The Socialism of to-day

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 835096955

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-28834

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Laveleye, Émile de

Title:: The Socialism of to-day

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Field & Tuer

Year of publication:: 1884

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (XLIV, 331 S.)

Collection:: Economics Books

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76 THE socialism'OF TO-DAY. labourer.” According to him, property, as at present existing, is only a passing “historical category.” Property as at present constituted, he asserts, consists in drawing an income, without working, from land or capital which the law attributes to you. Property according to natural right, on the contrary, should have no other foundation than labour. Far from wishing to abolish property, his only aim, he says, is to establish real individual ownership, proportional to useful services. He invokes, for the support of his system, the theory of Smith and Ricardo, which makes all wealth spring from labour alone. He says, with Bastiat, that what should be paid for in the product is not the forces of nature, but the labour of man. The services of natural agents are, or should be, gratuitous. Thus Bastiat, through ignoring certain truths established by his predecessors, actually furnished arms to Socialism, which he considered it his special mission to combat. According to Lassalle, when productive societies shall have embraced all citizens, they will become proprietors of both land and capital, and the working man, on taking his place in the factory, will obtain a life-interest in the instruments of his labour, or of such portion of the social wealth as shall correspond to his work. This work will be suited to his ability, and his remuneration will be equal to the product of his labour. This, as may be seen, is nothing else than the famous formula of Saint-Simon, invoked at the working men’s congress in Paris in 1876: “To each individual according to his capacity, to each capacity according to its works.” Lassalle respects no more than Saint-Simon the principle of hereditary succession as it exists to-day. It is, he says, no longer a living institution, having its roots in the moral and juridical sentiment of the time, but rather a dead tradition, which at every moment is being disturbed by the legislator or restricted in its application. The Romans created testamentary succes sion, because they believed the will of the deceased passed into the person of the heir thus designated. The Germans, from whom we derived the law of succession ab tníestaío, looked upon the patrimony as belonging, not to the immediate suc cessor, but conjointly to the whole family, and thus the son, on

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