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community make them, and are very different in different ages and countries; and might be still more different, if mankind so chose.

show, that tribunals (which always precede laws) were originally established, not to determine rights, but to repress violence and terminate quarrels. With The opinions and feelings of man- this object chiefly in view, they naturkind, doubtless, are not a matter of ally enough gave legal effect to first chance. They are consequences of the occupancy, by treating as the aggressor fundamental laws of human nature, the person who first commenced viocombined with the existing state of lence, by turning, or attempting to turn, knowledge and experience, and the another out of possession. The preexisting condition of social institutions servation of the peace, which was the and intellectual and moral culture. original object of civil government, was But the laws of the generation of thus attained; while by confirming, to human opinions are not within our those who already possessed it, even present subject. They are part of the what was not the fruit of personal exgeneral theory of human progress, a ertion, a guarantee was incidentally far larger and more difficult subject given to them and others that they of inquiry than political economy. We would be protected in what was so. have here to consider, not the causes,In considering the institution of probut the consequences of the rules ac-perty as a question in social philosophy, cording to which wealth may be dis- we must leave out of consideration its tributed. Those, at least, are as little actual origin in any of the existing naarbitrary, and have as much the tions of Europe. We may suppose a character of physical laws, as the laws community unhampered by any preof production. Human beings can vious possession; a body of colonists, control their own acts, but not the occupying for the first time an uninhaconsequences of their acts either to bited country; bringing nothing with themselves or to others. Society can them but what belonged to them in subject the distribution of wealth to common, and having a clear field for whatever rules it thinks best; but what the adoption of the institutions and practical results will flow from the opera- polity which they judged most expetion of those rules, must be discovered, dient; required, therefore, to choose like any other physical or mental truths, whether they would conduct the work by observation and reasoning. of production on the principle of individual property, or on some system of common ownership and collective agency.

We proceed, then, to the consideration of the different modes of distributing the produce of land and labour, which have been adopted in practice, If private property were adopted, we or may be conceived in theory. Among must presume that it would be accomthese, our attention is first claimed by panied by none of the initial inequathat primary and fundamental institu-lities and injustices which obstruct the tion, on which, unless in some exceptional and very limited cases, the economical arrangements of society have always rested, though in its secondary features it has varied, and is liable to vary. I mean, of course, the institution of individual property.

§ 2. Private property, as an institution, did not owe its origin to any of those considerations of utility, which plead for the maintenance of it when established. Enough is known of rude ages, both from history and from analogous states of society in our own time, to

beneficial operation of the principle in old societies. Every full-grown man or woman, we must suppose, would be secured in the unfettered use and disposal of his or her bodily and mental faculties; and the instruments of production, the land and tools, would be divided fairly among them, so that all might start, in respect to outward appliances, on equal terms. It is possible also to conceive that in this original apportionment, compensation might be made for the injuries of nature, and the balance redressed by assigning to the less robust members of the community

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advantages in the distribution, sufficient to put them on a par with the rest. But the division, once made, would not again be interfered with; individuals would be left to their own exertions and to the ordinary chances, for making an advantageous use of what was assigned to them. If individual property, on the contrary, were excluded, the plan which must be adopted would be to hold the land and all instruments of production as the joint property of the community, and to carry on the operations of industry on the common account. The direction of the labour of the community would devolve upon a magistrate or magistrates, whom we may suppose elected by the suffrages of the community, and whom we must assume to be voluntarily obeyed by them. The division of the produce would in like manner be a public act. The principle might either be that of complete equality, or of apportionment to the necessities or deserts of individuals, in whatever manner might be conformable to the ideas of justice or policy prevailing in the community.

Examples of such associations, on a small scale, are the monastic_orders, the Moravians, the followers of Rapp, and others and from the hopes which they hold out of relief from the miseries and iniquities of a state of much inequality of wealth, schemes for a larger application of the same idea have reappeared and become popular at all periods of active speculation on the first principles of society. In an age like the present, when a general reconsideration of all first principles is felt to be inevitable, and when more than at any former period of history the suffering portions of the community have a voice in the discussion, it was impossible but that ideas of this nature should spread far and wide. The late revolutions in Europe have thrown up a great amount of speculation of this character, and an unusual share of attention has consequently been drawn to the various forms which these ideas have assumed: nor is this attention likely to diminish, but on the contrary, to increase more and

more.

The assailants of the principle of in

dividual property may be divided into two classes: those whose scheme implies absolute equality in the distribu tion of the physical means of life and enjoyment, and those who admit inequality, but grounded on some principle, or supposed principle, of justice or general expediency, and not, like so many of the existing social inequalities, dependent on accident alone. At the head of the first class, as the earliest of those belonging to the present generation, must be placed Mr. Owen and his followers. M. Louis Blanc and M. Cabet have more recently become conspicuous as apostles of similar doctrines (though the former advocates equality of distribution only as a transition to a still higher standard of justice, that all should work according to their capacity, and receive according to their wants). The characteristic name for this economical system is Communism, a word of continental origin, only of late introduced into this country. The word Socialism, which originated among the English Communists, and was assumed by them as a name to designate their own doctrine, is now, on the Continent, employed in a larger sense; not necessarily implying Communism, or the entire abolition of private property, but applied to any system which requires that the land and the instruments of production should be the property, not of individuals, but of communities or associations, or of the government. Among such systems, the two of highest intellectual pretension are those which, from the names of their real or reputed authors, have been called St. Simonism and Fourierism; the former, defunct as a system, but which during the few years of its public promulgation, sowed the seeds of nearly all the Socialist tendencies which have since spread so widely in France: the second, still flourishing in the number, talent, and zeal of its adherents.

§ 3. Whatever may be the merits or defects of these various schemes, they cannot be truly said to be impracticable. No reasonable person can doubt that a village community, composed of a few thousand inhabitants cultivating

Dis

in joint ownership the same extent of proverbial value, it must be remem-laud which at present feeds that number bered that in a Socialist farm or manuof people, and producing by combined factory, each labourer would be under labour and the most improved processes the eye not of one master, but of the the manufactured articles which they whole community. In the extreme required, could raise an amount of pro- case of obstinate perseverance in not ductions sufficient to maintain them in performing the due share of work, the comfort; and would find the means of community would have the same reobtaining, and if need be, exacting, the sources which society now has for comquantity of labour necessary for this pelling conformity to the necessary purpose, from every member of the conditions of the association. association who was capable of work. missal, the only remedy at present, is The objection ordinarily made to a no remedy when any other labourer system of community of property and who may be engaged does no better equal distribution of the produce, that than his predecessor: the power of each person would be incessantly occu- dismissal only enables an employer to pied in evading his fair share of the obtain from his workmen the customary work, points, undoubtedly, to a real amount of labour, but that customary difficulty. But those who urge this labour may be of any degree of ineffiobjection, forget to how great an extent ciency. Even the labourer who loses the same difficulty exists under the his employment by idleness or neglisystem on which nine-tenths of the gence, has nothing worse to suffer, in business of society is now conducted. the most unfavourable case, than the The objection supposes, that honest and discipline of a workhouse, and if the efficient labour is only to be had from desire to avoid this be a sufficient mothose who are themselves individually tive in the one system, it would be to reap the benefit of their own exer- sufficient in the other. I am not tions. But how small a part of all the undervaluing the strength of the inlabour performed in England, from the citement given to labour when the lowest paid to the highest, is done by whole or a large share of the benefit of persons working for their own benefit. extra exertion belongs to the labourer. From the Irish reaper or hodman to But under the present system of inthe chief justice or the minister of dustry this incitement, in the great state, nearly all the work of society is majority of cases, does not exist: If remunerated by day wages or fixed Communistic labour might be less salaries. A factory operative has less vigorous than that of a peasant propersonal interest in his work than a prietor, or a workman labouring on his member of a Communist association, own account, it would probably be since he is not, like him, working for a more energetic than that of a labourer partnership of which he is himself a for hire, who has no personal interest member. It will no doubt be said, in the matter at all. The neglect by that though the labourers themselves the uneducated classes of labourers for have not, in most cases, a personal in-hire, of the duties which they engage terest in their work, they are watched and superintended, and their labour directed, and the mental part of the labour performed, by persons who have. Even this, however, is far from being universally the fact. In all public, and many of the largest and most successful private undertakings, not only the labours of detail, but the control and superintendence are entrusted to salaried officers. And though the "master's eye," when the master is vigilant and intelligent, is of

to perform, is in the present state of
society most flagrant. Now it is an
admitted condition of the Communist
scheme that all shall be educated: and
this being supposed, the duties of the
members of the association would
doubtless be as diligently performed as
those of the generality of salaried offi-
cers in the middle or higher classes;
who are not supposed to be neces-
sarily unfaithful to their trust, because
so long as they are not dismissed, their
pay is the same in however lax a

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manner their duty is fulfilled. Un- labour would be diminished by Comdoubtedly, as a general rule, remunera-munism, or whether in the long run it tion by fixed salaries does not in any would be diminished at all, must be class of functionaries produce the considered for the present an undecided maximum of zeal: and this is as much question. as can be reasonably alleged against Communistic labour.

That even this inferiority would necessarily exist, is by no means so certain as is assumed by those who are little used to carry their minds beyond the state of things with which they are familiar. Mankind are capable of a far greater amount of public spirit than the present age is accustomed to suppose possible. History bears witness to the success with which large bodies of human beings may be trained to feel the public interest their own. And no soil could be more favourable to the growth of such a feeling, than a Communist association, since all the ambition, and the bodily and mental activity, which are now exerted in the pursuit of separate and self-regarding interests, would require another sphere of employment, and would naturally find it in the pursuit of the general benefit of the community. The same cause, so often assigned in explanation of the devotion of the Catholic priest or monk to the interest of his orderthat he has no interest apart from itwould, under Communism, attach the citizen to the community. And independently of the public motive, every member of the association would be amenable to the most universal, and one of the strongest of personal motives, that of public opinion. The force of this motive in deterring from any act or omission positively reproved by the community, no one is likely to deny; but the power also of emulation, in exciting to the most strenuous exertions for the sake of the approbation and admiration of others, is borne witness to by experience in every situation in which human beings publicly compete with one another, even if it be in things frivolous, or from which the public derive no benefit. A contest, who can do most for the common good, is not the kind of competition which Socialists repudiate. To what extent, therefore, the energy of

Another of the objections to Communism is similar to that, so often urged against poor-laws: that if every member of the community were assured of subsistence for himself and any number of children, on the sole condition of willingness to work, prudential restraint on the multiplication of mankind would be at an end, and population would start forward at a rate which would reduce the community through successive stages of increasing discomfort to actual starvation. There would certainly be much ground for this apprehension if Communism provided no motives to restraint, equivalent to those which it would take away. But Communism is precisely the state of things in which opinion might be expected to declare itself with greatest intensity against this kind of selfish intemperance. Any augmentation of numbers which diminished the comfort or increased the toil of the mass, would then cause (which now it does not) immediate and unmistakeable inconvenience to every individual in the association; inconvenience which could not then be imputed to the avarice of employers, or the unjust privileges of the rich. In such altered circumstances opinion could not fail to reprobate, and if reprobation did not suffice, to repress by penalties of some description, this or any other culpable self-indulgence at the expense of the community. The Communistic scheme, instead of being peculiarly open to the objection drawn from danger of over-population, has the recommendation of tending in an especial degree to the prevention of that evil.

A more real difficulty is that of fairly apportioning the labour of the community among its members. There are many kinds of work, and by what standard are they to be measured one against another? Who is to judge how much cotton spinning, or distributing goods from the stores, or

bricklaying, or chimney sweeping, is equivalent to so much ploughing? The difficulty of making the adjustment between different qualities of labour is so strongly felt by Communist writers, that they have usually thought it necessary to provide that all should work by turns at every description of useful labour: an arrangement which by putting an end to the division of employments, would sacrifice so much of the advantage of cooperative production as greatly to diminish the productiveness of labour. Besides, even in the same kind of work, nominal equality of labour would be so great a real inequality, that the feeling of justice would revolt against its being enforced. All persons are not equally fit for all labour; and the same quantity of labour is an unequal burthen on the weak and the strong, the hardy and the delicate, the quick and the slow, the dull and the Lintelligent.

property necessarily carried with it as a consequence, that the produce of labour should be apportioned as we now see it, almost in an inverse ratio to the labour-the largest portions to those who have never worked at all, the next largest to those whose work is almost nominal, and so in a descending scale, the remuneration dwindling as the work grows harder and more disagreeable, until the most fatiguing and exhausting bodily labour cannot count with certainty on being able to earn even the necessaries of life; if this, or Communism, were the alternative, all the difficulties, great or small, of Communism would be but as dust in the balance. But to make the comparison applicable, we must compare Communism at its best, with the régime of individual property, not as it is, but as it might be made. The principle of private property has never yet had a fair trial in any country; and less so, perhaps, in this country than in some others. The social arrangements of modern Europe commenced from a distribution of property which was the result, not of just partition, or acquisition by industry, but of conquest and violence: and notwithstanding what industry has been doing for many centuries to modify the work of force, the system still retains many and large traces of its origin. The laws of property have never yet conformed to the principles on which the justification of private property rests. They have made property of things which never ought to be property, and absolute property where only a qualified property ought to exist. They have not held the balance fairly between human beings, but have heaped impediments upon some, to give advantage to others; they have purposely fostered inequalities, and prevented all from starting fair in the race. That all should indeed start on perfectly equal terms, is inconsistent with any law of private property: but if as much pains as has been taken to aggravate the inequality of chances arising from the natural working of the principle, had been taken to temper that inequality by every means not subversive of the

But these difficulties, though real, are not necessarily insuperable. The apportionment of work to the strength and capacities of individuals, the mitigation of a general rule to provide for cases in which it would operate harshly, are not problems to which human intelligence, guided by a sense of justice, would be inadequate. And the worst and most unjust arrangement which could be made of these points, under a system aiming at equality, would be so far short of the inequality and injustice with which labour (not to speak of remuneration) is now apportioned, as to be scarcely worth counting in the comparison. We must remember too that Communism, as a system of society, exists only in idea; that its difficulties, at present, are much better understood than its resources; and that the intellect of mankind is only beginning to contrive the means of organizing it in detail, so as to overcome the one and derive the greatest advantage from the other.

If, therefore, the choice were to be made between Communism with all its chances, and the present state of society with all its sufferings and injustices; if the institution of private

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