Chapter XI: Front Matter (11)

The demonstration is twofold. First of all, we must prove that the ‹relative› share of the product falling to the capitalist goes on continually diminishing. This is not difficult; for it only amounts to saying that ‹the more abundant capital becomes, the more interest falls›. Now, this is a matter of fact, incontestable and uncontested. Not only does science explain it—it is self-evident. Schools the most eccentric admit it. It forms the basis of their theory, for it is from this very fall of interest that they infer the necessary, the inevitable annihilation of what they choose to brand as ‹infernal› Capital. Now, say they, inasmuch as this annihilation is necessary, is inevitable, and must take place in a given time; and, moreover, implies the realization of a positive good, it is incumbent on us to hasten it and insure it. I am not concerned to refute these principles, or the deductions drawn from them. It is enough that Economists of all schools, as well as socialists, ‹egalitaires›, and others, all admit, in point of fact, that interest falls in proportion as capital becomes more abundant. Whether they admit it or not, indeed, the fact is not the less certain. It rests upon the authority of universal experience, and on the acquiescence, involuntary it may be, of all the capitalists in the world. It is a fact that the interest of capital is lower in Spain than in Mexico, in France than in Spain, in England than in France, in Holland than in England. Now, when interest falls from 20 to 15 per cent., and then to 10, to 8, to 6, to 5, to 4½, to 4, to 3½, to 3 per cent., what does that mean in relation to the question which now engages us? It means that capital, as the recompense of its co-operation in the work of production, in the realization of wealth, is content, or, if you will, is forced to be content, with a smaller and smaller share of the product in proportion as capital increases. Does it constitute one-third of the value of corn, of cloth, of houses, of ships, of [p214] canals? in other words, when these things are sold, does one-third of the price fall to the capitalist, and two-thirds to the labourer? By degrees, the capitalist receives no more than a fourth, a fifth, a sixth. His ‹relative› share goes on diminishing, while that of the labourer goes on increasing in the same proportion; and the first part of my demonstration is complete.

It remains for me to prove that the ‹absolute› share falling to the capitalist goes on constantly increasing. It is very true that the tendency of interest is to fall. But when, and why? When, and because, the capital becomes more abundant. It is then quite possible that the total product should be increased while the ‹percentage› is diminished. A man has a larger income with 200,000 francs at four per cent., than with 100,000 francs at five per cent., although, in the first case, he charges less to the manufacturer for the use of his capital. The same thing holds of a nation, and of the world at large. Now, I maintain that the ‹percentage›, in its tendency to fall, neither does nor can follow a progression so rapid that the ‹sum total› of interest should be smaller when capital is abundant than when it is scarce. I admit, indeed, that if the capital of mankind be represented by 100 and interest by 5,—this interest will amount to no more than 4 when the capital shall have mounted to 200. Here we see the simultaneousness of the two effects. The less the ‹relative› part, the greater the ‹absolute› part. But my hypothesis does not admit that the increase of capital from 100 to 200 is sufficient to make interest fall from 5 to 2 per cent., for example; because, if it were so, the capitalist who had an income of 5000 francs with 100,000 francs of capital, would have no greater income than 4000 francs with 200,000 francs of capital. A result so contradictory and impossible, an anomaly so strange, would be met with the simplest and most agreeable of remedies; for then, in order to increase your income, it would only be necessary to consume half your capital. A happy and whimsical age it would be when men could enrich by impoverishing themselves!

We must take care, then, not to lose sight of the combination of these two correlative facts. The increase of capital, and the fall of interest, take place ‹necessarily› in such a way that the total product is continually augmented.

And let us remark in passing, that this completely exposes the fallacy of those who imagine that because interest falls, it tends to annihilation. The effect of that would be, that a time would arrive when capital would be so much increased as to yield nothing to its possessors. Keep your mind easy on that score—before [p215] that time comes, capitalists will dissipate the stock in order to ensure the reappearance of interest.

Such is the great law of Capital and Labour in what concerns the distribution of the product of their joint agency. Each of them has a greater and greater ‹absolute› share, but the ‹proportional› share of the capitalist is continually diminished as compared with that of the labourers.

Cease, then, capitalists and workmen, to regard each other with an eye of envy and distrust. Shut your ears against those absurd declamations which proceed from ignorance and presumption, which, under pretence of insuring future prosperity, blow the flame of present discord. Be assured that your interests are one and identical; that they are indisputably knit together; that they tend together towards the realization of the public good; that the toils of the present generation mingle with the labours of generations which are past; that all who co-operate in the work of production receive their share of the produce; and that the most ingenious and most equitable distribution is effected among you by the wise laws of Providence, and under the empire of freedom, independently altogether of a parasite sentimentalism, which would impose upon you its decrees at the expense of your well-being, your liberty, your security, and your self-respect.

Capital has its root in these attributes of man—Foresight, Intelligence, and Frugality. To set about the creation of capital we must look forward to the future, and sacrifice the present to it—we must exercise a noble empire over ourselves and over our appetites; we must resist the seduction of present enjoyments, the impulses of vanity and the caprices of fashion and of public opinion, always so indulgent to the thoughtless and the prodigal. We must study cause and effect, in order to discover by what processes, by what instruments, nature can be made to co-operate in the work of production. We must be animated by love for our families, and not grudge present sacrifices for the sake of those who are dear to us, and who will reap the fruits after we ourselves have disappeared from the scene. To create capital is to prepare food, clothing, shelter, leisure, instruction, independence, dignity, for future generations. Nothing of all this can be effected without bringing into play motives which are eminently social, and, what is more, converting these virtues into habits.

And yet it is very usual to attribute to capital a sort of fatal efficacy, the effect of which is to introduce egotism, austerity, Machiavelism, into the hearts of those who aspire to possess it. But let us not be misunderstood. There are countries where [p216] labour is of little value, and the little that is earned is shared by the government. In order to snatch from you the fruit of your toil, what is called the State surrounds you with a multitude of trammels. It interferes with all your actions, and mixes itself up in all your concerns. It domineers over your mind and your faith. It disarranges all interests, and places them in an artificial and precarious position. It enervates individual energy and activity, by usurping the direction of all affairs. It makes the responsibility of actions fall upon people with whom it amounts to nothing, so that by degrees all notions of what is just or unjust are effaced. By its diplomacy it embroils the nation in quarrels with all the world, and then the army and navy are brought into play. It warps the popular mind as much as it can upon all economical questions; for it is necessary to make the masses believe that its foolish expenditure, its unjust aggressions, its conquests, its colonies, are for them a source of riches. In such countries it is difficult to create capital by natural means. The great object is to purloin it by force or by fraud from those who have created it. We there see men enriching themselves by war, by places at court, by gambling, by purveying, by stockjobbing, by commercial frauds, by hazardous enterprises, by public contracts, etc. The qualities requisite for thus snatching capital from the hands of those who create it are precisely the opposite of those necessary for its formation. It cannot surprise us, then, that in countries so situated an association is established between these two ideas—‹capital› and ‹egotism›; and this association becomes ineradicable when all the moral ideas of the country exhaust themselves on ancient and mediæval history.

But when we turn our regards, not to this abstraction and abuse of capital, but to its creation by intelligence and activity, foresight and frugality, it is impossible not to perceive that a moral and social virtue is attached to its acquisition.

Nor is there less moral and social virtue in the action of capital than in its formation. Its peculiar effect is to procure us the co-operation of nature, to set us free from all that is most material, muscular, brutal, in the work of production; to render the intelligent principle more and more predominant; to enlarge the domain, I do not say of idleness, but of leisure; to render less imperious the physical wants of our nature, by rendering their satisfaction more easy, and to substitute for them wants and enjoyments of a nature more elevated, more delicate, more refined, more artistic, more spiritual.

Thus, in whatever point of view we place ourselves, whether [p217] we regard Capital in connexion with our wants, which it ennobles; with our efforts, which it facilitates; with our enjoyments, which it purifies; with nature, which it enlists in our service; with morality, which it converts into habit; with sociability, which it develops; with equality, which it promotes; with freedom, in which it lives; with equity, which it realizes by methods the most ingenious—everywhere, always, provided that it is created and acts in the regular order of things, and is not diverted from its natural uses, we recognise in Capital what forms the indubitable note and stamp of all great providential laws,—Harmony. [p218]

VIII. PROPERTY—COMMUNITY.

Recognising in the soil, in natural agents, and in instruments of labour, what they incontestably possess, the gift of engendering Utility, I have endeavoured to denude them of what has been erroneously attributed to them, namely, the faculty of creating Value,—a faculty which pertains exclusively to the Services which men exchange with each other.

This simple rectification, whilst it strengthens and confirms Property, by restoring to it its true character, brings to light a most important fact, hitherto, if I am not mistaken, overlooked by Economic science—the fact that there exists a real, essential, and ‹progressive› Community,—the natural result of every social system in which liberty prevails, and the evident design of which is to conduct all men, as brethren, from primitive Equality, which is the equality of ignorance and destitution, towards an ultimate Equality in the possession of truth and material prosperity.

If this radical distinction between the Utility of things and the value of services be true in itself, and in the consequences which have been deduced from it, it is impossible to misunderstand its bearing; for it leads to nothing less than the absorption of utopian theories in science, and the reconcilement of antagonistic schools in a common faith, which satisfies all minds and all aspirations.

Men of Property and leisure!—whatever be your rank in the social scale, whatever step of the social ladder you may have reached by dint of activity, probity, order, and economy—whence come the fears which have seized upon you? The perfumed but poisoned breath of Utopia menaces your existence. You are loudly told that the fortune you have amassed for the purpose of securing a little repose in your old age, and food, instruction, and an outset in life for your children, has been acquired by you at the expense of your brethren; that you have placed yourselves [p219] between the gifts of God and the poor; that, like greedy tax-gatherers, you have levied a tribute on those gifts, under the name of Property, of Interest, and of Rent; that you have intercepted the benefits which the common Father has bestowed on his children, in order to make merchandise of them. You are called upon for restitution; and what augments your terror is, that your advocates, in conducting your defence, feel themselves too often obliged to avow that the usurpation is flagrant, but that it is necessary. Such accusations I meet with a direct and emphatic negative. You have not intercepted the gifts of God. You have received them gratuitously, it is true, at the hands of nature; but you have also gratuitously transferred them to your brethren without receiving anything. They have acted the same way towards you; and the only things which have been reciprocally ‹compensated› are physical or intellectual efforts, toils undergone, dangers braved, skill exercised, privations submitted to, pains taken, ‹services rendered and received›. You may perhaps have thought only of yourselves and your own selfish interest, but that very selfish interest has been an instrument in the hand of an infinitely prescient and wise Providence to enlarge unceasingly among men the domain of Community; for without your efforts all those ‹useful effects› which you have obtained from nature, in order to distribute them without remuneration among your brethren, would have remained for ever inert. I say ‹without remuneration›, because what you have received is simply the recompense of your efforts, and not at all the price of the gifts of God. Live, then, in peace, without fear and without misgiving. You have no other property in the world but your right to services, in exchange for other services, by you faithfully rendered, and by your brethren voluntarily accepted. Such property is legitimate, unassailable; no Utopia can prevail against it, for it enters into the very constitution of our being. No theory can ever succeed in blighting or in shaking it.

Men of toil and privations! you cannot shut your eyes to this truth, that the primitive condition of the human race is that of an entire Community,—a perfect Equality,—of poverty, of destitution, and of ignorance. Man redeems himself from this estate by the sweat of his brow, and directs his course towards another Community, that of the gifts of God, successively obtained with less effort,—towards another Equality, that of material prosperity, knowledge, and moral dignity. The progress of men on the road of improvement is unequal, indeed; and you could not complain were the more hurried and precipitate march of the vanguard of progress to retard in some measure your own advance. But in [p220] truth it is quite the reverse. No ray of light penetrates a single mind without in some degree enlightening yours. No step of progress, prompted by the conscious possession of property, but is a step of progress for you. No wealth is created which does not tend to your enfranchisement; no capital, which does not increase your enjoyments in proportion to your labour; no acquisition, which does not increase your facilities of acquisition; no Property, which does not tend to enlarge, for your benefit, the domain of Community. The natural social order has been so skillfully arranged by the Divine Architect, that those who are more advanced on the road of civilisation hold out to you, voluntarily or unconsciously, a helping hand; for the order of things has been so disposed that no man can work honestly for himself without at the same time working for all. And it is rigorously true to affirm that every attack upon this marvellous order would on your part be not only a homicide, but a suicide. Human nature is an admirable chain, which exhibits this standing miracle, that the first links communicate to all the others a progressive movement more and more rapid, onwards to the last.

Men of philanthropy! lovers of equality! blind defenders, dangerous friends of the suffering classes, who are yet far behind on the road of civilisation, you who expect the reign of Community in this world, why do you begin by unsettling all interests and shaking all received opinions? Why, in your pride, should you seek to subjugate men’s wills, and bring them under the yoke of your social inventions? Do you not see that this Community after which you sigh, and which is to inaugurate the kingdom of God upon earth, has been already thought of and provided for by God himself? Does He want your aid to provide a patrimony for his children? Has He need either of your conceptions or of your violence? Do you not see that this Community is realized more and more every day, in virtue of His admirable decrees; that for the execution of these decrees He has not trusted to your chance services and puerile arrangements, nor even to the growing expression of the sympathetic principle manifested by charity; but that He has confided the realization of His providential designs to the most active, the most personal, the most permanent of all our energies—Self-interest,—a principle imbedded in our inmost nature, and which never flags, never takes rest? Study, then, the social mechanism as it comes from the hand of the Great Mechanician, and you will find that it testifies to a universal solicitude, which far outstrips your dreams and chimeras. You will then, I hope, in place of presumptuously pretending [p221] to reconstruct the divine workmanship, be content to admire and to bless it.

I say not that there is no room in this world of ours for reforms and reformers. I say not that mankind are not to call to their service, and encourage with their gratitude, men of investigation, of science, and of earnestness,—hearts faithful to the people. Such are still but too much wanted,—not to overturn the social laws,—but to combat the artificial obstacles which disturb and reverse the action of these laws. In truth, it is difficult to understand why people should keep repeating such commonplaces as this: “Political Economy is an optimist, as far as existing facts are concerned; and affirms that whatever is is right. At the sight of what is evil, as at the sight of what is good. Economists are content to exclaim, ‹Laissez faire›.” Optimists with reference to existing facts! Then we must be ignorant that the primitive condition of man is poverty, ignorance, the reign of brute force! We must be ignorant that the moving spring of human nature is aversion to all suffering, to all fatigue; and that labour being fatigue, the earliest manifestation of selfishness among men is shown in their effort to throw this painful burden on the shoulders of each other! The words cannibalism, war, slavery, privilege, monopoly, fraud, spoliation, imposture, must either have never reached our ears, or else we must see in these abominations the necessary machinery of progress! But is there not in all this a certain amount of wilful misrepresentation, a confounding of all things for the purpose of accusing us of confounding them? When we admire the providential laws which govern human transactions—when we assert that men’s interests are harmonious—when we thence conclude that they naturally tend and gravitate towards the realization of relative equality and general progress—it is surely from the play and action of these laws, not from their perturbations and disturbances, that we educe harmony. When we say ‹laissez faire›, we surely mean, ‹allow these laws to act›, not, ‹allow these laws to be disturbed›. According as we conform to these laws or violate them, good or evil is produced; in other words, men’s interests are in harmony, provided right prevail, and services are freely and voluntarily exchanged against services. But does this imply that we are ignorant of the perpetual struggle of Wrong against Right? Does this imply that we lose sight of, or approve, the efforts which have been made in all ages, and which are still making, to alter, by force or fraud, the natural equivalence of services? This is exactly when we repudiate as a violation of the natural social laws, as an attack upon property,—for, in our view, the terms, free exchange of services, justice, property, liberty, [p222] security, all express the same idea under different aspects. It is not the principle of Property which we contest, but the antagonistic principle of Spoliation. Proprietors of all ranks! reformers of all schools! this is the mission which should reconcile and unite us.

It is time, high time, that this crusade should begin. A mere theoretical war against Property is by no means the most virulent or the most dangerous. Since the beginning of the world there has existed a practical conspiracy against it which is not likely soon to cease. War, slavery, imposture, oppressive imposts, monopolies, privileges, commercial frauds, colonies, right to employment, right to credit, right to assistance, right to instruction, progressive taxation imposed in direct or inverse proportion to our power of bearing it, are so many battering-rams directed against the tottering edifice; and if the truth must come out, would you tell me whether there are many men in France, even among those who think themselves conservative, who do not, in one form or another, lend a hand to this work of destruction?

There are people to whose optics property never appears in any other form than that of a field or a bag of crown-pieces. If you do not overstep sacred landmarks, or sensibly empty their pockets, they feel quite comfortable. But is there no other kind of Property? Is there not the Property of muscular force and intellectual power, of faculties, of ideas—in a word, the Property of Services? When I throw a service into the social scale, is it not my right that it should be held there, if I may use the expression, suspended, according to the laws of its natural equivalence; that it may there form a counterpoise to any other service which my neighbour may consent to throw into the opposite scale and tender me in exchange? The law of common consent agreed to establish a public force for the protection of property thus understood. But in what situation are we placed if this very force assumes to itself the mission of disturbing the equilibrium, under the socialist pretext that liberty gives birth to monopoly, and that the doctrine of ‹laissez faire› is odious and heartless? When things go on in this way, individual theft may be rare, and may be severely punished, but spoliation is organized, legalized, and erected into a system. Comfort yourselves, Reformers! your work is not yet done—only try to understand what that work really is.

* * * * *

But before proceeding to analyze spoliation, whether public or private, legal or illegal, and to consider its bearing as an element in the social problem, and the part which it plays in the business [p223] of the world, it is necessary to form just ideas, if possible, of Community and Property; for, as we shall by-and-by see, spoliation forms a limit to property, just as property forms a limit to community.

From the preceding Chapters, especially that which treats of Utility and Value, we may deduce this formula:

‹Every man enjoys› «GRATUITOUSLY» ‹all the utilities furnished or created by nature, on condition of taking the trouble to appropriate them, or of returning an equivalent service to those who render him the service of taking that trouble for him›.

Here we have two facts combined and mixed up together, although in their own nature distinct.

We have the gifts of nature—gratuitous materials, gratuitous forces. This is the domain of ‹Community›.

We have also human efforts devoted to the appropriation of these materials, to the direction of these forces,—efforts which are exchanged, ‹estimated›, and compensated. This is the domain of ‹Property›.

In other words, as regards both, we are not owners of the Utility of things, but of their Value, and value is simply the appreciation of reciprocal services.

Property, Community, are two ideas correlative to the ideas of ‹onerosity› and ‹gratuitousness›, on which they are founded.

That which is ‹gratuitous› is ‹common›, for every one enjoys a portion of it, and enjoys it unconditionally.

That which is ‹onerous› is ‹appropriated›, because trouble taken, effort made, is the condition of its enjoyment, as the enjoyment is the reason for taking the trouble, or making the effort.

Does an exchange intervene? It is effected by a comparative estimate of the two efforts or the two services.

This reference to trouble, to pains, implies the existence of an Obstacle. We may then conclude that the object sought for approximates more nearly to the gratuitous and the common, in proportion as the obstacle is less; as, by hypothesis, the complete absence of obstacle would render it perfectly gratuitous and common.

Now, with reference to human nature, which is progressive and perfectible, the obstacle can never be regarded as an absolute and invariable quantity. It diminishes. Then the pains taken diminish along with it—and the service with the pains—and value with the service—and property with value.

And the Utility remains the same. Then the gratuitous and the common have gained all that onerosity and property have lost. [p224]

To determine man to labour he must have a motive, and that motive is the satisfaction he has in view, or utility. His undoubted and irrepressible tendency is to realize the greatest possible satisfaction with the least possible labour, to cause the greatest amount of utility to correspond with the greatest amount of property. Whence it follows that the mission of Property, or rather of the spirit of property, is to realize, in a greater and greater degree, Community.

The starting point of the human race being the maximum of poverty, or the maximum of obstacles to be overcome, it is clear that for all that is gained from one age to another we are indebted to the spirit of property.

This being so, is there to be found in the world a single theoretical adversary of the institution of property? Is it possible to imagine a social force at once so just and so popular? The fundamental dogma of Proudhon himself is the ‹mutuality of services›. On this point we are agreed. What we differ upon is, that I give this the name of ‹Property›, because, on going to the root of the matter, I am convinced that men, if they are free, neither have, nor can have, any other property than that of value, or of services. On the contrary, Proudhon, like most Economists, thinks that certain natural agents have ‹a value which is inherent in them›, and that in consequence of that they are ‹appropriated›. But as regards property in services, far from contesting it, he adopts it as his creed. Do you wish to go still farther? to go the length of asserting that a man should not have a right of property in his own exertions? Will it be said that by exchange it is not enough to transfer gratuitously the co-operation of natural agents, but also to cede gratuitously one’s own efforts? This is indeed a dangerous doctrine; it is to glorify slavery; for to assert that certain men must render, is to assert that other men must receive, services which are not remunerated, and that is slavery. But if you say that this gratuitous interchange must be reciprocal, you get into an incomprehensible logomachy; for either there is some equity in exchange, and then the services will, in one way or another, be ‹estimated› and compensated; or they will not be estimated and compensated,—in which case the one party will render a great amount of service, and the other a small amount, and you will fall back again into slavery.

But it is impossible to contest the legitimate nature of Property in services which are exchanged on the principle of equivalence. To explain their legitimacy we have no need to have recourse to philosophy, or jurisprudence, or metaphysics. Socialists, Economists, [p225] Advocates of Equality and Fraternity,—I defy the whole body, numerous as it is, to raise even the shadow of an objection against the ‹legitimate mutuality of voluntary services›, and consequently against Property, such as I have defined it, such as it actually exists in the natural social order.

I know very well that in practice the reign of Property is far from being an undivided sway, and that we have always to deal with an antagonistic fact. There are services which are not voluntary; there is remuneration which is not freely stipulated; there are services whose equivalence is impaired by force or by fraud; in a word, there is Spoliation. The legitimate principle of Property, however, is not thereby invalidated but confirmed. The very fact of its being violated proves its existence. If we put faith in anything in this world—in facts, in justice, in universal assent, in human language—we must admit that these two words, Property and Spoliation, express ideas which are as opposite, as irreconcilable, as far from being identical as yes and no, light and darkness, good and evil, harmony and discord. Taken literally, the celebrated formula that ‹property is theft› is absurd in the very highest degree. It would not be more monstrous to say that ‹theft is property›, that what is legitimate is illegitimate, that what is is not, etc. The author of this whimsical aphorism probably wished to show how ingeniously he could support a paradox, and meant no more than this, that certain men are paid not only for work which they do but for work which they don’t do, thus appropriating to themselves, exclusively, gratuitous utility—the gifts vouchsafed by God for the good of all. In this case all that we have to do is to prove the assertion, and substitute the truism that ‹theft is theft›.

To ‹steal› means, in ordinary language, to appropriate, by force or fraud, a value, to the prejudice and without the consent of the person who has created that value. It is easy to see how a false Political Economy has succeeded in enlarging the sense of that ugly word ‹steal›. You begin by confounding utility with value. Then, as nature co-operates in the creation of utility, you conclude that nature also concurs in the creation of Value, and you say that this portion of value, being the fruit of no one’s labour, belongs to all. At length, finding that value is never transferred without remuneration, you add, that the man who exacts a recompense for a value which is the creation of nature, which is independent of all human labour, which is ‹inherent in things›, and is by the destination of Providence one of their ‹intrinsic qualities›, like weight or porosity, form or colour, ‹commits a robbery›.

An exact analysis of value overturns this scaffolding of [p226] subtilties intended to prop up a monstrous assimilation of Property with Spoliation.

God has placed certain Materials and certain Forces at the disposal of man. In order to obtain possession of these materials and forces, Labour is necessary, or it is not. If it be not necessary, no one will voluntarily consent to purchase from another, by means of an effort, what, without any effort, he can obtain from the hands of Nature. In this case, services, exchange, value, ‹Property›, are out of the question. If, on the other hand, labour be necessary, in equity it falls upon the person who is to receive the satisfaction; whence it follows that the satisfaction is the recompense of the pains taken, the effort made, the labour undergone. Here you have the principle of Property. This being so, a man takes pains, or submits to labour, for his own benefit, and becomes possessed of the whole utility realized by this labour co-operating with nature. He takes pains, or submits to labour, for another, and in that case he bargains to receive in return an equivalent service, which is likewise the vehicle of utility, and the result exhibits two Efforts, two Utilities which have changed hands, and two Satisfactions. But we must not lose sight of this, that the transaction is effected by the comparison, by the ‹appreciation›, not of the two utilities (they cannot be brought to this test), but of the two services exchanged. It is then exact to say that, in a personal point of view, man, by means of labour, becomes proprietor of natural utility (that is the object of his labour), whatever be the relation (which may vary ‹ad infinitum›) of labour to utility. But in a ‹social› point of view, or in reference to each other, men are never proprietors except of value, the foundation of which is not the liberality of nature, but human service, pains taken, danger encountered, skill displayed, in securing that liberality. In a word, in what concerns natural and gratuitous utility, the last acquirer, the person who is the recipient of the satisfaction, is placed, by exchange, in the shoes of the first labourer. The latter has found himself in presence of a gratuitous utility which he has taken the pains to appropriate; the former returns him an equivalent service, and thus substitutes himself in the other’s right and place; utility is acquired by him by the same title, that is to say, by a gratuitous title, on condition of pains taken. There is here, neither in fact nor in appearance, any improper interception of the gifts of God.

I venture, then, to lay down this proposition as unassailable:

‹In relation to one another, men are proprietors only of values, and values represent only services compared, and voluntarily received and rendered.› [p227]

That, on the one hand, the true meaning of the word ‹value› is what I have already demonstrated it to be (Chapter V.); and that, on the other, men are never, and never can be, as regards each other, proprietors of anything but ‹value›, is evident as well from reasoning as from experience. From reasoning—for why should I go to purchase from a man, by means of an effort, what, without any effort, I can obtain from nature? From universal experience, which is too weighty to be despised in this question,—nothing being more fitted to give us confidence in a theory than the rational and practical acquiescence of men of all ages and all countries. Now I say that universal consent ratifies the sense which I give here to the word Property. When a public officer makes an inventory after a death, or by authority of justice, of when a merchant, manufacturer, or farmer does the same thing for his own satisfaction, or when it is done by officials under a bankruptcy—what do they inscribe on the stamped rolls as each object presents itself? Is it its ‹utility›, its intrinsic merit? No, it is its ‹value›, that is to say, the equivalent of the trouble which, any purchaser taken at random would have in procuring himself a similar commodity. Does a jury named by a judge to report upon a work or a commodity inquire whether it be more useful than another work or commodity? Do they take into consideration the enjoyments which may be thereby procured? Do they esteem a hammer more than a china jar, because the hammer is admirably adapted to make the law of gravitation available to its possessor? or a glass of water more than a diamond, because the former is capable of rendering more substantial service? or the work of Say more than the work of Fourier, because from the former we can draw more rational enjoyment and more solid instruction? No, they ‹value›, they set down the ‹value›, in rigorous conformity, observe, with my definition, or, to say better, it is my definition which is in conformity with their practice. They take into account, not the natural advantages, or the gratuitous utility, attached to each commodity, but the exertion which each acquirer should have to make for himself, or to require another to make for him, in order to procure it. They never think of the exertion which nature has made, if I may hazard the expression, but upon the exertion which the purchaser would have had to make. And when the operation is terminated, when the public is told the sum total of Value which is carried to the balance-sheet, they exclaim with one voice, Here is the wealth which is available to the «Proprietor».

As property includes nothing but value, and as value expresses only a relation, it follows that property itself is only a relation. [p228]

When the public, on the inspection of two inventories, pronounces one man to be richer than another, it is not meant to say that the relative amount of the two properties is indicative of the relative absolute wealth of the two men, or the amount of enjoyments they can command. There enters into positive satisfactions and enjoyments a certain amount of ‹common and gratuitous utility› which alters this proportion very much. As regards the light of day, the air we breathe, the heat of the sun, all men are equal; and Inequality—as indicative of a difference in property or value —has reference only to ‹onerous utility›.

Now I have often said, and I shall probably have occasion frequently to repeat the remark (for it is the finest and most striking, although perhaps the least understood, of the social harmonies, and includes all the others), that it is of the essence of progress—and indeed in this alone progress consists—to transform onerous into gratuitous utility—to diminish value without diminishing utility—to permit each individual to procure the same things with less effort, either to make or to remunerate; to increase continually the mass of things which are ‹common›, and the enjoyment of which, being distributed in a uniform manner among all, effaces by degrees the Inequality which results from difference of fortune.

We must not omit to analyze very carefully the result of this mechanism.

In contemplating the phenomena of the social world, how often have I had occasion to feel the profound justice of Rousseau’s saying: “Il faut beaucoup de philosophie pour observer ce qu’on voit tous les jours!” It is difficult to observe accurately what we see every day; ‹Custom›, that veil which blinds the eyes of the vulgar, and which the attentive observer cannot always throw off, prevents our discerning the most marvellous of all the Economic phenomena: real wealth falling incessantly from the domain of Property into that of Community.

Let us endeavour to demonstrate and explain this democratic evolution, and, if possible, test its range and its effects.

I have remarked elsewhere that if we desire to compare two epochs as regards real wealth and prosperity, we must refer all to a common standard, which is unskilled labour measured by time, and ask ourselves this question—What difference in the amount of satisfaction, according to the degree of advancement which society has reached, is a determinate quantity of unskilled labour—for example, a day’s work of a common labourer—capable of yielding us? [p229]

This question implies two others:

What was the relation of the satisfaction to unskilled labour at the beginning of the period? What is it now?

The difference will be the measure of the advance which gratuitous utility has made relatively to onerous utility—the domain of community relatively to that of property.

I believe that for the politician no problem can be proposed more interesting and instructive than this; and the reader must pardon me if, in order to arrive at a satisfactory solution of it, I fatigue him with too many examples.

I made, at the outset, a sort of catalogue of the most common human wants: respiration, food, clothing, lodging, locomotion, instruction, amusement, etc.

Let us resume the same order, and inquire what amount of satisfactions a common day-labourer could at the beginning, and can now, procure himself, by a determinate number of days’ labour.

‹Respiration.›—Here all is completely gratuitous and common from the beginning. Nature does all, and leaves us nothing to do. Efforts, services, value, property, progress, are all out of the question. As regards utility, Diogenes is as rich as Alexander—as regards value, Alexander is as rich as Diogenes.

‹Food.›—At present, the value of a hectolitre of corn in France is the equivalent of from 15 to 20 days’ work of a common unskilled labourer. This is a fact which we may regard as unimportant, but it is not the less worthy of remark. It is a fact that in our day, viewing humanity in its least advanced aspect, and as represented by a penniless workman, enjoyment measured by a hectolitre of corn can be obtained by an expenditure of 15 days’ unskilled labour. The ordinary calculation is, that three hectolitres of corn annually are required for the subsistence of one man. The common labourer, then, produces, if not his subsistence, what comes to the same thing, the value of his subsistence, by an expenditure of from 45 to 60 days’ labour in the year. If we represent the type of value by ‹one› (in this case ‹one day’s unskilled labour›), the value of a hectolitre of corn will be expressed by 15, 18, or 20, according to the year. The relation of these two values is, say, ‹one to fifteen›.

To discover if progress has been made, and to measure it, we must inquire what this relation was in the early days of the human race. In truth, I dare not hazard a figure, but there is one way of clearing up the difficulty. When you hear a man declaiming against the social order, against the appropriation of the soil, against rent, against machinery, lead him into the middle [p230] of a primitive forest and in sight of a pestilential morass. Say to him, I wish to free you from the yoke of which you complain,—I wish to withdraw you from the atrocious struggles of anarchical competition, from the antagonism of interests, from the selfishness of wealth, from the oppression of property, from the crushing rivalry of machinery, from the stifling atmosphere of society. Here is land exactly like what the first clearers had to encounter. Take as much of it as you please—take it by tens, by hundreds of acres. Cultivate it yourself. All that you can make it produce is yours. I make but one condition, that you will not have recourse to that society of which you represent yourself as the victim.

As regards the soil, observe, this man would be placed in exactly the same situation which mankind at large occupied at the beginning. Now I fear not to be contradicted when I assert that this man would not produce a hectolitre of corn in two years: Ratio 15 to 600.

And now we can measure the progress which has been made. As regards corn—and despite his being obliged to pay rent for his land, interest for his capital, and hire for his tools—or rather because he pays them—a labourer now obtains with 15 days’ work what he would formerly have had difficulty in procuring with 600 days’ work. The value of corn, then, measured by unskilled labour, has fallen from 600 to 15, or from 40 to 1. A hectolitre of corn has for man the same utility it had the day after the deluge—it contains the same quantity of alimentary substance—it satisfies the same want, and in the same degree. It constitutes an equal amount of ‹real wealth›—it does not constitute an equal amount of ‹relative wealth›. Its production has been transferred in a great measure ‹to the charge of nature›. It is obtained with ‹less› human ‹effort›. It renders ‹less service› in passing from hand to hand, it has less ‹value›. In a word, it has become ‹gratuitous›—not absolutely, but in the proportion of 40 to 1.

And not only has it become ‹gratuitous›—it has become ‹common› to the same extent. For it is not to the profit of the person who produces the corn that 39-40ths of the effort have been annihilated, but to the advantage of the consumer, whatever be the kind of labour to which he devotes himself.

‹Clothing.›—We have here again the same phenomenon. A common day-labourer enters one of the warehouses at the Marais,[54] and there obtains clothing corresponding to twenty days of his labour, which we suppose to be unskilled. Were he to attempt to make [p231] this clothing himself, his whole life would be insufficient. Had he desired to obtain the same clothing in the time of Henri Quatre, it would have cost him three or four hundred days’ work. What then has become of this difference in the ‹value› of these stuffs in relation to the quantity of unskilled labour? It has been annihilated, because the ‹gratuitous› forces of nature now perform a great portion of the work, and it has been annihilated to the advantage of mankind at large.

For we must not fail to remark here, that every man owes his neighbour a service equivalent to what he has received from him. If, then, the art of the weaver had made no progress, if weaving were not executed in part by ‹gratuitous› forces, the weaver would still be occupied two or three hundred days in fabricating these stuffs, and our workman would require to give him two or three hundred days’ work in order to obtain the clothing he wants. And since the weaver cannot succeed, with all his wish to do so in obtaining two or three hundred days’ labour in recompense for the intervention of gratuitous forces, and for the progress achieved, we are warranted in saving that this progress has been effected to the advantage of the purchaser or consumer, and that it is a gain to society at large.

‹Conveyance.›—Prior to all progress, when the human race, like our day-labourer, was obliged to make use of primitive and unskilled labour, if a man had desired to have a load of a hundredweight transported from Paris to Bayonne, he would have had only this alternative, either to take the load on his own shoulders, and perform the work himself, travelling over hill and dale, which would have required a year’s labour, or else to ask some one to perform this rough piece of work for him; and as, by hypothesis, the person who undertook this work would have to employ the same means and the same time, he would undoubtedly demand a remuneration equal to a year’s labour. At that period, then, the value of unskilled labour being ‹one›, that of transport was 300 for the weight of a cwt. and a distance of 200 leagues.

But things are changed now. In fact there is no workman in Paris who cannot obtain the same result by the sacrifice of two days’ labour. The alternative indeed is still the same. He must either do the work himself, or get others to do it for him by remunerating them. If our day-labourer perform it himself, it will still cost him a year of fatigue; but if he applies to men who make it their business, he will find twenty carriers to do what he wants for three or four francs, that is to say, for the equivalent of two days’ unskilled labour. Thus the value of such labour being [p232] represented by ‹one›, that of transport, which was represented by 300, is now reduced to ‹two›.

In what way has this astonishing revolution been brought about? Ages have been required to accomplish it. Animals have been trained, mountains have been pierced, valleys have been filled up, bridges have been thrown across rivers, sledges and afterwards wheeled carriages have been invented, obstacles, which give rise to labour, services, value, have been removed; in short, we have succeeded in accomplishing, with labour equal to two, what our remote ancestors would have effected only by labour equal to 300. This progress has been realized by men who had no thought but for their own interests. And yet, who profits by it now? Our poor day-labourer, and with him society at large.

Let no one say that this is not Community. I say that it is Community in the strictest sense of the word. At the outset the satisfaction in question was, in the estimation of all, the equivalent of 300 days’ unskilled labour, or a proportionally smaller amount of skilled labour. Now 298 parts of this labour out of 300 are performed by nature, and mankind are exonerated to a corresponding extent. Now, evidently all men are in exactly the same situation as regards the obstacles which have been removed, the distance which has been wiped out, the fatigue which has been obviated, the value which has been annihilated, since all obtain the result without having to pay for it. What they pay for is the human effort which remains still to be made, as compared with and measured by two days’ work of an unskilled labourer. In other words, the man who has not himself effected this improvement, and who has only muscular force to offer in exchange, has still to give two days’ labour to secure the satisfaction he wishes to obtain. All other men can obtain it with a smaller sacrifice of labour. The Paris lawyer, earning 30,000 francs a year, can obtain it for a twenty-fifth part of a day’s labour, etc.,—by which we see that all men are equal as regards the value annihilated, and that the inequality is restrained within the limits of the portion of value which survives the change, that is, within the domain of Property.

Economical science labours under a disadvantage in being obliged to have recourse to hypothetical cases. The reader is taught to believe that the phenomena which we wish to describe are to be discovered only in special cases, adduced for the sake of illustration. But it is evident that what we have said of corn, clothing, and means of transport, is true of everything else. When an author generalizes, it is for the reader to particularize; and [p233] when the former devotes himself to cold and forbidding analysis, the latter may at least indulge in the pleasures of synthesis.

The synthetic law may be reduced to this formula:

‹Value, which is social property, springs from Effort and Obstacle.›

‹In proportion as the obstacle is lessened, effort, value, or the domain of property, is diminished along with it.›

‹With reference to each given satisfaction, Property always recedes and Community always advances.›

Must we then conclude with M. Proudhon that the days of Property are numbered? Because, as regards each useful result to be realized, each satisfaction to be obtained, Property recedes before Community, are we thence to conclude that the former is about to be absorbed and annihilated altogether?

To adopt this conclusion would be to mistake completely the nature of man. We encounter here a sophism analogous to the one we have already refuted on the subject of the interest of capital. Interest has a tendency to fall, it is said; then it is destined ultimately to disappear altogether. Value and property go on diminishing; then they are destined, it is now said, to be annihilated.

The whole sophism consists in omitting the words, ‹for each determinate result›. It is quite true that men obtain ‹determinate results› with a less amount of effort—it is in this respect that they are progressive and perfectible—it is on this account that we are able to affirm that the ‹relative› domain of property becomes narrower, looking at it as regards each given satisfaction.

But it is not true that all the ‹results› which it is ‹possible› to obtain are ever exhausted, and hence it is absurd to suppose that it is in the nature of progress to lessen or limit the ‹absolute› domain of property.

We have repeated often, and in every shape, that each given effort may, in course of time, serve as the vehicle of a greater amount of gratuitous utility, without our being warranted thence to conclude that men should ever cease to make efforts. All that we can conclude from it is, that their forces, thus rendered disposable, will be employed in combating other obstacles, and will realize, with equal labour, satisfactions hitherto unknown.

I must enlarge still farther on this idea. These are not times to leave anything to possible misconstruction when we venture to pronounce the fearful words, Property and Community.

Man in a state of isolation can, at any given moment of his existence, exert only a certain amount of effort; and the same thing holds of society. [p234]