In society, functions are not alike; there must be, then, different capacities.Further,--certain functions demand greater intelligence and powers; then there are people of superior mind and talent.For the performance of work necessarily involves a workman: from the need springs the idea, and the idea makes the producer.We only know what our senses long for and our intelligence demands; we have no keen desire for things of which we cannot conceive, and the greater our powers of conception, the greater our capabilities of production.
Thus, functions arising from needs, needs from desires, and desires from spontaneous perception and imagination, the same intelligence which imagines can also produce; consequently, no labor is superior to the laborer.In a word, if the function calls out the functionary, it is because the functionary exists before the function.
Let us admire Nature's economy.With regard to these various needs which she has given us, and which the isolated man cannot satisfy unaided, Nature has granted to the race a power refused to the individual.This gives rise to the principle of the DIVISION OF LABOR,--a principle founded on the SPECIALITY OFVOCATIONS.
The satisfaction of some needs demands of man continual creation;while others can, by the labor of a single individual, be satisfied for millions of men through thousands of centuries.
For example, the need of clothing and food requires perpetual reproduction; while a knowledge of the system of the universe may be acquired for ever by two or three highly-gifted men.The perpetual current of rivers supports our commerce, and runs our machinery; but the sun, alone in the midst of space, gives light to the whole world.Nature, who might create Platos and Virgils, Newtons and Cuviers, as she creates husbandmen and shepherds, does not see fit to do so; choosing rather to proportion the rarity of genius to the duration of its products, and to balance the number of capacities by the competency of each one of them.
I do not inquire here whether the distance which separates one man from another, in point of talent and intelligence, arises from the deplorable condition of civilization, nor whether that which is now called the INEQUALITY OF POWERS would be in an ideal society any thing more than a DIVERSITY OF POWERS.Itake the worst view of the matter; and, that I may not be accused of tergiversation and evasion of difficulties, I acknowledge all the inequalities that any one can desire.
I cannot conceive how any one dares to justify the inequality of conditions, by pointing to the base inclinations and propensities of certain men.Whence comes this shameful degradation of heart and mind to which so many fall victims, if not from the misery and abjection into which property plunges them?
Certain philosophers, in love with the levelling idea, maintain that all minds are equal, and that all differences are the result of education.I am no believer, I confess, in this doctrine;which, even if it were true, would lead to a result directly opposite to that desired.For, if capacities are equal, whatever be the degree of their power (as no one can be coerced), there are functions deemed coarse, low, and degrading, which deserve higher pay,--a result no less repugnant to equality than to the principle, TO EACH CAPACITY ACCORDING TO ITS RESULTS.Give me, on the contrary, a society in which every kind of talent bears a proper numerical relation to the needs of the society, and which demands from each producer only that which his special function requires him to produce; and, without impairing in the least the hierarchy of functions, I will deduce the equality of fortunes.
This is my second point.
II.RELATIONS.In considering the element of labor, I have shown that in the same class of productive services, the capacity to perform a social task being possessed by all, no inequality of reward can be based upon an inequality of individual powers.
However, it is but fair to say that certain capacities seem quite incapable of certain services; so that, if human industry were entirely confined to one class of products, numerous incapacities would arise, and, consequently, the greatest social inequality.
But every body sees, without any hint from me, that the variety of industries avoids this difficulty; so clear is this that Ishall not stop to discuss it.We have only to prove, then, that functions are equal to each other; just as laborers, who perform the same function, are equal to each other.
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Property makes man a eunuch, and then reproaches him for being nothing but dry wood, a decaying tree.
Are you astonished that I refuse to genius, to knowledge, to courage,--in a word, to all the excellences admired by the world,--the homage of dignities, the distinctions of power and wealth? It is not I who refuse it: it is economy, it is justice, it is liberty.Liberty! for the first time in this discussion Iappeal to her.Let her rise in her own defence, and achieve her victory.
Every transaction ending in an exchange of products or services may be designated as a COMMERCIAL OPERATION.
Whoever says commerce, says exchange of equal values; for, if the values are not equal, and the injured party perceives it, he will not consent to the exchange, and there will be no commerce.
Commerce exists only among free men.Transactions may be effected between other people by violence or fraud, but there is no commerce.
A free man is one who enjoys the use of his reason and his faculties; who is neither blinded by passion, nor hindered or driven by oppression, nor deceived by erroneous opinions.
So, in every exchange, there is a moral obligation that neither of the contracting parties shall gain at the expense of the other; that is, that, to be legitimate and true, commerce must be exempt from all inequality.This is the first condition of commerce.Its second condition is, that it be voluntary; that is, that the parties act freely and openly.
