What Is Property? quotes

Method pursued in this work.—The idea of a revolution.

If I were asked to answer the following question: What is slavery? and I should answer in one word, It is murder, my meaning would be understood at once.

No extended argument would be required to show that the power to take from a man his thought, his will, his personality, is a power of life and death; and that to enslave a man is to kill him. Why, then, to this other question:

I contend that neither labor, nor occupation, nor law, can create property; that it is an effect without a cause: am I censurable?

Property is robbery!

That is the war-cry of ’93! That is the signal of revolutions!

Property is robbery! That is the war-cry of ’93! That is the signal of revolutions!

Reader, calm yourself: I am no agent of discord, no firebrand of sedition.

I anticipate history by a few days; I disclose a truth whose development we may try in vain to arrest; I write the preamble of our future constitution.

In giving expression to the last stage of an idea—an idea which permeates all minds, which tomorrow will be proclaimed by another if I fail to announce it today—I can claim no merit save that of priority of utterance.

Do we eulogize the man who first perceives the dawn?

Yes: all men believe and repeat that equality of conditions is identical with equality of rights; that property and robbery are synonymous terms; that every social advantage accorded, or rather usurped, in the name of superior talent or service, is iniquity and extortion.

Our disease is not, then, absolutely incurable, and the theory of the theologians is worse than inadequate; it is ridiculous, since it is reducible to this tautology: “Man errs, because he errs.” While the true statement is this: “

Man errs, because he learns.

” Now, if man arrives at a knowledge of all that he needs to know, it is reasonable to believe that, ceasing to err, he will cease to suffer.

Because, say they, political inequality is a result of property; and without property society is impossible: thus the question just raised becomes a question of property. To the second I content myself with this remark:

If you wish to enjoy political equality, abolish property; otherwise, why do you complain?

Everybody answers without hesitation, “Yes, property is just.” I say everybody, for up to the present time no one who thoroughly understood the meaning of his words has answered no. For it is no easy thing to reply understandingly to such a question;

Is public order endangered more by the worthy citizen, or by the artisan and journeyman?

Why, the police have more to fear from a few hundred laborers, out of work, than from two hundred thousand electors!

Does the man of large income appreciate more keenly than the poor man national festivities, clean streets, and beautiful monuments? Why, he prefers his country-seat to all the popular pleasures; and when he wants to enjoy himself, he does not wait for the greased pole!

Does the man of large income appreciate more keenly than the poor man national festivities, clean streets, and beautiful monuments?

Why, he prefers his country-seat to all the popular pleasures; and when he wants to enjoy himself, he does not wait for the greased pole!

One of two things is true: either the proportional tax affords greater security to the larger taxpayers, or else it is a wrong.

If, then, the State takes more from me, let it give me more in return, or cease to talk of equality of rights; for otherwise, society is established, not to defend property, but to destroy it.

The State, through the proportional tax, becomes the chief of robbers; the State sets the example of systematic pillage

: the State should be brought to the bar of justice at the head of those hideous brigands, that execrable mob which it now kills from motives of professional jealousy.

Then if we are associated for the sake of liberty, equality, and security, we are not associated for the sake of property; then if property is a natural right, this natural right is not social, but antisocial.

Property and society are utterly irreconcilable institutions.

It is as impossible to associate two proprietors as to join two magnets by their opposite poles. Either society must perish, or it must destroy property.

Then if we are associated for the sake of liberty, equality, and security, we are not associated for the sake of property; then if property is a natural right, this natural right is not social, but antisocial. Property and society are utterly irreconcilable institutions.

It is as impossible to associate two proprietors as to join two magnets by their opposite poles.

Either society must perish, or it must destroy property.

Cousin has sought to base it upon the sanctity of the human personality, and the act by which the will assimilates a thing. “Once touched by man,” says one of M. Cousin’s disciples, “things receive from him a character which transforms and humanizes them.”

I confess, for my part, that I have no faith in this magic, and that I know of nothing less holy than the will of man.

But this theory, fragile as it seems to psychology as well as jurisprudence, is nevertheless more philosophical and profound than those theories which are based upon labor or the authority of the law.

After this magnificent introduction, who would refuse to believe the human race to be an immense family living in brotherly union, and under the protection of a venerable father? But, heavens! are brothers enemies? Are fathers unnatural, and children prodigal?

God gave the earth to the human race: why then have I received none?

He has put all things under my feet—and I have not where to lay my head! Multiply, he tells us through his interpreter, Pothier. Ah, learned Pothier! that is as easy to do as to say;

God gave the earth to the human race: why then have I received none? He has put all things under my feet—and I have not where to lay my head! Multiply, he tells us through his interpreter, Pothier.

Ah, learned Pothier! that is as easy to do as to say; but you must give moss to the bird for its nest.

“The human race having multiplied, men divided among themselves the earth and most of the things upon it; that which fell to each, from that time exclusively belonged to him. That was the origin of the right of property.”

Possession alone produced all that.

Property is eternal, like every negation⁠—

“Of all social and civil institutions.”

“The guarantee and the morality of labor.”

Under the regime of property, labor is not a condition, but a privilege.

What is justice without equality of fortunes? A balance with false weights.

Under the regime of property, labor is not a condition, but a privilege.

What is justice without equality of fortunes? A balance with false weights.

A famished stomach knows no morality—

What is justice without equality of fortunes? A balance with false weights.

A famished stomach knows no morality⁠—

Certainly, the preservation of property—

“Rest on the right of property.”

Cornerstone of all which is, stumbling-block of all which ought to be⁠—such is property.

To sum up and conclude:—

Thus is annihilated the Roman definition of property—the right of use and abuse—an immorality born of violence, the most monstrous pretension that the civil laws ever sanctioned. Man receives his usufruct from the hands of society, which alone is the permanent possessor.

The individual passes away, society is deathless.

What a profound disgust fills my soul while discussing such simple truths! Do we doubt these things today? Will it be necessary to again take arms for their triumph? And can force, in default of reason, alone introduce them into our laws?

Who is entitled to the rent of the land? The producer of the land, without doubt.

Who made the land? God. Then, proprietor, retire!

But the creator of the land does not sell it: he gives it; and, in giving it, he is no respecter of persons. Why, then, are some of his children regarded as legitimate, while others are treated as bastards?

nor to stroll in a park or an enclosure against the owner’s will: everyone is allowed to shut himself up and to fence himself in. All these prohibitions are so many positive interdictions, not only of the land, but of the air and water.

We who belong to the proletaire class: property excommunicates us!

Terra, et aqua, et aere, et igne interdicti sumus.

the mind is submitted to the impositions of the will—there is no knowledge, there is not even a shadow of certainty.

In this way, general ignorance produces general tyranny; and while liberty of thought is written in the charter, slavery of thought, under the name of majority rule, is decreed by the charter.

In order to confine myself to the civil prescription of which the Code speaks, I shall refrain from beginning a discussion upon this worn-out objection brought forward by proprietors; it would be too tiresome and declamatory.

For principles of jurisprudence and axioms of reason are different from accidental and contingent facts. One man’s possession can prescribe against another man’s possession; but just as the possessor cannot prescribe against himself, so reason has always the faculty of change and reformation.

Past error is not binding on the future.

Reason is always the same eternal force. The institution of property, the work of ignorant reason, may be abrogated by a more enlightened reason. Consequently, property cannot be established by prescription.

I accept, if you wish it, this argument, provided you indemnify me. But if this indemnity is refused me, what do I, a proletaire, care for the tranquillity and security of the rich? I care as little for public order as for the proprietor’s safety.

I ask to live a laborer; otherwise I will die a warrior.

Whichever way we turn, we shall come to the conclusion that prescription is a contradiction of property; or rather that prescription and property are two forms of the same principle, but two forms which serve to correct each other;

… bourgeoise morality, in which I have had the honor to be born, the moral sense is so debased that I should not be at all surprised if I were asked, by many a worthy proprietor, what I see in this that is unjust and illegitimate?

Debased creature! galvanized corpse! how can I expect to convince you, if you cannot tell robbery when I show it to you?

A man, by soft and insinuating words, discovers the secret of taxing others that he may establish himself;

and this value, the product of his labor, is his property. He sells it, as fast as he creates it, to the proprietor of the building, who pays him for it in food and wages.”

Divide et impera⁠—divide, and you shall command; divide, and you shall grow rich; divide, and you shall deceive men, you shall daze their minds, you shall mock at justice!

Separate laborers from each other, perhaps each one’s daily wage exceeds the value of each individual’s product; but that is not the question under consideration.

further, by the immense variety of products and the extreme division of labor, the social task is made easy of accomplishment. Now, through this limitation of things producible, and through the ease of producing them, the law of absolute equality takes effect.

Yes, life is a struggle. But this struggle is not between man and man⁠—it is between man and Nature; and it is each one’s duty to take his share in it.

If, in the struggle, the strong come to the aid of the weak, their kindness deserves praise and love; but their aid must be accepted as a free gift—not imposed by force, nor offered at a price.

If, in the struggle, the strong come to the aid of the weak, their kindness deserves praise and love; but their aid must be accepted as a free gift—not imposed by force, nor offered at a price.

All have the same career before them, neither too long nor too difficult; whoever finishes it finds his reward at the end: it is not necessary to get there first.

In printing-offices, where the laborers usually work by the job, the compositor receives so much per thousand letters set; the pressman so much per thousand sheets printed. There, as elsewhere, inequalities of talent and skill are to be found.

Such follies will be reenacted, so long as the inequality of fortunes justifies a populace, blinded and oppressed by the wealthy, in fearing the elevation of new tyrants to power.

Nothing seems more unnatural than that which we examine too closely, and often nothing seems less like the truth than the truth itself.

On the other hand, according to J. J. Rousseau, “it takes a great deal of philosophy to enable us to observe once what we see every day;”

“What! do you say that such should be the condition of one who sings of gods and men? Alms, with the humiliation and suffering which they bring with them!—what barbarous generosity!” … Do not get excited, I beg of you.

Property makes of a poet either a Croesus or a beggar; only equality knows how to honor and to praise him.

What is its duty? To regulate the right of the singer and the duty of the listener. Now, notice this point, which is a very important one in the solution of this question: both are free, the one to sell, the other to buy.

Now, political economy being the science of values, of their production, distribution, exchange, and consumption—if exchangeable value cannot be absolutely determined, how is political economy possible? How can it be a science?

How can two economists look each other in the face without laughing?

How dare they insult metaphysicians and psychologists? What! that fool of a Descartes imagined that philosophy needed an immovable base—an aliquid inconcussum—on which the edifice of science might be built, and he was simple enough to search for it!

Say’s example has borne its fruits.

Political economy, as it exists at present, resembles ontology: discussing effects and causes, it knows nothing, explains nothing, decides nothing.

The ideas honored with the name of economic laws are nothing more than a few trifling generalities, to which the economists thought to give an appearance of depth by clothing them in high-sounding words.

Whatever be then the capacity of a man—when this capacity is once created—it does not belong to him. Like the material fashioned by an industrious hand, it had the power of becoming, and society has given it being.

Shall the vase say to the potter, “I am that I am, and I owe you nothing”?

The artist, the savant, and the poet find their just recompense in the permission that society gives them to devote themselves exclusively to science and to art:

If he should demand more, society should, by refusing his services, annihilate his pretensions. Forced, then, in order to live, to devote himself to labor repugnant to his nature, the man of genius would feel his weakness, and would live the most distasteful of lives.

They tell of a celebrated singer who demanded of the Empress of Russia (Catherine II) twenty thousand roubles for his services: “That is more than I give my field-marshals,” said Catherine.

“Your majesty,” replied the other, “has only to make singers of her field-marshals.”

They tell of a celebrated singer who demanded of the Empress of Russia (Catherine II) twenty thousand roubles for his services: “That is more than I give my field-marshals,” said Catherine.

“Your majesty,” replied the other, “has only to make singers of her field-marshals.”

If France (more powerful than Catherine II) should say to Mademoiselle Rachel, “You must act for one hundred louis, or else spin cotton;” to M.

Because the thing saved, since it cannot be converted into capital, has no object, and is without a final cause. This will be explained more fully in the next chapter.

The laborer, in his relation to society, is a debtor who of necessity dies insolvent.

The proprietor is an unfaithful guardian who denies the receipt of the deposit committed to his care, and wishes to be paid for his guardianship down to the last day.

and if I show it no longer by metaphysics and jurisprudence, but by figures, equations, and calculations—imagine the fright of the astounded proprietor! And you, reader; what do you think of the retort?

Numbers govern the world⁠—mundum regunt numeri.

This proverb applies as aptly to the moral and political, as to the sidereal and molecular, world. The elements of justice are identical with those of algebra; legislation and government are simply the arts of classifying and balancing powers;

Therefore, everything which is impossible is untrue, useless, unjust. Then—a priori—we may judge of the justice of anything by its possibility; so that if the thing were absolutely impossible, it would be absolutely unjust.

Property is physically and mathematically impossible.

Axiom.—Property is the Right of Increase claimed by the Proprietor over anything which he has stamped as his own.

Locke humbly doubted whether God could make matter intelligent. Toullier asserts that the proprietor renders it moral. How much does he lack of being a God? These are by no means exaggerations.

Property is the right of increase; that is, the power to produce without labor.

Now, to produce without labor is to make something from nothing; in short, to create. Surely it is no more difficult to do this than to moralize matter. The jurists are right, then, in applying to proprietors this passage from the Scriptures—Ego dixi:

Then the proprietor’s business is to reconcile farmers by robbing them. O logic! O justice! O the marvellous wisdom of economists!

The proprietor, if they are right, is like Perrin-Dandin who, when summoned by two travellers to settle a dispute about an oyster, opened it, gobbled it, and said to them:⁠—

“The Court awards you each a shell.”

O logic! O justice! O the marvellous wisdom of economists! The proprietor, if they are right, is like Perrin-Dandin who, when summoned by two travellers to settle a dispute about an oyster, opened it, gobbled it, and said to them:—

“The Court awards you each a shell.”

Could anything worse be said of property?

then, as our axiom says, farm-rent is real increase—an extortion based solely upon fraud and violence on the one hand, and weakness and ignorance upon the other. Products, say the economists, are bought only by products. This maxim is property’s condemnation.

The proprietor, producing neither by his own labor nor by his implement, and receiving products in exchange for nothing, is either a parasite or a thief.

Then, if property can exist only as a right, property is impossible.

The seigniorial rights abolished by the Revolution of 1789—tithes, mortmain, statute-labor, etc.—were different forms of the rights of property; and they who under the titles of nobles, seigneurs, prebendaries, etc. enjoyed these rights, were neither more nor less than proprietors.

To defend property today is to condemn the Revolution.

Property is impossible, because wherever it exists Production costs more than it is worth.

Is not this the way in which the large landed proprietors have gradually raised their rents, as fast as they have ascertained by the increase in population and the development of industry how much society can produce from their property?

The proprietor is a foreigner to society; but, like the vulture, his eyes fixed upon his prey, he holds himself ready to pounce upon and devour it.

The facts to which we have called attention, in a community of one thousand persons, are reproduced on a large scale in every nation and wherever human beings live, but with infinite variations and in innumerable forms, which it is no part of my intention …

… to which we have called attention, in a community of one thousand persons, are reproduced on a large scale in every nation and wherever human beings live, but with infinite variations and in innumerable forms, which it is no part of my intention to describe.

In fine, property⁠—after having robbed the laborer by usury⁠—murders him slowly by starvation.

Now, without robbery and murder, property cannot exist; with robbery and murder, it soon dies for want of support. Therefore it is impossible.

And why? Because the right of increase does not permit these things to be sold at the cost-price, which is all that laborers can afford to pay.

On the signs of those magnificent warehouses which he in his poverty admires, the laborer reads in large letters: “This is thy work, and thou shalt not have it.”

Sic vos non vobis!

Every manufacturer who employs one thousand laborers, and gains from them daily one sou each, is slowly pushing them into a state of misery.

Every man who makes a profit has entered into a conspiracy with famine.

But the whole nation has not even this labor, by means of which property starves it. And why? Because the workers are forced by the insufficiency of their wages to monopolize labor; and because, before being destroyed by dearth, they destroy each other by competition.

Then business is lively, and both governors and governed rejoice. But the more they work today, the more idle will they be hereafter; the more they laugh, the more they shall weep.

Under the rule of property, the flowers of industry are woven into none but funeral wreaths. The laborer digs his own grave.

If the factory stops running, the manufacturer has to pay interest on his capital the same as before. He naturally tries, then, to continue production by lessening expenses. Then comes the lowering of wages; the introduction of machinery;

Rarity of genius was not, in the Creator’s design, a motive to compel society to go down on its knees before the man of superior talents, but a providential means for the performance of all functions to the greatest advantage of all.

Talent is a creation of society rather than a gift of Nature; it is an accumulated capital, of which the receiver is only the guardian.

Without society—without the education and powerful assistance which it furnishes—the finest nature would be inferior to the most ordinary capacities in the very respect in which it ought to shine.

Not long since France heard it advocated in the Chamber of Deputies, in the course of the discussion on the electoral reform—Poverty will always exist. That is the political aphorism with which the minister of state ground to powder the arguments of M. Arago.

Poverty will always exist! Yes, so long as property does.

The Fourierists—inventors of so many marvellous contrivances—could not, in this field, belie their character. They invented four methods of checking increase of population at will.

Consequently, labor and reproductive consumption are identical.

What is the proprietor? He is a machine which does not work; or, which working for its own pleasure, and only when it sees fit, produces nothing.

What is it to consume as a proprietor? It is to consume without working, to consume without reproducing. For, once more, that which the proprietor consumes as a laborer comes back to him;

In consuming as a laborer, the proprietor gains, or at least does not lose, since he recovers that which he consumes; in consuming as a proprietor, he impoverishes himself.

To enjoy property, then, it is necessary to destroy it; to be a real proprietor, one must cease to be a proprietor.

The laborer who consumes his wages is a machine which destroys and reproduces; the proprietor who consumes his income is a bottomless gulf—sand which we water, a stone which we sow.

in consuming as a proprietor, he impoverishes himself. To enjoy property, then, it is necessary to destroy it; to be a real proprietor, one must cease to be a proprietor.

The laborer who consumes his wages is a machine which destroys and reproduces; the proprietor who consumes his income is a bottomless gulf⁠—sand which we water, a stone which we sow.

So true is this, that the proprietor—neither wishing nor knowing how to produce, and perceiving that as fast as he uses his property he destroys it forever—has taken the precaution to make someone produce in his place.

That is what political economy, speaking in the name of eternal justice, calls producing by his capital—producing by his tools. And that is what ought to be called producing by a slave—producing as a thief and as a tyrant. He, the proprietor, produce! …

The robber might say, as well: “I produce.”

The consumption of the proprietor has been styled luxury, in opposition to useful consumption. From what has just been said, we see that great luxury can prevail in a nation which is not rich—that poverty even increases with luxury, and vice versa.

The proprietor who lays up products will neither allow others to enjoy them, nor enjoy them himself; for him there is neither possession nor property.

Like the miser, he broods over his treasures: he does not use them.

He may feast his eyes upon them; he may lie down with them; he may sleep with them in his arms: all very fine, but coins do not breed coins. No real property without enjoyment; no enjoyment without consumption;

Like the miser, he broods over his treasures: he does not use them. He may feast his eyes upon them; he may lie down with them; he may sleep with them in his arms: all very fine, but coins do not breed coins.

No real property without enjoyment; no enjoyment without consumption; no consumption without loss of property⁠—such is the inflexible necessity to which God’s judgment compels the proprietor to bend.

A curse upon property!

What does a judgment of the Court of Appeal amount to? About what do our Chambers deliberate? What is politics? What is our definition of a statesman? What is the meaning of jurisprudence?

Should we not rather say jurisignorance?

If all our institutions are based upon an error in calculation, does it not follow that these institutions are so many shams?

This last course would be the simpler and better one; but, to induce the nations to adopt it, requires such a cooperation of able minds and generous hearts as is at present out of the question.

Competition, sometimes called liberty of trade⁠—in a word, property in exchange⁠—will be for a long time the basis of our commercial legislation; which, from the economical point of view, embraces all civil laws and all government. Now, what is competition? A duel in a closed field, where arms are the test of right.

“Who is the liar—the accused or the accuser?” said our barbarous ancestors. “Let them fight it out,” replied the still more barbarous judge; “the stronger is right.”

Hercules destroying the monsters and punishing brigands for the safety of Greece, Orpheus teaching the rough and wild Pelasgians—neither of them putting a price upon their services—there we see the noblest creations of poetry, the loftiest expression of justice and virtue.

The joys of self-sacrifice are ineffable.

If I were to compare human society to the old Greek tragedies, I should say that the phalanx of noble minds and lofty souls dances the strophe, and the humble multitude the antistrophe.

But equality delights my heart. Benevolence degenerates into tyranny, and admiration into servility.

Friendship is the daughter of equality.

O my friends! may I live in your midst without emulation, and without glory; let equality bring us together, and fate assign us our places. May I die without knowing to whom among you I owe the most esteem!

Society advances from equation to equation. To the eyes of the economist, the revolutions of empires seem now like the reduction of algebraical quantities, which are inter-deducible; now like the discovery of unknown quantities, induced by the inevitable influence of time.

Figures are the providence of history.

Undoubtedly there are other elements in human progress; but in the multitude of hidden causes which agitate nations, there is none more powerful or constant, none less obscure, than the periodical explosions of the proletariat against property.

the industrious work for the lazy, although this is unjust; the clever work for the foolish, although this is absurd; and, finally, man—casting aside his personality, his spontaneity, his genius, and his affections—humbly annihilates himself at the feet of the majestic and inflexible Commune!

Communism is inequality, but not as property is. Property is the exploitation of the weak by the strong. Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak.

In property, inequality of conditions is the result of force, under whatever name it be disguised: physical and mental force; force of events, chance, fortune; force of accumulated property, etc. In communism, inequality springs from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence.

… for the capitalists who invest their money, either with the State or in commercial operations, at three, four, and five percent—that is, who lend on usury at a little lower rate than the bankers and usurers—they are the flower of society, the cream of honesty!

Moderation in robbery is the height of virtue!

We rob—13. By farm-rent, house-rent, and leases of all kinds.

We rob—14. By commerce, when the profit of the merchant exceeds his legitimate salary.

Everybody knows the definition of commerce⁠—The art of buying for three francs that which is worth six, and of selling for six that which is worth three.

Between commerce thus defined and vol à l’américaine, the only difference is in the relative proportion of the values exchanged—in short, in the amount of the profit.

Property and royalty have been crumbling to pieces ever since the world began.

As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy.

Anarchy—the absence of a master, of a sovereign,—such is the form of government to which we are every day approximating, and which our accustomed habit of taking man for our rule, and his will for law, leads us to regard as the height of disorder …

Liberty is equality, because liberty exists only in society; and in the absence of equality there is no society.

Liberty is anarchy, because it does not admit the government of the will, but only the authority of the law; that is, of necessity.

Liberty is infinite variety, because it respects all wills within the limits of the law.

It is our right that this exchange should be one of equivalents; and since we consume before we produce, it would be our duty, if we could control the matter, to see to it that our last product shall follow our last consumption.

Suicide is fraudulent bankruptcy.

We need to live our lives according to the dictates of our reason. It is our right to maintain our freedom. It is our duty to respect that of others.

Individual possession is the condition of social life; five thousand years of property demonstrate it.

Property is the suicide of society. Possession is a right; property is against right.

Suppress property while maintaining possession, and, by this simple modification of the principle, you will revolutionize law, government, economy, and institutions; you will drive evil from the face of the earth.

Politics is the science of liberty.

The government of man by man (under whatever name it be disguised) is oppression.

Society finds its highest perfection in the union of order with anarchy.

I was glad to see that through its metaphysical dress you recognized the wise foresight of the author; and I thank you for it. May God grant that my intentions, which are wholly peaceful, may never be charged upon me as treasonable!

Like a stone thrown into a mass of serpents, the First Memoir on Property excited intense animosity, and aroused the passions of many.

But, while some wished the author and his work to be publicly denounced, others found in them simply the solution of the fundamental problems of society; a few even basing evil speculations upon the new light which they had obtained.

The best of all precautions would have been the anticipation of desire by satisfaction. Possession is the sovereign remedy for cupidity, a remedy which would have been the less perilous to Sparta because fortunes there were almost equal, and conditions were nearly alike.

As a general thing, fasting and abstinence are bad teachers of moderation.

“There was a law,” says M. Pastoret again, “to prohibit the rich from wearing better clothing than the poor, from eating more delicate food, and from owning elegant furniture, vases, carpets, fine houses,” etc. Lycurgus hoped, then, to maintain equality by rendering wealth useless.

The instinct of property is to make the industry of Daedalus, as well as the talent of Phidias, subservient to its own fantastic whims and disgraceful pleasures.

Property, not wealth, ruined the Spartans.

When Solon appeared, the anarchy caused by property was at its height in the Athenian republic. “The inhabitants of Attica were divided among themselves as to the form of government. Those who lived on the mountains (the poor) preferred the popular form;

The Roman people wished to return to the social compact; they asked for reforms, and demanded a revision of the laws, and a creation of new magistracies. The patricians, who had nothing to complain of, opposed every innovation.

Wealth always has been conservative.

Nevertheless, the people overcame the resistance of the Senate; the electoral right was greatly extended; the privileges of the plebeians were increased—they had their representatives, their tribunes, and their consuls; but, notwithstanding these reforms, the republic could not be saved.

or, as was more often the case, they were sold at auction. None of them were granted to the proletaires, who, unlike the patricians and knights, were not supplied by the victory with the means of buying them.

War never enriched the soldier; the extensive plundering has been done always by the generals.

The vans of Augereau, and of twenty others, are famous in our armies; but no one ever heard of a private getting rich.

… the Romans, the large estate which, through increase and usury, subordinated and absorbed the small one, among the Barbarians—fonder of war than of wealth, more eager to dispose of persons than to appropriate things—it was the warrior who, through superiority of arms, enslaved his adversary.

The Roman wanted matter; the Barbarian wanted man.

Consequently, in the feudal ages, rents were almost nothing—simply a hare, a partridge, a pie, a few pints of wine brought by a little girl, or a Maypole set up within the suzerain’s reach.

This similarity is worthy of notice.

Slavery is always the same, whether in a Roman villa or on a Barbarian farm.

The man, like the ox and the ass, is a part of the livestock; a price is set upon his head; he is a tool without a conscience, a chattel without personality, an impeccable, irresponsible being, who has neither rights nor duties.

Such was the fate of most of the Lombardic cities—Genoa, Florence, Bologna, Milan, Pisa, etc.—which afterwards changed rulers frequently, but which have never since risen in favor of liberty.

The people can easily escape from the tyranny of despots, but they do not know how to throw off the effects of their own despotism; just as we avoid the assassin’s steel, while we succumb to a constitutional malady.

As soon as a nation becomes proprietor, either it must perish, or a foreign invasion must force it again to begin its evolutionary round.

I reply, “As long as an opinion is universally admitted, the universality of belief serves of itself as argument and proof. When this same opinion is attacked, the former faith proves nothing; we must resort to reason.

Ignorance, however old and pardonable it may be, never outweighs reason.

”

But, then, three-fourths of our literary people will be obliged to register; and, recognized thenceforth on their own declaration as prostitutes, they will necessarily belong to the public.

We pay toll to the prostitute; we do not endow her.

Finally, shall plagiarism be classed with forgery? If you reply “Yes,” you appropriate in advance all the subjects of which books treat; if you say “No,” you leave the whole matter to the decision of the judge.

If, on the contrary, I prefer the classic language of Rome and the civil code, and say accordingly, “Possession is a blessing, but property is robbery,” immediately the aforesaid bachelors raise a hue and cry against the monster, and the judge threatens me.

Oh, the power of language!

The economists, questioned in their turn, propose to associate capital and labor. You know, sir, what that means.

“Beati possidentes!” says an author quoted by M. Troplong. Seriously, can that be applied to a man of income, who has no other possession under the sun than the market, and in his pocket his money? As well maintain that a trough is a cow-yard.

A nice method of reform! They never cease to condemn the thirst for gold, and the growing individualism of the century; and yet, most inconceivable of contradictions, they prepare to turn all kinds of property into one⁠—property in coin.

I must say something further of a theory of property lately put forth with some ado: I mean the theory of M. Considérant.

He would willingly write upon his hat, “Argumentator in barbara.” But M. Considérant is too intelligent and quick-witted to be a good logician, as is proved by the fact that he appears to have taken the syllogism for logic.

The syllogism, as everybody knows who is interested in philosophical curiosities, is the first and perpetual sophism of the human mind⁠—the favorite tool of falsehood, the stumbling-block of science, the advocate of crime.

The syllogism has produced all the evils which the fabulist so eloquently condemned, and has done nothing good or useful: it is as devoid of truth as of justice. We might apply to it these words of Scripture:

in philosophy and politics, an Idealist, a Pantheist, a Platonist, a Cartesian, an Eclectic (that is, a sort of juste-milieu), a Monarchist, an Aristocrat, a Constitutionalist, a follower of Babeuf, and a Communist.

I have wandered through a whole encyclopaedia of systems.

Do you think it surprising, sir, that, among them all, I was for a short time a Fourierist?

My mind no longer admits that which is demonstrated by syllogisms, analogies, or metaphors, which are the methods of the phalanstery, but demands a process of generalization and induction which excludes error. Of my past opinions, I retain absolutely none.

I have acquired some knowledge. I no longer believe. I either know, or am ignorant.

In a word, in seeking for the reason of things, I saw that I was a rationalist.

It is rumored that the Fourierists think of leaving France and going to the new world to found a phalanstery.

When a house threatens to fall, the rats scamper away; that is because they are rats. Men do better; they rebuild it.

Not long since, the St. Simonians, despairing of their country which paid no heed to them, proudly shook the dust from their feet, and started for the Orient to fight the battle of free woman. Pride, wilfulness, mad selfishness!

Do not accuse me of envy, proletaires, if I, a defender of equality, estimate at their proper value talents which are universally admired, and which I, better than anyone, know how to recognize.

A dwarf can always measure a giant: all that he needs is a yardstick.

You have seen the pretentious announcements of L’Esquisse d’une Philosophie, and you have admired the work on trust; for either you have not read it, or, if you have, you are incapable of judging it. Acquaint yourselves, then, with this speculation more brilliant than sound;

Who denies it? But it is precisely that which constitutes my system of statu quo. I make no war upon symbols, figures, or phantoms.

I respect scarecrows, and bow before bugbears.

I ask, on the one hand, that property be left as it is, but that interest on all kinds of capital be gradually lowered and finally abolished;

Nevertheless, I doubt if such simplicity would be agreeable to French vanity, to that inordinate love of distinction and flattery which makes our nation the most frivolous in the world. M. Lamartine, in his grand “Meditation on Bonaparte,” calls the French a nation of Brutuses.

We are merely a nation of Narcissuses.

Previous to ’89, we had the aristocracy of blood; then every bourgeois looked down upon the commonalty, and wished to be a nobleman.

Now, I am for generalization, induction, and progress. I regard general disappropriation as impossible: attacked from that point, the problem of universal association seems to me insolvable.

Property is like the dragon which Hercules killed: to destroy it, it must be taken, not by the head, but by the tail⁠—that is, by profit and interest.

I stop. I have said enough to satisfy anyone who can read and understand.