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Page 60
Before I proceed, I think I ought to explain myself upon the word
plunder.[8]
I do not take it, as it often is taken, in a vague, undefined, relative,
or metaphorical sense. I use it in its scientific acceptation, and as
expressing the opposite idea to property. When a portion of wealth
passes out of the hands of him who has acquired it, without his consent,
and without compensation, to him who has not created it, whether by
force or by artifice, I say that property is violated, that plunder is
perpetrated. I say that this is exactly what the law ought to repress
always and everywhere. If the law itself performs the action it ought to
repress, I say that plunder is still perpetrated, and even, in a social
point of view, under aggravated circumstances. In this case, however, he
who profits from the plunder is not responsible for it; it is the law,
the lawgiver, society itself, and this is where the political danger
lies.
It is to be regretted that there is something offensive in the word. I
have sought in vain for another, for I would not wish at any time, and
especially just now, to add an irritating word to our dissensions;
therefore, whether I am believed or not, I declare that I do not mean to
accuse the intentions nor the morality of anybody. I am attacking an
idea which I believe to be false--a system which appears to me to be
unjust; and this is so independent of intentions, that each of us
profits by it without wishing it, and suffers from it without being
aware of the cause. Any person must write under the influence of party
spirit or of fear, who would call in question the sincerity of
protectionism, of socialism, and even of communism, which are one and
the same plant, in three different periods of its growth. All that can
be said is, that plunder is more visible by its partiality in
protectionism,[9] and by its universality in communism; whence it
follows that, of the three systems, socialism is still the most vague,
the most undefined, and consequently the most sincere.
Be it as it may, to conclude that legal plunder has one of its roots in
false philanthropy, is evidently to put intentions out of the question.
With this understanding, let us examine the value, the origin, and the
tendency of this popular aspiration, which pretends to realise the
general good by general plunder.
The Socialists say, since the law organises justice, why should it not
organise labour, instruction, and religion?
Why? Because it could not organise labour, instruction, and religion,
without disorganising justice.
For, remember, that law is force, and that consequently the domain of
the law cannot lawfully extend beyond the domain of force.
When law and force keep a man within the bounds of justice, they impose
nothing upon him but a mere negation. They only oblige him to abstain
from doing harm. They violate neither his personality, his liberty, nor
his property. They only guard the personality, the liberty, the
property of others. They hold themselves on the defensive; they defend
the equal right of all. They fulfil a mission whose harmlessness is
evident, whose utility is palpable, and whose legitimacy is not to be
disputed. This is so true that, as a friend of mine once remarked to me,
to say that _the aim of the law is to cause justice to reign_, is to use
an expression which is not rigorously exact. It ought to be said, _the
aim of the law is to prevent injustice from reigning_. In fact, it is
not justice which has an existence of its own, it is injustice. The one
results from the absence of the other.
But when the law, through the medium of its necessary agent--force,
imposes a form of labour, a method or a subject of instruction, a creed,
or a worship, it is no longer negative; it acts positively upon men. It
substitutes the will of the legislator for their own will, the
initiative of the legislator for their own initiative. They have no need
to consult, to compare, or to foresee; the law does all that for them.
The intellect is for them a useless lumber; they cease to be men; they
lose their personality, their liberty, their property.
Endeavour to imagine a form of labour imposed by force, which is not a
violation of liberty; a transmission of wealth imposed by force, which
is not a violation of property. If you cannot succeed in reconciling
this, you are bound to conclude that the law cannot organise labour and
industry without organising injustice.
When, from the seclusion of his cabinet, a politician takes a view of
society, he is struck with the spectacle of inequality which presents
itself. He mourns over the sufferings which are the lot of so many of
our brethren, sufferings whose aspect is rendered yet more sorrowful by
the contrast of luxury and wealth.
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