Well, Sir, let us make a comment, if you do not object, on this text.
Like you, I see property at first in the free disposal of the person; then of the faculties; finally, of the produce of those faculties, which proves, I may say as a passing remark, that, from a certain point of view, Liberty and Property are identical.
I dare hardly say, like you, that property in the produce of our faculties is less inherent in our nature than property in these faculties themselves. Strictly speaking, that may be true; but whether a man is debarred from exercising his faculties, or deprived of what they may produce, the result is the same, and that result is called Slavery. This is another proof of the identity of the nature of liberty and property. If I force a man to labour for my profit, that man is my slave. He is so still, if, leaving him personal liberty, I find means, by force or by fraud, to appropriate to myself the fruits of his labour. The first kind of oppression is the more brutal, the second the more subtle. As it has been remarked that free labour is more intelligent and productive, it may be surmised that the masters have said to themselves, 'Do not let us claim directly the powers of our slaves, but let us take possession of much richer booty—the produce of their faculties freely exercised, and let us give to this new form of servitude the engaging name of Protection.'
You say, again, that society is interested in rendering property secure. We are agreed; only I go further than you; and if by society you mean government, I say that its only province as regards property is to guarantee it in the most ample manner; that if it tries to measure and distribute it by that very act, government, instead of guaranteeing, infringes it. This deserves examination.
When a certain number of men, who cannot live without labour and without property, unite to support a common authority, they evidently desire to be able to labour, and to enjoy the fruits of their labour in all security, and not to place their faculties and their properties at the mercy of that authority. Even antecedent to all form of regular government, I do not believe that individuals could be properly deprived of the right of defence—the right of defending their persons, their faculties, and their possessions.
Without pretending, in this place, to philosophise upon the origin and the extent of the rights of governments—a vast subject, well calculated to deter me—permit me to submit the following idea to you. It seems to me that the rights of the state can only be the reduction into method of personal rights previously existing. I cannot, for myself, conceive collective right which has not its root in individual right, and does not presume it. Then, in order to know if the state is legitimately invested with a right, it is incumbent on us to ask whether this right dwells in the individual in virtue of his being and independently of all government.
It is upon this principle that I denied some time ago the right of labour. I said, since Peter has no right to take directly from Paul what Paul has acquired by his labour, there is no better foundation for this pretended right through the intervention of the state: for the state is but the public authority created by Peter and by Paul, at their expense, with a defined and clear object in view, but which never can render that just which is in itself not so. It is with the aid of this touchstone that I test the distinction between property secured and property controlled by the state. Why has the state the right to secure, even by force, every man's property? Because this right exists previously in the individual. No one can deny to individuals the right of lawful defence—the right of employing force, if necessary, to repel the injuries directed against their persons, their faculties, and their effects. It is conceived that this individual right, since it resides in all men, can assume the collective form, and justify the employment of public authority. And why has the state no right to equalize or apportion worldly wealth? Because, in order to do so, it is necessary to rob some in order to gratify others. Now, as none of the thirty-five millions of Frenchmen have the right to take by force, under the pretence of rendering fortunes more equal, it does not appear how they could invest public authority with this right.
And remark, that the right of distributing* the wealth of individuals is destructive of the right which secures it. There are the savages. They have not yet formed a government; but each of them possesses the right of lawful defence. And it is easy to perceive that it is this right which will become the basis of legitimate public authority. If one of these savages has devoted his time, his strength, his intelligence to make a bow and arrows, and another wishes to take these from him, all the sympathies of the tribe will be on the side of the victim; and if the cause is submitted to the judgment of the elders, the robber will infallibly be condemned. From that there is but one step to the organization of public power. But I ask you—Is the province of this public power, at least its lawful province, to repress the act of him who defends his property in virtue of his abstract right, or the act of him who violates, contrary to that right, the property of another? It would be singular enough if public authority was based, not upon the rights of individuals, but upon their permanent and systematic violation! No; the author of the book before me could not support such a position. But it is scarcely enough that he could not support it; he ought perhaps to condemn it. It is scarcely enough to attack this gross and absurd Communism disseminated in low newspapers. It would perhaps have been better to have unveiled and rebuked that other and more audacious and subtle Communism, which, by the simple perversion of the just idea of the rights of government, insinuates itself into some branches of our legislation, and threatens to invade all.
* It is not easy here, and in some other places, to convey
the exact meaning without using circuitous language.
For, Sir, it is quite incontestable that by the action of the tariffs—by means of Protection—governments realize this monstrous thing of which I have spoken so much. They abandon the right of lawful defence, previously existing in all men, the source and foundation of their own existence, to arrogate to themselves a pretended right of equalizing the fortunes of all by means of robbery, a right which, not existing before in any one, cannot therefore exist in the community.