Are not these very simple truths? Well, as simple as they seem to you, reader, you shall yet see others which surpass them in dullness and simplicity. For our course is the reverse of that of the geometricians: with them, the farther they advance, the more difficult their problems become; we, on the contrary, after having commenced with the most abstruse propositions, shall end with the axioms.
But I must close this chapter with an exposition of one of those startling truths which never have been dreamed of by legists or economists.
§ 8.—That, from the Stand-point of Justice, Labor destroys Property.
This proposition is the logical result of the two preceding sections, which we have just summed up.
The isolated man can supply but a very small portion of his wants; all his power lies in association, and in the intelligent combination of universal effort. The division and co-operation of labor multiply the quantity and the variety of products; the individuality of functions improves their quality.
There is not a man, then, but lives upon the products of several thousand different industries; not a laborer but receives from society at large the things which he consumes, and, with these, the power to reproduce. Who, indeed, would venture the assertion, “I produce, by my own effort, all that I consume; I need the aid of no one else”? The farmer, whom the early economists regarded as the only real producer—the farmer, housed, furnished, clothed, fed, and assisted by the mason, the carpenter, the tailor, the miller, the baker, the butcher, the grocer, the blacksmith, &c.,—the farmer, I say, can he boast that he produces by his own unaided effort?
The various articles of consumption are given to each by
