The philosopher Reid is lacking, not in knowledge of the principle, but in courage to pursue it to its ultimate.If the right of life is equal, the right of labor is equal, and so is the right of occupancy.Would it not be criminal, were some islanders to repulse, in the name of property, the unfortunate victims of a shipwreck struggling to reach the shore? The very idea of such cruelty sickens the imagination.The proprietor, like Robinson Crusoe on his island, wards off with pike and musket the proletaire washed overboard by the wave of civilization, and seeking to gain a foothold upon the rocks of property."Give me work!" cries he with all his might to the proprietor: "don't drive me away, I will work for you at any price." "I do not need your services," replies the proprietor, showing the end of his pike or the barrel of his gun."Lower my rent at least." "I need my income to live upon." "How can I pay you, when I can get no work?" "That is your business." Then the unfortunate proletaire abandons himself to the waves; or, if he attempts to land upon the shore of property, the proprietor takes aim, and kills him.
We have just listened to a spiritualist; we will now question a materialist, then an eclectic: and having completed the circle of philosophy, we will turn next to law.
According to Destutt de Tracy, property is a necessity of our nature.That this necessity involves unpleasant consequences, it would be folly to deny.But these consequences are necessary evils which do not invalidate the principle; so that it as unreasonable to rebel against property on account of the abuses which it generates, as to complain of life because it is sure to end in death.This brutal and pitiless philosophy promises at least frank and close reasoning.Let us see if it keeps its promise.
"We talk very gravely about the conditions of property,...as if it was our province to decide what constitutes property....It would seem, to hear certain philosophers and legislators, that at a certain moment, spontaneously and without cause, people began to use the words THINE and MINE; and that they might have, or ought to have, dispensed with them.But THINE and MINE were never invented."A philosopher yourself, you are too realistic.THINE and MINE do not necessarily refer to self, as they do when I say your philosophy, and my equality; for your philosophy is you philosophizing, and my equality is I professing equality.
THINE and MINE oftener indicate a relation,--YOUR country, YOUR parish, YOUR tailor, YOUR milkmaid; MY chamber, MYseat at the theatre, MY company and MY battalion in the National Guard.In the former sense, we may sometimes say MYlabor, MY skill, MY virtue; never MY grandeur nor MYmajesty: in the latter sense only, MY field, MY house, MYvineyard, MY capital,--precisely as the banker's clerk says MY cash-box.In short, THINE and MINE are signs and expressions of personal, but equal, rights; applied to things outside of us, they indicate possession, function, use, not property.
It does not seem possible, but, nevertheless, I shall prove, by quotations, that the whole theory of our author is based upon this paltry equivocation.
"Prior to all covenants, men are, not exactly, as Hobbes says, in a state of HOSTILITY, but of ESTRANGEMENT.In this state, justice and injustice are unknown; the rights of one bear no relation to the rights of another.All have as many rights as needs, and all feel it their duty to satisfy those needs by any means at their command."Grant it; whether true or false, it matters not.Destutt de Tracy cannot escape equality.On this theory, men, while in a state of ESTRANGEMENT, are under no obligations to each other; they all have the right to satisfy their needs without regard to the needs of others, and consequently the right to exercise their power over Nature, each according to his strength and ability.That involves the greatest inequality of wealth.
Inequality of conditions, then, is the characteristic feature of estrangement or barbarism: the exact opposite of Rousseau's idea.
But let us look farther:--
"Restrictions of these rights and this duty commence at the time when covenants, either implied or expressed, are agreed upon.
Then appears for the first time justice and injustice; that is, the balance between the rights of one and the rights of another, which up to that time were necessarily equal."Listen: RIGHTS WERE EQUAL; that means that each individual had the right to SATISFY HIS NEEDS WITHOUT REFERENCE TO THE NEEDS OFOTHERS.In other words, that all had the right to injure each other; that there was no right save force and cunning.They injured each other, not only by war and pillage, but also by usurpation and appropriation.Now, in order to abolish this equal right to use force and stratagem,--this equal right to do evil, the sole source of the inequality of benefits and injuries,--they commenced to make COVENANTS EITHER IMPLIED OREXPRESSED, and established a balance.Then these agreements and this balance were intended to secure to all equal comfort; then, by the law of contradictions, if isolation is the principle of inequality, society must produce equality.The social balance is the equalization of the strong and the weak; for, while they are not equals, they are strangers; they can form no associations,--they live as enemies.Then, if inequality of conditions is a necessary evil, so is isolation, for society and inequality are incompatible with each other.Then, if society is the true condition of man's existence, so is equality also.This conclusion cannot be avoided.
