May my communistic friends forgive me! I should be less severe upon their ideas if I were not irreversibly convinced, in my reason and in my heart, that communism, republicanism, and all the social, political, and religious utopias which disdain facts and criticism, are the greatest obstacle which progress has now to conquer.Why will they never understand that fraternity can be established only by justice; that justice alone, the condition, means, and law of liberty and fraternity, must be the object of our study; and that its determination and formula must be pursued without relaxation, even to the minutest details? Why do writers familiar with economic language forget that superiority of talents is synonymous with superiority of wants, and that, instead of expecting more from vigorous than from ordinary personalities, society should constantly look out that they do not receive more than they render, when it is already so hard for the mass of mankind to render all that it receives? Turn which way you will, you must always come back to the cash book, to the account of receipts and expenditures, the sole guarantee against large consumers as well as against small producers.The workman continually lives in advance of his production; his tendency is always to get credit contract debts and go into bankruptcy; it is perpetually necessary to remind him of Say's aphorism:
Products are bought only with products.
To suppose that the laborer of great capacity will content himself, in favor of the weak, with half his wages, furnish his services gratuitously, and produce, as the people say, for the king of Prussia -- that is, for that abstraction called society, the sovereign, or my brothers, -- is to base society on a sentiment, I do not say beyond the reach of man, but one which, erected systematically into a principle, is only a false virtue, a dangerous hypocrisy.Charity is recommended to us as a reparation of the infirmities which afflict our fellows by accident, and, viewing it in this light, I can see that charity may be organized; I can see that, growing out of solidarity itself, it may become simply justice.But charity taken as an instrument of equality and the law of equilibrium would be the dissolution of society.Equality among men is produced by the rigorous and inflexible law of labor, the proportionality of values, the sincerity of exchanges, and the equivalence of functions, -- in short, by the mathematical solution of all antagonisms.
That is why charity, the prime virtue of the Christian, the legitimate hope of the socialist, the object of all the efforts of the economist, is a social vice the moment it is made a principle of constitution and a law; that is why certain economists have been able to say that legal charity had caused more evil in society than proprietary usurpation.Man, like the society of which he is a part, has a perpetual account current with himself; all that he consumes he must produce.Such is the general rule, which no one can escape without being, ipso facto struck with dishonor or suspected of fraud.Singular idea, truly, -- that of decreeing, under pretext of fraternity, the relative inferiority of the majority of men!
After this beautiful declaration nothing will be left but to draw its consequences;
and soon, thanks to fraternity, aristocracy will be restored.
Double the normal wages of the workman, and you invite him to idleness, humiliate his dignity, and demoralize his conscience; take away from him the legitimate price of his efforts, and you either excite his anger or exalt his pride.In either case you damage his fraternal feelings.On the contrary, make enjoyment conditional upon labor, the only way provided by nature to associate men and make them good and happy, and you go back under the law of economic distribution, products are bought with products.
Communism, as I have often complained, is the very denial of society in its foundation, which is the progressive equivalence of functions and capacities.
The communists, toward whom all socialism tends, do not believe in equality by nature and education; they supply it by sovereign decrees which they cannot carry out, whatever they may do.Instead of seeking justice in the harmony of facts, they take it from their feelings, calling justice everything that seems to them to be love of one's neighbor, and incessantly confounding matters of reason with those of sentiment.
Why then continually interject fraternity, charity, sacrifice, and God into the discussion of economic questions? May it not be that the utopists find it easier to expatiate upon these grand words than to seriously study social manifestations?
Fraternity! Brothers as much as you please, provided I am the big brother and you the little; provided society, our common mother, honors my primogeniture and my services by doubling my portion.You will provide for my wants, you say, in proportion to your resources.I intend, on the contrary, that such provision shall be in proportion to my labor; if not, I cease to labor.
Charity! I deny charity; it is mysticism.In vain do you talk to me of fraternity and love: I remain convinced that you love me but little, and I feel very sure that I do not love you.Your friendship is but a feint, and, if you love me, it is from self-interest.I ask all that my products cost me, and only what they cost me: why do you refuse me?
Sacrifice! I deny sacrifice; it is mysticism.Talk to me of debt and credit, the only criterion in my eyes of the just and the unjust, of good and evil in society.To each according to his works, first; and if, on occasion, I am impelled to aid you, I will do it with a good grace; but I will not be constrained.To constrain me to sacrifice is to assassinate me.
