XVII.
SUPREMACY BY LABOR.
"As in a time of war, supremacy is attained by superiority in arms, can, in a time of peace, supremacy be secured by superiority in labor?"
This question is of the greatest interest at a time when no one seems to doubt that in the field of industry, as on that of battle, the stronger crushes the weaker.
This must result from the discovery of some sad and discouraging analogy between labor, which exercises itself on things, and violence, which exercises itself on men; for how could these two things be identical in their effects, if they were opposed in their nature?
And if it is true that in manufacturing as in war, supremacy is the necessary result of superiority, why need we occupy ourselves with progress or social economy, since we are in a world where all has been so arranged by Providence that one and the same result, oppression, necessarily flows from the most antagonistic principles?
Referring to the new policy toward which commercial freedom is drawing England, many persons make this objection, which, I admit, occupies the sincerest minds. "Is England doing anything more than pursuing the same end by different means? Does she not constantly aspire to universal supremacy? Sure of the superiority of her capital and labor, does she not call in free competition to stifle the industry of the continent, reign as a sovereign, and conquer the privilege of feeding and clothing the ruined peoples?"
It would be easy for me to demonstrate that these alarms are chimerical; that our pretended inferiority is greatly exaggerated; that all our great branches of industry not only resist foreign competition, but develop themselves under its influence, and that its infallible effect is to bring about an increase in general consumption capable of absorbing both foreign and domestic products.
To-day I desire to attack this objection directly, leaving it all its power and the advantage of the ground it has chosen. Putting English and French on one side, I will try to find out in a general way, if, even though by superiority in one branch of industry, one nation has crushed out similar industrial pursuits in another one, this nation has made a step toward supremacy, and that one toward dependence; in other words, if both do not gain by the operation, and if the conquered do not gain the most by it.
If we see in any product but a cause of labor, it is certain that the alarm of the protectionists is well founded. If we consider iron, for instance, only in connection with the masters of forges, it might be feared that the competition of a country where iron was a gratuitous gift of nature, would extinguish the furnaces of another country, where ore and fuel were scarce.
But is this a complete view of the subject? Are there relations only between iron and those who make it? Has it none with those who use it? Is its definite and only destination to be produced? And if it is useful, not on account of the labor which it causes, but on account of the qualities which it possesses, and the numerous services for which its hardness and malleability fit it, does it not follow that foreigners cannot reduce its price, even so far as to prevent its production among us, without doing us more good, under the last statement of the case, than it injures us, under the first?
Please consider well that there are many things which foreigners, owing to the natural advantages which surround them, hinder us from producing directly, and in regard to which we are placed, in reality, in the hypothetical position which we examined relative to iron. We produce at home neither tea, coffee, gold nor silver. Does it follow that our labor, as a whole, is thereby diminished? No; only to create the equivalent of these things, to acquire them by way of exchange, we detach from our general labor a smaller portion than we would require to produce them ourselves. More remains to us to use for other things. We are so much the richer and stronger. All that external rivalry can do, even in cases where it absolutely keeps us from any certain form of labor, is to encourage our labor, and increase our productive power. Is that the road to supremacy, for foreigners?
If a mine of gold were to be discovered in France, it does not follow that it would be for our interests to work it. It is even certain that the enterprise ought to be neglected, if each ounce of gold absorbed more of our labor than an ounce of gold bought in Mexico with cloth. In this case, it would be better to keep on seeing our mines in our manufactories. What is true of gold is true of iron.
The illusion comes from the fact that one thing is not seen. That is, that foreign superiority prevents national labor, only under some certain form, and makes it superfluous under this form, but by putting at our disposal the very result of the labor thus annihilated. If men lived in diving-bells, under the water, and had to provide themselves with air by the use of pumps, there would be an immense source of labor. To destroy this labor, leaving men in this condition, would be to do them a terrible injury. But if labor ceases, because the necessity for it has gone; because men are placed in another position, where air reaches their lungs without an effort, then the loss of this labor is not to be regretted, except in the eyes of those who appreciate in labor, only the labor itself.
It is exactly this sort of labor which machines, commercial freedom, and progress of all sorts, gradually annihilate; not useful labor, but labor which has become superfluous, supernumerary, objectless, and without result. On the other hand, protection restores it to activity; it replaces us under the water, so as to give us an opportunity of pumping; it forces us to ask for gold from the inaccessible national mine, rather than from our national manufactories. All its effect is summed up in this phrase—loss of power.
It must be understood that I speak here of general effects, and not of the temporary disturbances occasioned by the transition from a bad to a good system. A momentary disarrangement necessarily accompanies all progress. This may be a reason for making the transition a gentle one, but not for systematically interdicting all progress, and still less for misunderstanding it.
They represent industry to us as a conflict. This is not true; or is true only when you confine yourself to considering each branch of industry in its effects on some similar branch—in isolating both, in the mind, from the rest of humanity. But there is something else; there are its effects on consumption, and the general well-being.
This is the reason why it is not allowable to assimilate labor to war as they do.
In war, the strongest overwhelms the weakest.
In labor, the strongest gives strength to the weakest. This radically destroys the analogy.
Though the English are strong and skilled; possess immense invested capital, and have at their disposal the two great powers of production, iron and fire, all this is converted into the cheapness of the product; and who gains by the cheapness of the product?—he who buys it.
It is not in their power to absolutely annihilate any portion of our labor. All that they can do is to make it superfluous through some result acquired—to give air at the same time that they suppress the pump; to increase thus the force at our disposal, and, which is a remarkable thing, to render their pretended supremacy more impossible, as their superiority becomes more undeniable.
Thus, by a rigorous and consoling demonstration, we reach this conclusion: That labor and violence, so opposed in their nature, are, whatever socialists and protectionists may say, no less so in their effects.
All we required, to do that, was to distinguish between annihilated labor and economized labor.
Having less iron because one works less, or having more iron although one works less, are things which are more than different,—they are opposites. The protectionists confound them; we do not. That is all.
Be convinced of one thing. If the English bring into play much activity, labor, capital, intelligence, and natural force, it is not for the love of us. It is to give themselves many comforts in exchange for their products. They certainly desire to receive at least as much as they give, and they make at home the payment for that which they buy elsewhere. If then, they inundate us with their products, it is because they expect to be inundated with ours. In this case, the best way to have much for ourselves is to be free to choose between these two methods of production: direct production or indirect production. All the British Machiavelism cannot lead us to make a bad choice.
Let us then stop assimilating industrial competition with war; a false assimilation, which is specious only when two rival branches of industry are isolated, in order to judge of the effects of competition. As soon as the effect produced on the general well-being is taken into consideration, the analogy disappears.
In a battle, he who is killed is thoroughly killed, and the army is weakened just that much. In manufactures, one manufactory succumbs only so far as the total of national labor replaces what it produced, with an excess. Imagine a state of affairs where for one man, stretched on the plain, two spring up full of force and vigor. If there is a planet where such things happen, it must be admitted that war is carried on there under conditions so different from those which obtain here below, that it does not even deserve that name.
Now, this is the distinguishing character of what they have so inappropriately called an industrial war.
Let the Belgians and English reduce the price of their iron, if they can, and keep on reducing it, until they bring it down to nothing. They may thereby put out one of our furnaces—kill one of our soldiers; but I defy them to hinder a thousand other industries, more profitable than the disabled one, immediately, and, as a necessary consequence of this very cheapness, resuscitating and developing themselves.
Let us decide that supremacy by labor is impossible and contradictory, since all superiority which manifests itself among a people is converted into cheapness, and results only in giving force to all others. Let us, then, banish from political economy all these expressions borrowed from the vocabulary of battles: to struggle with equal arms, to conquer, to crush out, to stifle, to be beaten, invasion, tribute. What do these words mean? Squeeze them, and nothing comes out of them. We are mistaken; there come from them absurd errors and fatal prejudices. These are the words which stop the blending of peoples, their peaceful, universal, indissoluble alliance, and the progress of humanity.
PART III.
SPOLIATION AND LAW.[16]
To the Protectionists of the General Council of Manufactures:
Gentlemen—Let us for a few moments interchange moderate and friendly opinions.
You are not willing that political economy should believe and teach free trade.
This is as though you were to say, "We are not willing that political economy should occupy itself with society, exchange, value, law, justice, property. We recognize only two principles—oppression and spoliation."
Can you possibly conceive of political economy without society? Or of society without exchange? Or of exchange without a relative value between the two articles, or the two services, exchanged? Can you possibly conceive the idea of value, except as the result of the free consent of the exchangers? Can you conceive of one product being worth another, if, in the barter, one of the parties is not free? Is it possible for you to conceive of the free consent of two parties without liberty? Can you possibly conceive that one of the contracting parties is deprived of his liberty unless he is oppressed by the other? Can you possibly conceive of an exchange between an oppressor and one oppressed, unless the equivalence of the services is altered, or unless, as a consequence, law, justice, and the rights of property have been violated?
What do you really want? Answer frankly.
You are not willing that trade should be free!
You desire, then, that it shall not be free? You desire, then, that trade shall be carried on under the influence of oppression? For if it is not carried on under the influence of oppression, it will be carried on under the influence of liberty, and that is what you do not desire.
Admit, then, that it is law and justice which embarrass you; that that which troubles you is property—not your own, to be sure, but another's. You are altogether unwilling to allow others to freely dispose of their own property (the essential condition of ownership); but you well understand how to dispose of your own—and of theirs.
And, accordingly, you ask the political economists to arrange this mass of absurdities and monstrosities in a definite and well-ordered system; to establish, in accordance with your practice, the theory of spoliation.
But they will never do it; for, in their eyes, spoliation is a principle of hatred and disorder, and the most particularly odious form which it can assume is the legal form.
And here, Mr. Benoit d' Azy, I take you to task. You are moderate, impartial, and generous. You are willing to sacrifice your interests and your fortune. This you constantly declare. Recently, in the General Council, you said: "If the rich had only to abandon their wealth to make the people rich we should all be ready to do it." [Hear, hear. It is true.] And yesterday, in the National Assembly, you said: "If I believed that it was in my power to give to the workingmen all the work they need, I would give all I possess to realize this blessing. Unfortunately, it is impossible."
Although it pains you that the sacrifice is so useless that it should not be made, and you exclaim, with Basile, "Money! money! I detest it—but I will keep it," assuredly no one will question a generosity so retentive, however barren. It is a virtue which loves to envelop itself in a veil of modesty, especially when it is purely latent and negative. As for you, you will lose no opportunity to proclaim it in the ears of all France from the tribune of the Luxembourg and the Palais Legislatif.
But no one desires you to abandon your fortune, and I admit that it would not solve the social problem.
You wish to be generous, but cannot. I only venture to ask that you will be just. Keep your fortune, but permit me also to keep mine. Respect my property as I respect yours. Is this too bold a request on my part?
Suppose we lived in a country under a free trade regime, where every one could dispose of his property and his labor at pleasure. Does this make your hair stand? Reassure yourself, this is only an hypothesis.
One would then be as free as the other. There would, indeed, be a law in the code, but this law, impartial and just, would not infringe our liberty, but would guarantee it, and it would take effect only when we sought to oppress each other. There would be officers of the law, magistrates and police; but they would only execute the law. Under such a state of affairs, suppose that you owned an iron foundry, and that I was a hatter. I should need iron for my business. Naturally I should seek to solve this problem: "How shall I best procure the iron necessary for my business with the least possible amount of labor?" Considering my situation, and my means of knowledge, I should discover that the best thing for me to do would be to make hats, and sell them to a Belgian who would give me iron in exchange.
But you, being the owner of an iron foundry, and considering my case, would say to yourself: "I shall be obliged to compel that fellow to come to my shop."
You, accordingly, take your sword and pistols, and, arming your numerous retinue, proceed to the frontier, and, at the moment I am engaged in making my trade, you cry out to me: "Stop that, or I will blow your brains out!" "But, my lord, I am in need of iron." "I have it to sell." "But, sir, you ask too much for it." "I have my reasons for that." "But, my good sir, I also have my reasons for preferring cheaper iron." "Well, we shall see who shall decide between your reasons and mine! Soldiers, advance!"
In short, you forbid the entry of the Belgian iron, and prevent the export of my hats.
Under the condition of things which we have supposed (that is, under a regime of liberty), you cannot deny that that would be, on your part, manifestly an act of oppression and spoliation.
Accordingly, I should resort to the law, the magistrate, and the power of the government. They would intervene. You would be tried, condemned, and justly punished.
But this circumstance would suggest to you a bright idea. You would say to yourself: "I have been very simple to give myself so much trouble. What! place myself in a position where I must kill some one, or be killed! degrade myself! put my domestics under arms! incur heavy expenses! give myself the character of a robber, and render myself liable to the laws of the country! And all this in order to compel a miserable hatter to come to my foundry to buy iron at my price! What if I should make the interest of the law, of the magistrate, of the public authorities, my interests? What if I could get them to perform the odious act on the frontier which I was about to do myself?"
Enchanted by this pleasing prospect, you secure a nomination to the Chambers, and obtain the passage of a law conceived in the following terms:
Section 1. There shall be a tax levied upon everybody (but especially upon that cursed hat-maker).
Sec. 2. The proceeds of this tax shall be applied to the payment of men to guard the frontier in the interest of iron-founders.
Sec. 3. It shall be their duty to prevent the exchange of hats or other articles of merchandise with the Belgians for iron.
Sec. 4. The ministers of the government, the prosecuting attorneys, jailers, customs officers, and all officials, are entrusted with the execution of this law.
I admit, sir, that in this form robbery would be far more lucrative, more agreeable, and less perilous than under the arrangements which you had at first determined upon. I admit that for you it would offer a very pleasant prospect. You could most assuredly laugh in your sleeve, for you would then have saddled all the expenses upon me.
But I affirm that you would have introduced into society a vicious principle, a principle of immorality, of disorder, of hatred, and of incessant revolutions; that you would have prepared the way for all the various schemes of socialism and communism.
You, doubtless, find my hypothesis a very bold one. Well, then, let us reverse the case. I consent for the sake of the demonstration.
Suppose that I am a laborer and you an iron-founder.
It would be a great advantage to me to buy hatchets cheap, and even to get them for nothing. And I know that there are hatchets and saws in your establishment. Accordingly, without any ceremony, I enter your warehouse and seize everything that I can lay my hands upon.
But, in the exercise of your legitimate right of self-defense, you at first resist force with force; afterwards, invoking the power of the law, the magistrate, and the constables, you throw me into prison—and you do well.
Oh! ho! the thought suggests itself to me that I have been very awkward in this business. When a person wishes to enjoy the property of other people, he will, unless he is a fool, act in accordance with the law, and not in violation of it. Consequently, just as you have made yourself a protectionist, I will make myself a socialist. Since you have laid claim to the right to profit, I claim the right to labor, or to the instruments of labor.
For the rest, I read my Louis Blanc in prison, and I know by heart this doctrine: "In order to disenthrall themselves, the common people have need of tools to work with; it is the function of the government to provide them." And again: "If one admits that, in order to be really free, a man requires the ability to exercise and to develop his faculties, the result is that society owes each of its members instruction, without which the human mind is incapable of development, and the instruments of labor, without which human activities have no field for their exercise. But by what means can society give to each one of its members the necessary instruction and the necessary instruments of labor, except by the intervention of the State?" So that if it becomes necessary to revolutionize the country, I also will force my way into the halls of legislation. I also will pervert the law, and make it perform in my behalf and at your expense the very act for which it just now punished me.
My decree is modeled after yours:
Section 1. There shall be taxes levied upon every citizen, and especially upon iron founders.
Sec. 2. The proceeds of this tax shall be applied to the creation of armed corps, to which the title of the fraternal constabulary shall be given.
Sec. 3. It shall be the duty of the fraternal constabulary to make their way into the warehouses of hatchets, saws, etc., to take possession of these tools, and to distribute them to such workingmen as may desire them.
Thanks to this ingenious device, you see, my lord, that I shall no longer be obliged to bear the risks, the costs, the odium, or the scruples of robbery. The State will rob for me as it has for you. We shall both be playing the same game.
It remains to be seen what would be the condition of French society on the realization of my second hypothesis, or what, at least, is the condition of it after the almost complete realization of the first hypothesis. I do not desire to discuss here the economy of the question. It is generally believed that in advocating free trade we are exclusively influenced by the desire to allow capital and labor to take the direction most advantageous to them. This is an error. This consideration is merely secondary. That which wounds, afflicts, and is revolting to us in the protective system, is the denial of right, of justice, of property; it is the fact that the system turns the law against justice and against property, when it ought to protect them; it is that it undermines and perverts the very conditions of society. And to the question in this aspect I invite your most serious consideration.
What is law, or at least what ought it to be? What is its rational and moral mission? Is it not to hold the balance even between all rights, all liberties, and all property? Is it not to cause justice to rule among all? Is it not to prevent and to repress oppression and robbery wherever they are found?
And are you not shocked at the immense, radical, and deplorable innovation introduced into the world by compelling the law itself to commit the very crimes to punish which is its especial mission—by turning the law in principle and in fact against liberty and property?
You deplore the condition of modern society. You groan over the disorder which prevails in institutions and ideas. But is it not your system which has perverted everything, both institutions and ideas?
What! the law is no longer the refuge of the oppressed, but the arm of the oppressor! The law is no longer a shield, but a sword! The law no longer holds in her august hands a scale, but false weights and measures! And you wish to have society well regulated!
Your system has written over the entrance of the legislative halls these words: "Whoever acquires any influence here can obtain his share of the legalized pillage."
And what has been the result? All classes of society have become demoralized by shouting around the gates of the palace: "Give me a share of the spoils."
After the revolution of February, when universal suffrage was proclaimed, I had for a moment hoped to have heard this sentiment: "No more pillage for any one, justice for all." And that would have been the real solution of the social problem. Such was not the case. The doctrine of protection had for generations too profoundly corrupted the age, public sentiments and ideas. No. In making inroads upon the National Assembly, each class, in accordance with your system, has endeavored to make the law an instrument of rapine. There have been demanded heavier imposts, gratuitous credit, the right to employment, the right to assistance, the guaranty of incomes and of minimum wages, gratuitous instruction, loans to industry, etc., etc.; in short, every one has endeavored to live and thrive at the expense of others. And upon what have these pretensions been based? Upon the authority of your precedents. What sophisms have been invoked? Those that you have propagated for two centuries. With you they have talked about equalizing the conditions of labor. With you they have declaimed against ruinous competition. With you they have ridiculed the let alone principle, that is to say, liberty. With you they have said that the law should not confine itself to being just, but should come to the aid of suffering industries, protect the feeble against the strong, secure profits to individuals at the expense of the community, etc., etc. In short, according to the expression of Mr. Charles Dupin, socialism has come to establish the theory of robbery. It has done what you have done, and that which you desire the professors of political economy to do for you.
Your cleverness is in vain, Messieurs Protectionists, it is useless to lower your tone, to boast of your latent generosity, or to deceive your opponents by sentiment. You cannot prevent logic from being logic.
You cannot prevent Mr. Billault from telling the legislators, "You have granted favors to one, you must grant them to all."
You cannot prevent Mr. Cremieux from telling the legislators: "You have enriched the manufacturers, you must enrich the common people."
You cannot prevent Mr. Nadeau from saying to the legislators: "You cannot refuse to do for the suffering classes that which you have done for the privileged classes."
You cannot even prevent the leader of your orchestra, Mr. Mimerel, from saying to the legislators: "I demand twenty-five thousand subsidies for the workingmen's savings banks;" and supporting his motion in this manner:
"Is this the first example of the kind that our legislation offers? Would you establish the system that the State should encourage everything, open at its expense courses of scientific lectures, subsidize the fine arts, pension the theatre, give to the classes already favored by fortune the benefits of superior education, the most varied amusements, the enjoyment of the arts, and repose for old age; give all this to those who know nothing of privations, and compel those who have no share in these benefits to bear their part of the burden, while refusing them everything, even the necessaries of life?
"Gentlemen, our French society, our customs, our laws, are so made that the intervention of the State, however much it may be regretted, is seen everywhere, and nothing seems to be stable or durable if the hand of the State is not manifest in it. It is the State that makes the Sevres porcelain, and the Gobelin tapestry. It is the State that periodically gives expositions of the works of our artists, and of the products of our manufacturers; it is the State which recompenses those who raise its cattle and breed its fish. All this costs a great deal. It is a tax to which every one is obliged to contribute. Everybody, do you understand? And what direct benefit do the people derive from it? Of what direct benefit to the people are your porcelains and tapestries, and your expositions? This general principle of resisting what you call a state of enthusiasm we can understand, although you yesterday voted a bounty for linens; we can understand it on the condition of consulting the present crisis, and especially on the condition of your proving your impartiality. If it is true that, by the means I have indicated, the State thus far seems to have more directly benefited the well-to-do classes than those who are poorer, it is necessary that this appearance should be removed. Shall it be done by closing the manufactories of tapestry and stopping the exhibitions? Assuredly not; but by giving the poor a direct share in this distribution of benefits."
In this long catalogue of favors granted to some at the expense of all, one will remark the extreme prudence with which Mr. Mimerel has left the tariff favors out of sight, although they are the most explicit manifestations of legal spoliation. All the orators who supported or opposed him have taken upon themselves the same reserve. It is very shrewd! Possibly they hope, by giving the poor a direct participation in this distribution of benefits, to save this great iniquity by which they profit, but of which they do not whisper.
They deceive themselves. Do they suppose that after having realized a partial spoliation by the establishment of customs duties, other classes, by the establishment of other institutions, will not attempt to realize universal spoliation?
I know very well you always have a sophism ready. You say: "The favors which the law grants us are not given to the manufacturer, but to manufactures. The profits which it enables us to receive at the expense of the consumers are merely a trust placed in our hands. They enrich us, it is true, but our wealth places us in a position to expend more, to extend our establishments, and falls like refreshing dew upon the laboring classes."
Such is your language, and what I most lament is the circumstance that your miserable sophisms have so perverted public opinion that they are appealed to in support of all forms of legalized spoliation. The suffering classes also say. "Let us by act of the Legislature help ourselves to the goods of others. We shall be in easier circumstances as the result of it; we shall buy more wheat, more meat, more cloth, and more iron; and that which we receive from the public taxes will return in a beneficent shower to the capitalists and landed proprietors."
But, as I have already said, I will not to-day discuss the economical effects of legal spoliation. Whenever the protectionists desire, they will find me ready to examine the sophisms of the ricochets, which, indeed, may be invoked in support of all species of robbery and fraud.
We will confine ourselves to the political and moral effects of exchange legally deprived of liberty.
I have said: The time has come to know what the law is, and what it ought to be.
If you make the law for all citizens a palladium of liberty and of property; if it is only the organization of the individual law of self-defense, you will establish, upon the foundation of justice, a government rational, simple, economical, comprehended by all, loved by all, useful to all, supported by all, entrusted with a responsibility perfectly defined and carefully restricted, and endowed with imperishable strength. If, on the other hand, in the interests of individuals or of classes, you make the law an instrument of robbery, every one will wish to make laws, and to make them to his own advantage. There will be a riotous crowd at the doors of the legislative halls, there will be a bitter conflict within; minds will be in anarchy, morals will be shipwrecked; there will be violence in party organs, heated elections, accusations, recriminations, jealousies, inextinguishable hates, the public forces placed at the service of rapacity instead of repressing it, the ability to distinguish the true from the false effaced from all minds, as the notion of justice and injustice will be obliterated from all consciences, the government responsible for everything and bending under the burden of its responsibilities, political convulsions, revolutions without end, ruins over which all forms of socialism and communism attempt to establish themselves; these are the evils which must necessarily flow from the perversion of law.
Such, consequently, gentlemen, are the evils for which you have prepared the way by making use of the law to destroy freedom of exchange; that is to say, to abolish the right of property. Do not declaim against socialism; you establish it. Do not cry out against communism; you create it. And now you ask us Economists to make you a theory which will justify you! Morbleu! make it yourselves.