"In our project, society receives the impulse of power." (Page 126.)
In what does the impulse which power gives to society consist? In imposing upon it the project of M. Louis Blanc.
On the other hand, society is the human race. The human race, then, is to receive its impulse from M. Louis Blanc.
It is at liberty to do so or not, it will be said. Of course the human race is at liberty to take advice from anybody, whoever it may be. But this is not the way in which M. Louis Blanc understands the thing. He means that his project should be converted into law, and, consequently, forcibly imposed by power.
"In our project, the State has only to give a legislation to labour, by means of which the industrial movement may and ought to be accomplished in all liberty. It (the State) merely places society on an incline (that is all) that it may descend, when once it is placed there, by the mere force of things, and by the natural course of the established mechanism."
But what is this incline? One indicated by M. Louis Blanc. Does it not lead to an abyss? No, it leads to happiness. Why, then, does not society go there of itself? Because it does not know what it wants, and it requires an impulse. What is to give it this impulse? Power. And who is to give the impulse to power? The inventor of the machine, M. Louis Blanc.
We shall never get out of this circle--mankind passive, and a great man moving it by the intervention of the law.
Once on this incline, will society enjoy something like liberty? Without a doubt. And what is liberty?
"Once for all: liberty consists, not only in the right granted, but in the power given to man, to exercise, to develop his faculties under the empire of justice, and under the protection of the law.
"And this is no vain distinction; there is a deep meaning in it, and its consequences are not to be estimated. For when once it is admitted that man, to be truly free, must have the power to exercise and develop his faculties, it follows that every member of society has a claim upon it for such instruction as shall enable it to display itself, and for the instruments of labour, without which human activity can find no scope. Now, by whose intervention is society to give to each of its members the requisite instruction and the necessary instruments of labour, unless by that of the State?"
Thus, liberty is power. In what does this power consist? In possessing instruction and instruments of labour. Who is to give instruction and instruments of labour? Society, who owes them. By whose intervention is society to give instruments of labour to those who do not possess them?