2. "And where do they get their power? From monopoly maintained by the State. Usury rests on this."[769] And "of the various monopolies that now prevail, four are of principal importance."[770]
"First in the importance of its evil influence they [the founders of Anarchism] considered the money monopoly, which consists of the privilege given by the government to certain individuals, or to individuals holding certain kinds of property, of issuing the circulating medium, a privilege which is now enforced in this country by a national tax of ten per cent. upon all other persons who attempt to furnish a circulating medium, and by State laws making it a criminal offence to issue notes as currency. It is claimed that holders of this privilege control the rate of interest, the rate of rent of houses and buildings, and the prices of goods,—the first directly, and the second and third indirectly. For, if the business of banking were made free to all, more and more persons would enter into it until the competition should become sharp enough to reduce the price of lending money to the labor cost, which statistics show to be less than three-fourths of one per cent."[771] "Then down will go house-rent. For no one who can borrow capital at one per cent. with which to build a house of his own will consent to pay rent to a landlord at a higher rate than that."[772] Finally, "down will go profits also. For merchants, instead of buying at high prices on credit, will borrow money of the banks at less than one per cent., buy at low prices for cash, and correspondingly reduce the prices of their goods to their customers."[773]
"Second in importance comes the land monopoly, the evil effects of which are seen principally in exclusively agricultural countries, like Ireland. This monopoly consists in the enforcement by government of land-titles which do not rest upon personal occupancy and cultivation."[774] "Ground-rent exists only because the State stands by to collect it and to protect land-titles rooted in force or fraud."[775] "As soon as individuals should no longer be protected in anything but personal occupancy and cultivation of land, ground-rent would disappear, and so usury have one less leg to stand on."[776]
The third and fourth places are occupied by the tariff and patent monopolies.[777] "The tariff monopoly consists in fostering production at high prices and under unfavorable conditions by visiting with the penalty of taxation those who patronize production at low prices and under favorable conditions. The evil to which this monopoly gives rise might more properly be called misusury than usury, because it compels labor to pay, not exactly for the use of capital, but rather for the misuse of capital."[778] "The patent monopoly protects inventors and authors against competition for a period long enough to enable them to extort from the people a reward enormously in excess of the labor measure of their services,—in other words, it gives certain people a right of property for a term of years in laws and facts of nature, and the power to exact tribute from others for the use of this natural wealth, which should be open to all."[779] It is on the tariff and patent monopolies, next to the money monopoly, that profit in exchange is based. If they were done away along with the money monopoly, it would disappear.[780]
II. Every one's self-interest, and particularly the equal liberty of all, demands a distribution of property in which every one is guaranteed the product of his labor.[781]
1. "Equal liberty, in the property sphere, is such a balance between the liberty to take and the liberty to keep that the two liberties may coexist without conflict or invasion."[782] "Nearly all Anarchists consider labor to be the only basis of the right of ownership in harmony with that law";[783] "the laborers, instead of having only a small fraction of the wealth in the world, should have all the wealth."[784] This form of property "secures each in the possession of his own products, or of such products of others as he may have obtained unconditionally without the use of fraud or force, and in the realization of all titles to such products which he may hold by virtue of free contract with others."[785]
"It will be seen from this definition that Anarchistic property concerns only products. But anything is a product upon which human labor has been expended, whether it be a piece of iron or a piece of land. (It should be stated, however, that in the case of land, or of any other material the supply of which is so limited that all cannot hold it in unlimited quantities, Anarchism undertakes to protect no titles except such as are based on actual occupancy and use.)"[786]
2. A distribution of property in which every one is guaranteed the product of his labor presupposes merely that equal liberty be applied in those spheres which are as yet dominated by State monopoly.[787]
"Free money first."[788] "I mean by free money the utter absence of restriction upon the issue of all money not fraudulent";[789] "making the issue of money as free as the manufacture of shoes."[790]