of this periodical contains the electoral
+manifesto of the <i>people</i>. Here we read, "The productiveness of capital,
+which is condemned by Christianity under the name of usury, is the true
+cause of misery, the true principle of destitution, the eternal obstacle
+to the establishment of the Republic."</p>
+
+<p>Another journal, <i>La Ruche Populaire</i>, after having said some excellent
+things on labour, adds, "But, above all, labour ought to be free; that
+is, it ought to be organised in such a manner, <i>that money-lenders and
+patrons, or masters, should not be paid</i> for this liberty of labour,
+this right of labour, which is raised to so high a price by the
+traffickers of men." The only thought that I notice here, is that
+expressed by the words in italics, which imply a denial of the right to
+interest. The remainder of the article explains it.</p>
+
+<p>It is thus that the democratic Socialist, Thor&eacute; expresses himself:--</p>
+
+<p>"The revolution will always have to be recommenced, so long as we occupy
+ourselves with consequences only, without having the logic or the
+courage to attack the principle itself. This principle is capital, false
+property, interest, and usury, which by the old <i>r&eacute;gime</i>, is made to
+weigh upon labour.</p>
+
+<p>"Ever since the aristocrats invented the incredible fiction, <i>that
+capital possesses the power of reproducing itself</i>, the workers have
+been at the mercy of the idle.</p>
+
+<p>"At the end of a year, will you find an additional crown in a bag of one
+hundred shillings? At the end of fourteen years, will your shillings
+have doubled in your bag?</p>
+
+<p>"Will a work of industry or of skill produce another, at the end of
+fourteen years?</p>
+
+<p>"Let us begin, then, by demolishing this fatal fiction."</p>
+
+<p>I have quoted the above, merely for the sake of establishing the fact,
+that many persons consider the productiveness of capital a false, a
+fatal, and an iniquitous principle. But quotations are superfluous; it
+is well known that the people attribute their sufferings to what they
+call <i>the trafficking in man by man</i>. In fact, the phrase, <i>tyranny of
+capital</i>, has become proverbial.</p>
+
+<p>I believe there is not a man in the world, who is aware of the whole
+importance of this question:--</p>
+
+<p>"Is the interest of capital natural, just, and lawful, and as useful to
+the payer as to the receiver?"</p>
+
+<p>You answer, No; I answer, Yes. Then we differ entirely; but it is of the
+utmost importance to discover which of us is in the right, otherwise we
+shall incur the danger of making a false solution of the question, a
+matter of opinion. If the error is on my side, however, the evil would
+not be so great. It must be inferred that I know nothing about the true
+interests of the masses, or the march of human progress; and that all my
+arguments are but as so many grains of sand, by which the car of the
+revolution will certainly not be arrested.</p>
+
+<p>But if, on the contrary, MM. Proudhon and Thor&eacute; are deceiving
+themselves, it follows that they are leading the people astray--that
+they are showing them the evil where it does not exist; and thus giving
+a false direction to their ideas, to their antipathies, to their
+dislikes, and to their attacks. It follows that the misguided people are
+rushing into a horrible and absurd struggle, in which victory would be
+more fatal than defeat; since, according to this supposition, the result
+would be the realisation of universal evils, the destruction of every
+means of emancipation, the consummation of its own misery.</p>
+
+<p>This is just what M. Proudhon has acknowledged, with perfect good
+faith. "The foundation stone," he told me, "of my system is the
+<i>gratuitousness of credit</i>. If I am mistaken in this, Socialism is a
+vain dream." I add, it is a dream, in which the people are tearing
+themselves to pieces. Will it, therefore, be a cause for surprise, if,
+when they awake, they find themselves mangled and bleeding? Such a
+danger as this is enough to justify me fully, if, in the course of the
+discussion, I allow myself to be led into some trivialities and some
+prolixity.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3 id="e1-c1">Capital and Interest.</h3>
+
+
+<p>I address this treatise to the workmen of Paris, more especially to
+those who have enrolled themselves under the banner of Socialist
+democracy. I proceed to consider these two questions:--</p>
+
+<p>1st. Is it consistent with the nature of things, and with justice, that
+capital should produce interest?</p>
+
+<p>2nd. Is it consistent with the nature of things, and with justice, that
+the interest of capital should be perpetual?</p>
+
+<p>The working men of Paris will certainly acknowledge that a more
+important subject could not be discussed.</p>
+
+<p>Since the world began, it has been allowed, at least in part, that
+capital ought to produce interest. But latterly it has been affirmed,
+that herein lies the very social error which is the cause of pauperism
+and inequality. It is, therefore, very essential to know now on what
+ground we stand.</p>
+
+<p>For if levying interest from capital is a sin, the workers have a right
+to revolt against social order, as it exists. It is in vain to tell them
+that they ought to have recourse to legal and pacific means: it would be
+a hypocritical recommendation. When on the one side there is a strong
+man, poor, and a victim of robbery--on the other, a weak man, but rich,
+and a robber--it is singular enough that we should say to the former,
+with a hope of persuading him, "Wait till your oppressor voluntarily
+renounces oppression, or till it shall cease of itself." This cannot be;
+and those who tell us that capital is by nature unproductive, ought to
+know that they are provoking a terrible and immediate struggle.</p>
+
+<p>If, on the contrary, the interest of capital is natural, lawful,
+consistent with the general good, as favourable to the borrower as to
+the lender, the economists who deny it, the tribunes who traffic in this
+pretended social wound, are leading the workmen into a senseless and
+unjust struggle, which can have no other issue than the misfortune of
+all. In fact, they are arming labour against capital. So much the
+better, if these two powers are really antagonistic; and may the
+struggle soon be ended! But, if they are in harmony, the struggle is the
+greatest evil which can be inflicted on society. You see, then, workmen,
+that there is not a more important question than this:--"Is the interest
+of capital lawful or not?" In the former case, you must immediately
+renounce the struggle to which you are being urged; in the second, you
+must carry it on bravely, and to the end.</p>
+
+<p>Productiveness of capital--perpetuity of interest. These are difficult
+questions. I must endeavour to make myself clear. And for that purpose I
+shall have recourse to example rather than to demonstration; or rather,
+I shall place the demonstration in the example. I begin by acknowledging
+that, at first sight, it may appear strange that capital should pretend
+to a remuneration, and above all, to a perpetual remuneration. You will
+say, "Here are two men. One of them works from morning till night, from
+one year's end to another; and if he consumes all which he has gained,
+even by superior energy, he remains poor. When Christmas comes he is no
+forwarder than he was at the beginning of the year, and has no other
+prospect but to begin again. The other man does nothing, either with his
+hands or his head; or at least, if he makes use of them at all, it is
+only for his own pleasure; it is allowable for him to do nothing, for he
+has an income. He does not work, yet he lives well; he has everything in
+abundance; delicate dishes, sumptuous furniture, elegant equipages; nay,
+he even consumes, daily, things which the workers have been obliged to
+produce by the sweat of their brow, for these things do not make
+themselves; and, as far as he is concerned, he has had no hand in their
+production. It is the workmen who have caused this corn to grow,
+polished this furniture, woven these carpets; it is our wives and
+daughters who have spun, cut out, sewed, and embroidered these stuffs.
+We work, then, for him and for ourselves; for him first, and then for
+ourselves, if there is anything left. But here is something more
+striking still. If the former of these two men, the worker, consumes
+within the year any profit which may have been left him in that year, he
+is always at the point from which he started, and his destiny condemns
+him to move incessantly in a perpetual circle, and a monotony of
+exertion. Labour, then, is rewarded only once. But if the other, the
+'gentleman,' consumes his yearly income in the year, he has, the year
+after, in those which follow, and through all eternity, an income always
+equal, inexhaustible, <i>perpetual</i>. Capital, then, is remunerated, not
+only once or twice, but an indefinite number of times! So that, at the
+end of a hundred years, a family which has placed 20,000 francs,<sup><a href="#fn1">1</a></sup> at
+five per cent., will have had 100,000 francs; and this will not prevent
+it from having 100,000 more, in the following century. In other words,
+for 20,000 francs, which represent its labour, it will have levied, in
+two centuries, a tenfold value on the labour of others. In this social
+arrangement, is there not a monstrous evil to be reformed? And this is
+not all. If it should please this family to curtail its enjoyments a
+little--to spend, for example, only 900 francs, instead of 1,000--it
+may, without any labour, without any other trouble beyond that of
+investing 100 francs a year, increase its capital and its income in such
+rapid progression, that it will soon be in a position to consume as much
+as a hundred families of industrious workmen. Does not all this go to
+prove that society itself has in its bosom a hideous cancer, which ought
+to be eradicated at the risk of some temporary suffering?"</p>
+
+<p>These are, it appears to me, the sad and irritating reflections which
+must be excited in your minds by the active and superficial crusade
+which is being carried on against capital and interest. On the other
+hand, there are moments in which, I am convinced, doubts are awakened in
+your minds, and scruples in your conscience. You say to yourselves
+sometimes, "But to assert that capital ought not to produce interest, is
+to say that he who has created instruments of labour, or materials, or
+provisions of any kind, ought to yield them up without compensation. Is
+that just? And then, if it is so, who would lend these instruments,
+these materials, these provisions? who would take care of them? who even
+would create them? Every one would consume his proportion, and the human
+race would never advance a step. Capital would be no longer formed,
+since there would be no interest in forming it. It would become
+exceedingly scarce. A singular step towards gratuitous loans! A singular
+means of improving the condition of borrowers, to make it impossible for
+them to borrow at any price! What would become of labour itself? for
+there will be no money advanced, and not one single kind of labour can
+be mentioned, not even the chase, which can be pursued without money in
+hand. And, as for ourselves, what would become of us? What! we are not
+to be allowed to borrow, in order to work in the prime of life, nor to
+lend, that we may enjoy repose in its decline? The law will rob us of
+the prospect of laying by a little property, because it will prevent us
+from gaining any advantage from it. It will deprive us of all stimulus
+to save at the present time, and of all hope of repose for the future.
+It is useless to exhaust ourselves with fatigue: we must abandon the
+idea of leaving our sons and daughters a little property, since modern
+science renders it useless, for we should become traffickers in men if
+we were to lend it on interest. Alas! the world which these persons
+would open before us, as an imaginary good, is still more dreary and
+desolate than that which they condemn, for hope, at any rate, is not
+banished from the latter." Thus, in all respects, and in every point of
+view, the question is a serious one. Let us hasten to arrive at a
+solution.</p>
+
+<p>Our civil code has a chapter entitled, "On the manner of transmitting
+property." I do not think it gives a very complete nomenclature on this
+point. When a man by his labour has made some useful thing--in other
+words, when he has created a <i>value</i>--it can only pass into the hands of
+another by one of the following modes--as a gift, by the right of
+inheritance, by exchange, loan, or theft. One word upon each of these,
+except the last, although it plays a greater part in the world than we
+may think. A gift needs no definition. It is essentially voluntary and
+spontaneous. It depends exclusively upon the giver, and the receiver
+cannot be said to have any right to it. Without a doubt, morality and
+religion make it a duty for men, especially the rich, to deprive
+themselves voluntarily of that which they possess, in favour of their
+less fortunate brethren. But this is an entirely moral obligation. If it
+were to be asserted on principle, admitted in practice, or sanctioned by
+law, that every man has a right to the property of another, the gift
+would have no merit--charity and gratitude would be no longer virtues.
+Besides, such a doctrine would suddenly and universally arrest labour
+and production, as severe cold congeals water and suspends animation;
+for who would work if there was no longer to be any connection between
+labour and the satisfying of our wants? Political economy has not
+treated of gifts. It has hence been concluded that it disowns them, and
+that it is therefore a science devoid of heart. This is a ridiculous
+accusation. That science which treats of the laws resulting from the
+<i>reciprocity of services</i>, had no business to inquire into the
+consequences of generosity with respect to him who receives, nor into
+its effects, perhaps still more precious, on him who gives: such
+considerations belong evidently to the science of morals. We must allow
+the sciences to have limits; above all, we must not accuse them of
+denying or undervaluing what they look upon as foreign to their
+department.</p>
+
+<p>The right of inheritance, against which so much has been objected of
+late, is one of the forms of gift, and assuredly the most natural of
+all. That which a man has produced, he may consume, exchange, or give.
+What can be more natural than that he should give it to his children? It
+is this power, more than any other, which inspires him with courage to
+labour and to save. Do you know why the principle of right of
+inheritance is thus called in question? Because it is imagined that the
+property thus transmitted is plundered from the masses. This is a fatal
+error. Political economy demonstrates, in the most peremptory manner,
+that all value produced is a creation which does no harm to any person
+whatever. For that reason it may be consumed, and, still more,
+transmitted, without hurting any one; but I shall not pursue these
+reflections, which do not belong to the subject.</p>
+
+<p>Exchange is the principal department of political economy, because it is
+by far the most frequent method of transmitting property, according to
+the free and voluntary agreements of the laws and effects of which this
+science treats.</p>
+
+<p>Properly speaking, exchange is the reciprocity of services. The parties
+say between themselves, "Give me this, and I will give you that;" or,
+"Do this for me, and I will do that for you." It is well to remark (for
+this will throw a new light on the notion of value) that the second
+form is always implied in the first. When it is said, "Do this for me,
+and I will do that for you," an exchange of service for service is
+proposed. Again, when it is said, "Give me this, and I will give you
+that," it is the same as saying, "I yield to you what I have done, yield
+to me what you have done." The labour is past, instead of present; but
+the exchange is not the less governed by the comparative valuation of
+the two services: so that it is quite correct to say that the principle
+of <i>value</i> is in the services rendered and received on account of the
+productions exchanged, rather than in the productions themselves.</p>
+
+<p>In reality, services are scarcely ever exchanged directly. There is a
+medium, which is termed <i>money</i>. Paul has completed a coat, for which he
+wishes to receive a little bread, a little wine, a little oil, a visit
+from a doctor, a ticket for the play, &amp;c. The exchange cannot be
+effected in kind, so what does Paul do? He first exchanges his coat for
+some money, which is called <i>sale</i>; then he exchanges this money again
+for the things which he wants, which is called <i>purchase</i>; and now,
+only, has the reciprocity of services completed its circuit; now, only,
+the labour and the compensation are balanced in the same individual,--"I
+have done this for society, it has done that for me." In a word, it is
+only now that the exchange is actually accomplished. Thus, nothing can
+be more correct than this observation of J. B. Say:--"Since the
+introduction of money, every exchange is resolved into two elements,
+<i>sale</i> and <i>purchase</i>. It is the reunion of these two elements which
+renders the exchange complete."</p>
+
+<p>We must remark, also, that the constant appearance of money in every
+exchange has overturned and misled all our ideas: men have ended in
+thinking that money was true riches, and that to multiply it was to
+multiply services and products. Hence the prohibitory system; hence
+paper money; hence the celebrated aphorism, "What one gains the other
+loses;" and all the errors which have ruined the earth, and embrued it
+with blood.<sup><a href="#fn2">2</a></sup> After much research it has been found, that in order to
+make the two services exchanged of equivalent value, and in order to
+render the exchange <i>equitable</i>, the best means was to allow it to be
+free. However plausible, at first sight, the intervention of the State
+might be, it was soon perceived that it is always oppressive to one or
+other of the contracting parties. When we look into these subjects, we
+are always compelled to reason upon this maxim, that <i>equal value</i>
+results from liberty. We have, in fact, no other means of knowing
+whether, at a given moment, two services are of the same value, but that
+of examining whether they can be readily and freely exchanged. Allow the
+State, which is the same thing as force, to interfere on one side or the
+other, and from that moment all the means of appreciation will be
+complicated and entangled, instead of becoming clear. It ought to be
+the part of the State to prevent, and, above all, to repress artifice
+and fraud; that is, to secure liberty, and not to violate it. I have
+enlarged a little upon exchange, although loan is my principal object:
+my excuse is, that I conceive that there is in a loan an actual
+exchange, an actual service rendered by the lender, and which makes the
+borrower liable to an equivalent service,--two services, whose
+comparative value can only be appreciated, like that of all possible
+services, by freedom. Now, if it is so, the perfect lawfulness of what
+is called house-rent, farm-rent, interest, will be explained and
+justified. Let us consider the case of <i>loan</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose two men exchange two services or two objects, whose equal value
+is beyond all dispute. Suppose, for example, Peter says to Paul, "Give
+me ten sixpences, I will give you a five-shilling piece." We cannot
+imagine an equal value more unquestionable. When the bargain is made,
+neither party has any claim upon the other. The exchanged services are
+equal. Thus it follows, that if one of the parties wishes to introduce
+into the bargain an additional clause, advantageous to himself, but
+unfavourable to the other party, he must agree to a second clause, which
+shall re-establish the equilibrium, and the law of justice. It would be
+absurd to deny the justice of a second clause of compensation. This
+granted, we will suppose that Peter, after having said to Paul, "Give me
+ten sixpences, I will give you a crown," adds, "You shall give me the
+ten sixpences <i>now</i>, and I will give you the crown-piece <i>in a year</i>;"
+it is very evident that this new proposition alters the claims and
+advantages of the bargain; that it alters the proportion of the two
+services. Does it not appear plainly enough, in fact, that Peter asks of
+Paul a new and an additional service; one of a different kind? Is it not
+as if he had said, "Render me the service of allowing me to use for my
+profit, for a year, five shillings which belong to you, and which you
+might have used for yourself?" And what good reason have you to maintain
+that Paul is bound to render this especial service gratuitously; that he
+has no right to demand anything more in consequence of this requisition;
+that the State ought to interfere to force him to submit? Is it not
+incomprehensible that the economist, who preaches such a doctrine to the
+people, can reconcile it with his principle of <i>the reciprocity of
+services</i>? Here I have introduced cash; I have been led to do so by a
+desire to place, side by side, two objects of exchange, of a perfect and
+indisputable equality of value. I was anxious to be prepared for
+objections; but, on the other hand, my demonstration would have been
+more striking still, if I had illustrated my principle by an agreement
+for exchanging the services or the productions themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose, for example, a house and a vessel of a value so perfectly equal
+that their proprietors are disposed to exchange them even-handed,
+without excess or abatement. In fact let the bargain be settled by a
+lawyer. At the moment of each taking possession, the shipowner says to
+the citizen, "Very well; the transaction is completed, and nothing can
+prove its perfect equity better than our free and voluntary consent. Our
+conditions thus fixed, I shall propose to you a little practical
+modification. You shall let me have your house to-day, but I shall not
+put you in possession of my ship for a year; and the reason I make this
+demand of you is, that, during this year of <i>delay</i>, I wish to use the
+vessel." That we may not be embarrassed by considerations relative to
+the deterioration of the thing lent, I will suppose the shipowner to
+add, "I will engage, at the end of the year, to hand over to you the
+vessel in the state in which it is to-day." I ask of every candid man, I
+ask of M. Proudhon himself, if the citizen has not a right to answer,
+"The new clause which you propose entirely alters the proportion or the
+equal value of the exchanged services. By it, I shall be deprived, for
+the space of a year, both at once of my house and of your vessel. By it,
+you will make use of both. If, in the absence of this clause, the
+bargain was just, for the same reason the clause is injurious to me. It
+stipulates for a loss to me, and a gain to you. You are requiring of me
+a new service; I have a right to refuse, or to require of you, as a
+compensation, an equivalent service." If the parties are agreed upon
+this compensation, the principle of which is incontestable, we can
+easily distinguish two transactions in one, two exchanges of service in
+one. First, there is the exchange of the house for the vessel; after
+this, there is the delay granted by one of the parties, and the
+compensation correspondent to this delay yielded by the other. These two
+new services take the generic and abstract names of <i>credit</i> and
+<i>interest</i>. But names do not change the nature of things; and I defy any
+one to dare to maintain that there exists here, when all is done, a
+service for a service, or a reciprocity of services. To say that one of
+these services does not challenge the other, to say that the first ought
+to be rendered gratuitously, without injustice, is to say that injustice
+consists in the reciprocity of services,--that justice consists in one
+of the parties giving and not receiving, which is a contradiction in
+terms.</p>
+
+<p>To give an idea of interest and its mechanism, allow me to make use of
+two or three anecdotes. But, first, I must say a few words upon capital.</p>
+
+<p>There are some persons who imagine that capital is money, and this is
+precisely the reason why they deny its productiveness; for, as M. Thor&eacute;
+says, crowns are not endowed with the power of reproducing themselves.
+But it is not true that capital and money are the same thing. Before the
+discovery of the precious metals, there were capitalists in the world;
+and I venture to say that at that time, as now, everybody was a
+capitalist, to a certain extent.</p>
+
+<p>What is capital, then? It is composed of three things:--</p>
+
+<p>1st. Of the materials upon which men operate, when these materials have
+already a value communicated by some human effort, which has bestowed
+upon them the principle of remuneration--wool, flax, leather, silk,
+wood, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>2nd. Instruments which are used for working--tools, machines, ships,
+carriages, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>3rd. Provisions which are consumed during labour--victuals, stuffs,
+houses, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>Without these things the labour of man would be unproductive and almost
+void; yet these very things have required much work, especially at
+first. This is the reason that so much value has been attached to the
+possession of them, and also that it is perfectly lawful to exchange and
+to sell them, to make a profit of them if used, to gain remuneration
+from them if lent.</p>
+
+<p>Now for my anecdotes.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3 id="e1-c2">The Sack of Corn.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Mathurin, in other respects as poor as Job, and obliged to earn his
+bread by day-labour, became nevertheless, by some inheritance, the owner
+of a fine piece of uncultivated land. He was exceedingly anxious to
+cultivate it. "Alas!" said he, "to make ditches, to raise fences, to
+break the soil, to clear away the brambles and stones, to plough it, to
+sow it, might bring me a living in a year or two; but certainly not
+to-day, or to-morrow. It is impossible to set about farming it, without
+previously saving some provisions for my subsistence until the harvest;
+and I know, by experience, that preparatory labour is indispensable, in
+order to render present labour productive." The good Mathurin was not
+content with making these reflections. He resolved to work by the day,
+and to save something from his wages to buy a spade and a sack of corn;
+without which things, he must give up his fine agricultural projects. He
+acted so well, was so active and steady, that he soon saw himself in
+possession of the wished-for sack of corn. "I shall take it to the
+mill," said he, "and then I shall have enough to live upon till my field
+is covered with a rich harvest." Just as he was starting, Jerome came to
+borrow his treasure of him. "If you will lend me this sack of corn,"
+said Jerome, "you will do me a great service; for I have some very
+lucrative work in view, which I cannot possibly undertake, for want of
+provisions to live upon until it is finished." "I was in the same case,"
+answered Mathurin, "and if I have now secured bread for several months,
+it is at the expense of my arms and my stomach. Upon what principle of
+justice can it be devoted to the realisation of <i>your</i> enterprise
+instead of <i>mine?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>You may well believe that the bargain was a long one. However, it was
+finished at length, and on these conditions:--</p>
+
+<p>First--Jerome promised to give back, at the end of the year, a sack of
+corn of the same quality, and of the same weight, without missing a
+single grain. "This first clause is perfectly just," said he, "for
+without it Mathurin would <i>give</i>, and not <i>lend</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Secondly--He engaged to deliver <i>five litres</i> on <i>every hectolitre</i>.
+"This clause is no less just than the other," thought he; "for without
+it Mathurin would do me a service without compensation; he would inflict
+upon himself a privation--he would renounce his cherished enterprise--he
+would enable me to accomplish mine--he would cause me to enjoy for a
+year the fruits of his savings, and all this gratuitously. Since he
+delays the cultivation of his land, since he enables me to realise a
+lucrative labour, it is quite natural that I should let him partake, in
+a certain proportion, of the profits which I shall gain by the sacrifice
+he makes of his own."</p>
+
+<p>On his side, Mathurin, who was something of a scholar, made this
+calculation:--"Since, by virtue of the first clause, the sack of corn
+will return to me at the end of a year," he said to himself, "I shall be
+able to lend it again; it will return to me at the end of the second
+year; I may lend it again, and so on, to all eternity. However, I cannot
+deny that it will have been eaten long ago. It is singular that I should
+be perpetually the owner of a sack of corn, although the one I have lent
+has been consumed for ever. But this is explained thus:--It will be
+consumed in the service of Jerome. It will put it into the power of
+Jerome to produce a superior value; and, consequently, Jerome will be
+able to restore me a sack of corn, or the value of it, without having
+suffered the slightest injury: but quite the contrary. And as regards
+myself, this value ought to be my property, as long as I do not consume
+it myself. If I had used it to clear my land, I should have received it
+again in the form of a fine harvest. Instead of that, I lend it, and
+shall recover it in the form of repayment.</p>
+
+<p>"From the second clause, I gain another piece of information. At the end
+of the year I shall be in possession of five litres of corn over the one
+hundred that I have just lent. If, then, I were to continue to work by
+the day, and to save part of my wages, as I have been doing, in the
+course of time I should be able to lend two sacks of corn; then three;
+then four; and when I should have gained a sufficient number to enable
+me to live on these additions of five litres over and above each, I
+shall be at liberty to take a little repose in my old age. But how is
+this? In this case, shall I not be living at the expense of others? No,
+certainly, for it has been proved that in lending I perform a service; I
+complete the labour of my borrowers, and only deduct a trifling part of
+the excess of production, due to my lendings and savings. It is a
+marvellous thing that a man may thus realise a leisure which injures no
+one, and for which he cannot be envied without injustice."</p>
+
+
+
+<h3 id="e1-c3">The House.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Mondor had a house. In building it, he had extorted nothing from any one
+whatever. He owed it to his own personal labour, or, which is the same
+thing, to labour justly rewarded. His first care was to make a bargain
+with an architect, in virtue of which, by means of a hundred crowns a
+year, the latter engaged to keep the house in constant good repair.
+Mondor was already congratulating himself on the happy days which he
+hoped to spend in this retreat, declared sacred by our Constitution. But
+Valerius wished to make it his residence.</p>
+
+<p>"How can you think of such a thing?" said Mondor to Valerius. "It is I
+who have built it; it has cost me ten years of painful labour, and now
+you would enjoy it!" They agreed to refer the matter to judges. They
+chose no profound economists,--there were none such in the country. But
+they found some just and sensible men; it all comes to the same thing;
+political economy, justice, good sense, are all the same thing. Now here
+is the decision made by the judges:--If Valerius wishes to occupy
+Mondor's house for a year, he is bound to submit to three conditions.
+The first is to quit at the end of the year, and to restore the house in
+good repair, saving the inevitable decay resulting from mere duration.
+The second, to refund to Mondor the 300 francs which the latter pays
+annually to the architect to repair the injuries of time; for these
+injuries taking place whilst the house is in the service of Valerius, it
+is perfectly just that he should bear the consequences. The third, that
+he should render to Mondor a service equivalent to that which he
+receives. As to this equivalence of services, it must be freely
+discussed between Mondor and Valerius.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3 id="e1-c4">The Plane.</h3>
+
+
+<p>A very long time ago there lived, in a poor village, a joiner, who was a
+philosopher, as all my heroes are in their way. James worked from
+morning till night with his two strong arms, but his brain was not idle
+for all that. He was fond of reviewing his actions, their causes, and
+their effects. He sometimes said to himself, "With my hatchet, my saw,
+and my hammer, I can make only coarse furniture, and can only get the
+pay for such. If I only had a <i>plane</i>, I should please my customers
+more, and they would pay me more. It is quite just; I can only expect
+services proportioned to those which I render myself. Yes! I am
+resolved, I will make myself a <i>plane</i>."</p>
+
+<p>However, just as he was setting to work, James reflected further:--"I
+work for my customers 300 days in the year. If I give ten to making my
+plane, supposing it lasts me a year, only 290 days will remain for me to
+make my furniture. Now, in order that I be not the loser in this matter,
+I must gain henceforth, with the help of the plane, as much in 290 days,
+as I now do in 300. I must even gain more; for unless I do so, it would
+not be worth my while to venture upon any innovations." James began to
+calculate. He satisfied himself that he should sell his finished
+furniture at a price which would amply compensate for the ten days
+devoted to the plane; and when no doubt remained on this point, he set
+to work. I beg the reader to remark, that the power which exists in the
+tool to increase the productiveness of labour, is the basis of the
+solution which follows.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of ten days, James had in his possession an admirable plane,
+which he valued all the more for having made it himself. He danced for
+joy,--for, like the girl with her basket of eggs, he reckoned all the
+profits which he expected to derive from the ingenious instrument; but,
+more fortunate than she, he was not reduced to the necessity of saying
+good-bye to calf, cow, pig, and eggs, together. He was building his fine
+castles in the air, when he was interrupted by his acquaintance William,
+a joiner in the neighbouring village. William having admired the plane,
+was struck with the advantages which might be gained from it. He said to
+James:--</p>
+
+<p><i>W.</i> You must do me a service.</p>
+
+<p><i>J.</i> What service?</p>
+
+<p><i>W.</i> Lend me the plane for a year.</p>
+
+<p>As might be expected, James at this proposal did not fail to cry out,
+"How can you think of such a thing, William? Well, if I do you this
+service, what will you do for me in return?"</p>
+
+<p><i>W.</i> Nothing. Don't you know that a loan ought to be gratuitous? Don't
+you know that capital is naturally unproductive? Don't you know
+fraternity has been proclaimed. If you only do me a service for the
+sake of receiving one from me in return, what merit would you have?</p>
+
+<p><i>J.</i> William, my friend, fraternity does not mean that all the
+sacrifices are to be on one side; if so, I do not see why they should
+not be on yours. Whether a loan should be gratuitous I don't know; but I
+do know that if I were to lend you my plane for a year it would be
+giving it you. To tell you the truth, that was not what I made it for.</p>
+
+<p><i>W.</i> Well, we will say nothing about the modern maxims discovered by the
+Socialist gentlemen. I ask you to do me a service; what service do you
+ask me in return?</p>
+
+<p><i>J.</i> First, then, in a year, the plane will be done for, it will be good
+for nothing. It is only just, that you should let me have another
+exactly like it; or that you should give me money enough to get it
+repaired; or that you should supply me the ten days which I must devote
+to replacing it.</p>
+
+<p><i>W.</i> This is perfectly just. I submit to these conditions. I engage to
+return it, or to let you have one like it, or the value of the same. I
+think you must be satisfied with this, and can require nothing further.</p>
+
+<p><i>J.</i> I think otherwise. I made the plane for myself, and not for you. I
+expected to gain some advantage from it, by my work being better
+finished and better paid, by an improvement in my condition. What reason
+is there that I should make the plane, and you should gain the profit? I
+might as well ask you to give me your saw and hatchet! What a
+confusion! Is it not natural that each should keep what he has made with
+his own hands, as well as his hands themselves? To use without
+recompense the hands of another, I call slavery; to use without
+recompense the plane of another, can this be called fraternity?</p>
+
+<p><i>W.</i> But, then, I have agreed to return it to you at the end of a year,
+as well polished and as sharp as it is now.</p>
+
+<p><i>J.</i> We have nothing to do with next year; we are speaking of this year.
+I have made the plane for the sake of improving my work and condition;
+if you merely return it to me in a year, it is you who will gain the
+profit of it during the whole of that time. I am not bound to do you
+such a service without receiving anything from you in return: therefore,
+if you wish for my plane, independently of the entire restoration
+already bargained for, you must do me a service which we will now
+discuss; you must grant me remuneration.</p>
+
+<p>And this was done thus:--William granted a remuneration calculated in
+such a way that, at the end of the year, James received his plane quite
+new, and in addition, a compensation, consisting of a new plank, for the
+advantages of which he had deprived himself, and which he had yielded to
+his friend.</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible for any one acquainted with the transaction to
+discover the slightest trace in it of oppression or injustice.</p>
+
+<p>The singular part of it is, that, at the end of the year, the plane came
+into James's possession, and he lent it again; recovered it, and lent
+it a third and fourth time. It has passed into the hands of his son, who
+still lends it. Poor plane! how many times has it changed, sometimes its
+blade, sometimes its handle. It is no longer the same plane, but it has
+always the same value, at least for James's posterity. Workmen! let us
+examine into these little stories.</p>
+
+<p>I maintain, first of all, that the <i>sack of corn</i> and the <i>plane</i> are
+here the type, the model, a faithful representation, the symbol of all
+capital; as the five litres of corn and the plank are the type, the
+model, the representation, the symbol of all interest. This granted, the
+following are, it seems to me, a series of consequences, the justice of
+which it is impossible to dispute.</p>
+
+<p>1st. If the yielding of a plank by the borrower to the lender is a
+natural, equitable, lawful remuneration, the just price of a real
+service, we may conclude that, as a general rule, it is in the nature of
+capital to produce interest. When this capital, as in the foregoing
+examples, takes the form of an <i>instrument of labour</i>, it is clear
+enough that it ought to bring an advantage to its possessor, to him who
+has devoted to it his time, his brains, and his strength. Otherwise, why
+should he have made it? No necessity of life can be immediately
+satisfied with instruments of labour; no one eats planes or drinks saws,
+except, indeed, he be a conjuror. If a man determines to spend his time
+in the production of such things, he must have been led to it by the
+consideration of the power which these instruments add to his power; of
+the time which they save him; of the perfection and rapidity which they
+give to his labour; in a word, of the advantages which they procure for
+him. Now, these advantages, which have been prepared by labour, by the
+sacrifice of time which might have been used in a more immediate manner,
+are we bound, as soon as they are ready to be enjoyed, to confer them
+gratuitously upon another? Would it be an advance in social order, if
+the law decided thus, and citizens should pay officials for causing such
+a law to be executed by force? I venture to say, that there is not one
+amongst you who would support it. It would be to legalize, to organize,
+to systematize injustice itself, for it would be proclaiming that there
+are men born to render, and others born to receive, gratuitous services.
+Granted, then, that interest is just, natural, and lawful.</p>
+
+<p>2nd. A second consequence, not less remarkable than the former, and, if
+possible, still more conclusive, to which I call your attention, is
+this:--<i>Interest is not injurious to the borrower</i>. I mean to say, the
+obligation in which the borrower finds himself, to pay a remuneration
+for the use of capital, cannot do any harm to his condition. Observe, in
+fact, that James and William are perfectly free, as regards the
+transaction to which the plane gave occasion. The transaction cannot be
+accomplished without the consent of the one as well as of the other. The
+worst which can happen is, that James may be too exacting; and in this
+case, William, refusing the loan, remains as he was before. By the fact
+of his agreeing to borrow, he proves that he considers it an advantage
+to himself; he proves, that after every calculation, including the
+remuneration, whatever it may be, required of him, he still finds it
+more profitable to borrow than not to borrow. He only determines to do
+so because he has compared the inconveniences with the advantages. He
+has calculated that the day on which he returns the plane, accompanied
+by the remuneration agreed upon, he will have effected more work, with
+the same labour, thanks to this tool. A profit will remain to him,
+otherwise he would not have borrowed. The two services of which we are
+speaking are exchanged according to the law which governs all exchanges,
+the law of supply and demand. The claims of James have a natural and
+impassable limit. This is the point in which the remuneration demanded
+by him would absorb all the advantage which William might find in making
+use of a plane. In this case, the borrowing would not take place.
+William would be bound either to make a plane for himself, or to do
+without one, which would leave him in his original condition. He
+borrows, because he gains by borrowing. I know very well what will be
+told me. You will say, William may be deceived, or, perhaps, he may be
+governed by necessity, and be obliged to submit to a harsh law.</p>
+
+<p>It may be so. As to errors in calculation, they belong to the infirmity
+of our nature, and to argue from this against the transaction in
+question, is objecting the possibility of loss in all imaginable
+transactions, in every human act. Error is an accidental fact, which is
+incessantly remedied by experience. In short, everybody must guard
+against it. As far as those hard necessities are concerned, which force
+persons to burdensome borrowings, it is clear that these necessities
+exist previously to the borrowing. If William is in a situation in which
+he cannot possibly do without a plane, and must borrow one at any price,
+does this situation result from James having taken the trouble to make
+the tool? Does it not exist independently of this circumstance? However
+harsh, however severe James may be, he will never render the supposed
+condition of William worse than it is. Morally, it is true, the lender
+will be to blame; but, in an economical point of view, the loan itself
+can never be considered responsible for previous necessities, which it
+has not created, and which it relieves to a certain extent.</p>
+
+<p>But this proves something to which I shall return. The evident interests
+of William, representing here the borrowers, there are many Jameses and
+planes, in other words, lenders and capitals. It is very evident, that
+if William can say to James,--"Your demands are exorbitant; there is no
+lack of planes in the world;" he will be in a better situation than if
+James's plane was the only one to be borrowed. Assuredly, there is no
+maxim more true than this--service for service. But left us not forget
+that no service has a fixed and absolute value, compared with others.
+The contracting parties are free. Each carries his requisitions to the
+farthest possible point, and the most favourable circumstance for these
+requisitions is the absence of rivalship. Hence it follows, that if
+there is a class of men more interested than any other in the formation,
+multiplication, and abundance of capitals, it is mainly that of the
+borrowers. Now, since capitals can only be formed and increased by the
+stimulus and the prospect of remuneration, let this class understand the
+injury they are inflicting on themselves when they deny the lawfulness
+of interest, when they proclaim that credit should be gratuitous, when
+they declaim against the pretended tyranny of capital, when they
+discourage saving, thus forcing capitals to become scarce, and
+consequently interests to rise.</p>
+
+<p>3rd. The anecdote I have just related enables you to explain this
+apparently singular phenomenon, which is termed the duration or
+perpetuity of interest. Since, in lending his plane, James has been
+able, very lawfully, to make it a condition that it should be returned
+to him, at the end of a year, in the same state in which it was when he
+lent it, is it not evident that he may, at the expiration of the term,
+lend it again on the same conditions? If he resolves upon the latter
+plan, the plane will return to him at the end of every year, and that
+without end. James will then be in a condition to lend it without end;
+that is, he may derive from it a perpetual interest. It will be said,
+that the plane will be worn out. That is true; but it will be worn out
+by the hand and for the profit of the borrower. The latter has taken
+into account this gradual wear, and taken upon himself, as he ought, the
+consequences. He has reckoned that he shall derive from this tool an
+advantage, which will allow him to restore it in its original condition,
+after having realised a profit from it. As long as James does not use
+this capital himself, or for his own advantage--as long as he renounces
+the advantages which allow it to be restored to its original
+condition--he will have an incontestable right to have it restored, and
+that independently of interest.</p>
+
+<p>Observe, besides, that if, as I believe I have shown, James, far from
+doing any harm to William, has done him a <i>service</i> in lending him his
+plane for a year; for the same reason, he will do no harm to a second, a
+third, a fourth borrower, in the subsequent periods. Hence you may
+understand that the interest of a capital is as natural, as lawful, as
+useful, in the thousandth year, as in the first. We may go still
+further. It may happen that James lends more than a single plane. It is
+possible, that by means of working, of saving, of privations, of order,
+of activity, he may come to lend a multitude of planes and saws; that is
+to say, to do a multitude of services. I insist upon this point,--that
+if the first loan has been a social good, it will be the same with all
+the others; for they are all similar, and based upon the same
+principle. It may happen, then, that the amount of all the remunerations
+received by our honest operative, in exchange for services rendered by
+him, may suffice to maintain him. In this case, there will be a man in
+the world who has a right to live without working. I do not say that he
+would be doing right to give himself up to idleness--but I say, that he
+has a right to do so; and if he does so, it will be at nobody's expense,
+but quite the contrary. If society at all understands the nature of
+things, it will acknowledge that this man subsists on services which he
+receives certainly (as we all do), but which he lawfully receives in
+exchange for other services, which he himself has rendered, that he
+continues to render, and which are quite real, inasmuch as they are
+freely and voluntarily accepted.</p>
+
+<p>And here we have a glimpse of one of the finest harmonies in the social
+world. I allude to <i>leisure:</i> not that leisure that the warlike and
+tyrannical classes arrange for themselves by the plunder of the workers,
+but that leisure which is the lawful and innocent fruit of past activity
+and economy. In expressing myself thus, I know that I shall shock many
+received ideas. But see! Is not leisure an essential spring in the
+social machine? Without it, the world would never have had a Newton, a
+Pascal, a Fenelon; mankind would have been ignorant of all arts,
+sciences, and of those wonderful inventions prepared originally by
+investigations of mere curiosity; thought would have been inert--man
+would have made no progress. On the other hand, if leisure could only be
+explained by plunder and oppression--if it were a benefit which could
+only be enjoyed unjustly, and at the expense of others, there would be
+no middle path between these two evils; either mankind would be reduced
+to the necessity of stagnating in a vegetable and stationary life, in
+eternal ignorance, from the absence of wheels to its machine--or else it
+would have to acquire these wheels at the price of inevitable injustice,
+and would necessarily present the sad spectacle, in one form or other,
+of the antique classification of human beings into masters and slaves. I
+defy any one to show me, in this case, any other alternative. We should
+be compelled to contemplate the Divine plan which governs society, with
+the regret of thinking that it presents a deplorable chasm. The stimulus
+of progress would be forgotten, or, which is worse, this stimulus would
+be no other than injustice itself. But no! God has not left such a chasm
+in His work of love. We must take care not to disregard His wisdom and
+power; for those whose imperfect meditations cannot explain the
+lawfulness of leisure, are very much like the astronomer who said, at a
+certain point in the heavens there ought to exist a planet which will be
+at last discovered, for without it the celestial world is not harmony,
+but discord.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I say that, if well understood, the history of my humble plane,
+although very modest, is sufficient to raise us to the contemplation of
+one of the most consoling, but least understood of the social
+harmonies.</p>
+
+<p>It is not true that we must choose between the denial or the
+unlawfulness of leisure; thanks to rent and its natural duration,
+leisure may arise from labour and saving. It is a pleasing prospect,
+which every one may have in view; a noble recompense, to which each may
+aspire. It makes its appearance in the world; it distributes itself
+proportionably to the exercise of certain virtues; it opens all the
+avenues to intelligence; it ennobles, it raises the morals; it
+spiritualizes the soul of humanity, not only without laying any weight
+on those of our brethren whose lot in life devotes them to severe
+labour, but relieving them gradually from the heaviest and most
+repugnant part of this labour. It is enough that capitals should be
+formed, accumulated, multiplied; should be lent on conditions less and
+less burdensome; that they should descend, penetrate into every social
+circle, and that by an admirable progression, after having liberated the
+lenders, they should hasten the liberation of the borrowers themselves.
+For that end, the laws and customs ought all to be favourable to
+economy, the source of capital. It is enough to say, that the first of
+all these conditions is, not to alarm, to attack, to deny that which is
+the stimulus of saving and the reason of its existence--interest.</p>
+
+<p>As long as we see nothing passing from hand to hand, in the character of
+loan, but <i>provisions</i>, <i>materials</i>, <i>instruments</i>, things indispensable
+to the productiveness of labour itself, the ideas thus far exhibited
+will not find many opponents. Who knows, even, that I may not be
+reproached for having made a great effort to burst what may be said to
+be an open door. But as soon as <i>cash</i> makes its appearance as the
+subject of the transaction (and it is this which appears almost always),
+immediately a crowd of objections are raised. Money, it will be said,
+will not reproduce it self, like your <i>sack of corn</i>; it does not assist
+labour, like your <i>plane</i>; it does not afford an immediate satisfaction,
+like your <i>house</i>. It is incapable, by its nature, of producing
+interest, of multiplying itself, and the remuneration it demands is a
+positive extortion.</p>
+
+<p>Who cannot see the sophistry of this? Who does not see that cash is only
+a transient form, which men give at the time to other <i>values</i>, to real
+objects of usefulness, for the sole object of facilitating their
+arrangements? In the midst of social complications, the man who is in a
+condition to lend, scarcely ever has the exact thing which the borrower
+wants. James, it is true, has a plane; but, perhaps, William wants a
+saw. They cannot negotiate; the transaction favourable to both cannot
+take place, and then what happens? It happens that James first exchanges
+his plane for money; he lends the money to William, and William
+exchanges the money for a saw. The transaction is no longer a simple
+one; it is decomposed into two parts, as I explained above in speaking
+of exchange. But, for all that, it has not changed its nature; it still
+contains all the elements of a direct loan. James has still got rid of a
+tool which was useful to him; William has still received an instrument
+which perfects his work and increases his profits; there is still a
+service rendered by the lender, which entitles him to receive an
+equivalent service from the borrower; this just balance is not the less
+established by free mutual bargaining. The very natural obligation to
+restore at the end of the term the entire <i>value</i>, still constitutes the
+principle of the duration of interest.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of a year, says M. Thor&eacute;, will you find an additional crown
+in a bag of a hundred pounds?</p>
+
+<p>No, certainly, if the borrower puts the bag of one hundred pounds on the
+shelf. In such a case, neither the plane nor the sack of corn would
+reproduce themselves. But it is not for the sake of leaving the money in
+the bag, nor the plane on the hook, that they are borrowed. The plane is
+borrowed to be used, or the money to procure a plane. And if it is
+clearly proved that this tool enables the borrower to obtain profits
+which he would not have made without it, if it is proved that the lender
+has renounced creating for himself this excess of profits, we may
+understand how the stipulation of a part of this excess of profits in
+favour of the lender, is equitable and lawful.</p>
+
+<p>Ignorance of the true part which cash plays in human transactions, is
+the source of the most fatal errors. I intend devoting an entire
+pamphlet to this subject. From what we may infer from the writings of
+M. Proudhon, that which has led him to think that gratuitous credit was
+a logical and definite consequence of social progress, is the
+observation of the phenomenon which shows a decreasing interest, almost
+in direct proportion to the rate of civilisation. In barbarous times it
+is, in fact, cent, per cent., and more. Then it descends to eighty,
+sixty, fifty, forty, twenty, ten, eight, five, four, and three per cent.
+In Holland, it has even been as low as two per cent. Hence it is
+concluded, that "in proportion as society comes to perfection, it will
+descend to zero by the time civilisation is complete. In other words,
+that which characterises social perfection is the gratuitousness of
+credit. When, therefore, we shall have abolished interest, we shall have
+reached the last step of progress." This is mere sophistry, and as such
+false arguing may contribute to render popular the unjust, dangerous,
+and destructive dogma, that credit should be gratuitous, by representing
+it as coincident with social perfection, with the reader's permission I
+will examine in a few words this new view of the question.</p>
+
+<p>What is <i>interest</i>? It is the service rendered, after a free bargain, by
+the borrower to the lender, in remuneration for the service he has
+received by the loan. By what law is the rate of these remunerative
+services established? By the general law which regulates the equivalent
+of all services; that is, by the law of supply and demand.</p>
+
+<p>The more easily a thing is procured, the smaller is the service rendered
+by yielding it or lending it. The man who gives me a glass of water in
+the Pyrenees, does not render me so great a service as he who allows me
+one in the desert of Sahara. If there are many planes, sacks of corn, or
+houses, in a country, the use of them is obtained, other things being
+equal, on more favourable conditions than if they were few; for the
+simple reason, that the lender renders in this case a smaller <i>relative
+service</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is not surprising, therefore, that the more abundant capitals are,
+the lower is the interest.</p>
+
+<p>Is this saying that it will ever reach zero? No; because, I repeat it,
+the principle of a remuneration is in the loan. To say that interest
+will be annihilated, is to say that there will never be any motive for
+saving, for denying ourselves, in order to form new capitals, nor even
+to preserve the old ones. In this case, the waste would immediately
+bring a void, and interest would directly reappear.</p>
+
+<p>In that, the nature of the services of which we are speaking does not
+differ from any other. Thanks to industrial progress, a pair of
+stockings, which used to be worth six francs, has successively been
+worth only four, three, and two. No one can say to what point this value
+will descend; but we can affirm that it will never reach zero, unless
+the stockings finish by producing themselves spontaneously. Why? Because
+the principle of remuneration is in labour; because he who works for
+another renders a service, and ought to receive a service. If no one
+paid for stockings, they would cease to be made; and, with the scarcity,
+the price would not fail to reappear.</p>
+
+<p>The sophism which I am now combating has its root in the infinite
+divisibility which belongs to <i>value</i>, as it does to matter.</p>
+
+<p>It appears at first paradoxical, but it is well known to all
+mathematicians, that, through all eternity, fractions may be taken from
+a weight without the weight ever being annihilated. It is sufficient
+that each successive fraction be less than the preceding one, in a
+determined and regular proportion.</p>
+
+<p>There are countries where people apply themselves to increasing the size
+of horses, or diminishing in sheep the size of the head. It is
+impossible to say precisely to what point they will arrive in this. No
+one can say that he has seen the largest horse or the smallest sheep's
+head that will ever appear in the world. But he may safely say that the
+size of horses will never attain to infinity, nor the heads of sheep to
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>In the same way, no one can say to what point the price of stockings nor
+the interest of capitals will come down; but we may safely affirm, when
+we know the nature of things, that neither the one nor the other will
+ever arrive at zero, for labour and capital can no more live without
+recompense than a sheep without a head.</p>
+
+<p>The arguments of M. Proudhon reduce themselves, then, to this:--Since
+the most skilful agriculturists are those who have reduced the heads of
+sheep to the smallest size, we shall have arrived at the highest
+agricultural perfection when sheep have no longer any heads. Therefore,
+in order to realise the perfection, let us behead them.</p>
+
+<p>I have now done with this wearisome discussion. Why is it that the
+breath of false doctrine has made it needful to examine into the
+intimate nature of interest? I must not leave off without remarking upon
+a beautiful moral which may be drawn from this law:--"The depression of
+interest is proportioned to the abundance of capitals." This law being
+granted, if there is a class of men to whom it is more important than to
+any other that capitals be formed, accumulate, multiply, abound, and
+superabound, it is certainly the class which borrows them directly or
+indirectly; it is those men who operate upon <i>materials</i>, who gain
+assistance by <i>instruments</i>, who live upon <i>provisions</i>, produced and
+economised by other men.</p>
+
+<p>Imagine, in a vast and fertile country, a population of a thousand
+inhabitants, destitute of all capital thus defined. It will assuredly
+perish by the pangs of hunger. Let us suppose a case hardly less cruel.
+Let us suppose that ten of these savages are provided with instruments
+and provisions sufficient to work and to live themselves until harvest
+time, as well as to remunerate the services of eighty labourers. The
+inevitable result will be the death of nine hundred human beings. It is
+clear, then, that since 990 men, urged by want, will crowd upon the
+supports which would only maintain a hundred, the ten capitalists will
+be masters of the market. They will obtain labour on the hardest
+conditions, for they will put it up to auction, or the highest bidder.
+And observe this,--if these capitalists entertain such pious sentiments
+as would induce them to impose personal privations on themselves, in
+order to diminish the sufferings of some of their brethren, this
+generosity, which attaches to morality, will be as noble in its
+principle as useful in its effects. But if, duped by that false
+philosophy which persons wish so inconsiderately to mingle with economic
+laws, they take to remunerating labour largely, far from doing good,
+they will do harm. They will give double wages, it may be. But then,
+forty-five men will be better provided for, whilst forty-five others
+will come to augment the number of those who are sinking into the grave.
+Upon this supposition, it is not the lowering of wages which is the
+mischief, it is the scarcity of capital. Low wages are not the cause,
+but the effect of the evil. I may add, that they are to a certain extent
+the remedy. It acts in this way: it distributes the burden of suffering
+as much as it can, and saves as many lives as a limited quantity of
+sustenance permits.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose now, that instead of ten capitalists, there should be a hundred,
+two hundred, five hundred,--is it not evident that the condition of the
+whole population, and, above all, that of the "prol&eacute;taires,"<sup><a href="#fn3">3</a></sup> will be
+more and more improved? Is it not evident that, apart from every
+consideration of generosity, they would obtain more work and better pay
+for it?--that they themselves will be in a better condition, to form
+capitals, without being able to fix the limits to this ever-increasing
+facility of realising equality and well-being? Would it not be madness
+in them to admit such doctrines, and to act in a way which would drain
+the source of wages, and paralyse the activity and stimulus of saving?
+Let them learn this lesson, then; doubtless, capitals are good for those
+who possess them: who denies it? But they are also useful to those who
+have not yet been able to form them; and it is important to those who
+have them not, that others should have them.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, if the "prol&eacute;taires" knew their true interests, they would seek,
+with the greatest care, what circumstances are, and what are not
+favourable to saving, in order to favour the former and to discourage
+the latter. They would sympathise with every measure which tends to the
+rapid formation of capitals. They would be enthusiastic promoters of
+peace, liberty, order, security, the union of classes and peoples,
+economy, moderation in public expenses, simplicity in the machinery of
+government; for it is under the sway of all these circumstances that
+saving does its work, brings plenty within the reach of the masses,
+invites those persons to become the formers of capital who were formerly
+under the necessity of borrowing upon hard conditions. They would repel
+with energy the warlike spirit, which diverts from its true course so
+large a part of human labour; the monopolising spirit, which deranges
+the equitable distribution of riches, in the way by which liberty alone
+can realise it; the multitude of public services, which attack our
+purses only to check our liberty; and, in short, those subversive,
+hateful, thoughtless doctrines, which alarm capital, prevent its
+formation, oblige it to flee, and finally to raise its price, to the
+especial disadvantage of the workers, who bring it into operation. Well,
+and in this respect is not the revolution of February a hard lesson? Is
+it not evident that the insecurity it has thrown into the world of
+business on the one hand; and, on the other, the advancement of the
+fatal theories to which I have alluded, and which, from the clubs, have
+almost penetrated into the regions of the legislature, have everywhere
+raised the rate of interest? Is it not evident, that from that time the
+"prol&eacute;taires" have found greater difficulty in procuring those
+materials, instruments, and provisions, without which labour is
+impossible? Is it not that which has caused stoppages; and do not
+stoppages, in their turn, lower wages? Thus there is a deficiency of
+labour to the "prol&eacute;taires," from the same cause which loads the objects
+they consume with an increase of price, in consequence of the rise of
+interest. High interest, low wages, means in other words that the same
+article preserves its price, but that the part of the capitalist has
+invaded, without profiting himself, that of the workmen.</p>
+
+<p>A friend of mine, commissioned to make inquiry into Parisian industry,
+has assured me that the manufacturers have revealed to him a very
+striking fact, which proves, better than any reasoning can, how much
+insecurity and uncertainty injure the formation of capital. It was
+remarked, that during the most distressing period, the popular expenses
+of mere fancy had not diminished. The small theatres, the fighting
+lists, the public-houses, and tobacco depots, were as much frequented as
+in prosperous times. In the inquiry, the operatives themselves explained
+this phenomenon thus:--"What is the use of pinching? Who knows what will
+happen to us? Who knows that interest will not be abolished? Who knows
+but that the State will become a universal and gratuitous lender, and
+that it will wish to annihilate all the fruits which we might expect
+from our savings?" Well! I say, that if such ideas could prevail during
+two single years, it would be enough to turn our beautiful France into a
+Turkey--misery would become general and endemic, and, most assuredly,
+the poor would be the first upon whom it would fall.</p>
+
+<p>Workmen! they talk to you a great deal upon the <i>artificial</i>
+organisation of labour;--do you know why they do so? Because they are
+ignorant of the laws of its <i>natural</i> organisation; that is, of the
+wonderful organisation which results from liberty. You are told, that
+liberty gives rise to what is called the radical antagonism of classes;
+that it creates, and makes to clash, two opposite interests--that of the
+capitalists and that of the "prol&eacute;taires." But we ought to begin by
+proving that this antagonism exists by a law of nature; and afterwards
+it would remain to be shown how far the arrangements of restraint are
+superior to those of liberty, for between liberty and restraint I see no
+middle path. Again, it would remain to be proved that restraint would
+always operate to your advantage, and to the prejudice of the rich.
+But, no; this radical antagonism, this natural opposition of interests,
+does not exist. It is only an evil dream of perverted and intoxicated
+imaginations. No; a plan so defective has not proceeded from the Divine
+Mind. To affirm it, we must begin by denying the existence of God. And
+see how, by means of social laws, and because men exchange amongst
+themselves their labours and their productions, see what a harmonious
+tie attaches the classes one to the other! There are the landowners;
+what is their interest? That the soil be fertile, and the sun
+beneficent: and what is the result? That corn abounds, that it falls in
+price, and the advantage turns to the profit of those who have had no
+patrimony. There are the manufacturers--what is their constant thought?
+To perfect their labour, to increase the power of their machines, to
+procure for themselves, upon the best terms, the raw material. And to
+what does all this tend? To the abundance and the low price of produce;
+that is, that all the efforts of the manufacturers, and without their
+suspecting it, result in a profit to the public consumer, of which each
+of you is one. It is the same with every profession. Well, the
+capitalists are not exempt from this law. They are very busy making
+schemes, economising, and turning them to their advantage. This is all
+very well; but the more they succeed, the more do they promote the
+abundance of capital, and, as a necessary consequence, the reduction of
+interest. Now, who is it that profits by the reduction of interest? Is
+it not the borrower first, and finally, the consumers of the things
+which the capitals contribute to produce?</p>
+
+<p>It is therefore certain that the final result of the efforts of each
+class is the common good of all.</p>
+
+<p>You are told that capital tyrannises over labour. I do not deny that
+each one endeavours to draw the greatest possible advantage from his
+situation; but, in this sense, he realises only that which is possible.
+Now, it is never more possible for capitals to tyrannise over labour,
+than when they are scarce; for then it is they who make the law--it is
+they who regulate the rate of sale. Never is this tyranny more
+impossible to them, than when they are abundant; for, in that case, it
+is labour which has the command.</p>
+
+<p>Away, then, with the jealousies of classes, ill-will, unfounded hatreds,
+unjust suspicions. These depraved passions injure those who nourish them
+in their hearts. This is no declamatory morality; it is a chain of
+causes and effects, which is capable of being rigorously, mathematically
+demonstrated. It is not the less sublime, in that it satisfies the
+intellect as well as the feelings.</p>
+
+<p>I shall sum up this whole dissertation with these words:--Workmen,
+labourers, "prol&eacute;taires," destitute and suffering classes, will you
+improve your condition? You will not succeed by strife, insurrection,
+hatred, and error. But there are three things which cannot perfect the
+entire community, without extending these benefits to yourselves; these
+things are--peace, liberty, and security.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="e2">
+<h2>That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen</h2>
+
+
+
+<p>In the department of economy, an act, a habit, an institution, a law,
+gives birth not only to an effect, but to a series of effects. Of these
+effects, the first only is immediate; it manifests itself simultaneously
+with its cause--<i>it is seen</i>. The others unfold in succession--<i>they are
+not seen</i>: it is well for us if they are <i>foreseen</i>. Between a good and
+a bad economist this constitutes the whole difference--the one takes
+account of the <i>visible</i> effect; the other takes account both of the
+effects which are <i>seen</i> and also of those which it is necessary to
+<i>foresee</i>. Now this difference is enormous, for it almost always happens
+that when the immediate consequence is favourable, the ultimate
+consequences are fatal, <i>and the converse</i>. Hence it follows that the
+bad economist pursues a small present good, which will be followed by a
+great evil to come, while the true economist pursues a great good to
+come, at the risk of a small present evil.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, it is the same in the science of health, arts, and in that of
+morals. If often happens, that the sweeter the first fruit of a habit
+is, the more bitter are the consequences. Take, for example, debauchery,
+idleness, prodigality. When, therefore, a man, absorbed in the effect
+which <i>is seen</i>, has not yet learned to discern those which are not
+seen, he gives way to fatal habits, not only by inclination, but by
+calculation.</p>
+
+<p>This explains the fatally grievous condition of mankind. Ignorance
+surrounds its cradle: then its actions are determined by their first
+consequences, the only ones which, in its first stage, it can see. It is
+only in the long run that it learns to take account of the others. It
+has to learn this lesson from two very different masters--experience and
+foresight. Experience teaches effectually, but brutally. It makes us
+acquainted with all the effects of an action, by causing us to feel
+them; and we cannot fail to finish by knowing that fire burns, if we
+have burned ourselves. For this rough teacher, I should like, if
+possible, to substitute a more gentle one. I mean Foresight. For this
+purpose I shall examine the consequences of certain economical
+phenomena, by placing in opposition to each other those <i>which are
+seen</i>, and those <i>which are not seen</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3 id="e2-c1">I.--The Broken Window.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Have you ever witnessed the anger of the good shopkeeper, James B., when
+his careless son happened to break a pane of glass? If you have been
+present at such a scene, you will most assuredly bear witness to the
+fact, that every one of the spectators, were there even thirty of them,
+by common consent apparently, offered the unfortunate owner this
+invariable consolation--"It is an ill wind that blows nobody good.
+Everybody must live, and what would become of the glaziers if panes of
+glass were never broken?"</p>
+
+<p>Now, this form of condolence contains an entire theory, which it will be
+well to show up in this simple case, seeing that it is precisely the
+same as that which, unhappily, regulates the greater part of our
+economical institutions.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose it cost six francs to repair the damage, and you say that the
+accident brings six francs to the glazier's trade--that it encourages
+that trade to the amount of six francs--I grant it; I have not a word to
+say against it; you reason justly. The glazier comes, performs his task,
+receives his six francs, rubs his hands, and, in his heart, blesses the
+careless child. All this is <i>that which is seen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often
+the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money
+to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be
+the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, "Stop there! your
+theory is confined to that <i>which is seen</i>; it takes no account of that
+<i>which is not seen</i>."</p>
+
+<p><i>It is not seen</i> that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one
+thing, he cannot spend them upon another. <i>It is not seen</i> that if he
+had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his
+old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have
+employed his six francs in some way which this accident has prevented.</p>
+
+<p>Let us take a view of industry in general, as affected by this
+circumstance. The window being broken, the glazier's trade is encouraged
+to the amount of six francs: <i>this is that which is seen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>If the window had not been broken, the shoemaker's trade (or some other)
+would have been encouraged to the amount of six francs: this is <i>that
+which is not seen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>And if <i>that which is not seen</i> is taken into consideration, because it
+is a negative fact, as well as that which is seen, because it is a
+positive fact, it will be understood that neither industry <i>in general</i>,
+nor the sum total of <i>national labour</i>, is affected, whether windows are
+broken or not.</p>
+
+<p>Now let us consider James B. himself. In the former supposition, that of
+the window being broken, he spends six francs, and has neither more nor
+less than he had before, the enjoyment of a window.</p>
+
+<p>In the second, where we suppose the window not to have been broken, he
+would have spent six francs in shoes, and would have had at the same
+time the enjoyment of a pair o shoes and of a window.</p>
+
+<p>Now, as James B. forms a part of society, we must come to the
+conclusion, that, taking it altogether, and making an estimate of its
+enjoyments and its labours, it has lost the value of the broken window.</p>
+
+<p>Whence we arrive at this unexpected conclusion: "Society loses the value
+of things which are uselessly destroyed;" and we must assent to a maxim
+which will make the hair of protectionists stand on end--To break, to
+spoil, to waste, is not to encourage national labour; or, more briefly,
+"destruction is not profit."</p>
+
+<p>What will you say, <i>Moniteur Industriel</i>--what will you say, disciples
+of good M. F. Chamans, who has calculated with so much precision how
+much trade would gain by the burning of Paris, from the number of houses
+it would be necessary to rebuild?</p>
+
+<p>I am sorry to disturb these ingenious calculations, as far as their
+spirit has been introduced into our legislation; but I beg him to begin
+them again, by taking into the account <i>that which is not seen</i>, and
+placing it alongside of <i>that which is seen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The reader must take care to remember that there are not two persons
+only, but three concerned in the little scene which I have submitted to
+his attention. One of them, James B., represents the consumer, reduced,
+by an act of destruction, to one enjoyment instead of two. Another,
+under the title of the glazier, shows us the producer, whose trade is
+encouraged by the accident. The third is the shoemaker (or some other
+tradesman), whose labour suffers proportionably by the same cause. It
+is this third person who is always kept in the shade, and who,
+personating <i>that which is not seen</i>, is a necessary element of the
+problem. It is he who shows us how absurd it is to think we see a profit
+in an act of destruction. It is he who will soon teach us that it is not
+less absurd to see a profit in a restriction, which is, after all,
+nothing else than a partial destruction. Therefore, if you will only go
+to the root of all the arguments which are adduced in its favour, all
+you will find will be the paraphrase of this vulgar saying--<i>What would
+become of the glaziers, if nobody ever broke windows</i>?</p>
+
+
+
+<h3 id="e2-c2">II.--The Disbanding of Troops.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It is the same with a people as it is with a man. If it wishes to give
+itself some gratification, it naturally considers whether it is worth
+what it costs. To a nation, security is the greatest of advantages. If,
+in order to obtain it, it is necessary to have an army of a hundred
+thousand men, I have nothing to say against it. It is an enjoyment
+bought by a sacrifice. Let me not be misunderstood upon the extent of my
+position. A member of the assembly proposes to disband a hundred
+thousand men, for the sake of relieving the tax-payers of a hundred
+millions.</p>
+
+<p>If we confine ourselves to this answer--"The hundred millions of men,
+and these hundred millions of money, are indispensable to the national
+security: it is a sacrifice; but without this sacrifice, France would
+be torn by factions or invaded by some foreign power,"--I have nothing
+to object to this argument, which may be true or false in fact, but
+which theoretically contains nothing which militates against economy.
+The error begins when the sacrifice itself is said to be an advantage
+because it profits somebody.</p>
+
+<p>Now I am very much mistaken if, the moment the author of the proposal
+has taken his seat, some orator will not rise and say--"Disband a
+hundred thousand men! Do you know what you are saying? What will become
+of them? Where will they get a living? Don't you know that work is
+scarce everywhere? That every field is over-stocked? Would you turn them
+out of doors to increase competition and to weigh upon the rate of
+wages? Just now, when it is a hard matter to live at all, it would be a
+pretty thing if the State must find bread for a hundred thousand
+individuals? Consider, besides, that the army consumes wine, arms,
+clothing--that it promotes the activity of manufactures in garrison
+towns--that it is, in short, the godsend of innumerable purveyors. Why,
+any one must tremble at the bare idea of doing away with this immense
+industrial movement."</p>
+
+<p>This discourse, it is evident, concludes by voting the maintenance of a
+hundred thousand soldiers, for reasons drawn from the necessity of the
+service, and from economical considerations. It is these considerations
+only that I have to refute.</p>
+
+<p>A hundred thousand men, costing the tax-payers a hundred millions of
+money, live and bring to the purveyors as much as a hundred millions can
+supply. This is that <i>which is seen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>But, a hundred millions taken from the pockets of the tax-payers, cease
+to maintain these tax-payers and the purveyors, as far as a hundred
+millions reach. This is <i>that which is not seen</i>. Now make your
+calculations. Cast up, and tell me what profit there is for the masses?</p>
+
+<p>I will tell you where the <i>loss</i> lies; and to simplify it, instead of
+speaking of a hundred thousand men and a million of money, it shall be
+of one man and a thousand francs.</p>
+
+<p>We will suppose that we are in the village of A. The recruiting
+sergeants go their round, and take off a man. The tax-gatherers go their
+round, and take off a thousand francs. The man and the sum of money are
+taken to Metz, and the latter is destined to support the former for a
+year without doing anything. If you consider Metz only, you are quite
+right; the measure is a very advantageous one: but if you look towards
+the village of A., you will judge very differently; for, unless you are
+very blind indeed, you will see that that village has lost a worker, and
+the thousand francs which would remunerate his labour, as well as the
+activity which, by the expenditure of those thousand francs, it would
+spread around it.</p>
+
+<p>At first sight, there would seem to be some compensation. What took
+place at the village, now takes place at Metz, that is all. But the
+loss is to be estimated in this way:--At the village, a man dug and
+worked; he was a worker. At Metz, he turns to the right about and to the
+left about; he is a soldier. The money and the circulation are the same
+in both cases; but in the one there were three hundred days of
+productive labour, in the other there are three hundred days of
+unproductive labour, supposing, of course, that a part of the army is
+not indispensable to the public safety.</p>
+
+<p>Now, suppose the disbanding to take place. You tell me there will be a
+surplus of a hundred thousand workers, that competition will be
+stimulated, and it will reduce the rate of wages. This is what you see.</p>
+
+<p>But what you do not see is this. You do not see that to dismiss a
+hundred thousand soldiers is not to do away with a million of money, but
+to return it to the tax-payers. You do not see that to throw a hundred
+thousand workers on the market, is to throw into it, at the same moment,
+the hundred millions of money needed to pay for their labour: that,
+consequently, the same act which increases the supply of hands,
+increases also the demand; from which it follows, that your fear of a
+reduction of wages is unfounded. You do not see that, before the
+disbanding as well as after it, there are in the country a hundred
+millions of money corresponding with the hundred thousand men. That the
+whole difference consists in this: before the disbanding, the country
+gave the hundred millions to the hundred thousand men for doing nothing;
+and that after it, it pays them the same sum for working. You do not
+see, in short, that when a tax-payer gives his money either to a soldier
+in exchange for nothing, or to a worker in exchange for something, all
+the ultimate consequences of the circulation of this money are the same
+in the two cases; only, in the second case the tax-payer receives
+something, in the former he receives nothing. The result is--a dead loss
+to the nation.</p>
+
+<p>The sophism which I am here combating will not stand the test of
+progression, which is the touchstone of principles. If, when every
+compensation is made, and all interests satisfied, there is a <i>national
+profit</i> in increasing the army, why not enrol under its banners the
+entire male population of the country?</p>
+
+
+
+<h3 id="e2-c3">III.--Taxes.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Have you never chanced to hear it said: "There is no better investment
+than taxes. Only see what a number of families it maintains, and
+consider how it reacts upon industry: it is an inexhaustible stream, it
+is life itself."</p>
+
+<p>In order to combat this doctrine, I must refer to my preceding
+refutation. Political economy knew well enough that its arguments were
+not so amusing that it could be said of them, <i>repetitions please</i>. It
+has, therefore, turned the proverb to its own use, well convinced that,
+in its mouth, <i>repetitions teach</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The advantages which officials advocate are <i>those which are seen</i>. The
+benefit which accrues to the providers <i>is still that which is seen</i>.
+This blinds all eyes.</p>
+
+<p>But the disadvantages which the tax-payers have to get rid of are <i>those
+which are not seen</i>. And the injury which results from it to the
+providers is still that <i>which is not seen</i>, although this ought to be
+self-evident.</p>
+
+<p>When an official spends for his own profit an extra hundred sous, it
+implies that a tax-payer spends for his profit a hundred sous less. But
+the expense of the official <i>is seen</i>, because the act is performed,
+while that of the tax-payer <i>is not seen</i>, because, alas! he is
+prevented from performing it.</p>
+
+<p>You compare the nation, perhaps to a parched tract of land, and the tax
+to a fertilising rain. Be it so. But you ought also to ask yourself
+where are the sources of this rain, and whether it is not the tax itself
+which draws away the moisture from the ground and dries it up?</p>
+
+<p>Again, you ought to ask yourself whether it is possible that the soil
+can receive as much of this precious water by rain as it loses by
+evaporation?</p>
+
+<p>There is one thing very certain, that when James B. counts out a hundred
+sous for the tax-gatherer, he receives nothing in return. Afterwards,
+when an official spends these hundred sous, and returns them to James
+B., it is for an equal value in corn or labour. The final result is a
+loss to James B. of five francs.</p>
+
+<p>It is very true that often, perhaps very often, the official performs
+for James B. an equivalent service. In this case there is no loss on
+either side; there is merely an exchange. Therefore, my arguments do not
+at all apply to useful functionaries. All I say is,--if you wish to
+create an office, prove its utility. Show that its value to James B., by
+the services which it performs for him, is equal to what it costs him.
+But, apart from this intrinsic utility, do not bring forward as an
+argument the benefit which it confers upon the official, his family, and
+his providers; do not assert that it encourages labour.</p>
+
+<p>When James B. gives a hundred sous to a Government officer for a really
+useful service, it is exactly the same as when he gives a hundred sous
+to a shoemaker for a pair of shoes.</p>
+
+<p>But when James B. gives a hundred sous to a Government officer, and
+receives nothing for them unless it be annoyances, he might as well give
+them to a thief. It is nonsense to say that the Government officer will
+spend these hundred sous to the great profit of <i>national labour</i>; the
+thief would do the same; and so would James B., if he had not been
+stopped on the road by the extra-legal parasite, nor by the lawful
+sponger.</p>
+
+<p>Let us accustom ourselves, then, to avoid judging of things by <i>what is
+seen</i> only, but to judge of them by <i>that which is not seen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Last year I was on the Committee of Finance, for under the constituency
+the members of the Opposition were not systematically excluded from all
+the Commissions: in that the constituency acted wisely. We have heard M.
+Thiers say--"I have passed my life in opposing the legitimist party and
+the priest party. Since the common danger has brought us together, now
+that I associate with them and know them, and now that we speak face to
+face, I have found out that they are not the monsters I used to imagine
+them."</p>
+
+<p>Yes, distrust is exaggerated, hatred is fostered among parties who never
+mix; and if the majority would allow the minority to be present at the
+Commissions, it would perhaps be discovered that the ideas of the
+different sides are not so far removed from each other; and, above all,
+that their intentions are not so perverse as is supposed. However, last
+year I was on the Committee of Finance. Every time that one of our
+colleagues spoke of fixing at a moderate figure the maintenance of the
+President of the Republic, that of the ministers, and of the
+ambassadors, it was answered:--</p>
+
+<p>"For the good of the service, it is necessary to surround certain
+offices with splendour and dignity, as a means of attracting men of
+merit to them. A vast number of unfortunate persons apply to the
+President of the Republic, and it would be placing him in a very painful
+position to oblige him to be constantly refusing them. A certain style
+in the ministerial saloons is a part of the machinery of constitutional
+Governments."</p>
+
+<p>Although such arguments may be controverted, they certainly deserve a
+serious examination. They are based upon the public interest, whether
+rightly estimated or not; and as far as I am concerned, I have much more
+respect for them than many of our Catos have, who are actuated by a
+narrow spirit of parsimony or of jealousy.</p>
+
+<p>But what revolts the economical part of my conscience, and makes me
+blush for the intellectual resources of my country, is when this absurd
+relic of feudalism is brought forward, which it constantly is, and it is
+favourably received too:--</p>
+
+<p>"Besides, the luxury of great Government officers encourages the arts,
+industry, and labour. The head of the State and his ministers cannot
+give banquets and soir&eacute;es without causing life to circulate through all
+the veins of the social body. To reduce their means, would starve
+Parisian industry, and consequently that of the whole nation."</p>
+
+<p>I must beg you, gentlemen, to pay some little regard to arithmetic, at
+least; and not to say before the National Assembly in France, lest to
+its shame it should agree with you, that an addition gives a different
+sum, according to whether it is added up from the bottom to the top, or
+from the top to the bottom of the column.</p>
+
+<p>For instance, I want to agree with a drainer to make a trench in my
+field for a hundred sous. Just as we have concluded our arrangement the
+tax-gatherer comes, takes my hundred sous, and sends them to the
+Minister of the Interior; my bargain is at end, but the minister will
+have another dish added to his table. Upon what ground will you dare to
+affirm that this official expense helps the national industry? Do you
+not see, that in this there is only a reversing of satisfaction and
+labour? A minister has his table better covered, it is true; but it is
+just as true that an agriculturist has his field worse drained. A
+Parisian tavern-keeper has gained a hundred sous, I grant you; but then
+you must grant me that a drainer has been prevented from gaining five
+francs. It all comes to this,--that the official and the tavern-keeper
+being satisfied, is <i>that which is seen</i>; the field undrained, and the
+drainer deprived of his job, is <i>that which is not seen</i>. Dear me! how
+much trouble there is in proving that two and two make four; and if you
+succeed in proving it, it is said "the thing is so plain it is quite
+tiresome," and they vote as if you had proved nothing at all.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3 id="e2-c4">IV.--Theatres, Fine Arts.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ought the State to support the arts?</p>
+
+<p>There is certainly much to be said on both sides of this question. It
+may be said, in favour of the system of voting supplies for this
+purpose, that the arts enlarge, elevate, and harmonize the soul of a
+nation; that they divert it from too great an absorption in material
+occupations; encourage in it a love for the beautiful; and thus act
+favourably on its manners, customs, morals, and even on its industry. It
+may be asked, what would become of music in France without her Italian
+theatre and her Conservatoire; of the dramatic art, without her
+Th&eacute;&acirc;tre-Fran&ccedil;ais; of painting and sculpture, without our collections,
+galleries, and museums? It might even be asked, whether, without
+centralisation, and consequently the support of the fine arts, that
+exquisite taste would be developed which is the noble appendage of
+French labour, and which introduces its productions to the whole world?
+In the face of such results, would it not be the height of imprudence to
+renounce this moderate contribution from all her citizens, which, in
+fact, in the eyes of Europe, realises their superiority and their glory?</p>
+
+<p>To these and many other reasons, whose force I do not dispute, arguments
+no less forcible may be opposed. It might first of all be said, that
+there is a question of distributive justice in it. Does the right of the
+legislator extend to abridging the wages of the artisan, for the sake
+of, adding to the profits of the artist? M. Lamartine said, "If you
+cease to support the theatre, where will you stop? Will you not
+necessarily be led to withdraw your support from your colleges, your
+museums, your institutes, and your libraries? It might be answered, if
+you desire to support everything which is good and useful, where will
+you stop? Will you not necessarily be led to form a civil list for
+agriculture, industry, commerce, benevolence, education? Then, is it
+certain that Government aid favours the progress of art? This question
+is far from being settled, and we see very well that the theatres which
+prosper are those which depend upon their own resources. Moreover, if we
+come to higher considerations, we may observe that wants and desires
+arise the one from the other, and originate in regions which are more
+and more refined in proportion as the public wealth allows of their
+being satisfied; that Government ought not to take part in this
+correspondence, because in a certain condition of present fortune it
+could not by taxation stimulate the arts of necessity without checking
+those of luxury, and thus interrupting the natural course of
+civilisation. I may observe, that these artificial transpositions of
+wants, tastes, labour, and population, place the people in a precarious
+and dangerous position, without any solid basis."</p>
+
+<p>These are some of the reasons alleged by the adversaries of State
+intervention in what concerns the order in which citizens think their
+wants and desires should be satisfied, and to which, consequently, their
+activity should be directed. I am, I confess, one of those who think
+that choice and impulse ought to come from below and not from above,
+from the citizen and not from the legislator; and the opposite doctrine
+appears to me to tend to the destruction of liberty and of human
+dignity.</p>
+
+<p>But, by a deduction as false as it is unjust, do you know what
+economists are accused of? It is, that when we disapprove of government
+support, we are supposed to disapprove of the thing itself whose support
+is discussed; and to be the enemies of every kind of activity, because
+we desire to see those activities, on the one hand free, and on the
+other seeking their own reward in themselves. Thus, if we think that the
+State should not interfere by taxation in religious affairs, we are
+atheists. If we think the State ought not to interfere by taxation in
+education, we are hostile to knowledge. If we say that the State ought
+not by taxation to give a fictitious value to land, or to any particular
+branch of industry, we are enemies to property and labour. If we think
+that the State ought not to support artists, we are barbarians, who look
+upon the arts as useless.</p>
+
+<p>Against such conclusions as these I protest with all my strength. Far
+from entertaining the absurd idea of doing away with religion,
+education, property, labour, and the arts, when we say that the State
+ought to protect the free development of all these kinds of human
+activity, without helping some of them at the expense of others--we
+think, on the contrary, that all these living powers of society would
+develop themselves more harmoniously under the influence of liberty; and
+that, under such an influence no one of them would, as is now the case,
+be a source of trouble, of abuses, of tyranny, and disorder.</p>
+
+<p>Our adversaries consider that an activity which is neither aided by
+supplies, nor regulated by government, is an activity destroyed. We
+think just the contrary. Their faith is in the legislator, not in
+mankind; ours is in mankind, not in the legislator.</p>
+
+<p>Thus M. Lamartine said, "Upon this principle we must abolish the public
+exhibitions, which are the honour and the wealth of this country." But I
+would say to M. Lamartine,--According to your way of thinking, not to
+support is to abolish; because, setting out upon the maxim that nothing
+exists independently of the will of the State, you conclude that nothing
+lives but what the State causes to live. But I oppose to this assertion
+the very example which you have chosen, and beg you to remark, that the
+grandest and noblest of exhibitions, one which has been conceived in the
+most liberal and universal spirit--and I might even make use of the term
+humanitary, for it is no exaggeration--is the exhibition now preparing
+in London; the only one in which no government is taking any part, and
+which is being paid for by no tax.</p>
+
+<p>To return to the fine arts. There are, I repeat, many strong reasons to
+be brought, both for and against the system of government assistance.
+The reader must see that the especial, object of this work leads me
+neither to explain these reasons, nor to decide in their favour, nor
+against them.</p>
+
+<p>But M. Lamartine has advanced one argument which I cannot pass by in
+silence, for it is closely connected with this economic study. "The
+economical question, as regards theatres, is comprised in one
+word--labour. It matters little what is the nature of this labour; it is
+as fertile, as productive a labour as any other kind of labour in the
+nation. The theatres in France, you know, feed and salary no less than
+80,000 workmen of different kinds; painters, masons, decorators,
+costumers, architects, &amp;c., which constitute the very life and movement
+of several parts of this capital, and on this account they ought to have
+your sympathies." Your sympathies! say rather your money.</p>
+
+<p>And further on he says: "The pleasures of Paris are the labour and the
+consumption of the provinces, and the luxuries of the rich are the wages
+and bread of 200,000 workmen of every description, who live by the
+manifold industry of the theatres on the surface of the republic, and
+who receive from these noble pleasures, which render France illustrious,
+the sustenance of their lives and the necessaries of their families and
+children. It is to them that you will give 60,000 francs." (Very well;
+very well. Great applause.) For my part I am constrained to say, "Very
+bad! very bad!" confining this opinion, of course, within the bounds of
+the economical question which we are discussing.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, it is to the workmen of the theatres that a part, at least, of
+these 60,000 francs will go; a few bribes, perhaps, may be abstracted on
+the way. Perhaps, if we were to look a little more closely into the
+matter, we might find that the cake had gone another way, and that those
+workmen were fortunate who had come in for a few crumbs. But I will
+allow, for the sake of argument, that the entire sum does go to the
+painters, decorators, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p><i>This is that which is seen.</i> But whence does it come? This is the other
+side of the question, and quite as important as the former. Where do
+these 60,000 francs spring from? and where would they go, if a vote of
+the legislature did not direct them first towards the Rue Rivoli and
+thence towards the Rue Grenelle? This <i>is what is not seen</i>. Certainly,
+nobody will think of maintaining that the legislative vote has caused
+this sum to be hatched in a ballot urn; that it is a pure addition made
+to the national wealth; that but for this miraculous vote these 60,000
+francs would have been for ever invisible and impalpable. It must be
+admitted that all that the majority can do is to decide that they shall
+be taken from one place to be sent to another; and if they take one
+direction, it is only because they have been diverted from another.</p>
+
+<p>This being the case, it is clear that the tax-payer, who has contributed
+one franc, will no longer have this franc at his own disposal. It is
+clear that he will be deprived of some gratification to the amount of
+one franc; and that the workman, whoever he may be, who would have
+received it from him, will be deprived of a benefit to that amount. Let
+us not, therefore, be led by a childish illusion into believing that the
+vote of the 60,000 francs may add anything whatever to the well-being
+of the country, and to national labour. It displaces enjoyments, it
+transposes wages--that is all.</p>
+
+<p>Will it be said that for one kind of gratification, and one kind of
+labour, it substitutes more urgent, more moral, more reasonable
+gratifications and labour? I might dispute this; I might say, by taking
+60,000 francs from the tax-payers, you diminish the wages of labourers,
+drainers, carpenters, blacksmiths, and increase in proportion those of
+the singers.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing to prove that this latter class calls for more sympathy
+than the former. M. Lamartine does not say that it is so. He himself
+says that the labour of the theatres is <i>as</i> fertile, <i>as</i> productive as
+any other (not more so); and this may be doubted; for the best proof
+that the latter is not so fertile as the former lies in this, that the
+other is to be called upon to assist it.</p>
+
+<p>But this comparison between the value and the intrinsic merit of
+different kinds of labour forms no part of my present subject. All I
+have to do here is to show, that if M. Lamartine and those persons who
+commend his line of argument have seen on one side the salaries gained
+by the <i>providers</i> of the comedians, they ought on the other to have
+seen the salaries lost by the <i>providers</i> of the taxpayers: for want of
+this, they have exposed themselves to ridicule by mistaking a
+<i>displacement</i> for a <i>gain</i>. If they were true to their doctrine, there
+would be no limits to their demands for government aid; for that which
+is true of one franc and of 60,000 is true, under parallel
+circumstances, of a hundred millions of francs.</p>
+
+<p>When taxes are the subject of discussion, you ought to prove their
+utility by reasons from the root of the matter, but not by this unlucky
+assertion--"The public expenses support the working classes." This
+assertion disguises the important fact, that <i>public expenses always</i>
+supersede <i>private expenses</i>, and that therefore we bring a livelihood
+to one workman instead of another, but add nothing to the share of the
+working class as a whole. Your arguments are fashionable enough, but
+they are too absurd to be justified by anything like reason.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3 id="e2-c5">V.--Public Works.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Nothing is more natural than that a nation, after having assured itself
+that an enterprise will benefit the community, should have it executed
+by means of a general assessment. But I lose patience, I confess, when I
+hear this economic blunder advanced in support of such a
+project--"Besides, it will be a means of creating labour for the
+workmen."</p>
+
+<p>The State opens a road, builds a palace, straightens a street, cuts a
+canal, and so gives work to certain workmen--<i>this is what is seen</i>: but
+it deprives certain other workmen of work--and this is what <i>is not
+seen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The road is begun. A thousand workmen come every morning, leave every
+evening, and take their wages--this is certain. If the road had not been
+decreed, if the supplies had not been voted, these good people would
+have had neither work nor salary there; this also is certain.</p>
+
+<p>But is this all? Does not the operation, as a whole, contain something
+else? At the moment when M. Dupin pronounces the emphatic words, "The
+Assembly has adopted," do the millions descend miraculously on a
+moonbeam into the coffers of MM. Fould and Bineau? In order that the
+evolution may be complete, as it is said, must not the State organise
+the receipts as well as the expenditure? must it not set its
+tax-gatherers and tax-payers to work, the former to gather and the
+latter to pay?</p>
+
+<p>Study the question, now, in both its elements. While you state the
+destination given by the State to the millions voted, do not neglect to
+state also the destination which the tax-payer would have given, but
+cannot now give, to the same. Then you will understand that a public
+enterprise is a coin with two sides. Upon one is engraved a labourer at
+work, with this device, <i>that which is seen</i>; on the other is a labourer
+out of work, with the device, <i>that which is not seen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The sophism which this work is intended to refute is the more dangerous
+when applied to public works, inasmuch as it serves to justify the most
+wanton enterprises and extravagance. When a railroad or a bridge are of
+real utility, it is sufficient to mention this utility. But if it does
+not exist, what do they do? Recourse is had to this mystification: "We
+must find work for the workmen."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, orders are given that the drains in the Champ-de-Mars be
+made and unmade. The great Napoleon, it is said, thought he was doing a
+very philanthropic work by causing ditches to be made and then filled
+up. He said, therefore, "What signifies the result? All we want is to
+see wealth spread among the labouring classes."</p>
+
+<p>But let us go to the root of the matter. We are deceived by money. To
+demand the co-operation of all the citizens in a common work, in the
+form of money, is in reality to demand a concurrence in kind; for every
+one procures, by his own labour, the sum to which he is taxed. Now, if
+all the citizens were to be called together, and made to execute, in
+conjunction, a work useful to all, this would be easily understood;
+their reward would be found in the results of the work itself.</p>
+
+<p>But after having called them together, if you force them to make roads
+which no one will pass through, palaces which no one will inhabit, and
+this under the pretext of finding them work, it would be absurd, and
+they would have a right to argue, "With this labour we have nothing to
+do; we prefer working on our own account."</p>
+
+<p>A proceeding which consists in making the citizens co-operate in giving
+money but not labour, does not, in any way, alter the general results.
+The only thing is, that the loss would react upon all parties. By the
+former, those whom the State employs, escape their part of the loss, by
+adding it to that which their fellow-citizens have already suffered.</p>
+
+<p>There is an article in our constitution which says:--"Society favours
+and encourages the development of labour--by the establishment of public
+works, by the State, the departments, and the parishes, as a means of
+employing persons who are in want of work."</p>
+
+<p>As a temporary measure, on any emergency, during a hard winter, this
+interference with the tax-payers may have its use. It acts in the same
+way as securities. It adds nothing either to labour or to wages, but it
+takes labour and wages from ordinary times to give them, at a loss it is
+true, to times of difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>As a permanent, general, systematic measure, it is nothing else than a
+ruinous mystification, an impossibility, which shows a little excited
+labour <i>which is seen</i>, and hides a great deal of prevented labour
+<i>which is not seen</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3 id="e2-c6">VI.--The Intermediates.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Society is the total of the forced or voluntary services which men
+perform for each other; that is to say, of <i>public services</i> and
+<i>private services</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The former, imposed and regulated by the law, which it is not always
+easy to change, even when it is desirable, may survive with it their own
+usefulness, and still preserve the name of <i>public services</i>, even when
+they are no longer services at all, but rather <i>public annoyances</i>. The
+latter belong to the sphere of the will, of individual responsibility.
+Every one gives and receives what he wishes, and what he can, after a
+debate. They have always the presumption of real utility, in exact
+proportion to their comparative value.</p>
+
+<p>This is the reason why the former description of services so often
+become stationary, while the latter obey the law of progress.</p>
+
+<p>While the exaggerated development of public services, by the waste of
+strength which it involves, fastens upon society a fatal sycophancy, it
+is a singular thing that several modern sects, attributing this
+character to free and private services, are endeavouring to transform
+professions into functions.</p>
+
+<p>These sects violently oppose what they call intermediates. They would
+gladly suppress the capitalist, the banker, the speculator, the
+projector, the merchant, and the trader, accusing them of interposing
+between production and consumption, to extort from both, without giving
+either anything in return. Or rather, they would transfer to the State
+the work which they accomplish, for this work cannot be suppressed.</p>
+
+<p>The sophism of the Socialists on this point is, showing to the public
+what it pays to the intermediates in exchange for their services, and
+concealing from it what is necessary to be paid to the State. Here is
+the usual conflict between what is before our eyes and what is
+perceptible to the mind only; between <i>what is seen</i> and <i>what is not
+seen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It was at the time of the scarcity, in 1847, that the Socialist schools
+attempted and succeeded in popularizing their fatal theory. They knew
+very well that the most absurd notions have always a chance with people
+who are suffering; <i>malisunda fames</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, by the help of the fine words, "trafficking in men by men,
+speculation on hunger, monopoly," they began to blacken commerce, and to
+cast a veil over its benefits.</p>
+
+<p>"What can be the use," they say, "of leaving to the merchants the care
+of importing food from the United States and the Crimea? Why do not the
+State, the departments, and the towns, organize a service for provisions
+and a magazine for stores? They would sell at a <i>return price</i>, and the
+people, poor things, would be exempted from the tribute which they pay
+to free, that is, to egotistical, individual, and anarchical commerce."</p>
+
+<p>The tribute paid by the people to commerce is <i>that which is seen</i>. The
+tribute which the people would pay to the State, or to its agents, in
+the Socialist system, is <i>what is not seen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In what does this pretended tribute, which the people pay to commerce,
+consist? In this: that two men render each other a mutual service, in
+all freedom, and under the pressure of competition and reduced prices.</p>
+
+<p>When the hungry stomach is at Paris, and corn which can satisfy it is at
+Odessa, the suffering cannot cease till the corn is brought into
+contact with the stomach. There are three means by which this contact
+may be effected. 1st. The famished men may go themselves and fetch the
+corn. 2nd. They may leave this task to those to whose trade it belongs.
+3rd. They may club together, and give the office in charge to public
+functionaries. Which of these three methods possesses the greatest
+advantages? In every time, in all countries, and the more free,
+enlightened, and experienced they are, men have <i>voluntarily</i> chosen the
+second. I confess that this is sufficient, in my opinion, to justify
+this choice. I cannot believe that mankind, as a whole, is deceiving
+itself upon a point which touches it so nearly. But let us now consider
+the subject.</p>
+
+<p>For thirty-six millions of citizens to go and fetch the corn they want
+from Odessa, is a manifest impossibility. The first means, then, goes
+for nothing. The consumers cannot act for themselves. They must, of
+necessity, have recourse to <i>intermediates</i>, officials or agents.</p>
+
+<p>But observe, that the first of these three means would be the most
+natural. In reality, the hungry man has to fetch his corn. It is a task
+which concerns himself, a service due to himself. If another person, on
+whatever ground, performs this service for him, takes the task upon
+himself, this latter has a claim upon him for a compensation. I mean by
+this to say that intermediates contain in themselves the principle of
+remuneration.</p>
+
+<p>However that may be, since we must refer to what the Socialists call a
+parasite, I would ask, which of the two is the most exacting parasite
+the merchant or the official?</p>
+
+<p>Commerce (free, of course, otherwise I could not reason upon it),
+commerce, I say, is led by its own interests to study the seasons, to
+give daily statements of the state of the crops, to receive information
+from every part of the globe, to foresee wants, to take precautions
+beforehand. It has vessels always ready, correspondents everywhere; and
+it is its immediate interest to buy at the lowest possible price, to
+economize in all the details of its operations, and to attain the
+greatest results by the smallest efforts. It is not the French merchants
+only who are occupied in procuring provisions for France in time of
+need, and if their interest leads them irresistibly to accomplish their
+task at the smallest possible cost, the competition which they create
+amongst each other leads them no less irresistibly to cause the
+consumers to partake of the profits of those realised savings. The corn
+arrives: it is to the interest of commerce to sell it as soon as
+possible, so as to avoid risks, to realise its funds, and begin again
+the first opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>Directed by the comparison of prices, it distributes food over the whole
+surface of the country, beginning always at the highest, price, that is,
+where the demand is the greatest. It is impossible to imagine an
+organisation more completely calculated to meet the interest of those
+who are in want; and the beauty of this organisation, unperceived as it
+is by the Socialists, results from the very fact that it is free. It is
+true, the consumer is obliged to reimburse commerce for the expenses of
+conveyance, freight, store-room, commission, &amp;c.; but can any system be
+devised in which he who eats corn is not obliged to defray the expenses,
+whatever they may be, of bringing it within his reach? The remuneration
+for the service performed has to be paid also; but as regards its
+amount, this is reduced to the smallest possible sum by competition; and
+as regards its justice, it would be very strange if the artizans of
+Paris would not work for the artizans of Marseilles, when the merchants
+of Marseilles work for the artizans of Paris.</p>
+
+<p>If, according to the Socialist invention, the State were to stand in the
+stead of commerce, what would happen? I should like to be informed where
+the saving would be to the public? Would it be in the price of purchase?
+Imagine the delegates of 40,000 parishes arriving at Odessa on a given
+day, and on the day of need: imagine the effect upon prices. Would the
+saving be in the expenses? Would fewer vessels be required; fewer
+sailors, fewer transports, fewer sloops? or would you be exempt from the
+payment of all these things? Would it be in the profits of the
+merchants? Would your officials go to Odessa for nothing? Would they
+travel and work on the principle of fraternity? Must they not live? Must
+not they be paid for their time? And do you believe that these expenses
+would not exceed a thousand times the two or three per cent. which the
+merchant gains, at the rate at which he is ready to treat?</p>
+
+<p>And then consider the difficulty of levying so many taxes, and of
+dividing so much food. Think of the injustice, of the abuses inseparable
+from such an enterprise. Think of the responsibility which would weigh
+upon the Government.</p>
+
+<p>The Socialists who have invented these follies, and who, in the days of
+distress, have introduced them into the minds of the masses, take to
+themselves literally the title of <i>advanced men</i>; and it is not without
+some danger that custom, that tyrant of tongues, authorizes the term,
+and the sentiment which it involves. <i>Advanced!</i> This supposes that
+these gentlemen can see further than the common people; that their only
+fault is that they are too much in advance of their age; and if the time
+is not yet come for suppressing certain free services, pretended
+parasites, the fault is to be attributed to the public which is in the
+rear of Socialism. I say, from my soul and my conscience, the reverse is
+the truth; and I know not to what barbarous age we should have to go
+back, if we would find the level of Socialist knowledge on this subject.
+These modern sectarians incessantly oppose association to actual
+society. They overlook the fact that society, under a free regulation,
+is a true association, far superior to any of those which proceed from
+their fertile imaginations.</p>
+
+<p>Let me illustrate this by an example. Before a mutual services, and to
+helping each other in a common object, and that all may be considered,
+with respect to others, <i>intermediates</i>. If, for instance, in the course
+of the operation, the conveyance becomes important enough to occupy one
+person, the spinning another, the weaving another, why should the first
+be considered a <i>parasite</i> more than the other two? The conveyance must
+be made, must it not? Does not he who performs it devote to it his time
+and trouble? and by so doing does he not spare that of his colleagues?
+Do these do more or other than this for him? Are they not equally
+dependent for remuneration, that is, for the division of the produce,
+upon the law of reduced price? Is it not in all liberty, for the common
+good, that this separation of work takes place, and that these
+arrangements are entered into? What do we want with a Socialist then,
+who, under pretence of organising for us, comes despotically to break up
+our voluntary arrangements, to check the division of labour, to
+substitute isolated efforts for combined ones, and to send civilisation
+back? Is association, as I describe it here, in itself less association,
+because every one enters and leaves it freely, chooses his place in it,
+judges and bargains for himself on his own responsibility, and brings
+with him the spring and warrant of personal interest? That it may
+deserve this name, is it necessary that a pretended reformer should come
+and impose upon us his plan and his will, and, as it were, to
+concentrate mankind in himself?</p>
+
+<p>The more we examine these <i>advanced schools</i>, the more do we become
+convinced that there is but one thing at the root of them: ignorance
+proclaiming itself infallible, and claiming despotism in the name of
+this infallibility.</p>
+
+<p>I hope the reader will excuse this digression. It may not be altogether
+useless, at a time when declamations, springing from St. Simonian,
+Phalansterian, and Icarian books, are invoking the press and the
+tribune, and which seriously threaten the liberty of labour and
+commercial transactions.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3 id="e2-c7">VII.--Restrictions.</h3>
+
+
+<p>M. Prohibant (it was not I who gave him this name, but M. Charles Dupin)
+devoted his time and capital to converting the ore found on his land
+into iron. As nature had been more lavish towards the Belgians, they
+furnished the French with iron cheaper than M. Prohibant; which means,
+that all the French, or France, could obtain a given quantity of iron
+with less labour by buying it of the honest Flemings. Therefore, guided
+by their own interest, they did not fail to do so; and every day there
+might be seen a multitude of nail-smiths, blacksmiths, cartwrights,
+machinists, farriers, and labourers, going themselves, or sending
+intermediates, to supply themselves in Belgium. This displeased M.
+Prohibant exceedingly.</p>
+
+<p>At first, it occurred to him to put an end to this abuse by his own
+efforts: it was the least he could do, for he was the only sufferer. "I
+will take my carbine," said he; "I will put four pistols into my belt; I
+will fill my cartridge box; I will gird on my sword, and go thus
+equipped to the frontier. There, the first blacksmith, nail-smith,
+farrier, machinist, or locksmith, who presents himself to do his own
+business and not mine, I will kill, to teach him how to live." At the
+moment of starting, M. Prohibant made a few reflections which calmed
+down his warlike ardour a little. He said to himself, "In the first
+place, it is not absolutely impossible that the purchasers of iron, my
+countrymen and enemies, should take the thing ill, and, instead of
+letting me kill them, should kill me instead; and then, even were I to
+call out all my servants, we should not be able to defend the passages.
+In short, this proceeding would cost me very dear, much more so than the
+result would be worth."</p>
+
+<p>M. Prohibant was on the point of resigning himself to his sad fate, that
+of being only as free as the rest of the world, when a ray of light
+darted across his brain. He recollected that at Paris there is a great
+manufactory of laws. "What is a law?" said he to himself. "It is a
+measure to which, when once it is decreed, be it good or bad, everybody
+is bound to conform. For the execution of the same a public force is
+organised, and to constitute the said public force, men and money are
+drawn from the whole nation. If, then, I could only get the great
+Parisian manufactory to pass a little law, 'Belgian iron is
+prohibited,' I should obtain the following results:--The Government
+would replace the few valets that I was going to send to the frontier by
+20,000 of the sons of those refractory blacksmiths, farriers, artizans,
+machinists, locksmiths, nail-smiths, and labourers. Then to keep these
+20,000 custom-house officers in health and good humour, it would
+distribute among them 25,000,000 of francs taken from these blacksmiths,
+nail-smiths, artizans, and labourers. They would guard the frontier much
+better; would cost me nothing; I should not be exposed to the brutality
+of the brokers; should sell the iron at my own price, and have the sweet
+satisfaction of seeing our great people shamefully mystified. That would
+teach them to proclaim themselves perpetually the harbingers and
+promoters of progress in Europe. Oh! it would be a capital joke, and
+deserves to be tried."</p>
+
+<p>So M. Prohibant went to the law manufactory. Another time, perhaps, I
+shall relate the story of his underhand dealings, but now I shall merely
+mention his visible proceedings. He brought the following consideration
+before the view of the legislating gentlemen.</p>
+
+<p>"Belgian iron is sold in France at ten francs, which obliges me to sell
+mine at the same price. I should like to sell at fifteen, but cannot do
+so on account of this Belgian iron, which I wish was at the bottom of
+the Red Sea. I beg you will make a law that no more Belgian iron shall
+enter France. Immediately I raise my price five francs, and these are
+the consequences:--</p>
+
+<p>"For every hundred-weight of iron that I shall deliver to the public, I
+shall receive fifteen francs instead of ten; I shall grow rich more
+rapidly, extend my traffic, and employ more workmen. My workmen and I
+shall spend much more freely, to the great advantage of our tradesmen
+for miles around. These latter, having more custom, will furnish more
+employment to trade, and activity on both sides will increase in the
+country. This fortunate piece of money, which you will drop into my
+strong-box, will, like a stone thrown into a lake, give birth to an
+infinite number of concentric circles."</p>
+
+<p>Charmed with his discourse, delighted to learn that it is so easy to
+promote, by legislating, the prosperity of a people, the law-makers
+voted the restriction. "Talk of labour and economy," they said, "what is
+the use of these painful means of increasing the national wealth, when
+all that is wanted for this object is a decree?"</p>
+
+<p>And, in fact, the law produced all the consequences announced by M.
+Prohibant: the only thing was, it produced others which he had not
+foreseen. To do him justice, his reasoning was not false, but only
+incomplete. In endeavouring to obtain a privilege, he had taken
+cognizance of the effects <i>which are seen</i>, leaving in the background
+those <i>which are not seen</i>. He had pointed out only two personages,
+whereas there are three concerned in the affair. It is for us to supply
+this involuntary or premeditated omission.</p>
+
+<p>It is true, the crown-piece, thus directed by law into M. Prohibant's
+strong-box, is advantageous to him and to those whose labour it would
+encourage; and if the Act had caused the crown-piece to descend from the
+moon, these good effects would not have been counterbalanced by any
+corresponding evils. Unfortunately, the mysterious piece of money does
+not come from the moon, but from the pocket of a blacksmith, or a
+nail-smith, or a cartwright, or a farrier, or a labourer, or a
+shipwright; in a word, from James B., who gives it now without receiving
+a grain more of iron than when he was paying ten francs. Thus, we can
+see at a glance that this very much alters the state of the case; for it
+is very evident that M. Prohibant's <i>profit</i> is compensated by James
+B.'s <i>loss</i>, and all that M. Prohibant can do with the crown-piece, for
+the encouragement of national labour, James B. might have done himself.
+The stone has only been thrown upon one part of the lake, because the
+law has prevented it from being thrown upon another.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, <i>that which is not seen</i> supersedes <i>that which is seen</i>, and
+at this point there remains, as the residue of the operation, a piece of
+injustice, and, sad to say, a piece of injustice perpetrated by the law!</p>
+
+<p>This is not all. I have said that there is always a third person left
+in the background. I must now bring him forward, that he may reveal to
+us a <i>second loss</i> of five francs. Then we shall have the entire results
+of the transaction.</p>
+
+<p>James B. is the possessor of fifteen francs, the fruit of his labour. He
+is now free. What does he do with his fifteen francs? He purchases some
+article of fashion for ten francs, and with it he pays (or the
+intermediate pay for him) for the hundred-weight of Belgian iron. After
+this he has five francs left. He does not throw them into the river, but
+(and this is <i>what is not seen</i>) he gives them to some tradesman in
+exchange for some enjoyment; to a bookseller, for instance, for
+Bossuet's "Discourse on Universal History."</p>
+
+<p>Thus, as far as national labour is concerned, it is encouraged to the
+amount of fifteen francs, viz.:--ten francs for the Paris article, five
+francs to the bookselling trade.</p>
+
+<p>As to James B., he obtains for his fifteen francs two gratifications,
+viz.:--</p>
+
+<p>1st. A hundred-weight of iron.</p>
+
+<p>2nd. A book.</p>
+
+<p>The decree is put in force. How does it affect the condition of James
+B.? How does it affect the national labour?</p>
+
+<p>James B. pays every centime of his five francs to M. Prohibant, and
+therefore is deprived of the pleasure of a book, or of some other thing
+of equal value. He loses five francs. This must be admitted; it cannot
+fail to be admitted, that when the restriction raises the price of
+things, the consumer loses the difference.</p>
+
+<p>But, then, it is said, <i>national labour</i> is the gainer.</p>
+
+<p>No, it is not the gainer; for since the Act, it is no more encouraged
+than it was before, to the amount of fifteen francs.</p>
+
+<p>The only thing is that, since the Act, the fifteen francs of James B. go
+to the metal trade, while before it was put in force, they were divided
+between the milliner and the bookseller.</p>
+
+<p>The violence used by M. Prohibant on the frontier, or that which he
+causes to be used by the law, may be judged very differently in a moral
+point of view. Some persons consider that plunder is perfectly
+justifiable, if only sanctioned by law. But, for myself, I cannot
+imagine anything more aggravating. However it may be, the economical
+results are the same in both cases.</p>
+
+<p>Look at the thing as you will; but if you are impartial, you will see
+that no good can come of legal or illegal plunder. We do not deny that
+it affords M. Prohibant, or his trade, or, if you will, national
+industry, a profit of five francs. But we affirm that it causes two
+losses, one to James B., who pays fifteen francs where he otherwise
+would have paid ten; the other to national industry, which does not
+receive the difference. Take your choice of these two losses, and
+compensate with it the profit which we allow. The other will prove not
+the less a <i>dead loss</i>. Here is the moral: To take by violence is not to
+produce, but to destroy. Truly, if taking by violence was producing,
+this country of ours would be a little richer than she is.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3 id="e2-c8">VIII.--Machinery.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"A curse on machines! Every year, their increasing power devotes
+millions of workmen to pauperism, by depriving them of work, and
+therefore of wages and bread. A curse on machines!"</p>
+
+<p>This is the cry which is raised by vulgar prejudice, and echoed in the
+journals.</p>
+
+<p>But to curse machines is to curse the spirit of humanity!</p>
+
+<p>It puzzles me to conceive how any man can feel any satisfaction in such
+a doctrine.</p>
+
+<p>For, if true, what is its inevitable consequence? That there is no
+activity, prosperity, wealth, or happiness possible for any people,
+except for those who are stupid and inert, and to whom God has not
+granted the fatal gift of knowing how to think, to observe, to combine,
+to invent, and to obtain the greatest results with the smallest means.
+On the contrary, rags, mean huts, poverty, and inanition, are the
+inevitable lot of every nation which seeks and finds in iron, fire,
+wind, electricity, magnetism, the laws of chemistry and mechanics, in a
+word, in the powers of nature, an assistance to its natural powers. We
+might as well say with Rousseau--"Every man that thinks is a depraved
+animal."</p>
+
+<p>This is not all. If this doctrine is true, since all men think and
+invent, since all, from first to last, and at every moment of their
+existence, seek the co-operation of the powers of nature, and try to
+make the most of a little, by reducing either the work of their hands or
+their expenses, so as to obtain the greatest possible amount of
+gratification with the smallest possible amount of labour, it must
+follow, as a matter of course, that the whole of mankind is rushing
+towards its decline, by the same mental aspiration towards progress,
+which torments each of its members.</p>
+
+<p>Hence, it ought to be made known, by statistics, that the inhabitants of
+Lancashire, abandoning that land of machines, seek for work in Ireland,
+where they are unknown; and, by history, that barbarism darkens the
+epochs of civilisation, and that civilisation shines in times of
+ignorance and barbarism.</p>
+
+<p>There is evidently in this mass of contradictions something which
+revolts us, and which leads us to suspect that the problem contains
+within it an element of solution which has not been sufficiently
+disengaged.</p>
+
+<p>Here is the whole mystery: behind <i>that which is seen</i> lies something
+<i>which is not seen</i>. I will endeavour to bring it to light. The
+demonstration I shall give will only be a repetition of the preceding
+one, for the problems are one and the same.</p>
+
+<p>Men have a natural propensity to make the best bargain they can, when
+not prevented by an opposing force; that is, they like to obtain as much
+as they possibly can for their labour, whether the advantage is
+obtained from a <i>foreign producer</i> or a skilful <i>mechanical producer</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The theoretical objection which is made to this propensity is the same
+in both cases. In each case it is reproached with the apparent
+inactivity which it causes to labour. Now, labour rendered available,
+not inactive, is the very thing which determines it. And, therefore, in
+both cases, the same practical obstacle--force, is opposed to it also.</p>
+
+<p>The legislator prohibits foreign competition, and forbids mechanical
+competition. For what other means can exist for arresting a propensity
+which is natural to all men, but that of depriving them of their
+liberty?</p>
+
+<p>In many countries, it is true, the legislator strikes at only one of
+these competitions, and confines himself to grumbling at the other. This
+only proves one thing, that is, that the legislator is inconsistent.</p>
+
+<p>We need not be surprised at this. On a wrong road, inconsistency is
+inevitable; if it were not so, mankind would be sacrificed. A false
+principle never has been, and never will be, carried out to the end.</p>
+
+<p>Now for our demonstration, which shall not be a long one.</p>
+
+<p>James B. had two francs which he had gained by two workmen; but it
+occurs to him that an arrangement of ropes and weights might be made
+which would diminish the labour by half. Therefore he obtains the same
+advantage, saves a franc, and discharges a workman.</p>
+
+<p>He discharges a workman: <i>this is that which is seen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>And seeing this only, it is said, "See how misery attends civilisation;
+this is the way that liberty is fatal to equality. The human mind has
+made a conquest, and immediately a workman is cast into the gulf of
+pauperism. James B. may possibly employ the two workmen, but then he
+will give them only half their wages, for they will compete with each
+other, and offer themselves at the lowest price. Thus the rich are
+always growing richer, and the poor, poorer. Society wants remodelling."
+A very fine conclusion, and worthy of the preamble.</p>
+
+<p>Happily, preamble and conclusion are both false, because, behind the
+half of the phenomenon <i>which is seen</i>, lies the other half <i>which is
+not seen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The franc saved by James B. is not seen, no more are the necessary
+effects of this saving.</p>
+
+<p>Since, in consequence of his invention, James B. spends only one franc
+on hand labour in the pursuit of a determined advantage, another franc
+remains to him.</p>
+
+<p>If, then, there is in the world a workman with unemployed arms, there is
+also in the world a capitalist with an unemployed franc. These two
+elements meet and combine, and it is as clear as daylight, that between
+the supply and demand of labour, and between the supply and demand of
+wages, the relation is in no way changed.</p>
+
+<p>The invention and the workman paid with the first franc, now perform
+the work which was formerly accomplished by two workmen. The second
+workman, paid with the second franc, realises a new kind of work.</p>
+
+<p>What is the change, then, which has taken place? An additional national
+advantage has been gained; in other words, the invention is a gratuitous
+triumph--a gratuitous profit for mankind.</p>
+
+<p>From the form which I have given to my demonstration, the following
+inference might be drawn:--</p>
+
+<p>"It is the capitalist who reaps all the advantage from machinery. The
+working class, if it suffers only temporarily, never profits by it,
+since, by your own showing, they displace a portion of the national
+labour, without diminishing it, it is true, but also without increasing
+it."</p>
+
+<p>I do not pretend, in this slight treatise, to answer every objection;
+the only end I have in view, is to combat a vulgar, widely spread, and
+dangerous prejudice. I want to prove that a new machine only causes the
+discharge of a certain number of hands, when the remuneration which pays
+them is abstracted by force. These hands and this remuneration would
+combine to produce what it was impossible to produce before the
+invention; whence it follows, that the final result is <i>an increase of
+advantages for equal labour</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Who is the gainer by these additional advantages?</p>
+
+<p>First, it is true, the capitalist, the inventor; the first who succeeds
+in using the machine; and this is the reward of his genius and courage.
+In this case, as we have just seen, he effects a saving upon the expense
+of production, which, in whatever way it may be spent (and it always is
+spent), employs exactly as many hands as the machine caused to be
+dismissed.</p>
+
+<p>But soon competition obliges him to lower his prices in proportion to
+the saving itself; and then it is no longer the inventor who reaps the
+benefit of the invention--it is the purchaser of what is produced, the
+consumer, the public, including the workman; in a word, mankind.</p>
+
+<p>And <i>that which is not seen</i> is, that the saving thus procured for all
+consumers creates a fund whence wages may be supplied, and which
+replaces that which the machine has exhausted.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, to recur to the forementioned example, James B. obtains a profit
+by spending two francs in wages. Thanks to his invention, the hand
+labour costs him only one franc. So long as he sells the thing produced
+at the same price, he employs one workman less in producing this
+particular thing, and that is <i>what is seen</i>; but there is an additional
+workman employed by the franc which James B. has saved. This is <i>that
+which is not seen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>When, by the natural progress of things, James B. is obliged to lower
+the price of the thing produced by one franc, then he no longer realises
+a saving; then he has no longer a franc to dispose of to procure for the
+national labour a new production. But then another gainer takes his
+place, and this gainer is mankind. Whoever buys the thing he has
+produced, pays a franc less, and necessarily adds this saving to the
+fund of wages; and this, again, is <i>what is not seen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Another solution, founded upon facts, has been given of this problem of
+machinery.</p>
+
+<p>It was said, machinery reduces the expense of production, and lowers the
+price of the thing produced. The reduction of the profit causes an
+increase of consumption, which necessitates an increase of production;
+and, finally, the introduction of as many workmen, or more, after the
+invention as were necessary before it. As a proof of this, printing,
+weaving, &amp;c., are instanced.</p>
+
+<p>This demonstration is not a scientific one. It would lead us to
+conclude, that if the consumption of the particular production of which
+we are speaking remains stationary, or nearly so, machinery must injure
+labour. This is not the case.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose that in a certain country all the people wore hats. If, by
+machinery, the price could be reduced half, it would not <i>necessarily
+follow</i> that the consumption would be doubled.</p>
+
+<p>Would you say that in this case a portion of the national labour had
+been paralyzed? Yes, according to the vulgar demonstration; but,
+according to mine, No; for even if not a single hat more should be
+bought in the country, the entire fund of wages would not be the less
+secure. That which failed to go to the hat-making trade would be found
+to have gone to the economy realised by all the consumers, and would
+thence serve to pay for all the labour which the machine had rendered
+useless, and to excite a new development of all the trades. And thus it
+is that things go on. I have known newspapers to cost eighty francs, now
+we pay forty-eight: here is a saving of thirty-two francs to the
+subscribers. It is not certain, or at least necessary, that the
+thirty-two francs should take the direction of the journalist trade; but
+it is certain, and necessary too, that if they do not take this
+direction they will take another. One makes use of them for taking in
+more newspapers; another, to get better living; another, better clothes;
+another, better furniture. It is thus that the trades are bound
+together. They form a vast whole, whose different parts communicate by
+secret canals: what is saved by one, profits all. It is very important
+for us to understand that savings never take place at the expense of
+labour and wages.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3 id="e2-c9">IX.--Credit.</h3>
+
+
+<p>In all times, but more especially of late years, attempts have been made
+to extend wealth by the extension of credit.</p>
+
+<p>I believe it is no exaggeration to say, that since the revolution of
+February, the Parisian presses have issued more than 10,000 pamphlets,
+crying up this solution of the <i>social problem</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The only basis, alas! of this solution, is an optical delusion--if,
+indeed, an optical delusion can be called a basis at all.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing done is to confuse cash with produce, then paper money
+with cash; and from these two confusions it is pretended that a reality
+can be drawn.</p>
+
+<p>It is absolutely necessary in this question to forget money, coin,
+bills, and the other instruments by means of which productions pass from
+hand to hand. Our business is with the productions themselves, which are
+the real objects of the loan; for when a farmer borrows fifty francs to
+buy a plough, it is not, in reality, the fifty francs which are lent to
+him, but the plough; and when a merchant borrows 20,000 francs to
+purchase a house, it is not the 20,000 francs which he owes, but the
+house. Money only appears for the sake of facilitating the arrangements
+between the parties.</p>
+
+<p>Peter may not be disposed to lend his plough, but James may be willing
+to lend his money. What does William do in this case? He borrows money
+of James, and with this money he buys the plough of Peter.</p>
+
+<p>But, in point of fact, no one borrows money for the sake of the money
+itself; money is only the medium by which to obtain possession of
+productions. Now, it is impossible in any country to transmit from one
+person to another more productions than that country contains.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever may be the amount of cash and of paper which is in circulation,
+the whole of the borrowers cannot receive more ploughs, houses, tools,
+and supplies of raw material, than the lenders altogether can furnish;
+for we must take care not to forget that every borrower supposes a
+lender, and that what is once borrowed implies a loan.</p>
+
+<p>This granted, what advantage is there in institutions of credit? It is,
+that they facilitate, between borrowers and lenders, the means of
+finding and treating with each other; but it is not in their power to
+cause an instantaneous increase of the things to be borrowed and lent.
+And yet they ought to be able to do so, if the aim of the reformers is
+to be attained, since they aspire to nothing less than to place ploughs,
+houses, tools, and provisions in the hands of all those who desire them.</p>
+
+<p>And how do they intend to effect this?</p>
+
+<p>By making the State security for the loan.</p>
+
+<p>Let us try and fathom the subject, for it contains <i>something which is
+seen</i>, and also <i>something which is not seen</i>. We must endeavour to look
+at both.</p>
+
+<p>We will suppose that there is but one plough in the world, and that two
+farmers apply for it.</p>
+
+<p>Peter is the possessor of the only plough which is to be had in France;
+John and James wish to borrow it. John, by his honesty, his property,
+and good reputation, offers security. He <i>inspires confidence</i>; he has
+<i>credit</i>. James inspires little or no confidence. It naturally happens
+that Peter lends his plough to John.</p>
+
+<p>But now, according to the Socialist plan, the State interferes, and says
+to Peter, "Lend your plough to James, I will be security for its
+return, and this security will be better than that of John, for he has
+no one to be responsible for him but himself; and I, although it is true
+that I have nothing, dispose of the fortune of the tax-payers, and it is
+with their money that, in case of need, I shall pay you the principal
+and interest." Consequently, Peter lends his plough to James: <i>this is
+what is seen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>And the Socialists rub their hands, and say, "See how well our plan has
+answered. Thanks to the intervention of the State, poor James has a
+plough. He will no longer be obliged to dig the ground; he is on the
+road to make a fortune. It is a good thing for him, and an advantage to
+the nation as a whole."</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, it is no such thing; it is no advantage to the nation, for there
+is something behind <i>which is not seen</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>It is not seen</i>, that the plough is in the hands of James, only because
+it is not in those of John.</p>
+
+<p><i>It is not seen</i>, that if James farms instead of digging, John will be
+reduced to the necessity of digging instead of farming.</p>
+
+<p>That, consequently, what was considered an increase of loan, is nothing
+but a displacement of loan. Besides, <i>it is not seen</i> that this
+displacement implies two acts of deep injustice.</p>
+
+<p>It is an injustice to John, who, after having deserved and obtained
+<i>credit</i> by his honesty and activity, sees himself robbed of it.</p>
+
+<p>It is an injustice to the tax-payers, who are made to pay a debt which
+is no concern of theirs.</p>
+
+<p>Will any one say, that Government offers the same facilities to John as
+it does to James? But as there is only one plough to be had, two cannot
+be lent. The argument always maintains that, thanks to the intervention
+of the State, more will be borrowed than there are things to be lent;
+for the plough represents here the bulk of available capitals.</p>
+
+<p>It is true, I have reduced the operation to the most simple expression
+of it, but if you submit the most complicated Government institutions of
+credit to the same test, you will be convinced that they can have but
+one result; viz., to displace credit, not to augment it. In one country,
+and in a given time, there is only a certain amount of capital
+available, and all are employed. In guaranteeing the non-payers, the
+State may, indeed, increase the number of borrowers, and thus raise the
+rate of interest (always to the prejudice of the tax-payer), but it has
+no power to increase the number of lenders, and the importance of the
+total of the loans.</p>
+
+<p>There is one conclusion, however, which I would not for the world be
+suspected of drawing. I say, that the law ought not to favour,
+artificially, the power of borrowing, but I do not say that it ought not
+to restrain them artificially. If, in our system of mortgage, or in any
+other, there be obstacles to the diffusion of the application of credit,
+let them be got rid of; nothing can be better or more just than this.
+But this is all which is consistent with liberty, and it is all that any
+who are worthy of the name of reformers will ask.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3 id="e2-c10">X.--Algeria.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Here are four orators disputing for the platform. First, all the four
+speak at once; then they speak one after the other. What have they said?
+Some very fine things, certainly, about the power and the grandeur of
+France; about the necessity of sowing, if we would reap; about the
+brilliant future of our gigantic colony; about the advantage of
+diverting to a distance the surplus of our population, &amp;c. &amp;c.
+Magnificent pieces of eloquence, and always adorned with this
+conclusion:--"Vote fifty millions, more or less, for making ports and
+roads in Algeria; for sending emigrants thither; for building houses and
+breaking up land. By so doing, you will relieve the French workman,
+encourage African labour, and give a stimulus to the commerce of
+Marseilles. It would be profitable every way."</p>
+
+<p>Yes, it is all very true, if you take no account of the fifty millions
+until the moment when the State begins to spend them; if you only see
+where they go, and not whence they come; if you look only at the good
+they are to do when they come out of the tax-gatherer's bag, and not at
+the harm which has been done, and the good which has been prevented, by
+putting them into it. Yes, at this limited point of view, all is profit.
+The house which is built in Barbary is <i>that which is seen</i>; the
+harbour made in Barbary is <i>that which is seen</i>; the work caused in
+Barbary is <i>what is seen</i>; a few less hands in France is <i>what is seen</i>;
+a great stir with goods at Marseilles is still <i>that which is seen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>But, besides all this, there is something <i>which is not seen</i>. The fifty
+millions expended by the State cannot be spent, as they otherwise would
+have been, by the tax-payers. It is necessary to deduct, from all the
+good attributed to the public expenditure which has been effected, all
+the harm caused by the prevention of private expense, unless we say that
+James B. would have done nothing with the crown that he had gained, and
+of which the tax had deprived him; an absurd assertion, for if he took
+the trouble to earn it, it was because he expected the satisfaction of
+using it. He would have repaired the palings in his garden, which he
+cannot now do, and this is <i>that which is not seen</i>. He would have
+manured his field, which now he cannot do, and this is <i>what is not
+seen</i>. He would have added another story to his cottage, which he cannot
+do now, and this is <i>what is not seen</i>. He might have increased the
+number of his tools, which he cannot do now, and this is <i>what is not
+seen</i>. He would have been better fed, better clothed, have given a
+better education to his children, and increased his daughter's marriage
+portion; this is <i>what is not seen</i>. He would have become a member of
+the Mutual Assistance Society, but now he cannot; this is <i>what is not
+seen</i>. On one hand, are the enjoyments of which he has been deprived,
+and the means of action which have been destroyed in his hands; on the
+other, are the labour of the drainer, the carpenter, the smith, the
+tailor, the village schoolmaster, which he would have encouraged, and
+which are now prevented--all this is <i>what is not seen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Much is hoped from the future prosperity of Algeria; be it so. But the
+drain to which France is being subjected ought not to be kept entirely
+out of sight. The commerce of Marseilles is pointed out to me; but if
+this is to be brought about by means of taxation, I shall always show
+that an equal commerce is destroyed thereby in other parts of the
+country. It is said, "There is an emigrant transported into Barbary;
+this is a relief to the population which remains in the country," I
+answer, "How can that be, if, in transporting this emigrant to Algiers,
+you also transport two or three times the capital which would have
+served to maintain him in France?"<sup><a href="#fn4">4</a></sup></p>
+
+<p>The only object I have in view is to make it evident to the reader, that
+in every public expense, behind the apparent benefit, there is an evil
+which it is not so easy to discern. As far as in me lies, I would make
+him form a habit of seeing both, and taking account of both.</p>
+
+<p>When a public expense is proposed, it ought to be examined in itself,
+separately from the pretended encouragement of labour which results from
+it, for tins encouragement is a delusion. Whatever is done in this way
+at the public expense, private expense would have done all the same;
+therefore, the interest of labour is always out of the question.</p>
+
+<p>It is not the object of this treatise to criticise the intrinsic merit
+of the public expenditure as applied to Algeria, but I cannot withhold a
+general observation. It is, that the presumption is always unfavourable
+to collective expenses by way of tax. Why? For this reason:--First,
+justice always suffers from it in some degree. Since James B. had
+laboured to gain his crown, in the hope of receiving a gratification
+from it, it is to be regretted that the exchequer should interpose, and
+take from James B. this gratification, to bestow it upon another.
+Certainly, it behoves the exchequer, or those who regulate it, to give
+good reasons for this. It has been shown that the State gives a very
+provoking one, when it says, "With this crown I shall employ workmen;"
+for James B. (as soon as he sees it) will be sure to answer, "It is all
+very fine, but with this crown I might employ them myself."</p>
+
+<p>Apart from this reason, others present themselves without disguise, by
+which the debate between the exchequer and poor James becomes much
+simplified. If the State says to him, "I take your crown to pay the
+gendarme, who saves you the trouble of providing for your own personal
+safety; for paving the street which you are passing through every day;
+for paying the magistrate who causes your property and your liberty to
+be respected; to maintain the soldier who maintains our
+frontiers,"--James B., unless I am much mistaken, will pay for all this
+without hesitation. But if the State were to say to him, "I take this
+crown that I may give you a little prize in case you cultivate your
+field well; or that I may teach your son something that you have no wish
+that he should learn; or that the Minister may add another to his score
+of dishes at dinner; I take it to build a cottage in Algeria, in which
+case I must take another crown every year to keep an emigrant in it, and
+another hundred to maintain a soldier to guard this emigrant, and
+another crown to maintain a general to guard this soldier," &amp;c., &amp;c.,--I
+think I hear poor James exclaim, "This system of law is very much like a
+system of cheat!" The State foresees the objection, and what does it do?
+It jumbles all things together, and brings forward just that provoking
+reason which ought to have nothing whatever to do with the question. It
+talks of the effect of this crown upon labour; it points to the cook and
+purveyor of the Minister; it shows an emigrant, a soldier, and a
+general, living upon the crown; it shows, in fact, <i>what is seen</i>, and
+if James B. has not learned to take into the account <i>what is not seen</i>,
+James B. will be duped. And this is why I want to do all I can to
+impress it upon his mind, by repeating it over and over again.</p>
+
+<p>As the public expenses displace labour without increasing it, a second
+serious presumption presents itself against them. To displace labour is
+to displace labourers, and to disturb the natural laws which regulate
+the distribution of the population over the country. If 50,000,000
+francs are allowed to remain in the possession of the tax-payers since
+the tax-payers are everywhere, they encourage labour in the 40,000
+parishes in France. They act like a natural tie, which keeps every one
+upon his native soil; they distribute themselves amongst all imaginable
+labourers and trades. If the State, by drawing off these 60,000,000
+francs from the citizens, accumulates them, and expends them on some
+given point, it attracts to this point a proportional quantity of
+displaced labour, a corresponding number of labourers, belonging to
+other parts; a fluctuating population, which is out of its place, and I
+venture to say dangerous when the fund is exhausted. Now here is the
+consequence (and this confirms all I have said): this feverish activity
+is, as it were, forced into a narrow space; it attracts the attention of
+all; it is <i>what is seen</i>. The people applaud; they are astonished at
+the beauty and facility of the plan, and expect to have it continued and
+extended. <i>That which they do not see</i> is, that an equal quantity of
+labour, which would probably be more valuable, has been paralyzed over
+the rest of France.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3 id="e2-c11">XI.--Frugality and Luxury.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It is not only in the public expenditure that <i>what is seen</i> eclipses
+<i>what is not seen</i>. Setting aside what relates to political economy,
+this phenomenon leads to false reasoning. It causes nations to consider
+their moral and their material interests as contradictory to each other.
+What can be more discouraging or more dismal?</p>
+
+<p>For instance, there is not a father of a family who does not think it
+his duty to teach his children order, system, the habits of carefulness,
+of economy, and of moderation in spending money.</p>
+
+<p>There is no religion which does not thunder against pomp and luxury.
+This is as it should be; but, on the other hand, how frequently do we
+hear the following remarks:--</p>
+
+<p>"To hoard, is to drain the veins of the people."</p>
+
+<p>"The luxury of the great is the comfort of the little."</p>
+
+<p>"Prodigals ruin themselves, but they enrich the State."</p>
+
+<p>"It is the superfluity of the rich which makes bread for the poor."</p>
+
+<p>Here, certainly, is a striking contradiction between the moral and the
+social idea. How many eminent spirits, after having made the assertion,
+repose in peace. It is a thing I never could understand, for it seems to
+me that nothing can be more distressing than to discover two opposite
+tendencies in mankind. Why, it comes to degradation at each of the
+extremes: economy brings it to misery; prodigality plunges it into moral
+degradation. Happily, these vulgar maxims exhibit economy and luxury in
+a false light, taking account, as they do, of those immediate
+consequences <i>which are seen</i>, and not of the remote ones, <i>which are
+not seen</i>. Let us see if we can rectify this incomplete view of the
+case.</p>
+
+<p>Mondor and his brother Aristus, after dividing the parental inheritance,
+have each an income of 50,000 francs. Mondor practises the fashionable
+philanthropy. He is what is called a squanderer of money. He renews his
+furniture several times a year; changes his equipages every month.
+People talk of his ingenious contrivances to bring them sooner to an
+end: in short, he surpasses the fast livers of Balzac and Alexander
+Dumas.</p>
+
+<p>Thus everybody is singing his praises. It is, "Tell us about Mondor!
+Mondor for ever! He is the benefactor of the workman; a blessing to the
+people. It is true, he revels in dissipation; he splashes the
+passers-by; his own dignity and that of human nature are lowered a
+little; but what of that? He does good with his fortune, if not with
+himself. He causes money to circulate; he always sends the tradespeople
+away satisfied. Is not money made round that it may roll?"</p>
+
+<p>Aristus has adopted a very different plan of life. If he is not an
+egotist, he is, at any rate, an <i>individualist</i>, for he considers
+expense, seeks only moderate and reasonable enjoyments, thinks of his
+children's prospects, and, in fact, he <i>economises</i>.</p>
+
+<p>And what do people say of him? "What is the good of a rich fellow like
+him? He is a skinflint. There is something imposing, perhaps, in the
+simplicity of his life; and he is humane, too, and benevolent, and
+generous, but he <i>calculates</i>. He does not spend his income; his house
+is neither brilliant nor bustling. What good does he do to the
+paper-hangers, the carriage makers, the horse dealers, and the
+confectioners?"</p>
+
+<p>These opinions, which are fatal to morality, are founded upon what
+strikes the eye:--the expenditure of the prodigal; and another, which is
+out of sight, the equal and even superior expenditure of the economist.</p>
+
+<p>But things have been so admirably arranged by the Divine inventor of
+social order, that in this, as in everything else, political economy and
+morality, far from clashing, agree; and the wisdom of Aristus is not
+only more dignified, but still more <i>profitable</i>, than the folly of
+Mondor. And when I say profitable, I do not mean only profitable to
+Aristus, or even to society in general, but more profitable to the
+workmen themselves--to the trade of the time.</p>
+
+<p>To prove it, it is only necessary to turn the mind's eye to those hidden
+consequences of human actions, which the bodily eye does not see.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, the prodigality of Mondor has visible effects in every point of
+view. Everybody can see his landaus, his phaetons, his berlins, the
+delicate paintings on his ceilings, his rich carpets, the brilliant
+effects of his house. Every one knows that his horses run upon the turf.
+The dinners which he gives at the Hotel de Paris attract the attention
+of the crowds on the Boulevards; and it is said, "That is a generous
+man; far from saving his income, he is very likely breaking into his
+capital." That is <i>what is seen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is not so easy to see, with regard to the interest of workers, what
+becomes of the income of Aristus. If we were to trace it carefully,
+however, we should see that the whole of it, down to the last farthing,
+affords work to the labourers, as certainly as the fortune of Mondor.
+Only there is this difference: the wanton extravagance of Mondor is
+doomed to be constantly decreasing, and to come to an end without fail;
+whilst the wise expenditure of Aristus will go on increasing from year
+to year. And if this is the case, then, most assuredly, the public
+interest will be in unison with morality.</p>
+
+<p>Aristus spends upon himself and his household 20,000 francs a year. If
+that is not sufficient to content him, he does not deserve to be called
+a wise man. He is touched by the miseries which oppress the poorer
+classes; he thinks he is bound in conscience to afford them some relief,
+and therefore he devotes 10,000 francs to acts of benevolence. Amongst
+the merchants, the manufacturers, and the agriculturists, he has friends
+who are suffering under temporary difficulties; he makes himself
+acquainted with their situation, that he may assist them with prudence
+and efficiency, and to this work he devotes 10,000 francs more. Then he
+does not forget that he has daughters to portion, and sons for whose
+prospects it is his duty to provide, and therefore he considers it a
+duty to lay by and put out to interest 10,000 francs every year.</p>
+
+<p>The following is a list of his expenses:--</p>
+
+<p>    1st, Personal expenses      20,000 fr.
+    2nd, Benevolent objects     10,000
+    3rd, Offices of friendship  10,000
+    4th, Saving                 10,000</p>
+
+<p>Let us examine each of these items, and we shall see that not a single
+farthing escapes the national labour.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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, &amp;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>is seen</i>. Aristus, spending it partly through intermediate
+parties, and at a distance, the effect is <i>not seen</i>. But, in fact,
+those who know how to attribute effects to their proper causes, will
+perceive, that <i>what is not seen</i> is as certain as <i>what is seen</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>But how far superior is it, if, instead of confining our thoughts to the
+present moment, we let them embrace a longer period!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3 id="e2-c12">XII.--He Who Has a Right to Work Has a Right to Profit.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Brethren, you must club together to find me work at your own price."
+This is the right to work; <i>i.e.</i>, elementary socialism of the first
+degree.</p>
+
+<p>"Brethren, you must club together to find me work at my own price." This
+is the right to profit; <i>i.e.</i>, refined socialism, or socialism of the
+second degree.</p>
+
+<p>Both of these live upon such of their effects as <i>are seen</i>. They will
+die by means of those effects <i>which are not seen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>That <i>which is seen</i> is the labour and the profit excited by social
+combination. <i>That which is not seen</i> is the labour and the profit to
+which this same combination would give rise, if it were left to the
+tax-payers.</p>
+
+<p>In 1848, the right to labour for a moment showed two faces. This was
+sufficient to ruin it in public opinion.</p>
+
+<p>One of these faces was called <i>national workshops</i>. The other,
+<i>forty-five centimes</i>. Millions of francs went daily from the Rue Rivoli
+to the national workshops. This was the fair side of the medal.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Ought not the protectionist to blush at the part he would make society
+play?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:--</p>
+
+<p>"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."--<i>Chateaubriand's
+Posthumous Memoirs</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="e3">
+<h2>Government.</h2>
+
+
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>What an immense service it would confer on society!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:--</p>
+
+<p>"Organize labour and workmen.</p>
+
+<p>"Do away with egotism.</p>
+
+<p>"Repress insolence and the tyranny of capital.</p>
+
+<p>"Make experiments upon manure and eggs.</p>
+
+<p>"Cover the country with railways.</p>
+
+<p>"Irrigate the plains.</p>
+
+<p>"Plant the hills.</p>
+
+<p>"Make model farms.</p>
+
+<p>"Found social workshops.</p>
+
+<p>"Colonize Algeria.</p>
+
+<p>"Suckle children.</p>
+
+<p>"Instruct the youth.</p>
+
+<p>"Assist the aged.</p>
+
+<p>"Send the inhabitants of towns into the country.</p>
+
+<p>"Equalize the profits of all trades.</p>
+
+<p>"Lend money without interest to all who wish to borrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Emancipate Italy, Poland, and Hungary."</p>
+
+<p>"Rear and perfect the saddle-horse."</p>
+
+<p>"Encourage the arts, and provide us with musicians and dancers."</p>
+
+<p>"Restrict commerce, and at the same time create a merchant navy."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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</p>
+
+<p>"The salt tax,</p>
+
+<p>"The tax on liquors,</p>
+
+<p>"The tax on letters,</p>
+
+<p>"Custom-house duties,</p>
+
+<p>"Patents."</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>I have lost my character for ever! I am looked upon as a man without
+<i>heart</i> and without <i>feeling</i>--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.</p>
+
+<p>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 ph&oelig;nix. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, <i>to enjoy the labour of others</i>. 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, &amp;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.</p>
+
+<p>Slavery is subsiding, thank heaven! and on the other hand, our
+disposition to defend our property prevents direct and open plunder from
+being easy.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>Government <i>is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavours to
+live at the expense of everybody else</i>.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>reciprocal plunder</i> 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?</p>
+
+<p>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:--</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Thus it is France, or an abstraction, which is to raise the French, or
+<i>realities</i>, to morality, well-being, &amp;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--</p>
+
+<p>"The French have constituted themselves a Republic, to raise France to
+an ever-increasing degree of morality, enlightenment, and well-being."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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:--</p>
+
+<p>"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," &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>Here there is no chimerical creation, no <i>abstraction</i>, from which the
+citizens may demand everything. They expect nothing except from
+themselves and their own energy.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I contend that this <i>personification</i> of Government has been, in past
+times, and will be hereafter, a fertile source of calamities and
+revolutions.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Our requisitions, therefore, place it in a dilemma.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, the public has two hopes, and Government makes two
+promises--<i>many benefits and no taxes</i>. Hopes and promises, which, being
+contradictory, can never be realised.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>And the people believe, and the people hope, and the people make a
+revolution!</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>The new <i>Government</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>governmental</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>We had arrived at this point in February.<sup><a href="#fn5">5</a></sup> 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 <i>Government</i>,
+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?"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:--"<i>Government ought to give a
+great deal to the people, and take little from them</i>." It is always the
+same tactics, or, rather, the same mistake.</p>
+
+<p>"Government is bound to give gratuitous instruction and education to all
+the citizens."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>It is bound "To give compensation for every accident, from fire,
+inundation, &amp;c., experienced by a citizen." (The <i>et c&aelig;tera</i> means more
+than it says.)</p>
+
+<p>It is bound "To attend to the relations of capital with labour, and to
+become the regulator of credit."</p>
+
+<p>It is bound "To afford important encouragement and efficient protection
+to agriculture."</p>
+
+<p>It is bound "To purchase railroads, canals, and mines; and, doubtless,
+to transact affairs with that industrial capacity which characterises
+it."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"It is superfluities, not necessaries," they say "which ought to be
+taxed."</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, &amp;c., &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>"The reform of the tax on landed property, customs, and patents.</p>
+
+<p>"Gratuitous justice--that is, the simplification of its forms, and
+reduction of its expenses," (This, no doubt, has reference to stamps.)</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>gentle hand</i> of
+Government, while they entirely paralyse its <i>rough hand</i>.</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>For ourselves, we consider that Government is and ought to be nothing
+whatever but <i>common force</i> 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.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="e4">
+<h2>What Is Money?</h2>
+
+
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> Hateful money! hateful money!</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> Hateful money! hateful money!</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> Come, come, exercise a little philosophy. What has happened to
+you? Has Cr&oelig;sus been affecting you? Has Mondor been playing you false?
+or has Zoilus been libelling you in the papers?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> I have nothing to do with Cr&oelig;sus; my character, by its
+insignificance, is safe from any slanders of Zoilus; and as to Mondor--</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> Ah! now I have it. How could I be so blind? You, too, are the
+inventor of a social reorganization--of the <i>F---- system</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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!"</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> If I cry out against money, is it likely I should tolerate its
+deceitful substitute?</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> Then I have only one more guess to make. You are a new Diogenes,
+and are going to victimize me with a discourse <i>&aacute; la Seneca</i>, on the
+contempt of riches.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> Well! now you seem to be singing the praises of riches, when, a
+moment ago, you were loading them with imprecations!</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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!</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> You promise to take an interest?</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> I promise to have patience.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> That is not much.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> Well, now, is it possible that you can conscientiously assure me,
+that you have never happened to confound wealth with money?</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> I don't know; but, after all, what would be the consequence of such
+a confusion?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> Just as we walk upon the same principle, although we are not agreed
+upon the theory of equilibrium and gravitation.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> So I think. Nevertheless, he would soon suffer the penalty of being
+too much of a logician.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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?</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> I go to a baker's, and buy some bread.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> You do not hesitate about getting rid of your money?</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> The only use of money is to buy what one wants.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> And if the baker should happen to be thirsty, what does he do?</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> He goes to the wine merchant's, and buys wine with the money I have
+given him.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> What! is he not afraid he shall ruin himself?</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> The real ruin would be to go without eating or drinking.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> And everybody in the world, if he is free, acts in the same manner?</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> Without a doubt. Would you have them die of hunger for the sake of
+laying by pence?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> No unpleasant fiction.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> Suppose, again, that you were perfectly convinced of this,--that
+wealth consists solely and exclusively in cash; to what conclusion would
+you come?</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> This axiom has the authority of Bacon and Montaigne.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> It would seem that such is the result of this principle.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> This is not Christianity, but it is political economy.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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?</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> It would be my endeavour to increase, incessantly, among my people
+the quantity of cash.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> But there are no mines in your kingdom. How would you set about it?
+What would you do?</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> I should do nothing: I should merely forbid, on pain of death, that
+a single crown should leave the country.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> And if your people should happen to be hungry as well as rich?</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> Never mind. In the system we are discussing, to allow them to
+export crowns would be to allow them to impoverish themselves.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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?</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> Just because my own hunger touches me, and the hunger of a nation
+does not touch legislators.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> If so, this plan, whether erroneous or not, would effect nothing;
+it would do neither good nor harm, and therefore requires no further
+consideration.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> What end?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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--</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> Now, I, in turn, must ask you--to what?</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> Why, to a means of increasing the quantity of cash.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> How would you set about it, if you please?</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> Certainly.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> And the second, that additions must constantly be made to it?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i>. To be sure.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> Better and better.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> A well-advised plan.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> Is it new? I must take out a patent for the invention.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> You need do no such thing; you have been forestalled. But you must
+take care of one thing.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> What is that?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> It would be rather expensive. But what does that signify? The money
+they receive will not go out of the country.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> True; and in this system it is the grand point. But to ensure a
+sale abroad, how would you proceed?</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> I should encourage it by prizes, obtained by means of some good
+taxes laid upon my people.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> Still, the money would not go out of the country.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> I shall have an army and force their barriers.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> They will have an army and force yours.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> I shall raise my taxes, and increase my custom-house officers, my
+army, and my navy.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> The others will do the same.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> I shall redouble my exertions.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> The others will redouble theirs. In the meantime, we have no proof
+that you would succeed in selling to a great extent.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> It is but too true. It would be well if the commercial efforts
+would neutralize each other.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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?"</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> And yet the consequences are frightful.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> The consequences! As yet I have only mentioned one. I might have
+told you of others still more fatal.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> Yon make my hair stand on end! What other evils can have been
+caused to mankind by this confusion between money and wealth?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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 <i>prohibitive system</i>; the next, the <i>colonial
+system</i>; the third, <i>hatred of capital</i>; the Benjamin, <i>paper money</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> What! does paper money proceed from the same error?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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."</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> In fact, this proceeding is more expeditious than the other, and
+then it does not lead to foreign war.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> No, but it leads to civil war.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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, "<i>What one people gains, another
+necessarily loses</i>:" a maxim expressed in a still more discouraging
+manner by Montaigne, in these words: "<i>The profit of one is the loss of
+another.</i>" 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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 <i>forced</i> to give up
+useful things for the sake of having more money.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> Thus, it is your opinion that the treasures discovered in
+California will not increase the wealth of the world?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> I do not deny it.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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 <i>what is true of each must be true of all</i>. 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 <i>ten</i> francs, only
+represented <i>five</i>. Thus it was clearly shown, that what is true of
+each, is not always true of all.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> I see; you are supposing a general increase of counters, without a
+corresponding increase of the sum placed under the candlestick.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> And you are supposing a general increase of crowns, without a
+corresponding increase of things, the exchange of which is facilitated
+by these crowns.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> Do you compare the crowns to counters?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> Be it so: but, in the two suppositions that you have made, the
+increase is real, and you must allow that I am right.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> The gold which is imported implies that a <i>useful thing</i> is
+<i>ex</i>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?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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 <i>worth</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> No one can dispute that.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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 <i>service</i> for
+society, and, moreover, it shows the value of it. It bears witness,
+besides, that you have not yet obtained from society a <i>real</i> 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:--"<i>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.</i>" 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> But if we all had a great number of crowns we should obtain from
+society many services. Would not that be very desirable?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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 <i>service</i>, speaks at
+the same time of a service <i>received</i> and <i>returned</i>, 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, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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?</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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, &amp;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.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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 ...</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> Who says anything about altering the money?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> Why, to force people to take in payment scraps of paper which have
+been officially baptized <i>francs</i>, 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 <i>franc</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> I see; but stop a little. This dose of Economy is rather too strong
+for once.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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 <i>sell</i> a
+service, and receive a crown--then, with this crown, you <i>buy</i> 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 <i>sign</i> and the
+<i>measure</i> of the things exchanged.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> Will you still deny that cash is the <i>sign</i> of the useful things of
+which you speak?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> A louis<sup><a href="#fn6">6</a></sup> is no more the sign of a sack of corn, than a sack of
+corn is the sign of a louis.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> What harm is there in looking at cash as the sign of wealth?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> But you will not go so far as to dispute that cash is the <i>measure</i>
+of values?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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
+<i>worth</i> five, ten, or twenty francs, as we say this <i>weighs</i> five, ten,
+or twenty grains; this <i>measures</i> five, ten, or twenty yards; this
+ground <i>contains</i> five, ten, or twenty acres; and hence it has been
+concluded, that cash is the <i>measure</i> of <i>values</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> Well, it appears as if it was so.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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 <i>was worth</i> twenty francs,
+<i>is now worth</i> 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 <i>was worth</i> twenty francs, <i>is now only worth</i>
+ten."</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> It all comes to the same thing in the end.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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 <i>francs</i>, 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 <i>pieces</i> or <i>notes of
+twenty francs</i>. 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 <i>custom</i>, 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 <i>equality of condition</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> Good morning; I shall go and meditate upon the lecture you have
+been giving me.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> Have you finished your own dissertation? As for me, I have scarcely
+begun mine. I have not yet spoken of the <i>hatred</i> of capital, of
+gratuitous credit--a fatal notion, a deplorable mistake, which takes
+its rise from the same source.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> What! does this frightful commotion of the populace against
+capitalists arise from money being confounded with wealth?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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, <i>capital</i>, 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 ..."</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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 <i>cash</i>, <i>money</i>, <i>services</i>,
+<i>capital</i>, <i>interest</i>, that, really, I hardly know where I am. We will,
+if you please, resume the conversation another day.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> In the meantime, here is a little work entitled <i>Capital and Rent</i>.
+It may perhaps remove some of your doubts. Just look at it, when you are
+in want of a little amusement.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> To amuse me?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> Who knows? One nail drives in another; one wearisome thing drives
+away another.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> 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,
+<i>liberty</i>, <i>order</i>, <i>justice</i>, <i>people</i>, <i>honour</i>, <i>influence</i>, <i>&amp;c.</i>,
+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 C&aelig;sar? 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?</p>
+
+<p><i>B.</i> What do you conclude from that?</p>
+
+<p><i>F.</i> I will tell you. The most urgent necessity is, not that the State
+should teach, but that it should <i>allow</i> education. All monopolies are
+detestable, but the worst of all is the monopoly of education.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="e5">
+<h2>The Law.</h2>
+
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>We hold from God the gift which, as far as we are concerned, contains
+all others, Life--physical, intellectual, and moral life.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>What, then, is law? As I have said elsewhere, it is the collective
+organization of the individual right to lawful defence.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>How has this perversion of law been accomplished? And what has resulted
+from it?</p>
+
+<p>The law has been perverted through the influence of two very different
+causes--bare egotism and false philanthropy.</p>
+
+<p>Let us speak of the former.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, it would efface from everybody's conscience the
+distinction between justice and injustice.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>If you lecture upon morality, or political economy, official bodies will
+be found to make this request to the Government:--</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."<sup><a href="#fn7">7</a></sup></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever may be thought of it by the adepts of the school of Rousseau,
+which professes to be <i>very far advanced</i>, but which I consider twenty
+centuries <i>behind, universal</i> suffrage (taking the word in its strictest
+sense) is not one of those sacred dogmas with respect to which
+examination and doubt are crimes.</p>
+
+<p>Serious objections may be made to it.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, the word <i>universal</i> 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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>This motive is, that the elector does not stipulate for himself, but for
+everybody.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>right to assistance</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>legal
+scourge</i>, 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 <i>law should have become an instrument of injustice</i>.
+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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>But what plunder did he mean? For there are two sorts--<i>extra-legal</i> and
+<i>legal plunder</i>.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>legal plunder</i>, and it is, no doubt, this which is meant by M.
+Montalembert.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>acquired rights</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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, &amp;c., &amp;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>It is absolutely necessary that this question of legal plunder should be
+determined, and there are only three solutions of it:--</p>
+
+<p>     1. When the few plunder the many.</p>
+
+<p>     2. When everybody plunders everybody else.</p>
+
+<p>     3. When nobody plunders anybody.</p>
+
+<p>Partial plunder, universal plunder, absence of plunder, amongst these we
+have to make our choice. The law can only produce one of these results.</p>
+
+<p><i>Partial</i> plunder.--This is the system which prevailed so long as the
+elective privilege was <i>partial</i>--a system which is resorted to to avoid
+the invasion of socialism.</p>
+
+<p><i>Universal</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>Absence</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+any one 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 which 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--<span class="sc">Law is organised
+Justice</span>.</p>
+
+<p>Now it is important to remark, that to organise justice by law, that is
+to say by force, excludes the idea of organising by law, or by force any
+manifestation whatever of human activity--labour, charity, agriculture,
+commerce, industry, instruction, the fine arts, or religion; for any one
+of these organisations would inevitably destroy the essential
+organisation. How, in fact, can we imagine force encroaching upon the
+liberty of citizens without infringing upon justice, and so acting
+against its proper aim?</p>
+
+<p>Here I am encountering the most popular prejudice of our time. It is
+not considered enough that law should be just, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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. M. de Lamartine wrote to me one day thus:--"Your
+doctrine is only the half of my programme; you have stopped at liberty,
+I go on to fraternity." I answered him:--"The second part of your
+programme will destroy the first." And in fact it is impossible for me
+to separate the word <i>fraternity</i> from the word <i>voluntary</i>. I cannot
+possibly conceive fraternity <i>legally</i> enforced, without liberty being
+<i>legally</i> destroyed, and justice <i>legally</i> trampled under foot. Legal
+plunder has two roots: one of them, as we have already seen, is in human
+egotism; the other is in false philanthropy.</p>
+
+<p>Before I proceed, I think I ought to explain myself upon the word
+plunder.<sup><a href="#fn8">8</a></sup></p>
+
+<p>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, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 dissensions;
+therefore, whether I am believed or not, I declare that I do not mean to
+accuse the intentions nor the morality of anybody. I am attacking an
+idea which I believe to be false--a system which 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 in 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,<sup><a href="#fn9">9</a></sup> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Be it as it may, to conclude that legal plunder has one of its roots in
+false philanthropy, is evidently to put intentions out of the question.</p>
+
+<p>With this understanding, let us examine the value, the origin, and the
+tendency of this popular aspiration, which pretends to realise the
+general good by general plunder.</p>
+
+<p>The Socialists say, since the law organises justice, why should it not
+organise labour, instruction, and religion?</p>
+
+<p>Why? Because it could not organise labour, instruction, and religion,
+without disorganising justice.</p>
+
+<p>For, remember, that law is force, and that consequently the domain of
+the law cannot lawfully extend beyond the domain of force.</p>
+
+<p>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 fulfil 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 <i>the aim of the law is to cause justice to reign</i>, is to use
+an expression which is not rigorously exact. It ought to be said, <i>the
+aim of the law is to prevent injustice from reigning</i>. In fact, it is
+not justice which has an existence of its own, it is injustice. The one
+results from the absence of the other.</p>
+
+<p>But when the law, through the medium of its necessary agent--force,
+imposes a form of labour, 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 lumber; they cease to be men; they
+lose their personality, their liberty, their property.</p>
+
+<p>Endeavour to imagine a form of labour imposed by force, which is not a
+violation of liberty; a transmission of wealth imposed by force, which
+is not a violation of property. If you cannot succeed in reconciling
+this, you are bound to conclude that the law cannot organise labour and
+industry without organising injustice.</p>
+
+<p>When, from the seclusion of his cabinet, a politician takes a view of
+society, he is struck with the spectacle of inequality which presents
+itself. He mourns over the sufferings which are the lot of so many of
+our brethren, sufferings whose aspect is rendered yet more sorrowful by
+the contrast of luxury and wealth.</p>
+
+<p>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 later times, effected through the medium of
+the laws? He ought to ask himself whether, granting the aspiration of
+all men after well-being and perfection, the reign of justice would not
+suffice to realise the greatest activity of progress, and the greatest
+amount of equality compatible with that individual responsibility which
+God has awarded as a just retribution of virtue and vice?</p>
+
+<p>He never gives this a thought. His mind turns towards combinations,
+arrangements, legal or factitious organisations. He seeks the remedy in
+perpetuating and exaggerating what has produced the evil.</p>
+
+<p>For, justice apart, which we have seen is only a negation, is there any
+one of these legal arrangements which does not contain the principle of
+plunder?</p>
+
+<p>You say, "There are men who have no money," and you apply to the law.
+But the law is not a self-supplied fountain, whence every stream may
+obtain supplies independently of society. Nothing can enter the public
+treasury, in favour of one citizen or one class, but what other citizens
+and other classes have been <i>forced</i> to send to it. If every one 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
+equalisation 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, prizes for encouragement, right to profit, right
+to labour, right to assistance, right to instruction, progressive
+taxation, gratuitousness of credit, social workshops, and you will
+always find at the bottom legal plunder, organised injustice.</p>
+
+<p>You say, "There are men who want knowledge," and you apply to the law.
+But the law is not a torch which sheds light abroad which is peculiar to
+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>i.e.</i>, let
+this kind of want satisfy itself freely; or else force the will of the
+people in the matter, and take from some of them sufficient to pay
+professors commissioned to instruct others gratuitously. But, in this
+second case, there cannot fail to be a violation of liberty and
+property,--legal plunder.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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, organisation, association.
+And because we do not ask so much at the hands of the law, because we
+only ask it for justice, it supposes that we reject fraternity,
+solidarity, organisation, and association; and they brand us with the
+name of <i>individualists</i>.</p>
+
+<p>We can assure them that what we repudiate is, not natural organisation,
+but forced organisation.</p>
+
+<p>It is not free association, but the forms of association which they
+would impose upon us.</p>
+
+<p>It is not spontaneous fraternity, but legal fraternity.</p>
+
+<p>It is not providential solidarity, but artificial solidarity, which is
+only an unjust displacement of responsibility.</p>
+
+<p>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, &amp;c., &amp;c. They might as well
+accuse us of wishing men not to eat, because we object to the
+cultivation of corn by the State.</p>
+
+<p>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 theories upon one common hypothesis; and surely a more
+strange, a more presumptuous notion, could never have entered a human
+brain.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+moving spring in them; that they are inert matter, passive particles,
+atoms without impulse; at best a vegetation indifferent to its own mode
+of existence, susceptible of receiving, from an exterior will and hand,
+an infinite number of forms, more or less symmetrical, artistic, and
+perfected.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, every one of these politicians does not scruple to imagine
+that he himself is, under the names of organiser, discoverer,
+legislator, institutor or founder, this will and hand, this universal
+spring, this creative power, whose sublime mission it is to gather
+together these scattered materials, that is, men, into society.</p>
+
+<p>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, sub-circles,
+honeycombs, or social workshops, with all kinds of variations. And as
+the gardener, to bring his trees into shape, wants hatchets,
+pruning-hooks, saws, and shears, so the politician, to bring society
+into shape, wants the forces which he can only find in the laws; the law
+of customs, the law of taxation, the law of assistance, and the law of
+instruction.</p>
+
+<p>It is so true, that the Socialists look upon mankind as a subject for
+social combinations, that if, by chance, they are not quite certain of
+the success of these combinations, they will request a portion of
+mankind, as a subject to experiment upon. It is well known how popular
+the idea of <i>trying all systems</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>But, then, think of the immeasurable distance 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 distance between
+himself and mankind.</p>
+
+<p>It is not to be wondered at that 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.</p>
+
+<p>To all these persons, the relations between mankind and the legislator
+appear to be the same as those which exist between the clay and the
+potter.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, if they have consented to recognise in the heart of man a
+principle of action, and in his intellect a principle 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 labour and exchange to
+be extinguished in misery.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>It is only needful to open, almost at random, a book on philosophy,
+polities, 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, organisation,
+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.</p>
+
+<p>We will give a quotation from Bossuet:--</p>
+
+<p>     "One of the things which was the most strongly impressed (by whom?)
+     upon the mind of the Egyptians, was the love of their country....
+     <i>Nobody was allowed</i> 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 <i>was obliged</i> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>It is the same with the Persians:--</p>
+
+<p>     "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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>     "The Greeks, naturally full of spirit and courage, <i>had been early
+     cultivated</i> by kings and colonies who had come from Egypt. From
+     them they had learned the exercises of the body, <i>foot races</i>, 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."</p>
+
+<p><i>Fenelon</i>.--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 which is exercised upon it by the <i>law</i>, 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 organisation,
+of all progress; on him, therefore, rests all the responsibility.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>With the astonishing credulity which characterizes the classics,
+Fenelon, 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:--</p>
+
+<p>     "We could not turn our eyes to the two shores, without perceiving
+     rich towns and country seats, agreeably situated; fields which were
+     covered every year, without intermission, with golden crops;
+     meadows full of flocks; labourers bending under the weight of
+     fruits which 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 which is governed
+     by a wise king.'.... Mentor afterwards desired me to remark the
+     happiness and abundance which 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 favour of the poor <i>against</i> the rich; the good
+     education of the children, who were accustomed to obedience,
+     labour, and the love of arts and letters; the exactness with which
+     all the ceremonies of religion were performed; the
+     disinterestedness, the desire of honour, 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. '<i>Happy</i>,' said he, '<i>is the people whom a wise king
+     rules in such a manner</i>.'"</p>
+
+<p>Fenelon's idyl on Crete is still more fascinating. Mentor is made to
+say:--</p>
+
+<p>     "All that you will see in this wonderful island is the result of
+     the laws of Minos. The education which 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 <i>they</i> punish three
+     vices which 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>It is thus that 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.</p>
+
+<p>     <i>Montesquieu</i>.--"To sustain the spirit of commerce, it is necessary
+     that all the laws should favour it; that these same laws, by their
+     regulations in dividing the fortunes in proportion as commerce
+     enlarges them, should place every poor citizen in sufficiently easy
+     circumstances to enable him to work like the others, and every rich
+     citizen in such mediocrity that he must work, in order to retain or
+     to acquire."</p>
+
+<p>Thus the laws are to dispose of all fortunes.</p>
+
+<p>     "Although, in a democracy, real equality be the soul of the State,
+     yet it is so difficult to establish, that an extreme exactness in
+     this matter would not always be desirable. It is sufficient that a
+     census be established to reduce or fix the differences to a certain
+     point. After which, it is for particular laws to equalise, as it
+     were, the inequality, by burdens imposed upon the rich, and reliefs
+     granted to the poor."</p>
+
+<p>Here, again, we see the equalisation of fortunes by law, that is, by
+force.</p>
+
+<p>     "There were, in Greece, two kinds of republics. One was military,
+     as Laced&aelig;mon; the other commercial, as Athens. In the one it was
+     wished (by whom?) that the citizens should be idle: in the other,
+     the love of labour was encouraged.</p>
+
+<p>     "It is worth our while to pay a little attention to the extent of
+     genius required by these legislators, that we may see how, by
+     confounding all the virtues, they showed their wisdom to the world.
+     Lycurgus, blending theft with the spirit of justice, the hardest
+     slavery with extreme liberty, the most atrocious sentiments with
+     the greatest moderation, gave stability to his city. He seemed to
+     deprive it of all its resources, arts, commerce, money, and walls;
+     there Was ambition without the hope of rising; there were natural
+     sentiments where the individual was neither child, nor husband,
+     nor father. Chastity even was deprived of modesty. <i>By this road
+     Sparta was led on to grandeur and to glory</i>.</p>
+
+<p>     "The phenomenon which we observe in the institutions of Greece has
+     been seen in the midst of the <i>degeneracy and corruption of our
+     modern times</i>. An honest legislator has formed a people where
+     probity has appeared as natural as bravery among the Spartans. Mr.
+     Penn is a true Lycurgus, and although the former had peace for his
+     object, and the latter war, they resemble each other in the
+     singular path along which they have led <i>their</i> people, in their
+     influence over free men, in the prejudices which they have
+     overcome, the passions they have subdued.</p>
+
+<p>     "Paraguay furnishes us with another example. <i>Society</i> has been
+     accused of the crime of regarding the pleasure of commanding as the
+     only good of life; but it will always be a noble thing to govern
+     men by making them happy.</p>
+
+<p>     "<i>Those who desire to form similar institutions</i>, will establish
+     community of property, as in the republic of Plato, the same
+     reverence which he enjoined for the gods, separation from strangers
+     for the preservation of morality, and make the city and not the
+     citizens create commerce: they should give our arts without our
+     luxury, our wants without our desires."</p>
+
+<p>Vulgar infatuation may exclaim, if it likes:--"It is Montesquieu!
+magnificent! sublime!" I am not afraid to express my opinion, and to
+say:--"What! you have the face to call that fine? It is frightful! it is
+abominable! and these extracts, which I might multiply, show that,
+according to Montesquieu, the persons, the liberties, the property,
+mankind itself, are nothing but materials to exercise the sagacity of
+lawgivers."</p>
+
+<p><i>Rousseau</i>.--Although this politician, the paramount authority of the
+Democrats, makes the social edifice rest upon the <i>general will</i>, no one
+has so completely admitted the hypothesis of the entire passiveness of
+human nature in the presence of the lawgiver:--</p>
+
+<p>     "If it is true that a great prince is a rare thing, how much more
+     so must a great lawgiver be? The former has only to follow the
+     pattern proposed to him by the latter. <i>This latter is the
+     mechanician who invents the machine</i>; the former is merely the
+     workman who sets it in motion."</p>
+
+<p>And what part have men to act in all this? That of the machine, which is
+set in motion; or rather, are they not the brute matter of which the
+machine is made? Thus, between the legislator and the prince, between
+the prince and his subjects, there are the same relations as those which
+exist between the agricultural writer and the agriculturist, the
+agriculturist and the clod. At what a vast height, then, is the
+politician placed, who rules over legislators themselves, and teaches
+them their trade in such imperative terms as the following:--</p>
+
+<p>     "Would you give consistency to the State? Bring the extremes
+     together as much as possible. Suffer neither wealthy persons nor
+     beggars.</p>
+
+<p>     "If the soil is poor and barren, or the country too much confined
+     for the inhabitants, turn to industry and the arts, whose
+     productions you will exchange for the provisions which you
+     require.... On a good soil, if <i>you are short</i> of inhabitants, give
+     all your attention to agriculture, which multiplies men, and
+     <i>banish</i> the arts, which only serve to depopulate the country....
+     Pay attention to extensive and convenient coasts. <i>Cover the sea</i>
+     with vessels, and you will have a brilliant and short existence. If
+     your seas wash only inaccessible rocks, let the people <i>be
+     barbarous</i>, and eat fish; they will live more quietly, perhaps
+     better, and, most certainly, more happily. In short, besides those
+     maxims which are common to all, every people has its own particular
+     circumstances, which demand a legislation peculiar to itself.</p>
+
+<p>     "It was thus that the Hebrews formerly, and the Arabs more
+     recently, had religion for their principal object; that of the
+     Athenians was literature; that of Carthage and Tyre, commerce; of
+     Rhodes, naval affairs; of Sparta, war; and of Rome, virtue. The
+     author of the 'Spirit of Laws' has shown the art <i>by which the
+     legislator should frame his institutions towards each of these
+     objects</i>.... But if the legislator, mistaking his object, should
+     take up a principle different from that which arises from the
+     nature of things; if one should tend to slavery, and the other to
+     liberty; if one to wealth, and the other to population; one to
+     peace, and the other to conquests; the laws will insensibly become
+     enfeebled, the Constitution will be impaired, and the State will be
+     subject to incessant agitations until it is destroyed, or becomes
+     changed, and invincible Nature regains her empire."</p>
+
+<p>But if Nature is sufficiently invincible to <i>regain</i> its empire, why
+does not Kousseau admit that it had no need of the legislator to <i>gain</i>
+its empire from the beginning? Why does he not allow that, by obeying
+their own impulse, men would, of themselves, apply agriculture to a
+fertile district, and commerce to extensive and commodious coasts,
+without the interference of a Lycurgus, a Solon, or a Rousseau, who
+would undertake it at the risk of <i>deceiving themselves</i>?</p>
+
+<p>Be that as it may, we see with what a terrible responsibility Rousseau
+invests inventors, institutors, conductors, and manipulators of
+societies. He is, therefore, very exacting with regard to them.</p>
+
+<p>     "He who dares to undertake the institutions of a people, ought to
+     feel that he can, as it were, transform every individual, who is by
+     himself a perfect and solitary whole, receiving his life and being
+     from a larger whole of which he forms a part; he must feel that he
+     can change the constitution of man, to fortify it, and substitute a
+     partial and moral existence for the physical and independent one
+     which we have all received from nature. In a word, he must deprive
+     man of his own powers, to give him others which are foreign to
+     him."</p>
+
+<p>Poor human nature! What would become of its dignity if it were
+entrusted to the disciples of Rousseau?</p>
+
+<p>     <i>Raynal</i>.--"The climate, that is, the air and the soil, is the
+     first element for the legislator. <i>His</i> resources prescribe to him
+     his duties. First, he must consult <i>his</i> local position. A
+     population dwelling upon maritime shores must have laws fitted for
+     navigation.... If the colony is located in an inland region, a
+     legislator must provide for the nature of the soil, and for its
+     degree of fertility....</p>
+
+<p>     "It is more especially in the distribution of property that the
+     wisdom of legislation will appear. As a general rule, and in every
+     country, when a new colony is founded, land should be given to each
+     man, sufficient for the support of his family....</p>
+
+<p>     "In an uncultivated island, which <i>you</i> are colonizing with
+     children, it will only be needful to let the germs of truth expand
+     in the developments of reason! But when <i>you</i> establish old people
+     in a new country, the skill consists in <i>only allowing it</i> those
+     injurious opinions and customs which it is impossible to cure and
+     correct. If <i>you</i> wish to prevent them from being perpetuated, you
+     will act upon the rising generation by a general and public
+     education of the children. A prince, or legislator, ought never to
+     found a colony without previously sending wise men there to
+     instruct the youth.... In a new colony, every facility is open to
+     the precautions of the legislator who desires <i>to purify the tone
+     and the manners of the people</i>. If he has genius and virtue, the
+     lands and the men which are <i>at his disposal</i> will inspire his soul
+     with a plan of society which a writer can only vaguely trace, and
+     in a way which would be subject to the instability of all
+     hypotheses, which are varied and complicated by an infinity of
+     circumstances too difficult to foresee and to combine."</p>
+
+<p>One would think it was a professor of agriculture who was saying to his
+pupils--"The climate is the only rule for the agriculturist. <i>His</i>
+resources dictate to him his duties. The first thing he has to consider
+is his local position. If he is on a clayey soil, he must do so and so.
+If he has to contend with sand, this is the way in which he must set
+about it. Every facility is open to the agriculturist who wishes to
+clear and improve his soil. If he only has the skill, the manure which
+he has <i>at his disposal</i> will suggest to him a plan of operation, which
+a professor can only vaguely trace, and in a way that would be subject
+to the uncertainty of all hypotheses, which vary and are complicated by
+an infinity of circumstances too difficult to foresee and to combine."</p>
+
+<p>But, oh! sublime writers, deign to remember sometimes that this clay,
+this sand, this manure, of which you are disposing in so arbitrary a
+manner, are men, your equals, intelligent and free beings like
+yourselves, who have received from God, as you have, the faculty of
+seeing, of foreseeing, of thinking, and of judging for themselves!</p>
+
+<p><i>Mably</i>. (He is supposing the laws to be worn out by time and by the
+neglect of security, and continues thus):--</p>
+
+<p>     "Under these circumstances, we must be convinced that the springs
+     of Government are relaxed. <i>Give them</i> a new tension (it is the
+     reader who is addressed), and the evil will be remedied.... Think
+     lees of punishing the faults than of encouraging the virtues <i>which
+     you want</i>. By this method you will bestow upon <i>your republic</i> the
+     vigour of youth. Through ignorance of this, a free people has lost
+     its liberty! But if the evil has made so much way that the ordinary
+     magistrates are unable to remedy it effectually, <i>have recourse</i> to
+     an extraordinary magistracy, whose time should be short, and its
+     power considerable. The imagination of the citizens requires to be
+     impressed."</p>
+
+<p>In this style he goes on through twenty volumes.</p>
+
+<p>There was a time when, under the influence of teaching like this, which
+is the root of classical education, every one was for placing himself
+beyond and above mankind, for the sake of arranging, organising, and
+instituting it in his own way.</p>
+
+<p>     <i>Condillac</i>.--"Take upon yourself, my lord, the character of
+     Lycurgus or of Solon. Before you finish reading this essay, amuse
+     yourself with giving laws to some wild people in America or in
+     Africa. Establish these roving men in fixed dwellings; teach them
+     to keep flocks.... Endeavour to develop the social qualities which
+     nature has implanted in them.... Make them begin to practise the
+     duties of humanity.... Cause the pleasures of the passions to
+     become distasteful to them by punishments, and you will see these
+     barbarians, with every plan of your legislation, lose a vice and
+     gain a virtue.</p>
+
+<p>     "All these people have had laws. But few among them have been
+     happy. Why is this? Because legislators have almost always been
+     ignorant of the object of society, which is, to unite families by a
+     common interest.</p>
+
+<p>     "Impartiality in law consists in two things:--in establishing
+     equality in the fortunes and in the dignity of the citizens.... In
+     proportion to the degree of equality established by the laws, the
+     dearer will they become to every citizen.... How can avarice,
+     ambition, dissipation, idleness, sloth, envy, hatred, or jealousy,
+     agitate men who are equal in fortune and dignity, and to whom the
+     laws leave no hope of disturbing their equality?</p>
+
+<p>     "What has been told you of the republic of Sparta ought to
+     enlighten you on this question. No other State has had laws more in
+     accordance with the order of nature or of equality."</p>
+
+<p>It is not to be wondered at that the 17th and 18th centuries should have
+looked upon the human race as inert matter, ready to receive everything,
+form, figure, impulse, movement, and life, from a great prince, or a
+great legislator, or a great genius. These ages were reared in the study
+of antiquity, and antiquity presents everywhere, in Egypt, Persia,
+Greece, and Rome, the spectacle of a few men moulding mankind according
+to their fancy, and mankind to this end enslaved by force or by
+imposture. And what does this prove? That because men and society are
+improvable, error, ignorance, despotism, slavery, and superstition must
+be more prevalent in early times. The mistake of the writers quoted
+above, is not that they have asserted this fact, but that they have
+proposed it, as a rule, for the admiration and imitation of future
+generations. Their mistake has been, with an inconceivable absence of
+discernment, and upon the faith of a puerile conventionalism, that they
+have admitted what is inadmissible, viz., the grandeur, dignity,
+morality, and well-being of the artificial societies of the ancient
+world; they have not understood that time produces and spreads
+enlightenment; and that in proportion to the increase of enlightenment,
+right ceases to be upheld by force, and society regains possession of
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>And, in fact, what is the political work which we are endeavouring to
+promote? It is no other than the instinctive effort of every people
+towards liberty. And what is liberty, whose name can make every heart
+beat, and which can agitate the world, but the union of all liberties,
+the liberty of conscience, of instruction, of association, of the press,
+of locomotion, of labour, and of exchange; in other words, the free
+exercise, for all, of all the inoffensive faculties; and again, in other
+words, the destruction of all despotisms, even of legal despotism, and
+the reduction of law to its only rational sphere, which is to regulate
+the individual right of legitimate defence, or to repress injustice?</p>
+
+<p>This tendency of the human race, it must be admitted, is greatly
+thwarted, particularly in our country, by the fatal disposition,
+resulting from classical teaching, and common to all politicians, of
+placing themselves beyond mankind, to arrange, organise, and regulate
+it, according to their fancy.</p>
+
+<p>For whilst society is struggling to realise liberty, the great men who
+place themselves at its head, imbued with the principles of the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, think only of subjecting it to the
+philanthropic despotism of their social inventions, and making it bear
+with docility, according to the expression of Rousseau, the yoke of
+public felicity, as pictured in their own imaginations.</p>
+
+<p>This was particularly the case in 1789. No sooner was the old system
+destroyed, than society was to be submitted to other artificial
+arrangements, always with the same starting-point--the omnipotence of
+the law.</p>
+
+<p>     <i>Saint Just</i>.--"The legislator commands the future. It is for him
+     to <i>will</i> for the good of mankind. It is for him to make men what
+     he wishes them to be."</p>
+
+<p>     <i>Robespierre</i>.--"The function of Government is to direct the
+     physical and moral powers of the nation towards the object of its
+     institution."</p>
+
+<p>     <i>Billaud Varennes</i>.--"A people who are to be restored to liberty
+     must be formed anew. Ancient prejudices must be destroyed,
+     antiquated customs changed, depraved affections corrected,
+     inveterate vices eradicated. For this, a strong force and a
+     vehement impulse will be necessary.... Citizens, the inflexible
+     austerity of Lycurgus created the firm basis of the Spartan
+     republic. The feeble and trusting disposition of Solon plunged
+     Athens into slavery. This parallel contains the whole science of
+     Government."</p>
+
+<p>     <i>Lepelletier.</i>--"Considering the extent of human degradation, I am
+     convinced of the necessity of effecting an entire regeneration of
+     the race, and, if I may so express myself, of creating a new
+     people."</p>
+
+<p>Men, therefore, are nothing but raw material. It is not for them to
+<i>will their own improvement</i>. They are not capable of it; according to
+Saint Just, it is only the legislator who is. Men are merely to be what
+he <i>wills</i> that they should be. According to Robespierre, who copies
+Rousseau literally, the legislator is to begin by assigning the aim of
+the <i>institutions of the nation</i>. After this, the Government has only to
+direct all its <i>physical</i> and <i>moral forces</i> towards this end. All this
+time the nation itself is to remain perfectly passive; and Billaud
+Varennes would teach us that it ought to have no prejudices, affections,
+nor wants, but such as are authorised by the legislator. He even goes so
+far as to say that the inflexible austerity of a man is the basis of a
+republic.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen that, in cases where the evil is so great that the ordinary
+magistrates are unable to remedy it, Mably recommends a dictatorship, to
+promote virtue. "<i>Have recourse</i>," says he, "to an extraordinary
+magistracy, whose time shall be short, and his power considerable. The
+imagination of the people requires to be impressed." This doctrine has
+not been neglected. Listen to Robespierre:--</p>
+
+<p>     "The principle of the Republican Government is virtue, and the
+     means to be adopted, during its establishment, is terror. We want
+     to substitute, in our country, morality for egotism, probity for
+     honour, principles for customs, duties for decorum, the empire of
+     reason for the tyranny of fashion, contempt of vice for contempt of
+     misfortune, pride for insolence, greatness of soul for vanity,
+     love of glory for love of money, good people for good company,
+     merit for intrigue, genius for wit, truth for glitter, the charm of
+     happiness for the weariness of pleasure, the greatness of man for
+     the littleness of the great, a magnanimous, powerful, happy people,
+     for one that is easy, frivolous, degraded; that is to say, we would
+     substitute all the virtues and miracles of a republic for all the
+     vices and absurdities of monarchy."</p>
+
+<p>At what a vast height above the rest of mankind does Robespierre place
+himself here! And observe the arrogance with which he speaks. He is not
+content with expressing a desire for a great renovation of the human
+heart, he does not even expect such a result from a regular Government.
+No; he intends to effect it himself, and by means of terror. The object
+of the discourse from which this puerile and laborious mass of
+antithesis is extracted, was to exhibit the <i>principles of morality
+which ought to direct a revolutionary Government</i>. Moreover, when
+Robespierre asks for a dictatorship, it is not merely for the purpose of
+repelling a foreign enemy, or of putting down factions; it is that he
+may establish, by means of terror, and as a preliminary to the game of
+the Constitution, his own principles of morality. He pretends to nothing
+short of extirpating from the country, by means of terror, <i>egotism,
+honour, customs, decorum, fashion, vanity, the love of money, good
+company, intrigue, wit, luxury, and misery</i>. It is not until after he,
+Robespierre, shall have accomplished these <i>miracles</i>, as he rightly
+calls them, that he will allow the law to regain her empire. Truly, it
+would be well if these visionaries, who think so much of themselves and
+so little of mankind, who want to renew everything, would only be
+content with trying to reform themselves, the task would be arduous
+enough for them. In general, however, these gentlemen, the reformers,
+legislators, and politicians, do not desire to exercise an immediate
+despotism over mankind. No, they are too moderate and too philanthropic
+for that. They only contend for the despotism, the absolutism, the
+omnipotence of the law. They aspire only to make the law.</p>
+
+<p>To show how universal this strange disposition has been in France, I had
+need not only to have copied the whole of the works of Mably, Raynal,
+Rousseau, Fenelon, and to have made long extracts from Bossuet and
+Montesquieu, but to have given the entire transactions of the sittings
+of the Convention, I shall do no such thing, however, but merely refer
+the reader to them.</p>
+
+<p>It is not to be wondered at that this idea should have suited Buonaparte
+exceedingly well. He embraced it with ardour, and put it in practice
+with energy. Playing the part of a chemist, Europe was to him the
+material for his experiments. But this material reacted against him.
+More than half undeceived, Buonaparte, at St. Helena, seemed to admit
+that there is an initiative in every people, and he became less hostile
+to liberty. Yet this did not prevent him from giving this lesson to his
+son in his will:--"To govern, is to diffuse morality, education, and
+well-being."</p>
+
+<p>After all this, I hardly need show, by fastidious quotations, the
+opinions of Morelly, Babeuf, Owen, Saint Simon, and Fourier. I shall
+confine myself to a few extracts from Louis Blanc's book on the
+organisation of labour.</p>
+
+<p>"In our project, society receives the impulse of power." (Page 126.)</p>
+
+<p>In what does the impulse which power gives to society consist? In
+imposing upon it the <i>project</i> of M. Louis Blanc.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, society is the human race. The human race, then, is
+to receive its impulse from M. Louis Blanc.</p>
+
+<p>It is at liberty to do so or not, it will be said. Of course the human
+race is at liberty to take advice from anybody, whoever it may be. But
+this is not the way in which M. Louis Blanc understands the thing. He
+means that his project should be converted into <i>law</i>, and,
+consequently, forcibly imposed by power.</p>
+
+<p>"In our project, the State has only to give a legislation to labour, by
+means of which the industrial movement may and ought to be accomplished
+<i>in all liberty</i>. It (the State) merely places society on an incline
+(<i>that is all</i>) that it may descend, when once it is placed there, by
+the mere force of things, and by the natural course of the <i>established
+mechanism</i>."</p>
+
+<p>But what is this incline? One indicated by M. Louis Blanc. Does it not
+lead to an abyss? No, it leads to happiness. Why, then, does not society
+go there of itself? Because it does not know what it wants, and it
+requires an impulse. What is to give it this impulse? Power. And who is
+to give the impulse to power? The inventor of the machine, M. Louis
+Blanc.</p>
+
+<p>We shall never get out of this circle--mankind passive, and a great man
+moving it by the intervention of the law.</p>
+
+<p>Once on this incline, will society enjoy something like liberty? Without
+a doubt. And what is liberty?</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>     "Once for all: liberty consists, not only in the right granted, but
+     in the power given to man, to exercise, to develop his faculties
+     under the empire of justice, and under the protection of the law.</p>
+
+<p>     "And this is no vain distinction; there is a deep meaning in it,
+     and its consequences are not to be estimated. For when once it is
+     admitted that man, to be truly free, must have the power to
+     exercise and develop his faculties, it follows that every member of
+     society has a claim upon it for such instruction as shall <i>enable</i>
+     it to display itself, and for the instruments of labour, without
+     which human activity can find no scope. Now, by whose intervention
+     is society to give to each of its members the requisite instruction
+     and the necessary instruments of labour, unless by that of the
+     State?"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Thus, liberty is power. In what does this power consist? In possessing
+instruction and instruments of labour. Who is to give instruction and
+instruments of labour? Society, <i>who owes them</i>. By whose intervention
+is society to give instruments of labour to those who do not possess
+them?</p>
+
+<p>By the <i>intervention of the State</i>. From whom is the State to obtain
+them?</p>
+
+<p>It is for the reader to answer this question, and to notice whither all
+this tends.</p>
+
+<p>One of the strangest phenomena of our time, and one which will probably
+be a matter of astonishment to our descendants, is the doctrine which is
+founded upon this triple hypothesis: the radical passiveness of
+mankind,--the omnipotence of the law,--the infallibility of the
+legislator:--this is the sacred symbol of the party which proclaims
+itself exclusively democratic.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that it professes also to be <i>social</i>.</p>
+
+<p>So far as it is democratic, it, has an unlimited faith in mankind.</p>
+
+<p>So far as it is social, it places it beneath the mud.</p>
+
+<p>Are political rights under discussion? Is a legislator to be chosen? Oh!
+then the people possess science by instinct: they are gifted with an
+admirable tact; <i>their will is always right</i>; the general <i>will cannot
+err</i>. Suffrage cannot be too <i>universal</i>. Nobody is under any
+responsibility to society. The will and the capacity to choose well are
+taken for granted. Can the people be mistaken? Are we not living in an
+age of enlightenment? What! are the people to be always kept in leading
+strings? Have they not acquired their rights at the cost of effort and
+sacrifice? Have they not given sufficient proof of intelligence and
+wisdom? Are they not arrived at maturity? Are they not in a state to
+judge for themselves? Do they not know their own interest? Is there a
+man or a class who would dare to claim the right of putting himself in
+the place of the people, of deciding and of acting for them? No, no; the
+people would be <i>free</i>, and they shall be so. They wish to conduct their
+own affairs, and they shall do so.</p>
+
+<p>But when once the legislator is duly elected, then indeed the style of
+his speech alters. The nation is sent back into passiveness, inertness,
+nothingness, and the legislator takes possession of omnipotence. It is
+for him to invent, for him to direct, for him to impel, for him to
+organise. Mankind has nothing to do but to submit; the hour of despotism
+has struck. And we must observe that this is decisive; for the people,
+just before so enlightened, so moral, so perfect, have no inclinations
+at all, or, if they have any, they all lead them downwards towards
+degradation. And yet they ought to have a little liberty! But are we not
+assured, by M. Considerant, that <i>liberty leads fatally to monopoly</i>?
+Are we not told that liberty is competition? and that competition,
+according to M. Louis Blanc, <i>is a system of extermination for the
+people, and of ruination for trade</i>? For that reason people are
+exterminated and ruined in proportion as they are free--take, for
+example, Switzerland, Holland, England, and the United States? Does not
+M. Louis Blanc tell us again, that <i>competition leads to monopoly, and
+that, for the same reason, cheapness leads to exorbitant prices? That
+competition tends to drain the sources of consumption, and urges
+production to a destructive activity? That competition forces production
+to increase, and consumption to decrease</i>;--whence it follows that free
+people produce for the sake of not consuming; that there is nothing but
+<i>oppression and madness</i> among them; and that it is absolutely necessary
+for M. Louis Blanc to see to it?</p>
+
+<p>What sort of liberty should be allowed to men? Liberty of
+conscience?--But we should see them all profiting by the permission to
+become atheists. Liberty of education?--But parents would be paying
+professors to teach their sons immorality and error; besides, if we are
+to believe M. Thiers, education, if left to the national liberty, would
+cease to be national, and we should be educating our children in the
+ideas of the Turks or Hindoos, instead of which, thanks to the legal
+despotism of the universities, they have the good fortune to be educated
+in the noble ideas of the Romans. Liberty of labour?--But this is only
+competition, whose effect is to leave all productions unconsumed, to
+exterminate the people, and to ruin the tradesmen. The liberty of
+exchange?--But it is well known that the protectionists have shown, over
+and over again, that a man must be ruined when he exchanges freely, and
+that to become rich it is necessary to exchange without liberty. Liberty
+of association?--But, according to the socialist doctrine, liberty and
+association exclude each other, for the liberty of men is attacked just
+to force them to associate.</p>
+
+<p>You must see, then, that the socialist democrats cannot in conscience
+allow men any liberty, because, by their own nature, they tend in every
+instance to all kinds of degradation and demoralisation.</p>
+
+<p>We are therefore left to conjecture, in this case, upon what foundation
+universal suffrage is claimed for them with so much importunity.</p>
+
+<p>The pretensions of organisers suggest another question, which I have
+often asked them, and to which I am not aware that I ever received an
+answer:--Since the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is
+not safe to allow them liberty, how comes it to pass that the tendencies
+of organisers are always good? Do not the legislators and their agents
+form a part of the human race? Do they consider that they are composed
+of different materials from the rest of mankind? They say that society,
+when left to itself, rushes to inevitable destruction, because its
+instincts are perverse. They pretend, to stop it in its downward course,
+and to give it a better direction. They have, therefore, received from
+heaven, intelligence and virtues which place them beyond and above
+mankind: let them show their title to this superiority. They would be
+our shepherds, and we are to be their flock. This arrangement
+presupposes in them a natural superiority, the right to which we are
+fully justified in calling upon them to prove.</p>
+
+<p>You must observe that I am not contending against their right to invent
+social combinations, to propagate them, to recommend them, and to try
+them upon themselves, at their own expense and risk; but I do dispute
+their right to impose them upon us through the medium of the law, that
+is, by force and by public taxes.</p>
+
+<p>I would not insist upon the Cabetists, the Fourierists, the
+Proudhonians, the Universitaries, and the Protectionists renouncing
+their own particular ideas; I would only have them renounce that idea
+which is common to them all,--viz., that of subjecting us by force to
+their own groups and series to their social workshops, to their
+gratuitous bank to their Gr&aelig;co-Romano morality, and to their commercial
+restrictions. I would ask them to allow us the faculty of judging of
+their plans, and not to oblige us to adopt them, if we find that they
+hurt our interests or are repugnant to our consciences.</p>
+
+<p>To presume to have recourse to power and taxation, besides being
+oppressive and unjust, implies further, the injurious supposition that
+the organiser is infallible, and mankind incompetent.</p>
+
+<p>And if mankind is not competent to judge for itself, why do they talk so
+much about universal suffrage?</p>
+
+<p>This contradiction in ideas is unhappily to be found also in facts; and
+whilst the French nation has preceded all others in obtaining its
+rights, or rather its political claims, this has by no means prevented
+it from being more governed, and directed, and imposed upon, and
+fettered, and cheated, than any other nation. It is also the one, of all
+others, where revolutions are constantly to be dreaded, and it is
+perfectly natural that it should be so.</p>
+
+<p>So long as this idea is retained, which is admitted by all our
+politicians, and so energetically expressed by M. Louis Blanc in these
+words--"Society receives its impulse from power;" so long as men
+consider themselves as capable of feeling, yet passive--incapable of
+raising themselves by their own discernment and by their own energy to
+any morality, or well-being, and while they expect everything from the
+law; in a word, while they admit that their relations with the State are
+the same as those of the flock with the shepherd, it is clear that the
+responsibility of power is immense. Fortune and misfortune, wealth and
+destitution, equality and inequality, all proceed from it. It is charged
+with everything, it undertakes everything, it does everything; therefore
+it has to answer for everything. If we are happy, it has a right to
+claim our gratitude; but if we are miserable, it alone must bear the
+blame. Are not our persons and property, in fact, at its disposal? Is
+not the law omnipotent? In creating the universitary monopoly, it has
+engaged to answer the expectations of fathers of families who have been
+deprived of liberty; and if these expectations are disappointed, whose
+fault is it? In regulating industry, it has engaged to make it prosper,
+otherwise it would have been absurd to deprive it of its liberty; and if
+it suffers, whose fault is it? In pretending to adjust the balance of
+commerce by the game of tariffs, it engages to make it prosper; and if,
+so far from prospering, it is destroyed, whose fault is it? In granting
+its protection to maritime armaments in exchange for their liberty, it
+has engaged to render them lucrative; if they become burdensome, whose
+fault is it?</p>
+
+<p>Thus, there is not a grievance in the nation for which the Government
+does not voluntarily make itself responsible. Is it to be wondered at
+that every failure threatens to cause a revolution?</p>
+
+<p>And what is the remedy proposed? To extend indefinitely the dominion of
+the law, <i>i.e.</i>, the responsibility of Government. But if the Government
+engages to raise and to regulate wages, and is not able to do it; if it
+engages to assist all those who are in want, and is not able to do it;
+if it engages to provide an asylum for every labourer, and is not able
+to do it; if it engages to offer to all such as are eager to borrow,
+gratuitous credit, and is not able to do it; if, in words which we
+regret should have escaped the pen of M. de Lamartine, "the State
+considers that its mission is to enlighten, to develop, to enlarge, to
+strengthen, to spiritualize, and to sanctify the soul of the
+people,"--if it fails in this, is it not evident that after every
+disappointment, which, alas! is more than probable, there will be a no
+less inevitable revolution?</p>
+
+<p>I shall now resume the subject by remarking, that immediately after the
+economical part<sup><a href="#fn10">10</a></sup> of the question, and at the entrance of the
+political part, a leading question presents itself? It is the
+following:--</p>
+
+<p>What is law? What ought it to be? What is its domain? What are its
+limits? Where, in fact, does the prerogative of the legislator stop?</p>
+
+<p>I have no hesitation in answering, <i>Law is common force organised to
+prevent injustice</i>;--in short, Law is Justice.</p>
+
+<p>It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons
+and property, since they pre-exist, and his work is only to secure them
+from injury.</p>
+
+<p>It is not true that the mission of the law is to regulate our
+consciences, our ideas, our will, our education, our sentiments, our
+works, our exchanges, our gifts, our enjoyments. Its mission is to
+prevent the rights of one from interfering with those of another, in any
+one of these things.</p>
+
+<p>Law, because it has force for its necessary sanction, can only have as
+its lawful domain the domain of force, which is justice.</p>
+
+<p>And as every individual has a right to have recourse to force only in
+cases of lawful defence, so collective force, which is only the union of
+individual forces, cannot be rationally used for any other end.</p>
+
+<p>The law, then, is solely the organisation of individual rights, which
+existed before legitimate defence.</p>
+
+<p>Law is justice.</p>
+
+<p>So far from being able to oppress the persons of the people, or to
+plunder their property, even for a philanthropic end, its mission is to
+protect the former, and to secure to them the possession of the latter.</p>
+
+<p>It must not be said, either, that it may be philanthropic, so long as it
+abstains from all oppression; for this is a contradiction. The law
+cannot avoid acting upon our persons and property; if it does not secure
+them, it violates them if it touches them.</p>
+
+<p>The law is justice.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing can be more clear and simple, more perfectly defined and
+bounded, or more visible to every eye; for justice is a given quantity,
+immutable and unchangeable, and which admits of neither <i>increase</i> or
+<i>diminution</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Depart from this point, make the law religious, fraternal, equalising,
+industrial, literary, or artistic, and you will be lost in vagueness and
+uncertainty; you will be upon unknown ground, in a forced Utopia, or,
+which is worse, in the midst of a multitude of Utopias, striving to gain
+possession of the law, and to impose it upon you; for fraternity and
+philanthropy have no fixed limits, like justice. Where will you stop?
+Where is the law to stop? One person, as M. de Saint Cricq, will only
+extend his philanthropy to some of the industrial classes, and will
+require the law to <i>dispose of the consumers in favour of the
+producers</i>. Another, like M. Considerant, will take up the cause of the
+working classes, and claim for them by means of the law, at a fixed
+rate, <i>clothing, lodging, food, and everything necessary for the support
+of life</i>. A third, as, M. Louis Blanc, will say, and with reason, that
+this would be an incomplete fraternity, and that the law ought to
+provide them with instruments of labour and the means of instruction. A
+fourth will observe that such an arrangement still leaves room for
+inequality, and that the law ought to introduce into the most remote
+hamlets luxury, literature, and the arts. This is the high road to
+communism; in other words, legislation will be--what it now is--the
+battle-field for everybody's dreams and everybody's covetousness.</p>
+
+<p>Law is justice.</p>
+
+<p>In this proposition we represent to ourselves a simple, immovable
+Government. And I defy any one to tell me whence the thought of a
+revolution, an insurrection, or a simple disturbance could arise against
+a public force confined to the repression of injustice. Under such a
+system, there would be more well-being, and this well-being would be
+more equally distributed; and as to the sufferings inseparable from
+humanity, no one would think of accusing the Government of them, for it
+would be as innocent of them as it is of the variations of the
+temperature. Have the people ever been known to rise against the court
+of repeals, or assail the justices of the peace, for the sake of
+claiming the rate of wages, gratuitous credit, instruments of labour,
+the advantages of the tariff, or the social workshop? They know
+perfectly well that these combinations are beyond the jurisdiction of
+the justices of the peace, and they would soon learn that they are not
+within the jurisdiction of the law.</p>
+
+<p>But if the law were to be made upon the principle of fraternity, if it
+were to be proclaimed that from it proceed all benefits and all
+evils--that it is responsible for every individual grievance and for
+every social inequality--then you open the door to an endless succession
+of complaints, irritations, troubles, and revolutions.</p>
+
+<p>Law is justice.</p>
+
+<p>And it would be very strange if it could properly be anything else! Is
+not justice right? Are not rights equal? With what show of right can the
+law interfere to subject me to the social plans of MM. Mimerel, de
+Melun, Thiers, or Louis Blanc, rather than to subject these gentlemen to
+<i>my</i> plans? Is it to be supposed that Nature has not bestowed upon
+<span class="sc">me</span> sufficient imagination to invent a Utopia too? Is it for the
+law to make choice of one amongst so many fancies, and to make use of
+the public force in its service?</p>
+
+<p>Law is justice.</p>
+
+<p>And let it not be said, as it continually is, that the law, in this
+sense, would be atheistic, individual, and heartless, and that it would
+make mankind wear its own image. This is an absurd conclusion, quite
+worthy of the governmental infatuation which sees mankind in the law.</p>
+
+<p>What then? Does it follow that, if we are free, we shall cease to act?
+Does it follow, that if we do not receive an impulse from the law, we
+shall receive no impulse at all? Does it follow, that if the law
+confines itself to securing to us the free exercise of our faculties,
+our faculties will be paralyzed? Does it follow, that if the law does
+not impose upon us forms of religion, modes of association, methods of
+instruction, rules for labour, directions for exchange, and plans for
+charity, we shall plunge eagerly into atheism, isolation, ignorance,
+misery, and egotism? Does it follow, that we shall no longer recognise
+the power and goodness of God; that we shall cease to associate
+together, to help each other, to love and assist our unfortunate
+brethren, to study the secrets of nature, and to aspire after perfection
+in our existence?</p>
+
+<p>Law is justice.</p>
+
+<p>And it is under the law of justice, under the reign of right, under the
+influence of liberty, security, stability, and responsibility, that
+every man will attain to the measure of his worth, to all the dignity of
+his being, and that mankind will accomplish, with order and with
+calmness--slowly, it is true, but with certainty--the progress decreed
+to it.</p>
+
+<p>I believe that my theory is correct; for whatever be the question upon
+which I am arguing, whether it be religious, philosophical, political,
+or economical; whether it affects well-being, morality, equality, right,
+justice, progress, responsibility, property, labour, exchange, capital,
+wages, taxes, population, credit, or Government; at whatever point of
+the scientific horizon I start from, I invariably come to the same
+thing--the solution of the social problem is in liberty.</p>
+
+<p>And have I not experience on my side? Cast your eye over the globe.
+Which are the happiest, the most moral, and the most peaceable nations?
+Those where the law interferes the least with private activity; where
+the Government is the least felt; where individuality has the most
+scope, and public opinion the most influence; where the machinery of the
+administration is the least important and the least complicated; where
+taxation is lightest and least unequal, popular discontent the least
+excited and the least justifiable; where the responsibility of
+individuals and classes is the most active, and where, consequently, if
+morals are not in a perfect state, at any rate they tend incessantly to
+correct themselves; where transactions, meetings, and associations are
+the least fettered; where labour, capital, and production suffer the
+least from artificial displacements; where mankind follows most
+completely its own natural course; where the thought of God prevails the
+most over the inventions of men; those, in short, who realise the most
+nearly this idea--That within the limits of right, all should flow from
+the free, perfectible, and voluntary action of man; nothing be attempted
+by the law or by force, except the administration of universal justice.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot avoid coming to this conclusion--that there are too many great
+men in the world; there are too many legislators, organisers,
+institutors of society, conductors of the people, fathers of nations,
+&amp;c., &amp;c. Too many persons place themselves above mankind, to rule and
+patronize it; too many persons make a trade of attending to it. It will
+be answered:--"You yourself are occupied upon it all this time." Very
+true. But it must be admitted that it is in another sense entirely that
+I am speaking; and if I join the reformers it is solely for the purpose
+of inducing them to relax their hold.</p>
+
+<p>I am not doing as Vaucauson did with his automaton, but as a
+physiologist does with the organisation of the human frame; I would
+study and admire it.</p>
+
+<p>I am acting with regard to it in the spirit which animated a celebrated
+traveller. He found himself in the midst of a savage tribe. A child had
+just been born, and a crowd of soothsayers, magicians, and quacks were
+around it, armed with rings, hooks, and bandages. One said--"This child
+will never smell the perfume of a calumet, unless I stretch his
+nostrils." Another said--"He will be without the sense of hearing,
+unless I draw his ears down to his shoulders." A third said--"He will
+never see the light of the sun, unless I give his eyes an oblique
+direction." A fourth said--"He will never be upright, unless I bend his
+legs." A fifth said--"He will not be able to think, unless I press his
+brain." "Stop!" said the traveller. "Whatever God does, is well done; do
+not pretend to know more than He; and as He has given organs to this
+frail creature, allow those organs to develop themselves, to strengthen
+themselves by exercise, use, experience, and liberty."</p>
+
+<p>God has implanted in mankind, also, all that is necessary to enable it
+to accomplish its destinies. There is a providential social physiology,
+as well as a providential human physiology. The social organs are
+constituted so as to enable them to develop harmoniously in the grand
+air of liberty. Away, then, with quacks and organisers! Away with their
+rings, and their chains, and their hooks, and their pincers! Away with
+their artificial methods! Away with their social workshops, their
+governmental whims, their centralization, their tariffs, their
+universities, their State religions, their gratuitous or monopolising
+banks, their limitations, their restrictions, their moralisations, and
+their equalisation by taxation! And now, after having vainly inflicted
+upon the social body so many systems, let them end where they ought to
+have begun--reject all systems, and make trial of liberty--of liberty,
+which is an act of faith in God and in His work.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="footnotes">
+<h2>Footnotes</h2>
+
+
+
+<p id="fn1"> A franc is 10d. of our money.</p>
+
+<p id="fn2"> This error will be combated in a pamphlet, entitled "<i>Cursed
+Money</i>."</p>
+
+<p id="fn3"> Common people.</p>
+
+<p id="fn4"> The Minister of War has lately asserted that every individual
+transported to Algeria has cost the State 8,000 francs. Now it is
+certain that these poor creatures could have lived very well in France
+on a capital of 4,000 francs. I ask, how the French population is
+relieved, when it is deprived of a man, and of the means of subsistence
+of two men?</p>
+
+<p id="fn5"> This was written in 1849.</p>
+
+<p id="fn6"> Twenty francs.</p>
+
+<p id="fn7"> General Council of Manufactures, Agriculture, and Commerce, 6th. of
+May, 1850.</p>
+
+<p id="fn8"> The French word is <i>spoliation</i>.</p>
+
+<p id="fn9"> If protection were only granted in France to a single class, to the
+engineers, for instance, it would be so absurdly plundering, as to be
+unable to maintain itself. Thus we see all the protected trades combine,
+make common cause, and even recruit themselves in such a way as to
+appear to embrace the mass of the <i>national labour</i>. They feel
+instinctively that plunder is slurred ever by being generalised.</p>
+
+<p id="fn10"> Political economy precedes politics: the former has to discover
+whether human interests are harmonious or antagonistic, a fact which
+must have been decided upon before the latter can determine the
+prerogatives of Government.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Essays on Political Economy, by Frederic Bastiat
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+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/15962.txt b/15962.txt
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+Project Gutenberg's Essays on Political Economy, by Frederic Bastiat
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Essays on Political Economy
+
+Author: Frederic Bastiat
+
+Release Date: May 31, 2005 [EBook #15962]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+[Third (People's) Edition]
+
+Essays on Political Economy.
+
+By the late M. Frederic Bastiat,
+Member of The Institute of France.
+
+New York:
+G. P. Putnams & Sons,
+Fourth Avenue, and Twenty-Third Street.
+1874.
+
+
+
+
+London:
+Printed for Provost and Co.,
+Henrietta Street, W. C.
+
+
+
+
+Contents.
+
+
+
+Capital and Interest.
+  Introduction                                                        1
+  Capital and Interest                                                5
+  The Sack of Corn                                                   19
+  The House                                                          22
+  The Plane                                                          24
+
+That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen.
+  Introduction                                                       49
+  The Broken Window                                                  50
+  The Disbanding of Troops                                           54
+  Taxes                                                              58
+  Theatres, Fine Arts                                                63
+  Public Works                                                       71
+  The Intermediates                                                  74
+  Restrictions                                                       83
+  Machinery                                                          90
+  Credit                                                             97
+  Algeria                                                           102
+  Frugality and Luxury                                              107
+  Work and Profit                                                   116
+
+Government                                                          119
+
+What Is Money?                                                      136
+
+The Law                                                             173
+
+
+
+
+Capital and Interest.
+
+
+
+My object in this treatise is to examine into the real nature of the
+Interest of Capital, for the purpose of proving that it is lawful, and
+explaining why it should be perpetual. This may appear singular, and
+yet, I confess, I am more afraid of being too plain than too obscure. I
+am afraid I may weary the reader by a series of mere truisms. But it is
+no easy matter to avoid this danger, when the facts with which we have
+to deal are known to every one by personal, familiar, and daily
+experience.
+
+But, then, you will say, "What is the use of this treatise? Why explain
+what everybody knows?"
+
+But, although this problem appears at first sight so very simple, there
+is more in it than you might suppose. I shall endeavour to prove this by
+an example. Mondor lends an instrument of labour to-day, which will be
+entirely destroyed in a week, yet the capital will not produce the less
+interest to Mondor or his heirs, through all eternity. Reader, can you
+honestly say that you understand the reason of this?
+
+It would be a waste of time to seek any satisfactory explanation from
+the writings of economists. They have not thrown much light upon the
+reasons of the existence of interest. For this they are not to be
+blamed; for at the time they wrote, its lawfulness was not called in
+question. Now, however, times are altered; the case is different. Men,
+who consider themselves to be in advance of their age, have organised an
+active crusade against capital and interest; it is the productiveness of
+capital which they are attacking; not certain abuses in the
+administration of it, but the principle itself.
+
+A journal has been established to serve as a vehicle for this crusade.
+It is conducted by M. Proudhon, and has, it is said, an immense
+circulation. The first number of this periodical contains the electoral
+manifesto of the _people_. Here we read, "The productiveness of capital,
+which is condemned by Christianity under the name of usury, is the true
+cause of misery, the true principle of destitution, the eternal obstacle
+to the establishment of the Republic."
+
+Another journal, _La Ruche Populaire_, after having said some excellent
+things on labour, adds, "But, above all, labour ought to be free; that
+is, it ought to be organised in such a manner, _that money-lenders and
+patrons, or masters, should not be paid_ for this liberty of labour,
+this right of labour, which is raised to so high a price by the
+traffickers of men." The only thought that I notice here, is that
+expressed by the words in italics, which imply a denial of the right to
+interest. The remainder of the article explains it.
+
+It is thus that the democratic Socialist, Thore expresses himself:--
+
+"The revolution will always have to be recommenced, so long as we occupy
+ourselves with consequences only, without having the logic or the
+courage to attack the principle itself. This principle is capital, false
+property, interest, and usury, which by the old _regime_, is made to
+weigh upon labour.
+
+"Ever since the aristocrats invented the incredible fiction, _that
+capital possesses the power of reproducing itself_, the workers have
+been at the mercy of the idle.
+
+"At the end of a year, will you find an additional crown in a bag of one
+hundred shillings? At the end of fourteen years, will your shillings
+have doubled in your bag?
+
+"Will a work of industry or of skill produce another, at the end of
+fourteen years?
+
+"Let us begin, then, by demolishing this fatal fiction."
+
+I have quoted the above, merely for the sake of establishing the fact,
+that many persons consider the productiveness of capital a false, a
+fatal, and an iniquitous principle. But quotations are superfluous; it
+is well known that the people attribute their sufferings to what they
+call _the trafficking in man by man_. In fact, the phrase, _tyranny of
+capital_, has become proverbial.
+
+I believe there is not a man in the world, who is aware of the whole
+importance of this question:--
+
+"Is the interest of capital natural, just, and lawful, and as useful to
+the payer as to the receiver?"
+
+You answer, No; I answer, Yes. Then we differ entirely; but it is of the
+utmost importance to discover which of us is in the right, otherwise we
+shall incur the danger of making a false solution of the question, a
+matter of opinion. If the error is on my side, however, the evil would
+not be so great. It must be inferred that I know nothing about the true
+interests of the masses, or the march of human progress; and that all my
+arguments are but as so many grains of sand, by which the car of the
+revolution will certainly not be arrested.
+
+But if, on the contrary, MM. Proudhon and Thore are deceiving
+themselves, it follows that they are leading the people astray--that
+they are showing them the evil where it does not exist; and thus giving
+a false direction to their ideas, to their antipathies, to their
+dislikes, and to their attacks. It follows that the misguided people are
+rushing into a horrible and absurd struggle, in which victory would be
+more fatal than defeat; since, according to this supposition, the result
+would be the realisation of universal evils, the destruction of every
+means of emancipation, the consummation of its own misery.
+
+This is just what M. Proudhon has acknowledged, with perfect good
+faith. "The foundation stone," he told me, "of my system is the
+_gratuitousness of credit_. If I am mistaken in this, Socialism is a
+vain dream." I add, it is a dream, in which the people are tearing
+themselves to pieces. Will it, therefore, be a cause for surprise, if,
+when they awake, they find themselves mangled and bleeding? Such a
+danger as this is enough to justify me fully, if, in the course of the
+discussion, I allow myself to be led into some trivialities and some
+prolixity.
+
+
+
+Capital and Interest.
+
+
+I address this treatise to the workmen of Paris, more especially to
+those who have enrolled themselves under the banner of Socialist
+democracy. I proceed to consider these two questions:--
+
+1st. Is it consistent with the nature of things, and with justice, that
+capital should produce interest?
+
+2nd. Is it consistent with the nature of things, and with justice, that
+the interest of capital should be perpetual?
+
+The working men of Paris will certainly acknowledge that a more
+important subject could not be discussed.
+
+Since the world began, it has been allowed, at least in part, that
+capital ought to produce interest. But latterly it has been affirmed,
+that herein lies the very social error which is the cause of pauperism
+and inequality. It is, therefore, very essential to know now on what
+ground we stand.
+
+For if levying interest from capital is a sin, the workers have a right
+to revolt against social order, as it exists. It is in vain to tell them
+that they ought to have recourse to legal and pacific means: it would be
+a hypocritical recommendation. When on the one side there is a strong
+man, poor, and a victim of robbery--on the other, a weak man, but rich,
+and a robber--it is singular enough that we should say to the former,
+with a hope of persuading him, "Wait till your oppressor voluntarily
+renounces oppression, or till it shall cease of itself." This cannot be;
+and those who tell us that capital is by nature unproductive, ought to
+know that they are provoking a terrible and immediate struggle.
+
+If, on the contrary, the interest of capital is natural, lawful,
+consistent with the general good, as favourable to the borrower as to
+the lender, the economists who deny it, the tribunes who traffic in this
+pretended social wound, are leading the workmen into a senseless and
+unjust struggle, which can have no other issue than the misfortune of
+all. In fact, they are arming labour against capital. So much the
+better, if these two powers are really antagonistic; and may the
+struggle soon be ended! But, if they are in harmony, the struggle is the
+greatest evil which can be inflicted on society. You see, then, workmen,
+that there is not a more important question than this:--"Is the interest
+of capital lawful or not?" In the former case, you must immediately
+renounce the struggle to which you are being urged; in the second, you
+must carry it on bravely, and to the end.
+
+Productiveness of capital--perpetuity of interest. These are difficult
+questions. I must endeavour to make myself clear. And for that purpose I
+shall have recourse to example rather than to demonstration; or rather,
+I shall place the demonstration in the example. I begin by acknowledging
+that, at first sight, it may appear strange that capital should pretend
+to a remuneration, and above all, to a perpetual remuneration. You will
+say, "Here are two men. One of them works from morning till night, from
+one year's end to another; and if he consumes all which he has gained,
+even by superior energy, he remains poor. When Christmas comes he is no
+forwarder than he was at the beginning of the year, and has no other
+prospect but to begin again. The other man does nothing, either with his
+hands or his head; or at least, if he makes use of them at all, it is
+only for his own pleasure; it is allowable for him to do nothing, for he
+has an income. He does not work, yet he lives well; he has everything in
+abundance; delicate dishes, sumptuous furniture, elegant equipages; nay,
+he even consumes, daily, things which the workers have been obliged to
+produce by the sweat of their brow, for these things do not make
+themselves; and, as far as he is concerned, he has had no hand in their
+production. It is the workmen who have caused this corn to grow,
+polished this furniture, woven these carpets; it is our wives and
+daughters who have spun, cut out, sewed, and embroidered these stuffs.
+We work, then, for him and for ourselves; for him first, and then for
+ourselves, if there is anything left. But here is something more
+striking still. If the former of these two men, the worker, consumes
+within the year any profit which may have been left him in that year, he
+is always at the point from which he started, and his destiny condemns
+him to move incessantly in a perpetual circle, and a monotony of
+exertion. Labour, then, is rewarded only once. But if the other, the
+'gentleman,' consumes his yearly income in the year, he has, the year
+after, in those which follow, and through all eternity, an income always
+equal, inexhaustible, _perpetual_. Capital, then, is remunerated, not
+only once or twice, but an indefinite number of times! So that, at the
+end of a hundred years, a family which has placed 20,000 francs,[1] at
+five per cent., will have had 100,000 francs; and this will not prevent
+it from having 100,000 more, in the following century. In other words,
+for 20,000 francs, which represent its labour, it will have levied, in
+two centuries, a tenfold value on the labour of others. In this social
+arrangement, is there not a monstrous evil to be reformed? And this is
+not all. If it should please this family to curtail its enjoyments a
+little--to spend, for example, only 900 francs, instead of 1,000--it
+may, without any labour, without any other trouble beyond that of
+investing 100 francs a year, increase its capital and its income in such
+rapid progression, that it will soon be in a position to consume as much
+as a hundred families of industrious workmen. Does not all this go to
+prove that society itself has in its bosom a hideous cancer, which ought
+to be eradicated at the risk of some temporary suffering?"
+
+These are, it appears to me, the sad and irritating reflections which
+must be excited in your minds by the active and superficial crusade
+which is being carried on against capital and interest. On the other
+hand, there are moments in which, I am convinced, doubts are awakened in
+your minds, and scruples in your conscience. You say to yourselves
+sometimes, "But to assert that capital ought not to produce interest, is
+to say that he who has created instruments of labour, or materials, or
+provisions of any kind, ought to yield them up without compensation. Is
+that just? And then, if it is so, who would lend these instruments,
+these materials, these provisions? who would take care of them? who even
+would create them? Every one would consume his proportion, and the human
+race would never advance a step. Capital would be no longer formed,
+since there would be no interest in forming it. It would become
+exceedingly scarce. A singular step towards gratuitous loans! A singular
+means of improving the condition of borrowers, to make it impossible for
+them to borrow at any price! What would become of labour itself? for
+there will be no money advanced, and not one single kind of labour can
+be mentioned, not even the chase, which can be pursued without money in
+hand. And, as for ourselves, what would become of us? What! we are not
+to be allowed to borrow, in order to work in the prime of life, nor to
+lend, that we may enjoy repose in its decline? The law will rob us of
+the prospect of laying by a little property, because it will prevent us
+from gaining any advantage from it. It will deprive us of all stimulus
+to save at the present time, and of all hope of repose for the future.
+It is useless to exhaust ourselves with fatigue: we must abandon the
+idea of leaving our sons and daughters a little property, since modern
+science renders it useless, for we should become traffickers in men if
+we were to lend it on interest. Alas! the world which these persons
+would open before us, as an imaginary good, is still more dreary and
+desolate than that which they condemn, for hope, at any rate, is not
+banished from the latter." Thus, in all respects, and in every point of
+view, the question is a serious one. Let us hasten to arrive at a
+solution.
+
+Our civil code has a chapter entitled, "On the manner of transmitting
+property." I do not think it gives a very complete nomenclature on this
+point. When a man by his labour has made some useful thing--in other
+words, when he has created a _value_--it can only pass into the hands of
+another by one of the following modes--as a gift, by the right of
+inheritance, by exchange, loan, or theft. One word upon each of these,
+except the last, although it plays a greater part in the world than we
+may think. A gift needs no definition. It is essentially voluntary and
+spontaneous. It depends exclusively upon the giver, and the receiver
+cannot be said to have any right to it. Without a doubt, morality and
+religion make it a duty for men, especially the rich, to deprive
+themselves voluntarily of that which they possess, in favour of their
+less fortunate brethren. But this is an entirely moral obligation. If it
+were to be asserted on principle, admitted in practice, or sanctioned by
+law, that every man has a right to the property of another, the gift
+would have no merit--charity and gratitude would be no longer virtues.
+Besides, such a doctrine would suddenly and universally arrest labour
+and production, as severe cold congeals water and suspends animation;
+for who would work if there was no longer to be any connection between
+labour and the satisfying of our wants? Political economy has not
+treated of gifts. It has hence been concluded that it disowns them, and
+that it is therefore a science devoid of heart. This is a ridiculous
+accusation. That science which treats of the laws resulting from the
+_reciprocity of services_, had no business to inquire into the
+consequences of generosity with respect to him who receives, nor into
+its effects, perhaps still more precious, on him who gives: such
+considerations belong evidently to the science of morals. We must allow
+the sciences to have limits; above all, we must not accuse them of
+denying or undervaluing what they look upon as foreign to their
+department.
+
+The right of inheritance, against which so much has been objected of
+late, is one of the forms of gift, and assuredly the most natural of
+all. That which a man has produced, he may consume, exchange, or give.
+What can be more natural than that he should give it to his children? It
+is this power, more than any other, which inspires him with courage to
+labour and to save. Do you know why the principle of right of
+inheritance is thus called in question? Because it is imagined that the
+property thus transmitted is plundered from the masses. This is a fatal
+error. Political economy demonstrates, in the most peremptory manner,
+that all value produced is a creation which does no harm to any person
+whatever. For that reason it may be consumed, and, still more,
+transmitted, without hurting any one; but I shall not pursue these
+reflections, which do not belong to the subject.
+
+Exchange is the principal department of political economy, because it is
+by far the most frequent method of transmitting property, according to
+the free and voluntary agreements of the laws and effects of which this
+science treats.
+
+Properly speaking, exchange is the reciprocity of services. The parties
+say between themselves, "Give me this, and I will give you that;" or,
+"Do this for me, and I will do that for you." It is well to remark (for
+this will throw a new light on the notion of value) that the second
+form is always implied in the first. When it is said, "Do this for me,
+and I will do that for you," an exchange of service for service is
+proposed. Again, when it is said, "Give me this, and I will give you
+that," it is the same as saying, "I yield to you what I have done, yield
+to me what you have done." The labour is past, instead of present; but
+the exchange is not the less governed by the comparative valuation of
+the two services: so that it is quite correct to say that the principle
+of _value_ is in the services rendered and received on account of the
+productions exchanged, rather than in the productions themselves.
+
+In reality, services are scarcely ever exchanged directly. There is a
+medium, which is termed _money_. Paul has completed a coat, for which he
+wishes to receive a little bread, a little wine, a little oil, a visit
+from a doctor, a ticket for the play, &c. The exchange cannot be
+effected in kind, so what does Paul do? He first exchanges his coat for
+some money, which is called _sale_; then he exchanges this money again
+for the things which he wants, which is called _purchase_; and now,
+only, has the reciprocity of services completed its circuit; now, only,
+the labour and the compensation are balanced in the same individual,--"I
+have done this for society, it has done that for me." In a word, it is
+only now that the exchange is actually accomplished. Thus, nothing can
+be more correct than this observation of J. B. Say:--"Since the
+introduction of money, every exchange is resolved into two elements,
+_sale_ and _purchase_. It is the reunion of these two elements which
+renders the exchange complete."
+
+We must remark, also, that the constant appearance of money in every
+exchange has overturned and misled all our ideas: men have ended in
+thinking that money was true riches, and that to multiply it was to
+multiply services and products. Hence the prohibitory system; hence
+paper money; hence the celebrated aphorism, "What one gains the other
+loses;" and all the errors which have ruined the earth, and embrued it
+with blood.[2] After much research it has been found, that in order to
+make the two services exchanged of equivalent value, and in order to
+render the exchange _equitable_, the best means was to allow it to be
+free. However plausible, at first sight, the intervention of the State
+might be, it was soon perceived that it is always oppressive to one or
+other of the contracting parties. When we look into these subjects, we
+are always compelled to reason upon this maxim, that _equal value_
+results from liberty. We have, in fact, no other means of knowing
+whether, at a given moment, two services are of the same value, but that
+of examining whether they can be readily and freely exchanged. Allow the
+State, which is the same thing as force, to interfere on one side or the
+other, and from that moment all the means of appreciation will be
+complicated and entangled, instead of becoming clear. It ought to be
+the part of the State to prevent, and, above all, to repress artifice
+and fraud; that is, to secure liberty, and not to violate it. I have
+enlarged a little upon exchange, although loan is my principal object:
+my excuse is, that I conceive that there is in a loan an actual
+exchange, an actual service rendered by the lender, and which makes the
+borrower liable to an equivalent service,--two services, whose
+comparative value can only be appreciated, like that of all possible
+services, by freedom. Now, if it is so, the perfect lawfulness of what
+is called house-rent, farm-rent, interest, will be explained and
+justified. Let us consider the case of _loan_.
+
+Suppose two men exchange two services or two objects, whose equal value
+is beyond all dispute. Suppose, for example, Peter says to Paul, "Give
+me ten sixpences, I will give you a five-shilling piece." We cannot
+imagine an equal value more unquestionable. When the bargain is made,
+neither party has any claim upon the other. The exchanged services are
+equal. Thus it follows, that if one of the parties wishes to introduce
+into the bargain an additional clause, advantageous to himself, but
+unfavourable to the other party, he must agree to a second clause, which
+shall re-establish the equilibrium, and the law of justice. It would be
+absurd to deny the justice of a second clause of compensation. This
+granted, we will suppose that Peter, after having said to Paul, "Give me
+ten sixpences, I will give you a crown," adds, "You shall give me the
+ten sixpences _now_, and I will give you the crown-piece _in a year_;"
+it is very evident that this new proposition alters the claims and
+advantages of the bargain; that it alters the proportion of the two
+services. Does it not appear plainly enough, in fact, that Peter asks of
+Paul a new and an additional service; one of a different kind? Is it not
+as if he had said, "Render me the service of allowing me to use for my
+profit, for a year, five shillings which belong to you, and which you
+might have used for yourself?" And what good reason have you to maintain
+that Paul is bound to render this especial service gratuitously; that he
+has no right to demand anything more in consequence of this requisition;
+that the State ought to interfere to force him to submit? Is it not
+incomprehensible that the economist, who preaches such a doctrine to the
+people, can reconcile it with his principle of _the reciprocity of
+services_? Here I have introduced cash; I have been led to do so by a
+desire to place, side by side, two objects of exchange, of a perfect and
+indisputable equality of value. I was anxious to be prepared for
+objections; but, on the other hand, my demonstration would have been
+more striking still, if I had illustrated my principle by an agreement
+for exchanging the services or the productions themselves.
+
+Suppose, for example, a house and a vessel of a value so perfectly equal
+that their proprietors are disposed to exchange them even-handed,
+without excess or abatement. In fact let the bargain be settled by a
+lawyer. At the moment of each taking possession, the shipowner says to
+the citizen, "Very well; the transaction is completed, and nothing can
+prove its perfect equity better than our free and voluntary consent. Our
+conditions thus fixed, I shall propose to you a little practical
+modification. You shall let me have your house to-day, but I shall not
+put you in possession of my ship for a year; and the reason I make this
+demand of you is, that, during this year of _delay_, I wish to use the
+vessel." That we may not be embarrassed by considerations relative to
+the deterioration of the thing lent, I will suppose the shipowner to
+add, "I will engage, at the end of the year, to hand over to you the
+vessel in the state in which it is to-day." I ask of every candid man, I
+ask of M. Proudhon himself, if the citizen has not a right to answer,
+"The new clause which you propose entirely alters the proportion or the
+equal value of the exchanged services. By it, I shall be deprived, for
+the space of a year, both at once of my house and of your vessel. By it,
+you will make use of both. If, in the absence of this clause, the
+bargain was just, for the same reason the clause is injurious to me. It
+stipulates for a loss to me, and a gain to you. You are requiring of me
+a new service; I have a right to refuse, or to require of you, as a
+compensation, an equivalent service." If the parties are agreed upon
+this compensation, the principle of which is incontestable, we can
+easily distinguish two transactions in one, two exchanges of service in
+one. First, there is the exchange of the house for the vessel; after
+this, there is the delay granted by one of the parties, and the
+compensation correspondent to this delay yielded by the other. These two
+new services take the generic and abstract names of _credit_ and
+_interest_. But names do not change the nature of things; and I defy any
+one to dare to maintain that there exists here, when all is done, a
+service for a service, or a reciprocity of services. To say that one of
+these services does not challenge the other, to say that the first ought
+to be rendered gratuitously, without injustice, is to say that injustice
+consists in the reciprocity of services,--that justice consists in one
+of the parties giving and not receiving, which is a contradiction in
+terms.
+
+To give an idea of interest and its mechanism, allow me to make use of
+two or three anecdotes. But, first, I must say a few words upon capital.
+
+There are some persons who imagine that capital is money, and this is
+precisely the reason why they deny its productiveness; for, as M. Thore
+says, crowns are not endowed with the power of reproducing themselves.
+But it is not true that capital and money are the same thing. Before the
+discovery of the precious metals, there were capitalists in the world;
+and I venture to say that at that time, as now, everybody was a
+capitalist, to a certain extent.
+
+What is capital, then? It is composed of three things:--
+
+1st. Of the materials upon which men operate, when these materials have
+already a value communicated by some human effort, which has bestowed
+upon them the principle of remuneration--wool, flax, leather, silk,
+wood, &c.
+
+2nd. Instruments which are used for working--tools, machines, ships,
+carriages, &c.
+
+3rd. Provisions which are consumed during labour--victuals, stuffs,
+houses, &c.
+
+Without these things the labour of man would be unproductive and almost
+void; yet these very things have required much work, especially at
+first. This is the reason that so much value has been attached to the
+possession of them, and also that it is perfectly lawful to exchange and
+to sell them, to make a profit of them if used, to gain remuneration
+from them if lent.
+
+Now for my anecdotes.
+
+
+
+The Sack of Corn.
+
+
+Mathurin, in other respects as poor as Job, and obliged to earn his
+bread by day-labour, became nevertheless, by some inheritance, the owner
+of a fine piece of uncultivated land. He was exceedingly anxious to
+cultivate it. "Alas!" said he, "to make ditches, to raise fences, to
+break the soil, to clear away the brambles and stones, to plough it, to
+sow it, might bring me a living in a year or two; but certainly not
+to-day, or to-morrow. It is impossible to set about farming it, without
+previously saving some provisions for my subsistence until the harvest;
+and I know, by experience, that preparatory labour is indispensable, in
+order to render present labour productive." The good Mathurin was not
+content with making these reflections. He resolved to work by the day,
+and to save something from his wages to buy a spade and a sack of corn;
+without which things, he must give up his fine agricultural projects. He
+acted so well, was so active and steady, that he soon saw himself in
+possession of the wished-for sack of corn. "I shall take it to the
+mill," said he, "and then I shall have enough to live upon till my field
+is covered with a rich harvest." Just as he was starting, Jerome came to
+borrow his treasure of him. "If you will lend me this sack of corn,"
+said Jerome, "you will do me a great service; for I have some very
+lucrative work in view, which I cannot possibly undertake, for want of
+provisions to live upon until it is finished." "I was in the same case,"
+answered Mathurin, "and if I have now secured bread for several months,
+it is at the expense of my arms and my stomach. Upon what principle of
+justice can it be devoted to the realisation of _your_ enterprise
+instead of _mine?_"
+
+You may well believe that the bargain was a long one. However, it was
+finished at length, and on these conditions:--
+
+First--Jerome promised to give back, at the end of the year, a sack of
+corn of the same quality, and of the same weight, without missing a
+single grain. "This first clause is perfectly just," said he, "for
+without it Mathurin would _give_, and not _lend_."
+
+Secondly--He engaged to deliver _five litres_ on _every hectolitre_.
+"This clause is no less just than the other," thought he; "for without
+it Mathurin would do me a service without compensation; he would inflict
+upon himself a privation--he would renounce his cherished enterprise--he
+would enable me to accomplish mine--he would cause me to enjoy for a
+year the fruits of his savings, and all this gratuitously. Since he
+delays the cultivation of his land, since he enables me to realise a
+lucrative labour, it is quite natural that I should let him partake, in
+a certain proportion, of the profits which I shall gain by the sacrifice
+he makes of his own."
+
+On his side, Mathurin, who was something of a scholar, made this
+calculation:--"Since, by virtue of the first clause, the sack of corn
+will return to me at the end of a year," he said to himself, "I shall be
+able to lend it again; it will return to me at the end of the second
+year; I may lend it again, and so on, to all eternity. However, I cannot
+deny that it will have been eaten long ago. It is singular that I should
+be perpetually the owner of a sack of corn, although the one I have lent
+has been consumed for ever. But this is explained thus:--It will be
+consumed in the service of Jerome. It will put it into the power of
+Jerome to produce a superior value; and, consequently, Jerome will be
+able to restore me a sack of corn, or the value of it, without having
+suffered the slightest injury: but quite the contrary. And as regards
+myself, this value ought to be my property, as long as I do not consume
+it myself. If I had used it to clear my land, I should have received it
+again in the form of a fine harvest. Instead of that, I lend it, and
+shall recover it in the form of repayment.
+
+"From the second clause, I gain another piece of information. At the end
+of the year I shall be in possession of five litres of corn over the one
+hundred that I have just lent. If, then, I were to continue to work by
+the day, and to save part of my wages, as I have been doing, in the
+course of time I should be able to lend two sacks of corn; then three;
+then four; and when I should have gained a sufficient number to enable
+me to live on these additions of five litres over and above each, I
+shall be at liberty to take a little repose in my old age. But how is
+this? In this case, shall I not be living at the expense of others? No,
+certainly, for it has been proved that in lending I perform a service; I
+complete the labour of my borrowers, and only deduct a trifling part of
+the excess of production, due to my lendings and savings. It is a
+marvellous thing that a man may thus realise a leisure which injures no
+one, and for which he cannot be envied without injustice."
+
+
+
+The House.
+
+
+Mondor had a house. In building it, he had extorted nothing from any one
+whatever. He owed it to his own personal labour, or, which is the same
+thing, to labour justly rewarded. His first care was to make a bargain
+with an architect, in virtue of which, by means of a hundred crowns a
+year, the latter engaged to keep the house in constant good repair.
+Mondor was already congratulating himself on the happy days which he
+hoped to spend in this retreat, declared sacred by our Constitution. But
+Valerius wished to make it his residence.
+
+"How can you think of such a thing?" said Mondor to Valerius. "It is I
+who have built it; it has cost me ten years of painful labour, and now
+you would enjoy it!" They agreed to refer the matter to judges. They
+chose no profound economists,--there were none such in the country. But
+they found some just and sensible men; it all comes to the same thing;
+political economy, justice, good sense, are all the same thing. Now here
+is the decision made by the judges:--If Valerius wishes to occupy
+Mondor's house for a year, he is bound to submit to three conditions.
+The first is to quit at the end of the year, and to restore the house in
+good repair, saving the inevitable decay resulting from mere duration.
+The second, to refund to Mondor the 300 francs which the latter pays
+annually to the architect to repair the injuries of time; for these
+injuries taking place whilst the house is in the service of Valerius, it
+is perfectly just that he should bear the consequences. The third, that
+he should render to Mondor a service equivalent to that which he
+receives. As to this equivalence of services, it must be freely
+discussed between Mondor and Valerius.
+
+
+
+The Plane.
+
+
+A very long time ago there lived, in a poor village, a joiner, who was a
+philosopher, as all my heroes are in their way. James worked from
+morning till night with his two strong arms, but his brain was not idle
+for all that. He was fond of reviewing his actions, their causes, and
+their effects. He sometimes said to himself, "With my hatchet, my saw,
+and my hammer, I can make only coarse furniture, and can only get the
+pay for such. If I only had a _plane_, I should please my customers
+more, and they would pay me more. It is quite just; I can only expect
+services proportioned to those which I render myself. Yes! I am
+resolved, I will make myself a _plane_."
+
+However, just as he was setting to work, James reflected further:--"I
+work for my customers 300 days in the year. If I give ten to making my
+plane, supposing it lasts me a year, only 290 days will remain for me to
+make my furniture. Now, in order that I be not the loser in this matter,
+I must gain henceforth, with the help of the plane, as much in 290 days,
+as I now do in 300. I must even gain more; for unless I do so, it would
+not be worth my while to venture upon any innovations." James began to
+calculate. He satisfied himself that he should sell his finished
+furniture at a price which would amply compensate for the ten days
+devoted to the plane; and when no doubt remained on this point, he set
+to work. I beg the reader to remark, that the power which exists in the
+tool to increase the productiveness of labour, is the basis of the
+solution which follows.
+
+At the end of ten days, James had in his possession an admirable plane,
+which he valued all the more for having made it himself. He danced for
+joy,--for, like the girl with her basket of eggs, he reckoned all the
+profits which he expected to derive from the ingenious instrument; but,
+more fortunate than she, he was not reduced to the necessity of saying
+good-bye to calf, cow, pig, and eggs, together. He was building his fine
+castles in the air, when he was interrupted by his acquaintance William,
+a joiner in the neighbouring village. William having admired the plane,
+was struck with the advantages which might be gained from it. He said to
+James:--
+
+W. You must do me a service.
+
+J. What service?
+
+W. Lend me the plane for a year.
+
+As might be expected, James at this proposal did not fail to cry out,
+"How can you think of such a thing, William? Well, if I do you this
+service, what will you do for me in return?"
+
+W. Nothing. Don't you know that a loan ought to be gratuitous? Don't
+you know that capital is naturally unproductive? Don't you know
+fraternity has been proclaimed. If you only do me a service for the
+sake of receiving one from me in return, what merit would you have?
+
+J. William, my friend, fraternity does not mean that all the
+sacrifices are to be on one side; if so, I do not see why they should
+not be on yours. Whether a loan should be gratuitous I don't know; but I
+do know that if I were to lend you my plane for a year it would be
+giving it you. To tell you the truth, that was not what I made it for.
+
+W. Well, we will say nothing about the modern maxims discovered by the
+Socialist gentlemen. I ask you to do me a service; what service do you
+ask me in return?
+
+J. First, then, in a year, the plane will be done for, it will be good
+for nothing. It is only just, that you should let me have another
+exactly like it; or that you should give me money enough to get it
+repaired; or that you should supply me the ten days which I must devote
+to replacing it.
+
+W. This is perfectly just. I submit to these conditions. I engage to
+return it, or to let you have one like it, or the value of the same. I
+think you must be satisfied with this, and can require nothing further.
+
+J. I think otherwise. I made the plane for myself, and not for you. I
+expected to gain some advantage from it, by my work being better
+finished and better paid, by an improvement in my condition. What reason
+is there that I should make the plane, and you should gain the profit? I
+might as well ask you to give me your saw and hatchet! What a
+confusion! Is it not natural that each should keep what he has made with
+his own hands, as well as his hands themselves? To use without
+recompense the hands of another, I call slavery; to use without
+recompense the plane of another, can this be called fraternity?
+
+W. But, then, I have agreed to return it to you at the end of a year,
+as well polished and as sharp as it is now.
+
+J. We have nothing to do with next year; we are speaking of this year.
+I have made the plane for the sake of improving my work and condition;
+if you merely return it to me in a year, it is you who will gain the
+profit of it during the whole of that time. I am not bound to do you
+such a service without receiving anything from you in return: therefore,
+if you wish for my plane, independently of the entire restoration
+already bargained for, you must do me a service which we will now
+discuss; you must grant me remuneration.
+
+And this was done thus:--William granted a remuneration calculated in
+such a way that, at the end of the year, James received his plane quite
+new, and in addition, a compensation, consisting of a new plank, for the
+advantages of which he had deprived himself, and which he had yielded to
+his friend.
+
+It was impossible for any one acquainted with the transaction to
+discover the slightest trace in it of oppression or injustice.
+
+The singular part of it is, that, at the end of the year, the plane came
+into James's possession, and he lent it again; recovered it, and lent
+it a third and fourth time. It has passed into the hands of his son, who
+still lends it. Poor plane! how many times has it changed, sometimes its
+blade, sometimes its handle. It is no longer the same plane, but it has
+always the same value, at least for James's posterity. Workmen! let us
+examine into these little stories.
+
+I maintain, first of all, that the _sack of corn_ and the _plane_ are
+here the type, the model, a faithful representation, the symbol of all
+capital; as the five litres of corn and the plank are the type, the
+model, the representation, the symbol of all interest. This granted, the
+following are, it seems to me, a series of consequences, the justice of
+which it is impossible to dispute.
+
+1st. If the yielding of a plank by the borrower to the lender is a
+natural, equitable, lawful remuneration, the just price of a real
+service, we may conclude that, as a general rule, it is in the nature of
+capital to produce interest. When this capital, as in the foregoing
+examples, takes the form of an _instrument of labour_, it is clear
+enough that it ought to bring an advantage to its possessor, to him who
+has devoted to it his time, his brains, and his strength. Otherwise, why
+should he have made it? No necessity of life can be immediately
+satisfied with instruments of labour; no one eats planes or drinks saws,
+except, indeed, he be a conjuror. If a man determines to spend his time
+in the production of such things, he must have been led to it by the
+consideration of the power which these instruments add to his power; of
+the time which they save him; of the perfection and rapidity which they
+give to his labour; in a word, of the advantages which they procure for
+him. Now, these advantages, which have been prepared by labour, by the
+sacrifice of time which might have been used in a more immediate manner,
+are we bound, as soon as they are ready to be enjoyed, to confer them
+gratuitously upon another? Would it be an advance in social order, if
+the law decided thus, and citizens should pay officials for causing such
+a law to be executed by force? I venture to say, that there is not one
+amongst you who would support it. It would be to legalize, to organize,
+to systematize injustice itself, for it would be proclaiming that there
+are men born to render, and others born to receive, gratuitous services.
+Granted, then, that interest is just, natural, and lawful.
+
+2nd. A second consequence, not less remarkable than the former, and, if
+possible, still more conclusive, to which I call your attention, is
+this:--_Interest is not injurious to the borrower_. I mean to say, the
+obligation in which the borrower finds himself, to pay a remuneration
+for the use of capital, cannot do any harm to his condition. Observe, in
+fact, that James and William are perfectly free, as regards the
+transaction to which the plane gave occasion. The transaction cannot be
+accomplished without the consent of the one as well as of the other. The
+worst which can happen is, that James may be too exacting; and in this
+case, William, refusing the loan, remains as he was before. By the fact
+of his agreeing to borrow, he proves that he considers it an advantage
+to himself; he proves, that after every calculation, including the
+remuneration, whatever it may be, required of him, he still finds it
+more profitable to borrow than not to borrow. He only determines to do
+so because he has compared the inconveniences with the advantages. He
+has calculated that the day on which he returns the plane, accompanied
+by the remuneration agreed upon, he will have effected more work, with
+the same labour, thanks to this tool. A profit will remain to him,
+otherwise he would not have borrowed. The two services of which we are
+speaking are exchanged according to the law which governs all exchanges,
+the law of supply and demand. The claims of James have a natural and
+impassable limit. This is the point in which the remuneration demanded
+by him would absorb all the advantage which William might find in making
+use of a plane. In this case, the borrowing would not take place.
+William would be bound either to make a plane for himself, or to do
+without one, which would leave him in his original condition. He
+borrows, because he gains by borrowing. I know very well what will be
+told me. You will say, William may be deceived, or, perhaps, he may be
+governed by necessity, and be obliged to submit to a harsh law.
+
+It may be so. As to errors in calculation, they belong to the infirmity
+of our nature, and to argue from this against the transaction in
+question, is objecting the possibility of loss in all imaginable
+transactions, in every human act. Error is an accidental fact, which is
+incessantly remedied by experience. In short, everybody must guard
+against it. As far as those hard necessities are concerned, which force
+persons to burdensome borrowings, it is clear that these necessities
+exist previously to the borrowing. If William is in a situation in which
+he cannot possibly do without a plane, and must borrow one at any price,
+does this situation result from James having taken the trouble to make
+the tool? Does it not exist independently of this circumstance? However
+harsh, however severe James may be, he will never render the supposed
+condition of William worse than it is. Morally, it is true, the lender
+will be to blame; but, in an economical point of view, the loan itself
+can never be considered responsible for previous necessities, which it
+has not created, and which it relieves to a certain extent.
+
+But this proves something to which I shall return. The evident interests
+of William, representing here the borrowers, there are many Jameses and
+planes, in other words, lenders and capitals. It is very evident, that
+if William can say to James,--"Your demands are exorbitant; there is no
+lack of planes in the world;" he will be in a better situation than if
+James's plane was the only one to be borrowed. Assuredly, there is no
+maxim more true than this--service for service. But left us not forget
+that no service has a fixed and absolute value, compared with others.
+The contracting parties are free. Each carries his requisitions to the
+farthest possible point, and the most favourable circumstance for these
+requisitions is the absence of rivalship. Hence it follows, that if
+there is a class of men more interested than any other in the formation,
+multiplication, and abundance of capitals, it is mainly that of the
+borrowers. Now, since capitals can only be formed and increased by the
+stimulus and the prospect of remuneration, let this class understand the
+injury they are inflicting on themselves when they deny the lawfulness
+of interest, when they proclaim that credit should be gratuitous, when
+they declaim against the pretended tyranny of capital, when they
+discourage saving, thus forcing capitals to become scarce, and
+consequently interests to rise.
+
+3rd. The anecdote I have just related enables you to explain this
+apparently singular phenomenon, which is termed the duration or
+perpetuity of interest. Since, in lending his plane, James has been
+able, very lawfully, to make it a condition that it should be returned
+to him, at the end of a year, in the same state in which it was when he
+lent it, is it not evident that he may, at the expiration of the term,
+lend it again on the same conditions? If he resolves upon the latter
+plan, the plane will return to him at the end of every year, and that
+without end. James will then be in a condition to lend it without end;
+that is, he may derive from it a perpetual interest. It will be said,
+that the plane will be worn out. That is true; but it will be worn out
+by the hand and for the profit of the borrower. The latter has taken
+into account this gradual wear, and taken upon himself, as he ought, the
+consequences. He has reckoned that he shall derive from this tool an
+advantage, which will allow him to restore it in its original condition,
+after having realised a profit from it. As long as James does not use
+this capital himself, or for his own advantage--as long as he renounces
+the advantages which allow it to be restored to its original
+condition--he will have an incontestable right to have it restored, and
+that independently of interest.
+
+Observe, besides, that if, as I believe I have shown, James, far from
+doing any harm to William, has done him a _service_ in lending him his
+plane for a year; for the same reason, he will do no harm to a second, a
+third, a fourth borrower, in the subsequent periods. Hence you may
+understand that the interest of a capital is as natural, as lawful, as
+useful, in the thousandth year, as in the first. We may go still
+further. It may happen that James lends more than a single plane. It is
+possible, that by means of working, of saving, of privations, of order,
+of activity, he may come to lend a multitude of planes and saws; that is
+to say, to do a multitude of services. I insist upon this point,--that
+if the first loan has been a social good, it will be the same with all
+the others; for they are all similar, and based upon the same
+principle. It may happen, then, that the amount of all the remunerations
+received by our honest operative, in exchange for services rendered by
+him, may suffice to maintain him. In this case, there will be a man in
+the world who has a right to live without working. I do not say that he
+would be doing right to give himself up to idleness--but I say, that he
+has a right to do so; and if he does so, it will be at nobody's expense,
+but quite the contrary. If society at all understands the nature of
+things, it will acknowledge that this man subsists on services which he
+receives certainly (as we all do), but which he lawfully receives in
+exchange for other services, which he himself has rendered, that he
+continues to render, and which are quite real, inasmuch as they are
+freely and voluntarily accepted.
+
+And here we have a glimpse of one of the finest harmonies in the social
+world. I allude to _leisure:_ not that leisure that the warlike and
+tyrannical classes arrange for themselves by the plunder of the workers,
+but that leisure which is the lawful and innocent fruit of past activity
+and economy. In expressing myself thus, I know that I shall shock many
+received ideas. But see! Is not leisure an essential spring in the
+social machine? Without it, the world would never have had a Newton, a
+Pascal, a Fenelon; mankind would have been ignorant of all arts,
+sciences, and of those wonderful inventions prepared originally by
+investigations of mere curiosity; thought would have been inert--man
+would have made no progress. On the other hand, if leisure could only be
+explained by plunder and oppression--if it were a benefit which could
+only be enjoyed unjustly, and at the expense of others, there would be
+no middle path between these two evils; either mankind would be reduced
+to the necessity of stagnating in a vegetable and stationary life, in
+eternal ignorance, from the absence of wheels to its machine--or else it
+would have to acquire these wheels at the price of inevitable injustice,
+and would necessarily present the sad spectacle, in one form or other,
+of the antique classification of human beings into masters and slaves. I
+defy any one to show me, in this case, any other alternative. We should
+be compelled to contemplate the Divine plan which governs society, with
+the regret of thinking that it presents a deplorable chasm. The stimulus
+of progress would be forgotten, or, which is worse, this stimulus would
+be no other than injustice itself. But no! God has not left such a chasm
+in His work of love. We must take care not to disregard His wisdom and
+power; for those whose imperfect meditations cannot explain the
+lawfulness of leisure, are very much like the astronomer who said, at a
+certain point in the heavens there ought to exist a planet which will be
+at last discovered, for without it the celestial world is not harmony,
+but discord.
+
+Well, I say that, if well understood, the history of my humble plane,
+although very modest, is sufficient to raise us to the contemplation of
+one of the most consoling, but least understood of the social
+harmonies.
+
+It is not true that we must choose between the denial or the
+unlawfulness of leisure; thanks to rent and its natural duration,
+leisure may arise from labour and saving. It is a pleasing prospect,
+which every one may have in view; a noble recompense, to which each may
+aspire. It makes its appearance in the world; it distributes itself
+proportionably to the exercise of certain virtues; it opens all the
+avenues to intelligence; it ennobles, it raises the morals; it
+spiritualizes the soul of humanity, not only without laying any weight
+on those of our brethren whose lot in life devotes them to severe
+labour, but relieving them gradually from the heaviest and most
+repugnant part of this labour. It is enough that capitals should be
+formed, accumulated, multiplied; should be lent on conditions less and
+less burdensome; that they should descend, penetrate into every social
+circle, and that by an admirable progression, after having liberated the
+lenders, they should hasten the liberation of the borrowers themselves.
+For that end, the laws and customs ought all to be favourable to
+economy, the source of capital. It is enough to say, that the first of
+all these conditions is, not to alarm, to attack, to deny that which is
+the stimulus of saving and the reason of its existence--interest.
+
+As long as we see nothing passing from hand to hand, in the character of
+loan, but _provisions_, _materials_, _instruments_, things indispensable
+to the productiveness of labour itself, the ideas thus far exhibited
+will not find many opponents. Who knows, even, that I may not be
+reproached for having made a great effort to burst what may be said to
+be an open door. But as soon as _cash_ makes its appearance as the
+subject of the transaction (and it is this which appears almost always),
+immediately a crowd of objections are raised. Money, it will be said,
+will not reproduce it self, like your _sack of corn_; it does not assist
+labour, like your _plane_; it does not afford an immediate satisfaction,
+like your _house_. It is incapable, by its nature, of producing
+interest, of multiplying itself, and the remuneration it demands is a
+positive extortion.
+
+Who cannot see the sophistry of this? Who does not see that cash is only
+a transient form, which men give at the time to other _values_, to real
+objects of usefulness, for the sole object of facilitating their
+arrangements? In the midst of social complications, the man who is in a
+condition to lend, scarcely ever has the exact thing which the borrower
+wants. James, it is true, has a plane; but, perhaps, William wants a
+saw. They cannot negotiate; the transaction favourable to both cannot
+take place, and then what happens? It happens that James first exchanges
+his plane for money; he lends the money to William, and William
+exchanges the money for a saw. The transaction is no longer a simple
+one; it is decomposed into two parts, as I explained above in speaking
+of exchange. But, for all that, it has not changed its nature; it still
+contains all the elements of a direct loan. James has still got rid of a
+tool which was useful to him; William has still received an instrument
+which perfects his work and increases his profits; there is still a
+service rendered by the lender, which entitles him to receive an
+equivalent service from the borrower; this just balance is not the less
+established by free mutual bargaining. The very natural obligation to
+restore at the end of the term the entire _value_, still constitutes the
+principle of the duration of interest.
+
+At the end of a year, says M. Thore, will you find an additional crown
+in a bag of a hundred pounds?
+
+No, certainly, if the borrower puts the bag of one hundred pounds on the
+shelf. In such a case, neither the plane nor the sack of corn would
+reproduce themselves. But it is not for the sake of leaving the money in
+the bag, nor the plane on the hook, that they are borrowed. The plane is
+borrowed to be used, or the money to procure a plane. And if it is
+clearly proved that this tool enables the borrower to obtain profits
+which he would not have made without it, if it is proved that the lender
+has renounced creating for himself this excess of profits, we may
+understand how the stipulation of a part of this excess of profits in
+favour of the lender, is equitable and lawful.
+
+Ignorance of the true part which cash plays in human transactions, is
+the source of the most fatal errors. I intend devoting an entire
+pamphlet to this subject. From what we may infer from the writings of
+M. Proudhon, that which has led him to think that gratuitous credit was
+a logical and definite consequence of social progress, is the
+observation of the phenomenon which shows a decreasing interest, almost
+in direct proportion to the rate of civilisation. In barbarous times it
+is, in fact, cent, per cent., and more. Then it descends to eighty,
+sixty, fifty, forty, twenty, ten, eight, five, four, and three per cent.
+In Holland, it has even been as low as two per cent. Hence it is
+concluded, that "in proportion as society comes to perfection, it will
+descend to zero by the time civilisation is complete. In other words,
+that which characterises social perfection is the gratuitousness of
+credit. When, therefore, we shall have abolished interest, we shall have
+reached the last step of progress." This is mere sophistry, and as such
+false arguing may contribute to render popular the unjust, dangerous,
+and destructive dogma, that credit should be gratuitous, by representing
+it as coincident with social perfection, with the reader's permission I
+will examine in a few words this new view of the question.
+
+What is _interest_? It is the service rendered, after a free bargain, by
+the borrower to the lender, in remuneration for the service he has
+received by the loan. By what law is the rate of these remunerative
+services established? By the general law which regulates the equivalent
+of all services; that is, by the law of supply and demand.
+
+The more easily a thing is procured, the smaller is the service rendered
+by yielding it or lending it. The man who gives me a glass of water in
+the Pyrenees, does not render me so great a service as he who allows me
+one in the desert of Sahara. If there are many planes, sacks of corn, or
+houses, in a country, the use of them is obtained, other things being
+equal, on more favourable conditions than if they were few; for the
+simple reason, that the lender renders in this case a smaller _relative
+service_.
+
+It is not surprising, therefore, that the more abundant capitals are,
+the lower is the interest.
+
+Is this saying that it will ever reach zero? No; because, I repeat it,
+the principle of a remuneration is in the loan. To say that interest
+will be annihilated, is to say that there will never be any motive for
+saving, for denying ourselves, in order to form new capitals, nor even
+to preserve the old ones. In this case, the waste would immediately
+bring a void, and interest would directly reappear.
+
+In that, the nature of the services of which we are speaking does not
+differ from any other. Thanks to industrial progress, a pair of
+stockings, which used to be worth six francs, has successively been
+worth only four, three, and two. No one can say to what point this value
+will descend; but we can affirm that it will never reach zero, unless
+the stockings finish by producing themselves spontaneously. Why? Because
+the principle of remuneration is in labour; because he who works for
+another renders a service, and ought to receive a service. If no one
+paid for stockings, they would cease to be made; and, with the scarcity,
+the price would not fail to reappear.
+
+The sophism which I am now combating has its root in the infinite
+divisibility which belongs to _value_, as it does to matter.
+
+It appears at first paradoxical, but it is well known to all
+mathematicians, that, through all eternity, fractions may be taken from
+a weight without the weight ever being annihilated. It is sufficient
+that each successive fraction be less than the preceding one, in a
+determined and regular proportion.
+
+There are countries where people apply themselves to increasing the size
+of horses, or diminishing in sheep the size of the head. It is
+impossible to say precisely to what point they will arrive in this. No
+one can say that he has seen the largest horse or the smallest sheep's
+head that will ever appear in the world. But he may safely say that the
+size of horses will never attain to infinity, nor the heads of sheep to
+nothing.
+
+In the same way, no one can say to what point the price of stockings nor
+the interest of capitals will come down; but we may safely affirm, when
+we know the nature of things, that neither the one nor the other will
+ever arrive at zero, for labour and capital can no more live without
+recompense than a sheep without a head.
+
+The arguments of M. Proudhon reduce themselves, then, to this:--Since
+the most skilful agriculturists are those who have reduced the heads of
+sheep to the smallest size, we shall have arrived at the highest
+agricultural perfection when sheep have no longer any heads. Therefore,
+in order to realise the perfection, let us behead them.
+
+I have now done with this wearisome discussion. Why is it that the
+breath of false doctrine has made it needful to examine into the
+intimate nature of interest? I must not leave off without remarking upon
+a beautiful moral which may be drawn from this law:--"The depression of
+interest is proportioned to the abundance of capitals." This law being
+granted, if there is a class of men to whom it is more important than to
+any other that capitals be formed, accumulate, multiply, abound, and
+superabound, it is certainly the class which borrows them directly or
+indirectly; it is those men who operate upon _materials_, who gain
+assistance by _instruments_, who live upon _provisions_, produced and
+economised by other men.
+
+Imagine, in a vast and fertile country, a population of a thousand
+inhabitants, destitute of all capital thus defined. It will assuredly
+perish by the pangs of hunger. Let us suppose a case hardly less cruel.
+Let us suppose that ten of these savages are provided with instruments
+and provisions sufficient to work and to live themselves until harvest
+time, as well as to remunerate the services of eighty labourers. The
+inevitable result will be the death of nine hundred human beings. It is
+clear, then, that since 990 men, urged by want, will crowd upon the
+supports which would only maintain a hundred, the ten capitalists will
+be masters of the market. They will obtain labour on the hardest
+conditions, for they will put it up to auction, or the highest bidder.
+And observe this,--if these capitalists entertain such pious sentiments
+as would induce them to impose personal privations on themselves, in
+order to diminish the sufferings of some of their brethren, this
+generosity, which attaches to morality, will be as noble in its
+principle as useful in its effects. But if, duped by that false
+philosophy which persons wish so inconsiderately to mingle with economic
+laws, they take to remunerating labour largely, far from doing good,
+they will do harm. They will give double wages, it may be. But then,
+forty-five men will be better provided for, whilst forty-five others
+will come to augment the number of those who are sinking into the grave.
+Upon this supposition, it is not the lowering of wages which is the
+mischief, it is the scarcity of capital. Low wages are not the cause,
+but the effect of the evil. I may add, that they are to a certain extent
+the remedy. It acts in this way: it distributes the burden of suffering
+as much as it can, and saves as many lives as a limited quantity of
+sustenance permits.
+
+Suppose now, that instead of ten capitalists, there should be a hundred,
+two hundred, five hundred,--is it not evident that the condition of the
+whole population, and, above all, that of the "proletaires,"[3] will be
+more and more improved? Is it not evident that, apart from every
+consideration of generosity, they would obtain more work and better pay
+for it?--that they themselves will be in a better condition, to form
+capitals, without being able to fix the limits to this ever-increasing
+facility of realising equality and well-being? Would it not be madness
+in them to admit such doctrines, and to act in a way which would drain
+the source of wages, and paralyse the activity and stimulus of saving?
+Let them learn this lesson, then; doubtless, capitals are good for those
+who possess them: who denies it? But they are also useful to those who
+have not yet been able to form them; and it is important to those who
+have them not, that others should have them.
+
+Yes, if the "proletaires" knew their true interests, they would seek,
+with the greatest care, what circumstances are, and what are not
+favourable to saving, in order to favour the former and to discourage
+the latter. They would sympathise with every measure which tends to the
+rapid formation of capitals. They would be enthusiastic promoters of
+peace, liberty, order, security, the union of classes and peoples,
+economy, moderation in public expenses, simplicity in the machinery of
+government; for it is under the sway of all these circumstances that
+saving does its work, brings plenty within the reach of the masses,
+invites those persons to become the formers of capital who were formerly
+under the necessity of borrowing upon hard conditions. They would repel
+with energy the warlike spirit, which diverts from its true course so
+large a part of human labour; the monopolising spirit, which deranges
+the equitable distribution of riches, in the way by which liberty alone
+can realise it; the multitude of public services, which attack our
+purses only to check our liberty; and, in short, those subversive,
+hateful, thoughtless doctrines, which alarm capital, prevent its
+formation, oblige it to flee, and finally to raise its price, to the
+especial disadvantage of the workers, who bring it into operation. Well,
+and in this respect is not the revolution of February a hard lesson? Is
+it not evident that the insecurity it has thrown into the world of
+business on the one hand; and, on the other, the advancement of the
+fatal theories to which I have alluded, and which, from the clubs, have
+almost penetrated into the regions of the legislature, have everywhere
+raised the rate of interest? Is it not evident, that from that time the
+"proletaires" have found greater difficulty in procuring those
+materials, instruments, and provisions, without which labour is
+impossible? Is it not that which has caused stoppages; and do not
+stoppages, in their turn, lower wages? Thus there is a deficiency of
+labour to the "proletaires," from the same cause which loads the objects
+they consume with an increase of price, in consequence of the rise of
+interest. High interest, low wages, means in other words that the same
+article preserves its price, but that the part of the capitalist has
+invaded, without profiting himself, that of the workmen.
+
+A friend of mine, commissioned to make inquiry into Parisian industry,
+has assured me that the manufacturers have revealed to him a very
+striking fact, which proves, better than any reasoning can, how much
+insecurity and uncertainty injure the formation of capital. It was
+remarked, that during the most distressing period, the popular expenses
+of mere fancy had not diminished. The small theatres, the fighting
+lists, the public-houses, and tobacco depots, were as much frequented as
+in prosperous times. In the inquiry, the operatives themselves explained
+this phenomenon thus:--"What is the use of pinching? Who knows what will
+happen to us? Who knows that interest will not be abolished? Who knows
+but that the State will become a universal and gratuitous lender, and
+that it will wish to annihilate all the fruits which we might expect
+from our savings?" Well! I say, that if such ideas could prevail during
+two single years, it would be enough to turn our beautiful France into a
+Turkey--misery would become general and endemic, and, most assuredly,
+the poor would be the first upon whom it would fall.
+
+Workmen! they talk to you a great deal upon the _artificial_
+organisation of labour;--do you know why they do so? Because they are
+ignorant of the laws of its _natural_ organisation; that is, of the
+wonderful organisation which results from liberty. You are told, that
+liberty gives rise to what is called the radical antagonism of classes;
+that it creates, and makes to clash, two opposite interests--that of the
+capitalists and that of the "proletaires." But we ought to begin by
+proving that this antagonism exists by a law of nature; and afterwards
+it would remain to be shown how far the arrangements of restraint are
+superior to those of liberty, for between liberty and restraint I see no
+middle path. Again, it would remain to be proved that restraint would
+always operate to your advantage, and to the prejudice of the rich.
+But, no; this radical antagonism, this natural opposition of interests,
+does not exist. It is only an evil dream of perverted and intoxicated
+imaginations. No; a plan so defective has not proceeded from the Divine
+Mind. To affirm it, we must begin by denying the existence of God. And
+see how, by means of social laws, and because men exchange amongst
+themselves their labours and their productions, see what a harmonious
+tie attaches the classes one to the other! There are the landowners;
+what is their interest? That the soil be fertile, and the sun
+beneficent: and what is the result? That corn abounds, that it falls in
+price, and the advantage turns to the profit of those who have had no
+patrimony. There are the manufacturers--what is their constant thought?
+To perfect their labour, to increase the power of their machines, to
+procure for themselves, upon the best terms, the raw material. And to
+what does all this tend? To the abundance and the low price of produce;
+that is, that all the efforts of the manufacturers, and without their
+suspecting it, result in a profit to the public consumer, of which each
+of you is one. It is the same with every profession. Well, the
+capitalists are not exempt from this law. They are very busy making
+schemes, economising, and turning them to their advantage. This is all
+very well; but the more they succeed, the more do they promote the
+abundance of capital, and, as a necessary consequence, the reduction of
+interest. Now, who is it that profits by the reduction of interest? Is
+it not the borrower first, and finally, the consumers of the things
+which the capitals contribute to produce?
+
+It is therefore certain that the final result of the efforts of each
+class is the common good of all.
+
+You are told that capital tyrannises over labour. I do not deny that
+each one endeavours to draw the greatest possible advantage from his
+situation; but, in this sense, he realises only that which is possible.
+Now, it is never more possible for capitals to tyrannise over labour,
+than when they are scarce; for then it is they who make the law--it is
+they who regulate the rate of sale. Never is this tyranny more
+impossible to them, than when they are abundant; for, in that case, it
+is labour which has the command.
+
+Away, then, with the jealousies of classes, ill-will, unfounded hatreds,
+unjust suspicions. These depraved passions injure those who nourish them
+in their hearts. This is no declamatory morality; it is a chain of
+causes and effects, which is capable of being rigorously, mathematically
+demonstrated. It is not the less sublime, in that it satisfies the
+intellect as well as the feelings.
+
+I shall sum up this whole dissertation with these words:--Workmen,
+labourers, "proletaires," destitute and suffering classes, will you
+improve your condition? You will not succeed by strife, insurrection,
+hatred, and error. But there are three things which cannot perfect the
+entire community, without extending these benefits to yourselves; these
+things are--peace, liberty, and security.
+
+
+
+
+That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen
+
+
+
+In the department of economy, an act, a habit, an institution, a law,
+gives birth not only to an effect, but to a series of effects. Of these
+effects, the first only is immediate; it manifests itself simultaneously
+with its cause--_it is seen_. The others unfold in succession--_they are
+not seen_: it is well for us if they are _foreseen_. Between a good and
+a bad economist this constitutes the whole difference--the one takes
+account of the _visible_ effect; the other takes account both of the
+effects which are _seen_ and also of those which it is necessary to
+_foresee_. Now this difference is enormous, for it almost always happens
+that when the immediate consequence is favourable, the ultimate
+consequences are fatal, _and the converse_. Hence it follows that the
+bad economist pursues a small present good, which will be followed by a
+great evil to come, while the true economist pursues a great good to
+come, at the risk of a small present evil.
+
+In fact, it is the same in the science of health, arts, and in that of
+morals. If often happens, that the sweeter the first fruit of a habit
+is, the more bitter are the consequences. Take, for example, debauchery,
+idleness, prodigality. When, therefore, a man, absorbed in the effect
+which _is seen_, has not yet learned to discern those which are not
+seen, he gives way to fatal habits, not only by inclination, but by
+calculation.
+
+This explains the fatally grievous condition of mankind. Ignorance
+surrounds its cradle: then its actions are determined by their first
+consequences, the only ones which, in its first stage, it can see. It is
+only in the long run that it learns to take account of the others. It
+has to learn this lesson from two very different masters--experience and
+foresight. Experience teaches effectually, but brutally. It makes us
+acquainted with all the effects of an action, by causing us to feel
+them; and we cannot fail to finish by knowing that fire burns, if we
+have burned ourselves. For this rough teacher, I should like, if
+possible, to substitute a more gentle one. I mean Foresight. For this
+purpose I shall examine the consequences of certain economical
+phenomena, by placing in opposition to each other those _which are
+seen_, and those _which are not seen_.
+
+
+
+I.--The Broken Window.
+
+
+Have you ever witnessed the anger of the good shopkeeper, James B., when
+his careless son happened to break a pane of glass? If you have been
+present at such a scene, you will most assuredly bear witness to the
+fact, that every one of the spectators, were there even thirty of them,
+by common consent apparently, offered the unfortunate owner this
+invariable consolation--"It is an ill wind that blows nobody good.
+Everybody must live, and what would become of the glaziers if panes of
+glass were never broken?"
+
+Now, this form of condolence contains an entire theory, which it will be
+well to show up in this simple case, seeing that it is precisely the
+same as that which, unhappily, regulates the greater part of our
+economical institutions.
+
+Suppose it cost six francs to repair the damage, and you say that the
+accident brings six francs to the glazier's trade--that it encourages
+that trade to the amount of six francs--I grant it; I have not a word to
+say against it; you reason justly. The glazier comes, performs his task,
+receives his six francs, rubs his hands, and, in his heart, blesses the
+careless child. All this is _that which is seen_.
+
+But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often
+the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money
+to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be
+the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, "Stop there! your
+theory is confined to that _which is seen_; it takes no account of that
+_which is not seen_."
+
+_It is not seen_ that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one
+thing, he cannot spend them upon another. _It is not seen_ that if he
+had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his
+old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have
+employed his six francs in some way which this accident has prevented.
+
+Let us take a view of industry in general, as affected by this
+circumstance. The window being broken, the glazier's trade is encouraged
+to the amount of six francs: _this is that which is seen_.
+
+If the window had not been broken, the shoemaker's trade (or some other)
+would have been encouraged to the amount of six francs: this is _that
+which is not seen_.
+
+And if _that which is not seen_ is taken into consideration, because it
+is a negative fact, as well as that which is seen, because it is a
+positive fact, it will be understood that neither industry _in general_,
+nor the sum total of _national labour_, is affected, whether windows are
+broken or not.
+
+Now let us consider James B. himself. In the former supposition, that of
+the window being broken, he spends six francs, and has neither more nor
+less than he had before, the enjoyment of a window.
+
+In the second, where we suppose the window not to have been broken, he
+would have spent six francs in shoes, and would have had at the same
+time the enjoyment of a pair o shoes and of a window.
+
+Now, as James B. forms a part of society, we must come to the
+conclusion, that, taking it altogether, and making an estimate of its
+enjoyments and its labours, it has lost the value of the broken window.
+
+Whence we arrive at this unexpected conclusion: "Society loses the value
+of things which are uselessly destroyed;" and we must assent to a maxim
+which will make the hair of protectionists stand on end--To break, to
+spoil, to waste, is not to encourage national labour; or, more briefly,
+"destruction is not profit."
+
+What will you say, _Moniteur Industriel_--what will you say, disciples
+of good M. F. Chamans, who has calculated with so much precision how
+much trade would gain by the burning of Paris, from the number of houses
+it would be necessary to rebuild?
+
+I am sorry to disturb these ingenious calculations, as far as their
+spirit has been introduced into our legislation; but I beg him to begin
+them again, by taking into the account _that which is not seen_, and
+placing it alongside of _that which is seen_.
+
+The reader must take care to remember that there are not two persons
+only, but three concerned in the little scene which I have submitted to
+his attention. One of them, James B., represents the consumer, reduced,
+by an act of destruction, to one enjoyment instead of two. Another,
+under the title of the glazier, shows us the producer, whose trade is
+encouraged by the accident. The third is the shoemaker (or some other
+tradesman), whose labour suffers proportionably by the same cause. It
+is this third person who is always kept in the shade, and who,
+personating _that which is not seen_, is a necessary element of the
+problem. It is he who shows us how absurd it is to think we see a profit
+in an act of destruction. It is he who will soon teach us that it is not
+less absurd to see a profit in a restriction, which is, after all,
+nothing else than a partial destruction. Therefore, if you will only go
+to the root of all the arguments which are adduced in its favour, all
+you will find will be the paraphrase of this vulgar saying--_What would
+become of the glaziers, if nobody ever broke windows_?
+
+
+
+II.--The Disbanding of Troops.
+
+
+It is the same with a people as it is with a man. If it wishes to give
+itself some gratification, it naturally considers whether it is worth
+what it costs. To a nation, security is the greatest of advantages. If,
+in order to obtain it, it is necessary to have an army of a hundred
+thousand men, I have nothing to say against it. It is an enjoyment
+bought by a sacrifice. Let me not be misunderstood upon the extent of my
+position. A member of the assembly proposes to disband a hundred
+thousand men, for the sake of relieving the tax-payers of a hundred
+millions.
+
+If we confine ourselves to this answer--"The hundred millions of men,
+and these hundred millions of money, are indispensable to the national
+security: it is a sacrifice; but without this sacrifice, France would
+be torn by factions or invaded by some foreign power,"--I have nothing
+to object to this argument, which may be true or false in fact, but
+which theoretically contains nothing which militates against economy.
+The error begins when the sacrifice itself is said to be an advantage
+because it profits somebody.
+
+Now I am very much mistaken if, the moment the author of the proposal
+has taken his seat, some orator will not rise and say--"Disband a
+hundred thousand men! Do you know what you are saying? What will become
+of them? Where will they get a living? Don't you know that work is
+scarce everywhere? That every field is over-stocked? Would you turn them
+out of doors to increase competition and to weigh upon the rate of
+wages? Just now, when it is a hard matter to live at all, it would be a
+pretty thing if the State must find bread for a hundred thousand
+individuals? Consider, besides, that the army consumes wine, arms,
+clothing--that it promotes the activity of manufactures in garrison
+towns--that it is, in short, the godsend of innumerable purveyors. Why,
+any one must tremble at the bare idea of doing away with this immense
+industrial movement."
+
+This discourse, it is evident, concludes by voting the maintenance of a
+hundred thousand soldiers, for reasons drawn from the necessity of the
+service, and from economical considerations. It is these considerations
+only that I have to refute.
+
+A hundred thousand men, costing the tax-payers a hundred millions of
+money, live and bring to the purveyors as much as a hundred millions can
+supply. This is that _which is seen_.
+
+But, a hundred millions taken from the pockets of the tax-payers, cease
+to maintain these tax-payers and the purveyors, as far as a hundred
+millions reach. This is _that which is not seen_. Now make your
+calculations. Cast up, and tell me what profit there is for the masses?
+
+I will tell you where the _loss_ lies; and to simplify it, instead of
+speaking of a hundred thousand men and a million of money, it shall be
+of one man and a thousand francs.
+
+We will suppose that we are in the village of A. The recruiting
+sergeants go their round, and take off a man. The tax-gatherers go their
+round, and take off a thousand francs. The man and the sum of money are
+taken to Metz, and the latter is destined to support the former for a
+year without doing anything. If you consider Metz only, you are quite
+right; the measure is a very advantageous one: but if you look towards
+the village of A., you will judge very differently; for, unless you are
+very blind indeed, you will see that that village has lost a worker, and
+the thousand francs which would remunerate his labour, as well as the
+activity which, by the expenditure of those thousand francs, it would
+spread around it.
+
+At first sight, there would seem to be some compensation. What took
+place at the village, now takes place at Metz, that is all. But the
+loss is to be estimated in this way:--At the village, a man dug and
+worked; he was a worker. At Metz, he turns to the right about and to the
+left about; he is a soldier. The money and the circulation are the same
+in both cases; but in the one there were three hundred days of
+productive labour, in the other there are three hundred days of
+unproductive labour, supposing, of course, that a part of the army is
+not indispensable to the public safety.
+
+Now, suppose the disbanding to take place. You tell me there will be a
+surplus of a hundred thousand workers, that competition will be
+stimulated, and it will reduce the rate of wages. This is what you see.
+
+But what you do not see is this. You do not see that to dismiss a
+hundred thousand soldiers is not to do away with a million of money, but
+to return it to the tax-payers. You do not see that to throw a hundred
+thousand workers on the market, is to throw into it, at the same moment,
+the hundred millions of money needed to pay for their labour: that,
+consequently, the same act which increases the supply of hands,
+increases also the demand; from which it follows, that your fear of a
+reduction of wages is unfounded. You do not see that, before the
+disbanding as well as after it, there are in the country a hundred
+millions of money corresponding with the hundred thousand men. That the
+whole difference consists in this: before the disbanding, the country
+gave the hundred millions to the hundred thousand men for doing nothing;
+and that after it, it pays them the same sum for working. You do not
+see, in short, that when a tax-payer gives his money either to a soldier
+in exchange for nothing, or to a worker in exchange for something, all
+the ultimate consequences of the circulation of this money are the same
+in the two cases; only, in the second case the tax-payer receives
+something, in the former he receives nothing. The result is--a dead loss
+to the nation.
+
+The sophism which I am here combating will not stand the test of
+progression, which is the touchstone of principles. If, when every
+compensation is made, and all interests satisfied, there is a _national
+profit_ in increasing the army, why not enrol under its banners the
+entire male population of the country?
+
+
+
+III.--Taxes.
+
+
+Have you never chanced to hear it said: "There is no better investment
+than taxes. Only see what a number of families it maintains, and
+consider how it reacts upon industry: it is an inexhaustible stream, it
+is life itself."
+
+In order to combat this doctrine, I must refer to my preceding
+refutation. Political economy knew well enough that its arguments were
+not so amusing that it could be said of them, _repetitions please_. It
+has, therefore, turned the proverb to its own use, well convinced that,
+in its mouth, _repetitions teach_.
+
+The advantages which officials advocate are _those which are seen_. The
+benefit which accrues to the providers _is still that which is seen_.
+This blinds all eyes.
+
+But the disadvantages which the tax-payers have to get rid of are _those
+which are not seen_. And the injury which results from it to the
+providers is still that _which is not seen_, although this ought to be
+self-evident.
+
+When an official spends for his own profit an extra hundred sous, it
+implies that a tax-payer spends for his profit a hundred sous less. But
+the expense of the official _is seen_, because the act is performed,
+while that of the tax-payer _is not seen_, because, alas! he is
+prevented from performing it.
+
+You compare the nation, perhaps to a parched tract of land, and the tax
+to a fertilising rain. Be it so. But you ought also to ask yourself
+where are the sources of this rain, and whether it is not the tax itself
+which draws away the moisture from the ground and dries it up?
+
+Again, you ought to ask yourself whether it is possible that the soil
+can receive as much of this precious water by rain as it loses by
+evaporation?
+
+There is one thing very certain, that when James B. counts out a hundred
+sous for the tax-gatherer, he receives nothing in return. Afterwards,
+when an official spends these hundred sous, and returns them to James
+B., it is for an equal value in corn or labour. The final result is a
+loss to James B. of five francs.
+
+It is very true that often, perhaps very often, the official performs
+for James B. an equivalent service. In this case there is no loss on
+either side; there is merely an exchange. Therefore, my arguments do not
+at all apply to useful functionaries. All I say is,--if you wish to
+create an office, prove its utility. Show that its value to James B., by
+the services which it performs for him, is equal to what it costs him.
+But, apart from this intrinsic utility, do not bring forward as an
+argument the benefit which it confers upon the official, his family, and
+his providers; do not assert that it encourages labour.
+
+When James B. gives a hundred sous to a Government officer for a really
+useful service, it is exactly the same as when he gives a hundred sous
+to a shoemaker for a pair of shoes.
+
+But when James B. gives a hundred sous to a Government officer, and
+receives nothing for them unless it be annoyances, he might as well give
+them to a thief. It is nonsense to say that the Government officer will
+spend these hundred sous to the great profit of _national labour_; the
+thief would do the same; and so would James B., if he had not been
+stopped on the road by the extra-legal parasite, nor by the lawful
+sponger.
+
+Let us accustom ourselves, then, to avoid judging of things by _what is
+seen_ only, but to judge of them by _that which is not seen_.
+
+Last year I was on the Committee of Finance, for under the constituency
+the members of the Opposition were not systematically excluded from all
+the Commissions: in that the constituency acted wisely. We have heard M.
+Thiers say--"I have passed my life in opposing the legitimist party and
+the priest party. Since the common danger has brought us together, now
+that I associate with them and know them, and now that we speak face to
+face, I have found out that they are not the monsters I used to imagine
+them."
+
+Yes, distrust is exaggerated, hatred is fostered among parties who never
+mix; and if the majority would allow the minority to be present at the
+Commissions, it would perhaps be discovered that the ideas of the
+different sides are not so far removed from each other; and, above all,
+that their intentions are not so perverse as is supposed. However, last
+year I was on the Committee of Finance. Every time that one of our
+colleagues spoke of fixing at a moderate figure the maintenance of the
+President of the Republic, that of the ministers, and of the
+ambassadors, it was answered:--
+
+"For the good of the service, it is necessary to surround certain
+offices with splendour and dignity, as a means of attracting men of
+merit to them. A vast number of unfortunate persons apply to the
+President of the Republic, and it would be placing him in a very painful
+position to oblige him to be constantly refusing them. A certain style
+in the ministerial saloons is a part of the machinery of constitutional
+Governments."
+
+Although such arguments may be controverted, they certainly deserve a
+serious examination. They are based upon the public interest, whether
+rightly estimated or not; and as far as I am concerned, I have much more
+respect for them than many of our Catos have, who are actuated by a
+narrow spirit of parsimony or of jealousy.
+
+But what revolts the economical part of my conscience, and makes me
+blush for the intellectual resources of my country, is when this absurd
+relic of feudalism is brought forward, which it constantly is, and it is
+favourably received too:--
+
+"Besides, the luxury of great Government officers encourages the arts,
+industry, and labour. The head of the State and his ministers cannot
+give banquets and soirees without causing life to circulate through all
+the veins of the social body. To reduce their means, would starve
+Parisian industry, and consequently that of the whole nation."
+
+I must beg you, gentlemen, to pay some little regard to arithmetic, at
+least; and not to say before the National Assembly in France, lest to
+its shame it should agree with you, that an addition gives a different
+sum, according to whether it is added up from the bottom to the top, or
+from the top to the bottom of the column.
+
+For instance, I want to agree with a drainer to make a trench in my
+field for a hundred sous. Just as we have concluded our arrangement the
+tax-gatherer comes, takes my hundred sous, and sends them to the
+Minister of the Interior; my bargain is at end, but the minister will
+have another dish added to his table. Upon what ground will you dare to
+affirm that this official expense helps the national industry? Do you
+not see, that in this there is only a reversing of satisfaction and
+labour? A minister has his table better covered, it is true; but it is
+just as true that an agriculturist has his field worse drained. A
+Parisian tavern-keeper has gained a hundred sous, I grant you; but then
+you must grant me that a drainer has been prevented from gaining five
+francs. It all comes to this,--that the official and the tavern-keeper
+being satisfied, is _that which is seen_; the field undrained, and the
+drainer deprived of his job, is _that which is not seen_. Dear me! how
+much trouble there is in proving that two and two make four; and if you
+succeed in proving it, it is said "the thing is so plain it is quite
+tiresome," and they vote as if you had proved nothing at all.
+
+
+
+IV.--Theatres, Fine Arts.
+
+
+Ought the State to support the arts?
+
+There is certainly much to be said on both sides of this question. It
+may be said, in favour of the system of voting supplies for this
+purpose, that the arts enlarge, elevate, and harmonize the soul of a
+nation; that they divert it from too great an absorption in material
+occupations; encourage in it a love for the beautiful; and thus act
+favourably on its manners, customs, morals, and even on its industry. It
+may be asked, what would become of music in France without her Italian
+theatre and her Conservatoire; of the dramatic art, without her
+Theatre-Francais; of painting and sculpture, without our collections,
+galleries, and museums? It might even be asked, whether, without
+centralisation, and consequently the support of the fine arts, that
+exquisite taste would be developed which is the noble appendage of
+French labour, and which introduces its productions to the whole world?
+In the face of such results, would it not be the height of imprudence to
+renounce this moderate contribution from all her citizens, which, in
+fact, in the eyes of Europe, realises their superiority and their glory?
+
+To these and many other reasons, whose force I do not dispute, arguments
+no less forcible may be opposed. It might first of all be said, that
+there is a question of distributive justice in it. Does the right of the
+legislator extend to abridging the wages of the artisan, for the sake
+of, adding to the profits of the artist? M. Lamartine said, "If you
+cease to support the theatre, where will you stop? Will you not
+necessarily be led to withdraw your support from your colleges, your
+museums, your institutes, and your libraries? It might be answered, if
+you desire to support everything which is good and useful, where will
+you stop? Will you not necessarily be led to form a civil list for
+agriculture, industry, commerce, benevolence, education? Then, is it
+certain that Government aid favours the progress of art? This question
+is far from being settled, and we see very well that the theatres which
+prosper are those which depend upon their own resources. Moreover, if we
+come to higher considerations, we may observe that wants and desires
+arise the one from the other, and originate in regions which are more
+and more refined in proportion as the public wealth allows of their
+being satisfied; that Government ought not to take part in this
+correspondence, because in a certain condition of present fortune it
+could not by taxation stimulate the arts of necessity without checking
+those of luxury, and thus interrupting the natural course of
+civilisation. I may observe, that these artificial transpositions of
+wants, tastes, labour, and population, place the people in a precarious
+and dangerous position, without any solid basis."
+
+These are some of the reasons alleged by the adversaries of State
+intervention in what concerns the order in which citizens think their
+wants and desires should be satisfied, and to which, consequently, their
+activity should be directed. I am, I confess, one of those who think
+that choice and impulse ought to come from below and not from above,
+from the citizen and not from the legislator; and the opposite doctrine
+appears to me to tend to the destruction of liberty and of human
+dignity.
+
+But, by a deduction as false as it is unjust, do you know what
+economists are accused of? It is, that when we disapprove of government
+support, we are supposed to disapprove of the thing itself whose support
+is discussed; and to be the enemies of every kind of activity, because
+we desire to see those activities, on the one hand free, and on the
+other seeking their own reward in themselves. Thus, if we think that the
+State should not interfere by taxation in religious affairs, we are
+atheists. If we think the State ought not to interfere by taxation in
+education, we are hostile to knowledge. If we say that the State ought
+not by taxation to give a fictitious value to land, or to any particular
+branch of industry, we are enemies to property and labour. If we think
+that the State ought not to support artists, we are barbarians, who look
+upon the arts as useless.
+
+Against such conclusions as these I protest with all my strength. Far
+from entertaining the absurd idea of doing away with religion,
+education, property, labour, and the arts, when we say that the State
+ought to protect the free development of all these kinds of human
+activity, without helping some of them at the expense of others--we
+think, on the contrary, that all these living powers of society would
+develop themselves more harmoniously under the influence of liberty; and
+that, under such an influence no one of them would, as is now the case,
+be a source of trouble, of abuses, of tyranny, and disorder.
+
+Our adversaries consider that an activity which is neither aided by
+supplies, nor regulated by government, is an activity destroyed. We
+think just the contrary. Their faith is in the legislator, not in
+mankind; ours is in mankind, not in the legislator.
+
+Thus M. Lamartine said, "Upon this principle we must abolish the public
+exhibitions, which are the honour and the wealth of this country." But I
+would say to M. Lamartine,--According to your way of thinking, not to
+support is to abolish; because, setting out upon the maxim that nothing
+exists independently of the will of the State, you conclude that nothing
+lives but what the State causes to live. But I oppose to this assertion
+the very example which you have chosen, and beg you to remark, that the
+grandest and noblest of exhibitions, one which has been conceived in the
+most liberal and universal spirit--and I might even make use of the term
+humanitary, for it is no exaggeration--is the exhibition now preparing
+in London; the only one in which no government is taking any part, and
+which is being paid for by no tax.
+
+To return to the fine arts. There are, I repeat, many strong reasons to
+be brought, both for and against the system of government assistance.
+The reader must see that the especial, object of this work leads me
+neither to explain these reasons, nor to decide in their favour, nor
+against them.
+
+But M. Lamartine has advanced one argument which I cannot pass by in
+silence, for it is closely connected with this economic study. "The
+economical question, as regards theatres, is comprised in one
+word--labour. It matters little what is the nature of this labour; it is
+as fertile, as productive a labour as any other kind of labour in the
+nation. The theatres in France, you know, feed and salary no less than
+80,000 workmen of different kinds; painters, masons, decorators,
+costumers, architects, &c., which constitute the very life and movement
+of several parts of this capital, and on this account they ought to have
+your sympathies." Your sympathies! say rather your money.
+
+And further on he says: "The pleasures of Paris are the labour and the
+consumption of the provinces, and the luxuries of the rich are the wages
+and bread of 200,000 workmen of every description, who live by the
+manifold industry of the theatres on the surface of the republic, and
+who receive from these noble pleasures, which render France illustrious,
+the sustenance of their lives and the necessaries of their families and
+children. It is to them that you will give 60,000 francs." (Very well;
+very well. Great applause.) For my part I am constrained to say, "Very
+bad! very bad!" confining this opinion, of course, within the bounds of
+the economical question which we are discussing.
+
+Yes, it is to the workmen of the theatres that a part, at least, of
+these 60,000 francs will go; a few bribes, perhaps, may be abstracted on
+the way. Perhaps, if we were to look a little more closely into the
+matter, we might find that the cake had gone another way, and that those
+workmen were fortunate who had come in for a few crumbs. But I will
+allow, for the sake of argument, that the entire sum does go to the
+painters, decorators, &c.
+
+_This is that which is seen._ But whence does it come? This is the other
+side of the question, and quite as important as the former. Where do
+these 60,000 francs spring from? and where would they go, if a vote of
+the legislature did not direct them first towards the Rue Rivoli and
+thence towards the Rue Grenelle? This _is what is not seen_. Certainly,
+nobody will think of maintaining that the legislative vote has caused
+this sum to be hatched in a ballot urn; that it is a pure addition made
+to the national wealth; that but for this miraculous vote these 60,000
+francs would have been for ever invisible and impalpable. It must be
+admitted that all that the majority can do is to decide that they shall
+be taken from one place to be sent to another; and if they take one
+direction, it is only because they have been diverted from another.
+
+This being the case, it is clear that the tax-payer, who has contributed
+one franc, will no longer have this franc at his own disposal. It is
+clear that he will be deprived of some gratification to the amount of
+one franc; and that the workman, whoever he may be, who would have
+received it from him, will be deprived of a benefit to that amount. Let
+us not, therefore, be led by a childish illusion into believing that the
+vote of the 60,000 francs may add anything whatever to the well-being
+of the country, and to national labour. It displaces enjoyments, it
+transposes wages--that is all.
+
+Will it be said that for one kind of gratification, and one kind of
+labour, it substitutes more urgent, more moral, more reasonable
+gratifications and labour? I might dispute this; I might say, by taking
+60,000 francs from the tax-payers, you diminish the wages of labourers,
+drainers, carpenters, blacksmiths, and increase in proportion those of
+the singers.
+
+There is nothing to prove that this latter class calls for more sympathy
+than the former. M. Lamartine does not say that it is so. He himself
+says that the labour of the theatres is _as_ fertile, _as_ productive as
+any other (not more so); and this may be doubted; for the best proof
+that the latter is not so fertile as the former lies in this, that the
+other is to be called upon to assist it.
+
+But this comparison between the value and the intrinsic merit of
+different kinds of labour forms no part of my present subject. All I
+have to do here is to show, that if M. Lamartine and those persons who
+commend his line of argument have seen on one side the salaries gained
+by the _providers_ of the comedians, they ought on the other to have
+seen the salaries lost by the _providers_ of the taxpayers: for want of
+this, they have exposed themselves to ridicule by mistaking a
+_displacement_ for a _gain_. If they were true to their doctrine, there
+would be no limits to their demands for government aid; for that which
+is true of one franc and of 60,000 is true, under parallel
+circumstances, of a hundred millions of francs.
+
+When taxes are the subject of discussion, you ought to prove their
+utility by reasons from the root of the matter, but not by this unlucky
+assertion--"The public expenses support the working classes." This
+assertion disguises the important fact, that _public expenses always_
+supersede _private expenses_, and that therefore we bring a livelihood
+to one workman instead of another, but add nothing to the share of the
+working class as a whole. Your arguments are fashionable enough, but
+they are too absurd to be justified by anything like reason.
+
+
+
+V.--Public Works.
+
+
+Nothing is more natural than that a nation, after having assured itself
+that an enterprise will benefit the community, should have it executed
+by means of a general assessment. But I lose patience, I confess, when I
+hear this economic blunder advanced in support of such a
+project--"Besides, it will be a means of creating labour for the
+workmen."
+
+The State opens a road, builds a palace, straightens a street, cuts a
+canal, and so gives work to certain workmen--_this is what is seen_: but
+it deprives certain other workmen of work--and this is what _is not
+seen_.
+
+The road is begun. A thousand workmen come every morning, leave every
+evening, and take their wages--this is certain. If the road had not been
+decreed, if the supplies had not been voted, these good people would
+have had neither work nor salary there; this also is certain.
+
+But is this all? Does not the operation, as a whole, contain something
+else? At the moment when M. Dupin pronounces the emphatic words, "The
+Assembly has adopted," do the millions descend miraculously on a
+moonbeam into the coffers of MM. Fould and Bineau? In order that the
+evolution may be complete, as it is said, must not the State organise
+the receipts as well as the expenditure? must it not set its
+tax-gatherers and tax-payers to work, the former to gather and the
+latter to pay?
+
+Study the question, now, in both its elements. While you state the
+destination given by the State to the millions voted, do not neglect to
+state also the destination which the tax-payer would have given, but
+cannot now give, to the same. Then you will understand that a public
+enterprise is a coin with two sides. Upon one is engraved a labourer at
+work, with this device, _that which is seen_; on the other is a labourer
+out of work, with the device, _that which is not seen_.
+
+The sophism which this work is intended to refute is the more dangerous
+when applied to public works, inasmuch as it serves to justify the most
+wanton enterprises and extravagance. When a railroad or a bridge are of
+real utility, it is sufficient to mention this utility. But if it does
+not exist, what do they do? Recourse is had to this mystification: "We
+must find work for the workmen."
+
+Accordingly, orders are given that the drains in the Champ-de-Mars be
+made and unmade. The great Napoleon, it is said, thought he was doing a
+very philanthropic work by causing ditches to be made and then filled
+up. He said, therefore, "What signifies the result? All we want is to
+see wealth spread among the labouring classes."
+
+But let us go to the root of the matter. We are deceived by money. To
+demand the co-operation of all the citizens in a common work, in the
+form of money, is in reality to demand a concurrence in kind; for every
+one procures, by his own labour, the sum to which he is taxed. Now, if
+all the citizens were to be called together, and made to execute, in
+conjunction, a work useful to all, this would be easily understood;
+their reward would be found in the results of the work itself.
+
+But after having called them together, if you force them to make roads
+which no one will pass through, palaces which no one will inhabit, and
+this under the pretext of finding them work, it would be absurd, and
+they would have a right to argue, "With this labour we have nothing to
+do; we prefer working on our own account."
+
+A proceeding which consists in making the citizens co-operate in giving
+money but not labour, does not, in any way, alter the general results.
+The only thing is, that the loss would react upon all parties. By the
+former, those whom the State employs, escape their part of the loss, by
+adding it to that which their fellow-citizens have already suffered.
+
+There is an article in our constitution which says:--"Society favours
+and encourages the development of labour--by the establishment of public
+works, by the State, the departments, and the parishes, as a means of
+employing persons who are in want of work."
+
+As a temporary measure, on any emergency, during a hard winter, this
+interference with the tax-payers may have its use. It acts in the same
+way as securities. It adds nothing either to labour or to wages, but it
+takes labour and wages from ordinary times to give them, at a loss it is
+true, to times of difficulty.
+
+As a permanent, general, systematic measure, it is nothing else than a
+ruinous mystification, an impossibility, which shows a little excited
+labour _which is seen_, and hides a great deal of prevented labour
+_which is not seen_.
+
+
+
+VI.--The Intermediates.
+
+
+Society is the total of the forced or voluntary services which men
+perform for each other; that is to say, of _public services_ and
+_private services_.
+
+The former, imposed and regulated by the law, which it is not always
+easy to change, even when it is desirable, may survive with it their own
+usefulness, and still preserve the name of _public services_, even when
+they are no longer services at all, but rather _public annoyances_. The
+latter belong to the sphere of the will, of individual responsibility.
+Every one gives and receives what he wishes, and what he can, after a
+debate. They have always the presumption of real utility, in exact
+proportion to their comparative value.
+
+This is the reason why the former description of services so often
+become stationary, while the latter obey the law of progress.
+
+While the exaggerated development of public services, by the waste of
+strength which it involves, fastens upon society a fatal sycophancy, it
+is a singular thing that several modern sects, attributing this
+character to free and private services, are endeavouring to transform
+professions into functions.
+
+These sects violently oppose what they call intermediates. They would
+gladly suppress the capitalist, the banker, the speculator, the
+projector, the merchant, and the trader, accusing them of interposing
+between production and consumption, to extort from both, without giving
+either anything in return. Or rather, they would transfer to the State
+the work which they accomplish, for this work cannot be suppressed.
+
+The sophism of the Socialists on this point is, showing to the public
+what it pays to the intermediates in exchange for their services, and
+concealing from it what is necessary to be paid to the State. Here is
+the usual conflict between what is before our eyes and what is
+perceptible to the mind only; between _what is seen_ and _what is not
+seen_.
+
+It was at the time of the scarcity, in 1847, that the Socialist schools
+attempted and succeeded in popularizing their fatal theory. They knew
+very well that the most absurd notions have always a chance with people
+who are suffering; _malisunda fames_.
+
+Therefore, by the help of the fine words, "trafficking in men by men,
+speculation on hunger, monopoly," they began to blacken commerce, and to
+cast a veil over its benefits.
+
+"What can be the use," they say, "of leaving to the merchants the care
+of importing food from the United States and the Crimea? Why do not the
+State, the departments, and the towns, organize a service for provisions
+and a magazine for stores? They would sell at a _return price_, and the
+people, poor things, would be exempted from the tribute which they pay
+to free, that is, to egotistical, individual, and anarchical commerce."
+
+The tribute paid by the people to commerce is _that which is seen_. The
+tribute which the people would pay to the State, or to its agents, in
+the Socialist system, is _what is not seen_.
+
+In what does this pretended tribute, which the people pay to commerce,
+consist? In this: that two men render each other a mutual service, in
+all freedom, and under the pressure of competition and reduced prices.
+
+When the hungry stomach is at Paris, and corn which can satisfy it is at
+Odessa, the suffering cannot cease till the corn is brought into
+contact with the stomach. There are three means by which this contact
+may be effected. 1st. The famished men may go themselves and fetch the
+corn. 2nd. They may leave this task to those to whose trade it belongs.
+3rd. They may club together, and give the office in charge to public
+functionaries. Which of these three methods possesses the greatest
+advantages? In every time, in all countries, and the more free,
+enlightened, and experienced they are, men have _voluntarily_ chosen the
+second. I confess that this is sufficient, in my opinion, to justify
+this choice. I cannot believe that mankind, as a whole, is deceiving
+itself upon a point which touches it so nearly. But let us now consider
+the subject.
+
+For thirty-six millions of citizens to go and fetch the corn they want
+from Odessa, is a manifest impossibility. The first means, then, goes
+for nothing. The consumers cannot act for themselves. They must, of
+necessity, have recourse to _intermediates_, officials or agents.
+
+But observe, that the first of these three means would be the most
+natural. In reality, the hungry man has to fetch his corn. It is a task
+which concerns himself, a service due to himself. If another person, on
+whatever ground, performs this service for him, takes the task upon
+himself, this latter has a claim upon him for a compensation. I mean by
+this to say that intermediates contain in themselves the principle of
+remuneration.
+
+However that may be, since we must refer to what the Socialists call a
+parasite, I would ask, which of the two is the most exacting parasite
+the merchant or the official?
+
+Commerce (free, of course, otherwise I could not reason upon it),
+commerce, I say, is led by its own interests to study the seasons, to
+give daily statements of the state of the crops, to receive information
+from every part of the globe, to foresee wants, to take precautions
+beforehand. It has vessels always ready, correspondents everywhere; and
+it is its immediate interest to buy at the lowest possible price, to
+economize in all the details of its operations, and to attain the
+greatest results by the smallest efforts. It is not the French merchants
+only who are occupied in procuring provisions for France in time of
+need, and if their interest leads them irresistibly to accomplish their
+task at the smallest possible cost, the competition which they create
+amongst each other leads them no less irresistibly to cause the
+consumers to partake of the profits of those realised savings. The corn
+arrives: it is to the interest of commerce to sell it as soon as
+possible, so as to avoid risks, to realise its funds, and begin again
+the first opportunity.
+
+Directed by the comparison of prices, it distributes food over the whole
+surface of the country, beginning always at the highest, price, that is,
+where the demand is the greatest. It is impossible to imagine an
+organisation more completely calculated to meet the interest of those
+who are in want; and the beauty of this organisation, unperceived as it
+is by the Socialists, results from the very fact that it is free. It is
+true, the consumer is obliged to reimburse commerce for the expenses of
+conveyance, freight, store-room, commission, &c.; but can any system be
+devised in which he who eats corn is not obliged to defray the expenses,
+whatever they may be, of bringing it within his reach? The remuneration
+for the service performed has to be paid also; but as regards its
+amount, this is reduced to the smallest possible sum by competition; and
+as regards its justice, it would be very strange if the artizans of
+Paris would not work for the artizans of Marseilles, when the merchants
+of Marseilles work for the artizans of Paris.
+
+If, according to the Socialist invention, the State were to stand in the
+stead of commerce, what would happen? I should like to be informed where
+the saving would be to the public? Would it be in the price of purchase?
+Imagine the delegates of 40,000 parishes arriving at Odessa on a given
+day, and on the day of need: imagine the effect upon prices. Would the
+saving be in the expenses? Would fewer vessels be required; fewer
+sailors, fewer transports, fewer sloops? or would you be exempt from the
+payment of all these things? Would it be in the profits of the
+merchants? Would your officials go to Odessa for nothing? Would they
+travel and work on the principle of fraternity? Must they not live? Must
+not they be paid for their time? And do you believe that these expenses
+would not exceed a thousand times the two or three per cent. which the
+merchant gains, at the rate at which he is ready to treat?
+
+And then consider the difficulty of levying so many taxes, and of
+dividing so much food. Think of the injustice, of the abuses inseparable
+from such an enterprise. Think of the responsibility which would weigh
+upon the Government.
+
+The Socialists who have invented these follies, and who, in the days of
+distress, have introduced them into the minds of the masses, take to
+themselves literally the title of _advanced men_; and it is not without
+some danger that custom, that tyrant of tongues, authorizes the term,
+and the sentiment which it involves. _Advanced!_ This supposes that
+these gentlemen can see further than the common people; that their only
+fault is that they are too much in advance of their age; and if the time
+is not yet come for suppressing certain free services, pretended
+parasites, the fault is to be attributed to the public which is in the
+rear of Socialism. I say, from my soul and my conscience, the reverse is
+the truth; and I know not to what barbarous age we should have to go
+back, if we would find the level of Socialist knowledge on this subject.
+These modern sectarians incessantly oppose association to actual
+society. They overlook the fact that society, under a free regulation,
+is a true association, far superior to any of those which proceed from
+their fertile imaginations.
+
+Let me illustrate this by an example. Before a mutual services, and to
+helping each other in a common object, and that all may be considered,
+with respect to others, _intermediates_. If, for instance, in the course
+of the operation, the conveyance becomes important enough to occupy one
+person, the spinning another, the weaving another, why should the first
+be considered a _parasite_ more than the other two? The conveyance must
+be made, must it not? Does not he who performs it devote to it his time
+and trouble? and by so doing does he not spare that of his colleagues?
+Do these do more or other than this for him? Are they not equally
+dependent for remuneration, that is, for the division of the produce,
+upon the law of reduced price? Is it not in all liberty, for the common
+good, that this separation of work takes place, and that these
+arrangements are entered into? What do we want with a Socialist then,
+who, under pretence of organising for us, comes despotically to break up
+our voluntary arrangements, to check the division of labour, to
+substitute isolated efforts for combined ones, and to send civilisation
+back? Is association, as I describe it here, in itself less association,
+because every one enters and leaves it freely, chooses his place in it,
+judges and bargains for himself on his own responsibility, and brings
+with him the spring and warrant of personal interest? That it may
+deserve this name, is it necessary that a pretended reformer should come
+and impose upon us his plan and his will, and, as it were, to
+concentrate mankind in himself?
+
+The more we examine these _advanced schools_, the more do we become
+convinced that there is but one thing at the root of them: ignorance
+proclaiming itself infallible, and claiming despotism in the name of
+this infallibility.
+
+I hope the reader will excuse this digression. It may not be altogether
+useless, at a time when declamations, springing from St. Simonian,
+Phalansterian, and Icarian books, are invoking the press and the
+tribune, and which seriously threaten the liberty of labour and
+commercial transactions.
+
+
+
+VII.--Restrictions.
+
+
+M. Prohibant (it was not I who gave him this name, but M. Charles Dupin)
+devoted his time and capital to converting the ore found on his land
+into iron. As nature had been more lavish towards the Belgians, they
+furnished the French with iron cheaper than M. Prohibant; which means,
+that all the French, or France, could obtain a given quantity of iron
+with less labour by buying it of the honest Flemings. Therefore, guided
+by their own interest, they did not fail to do so; and every day there
+might be seen a multitude of nail-smiths, blacksmiths, cartwrights,
+machinists, farriers, and labourers, going themselves, or sending
+intermediates, to supply themselves in Belgium. This displeased M.
+Prohibant exceedingly.
+
+At first, it occurred to him to put an end to this abuse by his own
+efforts: it was the least he could do, for he was the only sufferer. "I
+will take my carbine," said he; "I will put four pistols into my belt; I
+will fill my cartridge box; I will gird on my sword, and go thus
+equipped to the frontier. There, the first blacksmith, nail-smith,
+farrier, machinist, or locksmith, who presents himself to do his own
+business and not mine, I will kill, to teach him how to live." At the
+moment of starting, M. Prohibant made a few reflections which calmed
+down his warlike ardour a little. He said to himself, "In the first
+place, it is not absolutely impossible that the purchasers of iron, my
+countrymen and enemies, should take the thing ill, and, instead of
+letting me kill them, should kill me instead; and then, even were I to
+call out all my servants, we should not be able to defend the passages.
+In short, this proceeding would cost me very dear, much more so than the
+result would be worth."
+
+M. Prohibant was on the point of resigning himself to his sad fate, that
+of being only as free as the rest of the world, when a ray of light
+darted across his brain. He recollected that at Paris there is a great
+manufactory of laws. "What is a law?" said he to himself. "It is a
+measure to which, when once it is decreed, be it good or bad, everybody
+is bound to conform. For the execution of the same a public force is
+organised, and to constitute the said public force, men and money are
+drawn from the whole nation. If, then, I could only get the great
+Parisian manufactory to pass a little law, 'Belgian iron is
+prohibited,' I should obtain the following results:--The Government
+would replace the few valets that I was going to send to the frontier by
+20,000 of the sons of those refractory blacksmiths, farriers, artizans,
+machinists, locksmiths, nail-smiths, and labourers. Then to keep these
+20,000 custom-house officers in health and good humour, it would
+distribute among them 25,000,000 of francs taken from these blacksmiths,
+nail-smiths, artizans, and labourers. They would guard the frontier much
+better; would cost me nothing; I should not be exposed to the brutality
+of the brokers; should sell the iron at my own price, and have the sweet
+satisfaction of seeing our great people shamefully mystified. That would
+teach them to proclaim themselves perpetually the harbingers and
+promoters of progress in Europe. Oh! it would be a capital joke, and
+deserves to be tried."
+
+So M. Prohibant went to the law manufactory. Another time, perhaps, I
+shall relate the story of his underhand dealings, but now I shall merely
+mention his visible proceedings. He brought the following consideration
+before the view of the legislating gentlemen.
+
+"Belgian iron is sold in France at ten francs, which obliges me to sell
+mine at the same price. I should like to sell at fifteen, but cannot do
+so on account of this Belgian iron, which I wish was at the bottom of
+the Red Sea. I beg you will make a law that no more Belgian iron shall
+enter France. Immediately I raise my price five francs, and these are
+the consequences:--
+
+"For every hundred-weight of iron that I shall deliver to the public, I
+shall receive fifteen francs instead of ten; I shall grow rich more
+rapidly, extend my traffic, and employ more workmen. My workmen and I
+shall spend much more freely, to the great advantage of our tradesmen
+for miles around. These latter, having more custom, will furnish more
+employment to trade, and activity on both sides will increase in the
+country. This fortunate piece of money, which you will drop into my
+strong-box, will, like a stone thrown into a lake, give birth to an
+infinite number of concentric circles."
+
+Charmed with his discourse, delighted to learn that it is so easy to
+promote, by legislating, the prosperity of a people, the law-makers
+voted the restriction. "Talk of labour and economy," they said, "what is
+the use of these painful means of increasing the national wealth, when
+all that is wanted for this object is a decree?"
+
+And, in fact, the law produced all the consequences announced by M.
+Prohibant: the only thing was, it produced others which he had not
+foreseen. To do him justice, his reasoning was not false, but only
+incomplete. In endeavouring to obtain a privilege, he had taken
+cognizance of the effects _which are seen_, leaving in the background
+those _which are not seen_. He had pointed out only two personages,
+whereas there are three concerned in the affair. It is for us to supply
+this involuntary or premeditated omission.
+
+It is true, the crown-piece, thus directed by law into M. Prohibant's
+strong-box, is advantageous to him and to those whose labour it would
+encourage; and if the Act had caused the crown-piece to descend from the
+moon, these good effects would not have been counterbalanced by any
+corresponding evils. Unfortunately, the mysterious piece of money does
+not come from the moon, but from the pocket of a blacksmith, or a
+nail-smith, or a cartwright, or a farrier, or a labourer, or a
+shipwright; in a word, from James B., who gives it now without receiving
+a grain more of iron than when he was paying ten francs. Thus, we can
+see at a glance that this very much alters the state of the case; for it
+is very evident that M. Prohibant's _profit_ is compensated by James
+B.'s _loss_, and all that M. Prohibant can do with the crown-piece, for
+the encouragement of national labour, James B. might have done himself.
+The stone has only been thrown upon one part of the lake, because the
+law has prevented it from being thrown upon another.
+
+Therefore, _that which is not seen_ supersedes _that which is seen_, and
+at this point there remains, as the residue of the operation, a piece of
+injustice, and, sad to say, a piece of injustice perpetrated by the law!
+
+This is not all. I have said that there is always a third person left
+in the background. I must now bring him forward, that he may reveal to
+us a _second loss_ of five francs. Then we shall have the entire results
+of the transaction.
+
+James B. is the possessor of fifteen francs, the fruit of his labour. He
+is now free. What does he do with his fifteen francs? He purchases some
+article of fashion for ten francs, and with it he pays (or the
+intermediate pay for him) for the hundred-weight of Belgian iron. After
+this he has five francs left. He does not throw them into the river, but
+(and this is _what is not seen_) he gives them to some tradesman in
+exchange for some enjoyment; to a bookseller, for instance, for
+Bossuet's "Discourse on Universal History."
+
+Thus, as far as national labour is concerned, it is encouraged to the
+amount of fifteen francs, viz.:--ten francs for the Paris article, five
+francs to the bookselling trade.
+
+As to James B., he obtains for his fifteen francs two gratifications,
+viz.:--
+
+1st. A hundred-weight of iron.
+
+2nd. A book.
+
+The decree is put in force. How does it affect the condition of James
+B.? How does it affect the national labour?
+
+James B. pays every centime of his five francs to M. Prohibant, and
+therefore is deprived of the pleasure of a book, or of some other thing
+of equal value. He loses five francs. This must be admitted; it cannot
+fail to be admitted, that when the restriction raises the price of
+things, the consumer loses the difference.
+
+But, then, it is said, _national labour_ is the gainer.
+
+No, it is not the gainer; for since the Act, it is no more encouraged
+than it was before, to the amount of fifteen francs.
+
+The only thing is that, since the Act, the fifteen francs of James B. go
+to the metal trade, while before it was put in force, they were divided
+between the milliner and the bookseller.
+
+The violence used by M. Prohibant on the frontier, or that which he
+causes to be used by the law, may be judged very differently in a moral
+point of view. Some persons consider that plunder is perfectly
+justifiable, if only sanctioned by law. But, for myself, I cannot
+imagine anything more aggravating. However it may be, the economical
+results are the same in both cases.
+
+Look at the thing as you will; but if you are impartial, you will see
+that no good can come of legal or illegal plunder. We do not deny that
+it affords M. Prohibant, or his trade, or, if you will, national
+industry, a profit of five francs. But we affirm that it causes two
+losses, one to James B., who pays fifteen francs where he otherwise
+would have paid ten; the other to national industry, which does not
+receive the difference. Take your choice of these two losses, and
+compensate with it the profit which we allow. The other will prove not
+the less a _dead loss_. Here is the moral: To take by violence is not to
+produce, but to destroy. Truly, if taking by violence was producing,
+this country of ours would be a little richer than she is.
+
+
+
+VIII.--Machinery.
+
+
+"A curse on machines! Every year, their increasing power devotes
+millions of workmen to pauperism, by depriving them of work, and
+therefore of wages and bread. A curse on machines!"
+
+This is the cry which is raised by vulgar prejudice, and echoed in the
+journals.
+
+But to curse machines is to curse the spirit of humanity!
+
+It puzzles me to conceive how any man can feel any satisfaction in such
+a doctrine.
+
+For, if true, what is its inevitable consequence? That there is no
+activity, prosperity, wealth, or happiness possible for any people,
+except for those who are stupid and inert, and to whom God has not
+granted the fatal gift of knowing how to think, to observe, to combine,
+to invent, and to obtain the greatest results with the smallest means.
+On the contrary, rags, mean huts, poverty, and inanition, are the
+inevitable lot of every nation which seeks and finds in iron, fire,
+wind, electricity, magnetism, the laws of chemistry and mechanics, in a
+word, in the powers of nature, an assistance to its natural powers. We
+might as well say with Rousseau--"Every man that thinks is a depraved
+animal."
+
+This is not all. If this doctrine is true, since all men think and
+invent, since all, from first to last, and at every moment of their
+existence, seek the co-operation of the powers of nature, and try to
+make the most of a little, by reducing either the work of their hands or
+their expenses, so as to obtain the greatest possible amount of
+gratification with the smallest possible amount of labour, it must
+follow, as a matter of course, that the whole of mankind is rushing
+towards its decline, by the same mental aspiration towards progress,
+which torments each of its members.
+
+Hence, it ought to be made known, by statistics, that the inhabitants of
+Lancashire, abandoning that land of machines, seek for work in Ireland,
+where they are unknown; and, by history, that barbarism darkens the
+epochs of civilisation, and that civilisation shines in times of
+ignorance and barbarism.
+
+There is evidently in this mass of contradictions something which
+revolts us, and which leads us to suspect that the problem contains
+within it an element of solution which has not been sufficiently
+disengaged.
+
+Here is the whole mystery: behind _that which is seen_ lies something
+_which is not seen_. I will endeavour to bring it to light. The
+demonstration I shall give will only be a repetition of the preceding
+one, for the problems are one and the same.
+
+Men have a natural propensity to make the best bargain they can, when
+not prevented by an opposing force; that is, they like to obtain as much
+as they possibly can for their labour, whether the advantage is
+obtained from a _foreign producer_ or a skilful _mechanical producer_.
+
+The theoretical objection which is made to this propensity is the same
+in both cases. In each case it is reproached with the apparent
+inactivity which it causes to labour. Now, labour rendered available,
+not inactive, is the very thing which determines it. And, therefore, in
+both cases, the same practical obstacle--force, is opposed to it also.
+
+The legislator prohibits foreign competition, and forbids mechanical
+competition. For what other means can exist for arresting a propensity
+which is natural to all men, but that of depriving them of their
+liberty?
+
+In many countries, it is true, the legislator strikes at only one of
+these competitions, and confines himself to grumbling at the other. This
+only proves one thing, that is, that the legislator is inconsistent.
+
+We need not be surprised at this. On a wrong road, inconsistency is
+inevitable; if it were not so, mankind would be sacrificed. A false
+principle never has been, and never will be, carried out to the end.
+
+Now for our demonstration, which shall not be a long one.
+
+James B. had two francs which he had gained by two workmen; but it
+occurs to him that an arrangement of ropes and weights might be made
+which would diminish the labour by half. Therefore he obtains the same
+advantage, saves a franc, and discharges a workman.
+
+He discharges a workman: _this is that which is seen_.
+
+And seeing this only, it is said, "See how misery attends civilisation;
+this is the way that liberty is fatal to equality. The human mind has
+made a conquest, and immediately a workman is cast into the gulf of
+pauperism. James B. may possibly employ the two workmen, but then he
+will give them only half their wages, for they will compete with each
+other, and offer themselves at the lowest price. Thus the rich are
+always growing richer, and the poor, poorer. Society wants remodelling."
+A very fine conclusion, and worthy of the preamble.
+
+Happily, preamble and conclusion are both false, because, behind the
+half of the phenomenon _which is seen_, lies the other half _which is
+not seen_.
+
+The franc saved by James B. is not seen, no more are the necessary
+effects of this saving.
+
+Since, in consequence of his invention, James B. spends only one franc
+on hand labour in the pursuit of a determined advantage, another franc
+remains to him.
+
+If, then, there is in the world a workman with unemployed arms, there is
+also in the world a capitalist with an unemployed franc. These two
+elements meet and combine, and it is as clear as daylight, that between
+the supply and demand of labour, and between the supply and demand of
+wages, the relation is in no way changed.
+
+The invention and the workman paid with the first franc, now perform
+the work which was formerly accomplished by two workmen. The second
+workman, paid with the second franc, realises a new kind of work.
+
+What is the change, then, which has taken place? An additional national
+advantage has been gained; in other words, the invention is a gratuitous
+triumph--a gratuitous profit for mankind.
+
+From the form which I have given to my demonstration, the following
+inference might be drawn:--
+
+"It is the capitalist who reaps all the advantage from machinery. The
+working class, if it suffers only temporarily, never profits by it,
+since, by your own showing, they displace a portion of the national
+labour, without diminishing it, it is true, but also without increasing
+it."
+
+I do not pretend, in this slight treatise, to answer every objection;
+the only end I have in view, is to combat a vulgar, widely spread, and
+dangerous prejudice. I want to prove that a new machine only causes the
+discharge of a certain number of hands, when the remuneration which pays
+them is abstracted by force. These hands and this remuneration would
+combine to produce what it was impossible to produce before the
+invention; whence it follows, that the final result is _an increase of
+advantages for equal labour_.
+
+Who is the gainer by these additional advantages?
+
+First, it is true, the capitalist, the inventor; the first who succeeds
+in using the machine; and this is the reward of his genius and courage.
+In this case, as we have just seen, he effects a saving upon the expense
+of production, which, in whatever way it may be spent (and it always is
+spent), employs exactly as many hands as the machine caused to be
+dismissed.
+
+But soon competition obliges him to lower his prices in proportion to
+the saving itself; and then it is no longer the inventor who reaps the
+benefit of the invention--it is the purchaser of what is produced, the
+consumer, the public, including the workman; in a word, mankind.
+
+And _that which is not seen_ is, that the saving thus procured for all
+consumers creates a fund whence wages may be supplied, and which
+replaces that which the machine has exhausted.
+
+Thus, to recur to the forementioned example, James B. obtains a profit
+by spending two francs in wages. Thanks to his invention, the hand
+labour costs him only one franc. So long as he sells the thing produced
+at the same price, he employs one workman less in producing this
+particular thing, and that is _what is seen_; but there is an additional
+workman employed by the franc which James B. has saved. This is _that
+which is not seen_.
+
+When, by the natural progress of things, James B. is obliged to lower
+the price of the thing produced by one franc, then he no longer realises
+a saving; then he has no longer a franc to dispose of to procure for the
+national labour a new production. But then another gainer takes his
+place, and this gainer is mankind. Whoever buys the thing he has
+produced, pays a franc less, and necessarily adds this saving to the
+fund of wages; and this, again, is _what is not seen_.
+
+Another solution, founded upon facts, has been given of this problem of
+machinery.
+
+It was said, machinery reduces the expense of production, and lowers the
+price of the thing produced. The reduction of the profit causes an
+increase of consumption, which necessitates an increase of production;
+and, finally, the introduction of as many workmen, or more, after the
+invention as were necessary before it. As a proof of this, printing,
+weaving, &c., are instanced.
+
+This demonstration is not a scientific one. It would lead us to
+conclude, that if the consumption of the particular production of which
+we are speaking remains stationary, or nearly so, machinery must injure
+labour. This is not the case.
+
+Suppose that in a certain country all the people wore hats. If, by
+machinery, the price could be reduced half, it would not _necessarily
+follow_ that the consumption would be doubled.
+
+Would you say that in this case a portion of the national labour had
+been paralyzed? Yes, according to the vulgar demonstration; but,
+according to mine, No; for even if not a single hat more should be
+bought in the country, the entire fund of wages would not be the less
+secure. That which failed to go to the hat-making trade would be found
+to have gone to the economy realised by all the consumers, and would
+thence serve to pay for all the labour which the machine had rendered
+useless, and to excite a new development of all the trades. And thus it
+is that things go on. I have known newspapers to cost eighty francs, now
+we pay forty-eight: here is a saving of thirty-two francs to the
+subscribers. It is not certain, or at least necessary, that the
+thirty-two francs should take the direction of the journalist trade; but
+it is certain, and necessary too, that if they do not take this
+direction they will take another. One makes use of them for taking in
+more newspapers; another, to get better living; another, better clothes;
+another, better furniture. It is thus that the trades are bound
+together. They form a vast whole, whose different parts communicate by
+secret canals: what is saved by one, profits all. It is very important
+for us to understand that savings never take place at the expense of
+labour and wages.
+
+
+
+IX.--Credit.
+
+
+In all times, but more especially of late years, attempts have been made
+to extend wealth by the extension of credit.
+
+I believe it is no exaggeration to say, that since the revolution of
+February, the Parisian presses have issued more than 10,000 pamphlets,
+crying up this solution of the _social problem_.
+
+The only basis, alas! of this solution, is an optical delusion--if,
+indeed, an optical delusion can be called a basis at all.
+
+The first thing done is to confuse cash with produce, then paper money
+with cash; and from these two confusions it is pretended that a reality
+can be drawn.
+
+It is absolutely necessary in this question to forget money, coin,
+bills, and the other instruments by means of which productions pass from
+hand to hand. Our business is with the productions themselves, which are
+the real objects of the loan; for when a farmer borrows fifty francs to
+buy a plough, it is not, in reality, the fifty francs which are lent to
+him, but the plough; and when a merchant borrows 20,000 francs to
+purchase a house, it is not the 20,000 francs which he owes, but the
+house. Money only appears for the sake of facilitating the arrangements
+between the parties.
+
+Peter may not be disposed to lend his plough, but James may be willing
+to lend his money. What does William do in this case? He borrows money
+of James, and with this money he buys the plough of Peter.
+
+But, in point of fact, no one borrows money for the sake of the money
+itself; money is only the medium by which to obtain possession of
+productions. Now, it is impossible in any country to transmit from one
+person to another more productions than that country contains.
+
+Whatever may be the amount of cash and of paper which is in circulation,
+the whole of the borrowers cannot receive more ploughs, houses, tools,
+and supplies of raw material, than the lenders altogether can furnish;
+for we must take care not to forget that every borrower supposes a
+lender, and that what is once borrowed implies a loan.
+
+This granted, what advantage is there in institutions of credit? It is,
+that they facilitate, between borrowers and lenders, the means of
+finding and treating with each other; but it is not in their power to
+cause an instantaneous increase of the things to be borrowed and lent.
+And yet they ought to be able to do so, if the aim of the reformers is
+to be attained, since they aspire to nothing less than to place ploughs,
+houses, tools, and provisions in the hands of all those who desire them.
+
+And how do they intend to effect this?
+
+By making the State security for the loan.
+
+Let us try and fathom the subject, for it contains _something which is
+seen_, and also _something which is not seen_. We must endeavour to look
+at both.
+
+We will suppose that there is but one plough in the world, and that two
+farmers apply for it.
+
+Peter is the possessor of the only plough which is to be had in France;
+John and James wish to borrow it. John, by his honesty, his property,
+and good reputation, offers security. He _inspires confidence_; he has
+_credit_. James inspires little or no confidence. It naturally happens
+that Peter lends his plough to John.
+
+But now, according to the Socialist plan, the State interferes, and says
+to Peter, "Lend your plough to James, I will be security for its
+return, and this security will be better than that of John, for he has
+no one to be responsible for him but himself; and I, although it is true
+that I have nothing, dispose of the fortune of the tax-payers, and it is
+with their money that, in case of need, I shall pay you the principal
+and interest." Consequently, Peter lends his plough to James: _this is
+what is seen_.
+
+And the Socialists rub their hands, and say, "See how well our plan has
+answered. Thanks to the intervention of the State, poor James has a
+plough. He will no longer be obliged to dig the ground; he is on the
+road to make a fortune. It is a good thing for him, and an advantage to
+the nation as a whole."
+
+Indeed, it is no such thing; it is no advantage to the nation, for there
+is something behind _which is not seen_.
+
+_It is not seen_, that the plough is in the hands of James, only because
+it is not in those of John.
+
+_It is not seen_, that if James farms instead of digging, John will be
+reduced to the necessity of digging instead of farming.
+
+That, consequently, what was considered an increase of loan, is nothing
+but a displacement of loan. Besides, _it is not seen_ that this
+displacement implies two acts of deep injustice.
+
+It is an injustice to John, who, after having deserved and obtained
+_credit_ by his honesty and activity, sees himself robbed of it.
+
+It is an injustice to the tax-payers, who are made to pay a debt which
+is no concern of theirs.
+
+Will any one say, that Government offers the same facilities to John as
+it does to James? But as there is only one plough to be had, two cannot
+be lent. The argument always maintains that, thanks to the intervention
+of the State, more will be borrowed than there are things to be lent;
+for the plough represents here the bulk of available capitals.
+
+It is true, I have reduced the operation to the most simple expression
+of it, but if you submit the most complicated Government institutions of
+credit to the same test, you will be convinced that they can have but
+one result; viz., to displace credit, not to augment it. In one country,
+and in a given time, there is only a certain amount of capital
+available, and all are employed. In guaranteeing the non-payers, the
+State may, indeed, increase the number of borrowers, and thus raise the
+rate of interest (always to the prejudice of the tax-payer), but it has
+no power to increase the number of lenders, and the importance of the
+total of the loans.
+
+There is one conclusion, however, which I would not for the world be
+suspected of drawing. I say, that the law ought not to favour,
+artificially, the power of borrowing, but I do not say that it ought not
+to restrain them artificially. If, in our system of mortgage, or in any
+other, there be obstacles to the diffusion of the application of credit,
+let them be got rid of; nothing can be better or more just than this.
+But this is all which is consistent with liberty, and it is all that any
+who are worthy of the name of reformers will ask.
+
+
+
+X.--Algeria.
+
+
+Here are four orators disputing for the platform. First, all the four
+speak at once; then they speak one after the other. What have they said?
+Some very fine things, certainly, about the power and the grandeur of
+France; about the necessity of sowing, if we would reap; about the
+brilliant future of our gigantic colony; about the advantage of
+diverting to a distance the surplus of our population, &c. &c.
+Magnificent pieces of eloquence, and always adorned with this
+conclusion:--"Vote fifty millions, more or less, for making ports and
+roads in Algeria; for sending emigrants thither; for building houses and
+breaking up land. By so doing, you will relieve the French workman,
+encourage African labour, and give a stimulus to the commerce of
+Marseilles. It would be profitable every way."
+
+Yes, it is all very true, if you take no account of the fifty millions
+until the moment when the State begins to spend them; if you only see
+where they go, and not whence they come; if you look only at the good
+they are to do when they come out of the tax-gatherer's bag, and not at
+the harm which has been done, and the good which has been prevented, by
+putting them into it. Yes, at this limited point of view, all is profit.
+The house which is built in Barbary is _that which is seen_; the
+harbour made in Barbary is _that which is seen_; the work caused in
+Barbary is _what is seen_; a few less hands in France is _what is seen_;
+a great stir with goods at Marseilles is still _that which is seen_.
+
+But, besides all this, there is something _which is not seen_. The fifty
+millions expended by the State cannot be spent, as they otherwise would
+have been, by the tax-payers. It is necessary to deduct, from all the
+good attributed to the public expenditure which has been effected, all
+the harm caused by the prevention of private expense, unless we say that
+James B. would have done nothing with the crown that he had gained, and
+of which the tax had deprived him; an absurd assertion, for if he took
+the trouble to earn it, it was because he expected the satisfaction of
+using it. He would have repaired the palings in his garden, which he
+cannot now do, and this is _that which is not seen_. He would have
+manured his field, which now he cannot do, and this is _what is not
+seen_. He would have added another story to his cottage, which he cannot
+do now, and this is _what is not seen_. He might have increased the
+number of his tools, which he cannot do now, and this is _what is not
+seen_. He would have been better fed, better clothed, have given a
+better education to his children, and increased his daughter's marriage
+portion; this is _what is not seen_. He would have become a member of
+the Mutual Assistance Society, but now he cannot; this is _what is not
+seen_. On one hand, are the enjoyments of which he has been deprived,
+and the means of action which have been destroyed in his hands; on the
+other, are the labour of the drainer, the carpenter, the smith, the
+tailor, the village schoolmaster, which he would have encouraged, and
+which are now prevented--all this is _what is not seen_.
+
+Much is hoped from the future prosperity of Algeria; be it so. But the
+drain to which France is being subjected ought not to be kept entirely
+out of sight. The commerce of Marseilles is pointed out to me; but if
+this is to be brought about by means of taxation, I shall always show
+that an equal commerce is destroyed thereby in other parts of the
+country. It is said, "There is an emigrant transported into Barbary;
+this is a relief to the population which remains in the country," I
+answer, "How can that be, if, in transporting this emigrant to Algiers,
+you also transport two or three times the capital which would have
+served to maintain him in France?"[4]
+
+The only object I have in view is to make it evident to the reader, that
+in every public expense, behind the apparent benefit, there is an evil
+which it is not so easy to discern. As far as in me lies, I would make
+him form a habit of seeing both, and taking account of both.
+
+When a public expense is proposed, it ought to be examined in itself,
+separately from the pretended encouragement of labour which results from
+it, for tins encouragement is a delusion. Whatever is done in this way
+at the public expense, private expense would have done all the same;
+therefore, the interest of labour is always out of the question.
+
+It is not the object of this treatise to criticise the intrinsic merit
+of the public expenditure as applied to Algeria, but I cannot withhold a
+general observation. It is, that the presumption is always unfavourable
+to collective expenses by way of tax. Why? For this reason:--First,
+justice always suffers from it in some degree. Since James B. had
+laboured to gain his crown, in the hope of receiving a gratification
+from it, it is to be regretted that the exchequer should interpose, and
+take from James B. this gratification, to bestow it upon another.
+Certainly, it behoves the exchequer, or those who regulate it, to give
+good reasons for this. It has been shown that the State gives a very
+provoking one, when it says, "With this crown I shall employ workmen;"
+for James B. (as soon as he sees it) will be sure to answer, "It is all
+very fine, but with this crown I might employ them myself."
+
+Apart from this reason, others present themselves without disguise, by
+which the debate between the exchequer and poor James becomes much
+simplified. If the State says to him, "I take your crown to pay the
+gendarme, who saves you the trouble of providing for your own personal
+safety; for paving the street which you are passing through every day;
+for paying the magistrate who causes your property and your liberty to
+be respected; to maintain the soldier who maintains our
+frontiers,"--James B., unless I am much mistaken, will pay for all this
+without hesitation. But if the State were to say to him, "I take this
+crown that I may give you a little prize in case you cultivate your
+field well; or that I may teach your son something that you have no wish
+that he should learn; or that the Minister may add another to his score
+of dishes at dinner; I take it to build a cottage in Algeria, in which
+case I must take another crown every year to keep an emigrant in it, and
+another hundred to maintain a soldier to guard this emigrant, and
+another crown to maintain a general to guard this soldier," &c., &c.,--I
+think I hear poor James exclaim, "This system of law is very much like a
+system of cheat!" The State foresees the objection, and what does it do?
+It jumbles all things together, and brings forward just that provoking
+reason which ought to have nothing whatever to do with the question. It
+talks of the effect of this crown upon labour; it points to the cook and
+purveyor of the Minister; it shows an emigrant, a soldier, and a
+general, living upon the crown; it shows, in fact, _what is seen_, and
+if James B. has not learned to take into the account _what is not seen_,
+James B. will be duped. And this is why I want to do all I can to
+impress it upon his mind, by repeating it over and over again.
+
+As the public expenses displace labour without increasing it, a second
+serious presumption presents itself against them. To displace labour is
+to displace labourers, and to disturb the natural laws which regulate
+the distribution of the population over the country. If 50,000,000
+francs are allowed to remain in the possession of the tax-payers since
+the tax-payers are everywhere, they encourage labour in the 40,000
+parishes in France. They act like a natural tie, which keeps every one
+upon his native soil; they distribute themselves amongst all imaginable
+labourers and trades. If the State, by drawing off these 60,000,000
+francs from the citizens, accumulates them, and expends them on some
+given point, it attracts to this point a proportional quantity of
+displaced labour, a corresponding number of labourers, belonging to
+other parts; a fluctuating population, which is out of its place, and I
+venture to say dangerous when the fund is exhausted. Now here is the
+consequence (and this confirms all I have said): this feverish activity
+is, as it were, forced into a narrow space; it attracts the attention of
+all; it is _what is seen_. The people applaud; they are astonished at
+the beauty and facility of the plan, and expect to have it continued and
+extended. _That which they do not see_ is, that an equal quantity of
+labour, which would probably be more valuable, has been paralyzed over
+the rest of France.
+
+
+
+XI.--Frugality and Luxury.
+
+
+It is not only in the public expenditure that _what is seen_ eclipses
+_what is not seen_. Setting aside what relates to political economy,
+this phenomenon leads to false reasoning. It causes nations to consider
+their moral and their material interests as contradictory to each other.
+What can be more discouraging or more dismal?
+
+For instance, there is not a father of a family who does not think it
+his duty to teach his children order, system, the habits of carefulness,
+of economy, and of moderation in spending money.
+
+There is no religion which does not thunder against pomp and luxury.
+This is as it should be; but, on the other hand, how frequently do we
+hear the following remarks:--
+
+"To hoard, is to drain the veins of the people."
+
+"The luxury of the great is the comfort of the little."
+
+"Prodigals ruin themselves, but they enrich the State."
+
+"It is the superfluity of the rich which makes bread for the poor."
+
+Here, certainly, is a striking contradiction between the moral and the
+social idea. How many eminent spirits, after having made the assertion,
+repose in peace. It is a thing I never could understand, for it seems to
+me that nothing can be more distressing than to discover two opposite
+tendencies in mankind. Why, it comes to degradation at each of the
+extremes: economy brings it to misery; prodigality plunges it into moral
+degradation. Happily, these vulgar maxims exhibit economy and luxury in
+a false light, taking account, as they do, of those immediate
+consequences _which are seen_, and not of the remote ones, _which are
+not seen_. Let us see if we can rectify this incomplete view of the
+case.
+
+Mondor and his brother Aristus, after dividing the parental inheritance,
+have each an income of 50,000 francs. Mondor practises the fashionable
+philanthropy. He is what is called a squanderer of money. He renews his
+furniture several times a year; changes his equipages every month.
+People talk of his ingenious contrivances to bring them sooner to an
+end: in short, he surpasses the fast livers of Balzac and Alexander
+Dumas.
+
+Thus everybody is singing his praises. It is, "Tell us about Mondor!
+Mondor for ever! He is the benefactor of the workman; a blessing to the
+people. It is true, he revels in dissipation; he splashes the
+passers-by; his own dignity and that of human nature are lowered a
+little; but what of that? He does good with his fortune, if not with
+himself. He causes money to circulate; he always sends the tradespeople
+away satisfied. Is not money made round that it may roll?"
+
+Aristus has adopted a very different plan of life. If he is not an
+egotist, he is, at any rate, an _individualist_, for he considers
+expense, seeks only moderate and reasonable enjoyments, thinks of his
+children's prospects, and, in fact, he _economises_.
+
+And what do people say of him? "What is the good of a rich fellow like
+him? He is a skinflint. There is something imposing, perhaps, in the
+simplicity of his life; and he is humane, too, and benevolent, and
+generous, but he _calculates_. He does not spend his income; his house
+is neither brilliant nor bustling. What good does he do to the
+paper-hangers, the carriage makers, the horse dealers, and the
+confectioners?"
+
+These opinions, which are fatal to morality, are founded upon what
+strikes the eye:--the expenditure of the prodigal; and another, which is
+out of sight, the equal and even superior expenditure of the economist.
+
+But things have been so admirably arranged by the Divine inventor of
+social order, that in this, as in everything else, political economy and
+morality, far from clashing, agree; and the wisdom of Aristus is not
+only more dignified, but still more _profitable_, than the folly of
+Mondor. And when I say profitable, I do not mean only profitable to
+Aristus, or even to society in general, but more profitable to the
+workmen themselves--to the trade of the time.
+
+To prove it, it is only necessary to turn the mind's eye to those hidden
+consequences of human actions, which the bodily eye does not see.
+
+Yes, the prodigality of Mondor has visible effects in every point of
+view. Everybody can see his landaus, his phaetons, his berlins, the
+delicate paintings on his ceilings, his rich carpets, the brilliant
+effects of his house. Every one knows that his horses run upon the turf.
+The dinners which he gives at the Hotel de Paris attract the attention
+of the crowds on the Boulevards; and it is said, "That is a generous
+man; far from saving his income, he is very likely breaking into his
+capital." That is _what is seen_.
+
+It is not so easy to see, with regard to the interest of workers, what
+becomes of the income of Aristus. If we were to trace it carefully,
+however, we should see that the whole of it, down to the last farthing,
+affords work to the labourers, as certainly as the fortune of Mondor.
+Only there is this difference: the wanton extravagance of Mondor is
+doomed to be constantly decreasing, and to come to an end without fail;
+whilst the wise expenditure of Aristus will go on increasing from year
+to year. And if this is the case, then, most assuredly, the public
+interest will be in unison with morality.
+
+Aristus spends upon himself and his household 20,000 francs a year. If
+that is not sufficient to content him, he does not deserve to be called
+a wise man. He is touched by the miseries which oppress the poorer
+classes; he thinks he is bound in conscience to afford them some relief,
+and therefore he devotes 10,000 francs to acts of benevolence. Amongst
+the merchants, the manufacturers, and the agriculturists, he has friends
+who are suffering under temporary difficulties; he makes himself
+acquainted with their situation, that he may assist them with prudence
+and efficiency, and to this work he devotes 10,000 francs more. Then he
+does not forget that he has daughters to portion, and sons for whose
+prospects it is his duty to provide, and therefore he considers it a
+duty to lay by and put out to interest 10,000 francs every year.
+
+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 phoenix. 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 caetera_ 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 Croesus 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 Croesus; 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 _a 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 Caesar? 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:--
+
+     1. When the few plunder the many.
+
+     2. When everybody plunders everybody else.
+
+     3. When nobody plunders anybody.
+
+Partial plunder, universal plunder, absence of plunder, amongst these we
+have to make our choice. The law can only produce one of these results.
+
+_Partial_ plunder.--This is the system which prevailed so long as the
+elective privilege was _partial_--a system which 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
+any one 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 which 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 ORGANISED
+JUSTICE.
+
+Now it is important to remark, that to organise justice by law, that is
+to say by force, excludes the idea of organising by law, or by force any
+manifestation whatever of human activity--labour, charity, agriculture,
+commerce, industry, instruction, the fine arts, or religion; for any one
+of these organisations would inevitably destroy the essential
+organisation. 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 encountering the most popular prejudice of our time. It is
+not considered enough that law should be just, 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. M. de Lamartine wrote to me one day thus:--"Your
+doctrine is only the half of my programme; you have stopped at liberty,
+I go on to fraternity." I answered him:--"The second part of your
+programme 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
+egotism; the other is in false philanthropy.
+
+Before I proceed, I think I ought to explain myself upon the word
+plunder.[8]
+
+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, 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 dissensions;
+therefore, whether I am believed or not, I declare that I do not mean to
+accuse the intentions nor the morality of anybody. I am attacking an
+idea which I believe to be false--a system which 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 in 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,[9] 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 it as it may, to conclude that legal plunder has one of its roots in
+false philanthropy, is evidently to put intentions out of the question.
+
+With this understanding, let us examine the value, the origin, and the
+tendency of this popular aspiration, which pretends to realise the
+general good by general plunder.
+
+The Socialists say, since the law organises justice, why should it not
+organise labour, instruction, and religion?
+
+Why? Because it could not organise labour, instruction, and religion,
+without disorganising justice.
+
+For, remember, that law is force, and that consequently the domain of
+the law cannot lawfully 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 fulfil 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 which 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 which 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 labour, 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 lumber; they cease to be men; they
+lose their personality, their liberty, their property.
+
+Endeavour to imagine a form of labour imposed by force, which is not a
+violation of liberty; a transmission of wealth imposed by force, which
+is not a violation of property. If you cannot succeed in reconciling
+this, you are bound to conclude that the law cannot organise labour and
+industry without organising injustice.
+
+When, from the seclusion of his cabinet, a politician takes a view of
+society, he is struck with the spectacle of inequality which presents
+itself. He mourns over the sufferings which 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 later times, effected through the medium of
+the laws? He ought to ask himself whether, granting the aspiration of
+all men after well-being and perfection, the reign of justice would not
+suffice to realise the greatest activity of progress, and the greatest
+amount of equality compatible with that individual responsibility which
+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 organisations. 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 which 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 fountain, whence every stream may
+obtain supplies independently of society. Nothing can enter the public
+treasury, in favour of one citizen or one class, but what other citizens
+and other classes have been _forced_ to send to it. If every one 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
+equalisation 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, prizes for encouragement, right to profit, right
+to labour, right to assistance, right to instruction, progressive
+taxation, gratuitousness of credit, social workshops, and you will
+always find at the bottom legal plunder, organised injustice.
+
+You say, "There are men who want knowledge," and you apply to the law.
+But the law is not a torch which sheds light abroad which is peculiar to
+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 force the will of the
+people in the matter, and take from some of them sufficient to pay
+professors commissioned to instruct others gratuitously. 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?
+
+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, organisation, association.
+And because we do not ask so much at the hands of the law, because we
+only ask it for justice, it supposes that we reject fraternity,
+solidarity, organisation, and association; and they brand us with the
+name of _individualists_.
+
+We can assure them that what we repudiate is, not natural organisation,
+but forced organisation.
+
+It is not free association, but the forms of association which 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, &c., &c. 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 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
+moving spring in them; that they are inert matter, passive particles,
+atoms without impulse; at best a vegetation indifferent to its own mode
+of existence, susceptible of receiving, 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 scruple to imagine
+that he himself is, under the names of organiser, discoverer,
+legislator, institutor or founder, this will and hand, this universal
+spring, 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, sub-circles,
+honeycombs, or social workshops, with all kinds of variations. And as
+the gardener, to bring his trees into shape, wants hatchets,
+pruning-hooks, saws, and shears, so the politician, to bring society
+into shape, wants the forces which he can only find in the laws; the law
+of customs, the law of taxation, the law of assistance, and the law of
+instruction.
+
+It is so true, that the Socialists look upon mankind as a subject for
+social combinations, that if, by chance, they are not quite certain of
+the success of these combinations, 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, then, think of the immeasurable distance 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 distance between
+himself and mankind.
+
+It is not to be wondered at that 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 which exist between the clay and the
+potter.
+
+Moreover, if they have consented to recognise in the heart of man a
+principle of action, and in his intellect a principle 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 labour and exchange to
+be extinguished in misery.
+
+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,
+polities, 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, organisation,
+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 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 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 which 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 organisation,
+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 which characterizes the classics,
+Fenelon, 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 which were
+     covered every year, without intermission, with golden crops;
+     meadows full of flocks; labourers bending under the weight of
+     fruits which 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 which is governed
+     by a wise king.'.... Mentor afterwards desired me to remark the
+     happiness and abundance which 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 favour of the poor _against_ the rich; the good
+     education of the children, who were accustomed to obedience,
+     labour, and the love of arts and letters; the exactness with which
+     all the ceremonies of religion were performed; the
+     disinterestedness, the desire of honour, 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_.'"
+
+Fenelon's idyl 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 which 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 which 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."
+
+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.
+
+It is thus that 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.
+
+     _Montesquieu_.--"To sustain the spirit of commerce, it is necessary
+     that all the laws should favour it; that these same laws, by their
+     regulations in dividing the fortunes in proportion as commerce
+     enlarges them, should place every poor citizen in sufficiently easy
+     circumstances to enable him to work like the others, and every rich
+     citizen in such mediocrity that he must work, in order to retain or
+     to acquire."
+
+Thus the laws are to dispose of all fortunes.
+
+     "Although, in a democracy, real equality be the soul of the State,
+     yet it is so difficult to establish, that an extreme exactness in
+     this matter would not always be desirable. It is sufficient that a
+     census be established to reduce or fix the differences to a certain
+     point. After which, it is for particular laws to equalise, as it
+     were, the inequality, by burdens imposed upon the rich, and reliefs
+     granted to the poor."
+
+Here, again, we see the equalisation of fortunes by law, that is, by
+force.
+
+     "There were, in Greece, two kinds of republics. One was military,
+     as Lacedaemon; the other commercial, as Athens. In the one it was
+     wished (by whom?) that the citizens should be idle: in the other,
+     the love of labour was encouraged.
+
+     "It is worth our while to pay a little attention to the extent of
+     genius required by these legislators, that we may see how, by
+     confounding all the virtues, they showed their wisdom to the world.
+     Lycurgus, blending theft with the spirit of justice, the hardest
+     slavery with extreme liberty, the most atrocious sentiments with
+     the greatest moderation, gave stability to his city. He seemed to
+     deprive it of all its resources, arts, commerce, money, and walls;
+     there Was ambition without the hope of rising; there were natural
+     sentiments where the individual was neither child, nor husband,
+     nor father. Chastity even was deprived of modesty. _By this road
+     Sparta was led on to grandeur and to glory_.
+
+     "The phenomenon which we observe in the institutions of Greece has
+     been seen in the midst of the _degeneracy and corruption of our
+     modern times_. An honest legislator has formed a people where
+     probity has appeared as natural as bravery among the Spartans. Mr.
+     Penn is a true Lycurgus, and although the former had peace for his
+     object, and the latter war, they resemble each other in the
+     singular path along which they have led _their_ people, in their
+     influence over free men, in the prejudices which they have
+     overcome, the passions they have subdued.
+
+     "Paraguay furnishes us with another example. _Society_ has been
+     accused of the crime of regarding the pleasure of commanding as the
+     only good of life; but it will always be a noble thing to govern
+     men by making them happy.
+
+     "_Those who desire to form similar institutions_, will establish
+     community of property, as in the republic of Plato, the same
+     reverence which he enjoined for the gods, separation from strangers
+     for the preservation of morality, and make the city and not the
+     citizens create commerce: they should give our arts without our
+     luxury, our wants without our desires."
+
+Vulgar infatuation may exclaim, if it likes:--"It is Montesquieu!
+magnificent! sublime!" I am not afraid to express my opinion, and to
+say:--"What! you have the face to call that fine? It is frightful! it is
+abominable! and these extracts, which I might multiply, show that,
+according to Montesquieu, the persons, the liberties, the property,
+mankind itself, are nothing but materials to exercise the sagacity of
+lawgivers."
+
+_Rousseau_.--Although this politician, the paramount authority of the
+Democrats, makes the social edifice rest upon the _general will_, no one
+has so completely admitted the hypothesis of the entire passiveness of
+human nature in the presence of the lawgiver:--
+
+     "If it is true that a great prince is a rare thing, how much more
+     so must a great lawgiver be? The former has only to follow the
+     pattern proposed to him by the latter. _This latter is the
+     mechanician who invents the machine_; the former is merely the
+     workman who sets it in motion."
+
+And what part have men to act in all this? That of the machine, which is
+set in motion; or rather, are they not the brute matter of which the
+machine is made? Thus, between the legislator and the prince, between
+the prince and his subjects, there are the same relations as those which
+exist between the agricultural writer and the agriculturist, the
+agriculturist and the clod. At what a vast height, then, is the
+politician placed, who rules over legislators themselves, and teaches
+them their trade in such imperative terms as the following:--
+
+     "Would you give consistency to the State? Bring the extremes
+     together as much as possible. Suffer neither wealthy persons nor
+     beggars.
+
+     "If the soil is poor and barren, or the country too much confined
+     for the inhabitants, turn to industry and the arts, whose
+     productions you will exchange for the provisions which you
+     require.... On a good soil, if _you are short_ of inhabitants, give
+     all your attention to agriculture, which multiplies men, and
+     _banish_ the arts, which only serve to depopulate the country....
+     Pay attention to extensive and convenient coasts. _Cover the sea_
+     with vessels, and you will have a brilliant and short existence. If
+     your seas wash only inaccessible rocks, let the people _be
+     barbarous_, and eat fish; they will live more quietly, perhaps
+     better, and, most certainly, more happily. In short, besides those
+     maxims which are common to all, every people has its own particular
+     circumstances, which demand a legislation peculiar to itself.
+
+     "It was thus that the Hebrews formerly, and the Arabs more
+     recently, had religion for their principal object; that of the
+     Athenians was literature; that of Carthage and Tyre, commerce; of
+     Rhodes, naval affairs; of Sparta, war; and of Rome, virtue. The
+     author of the 'Spirit of Laws' has shown the art _by which the
+     legislator should frame his institutions towards each of these
+     objects_.... But if the legislator, mistaking his object, should
+     take up a principle different from that which arises from the
+     nature of things; if one should tend to slavery, and the other to
+     liberty; if one to wealth, and the other to population; one to
+     peace, and the other to conquests; the laws will insensibly become
+     enfeebled, the Constitution will be impaired, and the State will be
+     subject to incessant agitations until it is destroyed, or becomes
+     changed, and invincible Nature regains her empire."
+
+But if Nature is sufficiently invincible to _regain_ its empire, why
+does not Kousseau admit that it had no need of the legislator to _gain_
+its empire from the beginning? Why does he not allow that, by obeying
+their own impulse, men would, of themselves, apply agriculture to a
+fertile district, and commerce to extensive and commodious coasts,
+without the interference of a Lycurgus, a Solon, or a Rousseau, who
+would undertake it at the risk of _deceiving themselves_?
+
+Be that as it may, we see with what a terrible responsibility Rousseau
+invests inventors, institutors, conductors, and manipulators of
+societies. He is, therefore, very exacting with regard to them.
+
+     "He who dares to undertake the institutions of a people, ought to
+     feel that he can, as it were, transform every individual, who is by
+     himself a perfect and solitary whole, receiving his life and being
+     from a larger whole of which he forms a part; he must feel that he
+     can change the constitution of man, to fortify it, and substitute a
+     partial and moral existence for the physical and independent one
+     which we have all received from nature. In a word, he must deprive
+     man of his own powers, to give him others which are foreign to
+     him."
+
+Poor human nature! What would become of its dignity if it were
+entrusted to the disciples of Rousseau?
+
+     _Raynal_.--"The climate, that is, the air and the soil, is the
+     first element for the legislator. _His_ resources prescribe to him
+     his duties. First, he must consult _his_ local position. A
+     population dwelling upon maritime shores must have laws fitted for
+     navigation.... If the colony is located in an inland region, a
+     legislator must provide for the nature of the soil, and for its
+     degree of fertility....
+
+     "It is more especially in the distribution of property that the
+     wisdom of legislation will appear. As a general rule, and in every
+     country, when a new colony is founded, land should be given to each
+     man, sufficient for the support of his family....
+
+     "In an uncultivated island, which _you_ are colonizing with
+     children, it will only be needful to let the germs of truth expand
+     in the developments of reason! But when _you_ establish old people
+     in a new country, the skill consists in _only allowing it_ those
+     injurious opinions and customs which it is impossible to cure and
+     correct. If _you_ wish to prevent them from being perpetuated, you
+     will act upon the rising generation by a general and public
+     education of the children. A prince, or legislator, ought never to
+     found a colony without previously sending wise men there to
+     instruct the youth.... In a new colony, every facility is open to
+     the precautions of the legislator who desires _to purify the tone
+     and the manners of the people_. If he has genius and virtue, the
+     lands and the men which are _at his disposal_ will inspire his soul
+     with a plan of society which a writer can only vaguely trace, and
+     in a way which would be subject to the instability of all
+     hypotheses, which are varied and complicated by an infinity of
+     circumstances too difficult to foresee and to combine."
+
+One would think it was a professor of agriculture who was saying to his
+pupils--"The climate is the only rule for the agriculturist. _His_
+resources dictate to him his duties. The first thing he has to consider
+is his local position. If he is on a clayey soil, he must do so and so.
+If he has to contend with sand, this is the way in which he must set
+about it. Every facility is open to the agriculturist who wishes to
+clear and improve his soil. If he only has the skill, the manure which
+he has _at his disposal_ will suggest to him a plan of operation, which
+a professor can only vaguely trace, and in a way that would be subject
+to the uncertainty of all hypotheses, which vary and are complicated by
+an infinity of circumstances too difficult to foresee and to combine."
+
+But, oh! sublime writers, deign to remember sometimes that this clay,
+this sand, this manure, of which you are disposing in so arbitrary a
+manner, are men, your equals, intelligent and free beings like
+yourselves, who have received from God, as you have, the faculty of
+seeing, of foreseeing, of thinking, and of judging for themselves!
+
+_Mably_. (He is supposing the laws to be worn out by time and by the
+neglect of security, and continues thus):--
+
+     "Under these circumstances, we must be convinced that the springs
+     of Government are relaxed. _Give them_ a new tension (it is the
+     reader who is addressed), and the evil will be remedied.... Think
+     lees of punishing the faults than of encouraging the virtues _which
+     you want_. By this method you will bestow upon _your republic_ the
+     vigour of youth. Through ignorance of this, a free people has lost
+     its liberty! But if the evil has made so much way that the ordinary
+     magistrates are unable to remedy it effectually, _have recourse_ to
+     an extraordinary magistracy, whose time should be short, and its
+     power considerable. The imagination of the citizens requires to be
+     impressed."
+
+In this style he goes on through twenty volumes.
+
+There was a time when, under the influence of teaching like this, which
+is the root of classical education, every one was for placing himself
+beyond and above mankind, for the sake of arranging, organising, and
+instituting it in his own way.
+
+     _Condillac_.--"Take upon yourself, my lord, the character of
+     Lycurgus or of Solon. Before you finish reading this essay, amuse
+     yourself with giving laws to some wild people in America or in
+     Africa. Establish these roving men in fixed dwellings; teach them
+     to keep flocks.... Endeavour to develop the social qualities which
+     nature has implanted in them.... Make them begin to practise the
+     duties of humanity.... Cause the pleasures of the passions to
+     become distasteful to them by punishments, and you will see these
+     barbarians, with every plan of your legislation, lose a vice and
+     gain a virtue.
+
+     "All these people have had laws. But few among them have been
+     happy. Why is this? Because legislators have almost always been
+     ignorant of the object of society, which is, to unite families by a
+     common interest.
+
+     "Impartiality in law consists in two things:--in establishing
+     equality in the fortunes and in the dignity of the citizens.... In
+     proportion to the degree of equality established by the laws, the
+     dearer will they become to every citizen.... How can avarice,
+     ambition, dissipation, idleness, sloth, envy, hatred, or jealousy,
+     agitate men who are equal in fortune and dignity, and to whom the
+     laws leave no hope of disturbing their equality?
+
+     "What has been told you of the republic of Sparta ought to
+     enlighten you on this question. No other State has had laws more in
+     accordance with the order of nature or of equality."
+
+It is not to be wondered at that the 17th and 18th centuries should have
+looked upon the human race as inert matter, ready to receive everything,
+form, figure, impulse, movement, and life, from a great prince, or a
+great legislator, or a great genius. These ages were reared in the study
+of antiquity, and antiquity presents everywhere, in Egypt, Persia,
+Greece, and Rome, the spectacle of a few men moulding mankind according
+to their fancy, and mankind to this end enslaved by force or by
+imposture. And what does this prove? That because men and society are
+improvable, error, ignorance, despotism, slavery, and superstition must
+be more prevalent in early times. The mistake of the writers quoted
+above, is not that they have asserted this fact, but that they have
+proposed it, as a rule, for the admiration and imitation of future
+generations. Their mistake has been, with an inconceivable absence of
+discernment, and upon the faith of a puerile conventionalism, that they
+have admitted what is inadmissible, viz., the grandeur, dignity,
+morality, and well-being of the artificial societies of the ancient
+world; they have not understood that time produces and spreads
+enlightenment; and that in proportion to the increase of enlightenment,
+right ceases to be upheld by force, and society regains possession of
+herself.
+
+And, in fact, what is the political work which we are endeavouring to
+promote? It is no other than the instinctive effort of every people
+towards liberty. And what is liberty, whose name can make every heart
+beat, and which can agitate the world, but the union of all liberties,
+the liberty of conscience, of instruction, of association, of the press,
+of locomotion, of labour, and of exchange; in other words, the free
+exercise, for all, of all the inoffensive faculties; and again, in other
+words, the destruction of all despotisms, even of legal despotism, and
+the reduction of law to its only rational sphere, which is to regulate
+the individual right of legitimate defence, or to repress injustice?
+
+This tendency of the human race, it must be admitted, is greatly
+thwarted, particularly in our country, by the fatal disposition,
+resulting from classical teaching, and common to all politicians, of
+placing themselves beyond mankind, to arrange, organise, and regulate
+it, according to their fancy.
+
+For whilst society is struggling to realise liberty, the great men who
+place themselves at its head, imbued with the principles of the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, think only of subjecting it to the
+philanthropic despotism of their social inventions, and making it bear
+with docility, according to the expression of Rousseau, the yoke of
+public felicity, as pictured in their own imaginations.
+
+This was particularly the case in 1789. No sooner was the old system
+destroyed, than society was to be submitted to other artificial
+arrangements, always with the same starting-point--the omnipotence of
+the law.
+
+     _Saint Just_.--"The legislator commands the future. It is for him
+     to _will_ for the good of mankind. It is for him to make men what
+     he wishes them to be."
+
+     _Robespierre_.--"The function of Government is to direct the
+     physical and moral powers of the nation towards the object of its
+     institution."
+
+     _Billaud Varennes_.--"A people who are to be restored to liberty
+     must be formed anew. Ancient prejudices must be destroyed,
+     antiquated customs changed, depraved affections corrected,
+     inveterate vices eradicated. For this, a strong force and a
+     vehement impulse will be necessary.... Citizens, the inflexible
+     austerity of Lycurgus created the firm basis of the Spartan
+     republic. The feeble and trusting disposition of Solon plunged
+     Athens into slavery. This parallel contains the whole science of
+     Government."
+
+     _Lepelletier._--"Considering the extent of human degradation, I am
+     convinced of the necessity of effecting an entire regeneration of
+     the race, and, if I may so express myself, of creating a new
+     people."
+
+Men, therefore, are nothing but raw material. It is not for them to
+_will their own improvement_. They are not capable of it; according to
+Saint Just, it is only the legislator who is. Men are merely to be what
+he _wills_ that they should be. According to Robespierre, who copies
+Rousseau literally, the legislator is to begin by assigning the aim of
+the _institutions of the nation_. After this, the Government has only to
+direct all its _physical_ and _moral forces_ towards this end. All this
+time the nation itself is to remain perfectly passive; and Billaud
+Varennes would teach us that it ought to have no prejudices, affections,
+nor wants, but such as are authorised by the legislator. He even goes so
+far as to say that the inflexible austerity of a man is the basis of a
+republic.
+
+We have seen that, in cases where the evil is so great that the ordinary
+magistrates are unable to remedy it, Mably recommends a dictatorship, to
+promote virtue. "_Have recourse_," says he, "to an extraordinary
+magistracy, whose time shall be short, and his power considerable. The
+imagination of the people requires to be impressed." This doctrine has
+not been neglected. Listen to Robespierre:--
+
+     "The principle of the Republican Government is virtue, and the
+     means to be adopted, during its establishment, is terror. We want
+     to substitute, in our country, morality for egotism, probity for
+     honour, principles for customs, duties for decorum, the empire of
+     reason for the tyranny of fashion, contempt of vice for contempt of
+     misfortune, pride for insolence, greatness of soul for vanity,
+     love of glory for love of money, good people for good company,
+     merit for intrigue, genius for wit, truth for glitter, the charm of
+     happiness for the weariness of pleasure, the greatness of man for
+     the littleness of the great, a magnanimous, powerful, happy people,
+     for one that is easy, frivolous, degraded; that is to say, we would
+     substitute all the virtues and miracles of a republic for all the
+     vices and absurdities of monarchy."
+
+At what a vast height above the rest of mankind does Robespierre place
+himself here! And observe the arrogance with which he speaks. He is not
+content with expressing a desire for a great renovation of the human
+heart, he does not even expect such a result from a regular Government.
+No; he intends to effect it himself, and by means of terror. The object
+of the discourse from which this puerile and laborious mass of
+antithesis is extracted, was to exhibit the _principles of morality
+which ought to direct a revolutionary Government_. Moreover, when
+Robespierre asks for a dictatorship, it is not merely for the purpose of
+repelling a foreign enemy, or of putting down factions; it is that he
+may establish, by means of terror, and as a preliminary to the game of
+the Constitution, his own principles of morality. He pretends to nothing
+short of extirpating from the country, by means of terror, _egotism,
+honour, customs, decorum, fashion, vanity, the love of money, good
+company, intrigue, wit, luxury, and misery_. It is not until after he,
+Robespierre, shall have accomplished these _miracles_, as he rightly
+calls them, that he will allow the law to regain her empire. Truly, it
+would be well if these visionaries, who think so much of themselves and
+so little of mankind, who want to renew everything, would only be
+content with trying to reform themselves, the task would be arduous
+enough for them. In general, however, these gentlemen, the reformers,
+legislators, and politicians, do not desire to exercise an immediate
+despotism over mankind. No, they are too moderate and too philanthropic
+for that. They only contend for the despotism, the absolutism, the
+omnipotence of the law. They aspire only to make the law.
+
+To show how universal this strange disposition has been in France, I had
+need not only to have copied the whole of the works of Mably, Raynal,
+Rousseau, Fenelon, and to have made long extracts from Bossuet and
+Montesquieu, but to have given the entire transactions of the sittings
+of the Convention, I shall do no such thing, however, but merely refer
+the reader to them.
+
+It is not to be wondered at that this idea should have suited Buonaparte
+exceedingly well. He embraced it with ardour, and put it in practice
+with energy. Playing the part of a chemist, Europe was to him the
+material for his experiments. But this material reacted against him.
+More than half undeceived, Buonaparte, at St. Helena, seemed to admit
+that there is an initiative in every people, and he became less hostile
+to liberty. Yet this did not prevent him from giving this lesson to his
+son in his will:--"To govern, is to diffuse morality, education, and
+well-being."
+
+After all this, I hardly need show, by fastidious quotations, the
+opinions of Morelly, Babeuf, Owen, Saint Simon, and Fourier. I shall
+confine myself to a few extracts from Louis Blanc's book on the
+organisation of labour.
+
+"In our project, society receives the impulse of power." (Page 126.)
+
+In what does the impulse which power gives to society consist? In
+imposing upon it the _project_ of M. Louis Blanc.
+
+On the other hand, society is the human race. The human race, then, is
+to receive its impulse from M. Louis Blanc.
+
+It is at liberty to do so or not, it will be said. Of course the human
+race is at liberty to take advice from anybody, whoever it may be. But
+this is not the way in which M. Louis Blanc understands the thing. He
+means that his project should be converted into _law_, and,
+consequently, forcibly imposed by power.
+
+     "In our project, the State has only to give a legislation to
+     labour, by means of which the industrial movement may and ought to
+     be accomplished _in all liberty_. It (the State) merely places
+     society on an incline (_that is all_) that it may descend, when
+     once it is placed there, by the mere force of things, and by the
+     natural course of the _established mechanism_."
+
+But what is this incline? One indicated by M. Louis Blanc. Does it not
+lead to an abyss? No, it leads to happiness. Why, then, does not society
+go there of itself? Because it does not know what it wants, and it
+requires an impulse. What is to give it this impulse? Power. And who is
+to give the impulse to power? The inventor of the machine, M. Louis
+Blanc.
+
+We shall never get out of this circle--mankind passive, and a great man
+moving it by the intervention of the law.
+
+Once on this incline, will society enjoy something like liberty? Without
+a doubt. And what is liberty?
+
+     "Once for all: liberty consists, not only in the right granted, but
+     in the power given to man, to exercise, to develop his faculties
+     under the empire of justice, and under the protection of the law.
+
+     "And this is no vain distinction; there is a deep meaning in it,
+     and its consequences are not to be estimated. For when once it is
+     admitted that man, to be truly free, must have the power to
+     exercise and develop his faculties, it follows that every member of
+     society has a claim upon it for such instruction as shall _enable_
+     it to display itself, and for the instruments of labour, without
+     which human activity can find no scope. Now, by whose intervention
+     is society to give to each of its members the requisite instruction
+     and the necessary instruments of labour, unless by that of the
+     State?"
+
+Thus, liberty is power. In what does this power consist? In possessing
+instruction and instruments of labour. Who is to give instruction and
+instruments of labour? Society, _who owes them_. By whose intervention
+is society to give instruments of labour to those who do not possess
+them?
+
+By the _intervention of the State_. From whom is the State to obtain
+them?
+
+It is for the reader to answer this question, and to notice whither all
+this tends.
+
+One of the strangest phenomena of our time, and one which will probably
+be a matter of astonishment to our descendants, is the doctrine which is
+founded upon this triple hypothesis: the radical passiveness of
+mankind,--the omnipotence of the law,--the infallibility of the
+legislator:--this is the sacred symbol of the party which proclaims
+itself exclusively democratic.
+
+It is true that it professes also to be _social_.
+
+So far as it is democratic, it, has an unlimited faith in mankind.
+
+So far as it is social, it places it beneath the mud.
+
+Are political rights under discussion? Is a legislator to be chosen? Oh!
+then the people possess science by instinct: they are gifted with an
+admirable tact; _their will is always right_; the general _will cannot
+err_. Suffrage cannot be too _universal_. Nobody is under any
+responsibility to society. The will and the capacity to choose well are
+taken for granted. Can the people be mistaken? Are we not living in an
+age of enlightenment? What! are the people to be always kept in leading
+strings? Have they not acquired their rights at the cost of effort and
+sacrifice? Have they not given sufficient proof of intelligence and
+wisdom? Are they not arrived at maturity? Are they not in a state to
+judge for themselves? Do they not know their own interest? Is there a
+man or a class who would dare to claim the right of putting himself in
+the place of the people, of deciding and of acting for them? No, no; the
+people would be _free_, and they shall be so. They wish to conduct their
+own affairs, and they shall do so.
+
+But when once the legislator is duly elected, then indeed the style of
+his speech alters. The nation is sent back into passiveness, inertness,
+nothingness, and the legislator takes possession of omnipotence. It is
+for him to invent, for him to direct, for him to impel, for him to
+organise. Mankind has nothing to do but to submit; the hour of despotism
+has struck. And we must observe that this is decisive; for the people,
+just before so enlightened, so moral, so perfect, have no inclinations
+at all, or, if they have any, they all lead them downwards towards
+degradation. And yet they ought to have a little liberty! But are we not
+assured, by M. Considerant, that _liberty leads fatally to monopoly_?
+Are we not told that liberty is competition? and that competition,
+according to M. Louis Blanc, _is a system of extermination for the
+people, and of ruination for trade_? For that reason people are
+exterminated and ruined in proportion as they are free--take, for
+example, Switzerland, Holland, England, and the United States? Does not
+M. Louis Blanc tell us again, that _competition leads to monopoly, and
+that, for the same reason, cheapness leads to exorbitant prices? That
+competition tends to drain the sources of consumption, and urges
+production to a destructive activity? That competition forces production
+to increase, and consumption to decrease_;--whence it follows that free
+people produce for the sake of not consuming; that there is nothing but
+_oppression and madness_ among them; and that it is absolutely necessary
+for M. Louis Blanc to see to it?
+
+What sort of liberty should be allowed to men? Liberty of
+conscience?--But we should see them all profiting by the permission to
+become atheists. Liberty of education?--But parents would be paying
+professors to teach their sons immorality and error; besides, if we are
+to believe M. Thiers, education, if left to the national liberty, would
+cease to be national, and we should be educating our children in the
+ideas of the Turks or Hindoos, instead of which, thanks to the legal
+despotism of the universities, they have the good fortune to be educated
+in the noble ideas of the Romans. Liberty of labour?--But this is only
+competition, whose effect is to leave all productions unconsumed, to
+exterminate the people, and to ruin the tradesmen. The liberty of
+exchange?--But it is well known that the protectionists have shown, over
+and over again, that a man must be ruined when he exchanges freely, and
+that to become rich it is necessary to exchange without liberty. Liberty
+of association?--But, according to the socialist doctrine, liberty and
+association exclude each other, for the liberty of men is attacked just
+to force them to associate.
+
+You must see, then, that the socialist democrats cannot in conscience
+allow men any liberty, because, by their own nature, they tend in every
+instance to all kinds of degradation and demoralisation.
+
+We are therefore left to conjecture, in this case, upon what foundation
+universal suffrage is claimed for them with so much importunity.
+
+The pretensions of organisers suggest another question, which I have
+often asked them, and to which I am not aware that I ever received an
+answer:--Since the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is
+not safe to allow them liberty, how comes it to pass that the tendencies
+of organisers are always good? Do not the legislators and their agents
+form a part of the human race? Do they consider that they are composed
+of different materials from the rest of mankind? They say that society,
+when left to itself, rushes to inevitable destruction, because its
+instincts are perverse. They pretend, to stop it in its downward course,
+and to give it a better direction. They have, therefore, received from
+heaven, intelligence and virtues which place them beyond and above
+mankind: let them show their title to this superiority. They would be
+our shepherds, and we are to be their flock. This arrangement
+presupposes in them a natural superiority, the right to which we are
+fully justified in calling upon them to prove.
+
+You must observe that I am not contending against their right to invent
+social combinations, to propagate them, to recommend them, and to try
+them upon themselves, at their own expense and risk; but I do dispute
+their right to impose them upon us through the medium of the law, that
+is, by force and by public taxes.
+
+I would not insist upon the Cabetists, the Fourierists, the
+Proudhonians, the Universitaries, and the Protectionists renouncing
+their own particular ideas; I would only have them renounce that idea
+which is common to them all,--viz., that of subjecting us by force to
+their own groups and series to their social workshops, to their
+gratuitous bank to their Graeco-Romano morality, and to their commercial
+restrictions. I would ask them to allow us the faculty of judging of
+their plans, and not to oblige us to adopt them, if we find that they
+hurt our interests or are repugnant to our consciences.
+
+To presume to have recourse to power and taxation, besides being
+oppressive and unjust, implies further, the injurious supposition that
+the organiser is infallible, and mankind incompetent.
+
+And if mankind is not competent to judge for itself, why do they talk so
+much about universal suffrage?
+
+This contradiction in ideas is unhappily to be found also in facts; and
+whilst the French nation has preceded all others in obtaining its
+rights, or rather its political claims, this has by no means prevented
+it from being more governed, and directed, and imposed upon, and
+fettered, and cheated, than any other nation. It is also the one, of all
+others, where revolutions are constantly to be dreaded, and it is
+perfectly natural that it should be so.
+
+So long as this idea is retained, which is admitted by all our
+politicians, and so energetically expressed by M. Louis Blanc in these
+words--"Society receives its impulse from power;" so long as men
+consider themselves as capable of feeling, yet passive--incapable of
+raising themselves by their own discernment and by their own energy to
+any morality, or well-being, and while they expect everything from the
+law; in a word, while they admit that their relations with the State are
+the same as those of the flock with the shepherd, it is clear that the
+responsibility of power is immense. Fortune and misfortune, wealth and
+destitution, equality and inequality, all proceed from it. It is charged
+with everything, it undertakes everything, it does everything; therefore
+it has to answer for everything. If we are happy, it has a right to
+claim our gratitude; but if we are miserable, it alone must bear the
+blame. Are not our persons and property, in fact, at its disposal? Is
+not the law omnipotent? In creating the universitary monopoly, it has
+engaged to answer the expectations of fathers of families who have been
+deprived of liberty; and if these expectations are disappointed, whose
+fault is it? In regulating industry, it has engaged to make it prosper,
+otherwise it would have been absurd to deprive it of its liberty; and if
+it suffers, whose fault is it? In pretending to adjust the balance of
+commerce by the game of tariffs, it engages to make it prosper; and if,
+so far from prospering, it is destroyed, whose fault is it? In granting
+its protection to maritime armaments in exchange for their liberty, it
+has engaged to render them lucrative; if they become burdensome, whose
+fault is it?
+
+Thus, there is not a grievance in the nation for which the Government
+does not voluntarily make itself responsible. Is it to be wondered at
+that every failure threatens to cause a revolution?
+
+And what is the remedy proposed? To extend indefinitely the dominion of
+the law, _i.e._, the responsibility of Government. But if the Government
+engages to raise and to regulate wages, and is not able to do it; if it
+engages to assist all those who are in want, and is not able to do it;
+if it engages to provide an asylum for every labourer, and is not able
+to do it; if it engages to offer to all such as are eager to borrow,
+gratuitous credit, and is not able to do it; if, in words which we
+regret should have escaped the pen of M. de Lamartine, "the State
+considers that its mission is to enlighten, to develop, to enlarge, to
+strengthen, to spiritualize, and to sanctify the soul of the
+people,"--if it fails in this, is it not evident that after every
+disappointment, which, alas! is more than probable, there will be a no
+less inevitable revolution?
+
+I shall now resume the subject by remarking, that immediately after the
+economical part[10] of the question, and at the entrance of the
+political part, a leading question presents itself? It is the
+following:--
+
+What is law? What ought it to be? What is its domain? What are its
+limits? Where, in fact, does the prerogative of the legislator stop?
+
+I have no hesitation in answering, _Law is common force organised to
+prevent injustice_;--in short, Law is Justice.
+
+It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons
+and property, since they pre-exist, and his work is only to secure them
+from injury.
+
+It is not true that the mission of the law is to regulate our
+consciences, our ideas, our will, our education, our sentiments, our
+works, our exchanges, our gifts, our enjoyments. Its mission is to
+prevent the rights of one from interfering with those of another, in any
+one of these things.
+
+Law, because it has force for its necessary sanction, can only have as
+its lawful domain the domain of force, which is justice.
+
+And as every individual has a right to have recourse to force only in
+cases of lawful defence, so collective force, which is only the union of
+individual forces, cannot be rationally used for any other end.
+
+The law, then, is solely the organisation of individual rights, which
+existed before legitimate defence.
+
+Law is justice.
+
+So far from being able to oppress the persons of the people, or to
+plunder their property, even for a philanthropic end, its mission is to
+protect the former, and to secure to them the possession of the latter.
+
+It must not be said, either, that it may be philanthropic, so long as it
+abstains from all oppression; for this is a contradiction. The law
+cannot avoid acting upon our persons and property; if it does not secure
+them, it violates them if it touches them.
+
+The law is justice.
+
+Nothing can be more clear and simple, more perfectly defined and
+bounded, or more visible to every eye; for justice is a given quantity,
+immutable and unchangeable, and which admits of neither _increase_ or
+_diminution_.
+
+Depart from this point, make the law religious, fraternal, equalising,
+industrial, literary, or artistic, and you will be lost in vagueness and
+uncertainty; you will be upon unknown ground, in a forced Utopia, or,
+which is worse, in the midst of a multitude of Utopias, striving to gain
+possession of the law, and to impose it upon you; for fraternity and
+philanthropy have no fixed limits, like justice. Where will you stop?
+Where is the law to stop? One person, as M. de Saint Cricq, will only
+extend his philanthropy to some of the industrial classes, and will
+require the law to _dispose of the consumers in favour of the
+producers_. Another, like M. Considerant, will take up the cause of the
+working classes, and claim for them by means of the law, at a fixed
+rate, _clothing, lodging, food, and everything necessary for the support
+of life_. A third, as, M. Louis Blanc, will say, and with reason, that
+this would be an incomplete fraternity, and that the law ought to
+provide them with instruments of labour and the means of instruction. A
+fourth will observe that such an arrangement still leaves room for
+inequality, and that the law ought to introduce into the most remote
+hamlets luxury, literature, and the arts. This is the high road to
+communism; in other words, legislation will be--what it now is--the
+battle-field for everybody's dreams and everybody's covetousness.
+
+Law is justice.
+
+In this proposition we represent to ourselves a simple, immovable
+Government. And I defy any one to tell me whence the thought of a
+revolution, an insurrection, or a simple disturbance could arise against
+a public force confined to the repression of injustice. Under such a
+system, there would be more well-being, and this well-being would be
+more equally distributed; and as to the sufferings inseparable from
+humanity, no one would think of accusing the Government of them, for it
+would be as innocent of them as it is of the variations of the
+temperature. Have the people ever been known to rise against the court
+of repeals, or assail the justices of the peace, for the sake of
+claiming the rate of wages, gratuitous credit, instruments of labour,
+the advantages of the tariff, or the social workshop? They know
+perfectly well that these combinations are beyond the jurisdiction of
+the justices of the peace, and they would soon learn that they are not
+within the jurisdiction of the law.
+
+But if the law were to be made upon the principle of fraternity, if it
+were to be proclaimed that from it proceed all benefits and all
+evils--that it is responsible for every individual grievance and for
+every social inequality--then you open the door to an endless succession
+of complaints, irritations, troubles, and revolutions.
+
+Law is justice.
+
+And it would be very strange if it could properly be anything else! Is not
+justice right? Are not rights equal? With what show of right can the law
+interfere to subject me to the social plans of MM. Mimerel, de Melun,
+Thiers, or Louis Blanc, rather than to subject these gentlemen to _my_
+plans? Is it to be supposed that Nature has not bestowed upon ME
+sufficient imagination to invent a Utopia too? Is it for the law to make
+choice of one amongst so many fancies, and to make use of the public
+force in its service?
+
+Law is justice.
+
+And let it not be said, as it continually is, that the law, in this
+sense, would be atheistic, individual, and heartless, and that it would
+make mankind wear its own image. This is an absurd conclusion, quite
+worthy of the governmental infatuation which sees mankind in the law.
+
+What then? Does it follow that, if we are free, we shall cease to act?
+Does it follow, that if we do not receive an impulse from the law, we
+shall receive no impulse at all? Does it follow, that if the law
+confines itself to securing to us the free exercise of our faculties,
+our faculties will be paralyzed? Does it follow, that if the law does
+not impose upon us forms of religion, modes of association, methods of
+instruction, rules for labour, directions for exchange, and plans for
+charity, we shall plunge eagerly into atheism, isolation, ignorance,
+misery, and egotism? Does it follow, that we shall no longer recognise
+the power and goodness of God; that we shall cease to associate
+together, to help each other, to love and assist our unfortunate
+brethren, to study the secrets of nature, and to aspire after perfection
+in our existence?
+
+Law is justice.
+
+And it is under the law of justice, under the reign of right, under the
+influence of liberty, security, stability, and responsibility, that
+every man will attain to the measure of his worth, to all the dignity of
+his being, and that mankind will accomplish, with order and with
+calmness--slowly, it is true, but with certainty--the progress decreed
+to it.
+
+I believe that my theory is correct; for whatever be the question upon
+which I am arguing, whether it be religious, philosophical, political,
+or economical; whether it affects well-being, morality, equality, right,
+justice, progress, responsibility, property, labour, exchange, capital,
+wages, taxes, population, credit, or Government; at whatever point of
+the scientific horizon I start from, I invariably come to the same
+thing--the solution of the social problem is in liberty.
+
+And have I not experience on my side? Cast your eye over the globe.
+Which are the happiest, the most moral, and the most peaceable nations?
+Those where the law interferes the least with private activity; where
+the Government is the least felt; where individuality has the most
+scope, and public opinion the most influence; where the machinery of the
+administration is the least important and the least complicated; where
+taxation is lightest and least unequal, popular discontent the least
+excited and the least justifiable; where the responsibility of
+individuals and classes is the most active, and where, consequently, if
+morals are not in a perfect state, at any rate they tend incessantly to
+correct themselves; where transactions, meetings, and associations are
+the least fettered; where labour, capital, and production suffer the
+least from artificial displacements; where mankind follows most
+completely its own natural course; where the thought of God prevails the
+most over the inventions of men; those, in short, who realise the most
+nearly this idea--That within the limits of right, all should flow from
+the free, perfectible, and voluntary action of man; nothing be attempted
+by the law or by force, except the administration of universal justice.
+
+I cannot avoid coming to this conclusion--that there are too many great
+men in the world; there are too many legislators, organisers,
+institutors of society, conductors of the people, fathers of nations,
+&c., &c. Too many persons place themselves above mankind, to rule and
+patronize it; too many persons make a trade of attending to it. It will
+be answered:--"You yourself are occupied upon it all this time." Very
+true. But it must be admitted that it is in another sense entirely that
+I am speaking; and if I join the reformers it is solely for the purpose
+of inducing them to relax their hold.
+
+I am not doing as Vaucauson did with his automaton, but as a
+physiologist does with the organisation of the human frame; I would
+study and admire it.
+
+I am acting with regard to it in the spirit which animated a celebrated
+traveller. He found himself in the midst of a savage tribe. A child had
+just been born, and a crowd of soothsayers, magicians, and quacks were
+around it, armed with rings, hooks, and bandages. One said--"This child
+will never smell the perfume of a calumet, unless I stretch his
+nostrils." Another said--"He will be without the sense of hearing,
+unless I draw his ears down to his shoulders." A third said--"He will
+never see the light of the sun, unless I give his eyes an oblique
+direction." A fourth said--"He will never be upright, unless I bend his
+legs." A fifth said--"He will not be able to think, unless I press his
+brain." "Stop!" said the traveller. "Whatever God does, is well done; do
+not pretend to know more than He; and as He has given organs to this
+frail creature, allow those organs to develop themselves, to strengthen
+themselves by exercise, use, experience, and liberty."
+
+God has implanted in mankind, also, all that is necessary to enable it
+to accomplish its destinies. There is a providential social physiology,
+as well as a providential human physiology. The social organs are
+constituted so as to enable them to develop harmoniously in the grand
+air of liberty. Away, then, with quacks and organisers! Away with their
+rings, and their chains, and their hooks, and their pincers! Away with
+their artificial methods! Away with their social workshops, their
+governmental whims, their centralization, their tariffs, their
+universities, their State religions, their gratuitous or monopolising
+banks, their limitations, their restrictions, their moralisations, and
+their equalisation by taxation! And now, after having vainly inflicted
+upon the social body so many systems, let them end where they ought to
+have begun--reject all systems, and make trial of liberty--of liberty,
+which is an act of faith in God and in His work.
+
+
+
+
+Footnotes
+
+
+
+[1] A franc is 10d. of our money.
+
+[2] This error will be combated in a pamphlet, entitled "_Cursed
+Money_."
+
+[3] Common people.
+
+[4] The Minister of War has lately asserted that every individual
+transported to Algeria has cost the State 8,000 francs. Now it is
+certain that these poor creatures could have lived very well in France
+on a capital of 4,000 francs. I ask, how the French population is
+relieved, when it is deprived of a man, and of the means of subsistence
+of two men?
+
+[5] This was written in 1849.
+
+[6] Twenty francs.
+
+[7] General Council of Manufactures, Agriculture, and Commerce, 6th. of
+May, 1850.
+
+[8] The French word is _spoliation_.
+
+[9] If protection were only granted in France to a single class, to the
+engineers, for instance, it would be so absurdly plundering, as to be
+unable to maintain itself. Thus we see all the protected trades combine,
+make common cause, and even recruit themselves in such a way as to
+appear to embrace the mass of the _national labour_. They feel
+instinctively that plunder is slurred ever by being generalised.
+
+[10] Political economy precedes politics: the former has to discover
+whether human interests are harmonious or antagonistic, a fact which
+must have been decided upon before the latter can determine the
+prerogatives of Government.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Essays on Political Economy, by Frederic Bastiat
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