sharper, or the more cunning, is the more honest man, and the better merchant.”
Such is the exact spirit of the Code Napoleon.
tenth proposition.
Property is impossible, because it is the Negation of equality.
The development of this proposition will be the résumé of the preceding ones.
1. It is a principle of economical justice, that products are bought only by products. Property, being capable of defence only on the ground that it produces utility, is, since it produces nothing, for ever condemned.
2. It is an economical law, that labor must be balanced by product. It is a fact that, with property, production costs more than it is worth.
3. Another economical law: The capital being given, production is measured, not by the amount of capital, but by productive capacity. Property, requiring income to be always proportional to capital without regard to labor, does not recognize this relation of equality between effect and cause.
4 and 5. Like the insect which spins its silk, the laborer never produces for himself alone. Property, demanding a double product and unable to obtain it, robs the laborer, and kills him.
6. Nature has given to every man but one mind, one heart, one will. Property, granting to one individual a plurality of votes, supposes him to have a plurality of minds.
7. All consumption which is not reproductive of utility is destruction. Property, whether it consumes or hoards or capitalizes, is productive of inutility,—the cause of sterility and death.
