Article II. Formulation and Arguments of the Conclusion

Collectivism, whether pure or mixed, coheres with false rationales and judgments, and no less is to be wholly rejected in itself.

180. I. The state of the question. 1. THE MANIFEST INTENTION OF THE THESIS is opposed to the economic tenets of present-day socialism. In this refutation, this must be observed concerning the method itself: it is by no means necessary for us to defend against the socialists the present form of the economic order, as though it were to remain forever and were absolute and perfect in every respect. For there appears no rationale why the progress of the human race should remain here rather than under servile domination, a feudal aristocracy, or privileged guilds of workers; nor are there lacking, even among Catholics, those who, no less than the socialists, rebuke in the gravest words the vices and abuses of the regime which we employ.¹ But we repudiate socialism for this cause: that it attacks and thinks of overturning institutions which, both after the birth of Christ and before Christ, were common to every cultivated nation; and thus it reveals itself as hostile to the very nature of men as it exists “in the concrete.”

¹ Cf., for example, the work of Rev. D. Fr. Hitze, written in 1880, which D. Weyrich recently, in 1898, rendered into French under this title: Capital et Travail [Capital and Labor].

2. THE TERMS ARE EXPLAINED.

Collectivism, that is, present-day socialism insofar as it regards the economic order.

Whether pure, whose precise dogma is this: that whatever is employed for producing or exchanging things be possessed in common, and that every rationale of industry or mercantile activity be ordered in common (production and exchange);

Or mixed, which is circumscribed to immovable things, especially lands;

Coheres with false rationales, so that it already collapses from the vanity of its foundation;

And judgments: we call judgments those positions which are approved by socialists, although they less directly or necessarily make arguments for them.

And no less in itself, so that we may touch upon and refute these errors not only in their rationales but also in themselves;

Is to be wholly rejected. Wholly, I say, insofar as it is opposed not only to present or soon impending times, but to all times, with attention to human nature as it exists after original sin; wholly also insofar as, even with impiety removed and reduced to a merely economic system such as is exhibited by Dr. Schaeffle, it cannot be admitted; wholly, finally, that is, not only in part but in its entirety, insofar as it is neither a form which you can introduce nor an exemplar which must certainly be approached.

NOTE TO THE THESIS. There is no reason for us to speak concerning the formal contrariety which the foundations of pure socialism have toward every religion. “So great,” Leo XIII wrote,² “is the disagreement between their depraved dogmas and the most pure doctrine of Christ that none greater exists.” In the encyclical Rerum Novarum, he strikes their very opinion concerning war among the various classes with these words, which are certainly most grave: “In the matter of which we speak, it is a capital evil to imagine in opinion that one class is of its own accord hostile to the other, as though nature had prepared the rich and the proletarians to fight among themselves in a stubborn duel.”

² Encyclical letter Quod Apostolici, December 28, 1878.

As regards the strictly economic tenets of absolute collectivism, they appear to deserve the note of temerity. For that note³ appears plainly to agree with this judgment of the Supreme Pontiff: “From all these things it is evident that the tenet of socialism concerning reducing possessions into common ownership ought to be entirely repudiated, because it harms the very persons who must be aided; it is opposed to the natural rights of individuals; it disturbs the duties of the commonwealth and the common tranquility.”⁴

³ “A proposition is temerarious when it is opposed to theological doctrine so certain that it is not lawful to deny it.” C. Mazzella, De virtutibus infusis [On the Infused Virtues], no. 534.

⁴ Encyclical Rerum Novarum.

3. Nor is moderated or agrarian socialism to be branded with a better name. For in the same Encyclical, the Supreme Pontiff expressly teaches that the right by which lands are possessed by private persons as owners is upright. This is so true that H. George himself attempted to resolve the arguments of the Supreme Pontiff.⁵ Indeed, since this form of socialism accuses the owners of lands of formal injustice, it could appear to be struck indirectly by the condemnation of the Apostolics (of the second century after the birth of Christ) and of Wycliffe. St. Augustine places the sect of the former among the heretics,⁶ because they thought that those who possess their own things have no hope of salvation. Among the articles of John Wycliffe condemned at the Council of Constance, the tenth and thirty-sixth made clerics who had possessions guilty of sin and heresy.⁷ Now it is evident that the things over which the Apostolics denied property to private persons were then chiefly lands; and it is no less manifest that the possession of lands, which is not opposed to clerics, is even less forbidden to laymen. Nevertheless, since present-day opponents of possessions do not wholly exclude lands from private dominion, but merely will that the rent strictly so called pass to the State, we judge that the former condemnations can be evaded by them.

⁵ In the epistle to the Supreme Pontiff.

⁶ De haeresibus [On Heresies], bk. 1, heresy 40; Migne, vol. 42, col. 32. The Waldensians appear to have professed a similar error.

⁷ Some also appeal to the articles concerning which Martin V willed that all who were suspected of the errors of Huss and Wycliffe be questioned; but, as Rev. Fr. Billot, S.J., De Ecclesia Christi [On the Church of Christ], vol. 2, p. 113, observes, the law and norm of belief cannot be sought from them.

At the same time, it must be noted in this place that only those are numbered among agrarian socialists who teach that lands, by their nature, belong to the community. For a state, especially one which now has its beginnings, can be situated in circumstances of such a kind that it appears to be in the public interest to establish, by means of rent received from lands, some rationale of fiscal dominion. Nor would someone be infected by the stain of socialism for contending that this form of tax, by which the public power claims for itself the whole rent strictly so called, is of itself to be commended everywhere. The matter then returns to the question concerning justice to be observed in taxes and their upright distribution.

181. The First Part is proved. Collectivism, whether pure or mixed, coheres with false rationales and judgments.

A. CONCERNING PURE COLLECTIVISM.

For not only historically, or “de facto,” are the things which the principal doctors of collectivism bring forward to demonstrate or confirm their system mendacious and false and full of error; but also, what is more, it cannot logically be defended without the support of arguments of this kind.

1. Concerning the historical conjunction by which many false things are connected with collectivism.

Materialism is false; an evolutionism such that the natural inclinations themselves could be cast away by the greater part of the human race is false: these things are evident from elsewhere.

The historical materialism of K. Marx is false. For a priori, if men entered society on account of their necessities, and these are not only of the economic and material order, it is already sufficiently apparent that it cannot occur that the historical process be resolved ultimately into economic causes. But a posteriori there are six hundred examples which overturn this thesis. What economic rationale can be placed beneath the beginnings of Christianity, which rests chiefly upon the fact of the Resurrection of Christ, or beneath the propagation of Mohammedanism itself, or beneath the expeditions for liberating the Holy Land? What economic element was there in the recovery of the code of Roman law, in the renewal of the arts and letters (Renaissance), in the pseudo-Reformation of the sixteenth century—things which were of the greatest moment for the historical fortunes of all Europe, or rather of the whole world?⁸ What of the fact that the fortune, religion, and culture of some nation are often profoundly changed by the character, genius, virtue, or vice of a single man? Recall to mind Alexander the Great, Gustav Vasa, Napoleon, Bismarck, etc.

⁸ B. Malon himself opposes many facts to this doctrine in Précis de Socialisme [Summary of Socialism], chap. 14.

Nor is it sufficient, in order to weaken the force of this argument, to show some agreement between Christian doctrine and the temporal conditions of society, or to prove that several of those who gave their names to the sacred expeditions were moved by an end of the economic order. It by no means follows from this that the doctrine itself or the expeditions themselves can be attributed to economic causes. For how often are many who devote their labor to some work, or embrace certain parties, driven by private desires and by various and diverse pursuits which are utterly remote from the end of the work itself or from the intention of those who constituted the parties; yet the work or the parties do not derive their nature from these pursuits. Thus, for example, it cannot be denied that perhaps quite many are moved by the hope of monetary gain to give their names to Catholic or liberal parties. Yet who would seriously think that a question of the economic order is at issue here, and that the two parties are contending with one another over the management of household property?

Nor can this principal point be passed over: the socialists accomplish little by having detected some economic rationales in almost every matter. Because of the composite nature which we have, and the importance which bodily advantages possess among most men, we could have suspected this and need not be surprised at it; but from this they by no means prove that all things in society are positively adapted to the economic part and are subject to it.

Unless they establish this, their historical materialism lacks all firmness.

The struggle among the orders, as expounded by K. Marx, is false. He regards it as the universal means by which, when harmony between positive institutions and the economic order has ceased, the human race necessarily arrives at a new stage of its evolution. And in truth, by the intention of nature, conditions and fortunes vary precisely so that some may bring mutual aid to others rather than contend with one another in a hostile spirit;⁹ while the most manifest documents of history demonstrate that peoples have been led to another practice and culture of life far more by wars with foreign nations than by civil dissension. Thus, after wars, the barbarians laid aside their rustic manners; thus conquered Greece brought her refinement into rustic Latium. Among several peoples of the East, not even a trace of a struggle of this kind is found. And, to return to ourselves, what have the various arts that have been devised—for example, printing—not been able to accomplish in our manners? Yet how foreign the struggle among the orders was to these inventions! Add that, in order for the reasoning of K. Marx and Engels to hold, it was necessary that the poverty of the proletarians increase from day to day, so that, at fixed intervals, after every tenth year,¹⁰ crises and disturbances would break out, hastening the end of the present order. But the socialists themselves are compelled to admit that, from about the middle of the nineteenth century, the condition of the workers has changed for the better;¹¹ and that the number of those who possessed a share of the soil has increased, far from all riches having come into the hands of a few.¹²

⁹ Cf. the Encyclical Quod Apostolici, at the beginning; and the Encyclical Rerum Novarum, in the first part.

¹⁰ According to the conjecture of K. Marx.

¹¹ Cf. Cathrein, Der Socialismus [Socialism], chap. 2, art. 2, §§3 and 4, p. 107 ff.

¹² “The sharpening of social relations has not taken place in the manner depicted by the Manifesto.... The number of possessors has become not smaller, but greater.... The middle strata alter their character, but they do not disappear from the social ladder.” Thus Bernstein himself, Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus [The Premises of Socialism], Preface, p. vi.

The conclusion by which all evils and crimes are attributed to institutions is false and, moreover, plainly gratuitous: since the seeds of vices sufficiently disclose themselves in our very character, and men of the most diverse morals have employed the same institutions. Indeed, if there was some necessity of constituting the state otherwise, the blame must for the most part be assigned to the men who, by their corrupt morals, vitiated the regime. Recall the fortunes of the Roman republic. Moreover, men themselves existed before civil institutions. If they had been perfect, it is not apparent how they would have given origin to perverse institutions. How much more truly, therefore, Aristotle already wrote in his own time¹³ that property was not to be accused of quarrels and various evils, but wickedness was.

¹³ Politics, bk. 2, chap. 3.

The equality of rights and duties is false, since nature has not only brought it about that men are of the same species, but has established in individuals the most diverse conditions of ability, birth, and place, so that from birth itself many already differ among themselves. Cf. the Encyclical Quod Apostolici, in the first part.

The theory of value which Marx places as the first foundation is false. Cf. below, the thesis on value and price.

The rationale by which they proclaim marriage similar to any contract, rescindable by the consent of the contracting parties themselves, and will that offspring be taken away from the providence of their parents, is false and no less contrary to religion than to nature. This is manifest from other disciplines.

2. Concerning the logical conjunction of falsehoods with collectivism. It will be sufficient to take these examples.

Once materialism has been repudiated, the very historical process by which all phenomena are traced back proximately or ultimately to an economic cause collapses. But when that process has been denied, the future order which the socialists celebrate is shown to be a vain dream.

He who denies an all-encompassing evolution must admit that collectivism will never be introduced, at least for a notable time, since it is too manifestly opposed to human nature as it now exists.

Unless the socialists posit the various orders of citizens as contending with one another in a stubborn duel, what peace, what happiness can they promise us from the suppression of the distinction of orders?

Unless they place complete trust in the innate and perfect goodness of men, they cannot announce that, from changed institutions, concord and a most happy agreement among men will come to be.

If you render vain K. Marx’s doctrine of value, the rationale which he devised concerning capital and “capitalistic” property is already overthrown from its foundations. Nor does he now have an antithesis from which he can dialectically infer a synthesis (cf. 176, b, α).

The perfect equality of men which the socialists defend could not stand if they permitted the husband and the father their proper authority, and tolerated citizens’ being distinguished in ability, pursuits, and convictions through the private education of children. But, in order to obtrude their dogmas, they would have to descend to every extreme measure.

B. CONCERNING MIXED OR AGRARIAN COLLECTIVISM.

1) It rests upon a false economic rationale, an adulterated or at least imperfect notion of rent which was invented by Ricardo.

Rent strictly so called (rente) does not mean among economists the whole annual payment which a tenant farmer is accustomed to pay to the owner (fermage), but that part by which some special excellence of the land, which is to be attributed to nature or at least proceeds from no industry of the owner, is repaid.

To make this matter evident, consider that one who intends to sell or lease for a price an estate upon which he has spent labor in clearing and preparing it will strive first of all to stipulate for himself a suitable return, both for the house and buildings which he may have erected and for the monies or expenditures which he has spent to adapt the soil or change it for the better; nor will such a price of itself be denied to him. These things, however, pertain only to rent in the broad sense; but if the owner can establish anything further for himself, that contains the rationale of rent properly so called.

Come now, in order that we may inquire into the causes of rent of this kind, no one is ignorant that the more estates excel others, the greater the advantages they bring to the tenant farmer and the greater the price for which they can be leased.

If, therefore, this excellence has not been produced by labor but proceeds from native goodness itself—from fertility, for example, by which estates produce fruits that are either better or cost less for the cultivators—it will bring an increase in the price of leasing which accrues gratuitously to the owner. He will therefore receive rent strictly so called. It is very well known how greatly vineyards thus differ from one another in annual yield; nor is the matter otherwise regarding grain or other produce.

Again, anyone can readily see that this advantage can come to lands not only from fertility but also from location: thus fields which adjoin cities are valued more highly than those which are far distant.

Finally, neither can this be doubted, that this cause is not proper to agriculture. For more productive mines, locations which are more advantageous for conducting business, and even houses which, because of the site upon which they are placed, are to be preferred to others, customarily bear rent of this kind in our regions. But, what is more, in every art and in every matter, if someone by ingenuity or chance discovers a method of saving expenditures which of itself or by a legal privilege is inaccessible to others, will he not obtain an emolument which is plainly similar to rent, so that the sole difference appears to be that the privilege of the soil is more permanent?

Thus far, these are the things which appear capable of being established concerning a difficult and disputed matter. But Ricardo, a celebrated expert in economics, devised this doctrine concerning rent of this kind, which, although it is still accepted by many, nevertheless suffers from more than one defect. For he contends that men, after they begin to have a fixed abode, first devote their labor only to those lands which are of the greatest fertility. There is then no place for rent. But gradually, because of the increase of the multitude, it becomes necessary that more abundant produce be procured either by cultivating land of a somewhat inferior quality, then of the third class, then the fourth, the fifth, and so on, or by making greater expenditures, with the result that the produce must be sold at a higher price. By this rationale, therefore, rent first arises for those who possess the best lands, then also for others who cultivate less generous fields, etc., so that these things can be established universally:

a) The origin of rent is explained by the greater dearness of grain;

b) The amount of rent is to be measured by the fertility by which, among cultivated lands, the others surpass those which are of the lowest quality;¹⁴

¹⁴ D. Hervé-Bazin gives a sufficiently similar rule when he says (Traité élémentaire d’économie politique [Elementary Treatise on Political Economy], part 4, chap. 5, p. 477, 3rd ed.): “Rent is equal to the difference between the profit yielded by the cultivation of a piece of land and that yielded by the cultivation of the worst land under cultivation.” He himself, however, together with those who think correctly, holds that this excellence is to be estimated not from fertility alone but also from location.

c) As the multitude of men increases, grain necessarily becomes dearer, and consequently additions are made to rent itself.

But all these things are only partly true and are stated too absolutely. For:

a) That order by which one proceeds from cultivating the best lands to less good lands and thence all the way to worse ones is fictitious, since, besides fertility, not a few other things must be considered in choosing lands, and a scientific exploration of lands was not customarily made in those beginnings. But if, with certain more recent authors, you remain silent concerning that order, you will indeed escape that first defect; yet the other criticisms which must immediately be added are by no means answered. This point remains in particular: the case of lands is not subject to a special rule. It is a perpetual principle that things do not acquire a price unless scarcity is added to their utility. Therefore, the rarer good things are, the more valuable they will be of themselves; but at the same time it is apparent that increments of value are also received from increased utility or goodness.

b) Consideration appears to be had for fertility alone, while rent can also arise from location. The formula which we placed second is therefore imperfect.

c) However rent strictly so called may stand, the price of leasing can also be increased because of the improving art of cultivating lands. For although grain remains at the same price or even becomes cheaper, nevertheless a greater profit will return to the cultivator if he obtains a more prosperous crop or obtains it at less expense. The interests of those who possess lands are therefore by no means contrary to the improvement of lands.¹⁵ Again, Ricardo appears to have neglected this.

¹⁵ Cf. V. Brants, La lutte pour le pain quotidien [The Struggle for Daily Bread], no. 78.

d) For this reason, and also because of produce which can be brought in from other regions, the rule which was set down on p. 211 under letter c) is defective. Indeed, one may argue from the facts themselves. Did we not, a few years ago, see the income of estates decrease greatly in Belgium, where the population is most dense? Moreover, even if those incomes have increased, because of the ever greater expenditures employed in working the lands, rent properly so called (the gratuitous rent) is reduced almost to nothing.

Ricardo is deceived even more when he wholly neglects the rent which attaches to other possessions and treats the question of the rent of lands alone.

Yet mixed collectivism, at least as proposed by H. George, rests upon this defective doctrine.

From this he produces ill will toward the possessors of lands, as though they were hostile to a more perfect agriculture and to the arts which provide men with an easier sustenance.

From this, because he thought that continual additions were made to rent, he judged that the possession of lands causes citizens to be separated by fortunes that are too unequal; whereas, in our regions at least, the greatest gains have been received from other arts and businesses.

From this, because he regarded rent as something proper to lands, he began to assail these possessions alone.

2) Besides this error, the cause of which he can lay upon Ricardo, H. George does not escape another, by which:

He falsely appears to attribute the increment of rent which the owner of land obtains from the enlargement of cities or similar causes to the formal action of society as such, while it is due rather to the action of private persons; and he no less falsely thinks that it will profit society only when it has come into the hands of the State (cf. difficulties B. 1. b.). But, as we shall see, private possessions have their own public utility.¹⁶ Indeed, so many persons can exist among whom land is distributed that by far the greatest part of fathers of families enjoys the advantages of possession of this kind.¹⁷ Thus, about fifteen years ago, in France, out of 7,600,000 fathers of families, 5,550,000 possessed some portion of soil; while in Belgium, out of 1,100,000, 900,000 did so.

¹⁶ Cf. the Encyclical Rerum Novarum. Rev. Fr. Holaind, op. cit., adduces this passage from Roscher (Econ. polit., bk. 1, §87): “The progress of civilization demands a perfect stability and a more general creation of landed properties, in the interest of those who participate in this progress and even of those who do not possess land.”

¹⁷ Hence some, such as D. Van Overbergh, greatly favor laws which prevent large patrimonies from remaining undivided for a long time. Others, such as D. Brants (op. cit., nos. 79, 84 ff.), are less opposed even to extensive estates, but they inculcate the beneficent patronage of the wealthy.

3) Finally, he falsely denies that anything beyond the fruits of labor is legitimately possessed by private persons. Cf. the thesis on property.

182. The Second Part is proved. Each form of collectivism is no less to be wholly rejected in itself.

A. CONCERNING PURE COLLECTIVISM. Whether you consider the effects which collectivism brings with it, or the difficulty of introducing it, or the manner by which that state would have to be reached, it is shown in every respect to be condemned and warded off.

1. To begin with the EFFECTS, let us observe first that, when collectivism is in force—or rather, when it rages—private men are prohibited from every art, every business of their own, and every gain or profit from their own property or industry; while all arts must be exercised either by the State or, as they prefer, by immense corporations which each possess an absolute monopoly in their own function throughout the commonwealth, so that individual corporations are placed over individual arts. For it would be utterly foreign to the rationale of collectivism that there be several associations contending with one another. Neither schools nor printing works can be excepted from a monopoly of this kind. This is admitted among the doctors of socialism, who, trusting in these means, foretell equality of fortunes and the end of economic anarchism. Equality: for they say that the wages of personal labor, beyond which nothing is acquired, will differ little among themselves, while whatever difference there may be will soon be suppressed, since they can be employed by their owner only for an unproductive use. The end of economic anarchism: for when the exercise of the arts has been reduced to unity, they contend that there will be present only that quantity of individual things which is sufficient for society, neither more nor less.

But now, with the effects considered, this economic rationale:

a) Is opposed to abundance and plenty of things in society. For through it the stimulus by which men are accustomed to be aroused to increase their labor is blunted: a notable increase of profit and the hope of fruitfully spending the wage obtained; while the stimulus to render careful work, to perfect the arts, and to discover and attempt new things is wholly suppressed—unless one would prefer to return to prices, commerce, etc. Indeed, not only the will to work but the very ability and skill are taken away from the citizens. For while the keenness of the mind is sharpened in a remarkable manner by undertakings assumed at one’s own judgment and risk, it is rendered more obtuse by the habit of laboring under the direction of others. To this is added that the directors of those administrations offer but slight hope of industrious prudence and integrity, especially when they must be designated by popular suffrage, and that most frequently. Yet errors committed by them must disturb the whole of society: for individual arts depend entirely upon individual administrations, since these enjoy a monopoly.

It is opposed to the liberty of the citizens. For those who now occupy the place of wage earners would not cast off a master but would change him: in place of a private man or a particular society, the State or a privileged corporation would enter. But the remaining citizens would either be thrust down to a condition similar to that of wage earners or, as ministers of the collective administration, would receive the management of some part of the innumerable administrations which would be necessary for the State of which the socialists dream. Besides those two orders of citizens, sufficiently diverse in their pursuits yet equally subject to another’s authority and lacking liberty, there would be no place for any third order. Therefore, there would remain no power capable of resisting the tyranny of a few—a tyranny, I say, of the most absolute kind. For those who prevailed in the commonwealth would have subject to themselves all the sources by which citizens are nourished, are educated (the schools), and profess their opinions and censure abuses (the press). Nor does the refuge sought in various corporations which would administer the individual arts avail. For unless these were under the judgment and power of those who preside over the whole of society, by what compact would the agreement and harmonious cooperation of those various corporations in their work be preserved? And why should we complain of the dominion of the State, when already in the individual corporations the directors would impose a harsher yoke upon the necks of the citizens? Nor, because they were appointed by suffrage, would they have a lesser power of oppressing; but, as experience testifies, they would conceive a greater will to harass on account of rivalries and contrary party zeal.

Moreover, would it be permitted to the judgment of the directors that they admit or exclude members? The abuses of the ancient guilds would return a hundredfold! Would they be compelled to receive everyone? What if more or fewer offered themselves in number than was proper? If more, would you pay a lower wage to the later ones? By what right this inequality, by which a certain privileged quasi-ownership in some art would belong to the earlier ones? Or would you establish a lower wage for all? How many complaints there would then be! And thus you would already depart from that famous law of value which declares that all things are to be valued from labor. In like manner, if fewer persons than were necessary wished to devote their labor to an unpleasant work, you could not attract others by a greater wage without abandoning the rationales of collectivism.

Nor is this the end of the difficulties. For greater wages would then be assigned to the less esteemed arts, for which all are qualified. And so, in a short time, one would pass from a scarcity to the contrary excess of those who wished to exercise those arts, so that a notable difference in wages could not long continue. But if only a slight difference were established, nothing would now effectually attract citizens to unpleasant labor, especially since, according to the tenets of socialism, no worker can be denied the wage by which he may comfortably provide for himself and his own. Therefore, as though it were a fatal evil, they would introduce a new genus of servitude by which miserable citizens would be deprived of the choice of their very labor.¹⁸

¹⁸ Certainly, neither is an infinite choice granted now; yet some choice is had, and the necessity which compels is that of circumstances and ability, not a hated command and coercion.

Moreover, to say it in passing, it is no longer apparent how, once the faculty of leasing or selling a house has been suppressed, someone could freely change his domicile.

It is opposed to thrift and good morals. For one who has no means of usefully spending the fruits of labor which remain over is generally prone to prodigal dissipations. Nor are the motives by which men are drawn to socialism of such a kind as favor continence and sobriety. And so, if it reigned, it would appear that there was no longer any need to act concerning the moderation of desires or the ordering of morals.

It is opposed to the happiness of the citizens. Modest means would answer to an insatiable thirst for pleasures. The tenor of life would be rather uniform. There would be no joy from one’s own goods, which would have the form of barren paper; none from the family or from the education of children: the authority and providence of parents would be abrogated, and they would no longer think that, in their children, who continue their own person, they would survive; there would be no joy from a beneficent and liberal disposition: the occasion and means of bestowing a benefit would equally be lacking. Common pursuits and advantages now join citizens to one another by many and various bonds: hence conversations, undertakings, mutual services, and relations which do not lack their own pleasantness and by which social intercourse itself is, as it were, nourished. In the socialist state, apart from societies merely for pleasure and factions divided by hatreds, citizens would rather be placed beside one another than joined and harmoniously mingled. Indeed, in the individual administrations, from opposing parties, from the affairs to be conducted, from the labor to be evaluated, and from the fruits to be divided, would there not be infinite causes of dissensions, complaints, and corruption?

It is opposed to nature itself, and could only be introduced or maintained for some time by force. For the causes of manifold inequality would have to be constantly prevented; the appetite for gain and the will to govern one’s family and children would have to be prohibited; the independence of the person would have to be taken away.

The supporters of that system neglect very many lessons of perpetual experience: for example, that men are prone to laziness and sloth; that most are moved very little by the remote consequences of their vices;¹⁹ that the multitude is especially prone to tyrannical oppression, etc.

¹⁹ If we are now unable to persuade many wealthy men to abstain from luxury and from vices which furnish arguments to the socialists, what hope will there be of moving the minds of all men by some law which they call the law of solidarity—which, moreover, if we attend well, is not absent from our rationale of society?

2. As regards the DIFFICULTY of introducing collectivism, it is judged so great by prudent men that very many declare that it can never be overcome. Nor do they themselves deny that, as regards the manner in which the order is to be positively constituted, most things are still uncertain.²⁰ To the intrinsic difficulty is added the extrinsic difficulty, which is not to be scorned, of those who are hostile to that order. With these things posited, we argue briefly from this head as follows:

²⁰ Cf. the pamphlet Bebel und sein “Zukunftsstaat” vor dem Reichstage [Bebel and His “Future State” before the Reichstag], and the book Le Socialisme en Belgique [Socialism in Belgium] by Destrée and Vandervelde, part 2, II, Le collectivisme [Collectivism].

He commits a crime who disturbs society and undertakes new things which neither appear better nor are proved capable of being effected. Therefore, the undertakings of the socialists are criminal.

3. But the MANNER in which they think to prepare the new order is that they will that many goods of private persons be usurped by the State, and that they lead civil authority beyond the limits assigned to it by nature. Therefore, by illicit means contrary to the common good,²¹ they prepare the way for a new order which appears to be composed of contradictory notes. A new order, I say, the hope of which shines upon them as more and more distant and late from day to day.²²

²¹ They themselves admit that the tyranny of the public power is by no means desirable, and they repel the charge that they will to commit all things to the providence of the State. Cf. Destrée and Vandervelde, op. cit., p. 262 f.

²² As is reported, Rodbertus fixed the end of the present economy at 500 years, Lassalle at 200.

We omit several things which can be found in treatises which deal with socialism alone;²³ for “there is a measure in things” and in speaking. But the things which we have given are enough and more than enough to persuade all who consider the matter with a sincere mind how just a censure the Supreme Pontiff branded upon collectivism when he wrote in the Encyclical Rerum Novarum: “And besides the injustice, it is also exceedingly apparent what a change and disturbance of all the orders would follow, and what harsh and odious servitude of the citizens. An approach would be opened to mutual envy, to detractions, and to discords; with the stimuli to the talent and industriousness of individuals taken away, the very sources of riches would necessarily dry up; and that equality which they fashion in thought would in reality be nothing other than the equally wretched and ignoble condition of all men, without distinction.”

²³ Cf. the cited works of Cathrein, Castelein, Leroy-Beaulieu, etc.

B. CONCERNING MIXED OR AGRARIAN COLLECTIVISM. This form of collectivism is no less to be rejected in itself:

1. Because it logically infers pure collectivism. For not only lands but very many things—especially those by means of which arts or businesses are exercised, and silver or gold coins themselves—possess an intrinsic value which has God as its immediate author and is not the fruit of human labor.

Therefore, the cause on account of which they deny the private possession of lands is common to all these things, which consequently, as pure collectivism wills, are to be placed outside the commerce of private persons. Nor is the very genus of emolument which is designated by the name of rent strictly so called anything proper to the possession of lands.

2. Because it concludes falsely. For the rationale upon which it rests by no means proves that lands are in the common dominion of some nation. Why, indeed, should that which they affirm concerning individual men not hold concerning individual nations: that only those things which are the offspring of one’s own labor can be usurped as one’s own? And why is it lawful for a particular nation, rather than for particular persons, to vindicate as its own that which nature established for the utility not of one nation but of the whole human race? Does not one nation—for example, that of the French—by an occupation plainly similar to that by which one man excludes another from his land, exclude from its territory peoples who inhabit less fortunate lands and enjoy a less favorable climate?

3. Because the common possession of lands would make citizens too subject to the civil power, which would thereby take an easy occasion for any tyranny.

4. Because it deprives human societies of the advantages which private possessions of lands bring. In these there is, most especially, as we were just saying, a power of resisting tyranny; through them citizens are effectually aroused to improve lands and make them better; these possessions foster industry and thrift, while they provide a means of investing money fruitfully and stably; from no other possession does a man receive greater joy, which, if the territory of the commonwealth has been distributed among sufficiently many, as in Belgium and France, can fall to the greater part of fathers of families.

5. Because, by usurping dominion over lands, the State would pass beyond its own field and would not obtain the hoped-for gain by which, as those collectivists contend, it could abstain from exacting other taxes. It would pass beyond its own field: for it is not the province of the State to remove, at its own judgment, from the commerce of citizens those things which nature made apt for possession. It would not obtain the hoped-for gain: for, in the judgment of experts, rent properly so called, which alone they will to be claimed by the State for itself, is not to be valued so highly. Cf. above, 181, B, the notions handed down.

6. Because, as affairs are constituted today among most nations, they cannot introduce their system without falling into the most manifest injustice according to their own tenets. For they do not reject the civil or industrial fruits of monies or riches. On the other hand, they will—H. George certainly does—that the owners of lands be stripped of their rent without any compensation. But those who possess lands today generally hold them immediately or mediately from a purchase by which, in good faith, they invested in lands money which could have been invested elsewhere usefully and fruitfully. Therefore, unless these men receive compensation, they lose not only the soil itself but virtually also the riches which were represented by the soil.

But if you will that compensation be given, the treasury will lack resources. For the rent of lands does not exceed 2 or 3 percent, while the State would procure for itself only at greater interest the money which it would have to receive as a loan to purchase the lands.

Moreover, what portion in the leasing of lands today has the rationale of rent properly so called can scarcely, if at all, be defined.

Cf. the several things which Rev. Fr. Holaind discusses excellently concerning this matter, and the distinguished testimonies of the greatest doctors which he adduces.

183. III. Difficulties. A. FROM THE RATIONALES OF PURE COLLECTIVISM.

1. IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, RICHES AND THE RICH ARE MORE THAN ONCE VEHEMENTLY CONDEMNED. Thus, for example, in St. Matthew 19:24: “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven”; in St. Luke 6:24 ff.: “But woe to you who are rich,” etc.; and, in chap. 16, the parable concerning the rich man and the beggar Lazarus. In his catholic epistle, St. James inveighs most bitterly against the rich. Therefore. The New Testament tacitly commends that order of society in which there will no longer be a place for accumulating riches; that is, it approves the regime of collectivism.

Reply. I distinguish the antecedent. In the New Testament, riches and the rich are condemned absolutely, I deny; they are condemned in a qualified respect, as things often full of spiritual danger, whether from the unjust means by which, especially then, monies were generally acquired; or from the inhuman hardness of many rich men; or from the excessive affection with which riches are customarily possessed and which strives to cast the heart down to the lowest things,²⁴ I concede. I distinguish the consequence. The New Testament commends a different order in which, by the law itself, fortunes are directly or indirectly distributed equally, I deny. It commends the voluntary pursuit of poverty, at least spiritual poverty, by which the poor willingly lack riches, while the rich, through the grace of God, are detached in mind from earthly desires and from the danger of riches, I concede.

²⁴ Cf. Rev. Fr. Castelein, Le Socialisme [Socialism], etc., chap. 15.

That the passages of the New Testament are to be understood in this way is easily established.²⁵ For those who are set down as rich in St. Matthew are described more accurately in St. Mark 10:24 as “those who trust in riches.” Although the similitude of the camel signifies a thing which cannot be done, as St. Jerome says,²⁶ in truth the Lord wills only to inculcate the extreme difficulty of the matter, which He nevertheless affirms, through the grace of God, is not insuperable. The rich to whom evils are foretold (“woe to you”) are presented by St. Luke as wholly surrendering themselves to earthly joy, so that, being “filled” with present things, they have no care for future things. Finally, the rich banqueter shows himself unmerciful toward Lazarus. What St. James pursues with the whole force of his words is that life and morals correspond to the Christian faith (chap. 2, v. 14 ff.). Therefore, when he sees that earthly things are valued too highly among the faithful, he strives sharply to impress upon their minds how vain present goods and life are (chap. 1, vv. 10 and 11; chap. 4, v. 13 to chap. 5, v. 5); and he vehemently rebukes the wealthy who have defrauded the wages of the workers (chap. 5, vv. 3 f.); nor does he will the poor to be despised (chap. 2, vv. 1–9); while at the same time he does not neglect to censure the impatience of the poor (chap. 5, vv. 7–11), nor does he exclude the rich man from the law of charity (chap. 2, v. 8). To say it in a few words, he wills that Christians, detached from the concupiscences of this world (chap. 4, vv. 1–4), become accustomed, if they are placed in a humble station, to glory in their spiritual exaltation (chap. 1, v. 9, and chap. 2, v. 5), and, if rich, humbly to endure their soon-perishing opulence (chap. 1, v. 10).

²⁵ Thus St. Ambrose himself: “The authority of the heavenly sentence condemns not those who possess riches, but those who do not know how to use them.... Therefore, not wealth but affection is at fault.” (Expos. in Luc., bk. 5, no. 69; Migne, vol. 15, col. 1654.)

²⁶ Epistle 120, To Hedibia (Migne, 1st series, vol. 22, col. 984).

Moreover, in the New Testament, the rich young man himself is said to have observed the commandments which suffice for one to enter into eternal life; a rich man, Joseph of Arimathea, is narrated to have been a faithful disciple of the Lord (Matt. 27:57); those who make alms from the “mammon of iniquity” are praised. It is called unjust because it is often joined with sin. (Cf. 1 Tim. 6:6–10.)

Finally, as regards the rationale by which we distinguished the consequent, in the Gospel there is given no precept of divesting oneself of goods, but a mere counsel (“if you wish to be perfect,” St. Matt. 19:21). How one is to act toward the rich is expounded thus by St. Paul (1 Tim. 6:17–19): “Charge the rich of this world not to be high-minded, nor to hope in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living God (who furnishes us abundantly for enjoyment); to act well, to become rich in good works, readily to give, to communicate, to treasure up for themselves a good foundation for the future, that they may apprehend true life.” In sum, “The time is short,” says the Apostle (1 Cor. 7:29–31): “it remains that ... those who weep be as though not weeping; and those who rejoice as though not rejoicing; and those who buy as though not possessing; and those who use this world as though not using it; for the figure of this world passes away”; and previously (7:20–21): “Let each one remain in the vocation in which he was called. Were you called as a slave? Let it not concern you.”

2. PURE COLLECTIVISM IS NOT REPUGNANT. For:

a) The forms of possessions have varied according to times and places. How many privileges have become obsolete! Do we not see every inequality becoming subject to greater envy from day to day? By what just hope do the rich of today presume that the present regime of goods will be perpetual and that their privileges will remain forever?

Reply. The collectivists undeservedly seek protection for their cause from that variation in the regime of possessions. Although we promise no absolute firmness to the present regime, we nevertheless resolutely deny that an order which agrees with their dreams can ever flourish for a notable time. For these dreams, as we showed in the proof, do not agree with the common character, inclinations, and vices of men, such as have been known from the remotest antiquity.

Hence, “in form,” you will speak briefly thus: The present regime will vary, I concede or pass over. It will end in collectivism, I deny.

Observe also the improper and unusual acceptation by which the advantages which the rich derive from their resources are numbered among privileges. For privileges are special laws enacted in favor of certain persons, while, by civil law, the poor today are almost everywhere equal to the rich.

b) In not a few regions citizens rejoice in monopolies by which the State has recalled to itself the carriage of letters, telephony, etc.; the same persons desire railways, etc., to be purchased by the State. Why could mines, then large estates, next lands, and finally all productive things not equally well be assigned to the State?

Reply. I merely pass over the antecedent, since these monopolies and undertakings do not lack their own disadvantages. I deny the parity: both a) because nothing can be gathered concerning other, more difficult and intricate administrations from some administrations of a simpler form; and b) because that which perhaps fits some part can even less be transferred to the whole. For so long as few businesses in number are thus undertaken publicly, neither is private opportunity for spontaneous effort lacking nor is a means of reducing the citizens to perfect servitude conferred upon the State.

Moreover, I deny this supposition: that while the State undertakes such things it already exercises collectivism in part. For in these administrations it acts as a private person; and from the manner in which it assigns their wages to its administrators and from the entire ordering of the business, it imitates private undertakings as much as it can. Cf. Leroy-Beaulieu, Le Collectivisme [Collectivism], pp. 345–348.

N.B. We by no means deny that in some regions mines can belong to the commonwealth, or that the fiscal dominion of the State can usefully be increased. We nevertheless judge that greater prudence and circumspection are needed today than formerly, since public powers are too prone to favor that indolence of the citizens by which, freed from their own solicitude, they more readily than is proper place every concern in the providence of the State. Cf. Destrée and Vandervelde, Le Socialisme en Belgique [Socialism in Belgium], pp. 278–281.

c) Businesses which are successfully conducted by “anonymous” companies increase from day to day in number and importance. Does it not become manifest from this how much collective managements of businesses can accomplish? Do they not announce in advance those great companies to which the collectivists will that monopolies of arts and businesses be committed? Cf. Destrée and Vandervelde, ibid.

Reply. Besides the fact that “anonymous” companies excel other companies only in the facility of gathering immense sums of money, while they are far inferior to others whether you attend to care or to expenses, and that the miseries of workmen and the resentments of our times can chiefly be traced back to their inhumanity and avarice—besides all these things, I say, those companies by no means approach the rationale of collective management which the adversaries proclaim. For by both wages and the share of profit promised to them, the men who preside over the company are impelled by their own emolument to conduct affairs well; and by the power with which they are endowed, they can almost be compared to an owner who manages his own affair. Add also that “anonymous” companies are now aroused by competition, which would be wholly abolished when collectivism raged. Cf. Leroy-Beaulieu, op. cit., pp. 348–351.

3. COLLECTIVISM IS TO BE INTRODUCED:

a) For in great factories and shops, which will shortly consume the smaller undertakings, riches are produced collectively. But it is necessary that the rationale by which arts and businesses are exercised correspond to the rationale by which they are administered and by which the division of the fruits is made. Therefore, those two rationales can no longer be individual, but must be ordered collectively. Cf. Bernstein, op. cit., p. 14.

Reply. Nowhere are arts exercised in the manner which the collectivists will; nor is it any more repugnant that many give their labor to a business which belongs to one than that the regime of a whole state be monarchical. Finally, the division of the fruits sufficiently corresponds to the rationale by which the arts are exercised as soon as all, whether as partners or as wage earners, receive a suitable recompense for their merits.

Moreover, in their manner, the collectivists greatly magnify matters in speaking; and they wander far from the truth when they announce the swift ruin of modest undertakings. For there are not a few things which are enlarged with little fruit; and nothing is usefully increased beyond certain limits.²⁷ And so, “in form,” we shall speak thus: Having passed over the major and the minor, we deny the consequence and the consequent. For that administration by which the arts are conducted well corresponds to the rationale of exercising the arts, as does that division of the fruits by which each one obtains his own.

²⁷ Cf. Conrad, Handwörterbuch [Concise Dictionary], s.v. Grossbetrieb und Kleinbetrieb [Large-Scale and Small-Scale Enterprise].

b) It is necessary that the present “abuses” be taken away; that the economic anarchism cease by which riches are produced rashly and fortuitously in a quantity which exceeds the measure or remains below necessities; that infinite riches no longer perish for the whole of society through the prodigal dissipations of a few. But. Collectivism alone will tear these things out by the roots. Therefore.

Reply. I distinguish the major. It is necessary that, by carefully guarding against the introduction of greater evils, we oppose present evils as much as can be done, I concede. It is necessary that any remedies whatsoever be applied to evils without consideration, I deny. I concede the minor. Collectivism alone will tear out present evils by the roots, I distinguish. All of them, I deny. Some of them, I subdistinguish. Prudently, I deny. Rashly and by introducing worse things, I concede.

As regards economic anarchism, for example, besides the fact that it is not absolute, since citizens are moved by their own utility to inquire into the quantity of things from which they can hope for profit, and those who are engaged in the same arts have already begun to take counsel together for this end, it can be doubted whether a balance of things is not found better, as though of its own accord, than if you will to establish it deliberately for all. Thus, to adhere to the examples of D. Leroy-Beaulieu,²⁸ in the human body the natural powers nourish and restore the various parts of the body better and distribute the blood more suitably than the deliberate care and providence of our reason could ever accomplish; thus, by the labor of many who, with no counsels communicated, individually care only for their own parts from a pursuit of their own gain, it happens that without difficulty immense cities—for example, London—lack no necessary provision, while nothing is more difficult than deliberately and thoughtfully to equip even a small army with suitable food.

²⁸ Op. cit., p. 320.

But dissipations would increase beyond measure if collectivism were introduced, since it sharpens the pursuits of pleasure and almost entirely removes the stimuli to labor and thrift. Now, by contrast, comparatively few are those who prodigally squander a patrimony. Add that the greater part of fortunes which are dissipated is extinguished indeed for the prodigal man, but not for society itself, since monies prodigally given reach many who can usefully expend them.

In the proof itself we indicated what worse evils collectivism would bring with it.

c) The same right to live is present in all men. Therefore. It is necessary that the same access to the sources of life lie open to all. But this is not had unless the goods by which riches are produced are common.

Reply. I distinguish the major. The same right to life is present in all, insofar as the life of all must be equally inviolate, I concede; insofar as the tenor of life of all ought to be the same, I deny. I distinguish the consequence likewise. It is necessary that the same access to the necessary sources of life lie open to all, I concede. Hence, in extreme necessity, we say that it is lawful for all, by whatever means they can, to take the necessary food for themselves. It is necessary that the same access to non-necessary sources lie open, I deny.

Moreover, not even the collectivists are able to press that principle. For the immediate sources of life are the things which men use. Therefore. If their statement were true, a community even of this genus of goods would have to be introduced.

d) The right of each one to the fruit of his labor is inviolable. But. In the present regime most are compelled to yield the fruit of their labor to others. Therefore. It is necessary that another order—collectivism—be introduced, by which this iniquity is taken away.

Reply. I distinguish the major. That right is inviolable, yet in such a way that labor itself can be sold or leased, in which case the fruits of the labor are to be assigned to the buyer or hirer, I concede. Otherwise, I deny. Cf. below, where the hiring of labor is treated. I contradistinguish the minor. Today most are compelled to yield the fruit of their labor to others who have bought or hired it, I pass over or concede. The fruit of labor truly their own, I deny. To contend this, it is necessary to argue from the false theory concerning value which bears the name of K. Marx.

B. FROM THE RATIONALES OF MIXED COLLECTIVISM.

1. RENT PROPERLY SO CALLED FROM LANDS BELONGS BY RIGHT TO THE COMMUNITY. For:

a) Lands, since they are a work of God, can no more properly be acquired by private persons than the sun, the wind, and the sea.

b) Rent itself properly so called has as its cause, not the possessor of the land, but society itself. Therefore. It is to be assigned to society, not to the possessor. Thus, approximately, H. George in the first part of his epistle to the Supreme Pontiff.

Reply. I deny the antecedent. And to the rationales:

To a), I deny that things which are works of God cannot be acquired by private persons.

For this acquisition is repugnant neither to the supreme dominion of God, which is preserved intact, nor to the end for which God destined those goods for the use of men, since private possessions are necessary for the common good itself. Cf. below, the instance by which they contend that private possessions of lands are opposed to the common good. But the rationale why the sun, the wind, and other things of this kind are not in themselves matter of dominion is drawn not from their origin but from their nature, by which, without anyone’s appropriation, they serve individuals. Perhaps the same could be said concerning the sea. Or at least men understood that it was not expedient for the high sea to be under anyone’s dominion. Therefore, by the law of nations, the high sea—but by no means the part adjoining the shore—has been placed outside commerce.

Moreover, by such an argument it is by no means proved that dominion is common to some nation; and, if you will to speak consistently, the private property of movable things will also have to be denied. Cf. the argument of the thesis.

To b), I distinguish the antecedent. Rent properly so called has as its cause society itself taken collectively, or the commonwealth itself, I deny; it has as its cause many private persons who belong to society, I subdistinguish: sometimes, I concede; always, I deny. I distinguish the consequence. Therefore, this rent is to be assigned to society, that is, to the commonwealth itself, I deny; to those many persons who are sometimes its cause, I subdistinguish: always, I deny; sometimes, I subdistinguish: if this attribution would be a reasonable wage for the labor of any of them directly contributed to this end, I concede; otherwise, I deny.

As we argued in the proof, George, deceived by Ricardo, regarded no increments of rent other than those which arise from the multitude of men, which entails the dearness of all things. We indeed admit that this is a gain for the owners of lands; yet not for them alone, but also for those who possess houses and exercise various arts. But, besides the fact that this cause is not the only one, as we saw in the proof, is it of such a kind that the commonwealth itself can claim it for itself? To use a most familiar example, we all know how greatly houses and neighboring lands increase in price from a gathering of men in the same city. What is the cause why they desire to inhabit one city? Certainly none other than some private pursuit of pleasure, utility, etc. Therefore, the action of public society, formally taken, does not of itself appear here; nor do the private persons themselves directly devote any labor to the possessors of the lands in such a way that they can reasonably exact from the owners of the lands some wage for labor: rather, they already find this of itself in the advantage sought. Moreover, what each person indirectly contributed to that increment of rent cannot be defined. But there are innumerable occasions on which the action or omission of some profits or harms others. Therefore, there would be the greatest confusion of rationales and rights unless we stand firmly by these principles: damages are not to be repaired from justice except those by which someone has injuriously been deprived of his own good; nor are useful services to be compensated by a price unless someone has burdensomely divested himself of his thing, or of the use of his thing, for the benefit of another.

Finally, to omit the several things which were indicated in the proof, what if, as also happens, a people abandons some place, or customs duties are changed, so that the lands thereby become cheaper? Will H. George stipulate restitution for the possessors from public money? If he does not, it is apparent that he fights against himself.

2. THROUGH AGRARIAN COLLECTIVISM ALONE, PROVISION IS SUITABLY MADE AT ONCE FOR THE NEED OF THE STATE AND FOR THE INVIOLABLE RIGHT OF EACH PERSON IN HIS OWN THINGS. For unless it receives the rent of lands, the State will exact other taxes which partly take away from the citizens the fruit of their labor; and this is unjust. Cf. the same epistle of H. George.

Reply. I entirely deny the antecedent and the added rationale.

For neither will suitable resources be available to the State from that rent, nor is it unjust to exact that citizens contribute to the common good even from their labor. Cf. the proof of this thesis and the thesis concerning taxes.

3. PRIVATE DOMINIONS OVER LANDS HARM THE COMMON GOOD. For:

a) How many evils have arisen from large estates in the Roman countryside, in Ireland, in Scotland, in Australia, and in America; how many from the various practices (speculations) by which, through buying, selling, etc., lands in America, a few citizens abound in infinite riches who appear to hold honest labor in contempt. Cf. H. George, the same epistle, part 2, nos. 3, 5.

Reply. To these and similar things the response is easy. They cast back upon dominions over lands the vices or abuses of a certain form of regime which is neither universal nor perpetual. They omit, moreover, that similar things can be objected against dominions over movable things; nor do they compare the utility with the disadvantages.

b) (A difficulty similar to the preceding.) By their stability and security, private possessions of immovable things are the cause of the perpetual and daily increasing preponderance of a few in society; and these, soon wasting away in idleness and sloth, will nevertheless hold in their power the most precious sources of riches. Who does not see with how much detriment to the commonwealth?

Reply. Here again the adversaries are thinking of the large estates of certain regions. To this rationale we answer briefly that the law of inheritances (droit successoral) can easily be constituted in such a manner that it effectually opposes an evil of this kind. Let France and Belgium be examples, where no one seriously complains of the excessive perpetuity of lands in the hands of the same persons.

c) The owners of lands are necessarily opposed to those who strive to make gain from labor or monies. For besides those who procure wages for themselves by laboring, or who, by investing monies, receive interest, there are no longer any who make some profit except those who collect rent from things possessed. Therefore, all the returns of some nation are represented by rent, interest, and wages, so that it can be written:

Sum of returns − rent = wages + interest.

But since rent continually increases, while the other things continually diminish, it is apparent that the owners of lands, from their rent, impede the prosperity of others.

Reply. Both the things affirmed by this argument and the things supposed are equally foreign to the truth.

We know by experience that rent diminishes, while interest and wages increase—whether you consider those wages which are assigned to individual workers strictly so called, or, as the correct understanding of the formula just handed down demands, you take all personal industry, of whatever rationale, even the most noble, and attend to the part of the returns which is obtained by those who, taken together, devote some labor.

It falsely supposes that rent cannot increase otherwise than by subtracting from the portion which falls to wages and interest, whereas, from the very abundance of fruits, more can be assigned to one without harm to another.²⁹

²⁹ For since the people themselves generally increase in number, it happens that a greater abundance of fruits is sold at the same price as before. It is apparent that abundance of this kind favors rent itself.

It falsely supposes that the sum of returns would be the same if rent were suppressed, whereas, with this stimulus to industry and labor taken away, it will easily happen that the fields are cultivated and the arts exercised with less care.

It falsely supposes that all the rent received remains with the owner and profits him alone, whereas with the aid of rent wages and interest are paid, and the arts themselves are fostered, by which the cause of wages or of money lent at interest is greatly assisted.

It falsely supposes that wages and interest will be notably increased from the fact that the State obtains the rent in place of a private person. Cf. Rev. Fr. Holaind, pp. 127–129.

4. PRIVATE POSSESSIONS ARE UNJUST.

a) For he would be guilty of injury who, arriving beforehand at a public circus, thereafter prohibited those arriving after him from taking a seat for themselves. But. Those who, because an earlier birth allowed them to occupy the lands first, now exclude others from the same lands conduct themselves in this manner. Therefore.

Reply. I deny the assertion. To the argument and the similitude already employed by Cicero and St. Basil,³⁰ I distinguish the major. He would be guilty of injustice who prohibited those arriving thereafter from a vacant seat, I concede; from a seat occupied by themselves, I deny. I contradistinguish the minor. Moreover, observe that the owners alone do not enjoy the lands. For, to pass over those who, by buying produce, are nourished indirectly by the fertility of the lands, the steward and many workmen seek their sustenance from agriculture. Cf. Cicero, De finibus, etc., bk. 3, no. 20.

³⁰ Homily on the passage of Luke, “I will destroy,” etc., no. 7 (Migne, vol. 31, col. 275).

b) Private possessions have a vicious origin: violent oppressions and unjust spoliations. Think of Ireland, the plundering of monasteries, etc. Therefore. These possessions are to be taken out of the way.

Reply. I deny the consequence.

We admonish first that this grave objection can be made against the private possessions of certain regions, and not against all, but only against a part. Nor, even there, was this the first origin of the regime. Moreover, not a few possessions have come into the hands of those who in good faith and by legitimate prescription can deservedly consider themselves entirely secure. Finally, that which the adversaries will to conclude is in no manner effected from the things proposed. The consequent is only that possessions are to be restored to the true owners, if they become known, and not that a regime contrary to the common good itself is to be introduced.

N.B. 1. Certain other things which are said to the contrary return to this point: that they will a just title of dominion to be sought from labor alone. This rationale, no less contrary to the possession of movable things than of immovable things, will be dissolved in the next following thesis by the very argument by which we shall vindicate the right of possessing external things.

2. There is no time to linger over the facts from which the collectivists try to draw arguments. Nor does this pertain to our intention. For we do not deny that certain possessions are held by clans or municipalities; nor have we placed agrarian collectivism in the number of those things which are plainly incapable of being effected. But the adversaries strive in vain unless by their examples they show that a community of possessions, and a general one, is expedient for the very progress of civilization. But so far are they from establishing this that de Laveleye himself wrote³¹ that it is established by fact that the progress of agriculture is joined to the progress of property. Concerning those facts—for example, concerning the mir of the Russian empire and the Allmenden of Switzerland—let the authors who have been especially occupied with these matters be consulted. Thus, as regards the mir, cf. P. Leroy-Beaulieu, Le Collectivisme [Collectivism], or A. Leroy-Beaulieu, L’Empire des tzars et les Russes [The Empire of the Tsars and the Russians]; as regards the Allmenden, P. Leroy-Beaulieu or de Laveleye himself.

³¹ “The parallel progress of property and agriculture: this is the important fact which the latest research brings more and more into relief.” La propriété et les formes primitives [Property and Primitive Forms], at the beginning. Cf. other testimonies in Holaind, pp. 77, 116.

3. Rev. Fr. Holaind has not a few useful things concerning agrarian collectivism, op. cit.