The name is deceptive, however, and his conception of solidarity is quite different from the one current to-day, while the conclusions drawn are by no means similar.
The fundamental doctrine upon which the Solidarists of to-day would base a new morality is briefly this: Every individual owes all the good with which he is endowed, and all the evil with which he is encumbered, to others. So whether he is wealthy or poor, virtuous or vicious, it is his duty to share with those who are worse off, and he has a right to demand a share from those who are better off. Only in this way can we justify legal assistance, insurance, Factory Acts, education, and taxation. The doctrine is a negation, or at the very least a modification, of the strict principle of individual responsibility.
But Bastiat views it differently. He has no desire to weaken individual responsibility, for responsibility must be the indispensable corrective of liberty. And solidarity, because of the feeling of interdependence to which it gives rise, is so bewildering that Bastiat anxiously asks whether solidarity is actually necessary “in order to hasten or to secure the just retribution of deeds done.” A closer survey reconciles him to the prospect, for he sees in it a means of extending and deepening individual responsibility. Seeing that the results of good and bad deeds react upon everyone, everybody must be interested in furthering every good deed and in repressing the bad, especially since every deed reacts upon its author with its original force multiplied a thousand, and perhaps a million times.[733] The harmony just consists in that. Bastiat’s solidarity aims, not at the development of fraternity, but at the strengthening of justice. It does not urge upon society the duty of permitting no differences among its members, but it does emphasise the importance of handling the scourge or bestowing the palm with greater impartiality. And Bastiat, despite his law of solidarity—nay, possibly because of that very law—definitely rejects all legal assistance, even in the case of deserted children! National insurance, old age pensions, profit-sharing, free education, everything that is comprised under the term “social solidarity” is cast aside.[734]
It is a terribly individualistic conception of solidarity. Comparison with Carey’s ideas is again interesting. Carey may seem to ignore it altogether, inasmuch as he never mentions the name. But if the name was unknown to him he gave a good description of the principle itself when he referred to it as “the power of association.” And he was also probably the first to put the double character of solidarity, as we know it to-day, in a clear light:
(1) As the differences among mankind increase in number and intensity the more perfect will solidarity become.
(2) Individuality, instead of being weakened by it, is strengthened and intensified.[735]
Someone may perhaps point out that in our treatment of the Optimists’ attack upon the great Classical laws no mention has been made of that terribly discordant theme, Malthus’s law of population, which ascribes all vice and misery to the operation of a natural instinct. On this particular point Bastiat’s treatment is lacking in both vigour and originality. His reply merely amounts to showing that the preventive obstacles, such as shame and continence, religious feeling and the desire for equality, all of which limit the number of children, are equally natural, so that nature has placed a remedy alongside of the evil.
A more solid argument, borrowed from Carey, attempts to show how a growing density of population allows of a growth of production, so that the production of commodities may develop pari passu with the growth of population, or may even exceed it. Carey relied upon his own observations. All over the vast American continent, especially on the immense plains of the Mississippi, he noticed that the few encampments of the poor tribes that dwelt there were being rapidly replaced by large industrial centres. Such an increase of population in immediate contiguity naturally resulted in a great amassing of wealth.
We have already noted the fact that the growth of wealth in the United States has outstripped the increase in its population. The simultaneous development of Germany, both in numbers and wealth, is still more striking.
But Carey’s population theory is open to the same criticism as was urged against his theory of rent. Up to a certain degree of density it is undoubtedly true, but there is no ground for believing that it holds good beyond this.