If, confining ourselves to the circle of one or other of these two categories, we find that the predominance of one of these methods establishes so marked a difference in the character of nations, how much greater must the difference be between a nation which lives by production, and a nation which lives by spoliation?
For it is not one of our faculties only, but all of them, which the necessity of providing for our subsistence brings into exercise; and what can be more fitted to modify the social condition of nations than what thus modifies all the human faculties?
This consideration, important as it is, has been so little regarded, that I must dwell upon it for an instant.
The realization of an enjoyment or satisfaction presupposes labour; whence it follows that spoliation, far from excluding production, presupposes it and takes it for granted.
This consideration, it seems to me, ought to modify the partiality which historians, poets, and novel-writers have displayed for those heroic epochs which were not distinguished by what they sneer at under the epithet of industrialism. In these days, as in our own, men lived, subsisted; and labour must have done its office then as now. Only there was this difference, that nations, classes, and individuals succeeded in laying their share of the labour and toil on the shoulders of other nations, other classes, and other individuals.
The characteristic of production is to bring out of nothing, if I may so speak, the satisfactions and enjoyments which sustain and embellish life; so that a man, or a nation, may multiply ad infinitum these enjoyments, without inflicting privation on any other man, or any other nation. So much is this the case, that a profound study of the economic mechanism shows us that the success [p459] of one man’s labour opens up a field for the success of another’s exertions.
The characteristic of spoliation, on the contrary, is this, that it cannot confer a satisfaction on one without inflicting a corresponding privation on another; for spoliation creates nothing, but displaces what labour has created. It entails an absolute loss of the exertions of both parties. So far, then, from adding to the enjoyments of mankind, it diminishes these enjoyments, and confers them, moreover, on those who have not merited them.
In order to produce, man must direct all his powers and faculties to obtain the mastery over natural laws; for it is by this means that he accomplishes his object. Hence, iron converted into a ploughshare is the emblem of production.
To steal, on the other hand, man must direct all his powers and faculties to obtain the mastery over his fellow-man; for it is by this means that he attains his end. Hence, iron converted into a sword is the emblem of spoliation.
Between the ploughshare, which brings plenty, and the sword, which brings destruction and death, there is no greater difference than between a nation of industrious workmen and a nation of spoliators. They have, and can have, nothing whatever in common. They have neither the same ideas, nor the same rules of appreciation, nor the same tastes, manners, character, laws, morals, or religion.