Property Is Theft!
Page 72
Your reply, indubitable monument of an intellect which the Holy Word never illuminated, was this: that you were not dealing with the Bank of France, but with capital; that you did not defend the privilege of the Bank, but only the legitimacy of Interest; that you were in favour of the liberty of banks, as well as the liberty of lending; that if it were possible for the Bank of France to give Credit and Discount for nothing, you would not try to prevent it; that you confined yourself to the one assertion that the idea of Capital supposes and necessarily implies that of Interest; that the first never exists without the second, though the second sometimes exists without the first, etc.
So, you are as powerless to judge as to perceive, compare, and remember. You are lacking in that judicial conscience which, in the presence of two facts, either identical or incompatible, decides: Yes, they are identical; no, they are not identical. Undoubtedly, since you are a thinking being, you have intuitions, illuminations, revelations; I do not undertake to say, for my part, what does go on within your brain. But surely you do not reason, you do not reflect. What sort of a man are you, Monsieur Bastiat? Are you a man at all?
[…]
However, without examining it closely, you accept my definition of Capital as a good one; you say that it is all that the discussion requires. You thereby tacitly admit that Capital and Product are, in Society, synonymous terms; that, consequently, every transaction involving credit resolves itself, in the absence of fraud, into an exchange: two things which you at first denied, and which I would congratulate you on having understood at last, could I by any possibility believe that you attach the same meaning to my words that I do. What, indeed, could be more productive of good results than this analysis: Since value is only a proportion, and since all products are necessarily proportional to each other, it follows that from the social standpoint products are always values and settled values: as far as society is concerned, there is no difference between Capital and Product. The difference is wholly confined to individuals: it arises from their inability to express in exact numbers the relative value of products, and their efforts to arrive at an approximation. For—do not forget it—the mysterious law of exchange, the absolute rule which governs transactions,—a law not written but intuitively recognised, a rule not conventional but natural,—is to make our private acts conform as far as possible to social laws.
Now,—and this is what causes my doubts,—this definition of Capital, so profound and so clear, which you see fit to accept; this identity of Capital and Product, of Credit and Exchange,—totally destroys, sir, your theory of Interest, though you do not suspect it in the least! Indeed, from the moment you admit that the formula of J-B Say, products exchange for products, is synonymous with this one, Capital exchanges for Capital; that the definition of Capital accepted by you is only an expression of this synonymy; that everything tends, in society, to bring commercial transactions more and more into conformity with this law,—from that moment it is evident, a priori, that the day must come when transactions involving loans, rent, farm-rent, Interest, and the like, will be abolished and converted into exchanges; and that thus the lending of Capital becoming simply an exchange of Capital, and all business being conducted on a cash basis, Interest will disappear. Defining Capital thus, the idea of Usury involves a contradiction.
[…]
M. BASTIAT.—“Time is precious. Time is money, say the English. Time is the stuff of which life is made, says le Bonhomme Richard.
“To give credit is to grant time.
“To sacrifice one’s time to another is to sacrifice a precious thing: such a sacrifice cannot be gratuitous.”
MYSELF.—There would never be such a sacrifice. I have already told you, and I repeat it, that, in the matter of credit, the case of the need of time is the difficulty of procuring money; that this difficulty is chiefly due to the Interest demanded by the hikers of money; so that if Interest were zero, the duration of credit would also be zero. Now, the Bank of France, under the conditions laid upon it by the public since the February Revolution, can reduce its Interest nearly to zero: is it you or I that reasons in a circle?
M. BASTIAT.—“Ah! yes .... it seems to me .... I think I understand at last what you mean. The public has renounced, in the bank’s favour, its claim to the Interest on the three hundred and eighty-two million in notes which circulate on its sole guaranty. You ask whether there is no way of enabling the public to reap the benefit of this Interest, or, which amounts to the same thing, of organising a National Bank which shall receive no Interest. If I am not mistaken, it was the observation of this phenomenon that suggested to you your scheme. Ricardo devised a plan less radical, but similar, and I find in Say these remarkable lines:
“‘This ingenious idea leaves only one question unanswered. Who shall get the interest on this large sum placed in circulation? Shall the Government? In its hands it would be only a means of increasing abuses, such as sinecures, Parliamentary corruption, police spies, and standing armies. Shall a financial company, like the Bank of England or the Bank of France? But why make a present to a financial company already rich of the Interest paid by the public individually? ...... Such are the questions which this subject involves. Perhaps they can be answered. Perhaps there is some way to render highly profitable to the public the economy which would result; but I am not called upon here to develop this new order of ideas.’”
MYSELF.—Sir, your J-B Say, with all his genius, is a fool. The question is already answered: the people, who own the funds; the people, who are here the sole Capitalists, the sole furnishers of security, the true proprietors; the people, who alone should profit by the Interest,—the people, I say, ought not to pay Interest. Is there anything in the world simpler and fairer than that?
So you admit, on the authority of Ricardo and J-B Say, that there is a way of enabling the public—I quote your own words—to reap the benefit of the interest which it pays to the Bank, and this way is to organise a National Bank, which shall give credit at zero percent?
M. BASTIAT.—No, not that; God forbid! I admit, it is true, that the Bank ought not to profit by the interest paid by the public on capital belonging to the public; I confess further that there is a way of enabling the public to profit by said interest. But I deny that this way is the one which you recommend, —namely, the organisation of a National Bank; I say and affirm that this way is the liberty of banks!
“Liberty of banks! Liberty of credit! Oh! why, Monsieur Proudhon, have not your brilliant powers of persuasion been devoted to these objects?”
I spare the reader your peroration, in which you deplore my obduracy and adjure me, with a comical gravity, to substitute for my formula, Gratuity of Credit, yours, Liberty of Credit, as if Credit could be freer than when it costs nothing! Not a drop of blood in my body—mark it well!—rebels against the liberty of Credit: in the matter of banking, as in the matter of education, Liberty is my supreme law. But I say that, until the liberty of banks and the competition of bankers allows the public to reap the benefit of the Interest which it pays them, it would be well, useful, constitutional, and quite in accordance with republican economy, to establish, in the midst of the other banks and in competition with them, a National Bank giving credit temporarily at one or one-half of one percent, at the risk of what might happen. Do you object to changing the Bank of France, by reimbursing its stockholders, into this National Bank that I propose? Then, let the bank of France make restitution of the three hundred and eighty-two million specie which belong to the public, and of which it is the only holder. With three hundred and eighty-two million we might very easily organise a bank (what think you?), and the largest in the world. In what respect, then, would this bank, formed by the association of the whole people, not be free? Do that alone, and when you have belled this revolutionary act, when you have thus decreed the first act of the Democratic and Social Republic, I will undertake to deduce for you the consequences of this grand innovation. You shall then know what my system is.
&nb
sp; As for you, Monsieur Bastiat, who, an economist, mock at metaphysics, of which Political Economy is but the concrete expression; who, a member of the Institute, are unacquainted even with the philosophy of your century; who, the author of a work entitled Economic Harmonies probably in opposition to my Economic Contradictions, have no conception of the harmonies of history, and see in progress only a desolating fatalism; who, an advocate of Capital and Interest, are utterly ignorant of the principles of commercial bookkeeping; who, conceiving finally, through the circumlocutions of a bewildered imagination and on the authority of your authors more than from your own profound conviction, that it is possible to organise, with the pubic funds, a Bank giving Credit without Interest, continue nevertheless to protest, in the name of Liberty of Credit, against GRATUITY OF CRED-IT—you are undoubtedly a good and worthy citizen, an honest economist, a conscientious writer, a loyal representative, a faithful Republican, a true friend of the people: but your last words entitle me to tell you, Monsieur Bastiat, that, scientifically, YOU ARE A DEAD MAN.564
P-J PROUDHON
GENERAL IDEA OF THE REVOLUTION IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
1851
Translation by John Beverly Robinson
IN EVERY REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY THREE THINGS ARE TO BE OBSERVED:
The preceding state of affairs, which the revolution aims at overthrowing, and which becomes counter-revolution through its desire to maintain its existence.
The various parties which take different views of the revolution, according to their prejudices and interests, yet are compelled to embrace it and to use it for their advantage.
The revolution itself, which constitutes the solution.
The parliamentary, philosophical, and dramatic history of the Revolution of 1848 can already furnish material for volumes. I shall confine myself to discussing disinterestedly certain questions which may illuminate our present knowledge. What I shall say will suffice, I hope, to explain the progress of the Revolution of the Nineteenth Century, and to enable us to conjecture its future.
[…]
FIRST STUDY
REACTION CAUSES REVOLUTION
[…]
I SHALL ENDEAVOUR to show, by what is passing before our eyes, that just as the instinct for conservatism is inherent in every social institution, the need for revolution is equally irresistible; that every political party may become by turns revolutionary and reactionary; that these two terms, reaction and revolution, correlatives of each other and mutually implying each other, are both essential to Humanity, notwithstanding the conflicts between them: so that, in order to avoid the rocks which menace society on the right and on the left, the only course is for reaction to continually change places with revolution; just the reverse of what the present Legislature boasts of having done. To add to grievances, and, if I may use the comparison, to bottle up revolutionary force by repression, is to condemn oneself to clearing in one bound the distance that prudence counsels us to pass over gradually, and to substitute progress by leaps and jerks for a continuous advance.
[…]
Before the battle of June,565 the Revolution was hardly aware of itself; it was but a vague aspiration among the working classes toward a less unhappy condition. Such complaints have been heard at every period; if it was a mistake to despise them, it was unnecessary to fear them.
Thanks to the persecution which it has suffered, the Revolution of today is fully conscious of itself. It can tell its purpose: it is in the way to define itself, to explain itself. It knows its principles, its means, its aim; it possesses its method and its criterion. In order to understand itself, it has needed only to follow the connection of ideas of its different adversaries. At this moment it is discarding the erroneous doctrines which obscured it: free and brilliant, you are about to see it take possession of the masses, and drive them toward the future with irresistible inspiration.
The Revolution, at the point at which we have arrived, is completed in thought, and needs only to be put into execution. It is too late to give vent to the mine: if the power which has come back into your hands should change its policy toward the Revolution, it would obtain no result, unless it changed its principles at the same time. The Revolution, I have just told you, has grown its teeth: the Reaction has been only a fit of teething sickness for it. It must have solid food: a few fragments of liberty, a few concessions to the interests which it represents, will only serve to increase its hunger. The Revolution means to exist, and to exist, for it, is to reign.
Are you willing then to serve this great cause; to devote yourselves, heart and soul, to the Revolution?
You may, for there is still time, again become the chiefs and regulators of the movement, save your country from a serious crisis, emancipate the lower classes without turmoil, make yourselves the arbiters of Europe, decide the destiny of civilisation and of humanity.
I know well that such is your fervent desire; but I do not speak of desire, I want acts; pledges.
Pledges for the Revolution, not harangues; plans for economic reconstruction, not governmental theories: that is what the lower classes want and expect from you. Government! Ah! we shall still have enough of it, and to spare. Know well that there is nothing more counter-revolutionary than the Government. Whatever liberalism it pretends, whatever name it assumes, the Revolution repudiates it: its fate is to be absorbed in the industrial organisation.
Speak then, for once, straightforwardly, Jacobins, Girondists,
ists, Terrorists, Indulgents, who have all deserved equal blame, and all need equal pardon. Fortune again favouring you, which course will you follow? The question is not what you would have done in a former exigency: the question is what you are going to do now, when the conditions are no longer the same.
Will you support the Revolution: yes or no?
SECOND STUDY
IS THERE SUFFICIENT REASON FOR REVOLUTION IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY?
1. LAW OF TENDENCY IN SOCIETY—THE REVOLUTION OF 1789 HAS DONE ONLY HALF ITS WORK
A REVOLUTION IS an act of sovereign justice, in the order of moral facts, springing out of the necessity of things, and in consequence carrying with it its own justification; and which it is a crime for the statesman to oppose it. That is the proposition which we have established in our first study.
Now the question is to discover whether the idea which stands out as the formula of the revolution is not chimerical; whether its object is real; whether a fancy or popular exaggeration is not mistaken for a serious and just protest. The second proposition therefore which we have to examine is the following:
Is there today sufficient reason in society for revolution?
For if this reason does not exist, if we are fighting for an imaginary cause, if the people are complaining because, as they say, they are too well off, the duty of the magistrate would be simply to undeceive the multitude, whom we have often seen aroused without cause, as the echo responds to one who calls.
In a word, is the occasion for revolution presented at the moment, by the nature of things, by the connection of facts, by the working of institutions, by the advance in needs, by the order of Providence?
[…]
The question which we have taken for the text of this study—Is there sufficient reason for a revolution in the nineteenth century?—Resolves itself into the following: What is the tendency of society in our day?
Hence, but a few pages will suffice to support the answer which I do not hesitate to point out now. Society, as far as it has been able to develop freely for half a century, under the distractions of ’89–93, the paternalism of the Empire and the guarantees of 1814, 1830, and 1848, is on a road radically and increasingly wrong.
[…]
2. CHAOS OF ECONOMIC FORCES. TENDENCY OF SOCIETY TOWARD POVERTY
I call certain principles of action economic forces, such as the Division of Labour, Competition, Collective Force, Exchange, Credit, Property, etc., which are to Labour and to Wealth what the distinction of classes, the represent
ative system, monarchical heredity, administrative centralisation, the judicial hierarchy, etc., are to the State.
If these forces are held in equilibrium, subject to the laws which are proper to them, and which do not depend in any way upon the arbitrary will of man, Labour can be organised, and comfort for all guaranteed. If, on the other hand, they are left without direction and without counterpoise, Labour is in a condition of chaos; the useful effects of the economic forces is mingled with an equal quantity of injurious effects; the deficit balances the profit; Society, in so far as it is the theatre, the agent, or the subject of production, circulation, and consumption, is in a condition of increasing suffering.
Up to now, it does not appear that order in a society can be conceived except under one of these two forms, the political and the industrial; between which, moreover, there is fundamental contradiction.
The chaos of industrial forces, the struggle which they maintain with the government system, which is the only obstacle to their organisation, and which they cannot reconcile themselves with nor merge themselves in, is the real, profound cause of the unrest which disturbs French society, and which was aggravated during the second half of the reign of Louis Philippe.
[…]
I shall limit myself to recalling very briefly some of the most general facts, in order to give the reader a glimpse of this order of forces and phenomena, which has been hidden from all eyes until now, and which alone can put an end to the governmental drama.