Protection and Communism

'First – There is opened, in the budget of 1849, in favour of the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, a credit of ten millions, to meet advances to the proprietors and associations of proprietors of rural districts.' Confess that if this legislative language was rendered with exactness, it should have been: —

'The Minister of Agriculture and Commerce is authorized, during the year 1849, to take the sum of ten millions from the pocket of the labourers who are in great want of it, and to whom it belongs, to put it in the pocket of other labourers who are equally in want of it, and to whom it does not belong.'

Is not this an act of Communism, and if made general, would it not constitute the system of Communism?

The manufacturer, who would die sooner than steal a farthing, does not in the least scruple to make this request of the legislature – 'Pass me a law which raises the price of my cloth, my iron, my coal, and enable me to overcharge my purchasers.' As the motive upon which he founds this demand is that he is not content with the profit, at which trade unfettered or free-trade would fix it, (which I affirm to be the same thing, whatever they may say,) so, on the other hand, as we are all dissatisfied with our profits, and disposed to call in the aid of the law, it is clear, at least to me, that if the legislature does not hasten to reply, 'That does not signify to us; we are not charged to violate property, but to protect it,' it is clear, I say, that we are in downright Communism. The machinery put in motion by the state to effect the object may differ from what we have indicated, but it has the same aim, and involves the same principle.

Suppose I present myself at the bar of the National Assembly, and say, 'I exercise a trade, and I do not find that my profits are sufficient: consequently I pray you to pass a law authorizing the tax-collectors to levy, for my benefit, only one centime upon each French family,' If the legislature grants my request, this could only be taken as a single act of legal robbery, which does not at this point merit the name of Communism. But if all Frenchmen, one after the other, made the same request, and if the legislature examined them with the avowed object of realizing the equality of goods, it is in this principle, followed by its effects, that I see, and that you cannot help seeing, Communism.

Whether, in order to realize its theory, the legislature employs custom-house officers or excise collectors, imposes direct or indirect taxes, encourages by protection or premiums, matters but little. Does it believe itself authorized to take and to give without compensation? Does it believe that its province is to regulate profits? Does it act in consequence of this belief? Do the mass of the public approve of it? – do they compel this species of action? If so, I say we are upon the descent which leads to Communism, whether we are conscious of it or not.

And if they say to me, the state never acts thus in favour of any one, but only in favour of some classes, I would reply – Then it has found the means of making Communism even worse than it naturally is.

I know, Sir, that some doubt is thrown on these conclusions by the aid of a ready confusion of ideas. Some administrative acts are quoted, very legitimate cases in their way, where the intervention of the state is as equitable as it is useful; then, establishing an apparent analogy between these cases, and those against which I protest, they will attempt to place me in the wrong, and will say to me – 'As you can only see Communism in Protection, so you ought to see it in every case where government interferes.'

This is a trap into which I will not fall.

This is why I am compelled to inquire what is the precise circumstance which impresses on state intervention the communistic character.

What is the province of the state? What are the things which individuals ought to entrust to the Supreme Power? Which are those which they ought to reserve for private enterprise? To reply to these questions would require a dissertation on political economy. Fortunately I need not do this for the purpose of solving the problem before us.

When men, in place of labouring for themselves individually, combine with others, that is to say, when they club together to execute any work, or to produce a result by an united exertion, I do not call that Communism, because I see nothing in this of its peculiar characteristic, equalizing conditions by violent means. The state takes, it is true, by taxes, but it renders service for them in return. It is a particular but legitimate form of that foundation of all society, exchange. I go still further. In intrusting a special service to be done by the state, it may be made beneficial, or otherwise, according to its nature and the mode in which it is effected. Beneficial, if by this means the service is made with superior perfection and economy, and the reverse on the opposite hypothesis: but in either case I do not perceive the principle of Communism. The proceeding in the first was attended with success; in the second, with failure, that is all; and if Communism is a mistake, it does not follow that every mistake is Communism.

Political economists are in general very distrustful on the question of the intervention of government. They see in it inconveniences of all sorts, a discouragement of individual liberty, energy, foresight, and experience, which are the surest foundations of society. It often happens, then, that they have to resist this intervention. But it is not at all on the same ground and from the same motive which makes them repudiate Protection. Our opponents cannot, therefore, fairly turn any argument against us in consequence of our predilections, expressed, perhaps, without sufficient caution for the freedom of private enterprise, nor say, 'It is not surprising that these people reject the system of Protection, for they reject the intervention of the state in everything.'

First, it is not true that we reject it in everything: we admit that it is the province of the state to maintain order and security, to enforce regard for person and property, to repress fraud and violence. As to the services which partake, so to speak, of an industrial character, we have no other rule than this: that the state may take charge of these, if the result is a saving of labour to the mass of the people. But pray, in the calculation, take into account all the innumerable inconveniences of labour monopolized by the state.

Secondly, I am obliged to repeat it, it is one thing to protest against any new interference on the part of the state on the ground that, when the calculation was made, it was found that it would be disadvantageous to do so, and that it would result in a national loss; and it is another thing to resist it because it is illegitimate, violent, unprincipled, and because it assigns to the government to do precisely what it is its proper duty to prevent and to punish. Now against the system called Protection these two species of objections may be urged, but it is against the principle last mentioned, fenced round as it is by legal forms, that incessant war should be waged.

Thus, for example, men would submit to a municipal council the question of knowing whether it would be better that each family in a town should go and seek the water it requires at the distance of some quarter of a league, or whether it is more advantageous that the local authority should levy an assessment to bring the water to the marketplace. I should not have any objection in principle to enter into the examination of this question. The calculation of the advantages and inconveniences for all would be the sole element in the decision. One might be mistaken in the calculation, but the error, which in this instance may involve the loss of property, would not be a systematic violation of it.

But when the mayor proposes to discourage one trade for the advantage of another, to prohibit boots for the advantage of the shoemaker, or something like it, then would I say to him, that in this instance he acts no longer on a calculation of advantages and inconveniences; he acts by means of an abuse of power, and a violent perversion of the public authority; I would say to him, 'You who are the depositary of power and of the public authority to chastise robbery, dare you apply that power and authority to protect it and render it systematic?'

Should the idea of the mayor prevail, if I see, in consequence of this precedent all the trading classes of the village bestirring themselves, to ask for favours at the expense of each other – if in the midst of this tumult of unscrupulous attempts I see them confound even the notion of property, I must be allowed to assume that, to save it from destruction, the first thing to do is to point out what has been iniquitous in the measure, which formed the first link of the chain of these deplorable events.

It would not be difficult, Sir, to find in your work passages which support my position and corroborate my views. To speak the truth, I might consult it almost by chance for this purpose. Thus, opening the book at hap-hazard, I would probably find a passage condemning, either expressly or by implication, the system of Protection – proof of the identity of this system in principle with Communism. Let me make the trial. At page 283, I read: —

'It is, then, a grave mistake to lay the blame upon competition, and not to have perceived that if the people are the producers, they are also the consumers, and that receiving less on one side,' (which I deny, and which you deny yourself some lines lower down,) 'paying less on the other, there remains then, for the advantage of all, the difference between a system which restrains human activity, and a system which places it in its proper course, and inspires it with ceaseless energy.'

I defy you to say that this argument does not apply with equal force to foreign as to domestic competition. Let us try again. At page 325, we find:

'Men either possess certain rights, or they do not. If they do – if these rights exist, they entail certain inevitable consequences…

But more than this, they must be the same at all times; they are entire and absolute – past, present, and to come – in all seasons; and not only when it may please you to declare them to be, but when it may please the workmen to appeal to them.'

Will you maintain that an iron-master has an undefined right to hinder me for ever from producing indirectly two hundredweight of iron in my manufactory, for the sake of producing one hundred-weight in a direct manner in his own? This right, also, I repeat, either exists, or it does not. If it does exist, it must be absolute at all times and in all seasons; not only when it may please you to declare it to be so, but when it may please the iron-masters to claim its protection.

Let us again try our luck. At page 63, I read, —

'Property does not exist, if I cannot give as well as consume it.'

We say so likewise. 'Property does not exist, if I cannot exchange as well as consume it;' and permit me to add, that the right of exchange is at least as valuable, as important in a social point of view, as characteristic of property, as the right of gift. It is to be regretted, that in a work written for the purpose of examining property under all its aspects, you have thought it right to devote two chapters to an investigation of the latter right, which is in but little danger, and not a line to that of exchange, which is so boldly attacked, even under the shelter of the laws.

Again, at page 47: —

'Man has an absolute property in his person and in his faculties. He has a derivative one, less inherent in his nature, but not less sacred, in what these faculties may produce, which embraces all that can be called the wealth of this world, and which society is in the highest degree interested in protecting; for without this protection there would be no labour; without labour, no civilization, not even the necessaries of life – nothing but misery, robbery, and barbarism.'7

Well, Sir, let us make a comment, if you do not object, on this text.

Like you, I see property at first in the free disposal of the person; then of the faculties; finally, of the produce of those faculties, which proves, I may say as a passing remark, that, from a certain point of view, Liberty and Property are identical.

I dare hardly say, like you, that property in the produce of our faculties is less inherent in our nature than property in these faculties themselves. Strictly speaking, that may be true; but whether a man is debarred from exercising his faculties, or deprived of what they may produce, the result is the same, and that result is called Slavery. This is another proof of the identity of the nature of liberty and property. If I force a man to labour for my profit, that man is my slave. He is so still, if, leaving him personal liberty, I find means, by force or by fraud, to appropriate to myself the fruits of his labour. The first kind of oppression is the more brutal, the second the more subtle. As it has been remarked that free labour is more intelligent and productive, it may be surmised that the masters have said to themselves, 'Do not let us claim directly the powers of our slaves, but let us take possession of much richer booty – the produce of their faculties freely exercised, and let us give to this new form of servitude the engaging name of Protection.'

You say, again, that society is interested in rendering property secure. We are agreed; only I go further than you; and if by society you mean government, I say that its only province as regards property is to guarantee it in the most ample manner; that if it tries to measure and distribute it by that very act, government, instead of guaranteeing, infringes it. This deserves examination.

When a certain number of men, who cannot live without labour and without property, unite to support a common authority, they evidently desire to be able to labour, and to enjoy the fruits of their labour in all security, and not to place their faculties and their properties at the mercy of that authority. Even antecedent to all form of regular government, I do not believe that individuals could be properly deprived of the right of defence– the right of defending their persons, their faculties, and their possessions.

Without pretending, in this place, to philosophise upon the origin and the extent of the rights of governments – a vast subject, well calculated to deter me – permit me to submit the following idea to you. It seems to me that the rights of the state can only be the reduction into method of personal rights previously existing. I cannot, for myself, conceive collective right which has not its root in individual right, and does not presume it. Then, in order to know if the state is legitimately invested with a right, it is incumbent on us to ask whether this right dwells in the individual in virtue of his being and independently of all government.

It is upon this principle that I denied some time ago the right of labour. I said, since Peter has no right to take directly from Paul what Paul has acquired by his labour, there is no better foundation for this pretended right through the intervention of the state: for the state is but the public authority created by Peter and by Paul, at their expense, with a defined and clear object in view, but which never can render that just which is in itself not so. It is with the aid of this touchstone that I test the distinction between property secured and property controlled by the state. Why has the state the right to secure, even by force, every man's property? Because this right exists previously in the individual. No one can deny to individuals the right of lawful defence– the right of employing force, if necessary, to repel the injuries directed against their persons, their faculties, and their effects. It is conceived that this individual right, since it resides in all men, can assume the collective form, and justify the employment of public authority. And why has the state no right to equalize or apportion worldly wealth? Because, in order to do so, it is necessary to rob some in order to gratify others. Now, as none of the thirty-five millions of Frenchmen have the right to take by force, under the pretence of rendering fortunes more equal, it does not appear how they could invest public authority with this right.

And remark, that the right of distributing8 the wealth of individuals is destructive of the right which secures it. There are the savages. They have not yet formed a government; but each of them possesses the right of lawful defence. And it is easy to perceive that it is this right which will become the basis of legitimate public authority. If one of these savages has devoted his time, his strength, his intelligence to make a bow and arrows, and another wishes to take these from him, all the sympathies of the tribe will be on the side of the victim; and if the cause is submitted to the judgment of the elders, the robber will infallibly be condemned. From that there is but one step to the organization of public power. But I ask you – Is the province of this public power, at least its lawful province, to repress the act of him who defends his property in virtue of his abstract right, or the act of him who violates, contrary to that right, the property of another? It would be singular enough if public authority was based, not upon the rights of individuals, but upon their permanent and systematic violation! No; the author of the book before me could not support such a position. But it is scarcely enough that he could not support it; he ought perhaps to condemn it. It is scarcely enough to attack this gross and absurd Communism disseminated in low newspapers. It would perhaps have been better to have unveiled and rebuked that other and more audacious and subtle Communism, which, by the simple perversion of the just idea of the rights of government, insinuates itself into some branches of our legislation, and threatens to invade all.

For, Sir, it is quite incontestable that by the action of the tariffs – by means of Protection – governments realize this monstrous thing of which I have spoken so much. They abandon the right of lawful defence, previously existing in all men, the source and foundation of their own existence, to arrogate to themselves a pretended right of equalizing the fortunes of all by means of robbery, a right which, not existing before in any one, cannot therefore exist in the community.

But to what purpose is it to insist upon these general ideas? Why should I show the absurdity of Communism, since you have done so yourself (except as to one of its aspects, and, as I think, practically the most threatening) much better than it was in my power to effect?

Perhaps you will say to me that the principle of the system of Protection is not opposed to the principle of property. See, then, the means by which this system operates.

These are two: by the aid of premiums or bounties, or by restriction.

As to the first, that is evident. I defy any one to maintain that the end of the system of premiums, pushed to its legitimate conclusion, is not absolute Communism. Men work under protection of the public authority, as you say, charged to secure to each one his own —suum cuique. But in this instance the state, with the most philanthropic intentions in the world, undertakes a task altogether new and different, and, according to me, not only exclusive, but destructive of the first. It constitutes itself the judge of profits; it decides that this interest is not sufficiently remunerated, and that that is too much so; it stands as the distributor of fortunes, and makes, as M. Billault phrases it, the pendulum of civilization oscillate from the liberty of individual action to its opposite. Consequently it imposes upon the community at large a contribution for the purpose of making a present, under the name of premiums, to the exporters of a particular kind of produce. The pretext is to favour industry; it ought to say, one particular interest at the expense of all the others. I shall not stop to show that it stimulates the off-shoot at the expense of that branch which bears the fruit; but I ask you, on entering on this course, does it not justify every interest to come and claim a premium, if it can prove that the profits gained by it are not as much as those obtained by other interests? Is it not the duty of the state to listen, to entertain, to give ear to every demand, and to do justice between the applicants. I do not believe it; but those who do so, should have the courage to put their thoughts in this form, and to say – Government is not charged to render property secure, but to distribute it equally. In other words, there is no such thing as property.

I only discuss here a question of principle. If I wished to investigate the subject of premiums for exportation, as shown in their economical effects, I could place them in the most ridiculous light, for they are nothing more than a gratuitous gift made by France to foreigners. It is not the seller who receives it, but the purchaser, in virtue of that law which you yourself have stated with regard to taxes; the consumer in the end supports all the charges, as he reaps all the advantages of production. Thus we are brought to the subject of premiums, one of the most mortifying and mystifying things possible. Some foreign governments have reasoned thus: 'If we raise our import duties to a figure equal to the premium paid by the tax-payers in France, it is clear that nothing will be changed as regards our consumers, for the net price will remain the same. The goods reduced by five francs on the French frontier, will pay five francs more at the German frontier; it is an infallible means of paying our public expenses out of the French Treasury.' But other governments, they assure me, have been more ingenious still. They have said to themselves, 'The premium given by France is properly a present she makes us; but if we raise the duty, no reason would exist why more of those particular goods should be imported than in past times; we ourselves place a limit on the generosity of these excellent French people; let us abolish, on the contrary, provisionally, these duties; let us encourage, for instance, an unusual introduction of cloths, since every yard brings with it an absolute gift.' In the first case, our premiums have gone to the foreign exchequer; in the second they have profited, but upon a larger scale, private individuals.

Let us pass on to restriction.

I am a workman – a joiner, for example – I have a little workshop, tools, some materials. All these things incontestably belong to me, for I have made them, or, which comes to the same thing, I have bought and paid for them. Still more, I have strong arms, some intelligence, and plenty of good will. On this foundation I endeavour to provide for my own wants and for those of my family. Remark, that I cannot directly produce anything which is useful to me, neither iron, nor wood, nor bread, nor wine, nor meat, nor stuffs, &c., but I can produce the value of them. Finally, these things must, so to speak, circulate under another form, from my saw and my plane. It is my interest to receive honestly the largest possible quantity in exchange for the produce of my labour. I say honestly, because it is not my desire to infringe on the property or the liberty of any one. But I also demand that my own property and liberty be held equally inviolable. The other workmen and I, agreed upon this point, impose upon ourselves some sacrifices; we give up a portion of our labour to some men called public functionaries, because theirs is the special function to secure our labour and its produce from every injury that might befal either from within or from without.

Matters being thus arranged, I prepare to put my intelligence, my arms, my saw, and plane into activity. Naturally my eyes are always fixed on those things necessary to my existence, and which it is my duty to produce indirectly in creating what is equal to them in value. The problem is, that I should produce them in the most advantageous manner possible. Consequently I look at values generally, or what, in other words, may be called the current or market price of articles. I am satisfied, judging from these materials in my possession, that my means for obtaining the largest quantity possible of fuel, for example, with the smallest possible quantity of labour, is to make a piece of furniture, to send it to a Belgian, who will give me in return some coal.