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Page 38
Slavery is subsiding, thank heaven! and on the other hand, our
disposition to defend our property prevents direct and open plunder from
being easy.
One thing, however, remains--it is the original inclination which exists
in all men to divide the lot of life into two parts, throwing the
trouble upon others, and keeping the satisfaction for themselves. It
remains to be shown under what new form this sad tendency is manifesting
itself.
The oppressor no longer acts directly and with his own powers upon his
victim. No, our conscience has become too sensitive for that. The tyrant
and his victim are still present, but there is an intermediate person
between them, which is the Government--that is, the Law itself. What
can be better calculated to silence our scruples, and, which is perhaps
better appreciated, to overcome all resistance? We all, therefore, put
in our claim, under some pretext or other, and apply to Government. We
say to it, "I am dissatisfied at the proportion between my labour and my
enjoyments. I should like, for the sake of restoring the desired
equilibrium, to take a part of the possessions of others. But this would
be dangerous. Could not you facilitate the thing for me? Could you not
find me a good place? or check the industry of my competitors? or,
perhaps, lend me gratuitously some capital, which you may take from its
possessor? Could you not bring up my children at the public expense? or
grant me some prizes? or secure me a competence when I have attained my
fiftieth year? By this means I shall gain my end with an easy
conscience, for the law will have acted for me, and I shall have all the
advantages of plunder, without its risk or its disgrace!"
As it is certain, on the one hand, that we are all making some similar
request to the Government; and as, on the other, it is proved that
Government cannot satisfy one party without adding to the labour of the
others, until I can obtain another definition of the word Government, I
feel authorised to give my own. Who knows but it may obtain the prize?
Here it is:
Government _is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavours to
live at the expense of everybody else_.
For now, as formerly, every one is, more or less, for profiting by the
labours of others. No one would dare to profess such a sentiment; he
even hides it from himself; and then what is done? A medium is thought
of; Government is applied to, and every class in its turn comes to it,
and says, "You, who can take justifiably and honestly, take from the
public, and we will partake." Alas! Government is only too much disposed
to follow this diabolical advice, for it is composed of ministers and
officials--of men, in short, who, like all other men, desire in their
hearts, and always seize every opportunity with eagerness, to increase
their wealth and influence. Government is not slow to perceive the
advantages it may derive from the part which is entrusted to it by the
public. It is glad to be the judge and the master of the destinies of
all; it will take much, for then a large share will remain for itself;
it will multiply the number of its agents; it will enlarge the circle of
its privileges; it will end by appropriating a ruinous proportion.
But the most remarkable part of it is the astonishing blindness of the
public through it all. When successful soldiers used to reduce the
vanquished to slavery, they were barbarous, but they were not absurd.
Their object, like ours, was to live at other people's expense, and they
did not fail to do so. What are we to think of a people who never seem
to suspect that _reciprocal plunder_ is no less plunder because it is
reciprocal; that it is no less criminal because it is executed legally
and with order; that it adds nothing to the public good; that it
diminishes it, just in proportion to the cost of the expensive medium
which we call the Government?
And it is this great chimera which we have placed, for the edification
of the people, as a frontispiece to the Constitution. The following is
the beginning of the introductory discourse:--
"France has constituted itself a republic for the purpose of raising all
the citizens to an ever-increasing degree of morality, enlightenment,
and well-being."
Thus it is France, or an abstraction, which is to raise the French, or
_realities_, to morality, well-being, &c. Is it not by yielding to this
strange delusion that we are led to expect everything from an energy not
our own? Is it not giving out that there is, independently of the
French, a virtuous, enlightened, and rich being, who can and will bestow
upon them its benefits? Is not this supposing, and certainly very
gratuitously, that there are between France and the French--between the
simple, abridged, and abstract denomination of all the individualities,
and these individualities themselves--relations as of father to son,
tutor to his pupil, professor to his scholar? I know it is often said,
metaphorically, "the country is a tender mother." But to show the
inanity of the constitutional proposition, it is only needed to show
that it may be reversed, not only without inconvenience, but even with
advantage. Would it be less exact to say--
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