"It will be seen from this definition that Anarchistic property concerns
only products. But anything is a product upon which human labor has been
expended, whether it be a piece of iron or a piece of land. (It should
be stated, however, that in the case of land, or of any other material
the supply of which is so limited that all cannot hold it in unlimited
quantities, Anarchism undertakes to protect no titles except such as are
based on actual occupancy and use.)"[786]
2. A distribution of property in which every one is guaranteed the
product of his labor presupposes merely that equal liberty be applied in
those spheres which are as yet dominated by State monopoly.[787]
"Free money first."[788] "I mean by free money the utter absence of
restriction upon the issue of all money not fraudulent";[789] "making
the issue of money as free as the manufacture of shoes."[790]
Money is here understood in the broadest sense, it means both
"commodity money and credit money,"[791] by no means coin alone; "if the
idea of the royalty of gold and silver could once be knocked out of the
people's heads, and they could once understand that no particular kind
of merchandise is created by nature for monetary purposes, they would
settle this question in a trice."[792] "If they only had the liberty to
do so, there are enough large and small property-holders willing and
anxious to issue money, to provide a far greater amount than is
needed."[793] "Does the law of England allow citizens to form a bank for
the issue of paper money against any property that they may see fit to
accept as security; said bank perhaps owning no specie whatever; the
paper money not redeemable in specie except at the option of the bank;
the customers of the bank mutually pledging themselves to accept the
bank's paper in lieu of gold or silver coin of the same face value; the
paper being redeemable only at the maturity of the mortgage notes, and
then simply by a return of said notes and a release of the mortgaged
property,--is such an institution, I ask, allowed by the law of England?
If it is, then I have only to say that the working people of England are
very great fools not to take advantage of this inestimable
liberty."[794] Then "competition would reduce the rate of interest on
capital to the mere cost of banking, which is much less than one per
cent.,"[795] for "capitalists will not be able to lend their capital at
interest when people can get money at the bank without interest with
which to buy capital outright."[796] Likewise the charge of rent on
buildings "would be almost entirely and directly abolished,"[797] and
"profits fall to the level of the manufacturer's or merchant's proper
wage,"[798] "except in business protected by tariff or patent
laws."[799] "This facility of acquiring capital will give an unheard-of
impetus to business";[800] "if free banking were only a picayunish
attempt to distribute more equitably the small amount of wealth now
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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