If this memoir had appeared in the time of Bossuet, that great theologian would have PROVED by scripture, the fathers, traditions, councils, and popes, that property exists by Divine right, while usury is an invention of the devil; and the heretical work would have been burned, and the author imprisoned.
We rob,--13.By farm-rent, house-rent, and leases of all kinds.
The author of the "Provincial Letters" entertained the honest Christians of the seventeenth century at the expense of Escobar, the Jesuit, and the contract Mohatra." The contract Mohatra," said Escobar, "is a contract by which goods are bought, at a high price and on credit, to be again sold at the same moment to the same person, cash down, and at a lower price." Escobar found a way to justify this kind of usury.Pascal and all the Jansenists laughed at him.But what would the satirical Pascal, the learned Nicole, and the invincible Arnaud have said, if Father Antoine Escobar de Valladolid had answered them thus: "A lease is a contract by which real estate is bought, at a high price and on credit, to be again sold, at the expiration of a certain time, to the same person, at a lower price; only, to simplify the transaction, the buyer is content to pay the difference between the first sale and the second.Either deny the identity of the lease and the contract Mohatra, and then I will annihilate you in a moment;or, if you admit the similarity, admit also the soundness of my doctrine: otherwise you proscribe both interest and rent at one blow"?
In reply to this overwhelming argument of the Jesuit, the sire of Montalte would have sounded the tocsin, and would have shouted that society was in peril,--that the Jesuits were sapping its very foundations.
We rob,--14.By commerce, when the profit of the merchant exceeds his legitimate salary.
Everybody knows the definition of commerce--THE ART OF BUYINGFOR THREE FRANCS THAT WHICH IS WORTH SIX, AND OF SELLING FOR SIXTHAT WHICH IS WORTH THREE.Between commerce thus defined and _vol a l'americaine_, the only difference is in the relative proportion of the values exchanged,--in short, in the amount of the profit.
We rob,--15.By making profit on our product, by accepting sinecures, and by exacting exorbitant wages.
The farmer, who sells a certain amount of corn to the consumer, and who during the measurement thrusts his hand into the bushel and takes out a handful of grains, robs; the professor, whose lectures are paid for by the State, and who through the intervention of a bookseller sells them to the public a second time, robs; the sinecurist, who receives an enormous product in exchange for his vanity, robs; the functionary, the laborer, whatever he may be, who produces only one and gets paid four, one hundred, or one thousand, robs; the publisher of this book, and I, its author,--we rob, by charging for it twice as much as it is worth.
In recapitulation:--
Justice, after passing through the state of negative communism, called by the ancient poets the AGE OF GOLD, commences as the right of the strongest.In a society which is trying to organize itself, inequality of faculties calls up the idea of merit;equite suggests the plan of proportioning not only esteem, but also material comforts, to personal merit; and since the highest and almost the only merit then recognized is physical strength, the strongest, {GREEK ` eg }, and consequently the best, {GREEK` eg }, is entitled to the largest share; and if it is refused him, he very naturally takes it by force.From this to the assumption of the right of property in all things, it is but one step.
Such was justice in the heroic age, preserved, at least by tradition, among the Greeks and Romans down to the last days of their republics.Plato, in the "Gorgias," introduces a character named Callicles, who spiritedly defends the right of the strongest, which Socrates, the advocate of equality, {GREEK g e }, seriously refutes.It is related of the great Pompey, that he blushed easily, and, nevertheless, these words once escaped his lips: "Why should I respect the laws, when I have arms in my hand?" This shows him to have been a man in whom the moral sense and ambition were struggling for the mastery, and who sought to justify his violence by the motto of the hero and the brigand.
From the right of the strongest springs the exploitation of man by man, or bondage; usury, or the tribute levied upon the conquered by the conqueror; and the whole numerous family of taxes, duties, monarchical prerogatives, house-rents, farm-rents, &c.; in one word,--property.
Force was followed by artifice, the second manifestation of justice, which was detested by the ancient heroes, who, not excelling in that direction, were heavy losers by it.Force was still employed, but mental force instead of physical.Skill in deceiving an enemy by treacherous propositions seemed deserving of reward; nevertheless, the strong always prided themselves upon their honesty.In those days, oaths were observed and promises kept according to the letter rather than the spirit: _Uti lingua nuncupassit, ita jus esto_,--"As the tongue has spoken, so must the right be," says the law of the Twelve Tables.Artifice, or rather perfidy, was the main element in the politics of ancient Rome.Among other examples, Vico cites the following, also quoted by Montesquieu: The Romans had guaranteed to the Carthaginians the preservation of their goods and their CITY,--intentionally using the word civitas, that is, the society, the State; the Carthaginians, on the contrary, understood them to mean the material city, urbs, and accordingly began to rebuild their walls.They were immediately attacked on account of their violation of the treaty, by the Romans, who, acting upon the old heroic idea of right, did not imagine that, in taking advantage of an equivocation to surprise their enemies, they were waging unjust war.
