Dr. Corre notes first the true condition of the free workman. No one is obliged to give him work or bread, and it is forbidden to beg [[162]]or even to be idle. “There is no opinion more monstrous, more revolting, and more cowardly. It is a social crime as well as the most dangerous of follies. For it is necessary to be logical. If you oblige a man under all circumstances to live by his own means, in the midst of a limited circle, where the places are distributed in advance, the land divided to the smallest fragments, if you refuse him the right to alms after having refused him work … you drive him to suicide or crime.”[18] We must give work to everyone who wants to work, in order that he may support himself and his family, and help must be given to those to whom work cannot be given, as in the case of workmen not longer able to work because of sickness or old age. On the other hand idleness must be punished as well as professional crime. Wages must be so high that they are sufficient not only for the strict necessities, but for others as well; for example, for a progressive education, without, however, arousing in the laboring class the desire for luxury that always corrupts morals. Though naming a single exception, Dr. Corre is of the opinion that wages are in general very insufficient, especially if we take into account the fact that there are times of unemployment, sickness, etc., during which nothing is earned. The question of wages is one of great importance, then, for the etiology of criminality. Nevertheless all the improvement of the material condition of the working class will accomplish nothing unless there is at the same time a moral improvement.
As other authors have already proved, the price of bread also has an influence upon the course of criminality.
Under the heading “economic conditions”, he calls attention, in the second place to “assistance, savings, property.” When we study the effect of charity upon criminality in the departments of France, we see that mendicity and vagrancy decrease, and that crimes are only of moderate frequency, in places where the official assistance given is the smallest, while criminality is pretty prevalent and even on the increase where the greatest amount of official assistance is given. “Thus very limited assistance will do less harm than if it were more extensive. Such is the interpretation the mind gathers from a comparison of the economic and judicial statistics. Excess in alms-giving, with difficulty separable from a bad distribution of wealth, will therefore have a demoralizing influence; it enervates and sterilizes, and its fruits would appear more bitter if it were possible to unveil the little secrets of assistance under the thousand forms that it wears.”[19]
“Saving enlarges the field of the needs of the laborer, gives him [[163]]security for the future, strengthens his independence with regard to the state, and his dignity in his relations with other citizens; it permits him to surround his family with a greater degree of comfort, and through education to raise his children into the professional hierarchy. It is therefore useful, and has a moralizing influence.”[20]
However, exaggerated saving is very prejudicial to morality for it degenerates into avarice and thus becomes the cause of crime. We often find the average number of depositors in savings-banks in the departments that gave the lowest figure for crime. The departments with a number of depositors above or below this average are apt to have high figures for crime.
“It is possible to criticise academically the famous saying of Proudhon, ‘property is theft.’ To refute it will be at times difficult. I do not mean to say that all property is theft, but I maintain that property in a measure that can be fixed is nothing else. As it is organized with use, it is often immoral and one of the most active factors in anti-social crime, latent or actual.”[21] According to the author, one who owns property is a supporter of the state. For this reason the number of small proprietors ought to be increased, even if this is possible only by dividing great estates, which, however, have almost always been gotten together by immoral means, by pillaging, by paying very small wages in manufacturing, by gambling, etc. “They are all, in the first instance, the fruit of a skill and a want of scruple which would never obtain the sanction of a really equitable society; at their blaze, which scorns poverty, the passion for gain is kindled, and dull rage begins to develop the germ of reprisals. How shall we make men who have nothing, and exhaust themselves to gain the bare necessaries of life, satisfied that the persons who do no work and only amuse themselves possess everything? You may talk of legal limitations as much as you like, but conscience will revolt against a doctrine that makes stolen property sacred after a certain period of impunity, and leads to the cynical conclusion that any article or piece of land, acquired by crime, is the legitimate possession of the bandit if during 5, 10, 20, 30 years he succeeds in warding off the attacks of the law.”[22] Not only has property often been acquired in an illegal manner, but the transmission of it is also immoral. For it is by this means that persons have acquired great fortunes which they would never have earned by their labor. It would be preferable to make private fortunes accrue to the state, after provision had been made for the widow and children “to provide for the needs of persons who [[164]]are useful but made unproductive by poverty, and to reënforce the collective labor.” In this way a general prosperity would replace great fortunes; this would increase the feeling of solidarity, while great fortunes only awaken cupidity and lead to the commission of crimes. The richest departments give the highest figures for criminality. By the suppression or limitation of inheritance we should suppress also the numerous crimes against life resulting from it.
In the sixth chapter, in which Dr. Corre examines the relative importance of the principal sociological factors, he sums up his opinion as to the influence of economic conditions upon criminality. Too great wealth and too great poverty are both causes of crime. “The first corrupts and the second degrades; both lead to crime through lessening the resistance to temptation that promises the satisfaction of wants fictitious or real, and when they both appear in the same environment, they give more energy to bad impulses, more violence to conflicts.”[23] This is why the agricultural class, in which moderate prosperity prevails, is the least criminal. The means by which this condition of things is to be improved is complex: “it is not altogether to be found in the solution of the question of wages; it is chiefly to be found in a better system for making the masses moral, in the reduction of the influences which tempt them to improvidence and idleness, lead them to drunkenness and alcoholism.”[24]
—The second part of this work will show sufficiently why, in my opinion, the treatment of Dr. Corre is confused and incomplete, notwithstanding the truth of some observations made by him with regard to the subject which concerns us. The criticism of the author upon the organization of society at present is that of the petty bourgeoisie; he expects salvation only from the multiplication of small holdings, and hopes that this will make mankind happier. However, the development of large industries makes me believe that this hope will never be realized.—