In the first case, Communism aims at realizing, as regards result, the present order of things—only substituting the arbitrary will of one for the liberty of all.
In the second case, what must be the basis of the division? Communism answers, Equality. What! Equality, without regard to the difference of pains taken, of labour undergone! You are to have an equal share whether you have worked six hours or twelve—mechanically, or with intelligence! Of all inequalities surely that would be the most shocking; besides it would be the destruction of all liberty, all activity, all dignity, all sagacity. You pretend to put an end to competition, but in truth you only transform it. The competition at present is, who shall work most and best. Under your regime it would be, who should work worst and least.
Communism misunderstands or disowns the very nature of man. Effort is painful in itself. What urges us to make it? It can only be a feeling more painful still, a want to satisfy, a suffering to remove, a good to be realized. Our moving principle, then, is self-interest. When you ask the Communists what they would substitute for this, they answer, by the mouth of Louis Blanc, The point of honour, and by that of Monsieur Cabet, Fraternity. Enable me, then, to experience the sensations of others, in order that I may know what direction to impress upon my industry.
I should like to have it explained what this point of honour, [p246] this fraternity, which are to be set to work in society at the instigation and under the direction of Messieurs Louis Blanc and Cabet, really mean.
But it is not my business in this place to refute Communism, which is opposed in everything to the system which it is my object to establish.
We recognise the right of every man to serve himself, or to serve others on conditions freely stipulated. Communism denies this right, since it masses together and centralizes all services in the hands of an arbitrary authority.
Our doctrine is based upon Property. Communism is founded on systematic spoliation. It consists in handing over to one, without compensation, the labour of another. In fact, did it distribute to each according to his labour, it would recognise property, and would be no longer Communism.
Our doctrine is founded on liberty. In truth, property and liberty are in our eyes one and the same thing, for that which constitutes a man the proprietor of his service is his right and power of disposing of it. Communism annihilates liberty, since it leaves to no one the free disposal of his labour.
Our doctrine is founded on justice—Communism on injustice. That follows clearly from what has been already said.
There is only one point of contact, then, between the communists and us—it is the similarity of two syllables, in the words communism and community.
But this similarity of sounds should not mislead the reader. Whilst communism is the negation of Property, we find in our doctrine of Community the most explicit affirmation and the most positive demonstration of property.
If the legitimacy of property has appeared doubtful and inexplicable, even to men who are not communists, the reason is, that they believe that it concentrates in the hands of some, to the exclusion of others, those gifts of God which were originally common. We believe we have entirely dissipated that doubt by demonstrating that what is common by providential destination remains common in all human transactions,—the domain of property never extending beyond that of value—of right onerously acquired by services rendered.
Thus explained, property is vindicated; for who but a fool could pretend that men have no right to their own labour—no right to receive the voluntary services of those to whom they have rendered voluntary services?
There is another word upon which I must offer some explanation, [p247] for of late it has been strangely misapplied—I mean the word gratuitous. I need not say that I denominate gratuitous, not what costs a man nothing because he has deprived another of it, but what has cost nothing to anyone.
When Diogenes warmed himself in the sun, he might be said to warm himself gratuitously, for he obtained from the divine liberality a satisfaction which exacted no labour either from himself or his contemporaries. Nor does the heat of the sun’s rays cease to be gratuitous when the proprietor avails himself of it to ripen his corn and his grapes, seeing that in selling his grapes or his corn he is paid for his own services and not for those of the sun. This may be an erroneous view (in which case we have no alternative but to become communists); but at any rate this is the sense in which I use the word gratuitous, and this is what it evidently means.
Much has been said, since the establishment of the Republic, of gratuitous credit, and gratuitous instruction. But it is evident that a gross sophism lurks under this phraseology. Can the State shed abroad instruction like the light of day without its costing anything to anybody? Can it cover the country with institutions and professors without their being paid in one shape or another? Instead of leaving each individual to demand and to remunerate voluntarily this description of service, the State may lay hold of the remuneration, taken by taxation from the pockets of the citizens, and distribute among them instruction of its own selection, without exacting from them a second remuneration. This is all that can be effected by government interference—and in this case, those who do not learn pay for those who do, those who learn little for those who learn much, those who are destined to manual labour for those who embrace learned professions. This is communism applied to one branch of human activity. Under this régime, of which I am not called upon here to give an opinion, it might very well be said that instruction is common, but it would be ridiculous to say that instruction is gratuitous. Gratuitous! Yes, for some of those who receive it, but not for those who have to pay for it, if not to the teacher, at least to the tax-gatherer.
For that matter, there is nothing which the State can give gratuitously; and if the word were not a mystification, it is not only gratuitous education which we should demand from the State, but gratuitous food, gratuitous clothing, gratuitous lodging, etc. Let us take care. The people are not far from going this length, and there are already among us those who demand gratuitous credit, gratuitous tools and instruments of labour, etc. Dupes of a word, [p248] we have made one step towards Communism; why should we not make a second, and a third, until all liberty, all justice, and all property have passed away? Will it be urged that instruction is so universally necessary that we may depart somewhat from right and principle in this instance? But then, are not food and sustenance still more necessary than education? Primò vivere, deinde philosophari, the people may say; and I know not in truth what answer we can make to them.
Who knows? Those who charge me with Communism for having demonstrated the natural community of the gifts of God, are perhaps the very people who seek to violate justice in the matter of education, that is to say, to attack property in its essence. Such inconsistencies are more surprising than uncommon. [p249]
If the leading idea of this work is well founded, the relations of mankind with the external world must be viewed in this way:
God created the earth. On it, and within it, he has placed a multitude of things which are useful to man, inasmuch as they are adapted to satisfy his wants.
God has, besides, endued matter with forces—gravitation, elasticity, porosity, compressibility, heat, light, electricity, crystallization, vegetable life.
He has placed man in the middle of these materials and forces, which he has delivered over to him gratuitously.
Men set themselves to exercise their activity upon these materials and forces; and in this way they render service to themselves. They also work for one another, and in this way render reciprocal services. These services, compared by the act of exchange, give rise to the idea of Value, and Value to that of Property.
Each man, then, becomes an owner or proprietor in proportion to the services he has rendered. But the materials and forces given by God to man gratuitously, at the beginning, have continued gratuitous, and are and must continue to be so through all our transactions; for in the estimates and appreciations to which exchange gives rise, the equivalents are human services, not the gifts of God.
Hence it follows that no human being, so long as transactions are free, can ever cease to be the usufructuary of these gifts. A single condition is laid down, which is, that we shall execute the labour necessary to make them available to us, or, if any one makes this exertion for us, that we make for him an equivalent exertion.
If this account of the matter be true, Property is indeed unassailable. [p250]
The universal instinct of mankind, more infallible than the lucubrations of any individual, had adopted this view of the subject without refining upon it, when theory began to scrutinize the foundations of Property.
Theory unhappily began in confusion, mistaking Utility for Value, and attributing an inherent value, independent of all human service, to the materials or forces of nature. From that moment property became unintelligible, and incapable of justification.
For utility is the relation between commodities and our organization. It necessarily implies neither efforts, nor transactions, nor comparisons. We can conceive of it per se, and in relation to man in a state of isolation. Value, on the contrary, is a relation of man to man. To exist at all, it must exist in duplicate. Nothing isolated can be compared. Value implies that the person in possession of it does not transfer it except for an equivalent value. The theory, then, which confounds these two ideas, takes for granted that a person, in effecting an exchange, gives pretended value of natural creation for true value of human creation, utility which exacts no labour for utility which does exact it; in other words, that he can profit by the labour of another without working himself. Property, thus understood, is called first of all a necessary monopoly, then simply a monopoly,—then it is branded as illegitimate, and last of all as robbery.
Landed Property receives the first blow, and so it should. Not that natural agents do not bear their part in all manufactures, but these agents manifest themselves more strikingly to the eyes of the vulgar in the phenomena of vegetable and animal life, in the production of food, and of what are improperly called matières premières [raw materials], which are the special products of agriculture.
Besides, if there be any one monopoly more revolting than another, it is undoubtedly a monopoly which applies to the first necessaries of life.
The confusion which I am exposing, and which is specious in a scientific view, since no theorist I am acquainted with has got rid of it, becomes still more specious when we look at what is passing around us.
We see the landed Proprietor frequently living without labour, and we draw the conclusion, which is plausible enough, that “he must surely be remunerated for something else than his work.” And what can this something else be, if not the fecundity, the productiveness, the co-operation of the soil as an instrument? It is, then, the rent of land which we must brand, in the language [p251] of the times, with the names of necessary monopoly, privilege, illegitimacy, theft.
We must admit that the authors of this theory have encountered a fact which must have powerfully tended to mislead them. Few land estates in Europe have escaped from conquest and all its attendant abuses; and science has confounded the violent methods by which landed property has been acquired with the methods by which it is naturally formed.
But we must not imagine that the false definition of the word value tends only to unsettle landed property. Logic is a terrible and indefatigable power, whether it sets out with a good or a bad principle! As the earth, it is said, makes light, heat, electricity, vegetable life, etc., co-operate in the production of value, does not capital in the same way make gravitation, elasticity, the wind, etc., concur in producing value? There are other men, then, besides agriculturists who are paid for the intervention of natural agents. This remuneration comes to capitalists in the shape of Interest, just as it comes to proprietors in the shape of Rent. War, then, must be declared against Interest as it has been against Rent!
Property has had a succession of blows aimed at it in the name of this principle, false as I think, true according to the Economists and Egalitaires, namely, that natural agents possess or create value. This is a postulate upon which all schools are agreed. They differ only in the boldness or timidity of their deductions.
The Economists say that property (in land) is a monopoly, but a monopoly which is necessary, and which must be maintained.
The Socialists say that property (in land) is a monopoly, but a monopoly which is necessary, and which must be maintained,—and they demand compensation for it in the shape of right to employment [le droit au travail].
The Communists and Egalitaires say that property (in general) is a monopoly, and must be destroyed.
For myself, I say most emphatically that PROPERTY IS NOT A MONOPOLY. Your premises are false, and your three conclusions, although they differ, are false also. Property is not a monopoly, and consequently it is not incumbent on us either to tolerate it by way of favour, or to demand compensation for it, or to destroy it.
Let us pass briefly in review the opinions of writers of various schools on this important subject.
The English Economists lay down this principle, upon which they appear to be unanimous, that value comes from labour. Were they consistent in their use of terms, it might be so; but are they consistent? The reader will judge. He will see whether they [p252] do not always and everywhere confound gratuitous Utility, which is incapable of remuneration, and destitute of Value, with onerous Utility, which we owe exclusively to labour, and which according to them is alone possessed of value.
Adam Smith.—“In agriculture nature labours along with man; and although her labour costs no expense, its produce has its value, as well as that of the most expensive workmen.”55
Here we have nature producing value. The purchaser of corn must pay for it, although it has cost nothing to anybody, not even labour. Who then dares come forward to demand this pretended value? Substitute for that word the word utility, and all becomes clear, Property is vindicated, and justice satisfied.
“This rent,” proceeds Smith, “may be considered as the produce of those powers of nature, the use of which the landlord lends to the farmer. . . . . It (rent!) is the work of nature, which remains after deducting or compensating everything which can be regarded as the work of man. It is seldom less than a fourth, and frequently more than a third of the whole produce. No equal quantity of productive labour employed in manufactures can ever occasion so great a reproduction. In them nature does nothing; man does all.”56
Is it possible in as few words to include a greater number of dangerous errors? At this rate a fourth or a third part of the value of human subsistence is due exclusively to the power of nature. And yet the proprietor is paid by the farmer, and the farmer by the corn-consumer, for this pretended value which remains after the work of man has been remunerated. And this is the basis on which it is desired to place Property! And, then, what becomes of the axiom that all value comes from labour?
Next, we have nature doing nothing in Manufactures! Do gravitation, the elasticity of the air, and animal force, not aid the manufacturer? These forces act in our manufactures just as they act in our fields; they produce gratuitously, not value, but utility. Were it otherwise, property in capital would be as much exposed to the attacks of Communism as property in land.
Buchanan.—This commentator, adopting the theory of his master on Rent, is pressed by logic to blame him for having represented it as advantageous:
“In dwelling on the reproduction of rent as so great an advantage to society, Smith does not reflect that rent is the effect of high price, and that what the landlord gains in this way, he gains at the expense of the community at large. There is no absolute gain to society by the reproduction of rent. It is only one class profiting at the expense of another class.”57
Here the logical deduction makes its appearance—rent is an injustice.
Ricardo.—“Rent is that portion of the produce of the earth which is paid to the landlord for the use of the original and indestructible powers of the soil.” [p253]
And, in order that there may be no mistake, the author adds:
“It is often confounded with the interest and profit of capital. . . . . It is evident that a portion only of the money annually to be paid for the improved farm would be for the original and indestructible powers of the soil, the other portion would be paid for the use of the capital which had been employed in ameliorating the quality of the land, and in erecting such buildings as were necessary to secure and preserve the produce. . . . In the future pages of this work, then, whenever I speak of the rent of land, I wish to be understood as speaking of that compensation which is paid to the owner of land for the use of its original and indestructible powers.”58
M’Culloch.—“What is properly termed Rent is the sum paid for the use of the natural and inherent powers of the soil. It is entirely distinct from the sum paid for the use of buildings, enclosures, roads, or other amelioration. Rent is then always a monopoly.”
Scrope.—“The value of land, and its power of yielding Rent, are due to two circumstances,—1st, The appropriation of its natural powers; 2d, The labour applied to its amelioration.”
We are not kept long waiting for the consequence:
“Under the first of these relations rent is a monopoly. It restricts our usufruct and enjoyment of the gifts which God has given to men for the satisfaction of their wants. This restriction is just, only in as far as it is necessary for the common good.”
In what perplexity must those good souls be landed who refuse to admit anything to be necessary which is not just?
Scrope ends with these words:
“When it goes beyond this point, it must be modified on the same principle which caused it to be established.”
It is impossible for the reader not to perceive that these authors lead us to a negation of Property, and lead us to it very logically, in setting out with the proposition that the proprietor is paid for the gifts of God. Here we have rent held up as an injustice established by Law under the pressure of necessity, and which laws may modify or destroy under the pressure of another necessity. The Communists have never gone farther than this.
Senior.—“The instruments of production are labour and natural agents. Natural agents having been appropriated, proprietors charge for their use under the form of Rent, which is the recompense of no sacrifice whatever, and is received by those who have neither laboured nor put by, but who merely hold out their hands to accept the offerings of the rest of the community.”
After giving this heavy blow to property, Mr Senior explains that one portion of Rent resolves itself into the Interest of Capital, and then adds:
“The surplus is taken by the proprietor of the natural agent, and is his reward, not for having laboured or abstained, but simply for not having withheld what he was able to withhold; for having permitted the gifts of nature to be accepted.”
You will observe that this is still the same theory. The proprietor is supposed to interpose himself between the hungry mouth and the food which God has vouchsafed under the condition of [p254] labour. The proprietor who has co-operated in the work of production, charges first of all for his co-operation, which is just, and then he makes a second charge for the work of nature, for the use of natural agents, for the indestructible powers of the soil, which is iniquitous.
This theory of the English Economists, which has been farther developed by Mill, Malthus, and others, we are sorry to find making its way also on the Continent.
“When a franc’s worth of seed,” says Scialoja, “produces a hundred francs’ worth of corn, this augmentation of value is mainly due to the soil.”
This is to confound Utility with value; He might just as well have said, when water which costs only one sou at ten yards’ distance from the spring, costs ten sous at 100 yards, this augmentation of value is due in part to the intervention of nature.
Florez Estrada.—“Rent is that portion of the agricultural product which remains after all the costs of production have been defrayed.”
Then the proprietor receives something for nothing.
The English Economists all set out by announcing the principle that value comes from labour, and they are guilty of inconsistency when they afterwards attribute value to the inherent powers of the soil.
The French Economists in general make value to consist in utility; but, confounding gratuitous with onerous utility, they have not the less assisted in shaking the foundation of Property.
J. B. Say.—“Land is not the only natural agent which is productive, but it is the only one, or almost the only one, that man has been able to appropriate. The waters of the sea and of our rivers, by their aptitude to impart motion to machines, to afford nourishment to fishes, to float our ships, are likewise possessed of productive power. The wind and the sun’s rays work for us; but happily no one has been able to say, The wind and the sun are mine, and I must be paid for their services.”
M. Say appears from this to lament that any one should be able to say, The land belongs to me, and I must be paid for the service which it renders. Happily, say I, it is no more in the power of the proprietor to charge for the services of the soil than for the services of the sun and the wind.
“The earth,” continues M. Say, “is an admirable chemical workshop, in which are combined and elaborated a multitude of materials and elements which are produced in the shape of grain, fruit, flax, etc. Nature has presented to man, gratuitously, this vast workshop divided into a great number of compartments fitted for various kinds of production. But certain individual members of society have appropriated them, and proclaimed,—This compartment is mine,—that other is mine, and all that is produced in it is my exclusive property. And the astonishing thing is, that this usurped privilege, far from having been fatal to the community, has been found productive of advantage to it.”
Undoubtedly this arrangement has been advantageous; but why? Just because it is neither a privilege nor usurped, and [p255] that the man who exclaims, “This domain is mine,” has not had it in his power to add, “What has been produced on it is my exclusive property.” On the contrary, he says, “What has been produced is the exclusive property of whoever desires to purchase it, by giving me back simply the same amount of labour which I have undergone, and which in this instance I have saved his undergoing.” The co-operation of nature in the work of production, which is gratuitous for me, is gratuitous for him also.
M. Say indeed distinguishes, in the value of corn, the parts contributed by Property, by Capital, and by Labour. He has with the best intention been at great pains to justify this first part of the remuneration which accrues to the proprietor, and which is the recompense of no labour, either anterior or present; but he fails; for, like Scrope, he is obliged to fall back on the last and least satisfactory of all grounds of vindication, necessity.
“If it be impossible,” he remarks, “for production to be effected, not only without land and without capital, but without these means of production previously becoming property, may it not be said that proprietors of land and capital exercise a productive function, since, without the employment of these means, production would not take place?—a convenient function no doubt, but which, in the present state of society, presupposes accumulation, which is the result of production or saving,” etc.
The confusion here is palpable. The accumulation has been effected by the proprietor in his character of Capitalist—a character with which at present we have no concern. But what M. Say represents as convenient is the part played by the proprietor, in his proper character of proprietor, exacting a price for the gifts of God. It is this part which it is necessary to vindicate, and it has no connexion with either accumulation or saving.
“If, then, property in land and in capital” (why assimilate the two?) “be the fruit of production, I am warranted in representing such property as a working and productive machine, for which its author, although sitting with his hands across, is entitled to exact a recompense.”
Still the same confusion. The man who constructs a machine is proprietor of a capital, from which he legitimately derives an income, because he is paid, not for the labour of the machine, but for his own labour in constructing it. But land, or territorial property, is not the result of human production. What right, then, have we to be paid for its co-operation? The author has here mixed up two different kinds of property in the same category, in order that the same reasons which justify the one may serve for the vindication of the other.
Blanqui.—“The agriculturist who tills, manures, sows, and reaps his field, furnishes labour, without which nothing would be produced. But the action of the soil in making the seed germinate, and of the sun in bringing the plant to maturity, are independent of that labour, and co-operate in the formation of the value represented by the harvest. . . Smith and other Economists pretend that the labour of [p256] man is the exclusive source of value. Assuredly the industry of the labourer is not the exclusive source of the value of a sack of corn or a bushel of potatoes. His skill can no more succeed in producing the phenomenon of germination than the patience of the alchymist could succeed in discovering the philosopher’s stone. This is evident.”
It is impossible to imagine a more complete confusion than we have here, first between utility and value, and then between onerous and gratuitous utility.
Joseph Garnier.—“The rent of the proprietor differs essentially from the wages of the labourer and the profits of the capitalist, inasmuch as these two kinds of remuneration are the recompense, the one of trouble or pains taken, the other of a privation submitted to, and a risk encountered, whilst Rent is received by the proprietor gratuitously, and in virtue alone of a legal convention which recognises and maintains in certain individuals the right to landed property.”—(Eléments de l’Économie Politique, 2e edition, p. 293.)
In other words, the labourer and capitalist are paid, in the name of equity, for the services they render; and the proprietor is paid, in the name of law, for services which he does not render.
“The boldest innovators do not go farther than to propose the substitution of collective for individual property. It seems to us that they have reason on their side as regards human right; but they are wrong practically, inasmuch as they are unable to exhibit the advantages of a better Economical system.” . . . —(Ibid., pp. 377, 378.)
“But at the same time, in avowing that property is a privilege, a monopoly, we must add, that it is a natural and a useful monopoly. . . .
“In short, it seems to be admitted by Political Economy” [it is so, alas! and here lies the evil] “that property does not flow from divine right, demesnial right, or any other speculative right, but simply from its utility. It is only a monopoly tolerated in the interest of all,” etc.
This is precisely the judgment pronounced by Scrope, and repeated in modified terms by Say.
I think I have now satisfactorily shown that Political Economy, setting out with the false datum, that “natural agents possess or create value,” has arrived at this conclusion, “that property (in as far as it appropriates and is remunerated for this value, which is independent of all human service) is a privilege, a monopoly, a usurpation; but that it is a necessary monopoly, and must be maintained.”
It remains for me to show that the Socialists set out with the same postulate, only they modify the conclusion in this way: “Property is a necessary monopoly; it must be maintained, but we must demand, from those who have property, compensation to those who have none, in the shape of Right to Employment.”
I shall, then, dispose of the doctrine of the Communists, who, arguing from the same premises, conclude that “Property is a monopoly, and ought to be abolished.”
Finally, and at the risk of repetition, I shall, if I can, expose the fallacy of the premises on which all the three conclusions are based, namely, that natural agents possess or create value. If I succeed in [p257] this, if I demonstrate that natural agents, even when appropriated, produce, not Value, but Utility, which, passing from the hands of the proprietor without leaving anything behind it, reaches the consumer gratuitously,—in that case, all—Economists, Socialists, Communists—must at length come to a common understanding to leave the world, in this respect, just as it is.
M. Considérant.59—“In order to discover how and under what conditions private property may Legitimately manifest and develop itself, we must get possession of the fundamental principle of the Right of Property; and here it is:
“Every man POSSESSES LEGITIMATELY THE THINGS which have been CREATED by his labour, his intelligence, or, to speak more generally, BY HIS ACTIVITY.
“This Principle is incontestable, and it is right to remark that it contains implicitly the acknowledgment of the Right of all to the Soil. The earth not having been created by man, it follows in fact, from the fundamental principle of Property, that the Soil, which is a common fund given over to the species, can in no shape legitimately become the absolute and exclusive property of this or that individual who has not created this value. Let us establish, then, the true Theory of Property, by basing it exclusively on the unexceptionable principle which makes the legitimacy of Property hinge upon the fact of the CREATION of the thing, or of the value possessed. To accomplish this we must direct our reasoning to the origin of industry, that is to say, to the origin and development of agriculture, manufactures, the arts, etc., in human society.
“Suppose that on a solitary island, on the territory of a nation, or on the entire surface of the earth (for the extent of the field of action makes no difference in our estimate of facts), a generation of mankind devotes itself for the first time to industry—for the first time engages in agriculture, manufactures, etc. Each generation, by its labour, by its intelligence, by the exertion of its own proper activity, creates products, develops value, which did not exist on the earth in its rude and primitive state. Is it not perfectly evident that, among the first generation of labourers, Property would conform to Right, PROVIDED the value or wealth produced by the activity of all were distributed among the producers IN PROPORTION TO THE CO-OPERATION of each in the creation of the general riches? That is beyond dispute.
“Now, the results of the labour of this generation may be divided into two categories, which it is important to distinguish.
“The first category includes the products of the soil, which belong to this first generation in its character of usufructuary, as having been increased, refined, or manufactured by its labour, by its industry. These products, whether raw or manufactured, consist either of objects of consumption or of instruments of labour. It is clear that these products belong, in entire and legitimate property, to those who have created them by their activity. Each of them, then, has RIGHT, either to consume these products immediately, to store them up to be disposed of afterwards at pleasure, or to employ them, exchange them, give them away, or transmit them to any one he chooses, without receiving authority from anyone. On this hypothesis, this Property is evidently Legitimate, respectable, sacred. We cannot assail it without assailing Justice, Right, individual liberty,—without, in short, being guilty of Spoliation.
“Second category. But the creations attributable to the industrious activity of this first generation are not all included in the preceding category. This generation has created not only the products which we have just described (objects of consumption and instruments of labour),—it has also added an additional value to the primitive value of the soil, by cultivation, by erections, by the permanent improvements which it has executed.
“This additional value constitutes evidently a product, a value, due to the activity of the first generation. Now, if by any means (we are not concerned at present with the question of means),—if by any means whatever the property of this additional value is equitably distributed among the different members of society, that is to say, is distributed among them proportionally to the co-operation of each in its creation, each will possess legitimately the portion which has fallen to him. He may, then, dispose of this individual Property, legitimate as he sees it to be, exchange it, give it away, or transmit it without control, society having over these values no right or power whatsoever. [p258]
“We may, therefore, easily conceive that when the second generation makes its appearance, it will find upon the land two sorts of Capital:
“1st, The primitive or natural capital, which has not been created by the men of the first generation—that is, the value of the land in its rough, uncultivated state.
“2d, The capital created by the first generation: including (1), the products, commodities, and instruments, which shall not have been consumed or used by the first generation; (2), the additional value which the labour of the first generation has added to the value of the rough, uncultivated land.
“It is evident, then, and results clearly and necessarily from the fundamental principle of the Right of Property, which I have just explained, that each individual of the second generation has an equal right to the primitive or natural capital, whilst he has no right to the other species of capital which has been created by the labour of the first generation. Each individual of the first generation may, then, dispose of his share of this created capital in favour of whatever individual of the second generation he may please to select, children, friends, etc., and no one, not even the State itself, as we have just seen, has the slightest right (on pretence of Property) to control the disposal which, as donor or testator, he may have made of such capital.
“Observe that on this hypothesis the man of the second generation is already in a better situation than the man of the first, seeing that, besides his right to the primitive capital, which is preserved to him, he has his chance of receiving a portion of the created capital, that is to say, of a value which he has not produced, and which represents anterior labour.
“If, then, we suppose things to be arranged in society in such a way that,
“1st, The right to the primitive capital, that is, the usufruct of the soil in its natural state, is preserved, or that an EQUIVALENT RIGHT is conferred on every individual born within the territory;
“2d, That the created capital is continually distributed among men, as it is produced, in proportion to the co-operation of each in the production of that capital;
“If, we say, the mechanism of the social organization shall satisfy these two conditions, PROPERTY, under such a régime, would be established IN ITS ABSOLUTE LEGITIMACY, and Fact would be in unison with Right.”—(Théorie du droit de propriété et du droit au travail, 3e edition, p. 17.)
We see here that the socialist author distinguishes between two kinds of value, created value, which is the subject of legitimate property, and uncreated value, which he denominates the value of land in its natural state, primitive capital, natural capital, which cannot become individual property but by usurpation. Now, according to the theory which I am anxious to establish, the ideas expressed by the words uncreated, primitive, natural, exclude radically these other ideas, value, capital. This is the error in M. Considérant’s premises, by which he is landed in this melancholy conclusion:
“That, under the régime of Property, in all civilized nations, the common fund, over which the entire species has a full right of usufruct, has been invaded—has been confiscated—by the few, to the exclusion of the many. Why, were even a single human being excluded from his Right to the Usufruct of this common fund, that very exclusion would of itself constitute an attack upon Right by the Institution of Property, and that institution, by sanctioning such invasion of right, would be unjust and illegitimate.”
M. Considérant, however, acknowledges that the earth could not be cultivated but for the institution of individual property. Here, then, is a necessary monopoly. What can we do, then, to reconcile all, and preserve the rights which the prolétaires, or men of no property, have to the primitive, natural, uncreated capital, and to the value of the land in its rough and uncultivated state? [p259]
“Why, let Society, which has taken possession of the land, and taken away from man the power of exercising, freely and at will, his four natural rights on the surface of the soil,—let this industrious society cede to the individual, in compensation for the rights of which it has deprived him, the Right to Employment.”—[Le Droit au Travail.]
Now, nothing in the world is clearer than that this theory, except the conclusion which it seeks to establish, is exactly the theory of the Economists. The man who purchases an agricultural product remunerates three things: 1st, The actual labour—nothing more legitimate; 2dly, the additional value imparted to the soil by anterior labour—still nothing more legitimate; 3dly, and lastly, the primitive, or natural, or uncreated capital,—that gratuitous gift of God, which M. Considérant denominates the value of the land in its rough and natural state; Adam Smith, the indestructible powers of the soil; Ricardo, the productive and indestructible powers of the land; Say, natural agents. This is the part which has been usurped, according to M. Considérant; this is what has been usurped, according to J. B. Say. It is this which constitutes illegitimacy and spoliation in the eyes of the Socialists; which constitutes monopoly and privilege in the eyes of the Economists. They are at one as to the necessity and the utility of this arrangement. Without it the earth would produce nothing, say the disciples of Smith; without it we should return to the savage state, re-echo the disciples of Fourier.
We find that in theory, and as regards right (at least with reference to this important question), the understanding between the two schools is much more cordial than we should have imagined. They differ only as to the legislative consequences to be deduced from the fact on which they agree. “Seeing that property is tainted with illegitimacy, inasmuch as it assigns to the proprietor a part of the remuneration to which he has no right; and seeing, at the same time, that it is necessary, let us respect it, but demand indemnities. No, say the Economists, although it is a monopoly, yet seeing that it is a necessary monopoly, let us respect it, and let it alone.” And yet they urge this weak defence but feebly; for one of their latest organs, M. J. Garnier, adds, “You have reason on your side, as regards human right, but you are wrong practically, inasmuch as you have failed to point out the effects of a better system.” To which the Socialists immediately reply, “We have found it; it is the Right to Employment—try it.”
In the meantime M. Proudhon steps in. You imagine, perhaps, that this redoubtable objector is about to question the premises on which the Economists and Socialists ground their agreement. Not at all. He can demolish property without that. [p260] He appropriates the premises, grasps them, closes with them, and most logically deduces his conclusion. “You grant,” he says, “that the gifts of God are possessed not only of utility but of value, and that these gifts the proprietor usurps and sells. Then Property is theft; and it is not necessary to maintain it; it is not necessary to demand compensation for it; what is necessary is to abolish it.”
M. Proudhon has brought forward many arguments against landed Property. The most formidable one—indeed the only formidable one—is that with which these authors have furnished him, by confounding utility with value.