The right of increase is conferred in a very mysterious and supernatural manner. The inauguration of a proprietor is accompanied by the awful ceremonies of an ancient initiation. First, comes the consecration of the article; a consecration which makes known to all that they must offer up a suitable sacrifice to the proprietor, whenever they wish, by his permission obtained and signed, to use his article.
Second, comes the anathema, which prohibits—except on the conditions aforesaid—all persons from touching the article, even in the proprietor’s absence; and pronounces every violator of property sacrilegious, infamous, amenable to the secular power, and deserving of being handed over to it.
Finally, the dedication, which enables the proprietor or patron saint—the god chosen to watch over the article—to inhabit it mentally, like a divinity in his sanctuary. By means of this dedication, the substance of the article—so to speak—becomes converted into the person of the proprietor, who is regarded as ever present in its form.
This is exactly the doctrine of the writers on jurisprudence. “Property,” says Toullier, “is a moral quality inherent in a thing; an actual bond which fastens it to the proprietor, and which cannot be broken save by his act.” 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: Dii estis et filii Excelsi omnes—“I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the Most High.”
Property is the right of increase. To us this axiom shall be like the name of the beast in the Apocalypse—a name in which is hidden the complete explanation of the whole mystery of this beast. It was known that he who should solve the mystery of this name would obtain a knowledge of the whole prophecy, and would succeed in mastering the beast. Well! by the most careful interpretation of our axiom we shall kill the sphinx of property. Starting from this eminently characteristic fact—the right of increase—we shall pursue the old serpent through his coils; we shall count the murderous entwinings of this frightful taenia, whose head, with its thousand suckers, is always hidden from the sword of its most violent enemies, though abandoning to them immense fragments of its body. It requires something more than courage to subdue this monster. It was written that it should not die until a proletaire, armed with a magic wand, had fought with it.
Corollaries—1. The amount of increase is proportional to the thing increased. Whatever be the rate of interest—whether it rise to three, five, or ten percent, or fall to one-half, one-fourth, one-tenth—it does not matter; the law of increase remains the same. The law is as follows:—
All capital—the cash value of which can be estimated—may be considered as a term in an arithmetical series which progresses in the ratio of one hundred, and the revenue yielded by this capital as the corresponding term of another arithmetical series which progresses in a ratio equal to the rate of interest. Thus, a capital of five hundred francs being the fifth term of the arithmetical progression whose ratio is one hundred, its revenue at three percent will be indicated by the fifth term of the arithmetical progression whose ratio is three:—
| 100, | 200, | 300, | 400, | 500. |
| 3, | 6, | 9, | 12, | 15. |
An acquaintance with this sort of logarithms—tables of which, calculated to a very high degree, are possessed by proprietors—will give us the key to the most puzzling problems, and cause us to experience a series of surprises.
By this logarithmic theory of the right of increase, a piece of property, together with its income, may be defined as a number whose logarithm is equal to the sum of its units divided by one hundred, and multiplied by the rate of interest. For instance; a house valued at one hundred thousand francs, and leased at five percent, yields a revenue of five thousand francs, according to the formula 100,000×5100=5,000. Vice versa, a piece of land which yields, at two and a half percent, a revenue of three thousand francs is worth one hundred and twenty thousand francs, according to this other formula; 3,000×1002½=120,000.
In the first case, the ratio of the progression which marks the increase of interest is five; in the second, it is two and a half.
Observation.—The forms of increase known as farm-rent, income, and interest are paid annually; rent is paid by the week, the month, or the year; profits and gains are paid at the time of exchange. Thus, the amount of increase is proportional both to the thing increased, and the time during which it increases; in other words, usury grows like a cancer—foenus serpit sicut cancer.
2. The increase paid to the proprietor by the occupant is a dead loss to the latter. For if the proprietor owed, in exchange for the increase which he receives, some thing more than the permission which he grants, his right of property would not be perfect—he would not possess jure optimo, jure perfecto; that is, he would not be in reality a proprietor. Then, all which passes from the hands of the occupant into those of the proprietor in the name of increase, and as the price of the permission to occupy, is a permanent gain for the latter, and a dead loss and annihilation for the former; to whom none of
