What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of GovernmentProudhon, P.-J. (Pierre-Joseph)
Philosophy
What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government
Proudhon, P.-J. (Pierre-Joseph)
Economics; Property
guilt arises from the feeling that justice has been violated, and from
the idea of free-will.
In conclusion, instinct is not modified by acquaintance with its nature;
and the facts of society, which we have thus far observed, occur among
beasts as well as men. We know the meaning of justice; in other words,
of sociability viewed from the standpoint of equality. We have met with
nothing which separates us from the animals.
% 3.--Of the third degree of Sociability.
The reader, perhaps, has not forgotten what was said in the third
chapter concerning the division of labor and the speciality of talents.
The sum total of the talents and capacities of the race is always
the same, and their nature is always similar. We are all born poets,
mathematicians, philosophers, artists, artisans, or farmers, but we are
not born equally endowed; and between one man and another in society,
or between one faculty and another in the same individual, there is an
infinite difference. This difference of degree in the same faculties,
this predominance of talent in certain directions, is, we have said,
the very foundation of our society. Intelligence and natural genius have
been distributed by Nature so economically, and yet so liberally, that
in society there is no danger of either a surplus or a scarcity of
special talents; and that each laborer, by devoting himself to his
function, may always attain to the degree of proficiency necessary to
enable him to benefit by the labors and discoveries of his fellows.
Owing to this simple and wise precaution of Nature, the laborer is not
isolated by his task. He communicates with his fellows through the mind,
before he is united with them in heart; so that with him love is born of
intelligence.
It is not so with societies of animals. In every species, the aptitudes
of all the individuals--though very limited--are equal in number and
(when they are not the result of instinct) in intensity. Each one does
as well as all the others what all the others do; provides his food,
avoids the enemy, burrows in the earth, builds a nest, &c. No animal,
when free and healthy, expects or requires the aid of his neighbor; who,
in his turn, is equally independent.
Associated animals live side by side without any intellectual
intercourse or intimate communication,--all doing the same things,
having nothing to learn or to remember; they see, feel, and come in
contact with each other, but never penetrate each other. Man continually
exchanges with man ideas and feelings, products and services. Every
discovery and act in society is necessary to him. But of this immense
quantity of products and ideas, that which each one has to produce and
acquire for himself is but an atom in the sun. Man would not be man were
it not for society, and society is supported by the balance and harmony
of the powers which compose it.
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