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Page 3
Productiveness of capital--perpetuity of interest. These are difficult
questions. I must endeavour to make myself clear. And for that purpose I
shall have recourse to example rather than to demonstration; or rather,
I shall place the demonstration in the example. I begin by acknowledging
that, at first sight, it may appear strange that capital should pretend
to a remuneration, and above all, to a perpetual remuneration. You will
say, "Here are two men. One of them works from morning till night, from
one year's end to another; and if he consumes all which he has gained,
even by superior energy, he remains poor. When Christmas comes he is no
forwarder than he was at the beginning of the year, and has no other
prospect but to begin again. The other man does nothing, either with his
hands or his head; or at least, if he makes use of them at all, it is
only for his own pleasure; it is allowable for him to do nothing, for he
has an income. He does not work, yet he lives well; he has everything in
abundance; delicate dishes, sumptuous furniture, elegant equipages; nay,
he even consumes, daily, things which the workers have been obliged to
produce by the sweat of their brow, for these things do not make
themselves; and, as far as he is concerned, he has had no hand in their
production. It is the workmen who have caused this corn to grow,
polished this furniture, woven these carpets; it is our wives and
daughters who have spun, cut out, sewed, and embroidered these stuffs.
We work, then, for him and for ourselves; for him first, and then for
ourselves, if there is anything left. But here is something more
striking still. If the former of these two men, the worker, consumes
within the year any profit which may have been left him in that year, he
is always at the point from which he started, and his destiny condemns
him to move incessantly in a perpetual circle, and a monotony of
exertion. Labour, then, is rewarded only once. But if the other, the
'gentleman,' consumes his yearly income in the year, he has, the year
after, in those which follow, and through all eternity, an income always
equal, inexhaustible, _perpetual_. Capital, then, is remunerated, not
only once or twice, but an indefinite number of times! So that, at the
end of a hundred years, a family which has placed 20,000 francs,[1] at
five per cent., will have had 100,000 francs; and this will not prevent
it from having 100,000 more, in the following century. In other words,
for 20,000 francs, which represent its labour, it will have levied, in
two centuries, a tenfold value on the labour of others. In this social
arrangement, is there not a monstrous evil to be reformed? And this is
not all. If it should please this family to curtail its enjoyments a
little--to spend, for example, only 900 francs, instead of 1,000--it
may, without any labour, without any other trouble beyond that of
investing 100 francs a year, increase its capital and its income in such
rapid progression, that it will soon be in a position to consume as much
as a hundred families of industrious workmen. Does not all this go to
prove that society itself has in its bosom a hideous cancer, which ought
to be eradicated at the risk of some temporary suffering?"
These are, it appears to me, the sad and irritating reflections which
must be excited in your minds by the active and superficial crusade
which is being carried on against capital and interest. On the other
hand, there are moments in which, I am convinced, doubts are awakened in
your minds, and scruples in your conscience. You say to yourselves
sometimes, "But to assert that capital ought not to produce interest, is
to say that he who has created instruments of labour, or materials, or
provisions of any kind, ought to yield them up without compensation. Is
that just? And then, if it is so, who would lend these instruments,
these materials, these provisions? who would take care of them? who even
would create them? Every one would consume his proportion, and the human
race would never advance a step. Capital would be no longer formed,
since there would be no interest in forming it. It would become
exceedingly scarce. A singular step towards gratuitous loans! A singular
means of improving the condition of borrowers, to make it impossible for
them to borrow at any price! What would become of labour itself? for
there will be no money advanced, and not one single kind of labour can
be mentioned, not even the chase, which can be pursued without money in
hand. And, as for ourselves, what would become of us? What! we are not
to be allowed to borrow, in order to work in the prime of life, nor to
lend, that we may enjoy repose in its decline? The law will rob us of
the prospect of laying by a little property, because it will prevent us
from gaining any advantage from it. It will deprive us of all stimulus
to save at the present time, and of all hope of repose for the future.
It is useless to exhaust ourselves with fatigue: we must abandon the
idea of leaving our sons and daughters a little property, since modern
science renders it useless, for we should become traffickers in men if
we were to lend it on interest. Alas! the world which these persons
would open before us, as an imaginary good, is still more dreary and
desolate than that which they condemn, for hope, at any rate, is not
banished from the latter." Thus, in all respects, and in every point of
view, the question is a serious one. Let us hasten to arrive at a
solution.
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