The Labor enquirer., 1885-05-16
A REPEAL PAR TY.
Joe Labadie, He Of the Hob
bies" Advances a New Idea
for Consideration.

i
He Lays Our Troubles at the Door
of the Over Producing
Law Shops. 1
! A Close and Comprehensive Compare
son Between Webster's and Proud
hons definition Of Politics.
For The Enquirer.
A man in Minneapolis, Minnesota,
wrote me letter some time ago, in
Mhich be said sssss
SIN looking over copy of Truth,
published in San Francisco, i notice an
article by you headed, What is Social
ism?' The tenor of it induces me to ask
you for your views in regard to the way
out of the hopeless condition Ito use
your own. words) into which the present
social system holds the wage-earners.' y"
This is big subject, but will try to
give him my views regarding it in as
short a space as possible. giving only
broad, general principles upon which
may be founded a greater degree of JUS
tice than exists under prevailing institu-
tions. 1 choose to do this in THE EN-
oU1RER for the reason that it may pro-
woke greater degree of criticism and
thereby be the means of correcting any
erroneous notions may have fallen into.
I don't want to live in error if it can be
avoided.
I believe that when the opportunity
to work and the right to retain the full
results of that work are guaranteed to
every individual, the force-relations that
are now maintained by government for
the alleged purpose of protecting life
and property and the suppression of
crime will become almost wholly inoper-
ative and useless. 1 am satisfied that
crime, in its multifarious phases, or at
any rate very large percentage of 1t,
is naught else but the result of poverty,
and poverty, l am also satisfied, is
largely. very largely, the result of the
system that makes property Of those
things that are not produced by the
work of human hands and brains-the
result of monopoly.
To abolish property in the resources
of Dature-or what some writer's call the
terra-solar forces-or to prevent the mo-
nopolization by individuals of more Of
natures resources than is necessary for
the maintenance of themselves and
families, is, it seems to me, the very
basis of this whole social movement.
When that is accomplished other social
reforms will be comparatively easy, but
30 long as this property system exists
the condition of the wage -earners will
not-from the very nature of things can
not-be anything but hopeless, because
they are absolutely at the mercy of the
propertied class.
But my friend wants to know how l
would get out of this hopeless condition.
l am not much given to world-building,
and have heretofore generally contented
myself in punching holes in the imagin-
ary worlds other people have built.
The best way for us to make progress
towards 9 better state of society is to
show the failure of the present system
to establish right relations among its
members. We have heretofore been too
anxious to meddle with the natural re-
lations of individual members of society,"
and the result is social inharmOny, IN
justice.
Our legislators have not been satisfied
to let we'll enough alone, but have at
tempted to make the world better than
the world was capable of being, and by
this meddlesome policy have retarded
real progress. Progress is that which
makes the people more prosperous and
happy, and as a rule people cannot be
happy unless they are materially pros
porous. There is no possible doubt but
that legislative tinkering has made the
people much worse off than they would
have been had they been let alone. The
whole tendency of legislation has been
and is to more and more surround the
individual with fictions called laws so
that it is now almost impossible for one
to know when he is violating claw"
and when he is not. The compiled laws
of Michigan alone comprise two very
large closely printed volumes, and there
are at this session, of the legislature over
| /, 900 bills waiting to become Claws"
Even the lawyers, whose business it is
to study the laws, do not know how
many laws there are nor what they mean,
and we have to hire judges at, very large
salaries to tell US what they mean after
we have paid for having them made.
These laws are mostly in the interests of
property holders, rich men and corpora
tions and against the interests of the in
dustrious and thrifty. The few by law
have been granted privileges that have
made them rich, and their riches make
them powerful, and they use this power
to gain still more privileges, more riches
more power. Our legislators tell us that
| oil thie IL in tho intarast of the Daonle