The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1876-03-04
(" WHAT is PROPERTY 2"

upon tinted paper, and Is brought out III |
all Of the perfection Of book work, which |
has made Cambridge, Massachusetts, ia
nous as the home Of Typographical excel |
lence. Proudhon was a philosopher,
and a communist. This mVny would COR
slider as fortunate. We consider it mis-
fortune. His ability would have ranked
him as amohg the greatest Of Fre..chmen,
had he turned his talents into other fields
of investigation; whereas, as 1t is, he has
done little or nothing towards solving the
labor problem. We consider it equally
unfortunate that ali great teachers Of so
called political economy should have fallen
into the same blunder an has this great
apostle Of Communism. The fact Is, in
the middle ages, all learning was confined
to priests and friars and monks, who knew
little Of the outside world, and whose wits
were sharpened by being brought in con
tact with each other in converts. Here
they speculated priori upon what ought
to be, and they treated the subjects Of
government and econo=iy from precisely
the same stand point as reh -IOn, forget
ting the great fact that government and
economy were the creations Of man, and
could therefore be analysed and studied
from the stand point of facts, whweas re-
lgion related TO the infinite, and could
only be conceived OF by the pnWer Of the
imagination.
The result is, all Of our so-cslled political
economy derived from the standard au-
thOrs a the past generations, is in reality
system Of metaphysics, instead of being
as it should be, system Of philosophy,
based entirely upon facts. PrOudhon has
fallen into the prevalent error. This err
ror consists III assuming a premise, the
fsaming Of maKims, which by the stretch
Of the Imagination are supposed to be self-
evident truths, but which III reality, in
most instances are false. For instance
Proudhon starts out with the proposition
Slavery is murder, Property is rob-
berry 1t is true that all systems Of slav-
cry have conferred upon the master the
power over the life or death of the slave,
but it by no means follows that because
the master could kill his slave without
fear of punishment, he would do it. We
know that when slavery existed in the
United States the murder Of slaves by their
masters were rare occurrences, and We
know also that as slaves were valuable,
the self interest Of the master would oper-
ate powerfully to prevent the murder of
the slave, hence the maxim, instead of
being self evident, becomes absurd. So,
too, IN the second proposition; if Prop
erty is robbery" then as wages Of work
men are property, then necessarily all
workmen are robbers Proudhon, nor no
one else, can escape this conclusion, but
to state it is to show how utterly absurd
this maxim is. Having taken an assumed
basis which is manifestly absurd it matters
net how skllful his logic may be, his con
illusions must necessarily be as faulty as
his premise This is his defect. 1t is the
fault common to all old school writer's, and
unfortunately even down to the present
day, no one can lay claim to being polite
ly" educated, who is not completely satu-
rated with this metaphysical method Of
treating economic and social problems.
Throughout much Of his book Proudhon
takes the maAims of Mill, Ricardo, Nc
Culloch, Say and Bastiat and the judicial
definitions of law commentators, and i'll
some cases the law itself, and proves
from these maxIms and definitions that
property cannot exist He argues his
case with great skill, and his conclusion
in one instance is when referring to the
the question Of farm rent: Either these
naxims are false or property cannot ex-
ist." Many years ago Henry G. Carey
proved beyond all controversy that these
particular maxims were false This leaves
the question of property exactly where
it was before Proudhon wrote. This is
only one case Of many that might be cited
Proudhon undoubtedly got the better Of
Mill, Ricardo, McCulloch, Say, Bastiat,
Compile and other standard writers, but
this does not necessarily prove that
Proudhon must be right. All Of these
authors migAt be wrong In fact they are
all wrong. The real merits Of the econ
omic and social problems are unsolved
When they shall be settled beyond all
controversy, our occupation will be gone.
Workingmen will have no further wrongs
to be righted. Proudhon has done his
work equally well with the other authors
named They all belong to one school,
and none Of them ever learned that the
great problems of our time cannot be
solved by metaphysical discussion. We
can only hope to make solid progress by
collecting facts as they exist, then we
must classify these facts, and from this
solid foundation construct our arguments.
This new school of political economy will
surmount the difficulties, if they can be
surtnounted at all.
We have pointed out some of the great
defects Of Mr.. Proudhon's writings. We
now take pleasure in calling attention to
his strongest presentation Of the case. In
addressing proprietor he says "You pay |
day wages; but you 40 not pay for the
power OF combination. Here he touches |
the vital point. He illustrates this by a
fat hen ne says $50 grenadiers raised |
til, sphynx. If Egypt, one man could not
have done it in Loo years" We do not
COZ sider this the strongest illustration, be-
cause one man, in this age Of the world, |
could have made a steam engine and 8