The laborer has produced 1; he consumes only 0.9.He loses, then, one-tenth of the price of his labor; his production still costs more than it is worth.On the other hand, the tenth received by the proprietors is no less a waste; for, being laborers themselves, they, like the others, possess in the nine-tenths of their product the wherewithal to live: they want for nothing.Why should they wish their proportion of bread, wine, meat, clothes, shelter, &c., to be doubled, if they can neither consume nor exchange them? Then farm-rent, with them as with the rest of the laborers, is a waste, and perishes in their hands.Extend the hypothesis, increase the number and variety of the products, you still have the same result.
Hitherto, we have considered the proprietor as taking part in the production, not only (as Say says) by the use of his instrument, but in an effective manner and by the labor of his hands.Now, it is easy to see that, under such circumstances, property will never exist.What happens?
The proprietor--an essentially libidinous animal, without virtue or shame--is not satisfied with an orderly and disciplined life.
He loves property, because it enables him to do at leisure what he pleases and when he pleases.Having obtained the means of life, he gives himself up to trivialities and indolence; he enjoys, he fritters away his time, he goes in quest of curiosities and novel sensations.Property--to enjoy itself--has to abandon ordinary life, and busy itself in luxurious occupations and unclean enjoyments.
Instead of giving up a farm-rent, which is perishing in their hands, and thus lightening the labor of the community, our hundred proprietors prefer to rest.In consequence of this withdrawal,--the absolute production being diminished by one hundred, while the consumption remains the same,--production and consumption seem to balance.But, in the first place, since the proprietors no longer labor, their consumption is, according to economical principles, unproductive; consequently, the previous condition of the community--when the labor of one hundred was rewarded by no products--is superseded by one in which the products of one hundred are consumed without labor.The deficit is always the same, whichever the column of the account in which it is expressed.Either the maxims of political economy are false, or else property, which contradicts them, is impossible.
The economists--regarding all unproductive consumption as an evil, as a robbery of the human race--never fail to exhort proprietors to moderation, labor, and economy; they preach to them the necessity of making themselves useful, of remunerating production for that which they receive from it; they launch the most terrible curses against luxury and laziness.Very beautiful morality, surely; it is a pity that it lacks common sense.The proprietor who labors, or, as the economists say, WHO MAKESHIMSELF USEFUL, is paid for this labor and utility; is he, therefore, any the less idle as concerns the property which he does not use, and from which he receives an income? His condition, whatever he may do, is an unproductive and FELONIOUSone; he cannot cease to waste and destroy without ceasing to be a proprietor.
But this is only the least of the evils which property engenders.
Society has to maintain some idle people, whether or no.It will always have the blind, the maimed, the insane, and the idiotic.
It can easily support a few sluggards.At this point, the impossibilities thicken and become complicated.
THIRD PROPOSITION.
Property is impossible, because, with a given capital, Production is proportional to labor, not to property.
To pay a farm-rent of one hundred at the rate of ten per cent.of the product, the product must be one thousand; that the product may be one thousand, a force of one thousand laborers is needed.
It follows, that in granting a furlough, as we have just done, to our one hundred laborer-proprietors, all of whom had an equal right to lead the life of men of income,--we have placed ourselves in a position where we are unable to pay their revenues.In fact, the productive power, which at first was one thousand, being now but nine hundred, the production is also reduced to nine hundred, one-tenth of which is ninety.Either, then, ten proprietors out of the one hundred cannot be paid,--provided the remaining ninety are to get the whole amount of their farm-rent,--or else all must consent to a decrease of ten per cent.For it is not for the laborer, who has been wanting in no particular, who has produced as in the past, to suffer by the withdrawal of the proprietor.The latter must take the consequences of his own idleness.But, then, the proprietor becomes poorer for the very reason that he wishes to enjoy; by exercising his right, he loses it; so that property seems to decrease and vanish in proportion as we try to lay hold of it,--the more we pursue it, the more it eludes our grasp.What sort of a right is that which is governed by numerical relations, and which an arithmetical calculation can destroy?
The laborer-proprietor received, first, as laborer, 0.9 in wages;second, as proprietor, 1 in farm-rent.He said to himself, "My farm-rent is sufficient; I have enough and to spare without my labor." And thus it is that the income upon which he calculated gets diminished by one-tenth,--he at the same time not even suspecting the cause of this diminution.By taking part in the production, he was himself the creator of this tenth which has vanished; and while he thought to labor only for himself, he unwittingly suffered a loss in exchanging his products, by which he was made to pay to himself one-tenth of his own farm-rent.
