Chapter XIV: Front Matter (14)

In the production of corn which appeases our hunger, we remark something analogous to what takes place in the formation of water which quenches our thirst. The ocean, which is the theme of the poet’s inspiration, offers to the Economist also a fine subject of meditation. It is this vast reservoir which gives drink to all human creatures. And yet how can that be, when many of them are situated at a great distance from its shores, and when its water is besides undrinkable? It is here that we have to admire the marvellous industry of nature. We mark how the sun warms the heaving mass, and subjects it to a slow evaporation. The water takes the form of gas, and, disengaged from the salt, which rendered it unfit for use, it rises into the high regions of the atmosphere. Gales of wind, increasing in all directions, drift it towards inhabited continents. There it encounters cold, which condenses it, and attaches it in a solid form to the sides of mountains. By-and-by the gentle heat of spring melts it. Carried along by its weight, [p273] it is filtered and purified through beds of schist and gravel. It ramifies and distributes itself, and supplies and feeds refreshing springs in all parts of the world. Here we have an immense and ingenious industry carried on by nature for the benefit of the human race. Change of form, change of place, utility, nothing is wanting. But where is ‹value›? Value has not yet come into existence; and if what we must call the work of God is to be paid for (it would be paid for if it possessed exchangeable ‹value›)—who could tell the ‹value› of a single drop of this precious liquid?

All men, however, have not a spring of pure water at their door. In order to quench their thirst they must take pains, make efforts, exert foresight and skill. It is this ‹supplementary› human labour which gives rise to arrangements, transactions, ‹estimates›. It is here, then, that we discover the origin and foundation of value.

Man is originally ignorant. Knowledge is acquired. At the beginning, then, he is forced to carry water, to accomplish the supplementary labour which nature has left him to execute with the ‹maximum› of trouble. It is at this stage that water has the greatest ‹value› in exchange. By degrees the water-carrier invents a barrow and wheels, trains horses, constructs pipes, discovers the law of the siphon, etc.; in short, he transfers part of his labour to the gratuitous forces of nature; and, in proportion as he does so, the value of water, but not its utility, is diminished.

There is here, however, a circumstance which it is necessary thoroughly to comprehend, if we would not see discordance where there is in reality only harmony. It is this, that the purchaser of water obtains it on easier terms, that is to say, gives a less amount of labour in exchange for a given quantity of it, each time that a step of progress of this kind is gained, although in such circumstances he has to give a remuneration for the instrument by means of which nature is constrained to act. Formerly he paid for the labour of carrying the water; now he pays not only for that, but for the labour expended in constructing the barrow, the wheel, and the pipe—and yet, ‹everything included›, he pays less; and this shows us how false and futile the reasoning is which would persuade us that that part of the remuneration which is applicable to capital is a burden on the consumer. Will these reasoners never understand that, for each result obtained, capital supersedes more labour than it exacts?

All that I have said is equally applicable to the production of corn. In that case also, anterior to all human labour, there has [p274] been an immense, a measureless, amount of natural industry at work, the secrets of which the most advanced science can yet give no account of. Gases, salts, are diffused through the soil and the atmosphere. Electricity, affinity, the wind, the rain, light, heat, vegetable life, play successively their parts, often unknown to us, in transporting, transforming, uniting, dividing, combining these elements; and this marvellous industry, the activity and utility of which elude our appreciation and even our imagination, has yet no ‹value›. Value makes its appearance at the first intervention of the labour of man, who has, in this, more perhaps than in the other instance we have given, a ‹supplementary› labour to perform, in order to complete what nature has begun.

To direct these natural forces, and remove the obstacles which impede their action, man takes possession of an instrument, which is the soil, and he does so without injury to anyone; for this instrument had previously no value. This is not a matter of argument, but a matter of fact. Show me, in any part of the world you choose, land which has not been subjected directly or indirectly to human action, and I will show you land destitute of value.[61] [p275]

In the meantime, the agriculturist, in order to effect, in conjunction with nature, the production of corn, executes two kinds of labour which are quite distinct. The one kind is applicable directly and immediately to the crop of the year—is applicable only to that, and must be paid for by that—such as sowing, weeding, reaping, etc. The other, as building, clearing, draining, enclosing, is applicable to an indefinite series of crops, and must be charged to and spread over a course of years, and calculated according to the tables of interest and annuities. The crops constitute the remuneration of the agriculturist if he consumes them himself. If he exchanges them, it is for services of another kind, and the appreciation of the services so exchanged constitutes their value.

Now it is easy to see that this class of permanent works executed by the agriculturist upon the land is a ‹value› which has not yet received its entire recompense, but which cannot fail to receive it. It cannot be supposed that he is to throw up his land and allow another to step into his shoes without compensation. The value has been incorporated and mixed up with the soil, and this is the reason why we can with propriety employ a metonymy and say ‹the land has value›. It has value, in fact, because it can be no longer acquired without giving in exchange the equivalent for this labour. But what I contend for is, that this land, on which its natural productive power had not originally conferred any value, [p276] has no value yet in this respect. This natural power, which was gratuitous then, is gratuitous now, and will be always gratuitous. We may say, indeed, that the land has ‹value›, but when we go to the root of the matter we find, that what possesses value is the human labour which has improved the land, and the capital which has been expended on it. Hence it is rigorously exact to say that the proprietor of the land is, after all, the proprietor only of a value which he has created, of services which he has rendered; and what property can be more legitimate? It is property created at no one’s expense, and neither intercepts nor taxes the gifts of God.

Nor is this all. The capital which has been advanced, and the interest of which is spread over the crop of successive years, is so far from increasing the price of the produce, and forming a burden on the consumers, that the latter acquire agricultural products cheaper in proportion as this capital is augmented, that is to say, in proportion as the value of the soil is increased. I have no doubt that this assertion will be thought paradoxical and tainted with exaggerated optimism, so much have people been accustomed to regard the value of land as a calamity, if not a piece of injustice. For my own part, I affirm, that it is not enough to say that the value of the soil has been created at no one’s expense; it is not enough to say that it injures no one; we should rather say that it benefits everybody. It is not only legitimate, but advantageous, even to those who possess no property.

We have here, in fact, the phenomenon of our previous illustration reproduced. We remarked that from the moment the water-carrier invented the barrow and the wheel, the purchaser of the water had to pay for two kinds of labour: 1st, The labour employed in making the barrow and the wheel, or rather the interest of the capital, and an annual contribution to a sinking fund to replace that capital when worn out; 2d, The direct labour which the water-carrier must still perform. But it is equally true that these two kinds of labour united do not equal in amount the labour which had to be undergone before the invention. Why? because a portion of the work has now been handed over to the gratuitous forces of nature. It is, indeed, in consequence of this diminution of human labour that the invention has been called forth and adopted.

All this takes place in exactly the same way in the case of land and the production of corn. As often as an agriculturist expends capital in permanent ameliorations, it is certain that the successive crops are burdened with the interest of that capital. But it is [p277] equally certain that the other species of labour—rude, unskilled, present, direct labour—is rendered unnecessary in a still greater proportion; so that each crop is obtained by the proprietor, and consequently by the consumer, on easier terms, on less onerous conditions—the proper action of capital consisting precisely in substituting natural and gratuitous co-operation for human labour which must be paid for.

Here is an example of it. In order to obtain a good crop, it is necessary that the field should be freed from superfluous moisture. Suppose this species of labour to be still included in the first category. Suppose that the cultivator goes every morning with a jar to carry off the stagnant water where it is productive of injury. It is clear that at the year’s end the land would have acquired no additional ‹value›, but the price of the grain would be enormously enhanced. It would be the same in the case of all those who followed the same process while the art of draining was in this primitive state. If the proprietor were to make a drain, that moment the land would acquire ‹value›, for this labour pertains to the second category—that which is incorporated with the land—and must be reimbursed by the products of consecutive years; and no one could expect to acquire the land without recompensing this work. Is it not true, however, that it would tend to lower the value of the crop? Is it not true that although during the first year it exacted an extraordinary exertion, it saves in the long-run more labour than it has occasioned? Is it not true that the draining thenceforth will be executed by the gratuitous law of hydrostatics more economically than it could be by muscular force? Is it not true that the purchasers of corn will benefit by this operation? Is it not true that they should esteem themselves fortunate in this new value acquired by the soil? And, having reference to more general considerations, is it not true, in fine, that the value of the soil attests a progress realized, not for the advantage of the proprietor only, but for that of society at large? How absurd, then, and suicidal in society to exclaim: The additional price charged for corn, to meet the interest of the capital expended on this drain, and ultimately to replace that capital, or its equivalent, as represented in the value of the land, is a privilege, a monopoly, a theft! At this rate, to cease to be a monopolist and a thief, the proprietor should have only to fill up his drain and betake himself to his jar. Would the man who has no property, and lives by wages, be any gainer by that?

Review all the permanent ameliorations of which the sum total makes up the value of land, and you will find that to each of them [p278] the same remark applies. Having filled up the drain, demolish the fence, and so force the agriculturist to mount guard upon his field; destroy the well, pull down the barn, dig up the road, burn the plough, efface the levelling, remove the artificial mould; replace in the field the loose stones, the weeds, the roots of trees; you will then have realized the Utopia of Equality. The land, and the human race along with it, wall have reverted to the primitive state, and will have no longer any value. The crops will have no longer any connexion with capital. Their price will be freed from that accursed element called interest. Everything, literally everything, will be done by actual labour, visible to the naked eye. Political Economy will be much simplified. Our country will support a man to the square league. The rest of her inhabitants will have died of hunger;—but then it can no longer be said that property is a monopoly, an injustice, and a theft.

Let us not be insensible, then, to those economic harmonies which unfold themselves to our view more and more as we analyze the ideas of exchange, of value, of capital, of interest, of property, of community.—Will it indeed be given me to describe the entire circle, and complete the demonstration?—But we have already, perhaps, advanced sufficiently far to be convinced that the social world, not less than the material world, bears the impress of a Divine hand, from which flows wisdom and goodness, and towards which we should raise our eyes in gratitude and admiration.

I cannot forbear reverting here to the view of this subject taken by M. Considérant.

Setting out with the proposition, that the soil has a proper value, independent of all human labour, that it constitutes ‹primitive and uncreated capital›, he concludes, in perfect consistency with his own views, that ‹appropriation› is ‹usurpation›. This supposed iniquity leads him to indulge in violent tirades against the institutions of modern society. On the other hand, he allows that permanent ameliorations confer an ‹additional value› on this primitive capital, an accessory so mixed up with the principal that we cannot separate them. What are we to do, then? for we have here a total value composed of two elements, of which one, the fruit of labour, is legitimate property; and the other, the gift of God, appropriated by man, is an iniquitous usurpation.

This is no trifling difficulty. M. Considérant resolves it by reference to the Right to Employment [‹Droit au travail›].

“The development of Mankind evidently demands that the Soil shall not be left in its wild and uncultivated state. The destiny of the human race is opposed to property in land retaining ‹its rude and primitive form›.

“In the midst of forests and savannas, the savage enjoys four natural rights, [p279] namely, the rights of Hunting, of Fishing, of Gathering the fruits, of Pasturing. Such is the primitive form of property in land.

“In all civilized societies, the working-classes, the Prolétaires, who inherit nothing and possess nothing, are simply despoiled of these rights. We cannot say that the primitive Right has changed its form, for it no longer exists. The form and the substance have alike disappeared.

“Now in what Form can such Rights be reconciled with the conditions of an industrial Society? The answer is plain:

“In the savage state, in order to avail himself of his Right, man is ‹obliged to act›. The ‹labour› of Fishing, of Hunting, of Gathering, of Pasturing are the conditions of the exercise of his Right. The primitive Right, then, is a Right ‹to engage in these employments›.

“Very well, let an industrial Society, which has appropriated the land, and taken away from man the power of exercising freely and at will his four natural Rights, let this society cede to the individual, in compensation for those Rights, of which it had despoiled him, the ‹Right to Employment›. On this principle, rightly understood and applied, the individual has no longer any reason to complain.

“The condition ‹sine quâ non›, then, of the Legitimacy of Property is, that Society should concede to the Prolétaire—the man who has no property—the ‹Right to Employment›; and, in exchange for a given exertion of activity, ‹assure› him of means of subsistence, at least as adequate as such exercise ‹could› have procured him in the primitive state.”

I cannot, without being guilty of tiresome repetition, discuss this question with M. Considérant in all its bearings. If I demonstrate, that what he terms ‹uncreated capital› is no capital at all; that what he terms the ‹additional value› of the soil, is not an additional value, but the ‹total value›; he must acknowledge that his argument has fallen to pieces, and, with it, all his complaints of the way in which mankind have judged it proper to live since the days of Adam. But this controversy would oblige me to repeat all that I have already said upon the essentially and indelibly gratuitous character of natural agents.

I shall only remark, that if M. Considérant speaks in behalf of the non-proprietary class, he is so very accommodating that they may think themselves betrayed. What! proprietors have usurped the soil, and all the miracles of vegetation which it displays! they have usurped the sun, the rain, the dew, oxygen, hydrogen, and azote, so far at least as these co-operate in the production of agricultural products—and you ask them to assure to the man who has no property, as a compensation, at least as much of the means of subsistence, in exchange for a given exertion of activity, as that exertion could have procured him in the primitive and savage state!

But do you not see that landed property has not waited for your injunctions in order to be a million times more generous? for to what is your demand limited?

In the primitive state, your four rights of fishing, hunting, gathering the fruits, and pasturing, maintain in existence, or rather in a state of vegetation, amid all the horrors of destitution, nearly one man to the square league of territory. The usurpation of the [p280] land will then be legitimate, according to you, when those who have been guilty of that usurpation support one man for every square league, exacting from him at the same time as much activity as is displayed by a Huron or an Iroquois. Pray remark, that France consists of only thirty thousand square leagues; that consequently, if its whole territory supports thirty thousand inhabitants in that condition of existence which the savage state affords, you renounce in behalf of the non-proprietary class all farther demands upon property. Now, there are thirty millions of Frenchmen who have not an inch of land, and among the number we meet with many—the president of the republic, ministers, magistrates, bankers, merchants, notaries, advocates, physicians, brokers, soldiers, sailors, professors, journalists, etc.—who would certainly not be disposed to exchange their condition for that of an Ioway. Landed property, then, must do much more for us than you exact from it. You demand from it the ‹Right to Employment›, up to a certain point—that is to say, until it yields to the masses—and in exchange for a given amount of labour, too—as much subsistence as they could earn in a state of barbarism. Landed property does much more than that—it gives more than the Right to employment—it gives Employment itself, and did it only clear the land-tax, it would do a hundred times more than you ask it to do.

I find to my great regret that I have not yet done with landed property and its value. I have still to state, and to refute, in as few words as possible, an objection which is specious and even formidable.

It is said,

“Your theory is contradicted by facts. Undoubtedly, as long as there is in a country abundance of uncultivated land, the existence of such land will of itself hinder the cultivated land from acquiring an undue value. It is also beyond doubt, that even when all the land has passed into the appropriated domain, if neighbouring nations have extensive tracts ready for the plough, freedom of trade is sufficient to restrain the value of landed property within just limits. In these two cases it would seem that the Price of land can only represent the capital advanced, and the Rent of land the interest of that capital. Whence we must conclude, as you do, that the proper action of the soil and the intervention of natural agents, going for nothing, and not influencing the value of the crops, remain gratuitous, and therefore common. All this is specious. We may have difficulty in discovering the error, and yet this reasoning is erroneous. In order to be convinced of it, it [p281] is sufficient to point to the fact, that there are in France cultivated lands which are worth from 100 francs to 6000 francs the hectare, an enormous difference, which is much easier explained by the difference of fertility than by the difference of the anterior labour applied to these lands. It is vain to deny, then, that fertility has its own value, for not a sale takes place which does not attest it. Every one who purchases a land estate examines its quality, and pays for it accordingly. If, of two properties which lie alongside each other, the one consists of a rich alluvium, and the other of barren sand, the first is surely of more value than the second, although both may have absorbed the same capital, and to say truth, the purchaser gives himself no trouble on that score. His attention is fixed upon the future, and not upon the past. What he looks at is not what the land has cost, but what it will yield, and he knows that its yield will be in proportion to its fertility. Then this fertility has a proper and intrinsic value which is independent of all human labour. To maintain the contrary is to endeavour to base the legitimacy of individual appropriation on a subtilty, or rather on a paradox.”

Let us inquire, then, what is the true foundation of the value of land.

I pray the reader not to forget that this question is of grave importance at the present moment. Hitherto it has been neglected or glossed over by Economists, as a question of mere curiosity. The legitimacy of individual appropriation was not formerly contested, but this is no longer the case. Theories which have obtained but too much success have created doubts in the minds of our best thinkers on the institution of property. And upon what do the authors of these theories found their complaints? Why, exactly upon the assertion contained in the objection which I have just explained—upon the fact, unfortunately admitted by all schools, that the soil, by reason of its fertility, possesses an inherent value communicated to it by nature and not by human means. Now value is not transferred gratuitously. The very word excludes the idea of gratuitousness. We say to the proprietor, then—you demand from me a value which is the fruit of my labour, and you offer me in exchange a value which is not the fruit of your labour, or of any labour, but of the liberality of nature.

Be assured that this would be a fearful complaint were it well founded. It did not originate with Messieurs Considérant and Proudhon. We find it in the works of Smith, of Ricardo, of Senior, of all the Economists without exception, not as a theory [p282] merely, but as a subject of complaint. These authors have not only attributed to the soil an extra-human value, they have boldly deduced the consequence, and branded landed property as a privilege, a monopoly, a usurpation. No doubt, after thus branding it, they have defended it on the plea of ‹necessity›. But what does such a defence amount to, but an error of reasoning which the Communist logicians have lost no time in rectifying?

It is not, then, to indulge an unhappy love for subtilties that I enter on this delicate subject. I should have wished to save both the reader and myself the ennui which even now I feel hovering over the conclusion of this chapter.

The answer to the objection now under consideration is to be found in the theory of Value, explained in the ‹fifth› chapter of this work. I there said that value does not essentially imply labour; still less is it necessarily proportionate to labour. I have shown that the foundation of value is not so much the ‹pains taken› by the person who transfers it as the ‹pains saved› to the person who receives it; and it is for that reason that I have made it to reside in something which embraces these two elements—in ‹service›. I have said that a person may render a great service with very little effort, or that with a great effort one may render a very trifling service. The sole result is, that labour does not obtain necessarily a remuneration which is always in proportion to its intensity, in the case either of man in an isolated condition, or of man in the social state.

Value is determined by a bargain between two contracting parties. In making that bargain, each has his own views. You offer to sell me corn. What matters it to me the time and pains it may have cost you to produce it? What I am concerned about is the time and pains it would have cost me to procure it from another quarter. The knowledge you have of my situation may render you more or less exacting; the knowledge I have of yours may render me more or less anxious to make the purchase. There is no necessary measure, then, of the recompense which you are to derive from your labour. That depends upon the circumstances, and the value which these circumstances confer upon the two services which we are desirous to exchange. By-and-by we shall call attention to an external force called Competition, whose mission is to regulate values, and render them more and more proportional to efforts. Still this proportion is not of the essence of value, seeing that the proportion is established under the pressure of a contingent fact.

Keeping this in view, I maintain that the value of land arises, fluctuates, and is determined, like that of gold, iron, water, the [p283] lawyer’s advice, the physician’s consultation, the singer’s or dancer’s performance, the artist’s picture—in short, like all other values; that it is subject to no exceptional laws; that it constitutes a property the same in origin, the same in nature, and as legitimate, as any other property. But it does not at all follow, as you must now see, that, of two exertions of labour applied to the soil, one should not be much better remunerated than the other.

Let us revert again to that industry, the most simple of all, and the best fitted to show us the delicate point which separates the onerous labour of man from the gratuitous co-operation of nature. I allude to the humble industry of the water-carrier.

A man procures and brings home a barrel of water. Does he become possessed of a value necessarily proportionate to his labour? In that case, the value would be independent of the service the water may render. Nay more, it would be fixed; for the labour, once over, is no longer susceptible of increase or diminution.

Well, the day after he procures and brings home this barrel of water, it may lose its value, if, for example, it has rained during the night. In that case every one is provided—the water can render no service, and is no longer wanted. In economic language, it has ceased to be in demand.

On the other hand, it may acquire considerable value, if extraordinary wants, unforeseen and pressing, come to manifest themselves.

What is the consequence? that man, working for the future, is not exactly aware beforehand what value the future will attach to his labour. Value incorporated in a material object will be higher or lower, according as it renders more or less service, or, to express it more clearly, human labour, which is the source of value, receives according to circumstances a higher or lower remuneration. Such eventualities are an exercise for foresight, and foresight also has a right to remuneration.

But what connexion is there, I would ask, between these fluctuations of value, between these variations in the recompense of labour, and that marvellous natural industry, those admirable physical laws, which without our participation have brought the water of the ocean to the spring? Because the value of this barrel of water varies according to circumstances, are we to conclude that nature charges sometimes more, sometimes less, sometimes nothing at all, for evaporation, for carrying the clouds from the ocean to the mountains, for freezing, melting, and the whole of that admirable industry which supplies the spring? [p284]

It is exactly the same thing in the case of agricultural products.

The value of the soil, or rather of the capital applied to the soil, is made up not of one element but of two. It depends not only on the labour which has been employed, but also on the ability which society possesses to remunerate that labour—on Demand as well as on Supply.

Take the case of a field. Not a year passes, perhaps, in which there is not some labour bestowed upon it, the effects of which are permanent, and of course an increase of value is the result.

Roads of access, besides, are improved and made more direct, the security of person and property becomes more complete, markets are extended, population increases in number and in wealth—different systems of culture are introduced, and a new career is opened to intelligence and skill; the effect of this change of medium, of this general prosperity, being to confer additional value on both the present and the anterior labour, and consequently on the field.

There is here no injustice, no exception in favour of landed property. No species of labour, from that of the banker to that of the day-labourer, fails to exhibit the same phenomenon. No one fails to see his remuneration improved by the improvement of the society in which his work is carried on. This action and reaction of the prosperity of each on the prosperity of all, and ‹vice versa›, is the very law of value. So false is the conclusion which imputes to the soil and its productive powers an imaginary value, that intellectual labour, professions and trades which have no connexion with matter or the co-operation of physical laws, enjoy the same advantage, which in fact is not exceptional but universal. The lawyer, the physician, the professor, the artist, the poet, receive a higher remuneration for an equal amount of labour, in proportion as the town or country to which they belong increases in wealth and prosperity, in proportion as the taste or demand for their services becomes more generally diffused, in proportion as the public is more able and more willing to remunerate them. The acquisition of clients and customers is regulated by this principle. It is still more apparent in the case of the Basque Giant and Tom Thumb, who lived by the simple exhibition of their exceptional stature, and reap a much better harvest, from the curiosity of the numerous and wealthy crowds of our large towns, than from that of a few poor and straggling villagers. In this case, demand not only enhances value, it creates it. Why, then, should we think it exceptional or unjust that demand should also exert an influence on the value of land and of agricultural products? [p285]

Is it alleged that land may thus attain an exaggerated value? They who say so have never reflected on the immense amount of labour which arable land has absorbed. I dare affirm, that there is not a field in this country which ‹is worth› what it has cost, which could be exchanged for as much labour as has been expended in bringing it to its present state of productiveness. If this observation is well founded, it is conclusive. It frees landed property from the slightest taint of injustice. For this reason, I shall return to the subject when I come to examine Ricardo’s theory of Rent, and I shall show that we must apply to agricultural capital the law which I have stated in these terms: In proportion as capital increases, products are divided between capitalists or proprietors and labourers, in such a way that the ‹relative› share of the former goes on continually diminishing, although their ‹absolute› share is increased, whilst the share of the latter is increased both absolutely and relatively.

The illusion which has induced men to believe that the productive powers of the soil have an independent value, because they possess Utility, has led to many errors and catastrophes. It has driven them frequently to the premature establishment of colonies, the history of which is nothing else than a lamentable martyrology. They have reasoned in this way: In our own country we can obtain value only by labour, and when we have done our work, we have obtained a value which is only proportionate to our labour. If we emigrate to Guiana, to the banks of the Mississippi, to Australia, to Africa, we shall obtain possession of vast territories, uncultivated but fertile; and our reward will be, that we shall become possessed not of the value we have created, but also of the inherent and independent value of the land we may reclaim. They set out, and a cruel experience soon confirms the truth of the theory which I am now explaining. They labour, they clear, they exhaust themselves; they are exposed to privations, to sufferings, to diseases; and then if they wish to dispose of the land which they have rendered fit for production, they cannot obtain for it what it has cost them, and they are forced to acknowledge that value is of human creation. I defy you to give me an instance of the establishment of a colony which has not at the beginning been attended with disaster.

“Upwards of a thousand labourers were sent out to the Swan River Colony; but the extreme cheapness of land (eighteenpence, or less than two francs, an acre) and the extravagant rate of wages, afforded them such facilities and inducements to become landowners, that capitalists could no longer get any one to cultivate their lands. A capital of £200,000 (five millions of francs) was lost in consequence, and the colony became a scene of desolation. The labourers having left their employers from the delusive desire to become landowners, agricultural implements were allowed to rust—seeds rotted—and sheep, cattle, and horses perished for want of attention. A frightful famine [p286] cured the labourers of their infatuation, and they returned to ask employment from the capitalists; but it was too late.”—‹Proceedings of the South Australian Association.›

The association, attributing this disaster to the cheapness of land, raised its price to 12s. an acre. But, adds Carey, from whom I borrow this quotation, the real cause was, that the labourers, being persuaded that land possesses an ‹inherent› value, apart from the labour bestowed on it, were anxious to exercise “the power of appropriation,” to which the power to demand Rent is attributed.

What follows supplies us with an argument still more conclusive:

“In 1836, the landed estates in the colony of Swan River were to be purchased from the original settlers at one shilling an acre.”—‹New Monthly Magazine.›

Thus the land which was sold by the company at 12s.—upon which the settlers had bestowed much labour and money—was disposed of by them at one shilling! What then became of the value of ‹the natural and indestructible productive powers of the soil›?[62]

I feel that the vast and important subject of the Value of Land has not been exhausted in this chapter, written by snatches and amid many distractions. I shall return to it hereafter; but in the meantime I cannot resist submitting one observation to my readers, and more especially to Economists.

The illustrious ‹savants› who have done so much to advance the science, whose lives and writings breathe benevolence and philanthropy, and who have disclosed to us, at least in a certain aspect, and within the limits of their researches, the true solution of the social problem—the Quesnays, the Turgots, the Smiths, the Malthuses, the Says—have not however escaped, I do not say from refutation, for that is always legitimate, but from calumny, disparagement, and insult. To attack their writings, and even their motives, has become fashionable. It may be said, perhaps, that in this chapter I am furnishing arms to their detractors, and truly the moment would be ill chosen for me to turn against those whom I candidly acknowledge as my initiators, my masters, and my guides.

But supreme homage is, after all, due to Truth, or what I regard as Truth. No book was ever written without some admixture of error. Now, a single error in Political Economy, if we press it, torture it, deduce from it rigorously its logical consequences, involves all kinds of errors—in fact, lands us in chaos. There never was a book from which we could not extract one proposition, isolated, incomplete, false, including consequently a whole world [p287] of errors and confusion. In my conscience, I believe that the definition which the Economists have given of the word ‹Value› is of this number. We have just seen that this definition has led them to cast a serious doubt on the legitimacy of property in land, and, by consequence, in capital; and they have only been stopped short on this fatal road by an inconsistency. This inconsistency has saved them. They have resumed their march on the road of Truth; and their error, if it be one, is, in their works, an isolated blot. Then the Socialists have come to lay hold of this false definition, not to refute it, but to adopt it, strengthen it, make it the foundation of their propaganda, and deduce from it all its consequences. Hence has arisen in our day an imminent social danger; and it is for that reason that I have thought it my duty to be explicit on this subject, and trace the erroneous theory to its source. If you conclude that I have separated myself from my masters Smith and Say, from my friends Blanqui and Garnier, because, by an oversight in their learned and admirable works, they have made, as I think, an erroneous application of the word ‹value›; if you conclude from this that I have no longer faith in Political Economy and Political Economists, I can only protest, and appeal to the very title of the present volume. [p288]

X. COMPETITION.

There is not in the whole vocabulary of Political Economy a word which has roused the fury of modern reformers so much as the word ‹Competition›, which, in order to render it the more odious, they never fail to couple with the epithet ‹anarchical›.

What is the meaning of ‹anarchical competition›? I really don’t know. What could we substitute for it? I am equally ignorant.

I hear people, indeed, calling out ‹Organization! Association!› What does that mean? Let us come to an understanding, once for all. I desire to know what sort of authority these writers intend to exercise over me, and all other living men; for I acknowledge only one species of authority, that of reason, if indeed they have it on their side. Is it their wish then to deprive me of the right of exercising my judgment on what concerns my own subsistence? Is their object to take from me the power of comparing the services which I render with those which I receive? Do they mean that I should act under the influence of restraint, exerted over me by them and not by my own intelligence? If they leave me my liberty, Competition remains. If they deprive me of freedom, I am their slave. Association will be ‹free and voluntary›, they say. Be it so. But then each group of associates will, as regards all other groups, be just what individuals now are in relation to each other, and we shall still have ‹Competition›. The association will be ‹integral›. A good joke truly. What! Anarchical Competition is now desolating society, and we must wait for a remedy, until, by dint of your persuasion, all the nations of the earth—Frenchmen, Englishmen, Chinese, Japanese, Caffres, Hottentots, Laplanders, Cossacks, Patagonians—make up their minds to unite in one of the forms of association which you have devised? Why, this is just to avow that competition is indestructible; and will you venture to say that a phenomenon which [p289] is indestructible, and consequently providential, can be mischievous?

After all, what is Competition? Is it a thing which exists and is self-acting like the cholera? No, Competition is only the absence of constraint. In what concerns my own interest, I desire to choose for myself, not that another should choose for me, or in spite of me—that is all. And if any one pretends to substitute his judgment for mine in what concerns me, I should ask to substitute mine for his in what concerns him. What guarantee have we that things would go on better in this way? It is evident that Competition is Liberty. To take away the liberty of acting is to destroy the possibility, and consequently the power, of choosing, of judging, of comparing; it is to annihilate intelligence, to annihilate thought, to annihilate man. From whatever quarter they set out, to this point all modern reformers tend—to ameliorate society they begin by annihilating the individual, under the pretext that all evils come from this source—as if all good did not come from it too.

We have seen that services are exchanged for services. In reality, every man comes into the world charged with the responsibility of providing for his satisfactions by his efforts. When another man saves us an effort, we ought to save him an effort in return. He imparts to us a satisfaction resulting from his effort; we ought to do the same for him.

But who is to make the comparison? for between these efforts, these pains, these services exchanged, there is necessarily a comparison to be made, in order to arrive at equivalence, at justice;—unless indeed injustice, inequality, chance, is to be our rule, which would just be another way of putting human intelligence ‹hors de cause›. We must, then, have a judge; and who is this judge to be? Is it not quite natural that in every case wants should be judged of by those who experience them, satisfactions by those who seek them, efforts by those who exchange them? And is it seriously proposed to substitute for this universal vigilance of the parties interested, a social authority (suppose that of the reformer himself), charged with determining in all parts of the world the delicate conditions of these countless acts of interchange? Do you not see that this would be to set up the most fallible, the most universal, the most arbitrary, the most inquisitorial, the most insupportable—we are fortunately able to add, the most impossible—of all despotisms ever conceived in the brain of pasha or mufti?

It is sufficient to know that Competition is nothing else than [p290] the absence of an arbitrary authority as judge of exchanges, in order to be satisfied that it is indestructible. Illegitimate force may no doubt restrain, counteract, trammel the liberty of exchanging, as it may the liberty of walking; but it can annihilate neither the one nor the other without annihilating man. This being so, it remains for us to inquire whether Competition tends to the happiness or misery of mankind; a question which amounts to this,—Is the human race naturally progressive, or are its tendencies fatally retrograde?

I hesitate not to say that Competition, which, indeed, we might denominate Liberty, despite the repulsion which it excites, despite the declamations to which it has given rise, is a law which is democratical in its essence. Of all the laws to which Providence has confided the progress of human society, it is the most progressive, levelling, and ‹communautaire›. It is this law which brings successively into the ‹common› domain the use and enjoyment of commodities which nature has accorded gratuitously only to certain countries. It is this law, again, which brings into the ‹common› domain all the conquests which the genius of each age bequeaths to succeeding generations, leaving them only supplementary labours to execute, which last they continue to exchange with one another, without succeeding, as they desire, in obtaining a recompense for the co-operation of natural agents; and if these labours, as happens always in the beginning, possess a value which is not proportionate to their intensity, it is still Competition which, by its incessant but unperceived action, restores an equilibrium which is sanctioned by justice, and which is more exact than any that the fallible sagacity of a human magistracy could by possibility establish. Far from Competition leading to inequality, as has been erroneously alleged, we may assert that all ‹factitious› inequality is imputable to its absence; and if the gulf between the Grand Lama and a Paria is more profound than that which separates the President from an artisan of the United States, the reason is this, that Competition (or Liberty), which is curbed and put down in Asia, is not so in America. This is the reason why, whilst the Socialists see in Competition the source of all that is evil, we trace to the attacks which have been made upon it the disturbance of all that is good. Although this great law has been misunderstood by the Socialists and their adepts; although it is frequently harsh in its operation, no law is more fertile in social harmonies, more beneficent in general results; no law attests more brilliantly the measureless superiority of the designs of God over the vain and powerless combinations of men. [p291]

I must here remind the reader of that singular but unquestionable result of the social order to which I have already invited his attention,[63] and which the power of habit hides too frequently from our view. It is this, ‹that the sum total of satisfactions which falls to each member of society is much superior to those which he could procure for himself by his own efforts›. In other words, there is an evident disproportion between our consumption and our labour. This phenomenon, which all of us can easily verify, if we turn our regards upon ourselves, ought, it seems to me, to inspire some gratitude to society, to which we owe it.

We come into this world destitute of everything, tormented with numerous wants, and provided with nothing but faculties to enable us to struggle against them. ‹A priori›, it would seem that all we could expect would be to obtain satisfactions proportionate to our labour. If we obtain more, infinitely more, to what do we owe the excess? Precisely to that natural organization against which we are constantly declaiming, when we are not engaged in seeking to subvert it.

In itself the phenomenon is truly extraordinary. That certain men consume more than they produce is easily explained, if in one way or other they usurp the rights of other people—if they receive services without rendering them. But how can that be true of all men at the same time? How happens it that, after having exchanged their services without constraint, without spoliation, upon a footing of ‹equivalence›, each man can say to himself with truth, I consume in a day more than I could produce in a century?

The reader has seen that the additional element which resolves the problem is the co-operation of natural agents, constantly becoming more and more effective in the work of production; it is gratuitous utility falling continually into the domain of ‹Community›; it is the labour of heat and of cold, of light, of gravitation, of affinity, of elasticity, coming progressively to be added to the labour of man, diminishing the value of services by rendering them more easy.

I must have but feebly explained the theory of ‹value› if the reader imagines that value diminishes immediately and of its own accord, by the simple fact of the co-operation of natural forces, and the relief thereby afforded to human labour. It is not so; for then we might say with the English Economists that value is proportional to labour. The man who is aided by a natural and gratuitous force renders his services more easily; but he does not [p292] on that account renounce voluntarily any portion whatever of his accustomed remuneration. To induce him to do that, external coercion—pressure from without—severe but not unjust pressure—is necessary. It is Competition which exerts this pressure. As long as Competition does not intervene, as long as the man who has availed himself of a natural agent preserves his secret, that natural agent is gratuitous, but it is not yet ‹common›. The victory has been gained, but to the profit only of a single man, or a single class. It is not yet a benefit to mankind at large. No change has yet taken place, except that one description of ‹services›, although partly relieved from the pain of muscular exertion, still exacts all its former remuneration. We have, on the one hand, a man who exacts from all his fellows the same amount of labour as formerly, although he offers them a limited amount of his own labour in return. On the other, we have mankind at large, who are still obliged to make the same sacrifice of time and of labour in order to obtain a product now realized in part by nature.

Were things to remain in this state, a principle of indefinite inequality would be introduced into the world with every new invention. Not only could we not say that value is proportional to labour; we could not even say that value tends to become proportional to labour. All that we have said in the preceding chapters about ‹gratuitous utility› and ‹progressive community› would be chimerical. It would not be true that services are exchanged against services, in such a way that the gifts of God are transferred gratuitously from one man to another, down to the ultimate recipient, who is the consumer. Each would continue to be paid, not only for his labour, but for the natural forces which he had once succeeded in setting to work; in a word, society would be constituted on the principle of universal Monopoly, in place of on the principle of progressive Community.

But it is not so. God, who has bestowed on all His creatures heat, light, gravitation, air, water, the soil, the marvels of vegetable life, electricity, and countless other benefits which it is beyond my power to enumerate,—God, who has placed in the human breast the feeling of ‹personal interest›, which, like a magnet, attracts everything to itself,—God, I say, has placed also in the bosom of society another spring of action, which He has charged with the care of preserving to His benefits their original destination, which was, that they should be gratuitous and common. This spring of action is Competition.

Thus, Personal Interest is that irrepressible force belonging to the individual which urges us on to progress and discovery, which [p293] spurs us on to exertion, but leads also to monopoly. Competition is that force belonging to the species which is not less irrepressible, and which snatches progress, as it is realized, from individual hands, and makes it the common inheritance of the great family of mankind. These two forces, in each of which, considered individually, we might find something to blame, thus constitute social Harmony, by the play of their combinations, when regarded in conjunction.

And we may remark, in passing, that we ought not to be at all surprised that the individual interests of men, considered as producers, should from the beginning have risen up against Competition, should have rebuked it, and sought to destroy it—calling in for this purpose the assistance of force, fraud, privilege, sophistry, monopoly, restriction, legislative protection, etc. The morality of the means shows us clearly enough the morality of the end. But the astonishing and melancholy thing is, that science herself—false science, it is true—propagated with so much zeal by the socialist schools, in the name of philanthropy, equality, and fraternity, should have espoused the cause of Individualism, in its narrowest and most exclusive manifestation, and should have deserted the cause of humanity.

Let us see now how Competition acts:—

Man, under the influence of self-interest, is always, and necessarily, on the outlook for such circumstances as may give the greatest ‹value› to his services. He is not long in discovering that, as regards the gifts of God, he may be favoured in three ways:

1. He may appropriate to his own exclusive use these gifts themselves; or,

2. He may alone know the ‹process› by which they can be made useful; or,

3. He alone may possess the ‹instrument› by means of which their co-operation in the work of production can be secured.