What means, then, this dithyramb upon property?
“The right of property is the most important of human institutions.” …
Yes; as monarchy is the most glorious.
“The original cause of man’s prosperity upon earth.”
Because justice was supposed to be its principle.
“Property became the legitimate end of his ambition, the hope of his existence, the shelter of his family; in a word, the cornerstone of the domestic dwelling, of communities, and of the political State.”
Possession alone produced all that.
“Eternal principle—”
Property is eternal, like every negation—
“Of all social and civil institutions.”
For that reason, every institution and every law based on property will perish.
“It is a boon as precious as liberty.”
For the rich proprietor.
“In fact, the cause of the cultivation of the habitable earth.”
If the cultivator ceased to be a tenant, would the land be worse cared for?
“The guarantee and the morality of labor.”
Under the regime of property, labor is not a condition, but a privilege.
“The application of justice.”
What is justice without equality of fortunes? A balance with false weights.
“All morality—”
A famished stomach knows no morality—
“All public order—”
Certainly, the preservation of property—
“Rest on the right of property.”14
Cornerstone of all which is, stumbling-block of all which ought to be—such is property.
To sum up and conclude:—
Not only does occupation lead to equality, it prevents property. For, since every man, from the fact of his existence, has the right of occupation, and, in order to live, must have material for cultivation on which he may labor; and since, on the other hand, the number of occupants varies continually with the births and deaths—it follows that the quantity of material which each laborer may claim varies with the number of occupants; consequently, that occupation is always subordinate to population. Finally, that, inasmuch as possession, in right, can never remain fixed, it is impossible, in fact, that it can ever become property.
Every occupant is, then, necessarily a possessor or usufructuary—a function which excludes proprietorship. Now, this is the right of the usufructuary: he is responsible for the thing entrusted to him; he must use it in conformity with general utility, with a view to its preservation and development; he has no power to transform it, to diminish it, or to change its nature; he cannot so divide the usufruct that another shall perform the labor while he receives the product. In a word, the usufructuary is under the supervision of society, submitted to the condition of labor and the law of equality.
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?
All have an equal right of occupancy.
The amount occupied being measured, not by the will, but by the variable conditions of space and number, property cannot exist.
This no code has ever expressed; this no constitution can admit! These are axioms which the civil law and the law of nations deny! …
But I hear the exclamations of the partisans of another system: “Labor, labor! that is the basis of property!”
Reader, do not be deceived. This new basis of property is worse than the first, and I shall soon have to ask your pardon for having demonstrated things clearer, and refuted pretensions more unjust, than any which we have yet considered.
III
Labor as the efficient cause of the domain of property.
Nearly all the modern writers on jurisprudence, taking their cue from the economists, have abandoned the theory of first occupancy as a too dangerous one, and have adopted that which regards property as born of labor. In this they are deluded; they reason in a circle. To labor it is necessary to occupy, says M. Cousin. Consequently, I have added in my turn, all having an equal right of occupancy, to labor it is necessary to submit to equality. “The rich,” exclaims Jean Jacques, “have the arrogance to say, ‘I built this wall; I earned this land by my labor.’ Who set you the tasks? we may reply, and by what right do you demand payment from us for labor which we did not impose upon you?” All sophistry falls to the ground in the presence of this argument.
But the partisans of labor do not see that their system is an absolute contradiction of the Code, all the articles and provisions of which suppose property to be based upon the fact of first occupancy. If labor, through the appropriation which results from it, alone gives birth to property, the Civil Code lies, the charter is a falsehood, our whole social system is a violation of right. To this conclusion shall we come, at the end of the discussion which is to occupy our attention in this chapter and the following one, both as to the right of labor and the fact of property. We shall see, on the one hand, our legislation in opposition to itself; and, on the other hand, our new jurisprudence in opposition both to its own principle and to our legislation.
I have asserted that the system which bases property upon labor implies, no less than that which bases it upon occupation, the equality of fortunes; and the reader must be impatient to learn how I propose to deduce this law of equality from the inequality of skill and faculties: directly his curiosity shall be satisfied. But it is proper that I should call his attention for a moment to this remarkable feature of the process; to wit, the substitution of labor for occupation as the principle of property; and that I should pass rapidly in review some of the prejudices to which proprietors are accustomed to
