Table of Contents

• Text
• Endnotes

[1]

On the Multiplication of the Poor, of Office-Holders, and of Pensioners. [1] [2]↩

We have already said it: there exist in the world only two great parties; [3] that of the men who want to live from the product of their [2] labor or their property, and that of the men who want to live off the labor or property of others; that of farmers, manufacturers, merchants, scholars, and industrious people of all classes, and that of courtiers, office-holders, monks, standing armies, pirates, and beggars.

Since the beginning of the world, these two parties have always been at war; and according to which one triumphed, glory, wealth, and virtue have been its share. When the people-eating party [4] had the upper hand, it proclaimed itself exclusively brave, loyal, virtuous; the opposing party was nothing but a rabble of cowardly slaves, debased and corrupted by luxury. When the latter managed to escape enslavement, [3] its enemies were nothing but miserable brigands or vile impostors. Be just, and you will be strong, says the philosopher. The world replies: Be strong, and I will proclaim you just.

It is not our intention to side with either of these two parties: they are both equally formidable; we therefore respect them both equally, and we take pleasure in acknowledging that each has great qualities.

The people-eaters are brave, sober, and vigilant when they can only survive by pillaging poor people who know how to make them pay dearly for victory: witness the people of Rome in the early days of the republic; witness the people of Sparta, when they were forced to live off the labor of their helots. Industrious men [5] also have their qualities: they are gentle, trusting, frugal, and not quarrelsome; and even if they had no other merit than that of feeding the people-eaters, they should be thanked for it, and we should be forgiven if we sometimes allow ourselves to be drawn to their side by inclination.

But, we repeat, we do not embrace either party; we only [4] wish to show how each one is naturally recruited, by the mere force of circumstances: we want to point out how each increases its power and diminishes that of its enemy. When both are well aware of their respective means, war will be waged more openly, and each will be better able to oppose the efforts of the other. We cannot, however, hide from ourselves that the party of the people-eaters has always been stronger and more cunning than the opposite party: a wolf is more skillful than a sheep; a fox knows more than a hen. It is therefore possible that our ideas will only be useful to the party that needs them least; if so, we shall feel happy to have some claim to its gratitude.

It is a law of nature that all individuals of the vegetable and animal kingdoms tend to multiply in an ever-increasing progression. A single grain of wheat can produce thirty; each of those thirty can produce as many; so that, in a given number of years, a single grain of wheat would suffice to cover the surface of the earth, if all the germs produced were to develop, and if nothing stopped their growth. In the same way, [5] any animal, a fox or a rabbit for instance, could cover the surface of the earth with animals of its species in a few centuries, if it always found enough to live on, and if nothing destroyed it as it multiplied.

This law of nature is common to man, as to all beings who possess the capacity of reproduction. The world, it is said, has existed only for six thousand years; [6] this span of time has sufficed for two individuals of the human species to populate the earth. If today the entire human race were to perish, except for two individuals, those two could be enough to repopulate it. For about one hundred and fifty years, the population of the United States of America has been doubling every twenty-five years: if it is now twelve and a half million, and if it continued to grow at the same rate, it would take less than two centuries for it to surpass the current population of the entire world.

The increase in population nevertheless has its limits: several obstacles can slow it down; there is only one that can halt its progress entirely; there is only one that is [6] impossible to overcome: the lack of means of existence. [7] As long as the means of living [8] increase, the population multiplies; when they remain stationary, the population remains stationary; as soon as they decrease, the population decreases in the same proportion. This phenomenon is observed among the most savage and miserable people as well as among the most civilized; in both cases, the population always tends to match or exceed the level the means of existence. It even appears that the more ignorant and miserable a people is, the more it tends to grow beyond what the land can support. A savage, being naturally short-sighted, gives in to his inclinations without worrying whether his children will find the means to live or not. A civilized man puts more calculation into his actions; he restrains his desires when he foresees that he can only satisfy them at the cost of his own misfortune or that of others.

In the interior of America, one can travel through immense forests without encountering a single individual. In the regions where the climate is less harsh, and where animals can therefore live, one finds a few [7] small tribes that exist on the meager support provided by hunting. Tribes are less rare along lakes and rivers, because fish are more abundant than game. Yet all these savages are extremely miserable, and their numbers are always as large as the condition of the land can support. When the resources provided by hunting and fishing fail them, they eat spiders, ant eggs, worms, lizards, snakes, and a kind of greasy earth. They preserve the bones of fish and snakes, grind them into powder, and devour them; sometimes they go two or three days without eating anything, or they eat their children; sometimes entire tribes perish from famine or from the diseases that follow it.

In the countries devastated by despotism—in Syria, in Egypt, everywhere the Turks have established themselves—the population, however small it may be compared to the vastness of the land, is as large as the means of existence that can be produced there allow. It is by attacking the sources of production that the Turks [8] make the people of those lands disappear and turn them into deserts.

“Everywhere,” says a philosophical traveler, “the peasants are reduced to flat barley or millet cakes, onions, lentils, and water. Their senses are so little accustomed to refined food that they consider strong oil and rancid fat to be a delicious treat. To lose nothing of the grain, they leave in all the foreign seeds, even darnel, which causes dizziness and faintness lasting several hours, as I myself experienced in the mountains of Lebanon and Nablus. In times of scarcity, they collect acorns; and after boiling them or roasting them under ashes, they eat them.”

“In the cantons open to the Arabs, such as Palestine, one must sow with a rifle in hand. Hardly has the wheat begun to yellow when it is harvested to be hidden in the matmoures, or underground vaults. As little as possible is taken out for seed, because only what is strictly needed to live is sown; in short, all industry is limited to satisfying the most basic needs. Now, to obtain a bit of bread, some onions, a shabby blue shirt, and a woolen loincloth, one does not need to go very far. The peasant lives [9] then in distress, but at least he does not enrich his tyrants; and the greed of despotism is punished by its own crime.”[9]

If, in countries subject to despotic governments, the population declines as the means of existence diminish, thereby aligning itself with the level of subsistence;then in countries where men enjoy a government that protects them, and which thus allows human industry to develop to its full potential, the population gradually increases as the land becomes more productive, and again matches the level of the means of existence. This is a fact observed among both the earliest civilized people and the latest: everywhere one finds a certain number of individuals who possess only the absolute necessities for survival, and who always tend to multiply beyond the means they have to live on; everywhere there is a class of unfortunates whom people have always vainly tried to help, because as soon as [10] aid was given, they multiplied in proportion to the help received.

It is difficult—one could even say impossible—for it to be otherwise. A hundred thousand individuals can double in number over a given period just as easily as two thousand; and there is no point at which the human species loses its capacity to reproduce. Population therefore tends to increase in geometric progression: if the population of the United States of America, for example, were twelve and a half million, and continued to grow at the rate it has until now, it would be twenty-five million in twenty-five years, fifty million in fifty years, one hundred million in seventy-five years, two hundred million in one hundred years, and three billion two hundred million in two hundred years. But, however fertile the country may be, and however industrious its inhabitants, it is impossible for the means of existence to multiply in the same proportion. Even assuming a people possesses all imaginable activity and capacity, it is beyond the bounds of possibility to believe that it could indefinitely increase the products of its soil in arithmetic progression.

[11]

Thus, population tends to grow in this progression: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256; whereas the means of subsistencecan only grow in this one: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9; and even then, there comes a point beyond which any further increase becomes impossible. It is therefore necessary that the surplus population—whose existence is not prevented by prudence or other causes—perish from poverty or from the misfortunes it engenders; since it is impossible for the growth of population to outpace the growth of the means of existence.

It is true that in every people there exists a certain number of individuals who consume more than what is strictly necessary for survival: if these individuals reduced their consumption to the bare minimum required to live, the population could increase using what would be saved from their usual consumption, without the total quantity of the means of existence having increased. But then, the slightest decrease in the food supply would become a public calamity, and what would normally produce a shortage or merely a rise in grain prices would instead produce a famine, and reduce the population to [12] the level it would have remained at, had each person retained the ability to cut back slightly on their consumption. This is what is observed in China: a large part of the population consumes only what is absolutely necessary; thus, although this country is the most well-cultivated on earth, famines are very frequent there, because even the slightest shortfall in the harvests can bring them about.

Population has such a tendency to rise to the level of the means of existence that even the most terrible calamities afflicting the human species, so long as they do not significantly damage the production of the necessities of life, produce only short-lived effects. Africa has always been, in all eras, the continent where the people of other lands have acquired slaves; in that country, parents sell their children for next to nothing to men who export them: this trade has populated the Americas with Black people, [10] and yet Africa does not appear to be less populated today than it was several centuries ago. The plague causes continual devastation among Eastern people, and yet these people remain as numerous as the miserable condition in which despotism has plunged all forms of industry allows them to be. [11]

[13]

“The effects of the terrible plague that struck London in 1666,” says the learned and profound author of the Essay on the Principle of Population, “were no longer perceptible fifteen or twenty years later. One might even doubt whether Turkey and Egypt are generally less populated because of the plagues that periodically ravage them. If the number of inhabitants in those countries is less than it once was, it must be attributed to the tyranny and oppression of the governments under which they groan, and to the discouragement that agriculture has suffered as a result, rather than to the losses caused by the plague. The traces of the most destructive famines in China, Hindustan, Egypt, and all other countries are, according to all accounts, soon erased; and the most terrible convulsions of nature—such as volcanic eruptions or earthquakes—if they do not occur frequently enough to wipe out the inhabitants or to destroy their spirit of industry, never produce more than minor effects on the ordinary population of nations.”[12]

[14]

One can say of war what has just been said of plague and famine: however great the number of soldiers it destroys, the losses it inflicts on the population are soon repaired, provided it does not attack the source of the food supply. Belgium has been, almost throughout its history, the theater of war; yet it has always remained equally populated. France has been at war since the beginning of the Revolution; it has lost, on the battlefield or in hospitals, an incalculable number of its inhabitants; a large number have also perished through emigration or proscriptions, and yet it is more populous today than it was when the Revolution began: it has been no more exhausted by conscription than Africa by the slave trade. The end of war (if indeed one can say that war has ended when one is still paying tribute (taxes) [13]) will not increase the population by a single individual if taxes [14] remain the same, or if the means of existence undergo no increase. There may perhaps be fewer deaths, but there will also be fewer births.

Since the increase of the means [15] of subsistence always brings about an increase in population, and since the population declines as the means of living decrease, it is enough to examine how the food supply is distributed among the various classes of people in order to know in what proportions each of these classes is strengthened or weakened. Let us suppose that France has twenty-five million inhabitants, and that England has only twelve. If the English find a way to extract from France, in one form or another, enough to support three million individuals annually, the French population will decline by that number, and the portion of the English nation benefiting from the tribute will increase by the same amount—unless the tribute is squandered in vain extravagance. The people who pay a tribute thus lose a number of men equal to those whom that tribute could have sustained; and in weakening themselves in this way, they become even more incapable of resisting those who may wish to demand from them even greater tribute. On the contrary, the people who have made another group of people tributaries become proportionally stronger by everything they make the subjected people lose, and in addition, by the increase in population that can result [16] among them from the distribution of the tributes they are paid.

The form in which a tribute is levied changes nothing in the matter: whether food is demanded in kind or a tax in money, it is fundamentally the same thing, since the taxpayers—or, what amounts to the same, the tributaries—can only obtain money by selling their food, and those to whom they give it can only use it effectively by employing it to buy what they deem useful to their well-being or safety. Troops stationed in a country and living at its expense produce the same effect as a tribute carried off to a conquering country. The latter, being no longer obliged to divert some of its means of existence to maintain its armies, grows by everything it is no longer required to give. The tributary people, on the other hand, being obliged to divert from their food supply everything necessary for an occupying army to live on, weakens or diminishes in the same proportion.[15]

[17]

We can apply to two cities, two villages, or even two families, the reasoning we have just used in regard to two nations: the law of population increase or decrease is the same for all individuals of the species; it is the same for hunting people as for pastoral people, for warlike or barbarian people as for agricultural or commercial ones. If a French city were obliged to distribute annually half of its means of existence to another city, it would necessarily lose half of its inhabitants; and if the city that profited from the tribute did not grow in the same proportion, it would be because the distribution of the tribute was not wisely managed.

If, instead of supposing that one city is tributary to another and provides it annually with a part of its means of existence, we suppose that the tribute continues, but that the tributaries and the men living off the tribute are gathered in the same city or on the same [18] territory, it is evident that the effect will be the same: the individuals obliged to give part of their food supply will decrease in proportion to what they are obliged to give; those who benefit from it will increase in the same proportion. To make this clearer, let us take the example of the city of Paris. Suppose that all necessities of life can enter the city without paying tax, [16] and that it is possible to raise a family on three thousand francs per year; it is nearly certain that all persons enjoying this income through their industry or capital will settle there, and that those who do not will be forced to remain single and die without leaving descendants. Now suppose that instead of allowing food to enter freely, a tax is imposed that doubles its price—it is clear that one will need six thousand francs instead of three thousand to raise a family. All those without this income will have to abstain from marriage, and those who are already settled will no longer be able to raise their children. The segment of the population made up of industrious people or property owners will therefore decline as taxes raise the price of food; and if [19] these taxes are distributed to courtiers, office-holders, monks, general staffs, or beggars, the ranks of these will grow by the number lost by the industrious or property-owning class.

These propositions seem to us self-evident; however, if their truth could be called into doubt, experience would come to our aid to confirm them. No people knew better than the Romans how to found their existence on brigandage: before they had subjugated the greater part of the known nations, they had made all the small nations of Italy their tributaries. Now these people, so numerous when they were fighting against Roman tyranny and when part of their population was perishing in defense of their independence, had almost entirely disappeared by the end of the Republic. The most brutal wars had not destroyed their prosperity; it was tributes or taxes that made their lands desolate, and in their place arose that Roman populace which became so formidable in the hands of Marius and Caesar.

England offers us an even more striking example of what a forced or poorly conceived distribution of the means [20] of subsistence can do. The English monasteries, like the monasteries in every country, had created in their surroundings a fairly considerable number of beggars. When their destruction was decreed, it became necessary to find a way to feed this idle populace to which monastic charity had given birth. It was established, under Queen Elizabeth, that each parish would feed its poor: a tax was thus imposed on all farmers or property owners, and from that moment individuals who lacked the means to live or to support a family were able to multiply without fear of seeing their children perish from poverty. On the other hand, farmers, obliged to give a portion of their food to the poor, had to marry with more caution, since they no longer had the certainty of being able to raise their children as easily. The poor tax , in effect, did not bring a single additional grain of wheat into the country, and since it necessarily increased the needy population, it had to decrease the population that could live from the produce of its property or labor.[17]

[21]

The poor taxhas produced the effect that was naturally to be expected: it has momentarily alleviated some individual misfortunes, but it has spread poverty more widely; it has created a greater number of wretched people; it has burdened farmers and property owners with taxes, and it has halted—or at least delayed—the growth of the industrious part of the population. Hardworking men who earned only what was necessary to live and raise a family have fallen into the class of the poor and have been forced to rely on the tax created for the latter to live on. Since this tax in no way increased the country’s means of subsistence,it introduced a greater number of buyers into the market, since it gave to the poor it had created the means to purchase necessities: the price of food rose due to the competition of buyers, and those who had previously had enough to live on found they could survive only by resorting to the tax.

[22]

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, in 1700, the number of poor in England amounted to five hundred seventy-five thousand; that is, this class made up just under a tenth of the population. The tax granted to them was 700,000 pounds sterling, or about eighteen million eight hundred thousand francs. The number of poor gradually increased, and it became necessary to raise, in equal proportion, the tax granted to them. By 1814, the poor made up one-fifth of the population; [18] the tax had already risen from eighteen million eight hundred thousand francs to sixteen million sterling, or three hundred eighty-four million francs. From 1800 to 1814, England's population increased by one million, and what is hard to believe is that the poor were the only class to have multiplied; the class that can live from the product of its labor or property, obliged to give up its means of existence to the poor, not only failed to grow, but it even [23] decreased, as we will soon see. [19]

One might believe that a country where three hundred eighty million francs are regularly given to the poor each year is a country where everyone lives equally at ease; but not at all. There are, proportionally, more destitute people in England than in any other country. The law that establishes a poor tax , far from reducing the number of the unfortunate, in fact only increases it; it is at once a calamity for the families it brings into being, and for the farmers or landowners it affects. Two years ago, in fact, an effort was made to assess the condition of poor laborers and their families, as well as that of the farmers who pay the tax, and the result of the [24] investigations conducted was that the enormous sum to which this tax had risen, without sensibly relieving the poor class, was crushing agriculture. Since facts are always more compelling than theories, we will be forgiven for citing a few examples in support of our reasoning.

In 1816, the Agricultural Committee, wishing to assess the agricultural resources of the country, sent a circular to all its correspondents in which it posed nine questions. Among these was the following: What is the condition of poor laborers, and what is the proportion of the poor tax compared to that of the years 1811 and 1812? On this question, two hundred seventy-three letters were written from various counties in England. Of these two hundred seventy-three letters, two hundred thirty-seven reported that the poor class lacked work; and of these two hundred thirty-seven, one hundred one elaborated on this lack of employment and described, in more or less vivid terms, the poverty and distress that resulted. Some stated that the condition of the poor was so miserable that it had become alarming. [20]

[25]

A landowner wrote from Cambridgeshire that he was alarmed at the extent of the evil and believed it too deeply rooted to be easily remedied. Bands of pillagers and poachers, he said, were increasing at an alarming rate; the murmurs and complaints of the half-starved workers were growing at the same pace. [21] Another landowner wrote from the same province that the lot of the poor laborers was distressing. A third said their condition was truly deplorable: this condition, he said, is caused by a lack of employment; they seek work, but the farmers cannot offer them any. [22]

The condition of the poor and the working class, it was written from Herefordshire, is worse than I have ever seen it, and each week it becomes more deplorable, because the farmers' resources are diminishing. [23]

J. Boys wrote from the county of Kent that the state of the poor laborers was worse than he [26] could ever remember. In the parish of Ash, he added, where I am a landowner and tenant, the parish officer recently informed me that forty-six laborers had appealed to the committee for work or money, and that the majority had to be assisted. [24]

W. Whiteside wrote from Lancashire in these terms: The condition of the poor laborers is such that many are roaming the countryside in search of work; but in vain—farmers who have work to be done cannot afford to pay them; so many, who would once have blushed at the thought of receiving public assistance, now fall upon the parish for support. [25]

John Buckley wrote from Leicestershire: The condition of the poor laborers, caused by the poverty of the farmers and, consequently, by the lack of work, is undeniably worse than it was when wheat sold for twice what it does today: they are all more or less dependent on their [27] parishes; the poor tax is generally just as high—in several parishes even higher—than it was in 1811 and 1812. [26]

Thomas Pilley wrote from Lincolnshire that poor laborers, formerly so usefully employed, are now starving for lack of work. The taxes, he continued, can still be collected, but they cannot be paid much longer. Farmers, instead of employing or assisting the poor, will soon need to be employed or assisted themselves; and, I am sorry to say, this is already happening to a great number. [27] Another wrote from the same province: The county jail is filled with insolvent debtors, and the workhouses offer a miserable refuge to poor families who once helped bear the burdens of their parishes. [28]

The number of destitute or vagrant people has doubled in some parts of the county of [28] Monmouth, according to a letter from Edward Berry. [29] In Norfolk, poverty seems no less great. The current condition of poor laborers, wrote John Thurtell, is truly distressing; it is worse than we have ever seen. A great number of these unfortunate people, in perfect health, are forced to beg assistance from the parish in the district of Mutford and Lothingland, where I reside. The number of admissions to the workhouse since last Michaelmas has been greater than at any time when the price of wheat was higher, and they continue to increase at an alarming rate every week. We are obliged to grant relief outside the workhouse to many healthy laborers because we cannot employ them. [30]

Samuel Taylor wrote from the same county in these terms: As for the poor, I can truthfully say that their situation is one of the most alarming aspects of this unfortunate time. The necessity of managing and maintaining them demands the most serious attention of the [29] legislature. The workhouse in the districts of Loddon and Clavering is completely full, containing not fewer than four hundred poor; and on Monday the 19th, one hundred fifty laborers (all strong, able-bodied, willing but unable to find work) came forward seeking assistance. [31] The condition of the poor laborers, wrote a wealthy landowner from the same county, is as miserable as it was in 1811 and 1812, although the poor tax es are much higher than they were in those years. [32] A third wrote in even more striking terms: Rest assured, he said, that if measures are not promptly taken, the produce of the land will no longer suffice to feed the poor who inhabit it. The parish of Carbrooke, with about five hundred souls, is annually burdened with eight to nine hundred pounds sterling (around two hundred thousand francs) for the support of its poor. [33]

Edward Martin wrote from Northamptonshire that the poor laborers had not been in such a miserable condition in the last twenty-five years. [30] A great number of young people, he said, go from house to house asking for work, and they are paid partly by those who employ them, and partly by the inspector or overseer of the poor. [34]

A resident of Somerset, Richard Loke, wrote that the poor tax in his parish amounted to four hundred sixty-two pounds sterling in 1811; that it rose to five hundred seventy pounds in 1815; and this year, he added (in 1816), it amounts to seven hundred twenty-three pounds sterling. [35] Wheat being much cheaper in 1816 than in 1811, and the poor tax having nearly doubled, one would think the poor had become much more comfortable; but that is not how things turned out. The poor multiplied faster than the taxes, and they were perhaps more miserable than before. The poor laborers, said Mr. Richard Loke, whom we just cited, have great difficulty finding work, even at very low wages, and they are in a condition that [31] is not far from famine: They are in a state little short of starvation. [36]

In Suffolk, the poor are not in a much happier situation. John Tomson writes from that province that one of the most alarming signs of decline is the condition of the poor laborers. Many, he says, are unemployed because their masters are not in a position to pay them for their work. What is to be done then? They cannot be left to starve. They are sent to work on the roads, and are supported by the poor tax . [37] Studd writes from the same county that in his area the condition of the poor is lamentable; that, being unable to employ them in agriculture, they are made to work on the roads; that in some parishes they are found in groups of ten, twenty, thirty, and up to seventy; and yet from 1811 to 1815, the poor tax increased by a third. [38]

Robert Fuller writes from the same province: Unless a prompt remedy is applied, the poor [32] will no longer be able to be supported either by what they earn or by the means of taxation; already they can no longer live on what they earn, and they are increasing in such a way each day that I fear taxes will soon no longer suffice for them; and when the poor can no longer find work, and farmers can no longer pay taxes, the consequences will be terrible. [39] From the county of Surrey, Thomas Page writes that the workers in his area are in a state of poverty he has never seen before. He reports that several live by means of the poor tax , and several by their nocturnal depredations. Nevertheless, since 1812, this tax has increased by a fifth. [40]

We will stop our quotations here: those who are not yet convinced of the state of distress in which the working class in England finds itself can consult the collection we have just cited: they will find there even more complete proof.

The three hundred eighty million [33] francs that are given annually to the poor have, far from reducing the number of the destitute, only increased it. The poor tax , we repeat, has not multiplied the means of existence; it has only redistributed them. The part of the population that has benefited from it has grown accordingly, and it has reached the point where poverty has prevented it from multiplying further. The part of the population that has given up a portion of its means of existence has had to weaken, or at least remain stationary. Compared to what it was when it began paying the tax, it may not have declined; but compared to the class that lives off it, it has been significantly weakened, since originally the ratio was ten to one, and today it is five or even three to one.

What should surprise us is not that the poor class has multiplied to the extent it has, but that the multiplication has not been even faster, and that all the produce of English soil has not already been absorbed by the poor. If, since the establishment of the tax, it had indeed fed the poor tolerably, those whom it [34] had nourished would already cover the surface of the land; and it is only to the parsimony and harshness with which it has been granted that the English owe not having been completely overrun by an immense multitude of beggars.

“The scant relief granted to those in misery,” says Malthus, [41] “the insulting and capricious manner in which this aid is given by overseers, and the natural pride of man, not yet entirely extinguished among English peasants, have deterred the most virtuous and thoughtful among them from marrying before they had, to raise their families, better resources than parish assistance. The desire to make our condition better, and the fear of making it worse—like the vis mediatrix naturae in medicine—is the vis mediatrix rei publicae in politics, and continually tends to check the disorders born from our narrow institutions. Despite the prejudices in favor of population, and the direct encouragement given to marriage by the poor laws, these two sentiments act as a preventive obstacle to the growth of the [35] population; and it is fortunate for this country that it is so.

“But,” adds the same writer, “in addition to this spirit of independence and prudence which checks the frequency of marriage despite the encouragement of the poor laws, these very laws themselves are a significant obstacle, destroying on one side what they create on the other; each parish, being required to feed its own poor, naturally fears seeing their numbers increase; and as a result, property owners are far more inclined to destroy than to build cottages, unless they have a real and pressing need for workers. This lack of cottages is a powerful obstacle to marriage, and this obstacle is probably the main reason why we have been able to maintain the system of poor laws for so long.

“Those whom these causes do not prevent from marrying receive meager assistance in their homes, where they suffer all the consequences of squalid poverty; or they are gathered and confined in unhealthy workhouses, where there is always, especially among children, high mortality. The [36] dreadful account given by Jonas Hanway of the treatment of the poor in London is well known; and it appears, according to Mr. Howlet and other writers, that in several other parts of the country their situation is not much better. A large part of the excess population produced by the poor laws is thus eliminated by the very effect of these laws, or at least by their poor execution. The part that survives, requiring that the subsistence meant for continuing labor be divided among more individuals than it can naturally support, and taking a considerable portion of this subsistence from hardworking and thrifty laborers to feed the idle or intemperate, makes the condition of those outside the workhouses harsher, forces them to enter these houses every year, and produces that excessive evil we so justly complain of—this immense number of individuals who live on public charity.” [42]

Population always rises to the level [37] of the means of subsistence,as we have said, and the way in which these means increase does not change their effect. Thus, whether one gives a class of individuals the means to live under the name of alms, or wages, or stipend, or reward, the name changes nothing: that class multiplies in proportion to the food it is given. The more one gives to it, the more numerous, demanding, and insatiable it becomes. If it is a class of office-holders, [43] it grows in precisely the same way as we have observed in the class of the poor. It does not fill the workhouses with laborers; but—which is far worse—it fills the offices with supernumeraries and the antechambers with valets and courtiers.

Create an office and attach to it a salary sufficient to support a family, and immediately an idler will present himself to fill it, and a father will be ready to give him his daughter. That already is a nursery of office-holders. The children arrive, and since they cannot all grow and multiply under the paternal roof, something must be done to find them posts where they can live—and where [38] their descendants can live too. It is far worse if the office created gives the holder some influence or power. Then it is not only he who begets office-holders, but also his brothers, his nephews, his cousins, his second cousins. First all these people must be placed somewhere; and if among them there are girls without dowries to marry, men must be found who can read and write and who are willing to take them on in exchange for a post. [44]

In England, office-holders and pensioners [45] have been recruited in nearly equal proportion to the poor. When someone renders notable service to the ruling class, he is immediately given the means to live in opulence; and if he has descendants, it is understood that each of them must be given the means to raise a family. The multiplication of office-holders is already in itself something quite valuable; but the multiplication of individuals who can protect office-holders [39] is something priceless: it is the creation of a near-divine race. Let a general prove skillful, whether in keeping tributaries in submission or in increasing their number by enslaving some foreign people, and at once wealth rains down upon him and his kin; every effort is made to multiply such a precious lineage; his brothers and sisters are endowed, positions are created for their children, and they are trained to follow in his footsteps. Following this system, office-holders have multiplied to the point of consuming, by themselves, half the products of the country’s soil and industry. [46]

When an excessive multitude of poor people and office-holders consumes, in whatever form, the food supplies of the industrious or property-owning class; when tributes have reached the point where they can no longer be increased without danger, and when they absorb the greater part of capital profits, another way of increasing expenditures presents itself: [40] it is to consume the capital itself and make the laboring class pay the interest on it. This is done through what is called public credit, or the system of loans—a system which can become the most terrible of scourges when it is regularly used to meet habitual needs.

To understand the consequences of this system, one need only examine how things proceed. A man, for example, possesses a capital of one hundred thousand francs. This capital, placed in an industrial enterprise, yields him five percent. As long as this man leaves his capital so invested, he can consume an annual income of five thousand francs, without it costing anyone anything. On the contrary, the person who utilizes the capital, and the workers he employs, benefit from it, since it provides them the means to exercise their industry. The government imposes a tax; and since every tax must be a levy on the annual products of a nation, the revenues from capital decrease as taxes increase. He who, with a capital of one hundred thousand francs, enjoyed an income of five thousand francs, [41] will now enjoy only four, three, or two, depending on how much is taken from him. The portion taken will swell the income of the office-holders; and if, due to the reduction of his income, he can no longer raise a family, the class of office-holders may raise one more in his place.

Now, if we suppose that a government steps in and says to our capitalist: Your one hundred thousand francs, invested in an industrial enterprise, yield you only an income of three thousand francs; if you withdraw them from the hands of the entrepreneur and give them to me, I will consume them, and pay you an annual rent of nine thousand francs—it is clear that this operation, if carried out, will have the following effects: 1) it will destroy a productive capital, and thus reduce production or taxable matter by that amount; 2) it will increase taxes by whatever is necessary to pay the annuity of the individual who surrendered his capital; 3) it will remove that individual from the class of men who live off their own property, and enroll him in the class of those who live off the property or labor of others; 4) finally, [42] it will give him the means to raise a greater number of children than he could have raised if he had continued to live without drawing on the incomes of others.

Annuity-holders [47] or pensioners, like beggars and office-holders, can only live off the incomes of others; and the more they are granted, the more they multiply, the more power they acquire to defend or secure the portion they have been promised. One could compare pensioners to those selfish and lazy individuals who abandon their industry and give up part of their fortune in order to enlist among the gentry: both aspire equally to live off the incomes of others, to remain idle while others work for them, and to pay no taxes—or, which is the same, to exempt themselves from the burdens that ought to be shared by all.

England again offers us an example of the excesses a government can reach by appropriating and consuming capital, and paying interest on it from the incomes of property owners or laborers. In 1689, the year William and Mary ascended [43] the throne, the government owed 1,054,925 pounds sterling. By 1815, it owed 777,470,000 pounds sterling; meaning that, in just over two centuries, it had increased its debt by 776,405,075 pounds sterling, or 18,525,721,800 francs. This debt was producing, in 1815, according to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, an annual interest of 55,973,000 pounds sterling, or 865,252,000 francs. Now, assuming that each individual in England consumes an average of six hundred francs annually, the party of office-holders could not have established such a tribute on the property owners and the laboring class without preventing or destroying the existence of a million and a half individuals from those two classes, and without creating an equivalent army of pensioners—an army that, by its nature, is always inclined to support the tax collectors and distributors of tributes. Thus, the office-holding party gained, by this single measure, the relative strength that nearly three million individuals can provide.

This enormous multiplication of poor people, [44] office-holders, and pensioners—all living at the expense of the industrious class—has produced a result worthy of observation: it has displaced the benefits of property, and in a sense, enslaved the laboring population to the idle and consuming population that has risen above them. Indeed, it is not by cultivating a field or making it productive that one enjoys the benefits of property; it is by receiving and consuming its products. Now, the true consumers in England are the poor, the pensioners, the salaried—in short, all those who share in the products taken from various branches of industry. If, by means of the capital invested in a piece of land and the labor applied to it, one makes it yield values of, say, three thousand francs, the one who receives and can consume that sum without giving anything in return is, properly speaking, the owner. If the farmer is required to pay one thousand francs to support the poor, from that moment the poor enjoy one-third of his property. If he is required to pay another thousand francs to support pensioners or annuitants, they [45] enjoy another third of his property. Finally, if the last third is taken to sustain office-holders, the property disappears entirely from his hands, and he becomes merely the tenant or slave of those who consume his products.

To show how rapidly the poor are multiplying in England, we have already cited the information gathered by the Agricultural Committee; let us now turn again to the same documents to illustrate the impact of taxes—whatever their name—on the fate of property owners or farmers. These citations will confirm what we have already stated, and what is in any case self-evident: the more producers give from their products, the weaker they become, and the more power they give to those who can live only off the incomes of others.

Among the questions the Agricultural Committee addressed to its correspondents was this: Have any farms recently been re-let at reduced rents? If so, what is the proportion [46] of the reduction? On this question, two hundred twelve letters were written from various parts of the kingdom, and all agree in acknowledging that there has been a reduction in rental prices. The common rate of reduction was twenty-five percent. In some parts of England, the reduction was smaller; but in others it was much greater, and in some places, the land was abandoned because the taxes imposed to support the poor, the clergy, the pensioners, or the office-holders consumed more than the land could yield.

The letters received by the Agricultural Committee were organized by county, and those relating to each county were preceded by a table indicating the farms that had been abandoned by tenants or left uncultivated. The number of farms abandoned by tenants amounted to at least six hundred forty or six hundred fifty, representing an immense expanse of land. Several of these farms can no longer even be cultivated by the landowners themselves. In the county of Cambridge, for example, entire parishes [47] remain uncultivated.[48] In other counties, up to twenty-four farms—representing four thousand acres—are in the same condition. In others, nine thousand acres of land have been abandoned by both tenants and owners.

But what above all proves the prodigious growth of the class of idlers and consumers, and the weakening of the industrious class, is the distress of the farmers and their inability to escape ruin through their efforts. To fully convey the state in which they find themselves, it would be necessary to reproduce all the letters addressed to the Agricultural Committee. Let us be allowed to insert here only a few excerpts; the passages we report will justify some of the preceding propositions.

Mr. Macqueen writes from Bedfordshire: Three of my farms are currently vacant—one containing four hundred and four acres, [48] another four hundred, and the third two hundred and fifty. I am forced to cultivate these farms at enormous expense to prevent them from falling into total degradation. I pay the property tax as both owner and tenant. I pay tithes, the poor tax , the road tax, etc., without expecting to reap anything for at least a year; and the future products I can expect will, I fear, fall short of the burdens I must bear. I have also lost sixteen hundred pounds sterling (thirty-eight thousand four hundred francs) in rent arrears, through the clandestine sale of crops and other goods by my tenants, and through their insolvency. These farms are located in the best territory in Bedfordshire, etc. [49]

The liabilities from farmers’ bankruptcies, writes J. Page from Cambridgeshire, amount to seventy-three thousand pounds sterling (1,752,000 francs), without any dividend for the creditors. [50] In this [49] area, adds Dr. N. Thompson, many more tenants than I can name have abandoned their farms; several of these farms have been taken over by the owners; a much greater number remain completely unoccupied. A few miles from Long-Stowe, that is, in the parishes of Croxton, Eltisley, Joseland, Jelling, the Gransdens, and the Hatleys, it is estimated that more than eight thousand acres lie unoccupied, and more are expected to be abandoned daily. [51] Our prisons, says John Mortlock, are filled with farmers who were once respectable, and barely a single landowner can expect to be paid. [52] Thomas Briggs adds that in his parish several farms have been abandoned by the tenants. I have been forced, he says, to take over the operation of one of mine; there are three others, amounting to seven hundred acres, which are at the present time lying entirely waste. [53]

The letters from Cornwall contain [50] similar details. John Wallis reports that farmers can barely find in their harvests the means to pay their taxes, and consequently rents are not being paid. Discouraged, he adds, they neglect their land; and those who have only capital invested in farming are indifferent to the consequences of this neglect, because their capital has lost half its value. [54] The Agricultural Society of Cornwall, writes the president of the society, can confirm that the distress afflicting all classes engaged in agriculture is far beyond anything the society has previously known; the landowner is in poverty because he receives no rent; the tenant, because he cannot sell his harvest; and the laborer, because he cannot find employment. If no remedy is applied, not only will many individuals suffer, but taxes will no longer be payable. [55]

Miles Bowker writes from Dorsetshire: The distress of the farmers here is so great [51] that it is impossible for them to pay rent, taxes, and their laborers without drawing on the capital necessary for the operation of their farms—capital which currently finds no buyers. About four years ago, I spent thirteen hundred pounds sterling (312,000 francs) to raise a flock of one thousand merinos, acquire and improve one hundred fifty acres of land held for life, and bring another thousand acres under cultivation; and this sum, through losses and depreciation of capital value, is now half gone. If it became necessary to sell the capital, it would not fetch as many crowns as it cost me in pounds sterling, even though it is well known that I do my plowing at lower cost than neighboring farmers, and have lived on less than one percent of my capital. My children, instead of going to school, have become laborers and farmhands; and the harder we work, the greater our losses become. It has been several weeks since I gave up two of my farms; only one person came to view either of them, and it seems likely that no one will want to take them on. [56]

[52]

It has come to my knowledge, writes Isaac Royer from the county of Essex, that several farmers have been unable to save themselves by their industry or their diligence. The calamities are so great and so numerous that a substantial volume would be required to contain them. Where a rent reduction has occurred, the ruin of the farmers has been delayed, but not prevented. [57] I do not hesitate to say, adds John Vaisey from the same county, that a third of the landowners (who have no other source of income), as far as my knowledge of the area extends, are currently insolvent. [58]

A letter from another county, Huntingdonshire, reports that the poverty of the farmers is extreme. The parish of Atley Saint-George, says one landowner, is made up of nine hundred acres; a large portion is in pasture; about three hundred acres are without tenants; three hundred are in the hands of a single tenant; the remainder is worked by the landowner himself, because he has not found anyone to rent it. Some [53] neighboring parishes are almost wholly uncultivated; hence great distress, because laborers cannot find work: Some parishes in the neighbourhood are almost wholly uncultivated, and great distress prevails, from the labourers not having it in their power to procure any work. [59]

In the county of Kent, there are parishes where the poor tax alone almost equals the amount of rent. [60] The situation is even worse in some parts of Lancashire. The distress of the farmers, writes Mr. W. Whiteside, is apparent on all sides: many are unable to pay their most urgent expenses, which forces them to delay their payments or go bankrupt. Their poverty is such that they cannot even afford the necessities of life... I believe that powerful remedies must be promptly adopted, or the present generation of farmers will be ruined. A reduction of rent (as far as my limited means allow me to judge) would be an inadequate remedy for so great an evil; [54] because, even if farmers were exonerated from rent entirely, very few could live: As very few farmers could live, if they were exonerated from the whole rent. [61]

George Tennison writes from Lincolnshire that the harvests have been good; but the produce is consumed by taxes, the poor tax , or laborers. The farms, he adds, have become worthless wherever it is not possible to raise livestock. [62] Turnet, from the same province, says that several farmers have consumed their capital; that many others have gone bankrupt; that no more improvements are being made, and that farms are generally neglected. [63] Thomas Pilly adds that soon taxes will no longer be payable, and that farmers, instead of employing and assisting the poor, will themselves soon need assistance: I am sorry [55] to say, he continues, that a great many are already in that situation. [64]

In the county of Monmouth, the farmers seem to be even more crushed by taxes than in other counties. Several farmers, writes a magistrate, Mr. J.-H. Moggridge, before the harvest, sold all the wheat they had to sell in order to pay the poor and king’s taxes (to pay parochial and King's taxes), and they retained nothing to pay taxes or rent for the half-year then current. Several already owe considerable arrears, particularly for the poor tax and road tax. The significant and ever-growing lack of work, the poverty of the tenants and their ruined families, the despair shown in the faces and speech of many, the allusions to resistance to the law, and the attempts to justify such resistance, the multitudes brought before magistrates for non-payment of taxes (multitudes exceeding one hundred from the same place at the same time), the tone and spirit of the country, all make me fear that when the [56] workers are no longer employed on the public works already well underway, it will be difficult to maintain public order. This opinion is shared by those most closely connected to the oppressed class, and by those who, alongside me, perform the duties of peace officers.

In a second letter, the same magistrate, after reporting some acts of violence caused by extreme poverty, adds: In the immediate vicinity of the town of Newport, I am well informed that the goods of nearly two hundred persons are to be sold to pay the poor tax , unless they pay it by tomorrow. The farmers in these parts, he continues, are now in the habit of abandoning their homes after secretly selling, as best they can, what remains of their capital or other property… Suffering is nearly universal, and the anticipation is terrible. [65]

The magistrates, farmers, tenants, or farmers of thirty parishes in the same county gathered (on March 19, 1816), and it was [57] unanimously acknowledged: 1.) that the farmers and landowners of this country are overwhelmed by unparalleled and ever-increasing poverty; 2.) that, as a result, several farmers have already been ruined and their capital sold through judicial order for the payment of rents and taxes; that many others face the same fate, and that those who still remain are living off capital they are forced to withdraw from the cultivation of the land; 3.) that the sale price of all available produce from farms in the area is not sufficient to cover the costs of cultivation, taxes, the poor tax , and other public charges that must be paid before any rent; 4.) that the price of wheat and other farm produce is no higher than it was before the war of 1793, and that taxes are nearly five times heavier; 5.)that without a prompt and effective remedy, the general ruin of the farmers, the loss of rent for the landowners, and the non-payment of taxes to the government will be inevitable; that the land will cease to be cultivated (as has already partly happened), and that scarcity—if not famine—will be the [58] consequence, etc. [66] This picture of the county of Monmouth is concluded by a letter from Edward Berry, which ends with this sentence: I can confidently affirm that, unless rents are reduced by nearly half and leases granted for twenty-one years, the rest of the landholders will abandon their properties or be ruined. Thus the county of Monmouth will present a vast desert. [67]

The burden of taxes is no less in the county of Norfolk. The distress of the farmers, writes Wm. Diball, is beyond what I can express: several who spent large sums to improve their farms have been evicted without a shilling, being unable to pay their rents. The state of distress in this county, in which I reside, is such that I know of no remedy that could bring relief: a small reduction in rents and taxes would not be enough; and with the burdens currently weighing [59] on agriculture, and with the price at which wheat is selling, I do not consider even good land to be worth occupying. Nevertheless, he adds, if something is not promptly done to remedy this situation, I fear the consequences will be terrible. I believe that at least eight-tenths of current tenants will not be able to hold onto their farms for two more years without some major change; and it seems worth considering how it will be possible to keep the poor peaceful. [68]

This is surely sufficient to establish that the poor, the pensioners, and the office-holders can multiply like the locusts that made up one of the seven plagues of Egypt and alone consume the produce of the soil they have overrun. We could have cited a much greater number of examples; we could have mentioned the county of Northumberland, where there is a district in which, out of 1,230 farmers, more than 1,000 pay taxes not [60] from profits, but from losses; [69] the county of Somerset, where there are districts unable to pay three-quarters of their tithes or other taxes with the proceeds from their wheat or livestock; [70] and finally the county of Suffolk, from which it is written—after a vivid depiction of the poverty crushing the farmers—that without a prompt and radical remedy, the kingdom will soon be dragged into general ruin and destruction, and will present its inhabitants with nothing but an uncultivated and wild desert. [71] But more quotations would only tire our readers without enlightening them further.

The classes that devour the products of agriculture in England are chiefly the poor and the clergy. The former take a share under the name of taxes; the latter take another under the name of tithes. The office-holders and pensioners also take theirs; but these live and multiply especially by what they [61] extract from other branches of industry. In 1815, their share amounted to approximately 1.7 billion francs; this value was distributed among them in greater or lesser amounts. M. Say [72] believes one would not stray far from the truth in stating that the government (that is, the immense crowd of office-holders) consumes half the revenues produced by the land, capital, and industry of the English people. Add to that what is consumed by the poor, the clergy, road maintenance, and all local charges, and one will see what remains for the property owners or the industrious, whatever their class.

Nothing, it seems to us, proves better the enormity of the consumption of office-holders and pensioners than the extent of English industry, the relentless labor of the hard-working men of that nation, the frugality they bring to their personal spending, and the state of distress in which they continually find themselves. According to the writer just cited, “The English nation [62] in general, apart from a few favorites of fortune, is compelled to relentless labor; it cannot rest. One sees no professional idlers in England,” he says. “One is noticed as soon as one looks idle or glances around. There are no cafés, no billiard halls filled with loiterers from morning to night, and the promenades are deserted every day except Sunday; everyone rushes about absorbed in their business. Those who slow down their work are quickly ruined; and I was told in London that many families, especially those with little financial cushion, fell into serious difficulties during the visit of the allied sovereigns, because these princes greatly stirred public curiosity, and people sometimes sacrificed several days of work just to see them.” [73]

This prodigious activity does not save the industrious class from poverty, because the office-holders and pensioners are even more greedy than the industrious are hardworking. “Every consumption, every movement so to speak, is taxed: thus [63] an Englishman who is in trade, if the capital he employs is not his own, and if he must pay interest on it, cannot support his family. A piece of land or a financial investment that elsewhere would be sufficient to provide comfort without work is not enough in England to support its owner: he must, if he does not work the land himself, also practice a skill or take part, either as a principal or subordinate, in some other enterprise.” [74]

The liberty enjoyed by the English people has sometimes been praised, and perhaps we ourselves have fallen into that common error. It seems to us that there has been a misunderstanding when speaking of this nation and its freedom. In England, as in almost every country, there are two groups of people: one that lives off the industry of others, and one that lives solely by its own labor. The former can rightly call itself free: it is perfectly organized to impose and collect the tributes upon which its existence is based. It has assemblies that deliberate either on what it needs to collect, or on how it should collect it; [75] [64] it has, across the territory, tax collectors in charge of collecting, soldiers or other agents to compel recalcitrant tributaries; and, if necessary, the organized party can call upon the unorganized one for help, and distribute to it the enormous quantity of weapons stored in its arsenals. Individuals who cultivate the land or practice any other form of industry are free in the sense that no one can arrest or hinder them in their work, and that they may flee with impunity; but they are entirely slaves in the sense that they do not belong to themselves, and that the products of the soil they cultivate, or of the industry they exercise, can be—and are in fact—regularly taken from them as soon as they come into being. In this sense, it may be said that English laborers are the most enslaved men in Europe, for the reason that, among all masters, theirs are those most skillfully and powerfully organized. The security of the laboring slaves lies almost entirely in the interest of the masters, since they alone benefit from the increased production that results.

What constitutes liberty, in fact, is not [65] merely the ability to exercise one’s faculties without obstacle, but to exercise them for one’s own benefit. In Rome, there were slaves who practiced the arts or sciences; and their masters, far from impeding them, encouraged their practice. But as soon as these slaves produced something, their masters were there to seize and enjoy the result. There were also slaves who worked in agriculture; but the products of the fields they cultivated were consumed by their masters. The laboring slaves [76] of England are precisely in the same situation: they cannot say they belong to themselves, since the product of their labor is consumed by others; and if property in a thing consists in the ability to receive and consume its fruits without giving anything in return, the poor, the office-holders, or the pensioners are, almost without exception, in England, the true proprietors of the land and of the men who cultivate it.

English farmers are beginning—albeit a bit late—to become aware of these truths. The poor tax , writes Mr. Taylor, is the greatest of all our evils; it is an evil to whose growth no limit has [66] been set, and which (unless it is stopped in time) will, forty years from now, turn the nominal owner of land into a mere administrator of property belonging to the poor. [77] Mr. Walter Forbes adds that he will not presume to judge whether the current system is necessary; but assuming it is, he does not hesitate to declare that "the landed property of the kingdom is on the verge of changing hands to an extent beyond all former example." [78] We have previously seen that the possessions of landowners are sold to pay the taxes of the poor and the king, and that the prisons are filled with insolvent debtors—which might suggest that we were wrong when we said that industrious Englishmen are working slaves who have the liberty to flee.

There are people who imagine that the laboring class of the English nation will be able [67] to escape exploitation through parliamentary reform, revolution, or bankruptcy. Of all delusions, that is certainly the most vain. Parliamentary reform would be nothing more than the breaking up of the union and the organisation of office-holders and pensioners, and the strengthening of the union and the organisation of those who feed them with the product of their labor. But how can one imagine that men who live solely by the strength of their union will consent to disband and allow the formation of an organization whose sole aim would be to starve them? What would one have said if the slaves of Rome had appeared before their masters to ask for the dissolution of the Senate or the Comitia, and permission to take their place? Are the petitions that some Englishmen now present to their masters any more sensible?

A revolution in the interest of the laboring class is even less likely than a reform. There may be in England seditions, revolts, massacres—but the masters will remain masters, and the industrious, whatever their class, will lose what little security they still enjoy. As for bankruptcy, it is [68] just as utopian as a useful revolution. The office-holders would lose half of their army if they dismissed the pensioners; these are useful auxiliaries whom they will be careful not to send into the enemy's camp. It is true that these auxiliaries are costly; but what does it matter? Is it not at the expense of the industrious that they live, and are the office-holders not just as well fed? If one doubted the impossibility of a useful revolution or of a bankruptcy, it would be enough to consider the customs, the strength, and the organization of that portion of the population which lives on the capital and labor of the other.

The first effect of the poor tax , as we have seen, was to cause a prodigious increase in that class; the second, to inspire in it a distaste for labor and for thrift, and thus to give it all the vices born of idleness and poverty; the third, to make it regard all the goods of the country as property to which it has an incontestable right—or to spread that spirit of so-called equality which is one of the most active elements of demagogy, and which always ends in the birth of military despotism.

[69]

Labor is man’s first necessity, for it is only through labor that men can exist; but labor is not in itself a pleasure—at least not for the majority; it is merely a means of living or obtaining enjoyment. Therefore, when it becomes possible to attain the end without the means, labor ceases. This possibility is produced by the poor tax. Individuals who can live and multiply without doing anything will not exert themselves much: for a beggar, idleness is the highest enjoyment, to which he sacrifices all others. Accordingly, among all the complaints made by English farmers, this one is among the most common. They also complain greatly that this tax engenders vice and depravity. We have already provided so many quotations that we will give only one more here, and refer curious readers to the original work for further facts. [79]

[70]

Mr. Thomas Coburn reports that during the winter, workers he names used to arrive regularly at nine in the morning and leave at three. I told them, he says, that since the laws of the country obliged me to feed them and their families, they were, in return, bound to work the same number of hours as the other laborers so that I might have the means to keep them alive. They replied that neither for me nor for anyone else would they work later than three o'clock. I therefore summoned them before the magistrate, Mr. Hide, who told them that their duty was to work in winter from dawn until dark, and that if they refused to do so, he would send them to prison. They treated this threat with contempt and replied that, “if they went to prison (which was a matter of indifference to them) the parish must maintain their families.” [80]

The vices of the lower class of the [71] English nation are well known; it is known that, by the admission of the nation’s own writers, more crimes are committed there than in all other European nations combined. But what is not so well known is that the immense multitude living by means of the poor tax , though degraded by the habit of receiving alms, [81] nonetheless considers the land of the country as a property whose fruits it has the right to consume. “They have not forgotten,” says Dr. Macqueen, “either the doctrine of equality or the rights of man; on the contrary, they cherish them passionately and renounce them only with reluctance. They regard their respective parishes as their inheritance; they believe they have the right to turn to them at the slightest misfortune, real or imagined, whatever its cause. If their request is not immediately granted, they run to the nearest magistrate, who is usually the parish curate, and obtain from him an order for the overseer.” [82] Mr. John Beresford writes in similar terms: [72] “Several years ago,” he says, “it was shameful to receive parish relief; but that sentiment has unfortunately disappeared. Poor laborers now seem to believe that they have as incontestable a right to parish relief as to the wages earned by their labor, and they claim it with the same confidence.” [83]

However extraordinary this view of the English poor may seem, it is so natural to the human mind that time, far from erasing it, will only strengthen it through habit and prejudice. Sooner or later, it will be shared by all who live off the property of others; and the day may not be far off when beggars too will devour the people by divine right. [84] Let one consider now the immense number of individuals maintained by the 380 million francs of the poor tax ; let one consider the habits, the vices, the ideas with which this [73] population is imbued; and let one add to that force the equally large multitude of office-holders and pensioners, all living off the property or industry of others, and able to devote all their time, all their capacity, all their strength to maintaining their position, while the laboring class, which feeds this multitude through the product of its sweat, has not a moment to spare for its own defense—and then let one ask by what means this latter class could ever escape enslavement.

If the head of an army, having gained some influence, were suddenly to call around him the mass of the discontented by promising them liberty and equality, he might perhaps overthrow the leaders of the present administration and substitute military despotism for the oligarchy currently in power. But what would the industrious part of the nation gain by that? If the poor whom it now supports were clad in red or blue uniforms, would they require any less food, and would they be any more manageable once each carried a saber or bayonet in hand? It would be a deplorable revolution indeed to replace workhouses with barracks, and sinecurists of one kind with [74] lieutenant-generals or marshals of another. It would even be highly likely that he who thus proclaimed liberty and equality—without causing a single extra grain of wheat to grow—would ally himself with the original group of "eaters", [85] and the industrious class would be left to feed both the old and the new "parvenus". [86]

We said at the outset that population always rises to the level of the means of subsistence, and tends even to exceed them; that by removing the means of subsistence from one part of a people and giving it to another, [87] one weakens the former or halts its growth, while strengthening the latter in the same proportion; that the displacement of food supplies, without increasing its quantity, cannot increase population or prevent it from declining; and finally, that when the means of living or of raising families are given to the poor, to office-holders, or to any other class of individuals, the growth of the laboring class is arrested, and an idle and immoral race replaces an active and virtuous population.

These propositions having been proved by [75] incontestable facts, each person may draw from them whatever conclusions he deems useful to his interests. Those who wish to live off the labor of others must seek to multiply offices and increase their salaries: for the more employees there are, the more they will draw from others’ incomes, the more they will be able to multiply, the more power they will acquire. If the country they inhabit has representative assemblies, they must strive to take them over, so that they may better guard their own interests—that is to say, defend and increase their salaries. They must also, as much as possible, get hold of the capital of those who possess it, and after consuming it, make the industrious class pay interest on it. This is an excellent way to weaken that class and strengthen their own. A pensioner with whom they share is always a ready ally; a capitalist whose revenues they take is an enemy who must be fought every day. Finally, they must do everything they can to increase the number of the poor. This class, when numerous, can be extremely useful to them. It is a scarecrow that always forces the class [76] which feeds them into submission.Whether it is shown in a state of tumult or seen regimented and clad in red or blue uniforms, its effect is always the same.

Those who wish to live off their own incomes, and not have them consumed by others, must pursue the opposite course: they must give as little as possible of their property; the pinnacle of perfection would be to give nothing at all. This perfection they must not hope to reach, but their efforts must constantly tend in that direction. If they enjoy national representation, their first priority must be to take control of it, and then to devote all their efforts to reducing, as much as possible, the number of positions and the amount of salaries. Instead of foolishly demanding that it be declared a constitutional and inalienable right to wait in in a government antechamber for a job, they must see to it that government salaries are so low that no one will envy them. On this point, they must imitate those wise people who placed at the head of their constitution the following declaration:

“As, in order to preserve his independence, [77] every free man who does not possess sufficient property must have some profession, trade, business, or farm that enables him to live honorably, it is not necessary to create lucrative posts, because their usual effect is to inspire in those who hold or seek them a spirit of dependence or servitude unworthy of free men. Thus, whenever the emoluments of a post increase to the point of making it desirable to many, the legislature must reduce its profits.” [88]

By reducing the number of government offices and diminishing their benefits, there will be no need to consume private capital and thereby create pensioners: a modest tax will suffice to pay absolutely necessary expenses. Capitalists will then remain on the side of the industrious, and will not, after being transformed into pensioners, lend their support to those who seek to increase the number and rewards of public office.

[78]

But it would be in vain for men who wish neither to live at others’ expense nor to let others live at theirs to aim for a reduction in the amount of salaries and the number of who receive these salaries, if they continue to support a class of poor or beggars, and if they do not get into the habit of looking after the maintenance of public order themselves. [89] Supporting beggars is establishing nurseries of criminals or vagrants; and when vagrants or criminals abound, one must have police to watch them, soldiers or gendarmes to arrest them, prisons and jailers to guard them, magistrates to judge them—and when all these are necessary, they must be paid. In being paid, they multiply; and when they multiply and become strong, they exploit the people they were meant to protect. From that moment, the people become their tributaries, and liberty no longer exists.

[79]

Note. In the second volume of this work, we addressed social organization as it relates to the means of existence of people. [90] If the ideas we then expressed may have seemed paradoxical to some of our readers, we invite them to examine them anew: the ideas we have just developed in this article will help them better grasp their truth.

Endnotes↩

[1] (Note by Comte.)The word pauvre (poor) is not used here in contrast to rich; it means any individual who lives on public charity, whether he begs from door to door or receives aid at home. The phrase gens à places (office-holders) does not include all men who hold public functions; they apply only to individuals who seek public posts as a means of livelihood or enrichment. Finally, the phrase gens à pensions (pensioners) does not apply to those who, having rendered real services to their fellow citizens, receive compensation for it: they apply to those who scheme to live at the public’s expense, without concern for whether or not they have rendered any services to it.

[2] In addition to the phrase gens à pensions (pensioners) (4 times) Comte also refers to "gens de pensionaires" (people who are pensioners who live off a pension) (10 times).

[3] Comte begins by talking about "deux grands partis" (two great/big parties) which are in a fundamentally antagonistic relationship with each other. The first, which he would later refer to as "les industrieux" (those who are industrious, hardworking, productive), live off the products of their own labour and property; the second are those who want to live off the labour and property of others. In this passage he specifies the groups whom he thinks belong to each party. Later (p. 43) he will refer to "le parti des gens à places" (the party of those who have a government job or position). Elsewhere in the essay he talks about "la classe" (class) some 47 times. Why he makes this switch in terminology is not clear. Some of the classes he mentions specifically are the following: "la classe laborieuse" (the working or laboring class), "a classe ouvrière" (the working class), "la classe pauvre" (the classs of the poor), "la classe industrieuse" (the industrious class), "la classe opprimée" (the oppressed class), "classe de gens à places" (the class of office-holders), and "la classe des fainéans et des mangeurs" (the class of lazy people and eaters (of the people)).

[4] Comte says "le parti des mangeurs de gens" (the eaters of men). It was more common for classical liberals to talk about "tax eaters", as Molianri did.

[5] Comte says "les hommes industrieux". Elsewhere he talks about "la classe industrieuse ou propriétaire" (the industrious or property owning class) twice; and "la classe industrieuse" (the industrious class) 6 times.

[6] According to the calculations of the 17th century Irish Bishop James Ussher the world was only 6,000 years old, having been created around 4,000 BCE . He thought he had pinpointed exactly the first day of creation to October 23, 4004 BCE.

[7] Comte says here "des moyens d'existence" (the means of existence), which he also uses some 17 times in the essay; but he also uses the terms "moyens de subsistance" (means of subsistence) (6 times) and "moyens de vivre (means of living) (6 times); and all uses of the word "la subsistance" (22 times) which can also just mean "food" or "food supply". Which is all a bit confusing. Bastiat in his critique of Malthus in the chapter on population in Economic Harmonies (1851) tried to resolve this confusion in the following way. For Malthus, “the means of subsistence" (in French “les moyens de subsistance”), is the bare minimum number of calories required to ensure the survival of a human being. This amount was biologically determined so when a population, whether of rabbits or human beings, grew faster than the food supply some would weaken and eventually die from lack of food. However, there was another school of thought, which included Jean-Baptiste Say and Frédéric Bastiat, which argued that beyond a certain level of very basic economic activity another factor came into play for human beings, namely “les moyens d’existence” (the means of existence) or what today would be called "the standard of living.” It should be noted that Malthus never used the expression “means of existence.” After beginning as a fairly orthodox Malthusian, Bastiat, following Say, eventually came to the conclusion that there was a significant difference between the “means of subsistence” and the “means of existence” - the former being fixed physiologically speaking (either one had sufficient food to live or one did not) and the latter being an infinitely flexible and expanding notion which depended upon the level of technology and the extent of the free market. Comte is not as careful as Bastiat in his terminology so when he says "existence" or "subsistance" so do we here. When he says "moyens de subsistance" (5 times) we translate it as "means of subsistence" but when he says "les substances" we translate it as "food" or "food supplies". Comte also uses the word "subsister" (to subsist or to live) which we translate as "to live on".

[8] Comte says "les moyens de vivre".

[9] (Note by Comte.) Voyage en Syrie et en Égypte, pendant les années 1783, 1784 et 1785; by M. C.-F. Volney, vol. II, pp. 377–378.

[10] Comte says "les nègres". How best to translate this??

[11] Ref find original quote

[12] (Note by Comte.) An Essay on the Principle of Population, etc.; by T. R. Malthus, vol. II, p. 198, fifth edition.

[13] Comte says "les tributes" (tributes or taxes). Here we prefer "taxes" since he is referrring to his present. He also refers to one group of people being made "les tributaries" (tributaries, those paying tribute or taxes) (10 times) of another group of people. The preferred translation depends of the context. "Tribute" and "tributary" is more appropriate when discussing the Roman period when one people (the Romans) forced a foreign people to pay "tribute"; "taxes" and "taxpayers" sounds better for the modern period, where the state imposes "taxes" on its own people, although Comte would probably say there is not much difference between the two. Comte also uses the word "l'impôt" (tax) 15 times.

[14] Comte says "l'impôt".

[15] (Note by Comte.) Thus the Roman populace, which lived off the tributes collected from conquered people, grew in a prodigious manner; while the tributary people weakened to the point of no longer being able to offer any resistance.

[16] Here Comte uses the word "l'impôt" (tax).

[17] (Note by Comte.) The poor tax in England gave rise to the most tyrannical and vexatious regulations for laboring workers. See Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book 1, Chapter 10.

[18] (Note by Comte.) Some writers believe it amounts to a third. De l’Angleterre et des Anglais; by J.-B. Say, p. 20, second edition.

[19] (Note by Comte.) From 1800 to 1814, the general population had increased above a million, and within the same calamitous period, the population of the poor increased also above a million; the increase of poor thus keeping equal pace with the increase of the general population, or, in plainer phrase, every additional subject became a pauper. The poor were as one to five of the entire population. The poor rates rose from three to sixteen millions. — Reflexions upon the progressive decline of the British Empire, etc.; by Henry Schultes, p. 12.

[20] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, in February, March, and April, 1816; etc., part one, p. 7.

[21] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., part one, p. 40.

[22] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., pp. 40–41.

[23] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., p. 102.

[24] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., p. 128.

[25] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., p. 143.

[26] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., p. 148.

[27] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., p. 157.

[28] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., p. 158.

[29] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., p. 184.

[30] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., p. 194.

[31] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., p. 197.

[32] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., p. 204.

[33] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., p. 206.

[34] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., p. 229.

[35] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., part two, p. 2.

[36] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., part two, p. 2.

[37] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., p. 25.

[38] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., p. 29.

[39] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., part two, p. 40.

[40] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., p. 50.

[41] Ref find original of quote??

[42] (Note by Comte.) An Essay on the Principle of Population, etc., Book 3, Chapter 6, vol. II, pp. 243, 246.

[43] Comte says "une classe de gens à places".

[44] (Note by Comte.) One could cite in France a certain official who, as is publicly known, married off by this method under the imperial government at least sixty cousins or second cousins.

[45] Comte says "les gens à pensions" (those who live off a state funded annual payment or pension).

[46] (Note by Comte.) The maxims of the office-holders were laid out and defended by the famous Burke. Mr. Jeremy Bentham kindly undertook to refute them in a work entitled Defence of Economy against the Late Mr. Burke.

[47] Comte says "les rentiers" (people who live off an annuity). Give the fact that this term is often mentioned alongsideother recipients of government funds, such as government office-holders, the "annuity holders" refers to those whose income comes from holding government bonds or other such financial instruments, not those who live off their own justly acquired savings.

[48] (Note by Comte.) Here are some passages from the table relating to that county: “Three farms, containing 700 acres, entirely waste; ... many and many uncultivated, some parishes almost wholly uncultivated.”

[49] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., part one, p. 24.

[50] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., p. 35.

[51] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., part one, p. 35.

[52] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., p. 37.

[53] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., p. 42.

[54] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., part one, p. 53.

[55] (Note by Comte.) Ibid.

[56] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., part one, pp. 75–76.

[57] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., part one, p. 87.

[58] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., p.

[59] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., part one, p. 114.

[60] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., p. 140.

[61] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., part one, pp. 144–145.

[62] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., p. 153.

[63] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., p. 155.

[64] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., part one, p. 167.

[65] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., part one, pp. 173, 175.

[66] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., part one, pp. 177–178.

[67] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., p. 184.

[68] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., part one, pp. 187–190.

[69] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., part one, p. 240.

[70] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., part two, p. 4.

[71] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., p. 26.

[72] (Note by Comte.) De l’Angleterre et des Anglais; by J.-B. Say, p. 16, second edition.

[73] (Note by Comte.) De l’Angleterre et des Anglais, p. 21.

[74] (Note by Comte.) De l’Angleterre et des Anglais, p. 19.

[75] (Note by Comte.) See volume V of Censeur Européen, p. 105 and following.

[76] Comte says "les esclaves travailleurs ".

[77] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., part one, p. 71.

[78] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., p. 127.

[79] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., part one, pp. 25, 60, 68, 139, 221, 256, 262; and part two, pp. 5, 14, 25.

[80] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., part one, p. 256.

[81] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., part one.

[82] (Note by Comte.) Ibid., p. 25.

[83] (Note by Comte.) Agricultural State of the Kingdom, etc., part one, p. 60.

[84] (Note by Comte.) The tithe, in countries where it still exists, is collected by virtue of divine law.

[85] Comte says "les premiers mangeurs" (the first or original group of tax eaters).

[86] Comte says "les anciens et les nouveaux parvenus".

[87] Come here both times says "les moyens de subsistances".

[88] (Note by Comte.) Article 36 of the Constitution of Pennsylvania. The provisions of this article have been adopted in almost all the United States. As a result, all taxes have ended up being abolished, except for customs duties, which are sufficient to cover government expenses. (Ref original language of quote??)

[89] (Note by Comte.) The manner in which the poor are supported is irrelevant to the issue; whether a tax is established to distribute aid at home, as in England, or taxes are levied to maintain them in hospitals, the effect is nearly always the same.

[90] See Comte, "De l'organisation sociale considérée dans ses rapports avec les moyens de subsistance des peuples" CE T.2 (March 1817), pp. 1-66.