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Title: Essays on Political Economy

Author: Frédéric Bastiat

Release date: May 31, 2005 [eBook #15962]
Most recently updated: December 14, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15962

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS ON
POLITICAL ECONOMY ***

[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
Capital and Interest
The Sack of Corn
The House
The Plane
That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen.
Introduction
The Broken Window
The Disbanding of Troops
Taxes
Theatres, Fine Arts
Public Works
The Intermediates
Restrictions
Machinery
Credit
Algeria
Frugality and Luxury
Work and Profit
Government
What Is Money?
The Law

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 á 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
exported, 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 louis6 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 part10 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
A franc is 10d. of our money.

This error will be combated in a pamphlet, entitled "Cursed Money."

Common people.

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?

This was written in 1849.

Twenty francs.

General Council of Manufactures, Agriculture, and Commerce, 6th.
of May, 1850.

The French word is spoliation.

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.

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.

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