Depend upon it, that according as this axiom is true or false, the natural laws of society are harmonious or antagonistic; and that according as they are harmonious or antagonistic, it is our interest to conform to them or to deviate from them. Were it once thoroughly demonstrated, then, that under the empire of freedom men’s interests harmonize and favour each other, all the efforts which we now see governments making to disturb the [p119] action of these natural social laws we should see directed to giving them force, or rather, no efforts whatever would then be necessary, and all they would have to do would be to abstain from interfering. In what does the restraining action of governments consist? We may infer it from the design they have in view. What is that design? To remedy the inequality which is supposed to spring from Liberty. Now, there is only one way of re-establishing the equilibrium, namely, ‹to take from one in order to give to another›. Such, in fact, is the mission which governments have arrogated to themselves, or have received; and it is a rigorous consequence of the formula, that ‹the gain of one is the loss of another›. If that axiom be true, Force must repair the evils of Liberty. Thus governments, instituted for the protection of liberty and property, have undertaken the task of violating liberty and property in every shape; and they have done so consistently, if it be in liberty and property that the germ and principle of evil reside. Hence we see them everywhere engaged in the artificial displacement and redistribution of labour, capital, and responsibility. On the other hand, an incalculable amount of intellectual force is thrown away in the pursuit of artificial social organizations. ‹To take from one in order to give to another›, to violate both liberty and property, is a very simple design, but the means of carrying out that design may be varied to infinity. Hence arise multitudes of systems, which strike the producing classes with terror, since from the very nature of the object they have in view, they menace all existing interests. Thus arbitrary and complex systems of government, the negation of liberty and property, the antagonism of classes and nations, all these are logically included in the axiom, that ‹the gain of one is the loss of another›. And, for the same reason, simplicity in government, respect for individual dignity, freedom of labour and exchange, peace among nations, security for person and property, are all contained and shut up in this truth—Interests are harmonious. They are so, however, only on one condition, which is, that this truth should be generally admitted. But it is very far from being so. On reading what I have said on this subject many people will be led to say, You break through an open door. Who ever thought of contesting seriously the superiority of Exchange to Isolation? In what book, unless indeed in the works of Rousseau, have you encountered this strange paradox?