“And will so continue to be; for, as long as men are unlike one another, there will be a distinction of ranks, though the distinction may be maintained by a better principle than heritage. Rank and wealth will, I trust, be in time distributed according to natural laws; but degrees of rank and wealth there will always be; and the advocates of a system of equality would greatly promote their cause by a frank recognition of this truth. While all evidence from which a judgment can be formed is before them, and they come to a conclusion in direct opposition to the evidence, I cannot, however much I may respect them on some accounts, think them wise and safe guides of the people. The necessity of inequality of condition may be established thus.”
“But first tell me whether their favourite principle of co-operation necessarily involves equality of condition.”
“They would tell you ‘yes.’ I say ‘no.’ They hold that competition is both the cause and effect of inequality of condition; whereas certain advocates of co-operation in another country hold, (and I think wisely,) that their principle stands a better chance where a gradation of rank and property is allowed. I so far agree with these last as to believe the time to be discernible when co-operation, in a certain sense, shall prevail,—meaning thereby, when all interests shall be harmonized instead of opposed; but that this includes equality of condition, I cannot allow, since varieties of character seem to me to forbid such equality.”
“There must be an inequality of physical and mental powers, at all events.”
“Surely; and therefore an inequality in the produce of individual labour. No one labours, or ever will labour, without a view to the fruits; and those fruits, however appropriated, are property. If a giant produces ten times as much as a dwarf, and each is allowed the same middle portion of the fruits, for his maintenance and enjoyment, is it to be supposed that the giant will trouble himself henceforth to produce more than the dwarf?”
“He will be more likely to seize some of the dwarf’s portion.”
“Certainly; and hence it is clear that the only security of society lies in awarding to all their rights, and enforcing upon all their duties; and what are rights but a man’s exclusive power over his own produce? What are his duties but allowing to others the possession of their produce?”
“You do not think then that the giant and the dwarf would be alike contented with having everything they could want or wish for administered to them in return for a certain portion of their labour. You do not look forward to the lion dandling the kid.”
“I should be afraid the lion would be dandling the kid when he ought to be out in quest of food. If there was no inducement to giants to produce more than dwarfs, there would soon be little to administer to anybody. The consumption of giants would soon have to be provided for by the labour of a community of dwarfs.”
“The giants would foresee this, and then....”