Individual possession is no obstacle to extensive cultivation and unity of exploitation. If I have not spoken of the drawbacks arising from small estates, it is because I thought it useless to repeat what so many others have said, and what by this time all the world must know. But I am surprised that the economists, who have so clearly shown the disadvantages of spade-husbandry, have failed to see that it is caused entirely by property; above all, that they have not perceived that their plan for mobilizing the soil is a first step towards the abolition of property. ↩
In the Chamber of Deputies, during the session of the fifth of January, 1841, M. Dufaure moved to renew the expropriation bill, on the ground of public utility. ↩
What Is Property? Chap. IV, Ninth Proposition. ↩
Tu cognovisti sessionem meam et resurrectionem meam. Psalm 139. ↩
The emperor Nicholas has just compelled all the manufacturers in his empire to maintain, at their own expense, within their establishments, small hospitals for the reception of sick workmen—the number of beds in each being proportional to the number of laborers in the factory. “You profit by man’s labor,” the Czar could have said to his proprietors; “you shall be responsible for man’s life.” M. Blanqui has said that such a measure could not succeed in France. It would be an attack upon property—a thing hardly conceivable even in Russia, Scythia, or among the Cossacks; but among us, the oldest sons of civilization! … I fear very much that this quality of age may prove in the end a mark of decrepitude. ↩
Course of M. Blanqui. Lecture of Nov. 27, 1840. ↩
In Mazaniello, the Neapolitan fisherman demands, amid the applause of the galleries, that a tax be levied upon luxuries. ↩
Sème le champ, prolétaire;
C’est l’oisif qui récoltera.
“In some countries, the enjoyment of certain political rights depends upon the amount of property. But, in these same countries, property is expressive, rather than attributive, of the qualifications necessary to the exercise of these rights. It is rather a conjectural proof than the cause of these qualifications.”
—Rossi: Treatise on Penal Law.
This assertion of M. Rossi is not borne out by history. Property is the cause of the electoral right, not as a presumption of capacity—an idea which never prevailed until lately, and which is extremely absurd—but as a guarantee of devotion to the established order. The electoral body is a league of those interested in the maintenance of property, against those not interested. There are thousands of documents, even official documents, to prove this, if necessary. For the rest, the present system is only a continuation of the municipal system, which, in the middle ages, sprang up in connection with feudalism—an oppressive, mischief-making system, full of petty passions and base intrigues. ↩
Lecture of December 22. ↩
Lecture of Jan. 15, 1841. ↩
Lecture of Jan. 15, 1841. ↩
MM. Blanqui and Wolowski. ↩
Subject proposed by the Fourth Class of the Institute, the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences: “What would be the effect upon the working-class of the organization of labor, according to the modern ideas of association?” ↩
Subject proposed by the Academy of Besançon: “The economical and moral consequences in France, up to the present time, and those which seem likely to appear in future, of the law concerning the equal division of hereditary property between the children.” ↩
Πλεονεξια—greater property. The Vulgate translates it avaritia. ↩
Similar or analogous customs have existed among all nations. Consult, among other works, Origin of French Law, by M. Michelet; and Antiquities of German Law, by Grimm. ↩
Deos hominesque testamur, nos arma neque contra patriam cepisse neque quo periculum aliis faceremus, sed uti corpora nostra ab injuria tuta forent, qui miseri, egentes, violentia atque crudelitate foeneratorum, plerique patriae, sed omnes fama atque fortunis expertes sumus; neque cuiquam nostrum licuit, more majorum, lege uti, neque, amisso patrimonio, liberum corpus habere. —Sallus: Bellum Catilinarium ↩
Fifty, sixty, and eighty percent. —Course of M. Blanqui ↩
Episcopi plurimi, quos et hortamento esse oportet caeteris et exemplo, divina procuratione contempta, procuratores rerum saeularium fieri, derelicta cathedra, plebe deserta, per alienas provincias oberrantes, negotiationis quaestuosae nundinas aucupari, esurientibus in eeclesia fratribus habere argentum largiter velle, fundos insidiosis fraudibus rapere, usuris multiplicantibus foenus augere.
—Cyprian: De Lapsis.
In this passage, St. Cyprian alludes to lending on mortgages and to compound interest. ↩
Inquiries Concerning Property
