Property Is Theft!
Page 50
We want savings in State expenditure, just as we want the worker to enjoy the full range of the rights of man and the citizen, the attributes of capital and of talent. For which reason we ask for certain things that socialism suggests, and which men who purport to be particularly political fail to understand.
Politics tends to lead to specialisation and indefinite proliferation of jobs: socialism tends to amalgamate them all.
Thus we believe that virtually the totality of public works can and should be carried out by the army; that such participation in public works is the primary duty that the republican youth owes to its homeland; that, as a result, the army budget and the public works budget duplicate each other. That represents a saving of more than 100 million; politics overlooks that.
There is talk of trades education. We believe that agricultural training comes in the form of agriculture; the school for arts, crafts and manufacture is the workshop; the school for commerce is the counting-house; the mining school is the mine; the navigation school the navy; the administration school the civil service, etc.
The apprentice is as necessary to the job as the journeyman: why put him to one side in a school? We want the same education for everybody: what good are schools which the people sees as only schools for aristocrats and which represent a double drain upon our finances? Organise association, and by the same token, every workshop becoming a school, every worker becomes a master, every student an apprentice. Elite figures are turned out as well and better by the workshop as by the study hall.
Likewise in government.
It is not enough to say that one is opposed to the presidency unless one also does away with ministries, the eternal focus of political ambition. It is up to the National Assembly, through organisation of its committees, to exercise executive power, just the way it exercises legislative power through its joint deliberations and votes. Ministers, under-secretaries of State, departmental heads, etc., duplicate the work of the representatives, whose idle, dissipated life, given over to scheming and ambition, is a continual source of troubles for the administration, of bad laws for society and of needless expense for the State.
Let our young recruits get this straight in their heads: socialism is the contrary of governmentalism. For us, that is a precept as old as the adage: There can be no familiarity between master and servant.
Besides universal suffrage and as a consequence of universal suffrage, we want implementation of the imperative mandate [mandat impératif]. Politicians balk at it! Which means that in their eyes, the people, in electing representatives, does not appoint mandatories but rather abjure their sovereignty!... That is assuredly not socialism: it is not even democracy.
We seek unbounded freedom for man and the citizen, along as he respects the liberty of others:
Freedom of association;
Freedom of assembly;
Freedom of religion;
Freedom of the press;
Freedom of thought and of speech;
Freedom of labour, trade and industry;
Freedom of education;
In short, absolute freedom.
Now, among these freedoms, there is still one that the old politics will not countenance, which makes a nonsense of all the rest! Will they tell us once and for all if they want freedom on condition or unconditional freedom?
We want the family: where is there anyone who respects it more than we do?... But we do not mistake the family for the model of society. Defenders of monarchy have taught us that monarchies were made in the image of the family. The family is the patriarchal or dynastic element, the rudiment of royalty: the model of civil society is the fraternal association.
We want property, but property restored to its proper limits, that is to say, free disposition of the fruits of labour, property MINUS USURY!... Of that we need say no more. Those who know us get our meaning.
Such, in substance, is our profession of faith. The Declaration by the deputies of the Mountain leaves us duty-bound to reproduce it so that a judgement may be made as to whether, by not welcoming the honourable M. Ledru-Rollin’s candidacy on the say-so of friends, we are letting down the democratic and social cause, or whether it is the authors of that Declaration who are lagging behind in socialism.
We acknowledge the inclinations of the young Mountain, we applaud its efforts and take note of its onward march. Today, it is the Mountain that comes to the prophet: politics is evolving into socialism; just a few steps more and all the shades of republicanism will be indistinguishable.
But even though it may say the opposite, and doubtless believes it, the Mountain is only socialist in intention. The people has read its Declaration and will read our own Manifesto. Let it compare and judge. Let it say if, in the light of this document, as lightweight in ideas as it is compromising of us in terms of its politics, we should cover our tracks and fold up our tents.
The Mountain, which is, for all its ambition, only slightly or not at all socialist, is still only slightly or not at all revolutionary, for all its fervour. Its political deeds and ideas alike are the proof of that.
Was it revolutionary in September, in the elections?
Was it revolutionary in June?
Was it revolutionary in April?
Was it revolutionary during the proceedings in the Luxembourg?
We were every bit as much as it was, and more than it was, in February.
The Mountain bemoans the fact that we are not politicians!
To which our retort is that the Mountain is sorely mistaken if it imagines that politics amounts to anything in the absence of socialism. Socialism is politics defined in its aims and in its means. Prior to this, politics has been mere deftness. In short, socialism is the thing, politics the man. From which it follows that socialism can manage very well without politics, whereas politics cannot dispense with socialism. We see the evidence of that in the profound mediocrity of the political deeds that have come to pass, not just over the last nine months, we should say, but over the past eighteen years!…
And now to this miserable question of the Presidency.
Assuredly, it is a serious business knowing on the one hand whether the people should vote or abstain: and, on the other, under what colours, under what profession of faith the election would proceed. And as far as the candidate goes, ours was the first.
Democratic and social opinion had to be directly consulted: the Mountain has acted alone.
It publishes its Declaration the way Louis XVIII did the charter he granted, without consulting anyone.
It puts up a candidate in Paris and in the departments without a word of warning.
Then, once the election committee has been formed, it walks up and tells it: Things are too far advanced, and to withdraw would be impossible! No divisiveness! The Mountain simultaneously rams the vote, the programme and the candidate down our throats. As if to say to us: You have come thus far, but you will go no further. To borrow an expression that has become parliamentary language, it has leapfrogged socialism to its own advantage!
We shall not dwell upon the personality issue. It is a matter of regret for us that a politician (and we are using that term here without the least irony) such as the honourable M. Ledru-Rollin should have played into the hands of clumsy friends. He already had our personal sympathies and preferences. The bullying approach and hurtful mistrust of his entourage, however, have pushed us into the opposition…
Besides, it is our belief that this division, far from decreasing the strength of the democratic and social camp, will increase it. As things presently stand, no candidate could attract all the votes: between the old-style socialist democracy and tomorrow’s the disagreements still run too deep.
The central electoral committee has decided unanimously to support citizen RASPAIL in his candidacy for the presidency.
Raspail, returned by 66,000 Parisian and 35,000 Lyonnnais votes;
Raspail, the socialist democrat;
Raspail, the implacable exposer of politic
al mythologies;
Raspail, whose work in the field of healing has elevated him to the ranks of the benefactors of mankind.
In lending our backing to this candidature, we do not, as the honourable Monsieur Ledru-Rollin had written somewhere, intend to endow the Republic with a possible CHIEF: far from it. We accept Raspail as a living protest against the very idea of the Presidency! We offer him to the people’s suffrage, not because he is or believes himself possible, but because he is impossible: because with him, presidency, the mirror-image of royalty, would be impossible.
Nor do we mean, in calling for votes for Raspail, to issue a challenge to the bourgeoisie which fears this great citizen. Our primary intention is reconciliation and peace. We are socialists, not muddleheads.
We back Raspail’s candidacy, so as to focus the eyes of the country all the more strongly upon this idea, that henceforth, under the banner of the Republic, there are but two parties in France, the party of labour and the party of capital.
It will not be through any fault of ours if the last remaining vestige of this ancient division is not soon erased.
BANK OF THE PEOPLE
31st January 1849
Translation by Clarence L. Swartz (“Declaration” and “Formation of the
Company”) and Ian Harvey (“Report of the Luxembourg Delegate and
Workers’ Corporation Commission”)
DECLARATION
I SWEAR BEFORE GOD AND MAN, UPON THE GOSPEL AND ON THE CONSTITUTION, that I have never held nor professed any other principles of reform than those laid down in the present treatise, and that I ask nothing more, nothing less, than the free and peaceful application of these principles, and their logical, legal and legitimate consequences.
I declare that in my innermost thought, these principles and the results which flow from them, are the whole of Socialism, and that beyond is nothing but utopia and chimeras.
I vow that in these principles, and in all the doctrine to which they serve as a basis, nothing—absolutely nothing—can be found opposed to the family, to liberty, or to public order.
The Bank of the People is but the financial formula, the translation into economic language, of the principle of modern democracy, the sovereignty of the People, and of the Republican motto, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.
I protest that in criticising property, or rather the whole mass of institutions of which property is the pivot, I have never intended either to attack individual rights, based upon existing laws, or to contest the legitimacy of acquired possessions, or to demand an arbitrary division of goods, or to place any obstacle to the free and regular acquisition, by sale and exchange, of property, or even to forbid or suppress, by sovereign degree, ground rent and interest on capital.
I think that all these manifestations of human activity should remain free and voluntary for all: I ask for them no modifications, restrictions or suppressions, other than those which result naturally and of necessity from the universalisation of the principle of reciprocity which I propose.
What I say of property, I say of every political and religious institution as well. My sole aim, in passing through the crucible of criticism the different parts of the social structure, has been to discover, by a long and laborious analysis, yet higher principles, whereof the algebraic formula is announced in this treatise.
This is my testament in life and in death: he only may doubt its sincerity who can lie when on his death-bed.
If I am mistaken, the good sense of the public will soon dispose of my theories: there will be nothing left for me but to disappear from the revolutionary arena, after having asked pardon from society and from my brothers for the annoyance which I may have caused to their minds, of which I am, after all, the first victim.
But if, after being discredited by general good sense and experience, I should seek again some day to excite the feelings and arouse false hopes by other means or by new suggestions, I would invoke upon myself thenceforth the scorn of honest people and the maledictions of the human race.
P. J. PROUDHON
FORMATION OF THE COMPANY
[...]
Article 2. THE object of this Company is to organise credit democratically:1. By procuring for everyone the use of the land, of buildings, machines, instruments of labour, capital, products and services of every kind, at the lowest price, and under the best possible conditions;
2. By facilitating for all the disposal of their products and the employment of their labour, under the most advantageous conditions.
[...]
Article 9. The Company holds the following principles: That all raw materials are furnished to man by nature gratuitously.
That therefore, in the economic order, all products come from labour, and reciprocally, that all capital is unproductive.
That as every transaction of credit may be regarded as an exchange, the provision of capital and the discount of notes cannot and should not give rise to any interest.
In consequence, the Bank of the People could and should operate without capital; as it has for its base the essential gratuity of credit and of exchange; for its object, the circulation of values, not their production; for its methods, the reciprocal agreement of producers and consumers.
This end will be attained when the entire body of producers and consumers shall have become supporters of the by-laws of the Company.
[…]
Article 28. […]
The Bank of the People, while favouring workers’ associations, maintains the freedom of commerce and emulative competition as the principle of all progress and the guaranty of good quality and low price of products.
[…]
Article 51. Advances thus made by the Bank are not made as a joint stock company, and cannot be at all likened to redemption of shares of stock; they are, like advances on Consignments of merchandise, and like opening of accounts on real estate, simple discount transactions, and compose the proper function of the Bank.
Article 52. For this purpose there is to be established at once in the office of the Bank of the People, a special division under the name of General Syndicate of Production and Consumption.
It will be directed by Citizen Andre-Louis-Jules Lechevalier, Ex-Secretary of the West India Company. The powers of the Syndicate are for the present as follows:1. To receive the declarations of manufacturers and dealers who desire to place themselves in relations with the supporters of the Bank of the People and to enjoy the custom of the Company, and who therefore wish to give information as to their names, occupations, addresses, their special products or services, the qualities and prices of their merchandise, and the amount of their remittances and deliveries;
2. To receive the requests of consumers, and to make sure of the chances of success for new enterprises by exact investigation of the demand;
3. To publish a bulletin of commerce, agriculture, and industry, containing, together with the Bank’s reports and the market quotations, all announcements and notices, such as demands for and offers of labour, demands for and offers of merchandise, reductions of prices, information of manufacturers and dealers newly admitted into the Company; this bulletin to be inserted in the newspaper, Le Peuple, which is appointed by these presents the official organ of the Bank of the People, in its relations with its shareholders, its supporters and the public;
4. To solicit the support of producers whose products and services are needed by the Company, and, in case of their refusal, to start, among the members, competing establishments in similar lines;
5. To begin a record of general, comparative and detailed statistics of commerce, industry and agriculture; in a word, to obtain, by every possible means, the extension and strengthening of the Company.
[...]
ORGANISATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE BANK
[…]
Article 63. As soon as circumstances permit, the present Company will be changed into a joint-stock company, as this form will enable it to realise, in accordance with the desire of its
founders, the triple principle, 1st, of election; 2nd, the division and independence of its functions; 3rd, the individual responsibility of each employee.
[…]
Article 66. The General Manager may be dismissed […]
His dismissal involves by law the revocation of all powers that he may have granted to his Assistant Managers.
[…]
THE COUNCIL OF OVERSIGHT
Article 70. A council of thirty delegates will be created to supervise the administration, and to represent the sleeping partners in their relations to it.
They will be chosen by the General Assembly from among the shareholders or supporters in the various branches of production and of public service.
Article 71. The Council of Oversight will be renewed by thirds from year to year.
Departing members for the first two years will be selected by lot. A departing member may be re-elected.
In case of vacancy in the course of the year, the Council will fill it temporarily.
Article 72. The Council of Oversight will meet at least once a month, at such time and place as it may think fit. Its functions are:1. To see that the by-laws are observed;
2. To have submitted to it, as often as it may think proper but at least once every three months, a statement of accounts by the General Manager;
3. To verify the accounts presented by him, and to make report thereon to the General Assembly;
4. To represent the shareholders, whether as plaintiff or as defendant, in all differences with the General Manager;
5. To call special meetings of the General Assembly when it thinks proper;
6. To declare that it opposes or does not oppose propositions for sale, alienation or hypothecation which may be made by the General Manager; to provide judiciously for the replacement of the General Manager in case of death, resignation or dismissal, until the General Assembly shall have named another manager.