November 30.--LITERARY PROPERTY.M.Wolowski grants that it is just to recognize the rights of talent (which is not in the least hostile to equality); but he seriously objects to perpetual and absolute property in the works of genius, to the profit of the authors' heirs.His main argument is, that society has a right of collective production over every creation of the mind.Now, it is precisely this principle of collective power that Ideveloped in my "Inquiries into Property and Government,"and on which I have established the complete edifice of a new social organization.M.Wolowski is, as far as I know, the first jurist who has made a legislative application of this economical law.Only, while I have extended the principle of collective power to every sort of product, M.Wolowski, more prudent than it is my nature to be, confines it to neutral ground.So, that that which I am bold enough to say of the whole, he is contented to affirm of a part, leaving the intelligent hearer to fill up the void for himself.However, his arguments are keen and close.
One feels that the professor, finding himself more at ease with one aspect of property, has given the rein to his intellect, and is rushing on towards liberty.
1.Absolute literary property would hinder the activity of other men, and obstruct the development of humanity.It would be the death of progress; it would be suicide.What would have happened if the first inventions,--the plough, the level, the saw, &c.,--had been appropriated?
Such is the first proposition of M.Wolowski.
I reply: Absolute property in land and tools hinders human activity, and obstructs progress and the free development of man.
What happened in Rome, and in all the ancient nations? What occurred in the middle ages? What do we see to-day in England, in consequence of absolute property in the sources of production?
The suicide of humanity.
2.Real and personal property is in harmony with the social interest.In consequence of literary property, social and individual interests are perpetually in conflict.
The statement of this proposition contains a rhetorical figure, common with those who do not enjoy full and complete liberty of speech.This figure is the _anti-phrasis_ or _contre-verite_.It consists, according to Dumarsais and the best humanists, in saying one thing while meaning another.
M.Wolowski's proposition, naturally expressed, would read as follows: "Just as real and personal property is essentially hostile to society, so, in consequence of literary property, social and individual interests are perpetually in conflict."3.M.de Montalembert, in the Chamber of Peers, vehemently protested against the assimilation of authors to inventors of machinery; an assimilation which he claimed to be injurious to the former.M.Wolowski replies, that the rights of authors, without machinery, would be nil; that, without paper-mills, type foundries, and printing-offices, there could be no sale of verse and prose; that many a mechanical invention,--the compass, for instance, the telescope, or the steam-engine,--is quite as valuable as a book.
Prior to M.Montalembert, M.Charles Comte had laughed at the inference in favor of mechanical inventions, which logical minds never fail to draw from the privileges granted to authors."He,"says M.Comte, "who first conceived and executed the idea of transforming a piece of wood into a pair of sabots, or an animal's hide into a pair of sandals, would thereby have acquired an exclusive right to make shoes for the human race!"Undoubtedly, under the system of property.For, in fact, this pair of sabots, over which you make so merry, is the creation of the shoemaker, the work of his genius, the expression of his thought; to him it is his poem, quite as much as "Le Roi s'amuse," is M.Victor Hugo's drama.Justice for all alike.If you refuse a patent to a perfecter of boots, refuse also a privilege to a maker of rhymes.
4.That which gives importance to a book is a fact external to the author and his work.Without the intelligence of society, without its development, and a certain community of ideas, passions, and interests between it and the authors, the works of the latter would be worth nothing.The exchangeable value of a book is due even more to the SOCIAL CONDITION than to the talent displayed in it.
Indeed, it seems as if I were copying my own words.This proposition of M.Wolowski contains a special expression of a general and absolute idea, one of the strongest and most conclusive against the right of property.Why do artists, like mechanics, find the means to live? Because society has made the fine arts, like the rudest industries, objects of consumption and exchange, governed consequently by all the laws of commerce and political economy.Now, the first of these laws is the equipoise of functions; that is, the equality of associates.
