What is Property? Part 17

"But," it will be answered, "even if that is so--even if the product does not belong to the producer--still society gives each laborer an equivalent for his product; and this equivalent, this salary, this reward, this allowance, becomes his property. Do you deny that this property is legitimate? And if the laborer, instead of consuming his entire wages, chooses to economize,--who dare question his right to do so?"

The laborer is not even proprietor of the price of his labor, and cannot absolutely control its disposition. Let us not be blinded by a spurious justice. That which is given the laborer in exchange for his product is not given him as a reward for past labor, but to provide for and secure future labor. We consume before we produce. The laborer may say at the end of the day, "I have paid yesterday's expenses; to-morrow I shall pay those of today." At every moment of his life, the member of society is in debt; he dies with the debt unpaid:--how is it possible for him to acc.u.mulate?

They talk of economy--it is the proprietor's hobby. Under a system of equality, all economy which does not aim at subsequent reproduction or enjoyment is impossible--why? Because the thing saved, since it cannot be converted into capital, has no object, and is without a FINAL CAUSE.

This will be explained more fully in the next chapter.

To conclude:--

The laborer, in his relation to society, is a debtor who of necessity dies insolvent. The proprietor is an unfaithful guardian who denies the receipt of the deposit committed to his care, and wishes to be paid for his guardians.h.i.+p down to the last day.

Lest the principles just set forth may appear to certain readers too metaphysical, I shall reproduce them in a more concrete form, intelligible to the dullest brains, and pregnant with the most important consequences.

Hitherto, I have considered property as a power of EXCLUSION; hereafter, I shall examine it as a power of INVASION.

CHAPTER IV. THAT PROPERTY IS IMPOSSIBLE.

The last resort of proprietors,--the overwhelming argument whose invincible potency rea.s.sures them,--is that, in their opinion, equality of conditions is impossible. "Equality of conditions is a chimera," they cry with a knowing air; "distribute wealth equally to-day--to-morrow this equality will have vanished."

To this hackneyed objection, which they repeat everywhere with the most marvellous a.s.surance, they never fail to add the following comment, as a sort of GLORY BE TO THE FATHER: "If all men were equal, n.o.body would work." This anthem is sung with variations.

"If all were masters, n.o.body would obey."

"If n.o.body were rich, who would employ the poor?"

And, "If n.o.body were poor, who would labor for the rich?"

But let us have done with invective--we have better arguments at our command.

If I show that property itself is impossible--that it is property which is a contradiction, a chimera, a utopia; and if I show it no longer by metaphysics and jurisprudence, but by figures, equations, and calculations,--imagine the fright of the astounded proprietor! And you, reader; what do you think of the retort?

Numbers govern the world--mundum regunt numeri. This proverb applies as aptly to the moral and political, as to the sidereal and molecular, world. The elements of justice are identical with those of algebra; legislation and government are simply the arts of cla.s.sifying and balancing powers; all jurisprudence falls within the rules of arithmetic. This chapter and the next will serve to lay the foundations of this extraordinary doctrine. Then will be unfolded to the reader's vision an immense and novel career; then shall we commence to see in numerical relations the synthetic unity of philosophy and the sciences; and, filled with admiration and enthusiasm for this profound and majestic simplicity of Nature, we shall shout with the apostle: "Yes, the Eternal has made all things by number, weight, and measure!" We shall understand not only that equality of conditions is possible, but that all else is impossible; that this seeming impossibility which we charge upon it arises from the fact that we always think of it in connection either with the proprietary or the communistic regime,--political systems equally irreconcilable with human nature. We shall see finally that equality is constantly being realized without our knowledge, even at the very moment when we are p.r.o.nouncing it incapable of realization; that the time draws near when, without any effort or even wish of ours, we shall have it universally established; that with it, in it, and by it, the natural and true political order must make itself manifest.

It has been said, in speaking of the blindness and obstinacy of the pa.s.sions, that, if man had any thing to gain by denying the truths of arithmetic, he would find some means of unsettling their certainty: here is an opportunity to try this curious experiment. I attack property, no longer with its own maxims, but with arithmetic. Let the proprietors prepare to verify my figures; for, if unfortunately for them the figures prove accurate, the proprietors are lost.

In proving the impossibility of property, I complete the proof of its injustice. In fact,--

That which is JUST must be USEFUL;

That which is useful must be TRUE;

That which is true must be POSSIBLE;

Therefore, every thing which is impossible is untrue, useless, unjust.

Then,--a priori,--we may judge of the justice of any thing by its possibility; so that if the thing were absolutely impossible, it would be absolutely unjust.

PROPERTY IS PHYSICALLY AND MATHEMATICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.

DEMONSTRATION.

AXIOM.--Property is the Right of Increase claimed by the Proprietor over any thing which he has stamped as his own.

This proposition is purely an axiom, because,--

1. It is not a definition, since it does not express all that is included in the right of property--the right of sale, of exchange, of gift; the right to transform, to alter, to consume, to destroy, to use and abuse, &c. All these rights are so many different powers of property, which we may consider separately; but which we disregard here, that we may devote all our attention to this single one,--the right of increase.

2. It is universally admitted. No one can deny it without denying the facts, without being instantly belied by universal custom.

3. It is self-evident, since property is always accompanied (either actually or potentially) by the fact which this axiom expresses; and through this fact, mainly, property manifests, establishes, and a.s.serts itself.

4. Finally, its negation involves a contradiction. The right of increase is really an inherent right, so essential a part of property, that, in its absence, property is null and void.

OBSERVATIONS.--Increase receives different names according to the thing by which it is yielded: if by land, FARM-RENT; if by houses and furniture, RENT; if by life-investments, REVENUE; if by money, INTEREST; if by exchange, ADVANTAGE, GAIN, PROFIT (three things which must not be confounded with the wages or legitimate price of labor).

Increase--a sort of royal prerogative, of tangible and consumable homage--is due to the proprietor on account of his nominal and metaphysical occupancy. His seal is set upon the thing; that is enough to prevent any one else from occupying it without HIS permission.

This permission to use his things the proprietor may, if he chooses, freely grant. Commonly he sells it. This sale is really a stellionate and an extortion; but by the legal fiction of the right of property, this same sale, severely punished, we know not why, in other cases, is a source of profit and value to the proprietor.

The amount demanded by the proprietor, in payment for this permission, is expressed in monetary terms by the dividend which the supposed product yields in nature. So that, by the right of increase, the proprietor reaps and does not plough; gleans and does not till; consumes and does not produce; enjoys and does not labor. Very different from the idols of the Psalmist are the G.o.ds of property: the former had hands and felt not; the latter, on the contrary, _ma.n.u.s habent et palpabunt_.

_ _The right of increase is conferred in a very mysterious and supernatural manner. The inauguration of a proprietor is accompanied by the awful ceremonies of an ancient initiation. First, comes the CONSECRATION of the article; a consecration which makes known to all that they must offer up a suitable sacrifice to the proprietor, whenever they wish, by his permission obtained and signed, to use his article.

Second, comes the ANATHEMA, which prohibits--except on the conditions aforesaid--all persons from touching the article, even in the proprietor's absence; and p.r.o.nounces every violator of property sacrilegious, infamous, amenable to the secular power, and deserving of being handed over to it.

Finally, the DEDICATION, which enables the proprietor or patron saint--the G.o.d chosen to watch over the article--to inhabit it mentally, like a divinity in his sanctuary. By means of this dedication, the substance of the article--so to speak--becomes converted into the person of the proprietor, who is regarded as ever present in its form.

This is exactly the doctrine of the writers on jurisprudence.

"Property," says Toullier, "is a MORAL QUALITY inherent in a thing; AN ACTUAL BOND which fastens it to the proprietor, and which cannot be broken save by his act." Locke humbly doubted whether G.o.d could make matter INTELLIGENT. Toullier a.s.serts that the proprietor renders it MORAL. How much does he lack of being a G.o.d? These are by no means exaggerations.

PROPERTY IS THE RIGHT OF INCREASE; that is, the power to produce without labor. Now, to produce without labor is to make something from nothing; in short, to create. Surely it is no more difficult to do this than to moralize matter. The jurists are right, then, in applying to proprietors this pa.s.sage from the Scriptures,--_Ego dixi: Dii estis et filii Excelsi omnes_,--"I have said, Ye are G.o.ds; and all of you are children of the Most High."

PROPERTY IS THE RIGHT OF INCREASE. To us this axiom shall be like the name of the beast in the Apocalypse,--a name in which is hidden the complete explanation of the whole mystery of this beast. It was known that he who should solve the mystery of this name would obtain a knowledge of the whole prophecy, and would succeed in mastering the beast. Well! by the most careful interpretation of our axiom we shall kill the sphinx of property.

Starting from this eminently characteristic fact--the RIGHT OF INCREASE--we shall pursue the old serpent through his coils; we shall count the murderous entwinings of this frightful taenia, whose head, with its thousand suckers, is always hidden from the sword of its most violent enemies, though abandoning to them immense fragments of its body. It requires something more than courage to subdue this monster.

It was written that it should not die until a proletaire, armed with a magic wand, had fought with it.

COROLLARIES.--1. THE AMOUNT OF INCREASE IS PROPORTIONAL TO THE THING INCREASED. Whatever be the rate of interest,--whether it rise to three, five, or ten per cent., or fall to one-half, one-fourth, one-tenth,--it does not matter; the law of increase remains the same. The law is as follows:--

All capital--the cash value of which can be estimated--may be considered as a term in an arithmetical series which progresses in the ratio of one hundred, and the revenue yielded by this capital as the corresponding term of another arithmetical series which progresses in a ratio equal to the rate of interest. Thus, a capital of five hundred francs being the fifth term of the arithmetical progression whose ratio is one hundred, its revenue at three per cent. will be indicated by the fifth term of the arithmetical progression whose ratio is three:--

100 . 200 . 300 . 400 . 500.

3 . 6 . 9 . 12 . 15.

An acquaintance with this sort of LOGARITHMS--tables of which, calculated to a very high degree, are possessed by proprietors--will give us the key to the most puzzling problems, and cause us to experience a series of surprises.