Slavery exists. In what, then, does it consist? Slavery consists of that of which it has always consisted, and without which it cannot exist at all,--in the coercion of a weak and unarmed man by a strong and armed man. Slavery in its three fundamental modes of operation,--personal violence, the military, land-taxes,--maintained by the military, and direct and indirect taxes put upon all the inhabitants, is still in operation now as it has been before. We do not see it because each of these three forms of slavery has received a new justification, which hides its meaning from us. The personal violence of armed over unarmed men has been justified as the defence of one's country from imaginary enemies,--while in its essence it has the one old meaning, the submission of the conquered to the oppressors. The violent seizure of the labourers' land has been justified as the recompense for services rendered to an imaginary common welfare, and confirmed by the right of heritage; but in reality it is the same dispossession of men from their land and enslaving them which was performed by the troops. And the last, the monetary violence by means of taxes, the strongest and most effective in our days, has received a most wonderful justification. Dispossessing men of their liberty and their goods is said to be done for the sake of the common liberty and of the common welfare. But in fact it is the same slavery, only an impersonal one. Wherever violence becomes law, there is slavery. Whether violence finds its expression in the circumstance that princes with their courtiers come, kill, and burn down villages; whether slave-owners take labour or money for the land from their slaves, and enforce payment by means of armed men, or by putting taxes on others, and riding armed to and fro in the villages; or whether a Home Department collects money through governors or police sergeants,--in one word, as long as violence is maintained by the bayonet,--there will be no distribution of wealth, but it will be accumulated among the oppressors. As a striking illustration of the truth of this assertion the project of Henry George to nationalize the land may serve us. Henry George proposes to declare all land the property of the state, and to substitute a land-rent for all taxes, direct and indirect. That is, everyone who utilizes the land would have to pay to the state the value of its rent. What would be the result? The land would belong to the state,--English land to England, American land to America, and so on; that is, there would be slavery, determined by the quantity of cultivated land. It might be that the condition of some labourers would improve; but while a forcible demand for rent remained, the slavery would remain too. The cultivator, after a bad harvest, being unable to pay the rent exacted of him by force, would be obliged to enslave himself to any one who happened to have the money in order not to lose everything and to retain the land.