I confirm this theory against M.Considerant, by the third term of his syllogism:--Conclusion.--"The results of the labor performed by this generation are divisible into two classes, between which it is important clearly to distinguish.The first class includes the products of the soil which belong to this first generation in its usufructuary capacity, augmented, improved and refined by its labor and industry.These products consist either of objects of consumption or instruments of labor.It is clear that these products are the legitimate property of those who have created them by their activity....Second class.--Not only has this generation created the products just mentioned (objects of consumption and instruments of labor), but it has also added to the original value of the soil by cultivation, by the erection of buildings, by all the labor producing permanent results, which it has performed.This additional value evidently constitutes a product--a value created by the activity of the first generation;and if, BY ANY MEANS WHATEVER, the ownership of this value be distributed among the members of society equitably,--that is, in proportion to the labor which each has performed,--each will legitimately possess the portion which he receives.He may then dispose of this legitimate and private property as he sees fit,--exchange it, give it away, or transfer it; and no other individual, or collection of other individuals,--that is, society,--can lay any claim to these values."Thus, by the distribution of collective capital, to the use of which each associate, either in his own right or in right of his authors, has an imprescriptible and undivided title, there will be in the phalanstery, as in the France of 1841, the poor and the rich; some men who, to live in luxury, have only, as Figaro says, to take the trouble to be born, and others for whom the fortune of life is but an opportunity for long-continued poverty; idlers with large incomes, and workers whose fortune is always in the future; some privileged by birth and caste, and others pariahs whose sole civil and political rights are THE RIGHT TO LABOR, AND THE RIGHT TO LAND.For we must not be deceived; in the phalanstery every thing will be as it is to-day, an object of property,--machines, inventions, thought, books, the products of art, of agriculture, and of industry; animals, houses, fences, vineyards, pastures, forests, fields,--every thing, in short, except the UNCULTIVATED LAND.Now, would you like to know what uncultivated land is worth, according to the advocates of property? "A square league hardly suffices for the support of a savage," says M.Charles Comte.Estimating the wretched subsistence of this savage at three hundred francs per year, we find that the square league necessary to his life is, relatively to him, faithfully represented by a rent of fifteen francs.In France there are twenty-eight thousand square leagues, the total rent of which, by this estimate, would be four hundred and twenty thousand francs, which, when divided among nearly thirty-four millions of people, would give each an INCOME OF A CENTIME AND AQUARTER.That is the new right which the great genius of Fourier has invented IN BEHALF OF THE FRENCH PEOPLE, and with which his first disciple hopes to reform the world.I denounce M.Considerant to the proletariat!
If the theory of M.Considerant would at least really guarantee this property which he cherishes so jealously, I might pardon him the flaws in his syllogism, certainly the best one he ever made in his life.But, no: that which M.Considerant takes for property is only a privilege of extra pay.In Fourier's system, neither the created capital nor the increased value of the soil are divided and appropriated in any effective manner: the instruments of labor, whether created or not, remain in the hands of the phalanx; the pretended proprietor can touch only the income.He is permitted neither to realize his share of the stock, nor to possess it exclusively, nor to administer it, whatever it be.The cashier throws him his dividend; and then, proprietor, eat the whole if you can!
The system of Fourier would not suit the proprietors, since it takes away the most delightful feature of property,--the free disposition of one's goods.It would please the communists no better, since it involves unequal conditions.It is repugnant to the friends of free association and equality, in consequence of its tendency to wipe out human character and individuality by suppressing possession, family, and country,--the threefold expression of the human personality.
