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Page 5
We must remark, also, that the constant appearance of money in every
exchange has overturned and misled all our ideas: men have ended in
thinking that money was true riches, and that to multiply it was to
multiply services and products. Hence the prohibitory system; hence
paper money; hence the celebrated aphorism, "What one gains the other
loses;" and all the errors which have ruined the earth, and embrued it
with blood.[2] After much research it has been found, that in order to
make the two services exchanged of equivalent value, and in order to
render the exchange _equitable_, the best means was to allow it to be
free. However plausible, at first sight, the intervention of the State
might be, it was soon perceived that it is always oppressive to one or
other of the contracting parties. When we look into these subjects, we
are always compelled to reason upon this maxim, that _equal value_
results from liberty. We have, in fact, no other means of knowing
whether, at a given moment, two services are of the same value, but that
of examining whether they can be readily and freely exchanged. Allow the
State, which is the same thing as force, to interfere on one side or the
other, and from that moment all the means of appreciation will be
complicated and entangled, instead of becoming clear. It ought to be
the part of the State to prevent, and, above all, to repress artifice
and fraud; that is, to secure liberty, and not to violate it. I have
enlarged a little upon exchange, although loan is my principal object:
my excuse is, that I conceive that there is in a loan an actual
exchange, an actual service rendered by the lender, and which makes the
borrower liable to an equivalent service,--two services, whose
comparative value can only be appreciated, like that of all possible
services, by freedom. Now, if it is so, the perfect lawfulness of what
is called house-rent, farm-rent, interest, will be explained and
justified. Let us consider the case of _loan_.
Suppose two men exchange two services or two objects, whose equal value
is beyond all dispute. Suppose, for example, Peter says to Paul, "Give
me ten sixpences, I will give you a five-shilling piece." We cannot
imagine an equal value more unquestionable. When the bargain is made,
neither party has any claim upon the other. The exchanged services are
equal. Thus it follows, that if one of the parties wishes to introduce
into the bargain an additional clause, advantageous to himself, but
unfavourable to the other party, he must agree to a second clause, which
shall re-establish the equilibrium, and the law of justice. It would be
absurd to deny the justice of a second clause of compensation. This
granted, we will suppose that Peter, after having said to Paul, "Give me
ten sixpences, I will give you a crown," adds, "You shall give me the
ten sixpences _now_, and I will give you the crown-piece _in a year_;"
it is very evident that this new proposition alters the claims and
advantages of the bargain; that it alters the proportion of the two
services. Does it not appear plainly enough, in fact, that Peter asks of
Paul a new and an additional service; one of a different kind? Is it not
as if he had said, "Render me the service of allowing me to use for my
profit, for a year, five shillings which belong to you, and which you
might have used for yourself?" And what good reason have you to maintain
that Paul is bound to render this especial service gratuitously; that he
has no right to demand anything more in consequence of this requisition;
that the State ought to interfere to force him to submit? Is it not
incomprehensible that the economist, who preaches such a doctrine to the
people, can reconcile it with his principle of _the reciprocity of
services_? Here I have introduced cash; I have been led to do so by a
desire to place, side by side, two objects of exchange, of a perfect and
indisputable equality of value. I was anxious to be prepared for
objections; but, on the other hand, my demonstration would have been
more striking still, if I had illustrated my principle by an agreement
for exchanging the services or the productions themselves.
Suppose, for example, a house and a vessel of a value so perfectly equal
that their proprietors are disposed to exchange them even-handed,
without excess or abatement. In fact let the bargain be settled by a
lawyer. At the moment of each taking possession, the shipowner says to
the citizen, "Very well; the transaction is completed, and nothing can
prove its perfect equity better than our free and voluntary consent. Our
conditions thus fixed, I shall propose to you a little practical
modification. You shall let me have your house to-day, but I shall not
put you in possession of my ship for a year; and the reason I make this
demand of you is, that, during this year of _delay_, I wish to use the
vessel." That we may not be embarrassed by considerations relative to
the deterioration of the thing lent, I will suppose the shipowner to
add, "I will engage, at the end of the year, to hand over to you the
vessel in the state in which it is to-day." I ask of every candid man, I
ask of M. Proudhon himself, if the citizen has not a right to answer,
"The new clause which you propose entirely alters the proportion or the
equal value of the exchanged services. By it, I shall be deprived, for
the space of a year, both at once of my house and of your vessel. By it,
you will make use of both. If, in the absence of this clause, the
bargain was just, for the same reason the clause is injurious to me. It
stipulates for a loss to me, and a gain to you. You are requiring of me
a new service; I have a right to refuse, or to require of you, as a
compensation, an equivalent service." If the parties are agreed upon
this compensation, the principle of which is incontestable, we can
easily distinguish two transactions in one, two exchanges of service in
one. First, there is the exchange of the house for the vessel; after
this, there is the delay granted by one of the parties, and the
compensation correspondent to this delay yielded by the other. These two
new services take the generic and abstract names of _credit_ and
_interest_. But names do not change the nature of things; and I defy any
one to dare to maintain that there exists here, when all is done, a
service for a service, or a reciprocity of services. To say that one of
these services does not challenge the other, to say that the first ought
to be rendered gratuitously, without injustice, is to say that injustice
consists in the reciprocity of services,--that justice consists in one
of the parties giving and not receiving, which is a contradiction in
terms.
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