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Page 24
If, according to the Socialist invention, the State were to stand in the
stead of commerce, what would happen? I should like to be informed where
the saving would be to the public? Would it be in the price of purchase?
Imagine the delegates of 40,000 parishes arriving at Odessa on a given
day, and on the day of need: imagine the effect upon prices. Would the
saving be in the expenses? Would fewer vessels be required; fewer
sailors, fewer transports, fewer sloops? or would you be exempt from the
payment of all these things? Would it be in the profits of the
merchants? Would your officials go to Odessa for nothing? Would they
travel and work on the principle of fraternity? Must they not live? Must
not they be paid for their time? And do you believe that these expenses
would not exceed a thousand times the two or three per cent. which the
merchant gains, at the rate at which he is ready to treat?
And then consider the difficulty of levying so many taxes, and of
dividing so much food. Think of the injustice, of the abuses inseparable
from such an enterprise. Think of the responsibility which would weigh
upon the Government.
The Socialists who have invented these follies, and who, in the days of
distress, have introduced them into the minds of the masses, take to
themselves literally the title of _advanced men_; and it is not without
some danger that custom, that tyrant of tongues, authorizes the term,
and the sentiment which it involves. _Advanced!_ This supposes that
these gentlemen can see further than the common people; that their only
fault is that they are too much in advance of their age; and if the time
is not yet come for suppressing certain free services, pretended
parasites, the fault is to be attributed to the public which is in the
rear of Socialism. I say, from my soul and my conscience, the reverse is
the truth; and I know not to what barbarous age we should have to go
back, if we would find the level of Socialist knowledge on this subject.
These modern sectarians incessantly oppose association to actual
society. They overlook the fact that society, under a free regulation,
is a true association, far superior to any of those which proceed from
their fertile imaginations.
Let me illustrate this by an example. Before a mutual services, and to
helping each other in a common object, and that all may be considered,
with respect to others, _intermediates_. If, for instance, in the course
of the operation, the conveyance becomes important enough to occupy one
person, the spinning another, the weaving another, why should the first
be considered a _parasite_ more than the other two? The conveyance must
be made, must it not? Does not he who performs it devote to it his time
and trouble? and by so doing does he not spare that of his colleagues?
Do these do more or other than this for him? Are they not equally
dependent for remuneration, that is, for the division of the produce,
upon the law of reduced price? Is it not in all liberty, for the common
good, that this separation of work takes place, and that these
arrangements are entered into? What do we want with a Socialist then,
who, under pretence of organising for us, comes despotically to break up
our voluntary arrangements, to check the division of labour, to
substitute isolated efforts for combined ones, and to send civilisation
back? Is association, as I describe it here, in itself less association,
because every one enters and leaves it freely, chooses his place in it,
judges and bargains for himself on his own responsibility, and brings
with him the spring and warrant of personal interest? That it may
deserve this name, is it necessary that a pretended reformer should come
and impose upon us his plan and his will, and, as it were, to
concentrate mankind in himself?
The more we examine these _advanced schools_, the more do we become
convinced that there is but one thing at the root of them: ignorance
proclaiming itself infallible, and claiming despotism in the name of
this infallibility.
I hope the reader will excuse this digression. It may not be altogether
useless, at a time when declamations, springing from St. Simonian,
Phalansterian, and Icarian books, are invoking the press and the
tribune, and which seriously threaten the liberty of labour and
commercial transactions.
VII.--Restrictions.
M. Prohibant (it was not I who gave him this name, but M. Charles Dupin)
devoted his time and capital to converting the ore found on his land
into iron. As nature had been more lavish towards the Belgians, they
furnished the French with iron cheaper than M. Prohibant; which means,
that all the French, or France, could obtain a given quantity of iron
with less labour by buying it of the honest Flemings. Therefore, guided
by their own interest, they did not fail to do so; and every day there
might be seen a multitude of nail-smiths, blacksmiths, cartwrights,
machinists, farriers, and labourers, going themselves, or sending
intermediates, to supply themselves in Belgium. This displeased M.
Prohibant exceedingly.
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