TO PRESERVE the benefits of what is called civilized
life, and to remedy at the same time the evil which it
has produced, ought to be considered as one of the first
objects of reformed legislation.
Whether that state that is proudly, perhaps
erroneously, called civilization, has most promoted or
most injured the general happiness of man, is a question
that may be strongly contested. On one side, the
spectator is dazzled by splendid appearances; on the
other, he is shocked by extremes of wretchedness; both of
which it has erected. The most affluent and the most
miserable of the human race are to be found in the
countries that are called civilized.
To understand what the state of society ought to be,
it is necessary to have some idea of the natural and
primitive state of man; such as it is at this day among
the Indians of North America. There is not, in that
state, any of those spectacles of human misery which
poverty and want present to our eyes in all the towns and
streets in Europe.
Poverty, therefore, is a thing created by that
which is called civilized life. It exists not in the
natural state. On the other hand, the natural state is
without those advantages which flow from agriculture,
arts, science and manufacturers.
The life of an Indian is a continual holiday, compared
with the poor of Europe; and, on the other hand it
appears to be abject when compared to the rich.
Civilization, therefore, or that which is so
called, has operated two ways: to make one part of
society more affluent, and the other more wretched, than
would have been the lot of either in a natural
state.
It is always possible to go from the natural to the
civilized state, but it is never possible to go from the
civilized to the natural state. The reason is that
man in a natural state, subsisting by hunting,
requires ten times the quantity of land to range over to
procure himself sustenance, than would support him in a
civilized state, where the earth is
cultivated.
When, therefore, a country becomes populous by the
additional aids of cultivation, art and science, there is
a necessity of preserving things in that state; because
without it there cannot be sustenance for more, perhaps,
than a tenth part of its inhabitants. The thing,
therefore, now to be done is to remedy the evils and
preserve the benefits that have arisen to society by
passing from the natural to that which is called the
civilized state.
In taking the matter upon this ground, the
first principle of civilization ought to have been, and
ought still to be, that the condition of every person
born into the world, after a state of civilization
communities, ought not to be worse than it he had been
born before that period.
But the fact is that the condition of millions, in
every country in Europe, is far worse than if they had
been born before civilization began, or had been born
among the Indians of North America at the present day. I
will show how this fact has happened.
It is a position not to be controverted that the
earth, in its natural, uncultivated state was, and ever
would have continued to be, the common property of the
human race. In that state every man would have been born
to property. He would have been a joint life proprietor
with the rest in the property of the soil, and in all its
natural productions, vegetable and animal.
But the earth in its natural state, as before said, is
capable of supporting but a small number of inhabitants
compared with what it is capable of doing in a cultivated
state. And as it is impossible to separate the
improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself,
upon which that improvement is made, the idea of landed
property arose from that inseparable connection; but it
is nevertheless true, that it is the value of the
improvement, only, and not the earth itself, that is
individual property.
Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated lands, owes
to the community a ground-rent (for I know of no better
term to express the idea) for the land which he holds;
and it is from this ground-rent that the fund proposed in
this plan is to issue.
It is deducible, as well from the nature of the thing
as from all the histories transmitted to us, that the
idea of landed property commenced with cultivation, and
that there was no such thing as landed property before
that time. It could not exist in the first state of man,
that of hunters. It did not exist in the second state,
that of shepherds: neither Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, nor
Job, so far as the history of the Bible may be credited
in probable things, were owners of land.
Their property consisted, as is always enumerated in
flocks and herds, and they traveled with them from place
to place. The frequent contentions at that time about the
use of a well in the dry country of Arabia, where those
people lived, also show that there was no landed
property. It was not admitted that land could be claimed
as property.
There could be no such thing at landed property
originally. Man did not make the earth, and though he had
a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate
as his property in perpetuity any part of it; neither did
the Creator of the earth open a land-office, from whence
the first title-deeds should issue. Whence then, arose
the idea of landed property? I answer as before, that
when cultivation began the idea of landed property began
with it, from the impossibility or separating the
improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself,
upon which that improvement was made.
The value of the improvement so far exceeded the value
of the natural earth, at that time, as to absorb it;
till, in the end, the common right of all became
confounded into the cultivated right of the individual.
But there are, nevertheless, distinct species of rights,
and will continue to be, so long as the earth
endures.
It is only by tracing things to their origin that we
can gain rightful ideas of them, and it is by gaining
such ideas that we discover the boundary that divides
right from wrong, and teaches every man to know his own.
I have entitled this tract "Agrarian Justice" to
distinguish it from "Agrarian Law."
Nothing could be more unjust than agrarian law in a
country improved by cultivation; for though every man, as
an inhabitant of the earth, is a joint proprietor of it
in its natural state, it does not follow that he is a
joint proprietor of cultivated earth. The additional
value made by cultivation, after the system was admitted,
became the property of those who did it, or who inherited
ii from them, or who purchased it. It had originally no
owner. While, therefore, I advocate the right, and
interest myself in the hard case of all those who have
been thrown out of their natural inheritance by the
introduction of the system of landed property, I equally
defend the right of the possessor to the part which is
his.
Cultivation is at least one of the greatest natural
improvements ever made by human invention. It has given
to created earth a tenfold value. But the landed monopoly
that began with it has produced the greatest evil. It has
dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every
nation of their natural inheritance, without providing
for them, as ought to have been done, an indemnification
for that loss, and has thereby created a species of
poverty and wretchedness that did not exist before.
In advocating the case of the persons thus
dispossessed, it is a right, and not a charity, that I am
pleading for. Nor it is that kind of right which, being
neglected at first, could not he brought forward
afterwards till heaven had opened the way by a revolution
in the system of government. Let us then do honor to
revolutions by justice, and give currency to their
principles by blessings.
Having thus in a few words, opened the merits of the
case, I shall now proceed to the plan I have to propose,
which is,
To create a national fund, out of which there shall be
paid to every person, when arrived at the age of
twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as
a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her
natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of
landed property:
And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during
life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty
years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that
age.
Means By Which The Fund Is To Be
Created
I have already established the principle, namely, that
the earth, in its natural uncultivated state was, and
ever would have continued to be, the common property of
the human race; that in that state, every person would
have been born to property; and that the system of landed
property, by its inseparable connection with cultivation,
and with what is called civilized life, has absorbed the
property of all those whom it dispossessed, without
providing as ought to have been done, an indemnification
for that loss.
The fault, however, is not in the present possessors.
No complaint is intended, or ought to be alleged against
them, unless they adopt the crime by opposing justice.
The fault is in the system, and it has stolen
imperceptibly upon the world, aided afterwards by the
agrarian law of the sword. But the fault can be made to
reform itself by successive generations; and without
diminishing or deranging the property of any of the
present possessors, the operation of the fund can yet
commence, and be in full activity, the first year of its
establishment, or soon after, as I shall show.
It is proposed that the payments, as already stated,
be made to every person, rich or poor. It is best to make
it so, to prevent invidious distinctions. It is also
right it should be so, because it is in lieu of the
natural inheritance, which, as a right, belongs to every
man, over and above the property he may have created, or
inherited from those who did. Such persons as do not
choose to receive it can throw it into the common
fund.
Taking it then for granted that no person ought to be
in a worse condition when born under what is called a
state of civilization, than he would have been had he
been born in a state of nature, and that civilization
ought to have made, and ought still to make, provision
for that purpose, it can only be done by subtracting from
property a portion equal in value to the natural
inheritance it has absorbed.
Various methods may be proposed for this purpose, but
that which appears to be the best (not only because it
will operate without deranging any present possessors, or
without interfering with the collection of taxes or
emprunts necessary for the purposes of government and the
Revolution, but because it will be the least troublesome
and the most effectual, and also because the subtraction
will be made at a time that best admits it) is at the
moment that property is passing by the death of one
person to the possession of another. In this case, the
bequeather gives nothing: the receiver pays nothing. The
only matter to him is that the monopoly of natural
inheritance, to which there never was a right, begins to
cease in his person. A generous man would not wish it to
continue, and a just man will rejoice to see it
abolished.
My state of health prevents my making sufficient
inquiries with respect to the doctrine of probabilities,
whereon to round calculations with such degrees of
certainty as they are capable of. What, therefore, I
offer on this head is more the result of observation and
reflection than of received information; but I believe it
will be found to agree sufficiently with fact. In the
first place, taking twenty-one years as the epoch of
maturity, all the property of a nation, real and
personal, is always in the possession of persons above
that age. It is then necessary to know, as a datum of
calculation, the average of years which persons above
that age will live. I take this average to be about
thirty years, for though many persons will live forty,
fifty, or sixty years, after the age of twenty-one years,
others will die much sooner, and some in every year of
that time.
Taking, then, thirty years as the average of time, it
will give, without any material variation one way or
other, the average of time in which the whole property or
capital of a nation, or a sum equal thereto, will have
passed through one entire revolution in descent, that is,
will have gone by deaths to new possessors; for though,
in many instances, some parts of this capital will remain
forty, fifty, or sixty years in the possession of one
person, other parts will have revolved two or three times
before those thirty years expire, which will bring it to
that average; for were one-half the capital of a nation
to revolve twice in thirty years, it would produce the
same fund as if the whole revolved once.
Taking, then, thirty years as the average of time in
which the whole capital of a nation, or a sum equal
thereto, will revolve once, the thirtieth part thereof
will be the sum that will revolve every year, that is,
will go by deaths to new possessors; and this last sum
being thus known, and the ratio per cent to be subtracted
from it determined, it will give the amount or income of
the proposed fund, to be applied as already
mentioned.
In looking over the discourse of the English Minister,
Pitt, in his opening of what is called in England the
budget (the scheme of finance for the year 1796), I find
an estimate of the national capital of that country. As
this estimate or a national capital is prepared ready to
my hand, I take it as a datum to act upon. When a
calculation is made upon the known capital of any nation,
combined with its population, it will serve as a scale
for any other nation, in proportion as its capital and
population be more or less.
I am the more disposed to take this estimate of Mr.
Pitt, for the purpose of showing to that minister, upon
his own calculation, how much better money may be
employed than in wasting it, as he has done, on the wild
project of setting up Bourbon kings. What, in the name of
heaven, are Bourbon kings to the people of England? It is
better that the people have bread.
Mr. Pitt states the national capital of England, real
and personal, to be one thousand three hundred millions
sterling, which is about one fourth part of the national
capital of France, including Belgia. The event of the
last harvest in each country proves that the soil of
France is more productive than that of England, and that
it can better support twenty-four or twenty-five millions
of inhabitants than that of England can seven or seven
and a half millions.
The thirtieth part of this capital of
£1,300,000,000 is £43,333,333 which is the part
that will revolve every year by deaths in that country to
new possessors; and the sum that will annually revolve in
France in the proportion of four to one, will be about
one hundred and seventy-three millions sterling. From
this sum of £ 43,333,333 annually revolving, is to
be subtracted the value of the natural inheritance
absorbed in it, which, perhaps, in fair justice, cannot
be taken at less, and ought not to be taken for more,
than a tenth part.
It will always happen that of the property thus
revolving by deaths every year a part will descend in a
direct line to sons and daughters, and the other part
collaterally, and the proportion will he found to be
about three to one; that is, about thirty millions of the
above sum will descend to direct heirs, and the remaining
sum of £ 13,333,333 to more distant relations, and
in part to strangers.
Considering, then, that man is always related to
society, that relationship will become comparatively
greater proportion as the next of kin is more distant; it
is therefore consistent with civilization to say that
where there are no direct heirs society shall be heir to
a part over and above the tenth part due to society.
If this additional part be from five to ten or twelve
per cent, in proportion as the next of kin be nearer or
more remote, so as to average with the escheats that may
fall, which ought always to go to society and not to the
government (an addition of ten per cent more), the
produce from the annual sum of £ 43,333,333 will
be:
From £ 30,000,000 at ten per cent £
3,000,000
From £ 13,333,333 at ten per cent with the addition
of ten percent more £ 2,666,666
£ 43,333,333 £5,666,666
Having thus arrived at the annual amount or the
proposed fund, I come, in the next place, to speak of the
population proportioned to this fund and to compare it
with the uses to which the fund is to be applied.
The population (I mean that of England) does not
exceed seven millions and a half, and the number of
persons above the age of fifty will in that case be about
four hundred thousand. There would not, however, he more
than that number that would accept the proposed ten
pounds sterling per annum, though they would he entitled
to it. I have no idea it would be accepted by many
persons who had a yearly income of two or three hundred
pounds sterling. But as we often see instances of rich
people falling into sudden poverty, even at the age of
sixty, they would always have the right of drawing all
the arrears due to them. Four millions, therefore, of the
above annual sum of £5,666,666 will be required for
four hundred thousand aged persons, ten pounds sterling
each.
I come now to speak of the persons annually arriving
at twenty-one years of age. If all the persons who died
were above the age of twenty-one years, the number of
persons annually arriving at that age must be equal to
the annual number of deaths, to keep the population
stationary. But the greater part die under the age of
twenty-one, and therefore the number of persons annually
arriving at twenty-one will be less than half the number
of deaths.
The whole number of deaths upon a population of seven
millions and a half will be about 220,000 annually. The
number arriving at twenty-one years of age will be about
100,000. The whole number of these will not receive the
proposed fifteen pounds, for the reasons already
mentioned, though, as in the former case, they would be
entitled to it. Admitting then that a tenth part declined
receiving it, the amount would stand thus:
Fund annually
£
5,666,666
To 400,000 aged persons at L10 each £
4,000,000
To 90,000 persons of 21 yrs., L15 ster. each £
1,350,000
--
£
5,350,000
Remains
£
316,666
There are. in every country, a number blind and lame
persons totally incapable of earning a livelihood. But as
it will always happen that the greater number of blind
persons will be among those who are above the age of
fifty years, they will be provided for in that class. The
remaining sum of L316,666 will provide for the lame and
blind under that age, at the same rate of L10 annually
for each person.