The more closely we examine these solemn discussions, the more clearly we see that the whole trouble is due to the fact that one of the parties does not wish to see, while the other refuses to advance.
It is a principle of our law that no one can be deprived of his property except for the sake of general utility, and in consideration of a fair indemnity payable in advance.
This principle is eminently an economic one; for, on the one hand, it assumes the right of eminent domain of the citizen expropriated, whose consent, according to the democratic spirit of the social compact, is necessarily presupposed.On the other hand, the indemnity, or the price of the article taken, is fixed, not by the intrinsic value of the article, but by the general law of commerce, -- supply and demand; in a word, by opinion.Expropriation in the name of society may be likened to a contract of convenience, agreed to by each with all; not only then must the price be paid, but the convenience also must be paid for: and it is thus, in reality, that the indemnity is estimated.If the Roman legists had seen this analogy, they undoubtedly would have hesitated less over the question of expropriation for the sake of public utility.
Such, then, is the sanction of the social right of expropriation: indemnity.
Now, practically, not only is the principle of indemnity not applied in all cases where it ought to be, but it is impossible that it should be so applied.Thus, the law which established railways provided indemnity for the lands to be occupied by the rails; it did nothing for the multitude of industries dependent upon the previous method of conveyance, whose losses far exceeded the value of the lands whose owners received compensation.
Similarly, when the question of indemnifying the manufacturers of beet-root sugar was under consideration, it occurred to no one that the State ought to indemnify also the large number of laborers and employees who earned their livelihood in the beet-root industry, and who were, perhaps, to be reduced to want.Nevertheless, it is certain, according to the idea of capital and the theory of production, that as the possessor of land, whose means of labor is taken from him by the railroad, has a right to be indemnified, so also the manufacturer, whose capital is rendered unproductive by the same railroad, is entitled to indemnification.Why, then, is he not indemnified?
Alas! because to indemnify him is impossible.With such a system of justice and impartiality society would be, as a general thing, unable to act, and would return to the fixedness of Roman justice.There must be victims.
The principle of indemnity is consequently abandoned; to one or more classes of citizens the State is inevitably bankrupt.
At this point the socialists appear.They charge that the sole object of political economy is to sacrifice the interests of the masses and create privileges; then, finding in the law of expropriation the rudiment of an agrarian law, they suddenly advocate universal expropriation; that is, production and consumption in common.
But here socialism relapses from criticism into utopia, and its incapacity becomes freshly apparent in its contradictions.If the principle of expropriation for the sake of public utility, carried to its logical conclusion, leads to a complete reorganization of society, before commencing the work the character of this new organization must be understood; now, socialism, I repeat, has no science save a few bits of physiology and political economy.
Further, it is necessary in accordance with the principle of indemnity, if not to compensate citizens, at least to guarantee to them the values which they part with; it is necessary, in short, to insure them against loss.Now, outside of the public fortune, the management of which it demands, where will socialism find security for this same fortune?
It is impossible, in sound and honest logic, to escape this circle.
Consequently the communists, more open in their dealings than certain other sectarians of flowing and pacific ideas, decide the difficulty; and promise, the power once in their hands, to expropriate all and indemnify and guarantee none.At bottom, that would be neither unjust nor disloyal.Unfortunately, to burn is not to reply, as the interesting Desmoulins said to Robespierre; and such a discussion ends always in fire and the guillotine.Here, as everywhere, two rights, equally sacred, stand in the presence of each other, the right of the citizen and the right of the State; it is enough to say that there is a superior formula which reconciles the socialistic utopias and the mutilated theories of political economy, and that the problem is to discover it.In this emergency what are the contending parties doing? Nothing.We might say rather that they raise questions only to get an opportunity to redress injuries.What do I say? The questions are not even understood by them; and, while the public is considering the sublime problems of society and human destiny, the professors of social science, orthodox and heretics, do not agree on principles.Witness the question which occasioned these inquiries, and which its authors certainly understand no better than its disparagers, -- the relation of profits and wages.
What! an Academy of economists has offered for competition a question the terms of which it does not understand! How, then, could it have conceived the idea?
Well! I know that my statement is astonishing and incredible; but it is true.Like the theologians, who answer metaphysical problems only by myths and allegories, which always reproduce the problems but never solve them, the economists reply to the questions which they ask only by relating how they were led to ask them: should they conceive that it was possible to go further, they would cease to be economists.
