Lysander Spooner

“ One such invention as Fulton’s adds more to the wealth [*44] of the world than the mere manual labor of a whole gene­ration. Yet how many Fultons, in the past ages of the world, have had their genius smothered by luxury, or starved by want; and how has poverty been entailed upon the world in consequence. Who can conceive what would have been the present wealth of the world, but for the want of opportunity, on the part of inventors to enrich it by the productions of their genius? But war, and monopoly, (which is but a species of war,) have ever been employed in killing and starving mankind ”

“ Why do not legislatures make thorough work in demolishing, obliterat­ing, and erasing everything like natural right? We have still, nearly whole branches of law, on which legislation has not yet dared to lay its Vandal hand. Why are they spared? Is it because the utter extinction of justice would defeat the purposes of rapacity itself, by not allowing men to produce enough to be worth the robbing? ”

“ Nearly every man would be able to control his own labor, and secure to himself the whole of its fruits, (except what lie should pay as interest on his capital;) amid these would save him from that extreme poverty which instigates to crime. Monopolies also being broken down, there would be little or no great wealth, in the hands of single individuals, to excite his envy, or his desire for luxury and display. He would be able, without crime, to maintain a position near enough to the general level of society to save him from the temptation to crime. ”

“ If, tinder these circumstances, a debtor die, leaving his family destitute, they must depend, for their support, upon their own labor, amid the assistance of relatives and friends, or upon such provision as the public make, by general taxation, for the support of all who have no other means of subsistence. There is no justice in compelling those few individuals, who may have befriended, or loaned capital to the debtor, in his lifetime, to assume the burden of supporting his family after his death, by giving up to them their lien on the capital they have loaned him. ”

“ What more, consistently with the rights of property, can he done to distribute wealth justly among those who earn it, or to equalize the pecuniary condition of mankind?
The result of the system would be, that the future accumulations of society, instead of being held, as now, in large estates, by a few individuals, while the many were in poverty, would be distributed in small estates among the mass of the people. The large estates already acquired by single indi­viduals, would, in two or three generations, at most, become entirely scattered. ”

“ To say that value entrusted to a debtor was lost through his incapacity for the judicious management of it, (as it often really is, instead of by accident,) makes the case no stronger in favor of the perpetual liability of the debtor; because a want of capacity is nothing for which the debtor is culpable, or for which he can rightfully be held liable. The creditor, therefore, must judge for himself, and mutt always be presumed to have judged for himself, and to have taken the risk of the debtor’s capacity, or incapacity, before he entrusted his property to him. ”

“ This quasi partnership between the capitalist and laborer, by which the latter is made sure of his subsistence while laboring, and by which the capitalist is made to risk his capital on the final success of the enterprise, without any claim upon the debtor in case of failure, is the true relation between capital and labor, (or, what is the same thing, between the lender and borrower.) ”

“ No other intelligible meaning can be given of contract rights to things. A right to a mere profuse, or a merely moral claim to the fulfilment of a promise, is nothing in law. The law, that governs men’s title to property, cannot take notice of any such uncertain, intangible, and speculative rights, as that of a merely moral claim to the fulfilment of a promise, if such a claim, (depending, as it may, upon a thousand contingencies not in their nature susceptible of proof,) can be called a right. ”

“ Under the present system, we see society agitated by the efforts of individuals, associations, and of society at large, to check the several crimes, frauds, and vices, that have now been enumerated, amid that seem sometimes to threaten all human virtue. Legislatures, courts, prisons, churches, schools, and moral associations of all sorts, are sustained at an immense cost of time, labor, talent, and [*54] money. Yet they only mitigate, they do not cure the disease. And like all other efforts to cure diseases, without removing the cause, they must always be inadequate to the end in view. ”

“ Is it any reason why the ruling power of a state should innovate upon mathematical principles by legis­lation, and enact that three and four shall be counted as fifteen, and eight and six as forty; and that the amount of men’s dimes to each other shall be determined by such processes as these? As much reason would there be in such a procedure, as there is in legislatures attempting to prescribe men’s rights of property, or their rights to the acquisition of property, in defiance of the principles of natural law. ”

“ The mass of the poor in all countries have but little leisure, or means, or opportunity for intellectual cultivation. Wherever capital is in the hands of the few, the competition for employment among laborers becomes so great as to reduce the price of labor to a sum that will give the laborer but a mean and wretched subsistence in return lot- the severest toil of which his body is capable. ”

“ The intellect of society would be much better directed, tinder the system proposed, than under any that has ever existed. It would be directed more to the service and improvement of man, as man; and less to the aggrandizement of one portion of mankind, at the expense of the other por­tions, than it is, or ever has been under system where wealth and power are distributed by arbitrary, instead of natural and equal laws. ”

“ Leave the rich and the poor to make their own bargains in regard to the interest of capital, and it is as certain as the laws of nature, that capital will find its way into the hands of those who are to perform the labor upon it. In fact, the usury laws impliedly admit that such would be the result- else why do they prescribe such rates of interest as must necessarily confine all loans to a few individuals? ”

“ It can hardly be said that there is any profit in loaning money itself; for the interest obtained is generally no more than a fair price or equivalent for the crops, rents, or other incomes, which the property that might be purchased with the money, would yield. But in the loan of credit, there is an actual profit of the whole amount that is received as interest, after paying the trouble and risk of banking. ”

“ The capitalist would not only get all he now gets as interest, and the laborer all he now gets as wages, but they would also divide between themselves that sum which now goes into the pockets of the employer. ”

“ As a contract of debt does not designate the specific value, to which it attaches in the hands of the debtor, it can­not be said to attach to any one part of the value in his hands more than to another. ”

“ Natu­ral law is the science of men’s rights, as mathematics is the science of numbers and quantities. It is impossible, in the nature of things, that men can have any rights, (either of person or property,) in violation of natural law-for natural law is justice itself. And justice is a science, to be learned; not an arbitrary rule, to be made. The nature of justice can no more be altered by legislation, than the nature of numbers can be altered by the same means. ”

“ And if the wealth of New England were distributed still more equally among the population, and if men labored more for themselves respectively, and less for others for wages, time number of valuable inventions would undoubtedly be still greater-because, if time wealth were more equally distri­buted, few or more would be so rich as to have their inventive powers smothered or stupefied by luxury, or over­whelmed by the care of their wealth; and, on time other hand, few or none would be so destitute as to have their powers fettered by poverty. ”

“ That they are just in themselves, as between creditors, is obvious from the fact, that a personal debt, as, for instance, a promissory note, or a book account, is, in equity, a lien upon all a debtor’s general property, in very nearly the same manner, except in form, that a mortgage is a lien upon a specific parcel of real estate. ”

“ One of these results would be that it would be safe for a capitalist to loan capital to a poor man, if the latter were but free of debt, were a maim of integrity and frugality, of ordinary capacity for business, and were engaged in a business that was ordinarily profitable; because the capital­ist would have a lien for his debt, not only upon the capital itself, that he had loaned, (or its proceeds,) but also upon all the value that should be added to it by the labor of the debtor. ”

“ A promissory note, therefore, for an hundred dollars to he delivered at a future time, is, in reality, a contract of sale of so much value, existing, in some shape or other, in the hands of the debtor, as will produce an hundred dollars. Such a con tract is, in effect, a lien, for that amount, upon a man's whole property, even though his whole property should be equal to all hundred times that amount- and why? ”

“ In few or no cases would any considerable portion of the loan be stunk by mismanagement, or erroneous judgment, on the part of the debtor-for as loans would usually be made for no longer than three or six months each, there would not be opportunity for much waste of capital, unless by mismanagement that was so gross as to be culpable, or by misfortunes of rare and extraordinary character. In all other cases, then, capitalists would either obtain the whole of their loans with interest, or at least the greater part of their loans. ”

“ That a contract of debt is a mere contract of bailment, as has now been described-that is, a mere bailment, by the creditor to the debtor, of a quantum of value hold by the latter to the former, and to be formally delivered in the shape of money, but in the mean time to remain merged in the general property of the debtor-seems to be too nearly self-evident to render a more elaborate argument, at this point, necessary. ”

“ Neither the serfs nor the nobles of Russia, neither the slaves nor the slaveholders of America, neither the nobility nor the starving portion of the population of England and Ireland, make labor-saving inventions. On the other hand, in New England, where wealth is more equally distributed than perhaps in any other portion of the world, more labor-saving inventions are probably made than by any other people of equal number on the globe. ”

“ They virtually forbid capitalists to loan capital to a poor man, under penalty of’ being compelled to contri­bute the amount of such loans to the support of his family, in case of his decease. Such absurd and dishonest legislation defeats the very object it professes to have in view. Instead of its accomplishing the purpose of compelling cre­ditors to support the families of poor men, it only serves, as a general rule, to deter capitalists from becoming the credit­ors of poor men at all. ”

“ If a debtor be merely the bailee of the creditor, a fine imposed upon the debtor by the government, as a punishment for an offence, cannot be satisfied out of property in his hands to the prejudice of his creditors. ”

“ Injudicious enter­prises will then be more likely to be avoided; and less labor and capital will, therefore, be wasted on such enterprises than now are. When a capitalist loans money to a laborer, and knows that lie will have a claim on the subsequent earnings of the laborer for any capital that may be sunk in the enter­prise, he (the capitalist) does not look, for himself, into the merits of the enterprise as he would if he knew that his ultimate security for his capital depended solely upon the suc­cess of the enterprise, instead of depending also upon the subsequent earnings of the laborer. ”

“ A creditor is, therefore, as much bound to judge for himself, whether the means and ability of the debtor will he sufficient to enable him to fulfil his contract to the letter, as is the debtor himself, unless the debtor do something intentionally to mislead him in his judgment of them. ”