Émile Louis Victor de Laveleye

“ By thus acting they simply increase the evils they would fain cure, and prepare the way for a universal bondage, which awaits us—all the Coming Slavery. Be the authority exercised by king, assembly, or people, I am none the less a slave if I am forced to obey in all things, and to give up to others the net produce of my labour. Contemporary progressism not only runs against the stream of history, by carrying us back to despotic organizations of the militant system, but it also violates natural laws, and thus prepares the degeneration of humanity. ”

“ But if what is taken from my revenue is employed to make a public park which I am free to enter whenever I feel inclined, to build public baths where I may bathe in summer or winter, to open libraries for my recreation and instruction, clubs where I may spend my evenings, and schools where my children may receive an education which will enable them to make their own way in the world; to build healthy houses, let at a low rent, which save me the cruel necessity of living in slums, where the soul and the body are alike degraded ”

“ Art pursues the realization of the beautiful, or the reproduction of certain forms. Luxury has only one aim—to seem. The object of art is essentially disinterested; that of luxury is egotistical. In the eye of luxury, the beautiful itself, the object of the passionate pursuit of the true artist charmed with perfection, is only something that glitters. Luxury pays for art as it pays for matter, and buys great works just as it spends money for jewels and fine goods. ”

“ If the dogmas of political economy are really exact, if the laws of the struggle for life and the survival of the fittest must really be applied to human society, as well as to plants and animals, then let us at once admit that Christianity, which gives assistance to the poor and needy, and which stretches out a hand to the sinner, is a mere folly; and let us at once abandon a belief which influences neither our political institutions nor our social arrangements, and which ought not to influence them. ”

“ We may consider luxury from three points of view: First, from the moral point, as concerning the individual; within what limits is the perfect satisfaction of wants useful in the normal development of the human faculties? Second, from the economical point; to what extent is luxury a help or a hindrance to the increase of wealth? Third, from the point of right and justice; is luxury compatible with the equitable division of products, and with the general principle that the remuneration of each person ought to be proportional to the amount of useful labor that he has performed? ”

“ Helvetius admirably defines, for its condemnation, this Darwinian law which Herbert Spencer would have society accept:—
"The savage says to those who are weaker than himself: Look up to the skies and you see the eagle swooping down on the dove; cast your eyes on the earth and you see the lion tearing to pieces the stag or the antelope; while in the depths of the ocean small fishes are destroyed by sharks. The whole of nature announces that the weak must be the prey of the strong. Strength is a gift of the gods. ”

“ The second capital has vanished in smoke, and only the money is left. Consumption is always destruction; it is important to see that for this destruction is returned as compensation some satisfaction of real wants, or the creation of some new means of production. Consumption is in reality a barter. We give up an existing value; if we receive in return something to strengthen the body and exalt the soul, we have done well; if something to stimulate pride and vanity, it is worse than nothing, and we have done ill. ”

“ The third source of luxury is the instinct for adornment, which, as M. Baudrillart well says, must not be confounded with ostentatiousness, even when that finds its only expression in it, or with sensuality, even when it ministers to it. It is primitive with man, for the prehistorical cave-dwellers carved on pieces of bone the figures of the reindeer and beavers that lived in the land in their times. Cultivated and refined, it has become the æsthetic sentiment, the love of the beautiful, which has created all the arts. ”

“ Neither can it be maintained that the "Rights of man," as proclaimed by the American and French Revolutions, belong to each individual, only because he forms part of the human species. The limit of rights which may be claimed by any one individual must depend upon his aptitudes for making good use of them. The same civil code and the same political institutions will not equally suit a savage tribe and a civilized nation. If the granting of the suffrage to all were likely to lead a people to anarchy or to despotism, it could not be called a natural right, for suicide is not a right. ”

“ It is further pleaded that luxury makes money circulate. This, also, is unsound. Circulation of itself brings no profit. Money nowhere circulates faster than on the green cloth of the roulette-table. Some lose, others gain, millions; but what is the profit to the country? Money is all the time in circulation, unless it is buried in a pot. The important matter is, whether in passing from hand to hand it commands permanent ameliorations and satisfies the real wants of men, or whether it is wasted upon the futilities that minister to pride and ostentation. ”

“ On the contrary, a certain degree of well-being is a necessary condition of liberty. It is a mockery to call a man free who, by labour, cannot secure to himself the necessaries of existence, or to whom labour is impossible because he possesses nothing of his own, and no one will employ him!
Compare the life of the soldier with that of the hired workman either in a mine or a factory. The first is the type of the serf in "The Coming Slavery," and the second the type of the independent man in an industrial organization under the free contract régime. ”

“ If the degree of man's slavery varies according to the ratio between that which he is forced to yield up and that which he is allowed to retain, then it must be admitted that the majority of workmen and small farmers are certainly slaves now, for they have very little or no property, and, as their condition almost entirely depends on the hard law of competition, they can only retain for themselves the mere necessaries of life! ”

“ Why," he continues, "do you turn your necessities into vanity? You need a house as a defense against injury from the weather—it is a weakness. You need food so that you can repair your forces, which are wasting away at every moment—another weakness. You need a bed where you can rest in your weariness and give yourself up to a sleep that chains and overwhelms your reason—another deplorable weakness. ”

“ We should not forget, however; that Christianity, having made charity a duty, has always condemned luxury because it devotes to superfluous and therefore immoral expenditure that which ought, according to its principles, to be given to the poor.
Putting aside the consideration of what man owes to his fellows, and what charity and justice expect of him, let us see whether luxury is good or injurious to the individual. The end to be pursued by man in his life is the normal development of all his faculties and the happiness that should result from it. ”

“ If the intervention of public power for the improvement of the condition of the working-classes be a contradiction of history, and a return to ancient militant society, how is it that the country in which the new industrial organization is the most developed—that is to say, England—is also the country where State intervention is the most rapidly increasing, and where opinion is at the same time pressing for these powers of interference to be still further extended? ”

“ The constant effort of moralists and legislators has been to replace the reign of might by a reign of justice. As Bacon says, In societate aut vis aut lex viget. The object is to subject men's actions more and more to the empire of the law, and that the law should be more and more in conformity with equity. Society has ever been, and still is, to a great extent, too much a reflection of nature. Violations of justice are numerous, and, if these are to be put a stop to, we must oppose ourselves still more to the laws of nature, instead of contemplating their re-establishment. ”

“ Why do Mahometans stand still in the march of civilization, while Christian countries advance ever more and more rapidly? Because the first are resigned to evil, whereas the second combat and endeavour to extirpate it. The stoicism—the elevated character of which can hardly be sufficiently admired—the austerity, and purity of such ancients as Marcus Aurelius, nevertheless, bowed before absolute facts, looking upon them as the inevitable results of the actual and natural order of things. Like modern evolutionists, they glorified the laws of nature, considering them perfect. ”

“ Such collective luxury, if well directed, is profitable to all. It raises the level and fecundates the genius of industry. The duty of the easy classes in every country is to favor those movements which will tend to enable all of the people to become possessors of property, and themselves to set the example of application to labor, rural tastes, simplicity of life, and high moral and intellectual culture. ”

“ Is it not a fact that, everywhere, those who can prove by authentic documents that, for centuries past, their ancestors have thriven in idleness are the richest, the most powerful, the most sought after? Only at some future date will this dictum of science and Christianity be brought to bear on our social organization, and our descendants will then establish an order of things which will create economic responsibility, and ensure to each the integral enjoyment of the produce of his labour. ”

“ Personal defence, then, being society's great object, it must necessarily give absolute obedience to a chief, as in an army. It is absolutely impossible to unite the blessings of freedom and justice at home with the habitual commission of acts of violence and brutality abroad.
Thanks to the almost insensible progress of civilization and to gradual liberal reforms, the ancient militant State was little by little despoiled of its arbitrary powers, the circle of its interventions grew narrower and narrower, and men became free economically, as well as politically. ”

“ Herbert Spencer invokes human will. Find out, he says, on the one hand, what the great majority of mankind would choose to reserve to an individual sphere of action, and, on the other, what they would consent to abandon to State decisions, and you will then be able to fix the limit of the power of public authority.
I cannot myself admit that human will is the source of rights. Until quite recently, in all lands, slavery was considered a necessary and legitimate institution. ”

“ An old and sickly lion captured a gazelle; his younger and stronger brother arrives, snatches away his prize, and lives to perpetuate the species; the old one dies in the struggle, or is starved to death. Such is the beneficent law of the "survival of the fittest." ”

“ To balance it again, let us glorify battles, and exclaim, with General Moltke, that the idea of suppressing them is a mischievous Utopia; let us impose silence on those dangerous fanatics who repeat incessantly, "Peace on earth, good will towards men."
In the very heart of nature reigns seeming injustice; or, as M. Renan puts it more strongly, nature is the embodiment of injustice. A falling stone crushes both the honest man and the scamp! ”

“ If the same workmen were employed in making articles of comfort for those who are in need of them, would it not be a subject for congratulation? I do not advocate sumptuary laws, but I look with pleasure on countries like Norway and the Alpine cantons of Switzerland, where, although no one buys diamonds, all have the means to procure necessaries. The real point to be considered is, that every object of luxury costs a great deal of labor; could not this labor be made useful in a more rational manner? The truth will appear more clearly by regarding an isolated individual. ”

“ The prophets of Israel raised an eloquent protest against the evils then reigning in society, and announced that a time should come when justice would be established upon the earth. These hopes of a Messiah were expressed in such precise terms that they may serve as a programme of the reforms which yet remain to he accomplished. "He shall judge the poor of the people, He shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. ”

“ A bird goes out to find food for its young, and after long search is returning to its nest with its well-earned gains, when an eagle, the despot of the air, swoops down and steals the food; we think this iniquitous and odious, and would not tolerate such an instance amongst us. Vigorous Cain kills gentle Abel. Right and justice protest. They should not do so, for it is the mere putting in practice "of the purifying process by which nature weeds out the least powerful and prevents the vitiation of the race by the multiplication of its inferior samples." ”

“ The capital of society has been twice diminished: in the expenditure of money and the waste of human force. On the other hand, when the useful enterprises which have given as much work are finished, there remain a field better drained and manured and bearing more grain, a better planted forest furnishing more wood, a new factory turning out more goods, and a new railway line. The country is enriched and produces more. In the next year the workmen are better provided for, their expenses are lessened, more hands are needed to keep the increased capital employed, and wages are raised. ”

“ For natural laws, and especially the law of the survival of the fittest, to become established, it would be necessary to annihilate the immense existing edifice of legislation, and to return to the wild state of society when primitive men lived, in all probability, much as do animals, with no possessions, no successions, no protection of the weak by the State. ”

“ Given a race of beings having like claims to pursue the objects of their desires—given a world adapted to the gratification of those desires—a world into which such beings are similarly born, and it unavoidably follows that they have equal rights to the use of this world. For if each of them 'has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other,' then each of them is free to use the earth for the satisfaction of his wants, provided he allows all others the same liberty. ”

“ Animals provide themselves with food by physical activity and the use of their muscles. Among men, in consequence of successive institutions, such as slavery, servitude, and revenue, numbers of people now live in plenty on their income, and do nothing at all. If Mr. Herbert Spencer is really desirous to see the supreme principle, "reward in proportion to desert," in force amongst us, he must obtain, first of all, the suppression of the existing regulations as to property. In the animal world, the destiny of each is decided by its aptitudes. ”

“ Do you refer to the most miserable of the inhabitants of the land? If so, we are indeed the nation. Look at our pale and emaciated faces, our bodies worn out with over-fatigue and insufficient food. We sow and reap corn, but never taste white bread; we cultivate the vine, but a drop of wine never touches our lips. ”