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Page 61
He ought, perhaps, to ask himself, whether such a social state has not
been caused by the plunder of ancient times, exercised in the way of
conquests; and by plunder of later times, effected through the medium of
the laws? He ought to ask himself whether, granting the aspiration of
all men after well-being and perfection, the reign of justice would not
suffice to realise the greatest activity of progress, and the greatest
amount of equality compatible with that individual responsibility which
God has awarded as a just retribution of virtue and vice?
He never gives this a thought. His mind turns towards combinations,
arrangements, legal or factitious organisations. He seeks the remedy in
perpetuating and exaggerating what has produced the evil.
For, justice apart, which we have seen is only a negation, is there any
one of these legal arrangements which does not contain the principle of
plunder?
You say, "There are men who have no money," and you apply to the law.
But the law is not a self-supplied fountain, whence every stream may
obtain supplies independently of society. Nothing can enter the public
treasury, in favour of one citizen or one class, but what other citizens
and other classes have been _forced_ to send to it. If every one draws
from it only the equivalent of what he has contributed to it, your law,
it is true, is no plunderer, but it does nothing for men who want
money--it does not promote equality. It can only be an instrument of
equalisation as far as it takes from one party to give to another, and
then it is an instrument of plunder. Examine, in this light, the
protection of tariffs, prizes for encouragement, right to profit, right
to labour, right to assistance, right to instruction, progressive
taxation, gratuitousness of credit, social workshops, and you will
always find at the bottom legal plunder, organised injustice.
You say, "There are men who want knowledge," and you apply to the law.
But the law is not a torch which sheds light abroad which is peculiar to
itself. It extends over a society where there are men who have
knowledge, and others who have not; citizens who want to learn, and
others who are disposed to teach. It can only do one of two things:
either allow a free operation to this kind of transaction, _i.e._, let
this kind of want satisfy itself freely; or else force the will of the
people in the matter, and take from some of them sufficient to pay
professors commissioned to instruct others gratuitously. But, in this
second case, there cannot fail to be a violation of liberty and
property,--legal plunder.
You say, "Here are men who are wanting in morality or religion," and
you apply to the law; but law is force, and need I say how far it is a
violent and absurd enterprise to introduce force in these matters?
As the result of its systems and of its efforts, it would seem that
socialism, notwithstanding all its self-complacency, can scarcely help
perceiving the monster of legal plunder. But what does it do? It
disguises it cleverly from others, and even from itself, under the
seductive names of fraternity, solidarity, organisation, association.
And because we do not ask so much at the hands of the law, because we
only ask it for justice, it supposes that we reject fraternity,
solidarity, organisation, and association; and they brand us with the
name of _individualists_.
We can assure them that what we repudiate is, not natural organisation,
but forced organisation.
It is not free association, but the forms of association which they
would impose upon us.
It is not spontaneous fraternity, but legal fraternity.
It is not providential solidarity, but artificial solidarity, which is
only an unjust displacement of responsibility.
Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds
Government and society. And so, every time we object to a thing being
done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at
all. We disapprove of education by the State--then we are against
education altogether. We object to a State religion--then we would
have no religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about
by the State--then we are against equality, &c., &c. They might as well
accuse us of wishing men not to eat, because we object to the
cultivation of corn by the State.
How is it that the strange idea of making the law produce what it does
not contain--prosperity, in a positive sense, wealth, science,
religion--should ever have gained ground in the political world? The
modern politicians, particularly those of the Socialist school, found
their different theories upon one common hypothesis; and surely a more
strange, a more presumptuous notion, could never have entered a human
brain.
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