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In short, property in capital is indivisible, and consequently inalienable, not necessarily when the capital is UNCREATED, but when it is COMMON or COLLECTIVE. 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.
Vidal in France and Lorenz Stein in Germany further developed, in two remarkable works, published in 1846 and 1847 respectively, the theoretical conceptions of Considérant; and finally Vidal, and especially Pecqueur, developed in detail the system of Collectivism, which the former wanted the National Assembly of 1848 to vote in the shape of laws.
The great movement that seized upon and shook all Central and Western Europe died down in Russia to a few isolated centres of life, and was felt chiefly in secret debating societies which eagerly received and disseminated the writings of Considerant, Fourier, Saint-Simon, Blanc, and Proudhon.
But M. Considerant is too intelligent and quick-witted to be a good logician, as is proved by the fact that he appears to have taken the syllogism for logic. The syllogism, as everybody knows who is interested in philosophical curiosities, is the first and perpetual sophism of the human mind, the favorite tool of falsehood, the stumbling-block of science, the advocate of crime.
But M. Considerant maintains that the right to labor creates the right of property, and this is the way he reasons: Major Premise. "Every man legitimately possesses the thing which his labor, his skill, or, in more general terms, his action, has created."
To be a faithful Fourierist, in fact, one must abandon his reason and accept every thing from a master, doctrine, interpretation, and application. M. Considerant, whose excessive intolerance anathematizes all who do not abide by his sovereign decisions, has no other conception of Fourierism.
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.
The articles were reprinted in book form in Brussels, and other works on the subject were afterward issued by Rittinghausen and his co-worker Victor Considérant. The cantonal Initiative was almost unknown outside the Landsgemeinde when it was established in Zurich in 1869. The people had grown tired of being beheaded by the office-holders after every election."
I might here raise the question of the difference between property and possession, and call upon M. Considerant, before going further, to define the one and the other; but I pass on. This first proposition is doubly false. 1. In that it asserts the act of CREATION to be the only basis of property. 2. In that it regards this act as sufficient in all cases to authorize the right of property.
They never cease to condemn the thirst for gold, and the growing individualism of the century; and yet, most inconceivable of contradictions, they prepare to turn all kinds of property into one, property in coin. I must say something further of a theory of property lately put forth with some ado: I mean the theory of M. Considerant.
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