AN 
 
 INQUIRY 
 
 INTO 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF THE 
 
 'DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH 
 
 MOST CONDUCIVE TO 
 
 HUMAN HAPPINESS. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM THOMPSON, 
 
 ^ 
 
 AUTHOR OF "LABOUR REWARDED," "AN APPEAL OF WOMEN," &c. &c. 
 
 a Mm <Mtiira 
 
 WILJJJLM PARE. 
 
 X\Ti B R XT>w 
 
 OFTHi 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 S. ORR AND CO., AMEN CORNER, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 MDCCCL. 
 
 f\ 
 
Hontton : $r(nteH tj Better, JDuff, anti Co. 
 <ffiratie=court, jFleetstreet. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 EDITOR'S PREFACE . 
 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS 
 
 -A J A. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Investigation of the Natural Principles, Rules, or Laws, on 
 which all just, Distribution of Wealth ought to he founded; 
 deduced from our organisation, and the circumstances, 
 physical and social, which surround us 1 
 
 Sect. 1. Labour is the parent of Wealth 5 
 
 Sect 2. Object of the Distribution of Wealth is,' or o'ught'to be' 
 
 to procure the greatest possible quantity of happiness for 
 
 those who produce it . ..." ^ 
 
 Sect. 3. But, all sane adults, male and female, are* capable of 
 
 equal happiness from wealth x ~ 
 
 Sect 4 Therefore the happiness of the greater' number is to be 
 
 preferred to that of the lesser number on 
 
 Beet. o. Wealth being produced by labour, sufficient stimulus 
 
 must be given, in the way of motive, to render this labour 
 
 most efficient in the, production of wealth . 03 
 
 set 6. The strongest stimulus to production, and that which is' 
 jary to the greatest production, is, security in the free 
 
 direction , and entire use of the products of labour (see Sect. 
 
 12, We 80, for free Direction of Labour) . 28 
 
 3ct ,. Also, all voluntary exchanges of these products increase 
 
 ' and thenCe the m tives to its 
 
 Sect 8. On the other hand, the'force'd abstraction of* these pro- 
 ducts diminishes happiness 
 
 Sect. 9. Smallest abstractions from numbers, to be enjoyed by 
 one, also diminish happiness . J 
 
 eCt Vi; J h Zl f Tj,^Z^ f 'h? Focluce of fubour', should be 
 
 35 
 40 
 
 b^tt. 11 Wealth should be so distributed as to produce the 
 Sprf g l o T *Cfr consistent with the greatest production , 68 
 .ct. 12. 1 tfect this, no artificial restraints or encouragements 
 to the direction given to labour, or to the free interchange 
 its products, are necessary, and should not be permittrd 80 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sect. 13. Inequality, as far as necessary to security, is useful, and 
 
 should be upheld 110 
 
 Sect. 14. Inequality, not necessary to security, is pernicious, and 
 
 should be repressed . . . . . . . .117 
 
 Sect. 15. What should labourers pay for use of capital ? . . 125 
 
 Sect. 16. General Inferences. Statement of Natural Laws of 
 Distribution, " Free Labour, entire Use of its Products, and 
 Voluntary Exchanges" 136 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Of the Evils actually produced by forced Inequality of Wealth 141 
 
 Sect. 1. Of the moral evils of forced inequality of wealth . . 142 
 Lessens sum-total of enjoyment from wealth . . . 142 
 Does not add to the happiness of the rich .... 143 
 Engenders positive vices and consequent misery in the rich 145 
 Diffuses these and other vices through the rest of the com- 
 munity 147 
 
 Sect. 2. Of the economical evils of forced inequality of wealth . 149 
 
 Its annual consumption is so much uncompensated loss . 151 
 Sets in motion that species of industry which is the least 
 
 useful 152 
 
 Sect. 3. Of the political evils of forced inequality of wealth . 157 
 
 Necessitates the monopoly and misuse of political power . 157 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Of the collateral Benefits of the Natural Laws of Distribution ; 
 viz." Free Labour, entire Use of its Products, and Voluntary 
 Exchanges ;" that is to say, of Equality limited by equal 
 Security .......... 167 
 
 Sect. 1. Political benefits of the Natural Laws of Distribution . 167 
 They are incompatible with all but representative Institu- 
 tions of Government . . . . . . .168 
 
 Would indispose nations to war ; but render them strong for 
 
 defence 170 
 
 Would remove the strongest motives to the commission of 
 
 crime .......... 171 
 
 Would reduce to the lowest standard the expenses of the 
 
 machinery of Government 172 
 
 Would render the support of all religious associations 
 
 voluntary ......... 174 
 
 Sect. 2. Economical benefits of the Natural Laws of Distri- 
 bution 175 
 
 Production and capital would immensely increase . . 175 
 
 Joint Stock Associations of producers would be formed . 182 
 
 Sect. 3. Moral benefits of the Natural Laws of Distribution . 188 
 
 Peculiar vices of wealth and want would almost cease . 188 
 
 Effects of these principles on " the rights of property" 195 
 
CONTENTS. V 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Of the acquisition and diffusion of Knowledge, as one of the 
 means of increasing production and enjoyment, and securing 
 the permanence of the Natural Laws of Distribution . 198 
 
 Sect. 1. Connexion of knowledge with labour and wealth . . 198 
 
 Sect. 2. Of Social Institutions, as one of the means of diffusing 
 or suppressing knowledge; and thence wealth and hap- 
 piness 203 
 
 Sect. 3. Of Instruction, verbal or written, addressed to adults, as 
 the second means of diffusing or suppressing knowledge. 
 Obstacles to its progress 219 
 
 Sect. 4. Of Education, strictly so called, previous to manhood, 
 as the third mode of diffusing knowledge, and thence 
 wealth and happiness ....... 232 
 
 Cost of an universal system of Education for Great 
 Britain and Ireland 241 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Of the present state of the Distribution of Wealth, as resulting 
 from the Institutions of Insecurity ; and of the means of 
 reducing the existing forced expedients of unequal distri- 
 bution to the voluntary mode, of Equality limited by 
 Security 249 
 
 Sect. 1. Of the general evils of the abstraction by political 
 power, of the products of labour without the consent of the 
 producers or owners of them ; termed here public plunder, 
 and shown to be more extensive, more difficult of cure, and 
 consequently more pernicious, than private plunder . . 249 / 
 
 Sect. 2. Of those particular institutions or expedients, whose 
 most obvious effect is to generate forced inequality of wealth 
 or that inequality not called for by equal security . . 250 
 
 Sect. 3. Of those particular institutions or expedients, whose 
 most obvious effect is to perpetuate forced inequality of 
 wealth . . .251 
 
 Sect. 4. Of those particular institutions or expedients, whose 
 obvious effect is, both to generate and perpetuate forced 
 inequality of wealth 251 
 
 Sect. 5. Of the means of reducing these existing expedients of 
 forced unequal distribution to the voluntary mode of the 
 .Natural Laws of Distribution, inducing equality limited 
 only by equal security 253 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Benefits and evils of the principle of Individual Competition in 
 'the production of wealth and happiness, as compared with 
 that of Mutual Co-operation ...... 254 
 
 Benefits of Individual Competition ...... 250 
 
 Evils of Individual Competition ....... 257 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 0/ 1 Voluntary Equality in the Distribution of Wealth. Labour 
 by Mutual Co-operation opposed to labour by Individual 
 Competition 269 
 
 Sect. 1. Statement of the essential or characteristic features of 
 
 the System of Voluntary Equality 274 
 
 Sect. 2. Benefits of the system of Voluntary Equality of Wealth 
 
 by Mutual Co-operation 280 
 
 Sect. 3. Obstacles to production and happiness which, it is said, 
 the proposed system would not remove, or which it would 
 
 seem to aggravate . 316 
 
 Sect. 4. Is the system of Voluntary Equality of Wealth, by 
 
 Mutual Co-operation, practicable ?..... 3*22 
 
 Sect. 5. Popular objections to the system of Voluntary Equality 
 
 of Wealth by Mutual Co-operation examined . . . 368 
 
 Theory founded on philosophical necessity . . . 309 
 
 Practical arrangements founded on restraint . . . 370 
 Restraints on locomotion and change of abode . .371 
 
 Restraints on genius and exalted exertion . . . 381 
 
 Restraints on the culture of the Fine Arts . . . 387 
 
 Uniformity of pursuits and character .... 389 
 
 Competition would spring up between communities . 391 
 Corporation rule would Ui*urp their management . . 401 
 Over-population would reduce them to wretchedness . 402 
 Voluntary Equality would overthrow the present institu- 
 tions of society ........ 426 
 
 Unequal fertility of soils, physical obstacle to Equality 
 
 of Wealth . . . ". ....'. 427 
 
 Sect. 6. Equality of Wealth must be established by reason alone 432 
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS 434 
 
 INDEX ......... . 457 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 UPWARDS of a quarter of a century has elapsed, since the 
 first edition of this work was published, and it may be 
 said to have then fallen still-born from the press. At that 
 time men's minds were not prepared for its advanced 
 teachings. It was, and still is, avowedly, no part of the 
 object of the class of writers called " Political Economists" 
 to institute " an inquiry into the principles of the distri- 
 bution of wealth most conducive to human happiness."* 
 Their conceptions have been by no means so rational, so 
 extended, or so dignified. The accumulation of wealth, or 
 capital, and especially in large masses, has been their 
 primary object. Happiness, with them, has been only 
 secondary. They have contented themselves with deve- 
 loping the laws by which the production and distribution 
 of wealth has been, or is, at present regulated; that is to 
 say, the laws by which the empire of force and fraud has 
 been, or is, maintained; for only under one or other of 
 
 * Mr. Senior, formerly Professor of Political Economy in the ^ 
 1 University of Oxford, says, "It is not with happiness, but with 
 \ wealth, that I am concerned, as a Political Economist ; and I am not 
 only justified in omitting*, but am perhaps bound to omit, all con- 
 siderations which have no influence on wealth." 
 
Till EDITOR 6 PREFACE. 
 
 these influences, or both united, have men ever yet been 
 permitted to produce, exchange, and consume, the neces- 
 saries, comforts, and luxuries of life. Occasionally, it is 
 true, the Economists have ventured to advocate improve- 
 ments in the mode of conducting the industrial affairs of 
 society, by the removal of some impediments to what they 
 call " the free development of wealth." Such have been 
 the abolition of monopolies, bounties, prohibitions, and 
 restraints, whether directly instituted, or incident upon 
 the enactment of certain fiscal laws. But these boasted 
 improvements are as dust in the balance, so long as the 
 production and distribution of wealth is conducted upon 
 the false and vicious principle of "individual competition," 
 of isolation, and antagonism. So long as this master 
 evil this very essence of barbarism shall remain, it is 
 in vain to expect any material improvement in the con- 
 dition of mankind. What are its results to-day, in those 
 countries deemed most civilised? For the masses inces- 
 sant life-consuming toil; and, in return, an insufficient 
 supply of even the commonest necessaries of life, the most 
 stolid ignorance, and forced criminality. When thrown 
 out of employment, during the oft-recurring periods of 
 agricultural or commercial depression, their only choice 
 is between the workhouse, the gaol, and the grave.* 
 
 For the middle classes the system imposes unremitting 
 activity, coupled with feverish anxiety, and too frequently 
 
 * The Hon. and Rev. Sydney Godolphin Osborne, in a letter to the 
 Times newspaper of the 2nd of June, 1848, says : " The labourers 
 have so long been kept in a state of ignorance and of low animal 
 apathy to all social comfort, or industrial independence, that it requires 
 strong 1 and patient efforts to rouse them to travel from home to seek 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. ix 
 
 a desperate struggle to maintain ''respectable" appear- 
 ances with the most straitened means. With this as a 
 foundation, what can be expected of their intellectual 
 and moral natures ? These are woefully repressed. All 
 generous or noble feeling is sacrificed to a low, cun- 
 ning, selfish spirit, engendered by the higglings of com- 
 petition, the constant endeavour to buy cheap and 
 sell dear. 
 
 Among the upper classes, those who most abound in 
 wealth, the effects of the present system are found deve- 
 loped in a constant feeling of insecurity a constant dread 
 
 fair treatment, rather than stay where they are bound by the law of 
 settlement to live, in crowded communities in which vice is fostered by 
 circumstances they cannot avoid, and their labour value depressed by 
 causes against which they have no power to contend. 
 
 " Sad and lengthened experience has convinced me that the producer 
 of bread by the sweat of his brow, for his body's eake, and his soul's 
 sake, can be placed in no worse position than he is at home in merry 
 England (?) ; Christian England (?), England, the nurse of industry, 
 the very hot-bed of philanthropy (?). Late, very late personal expe- 
 rience, knowledge acquired far and near from those in whom I can 
 put trust, facts of which I am cognizant, from sources which defy 
 contradiction all prove to me that in hundreds of our villages the 
 social condition of man is below that of any country of which I have 
 ever read ; that vice is increasing with a speed, and of a character 
 which would justly call down any, the most awful judgment upon us; 
 that the labourer is defrauded of his hire, oppressed, and ill-treated 
 in a way that is a shame upon our national character. 
 
 " If the government can be persuaded to make bold and liberal 
 efforts to assist families disposed to go to Australia, I can point its 
 attention to more than one spot, where the so doing would be the 
 greatest boon to the respectable and would-be industrious labourer; it 
 would not only give him hope in this world, but it would enable him 
 to remove his family from scenes which, I am ready to proyz, exceed 
 injvice any of which we haveTrecord in history /"sacred or profane.'' 
 
X EDITORS PREFACE. 
 
 of violent changes in government, and consequent loss of 
 power and influence, if not of property. There is also, on 
 the part of the aristocracy of birth and station, a morbid 
 feeling of jealousy towards the aristocracy of mere wealth 
 the millionaires of the middle classes. 
 
 Such are the results of the present system upon the 
 three great classes into which " Society" is usually divided. 
 To calHt^/SWefo/," indeed, is a solecism, for instead of its 
 being an union of many for one general interest, it is a 
 grotesque assemblage seeking to take advantage of each 
 others' ignorance and helplessness. It is not a wise and 
 scientific association, but a rude unskilful agglomeration ; 
 not a number of atoms brought together as by strong 
 chemical affinities, and forming a regular and harmonious 
 body, but a number of repulsive particles held together as 
 by mechanical force, and forming an amorphous and dis- 
 cordant body; in fine, in the nervous language of a 
 popular writer of the day, it is not order, but " anarchy, 
 plus a street constable." 
 
 But why should such a condition be endured ? Shall 
 it be said that, with all our knowledge and experience, a 
 rational system of society, in which the interests and 
 happiness of all shall be carefully combined, is yet un- 
 attainable ? VJs there any lack of means supposing them 
 properly organised to produce a superabundance of 
 wealth that is, the necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of 
 life for all, with ample leisure for the highest cultivation 
 of the intellectual faculties and moral qualities, and the 
 acquisition of the most refined habits and tastes ? i No one 
 who has any pretensions to knowledge on this subject, 
 will deny that, whatever might have been the case in 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. xi 
 
 times past, the civilised nations of the world are now in a 
 condition with the vast aids which modern art and 
 science have placed at their disposal amply to satisfy all 
 the rational wants of their respective populations, in the 
 way of physical wealth. And this, too, without that 
 incessant toil and anxiety, and those other disagreeable 
 associations, incident to the production of the present 
 inefficient supply; in fact, with only that amount of 
 exertion, and under those agreeable associations, which 
 are required to develop and preserve, in full health and 
 vigour, the physical, mental, and moral powers of man. 
 The increase in these means, during the last half century, 
 has been so enormous, as almost to surpass belief; and 
 never, perhaps, was the mind of man so fertile in invention 
 and improvement as at present. ( The great leading com- 
 plaint of our times is, not that we cannot create sufficient 
 wealth, but that, when created, it cannot (owing to our 
 viciously artificial condition) be disposed of advantageously 
 for the capitalist ; and so the producers are dismissed from 
 employment, and suffered to starve or steal/ or to emigrate 
 to the Antipodes, rather than that rational arrangements 
 should be made to enable them, to produce, and consume, 
 and exchange their surplus productions for their own 
 benefit. And, in its ignorance, society is expending much 
 more in the maintenance and punishment of its paupers 
 and criminals, than would suffice to put in operation a 
 system which, within a short period, would, gradually, 
 but most certainly, not only banish pauperism and crime, 
 by annihilating the causes of both, but place all 
 classes in a far better condition than has yet been enjoyed 
 by any. 
 
Xll EDITOR 8 PREFACE. 
 
 We repeat that no one, having thoroughly investigated 
 this subject, will deny that we have the power, were it 
 properly organised, to produce an abundance of physical 
 wealth, under circumstances which would afford ample 
 leisure and opportunity for the entire population to be 
 trained to superior habits and manners, to acquire the 
 most useful and agreeable knowledge, and to cultivate and 
 enjoy the most refined tastes ; in short, to become highly 
 intelligent, virtuous, and happy. 
 
 But let no one imagine that so desirable a condition 
 can be attained, except by a^coinplete revolution in the 
 principles and practices of society; to be effected, how- 
 ever, in peace and order, and with the entire ^concurrence 
 of all parties concerned ; for violence is utterly opposed to 
 the spirit of the new system, by which, in future, it is 
 proposed to carry on the affairs of life. 
 
 The Social Keformer, strong in his conviction of the 
 everlasting, saving truth, that the character of man, in all 
 countries and climes, and under all conditions, is, at every 
 period of his life, the result of his original organisation, 
 and of the influence of external circumstances (mostly from 
 under his control), acting upon that organisation, has the 
 most unbounded charity for the convictions, feelings, and 
 (necessary) conduct of all men ; and his constant and un- 
 ceasing endeavour therefore is, peacefully to withdraw all 
 those circumstances which are known to produce evil, and 
 to replace them by those only which are known to produce 
 good to the human race. He discards all force and de- 
 lusion, for these will not serve his holy cause. Clothed in 
 the panoply of truth, he goes forth to do battle with error, 
 relying on the powers of moral suasion and kindness 
 
EDITOR 8 PREFACE. XJU 
 
 alone, as the only agents capable of effecting a revolution 
 so glorious and so God-like.* 
 
 It is hoped that the able work which these few^ sen- 
 tences are intended to introduce, may assist in hastening 
 so desirable a change, which, though to be effective for the 
 happiness of all, must be universal, yet may it be gradual, 
 commencing, too, with that portion of the population 
 which in all countries most requires it the able-bodied 
 poor. 
 
 Happily, the students of social science the great 
 " Captains of Industry" are daily increasing in numbers 
 and earnestness. The Editor of this volume, knowing- 
 how instrumental was the work, on its first appearance, 
 in the formation, in his own mind, of what he feels to be 
 right convictions on the great subjects of which it treats, 
 is desirous that others should be similarly advantaged ; 
 and with a view as much as possible of shortening their 
 labour, he has in this edition reduced the work to about 
 two-thirds its original bulk, without, he trusts, materially 
 impairing its usefulness. 
 
 * " Accustomed to regard all the affairs of men as a process, they 
 (the Social Reformers) never hurry, and they never pause. Theirs is 
 not a twilight of political knowledge which gives just light enough to 
 place one foot before the other ; as they advance the scene still opens 
 upon them, and they press right onward with a vast and varied land- 
 scape of existence around them. Calmness and energy mark all 
 their actions. Convinced that vice originates not in the man, but in 
 the surrounding circumstances not in the heart, but in the under- 
 standingthey are hopeless concerning no one. To correct a vice, or 
 generate a virtuous conduct, they pollute not their hands with the 
 scourge of coercion : but, by endeavouring to alter the circumstances, 
 would remove, or by strengthening the intellect, disarm the tempta- 
 tion." COLERIDGE. 
 
XIV EDITOR 8 PREFACE. 
 
 Detached portions of the work will, doubtless, be 
 viewed with satisfaction by various sections of economists, 
 as furnishing powerful arguments in favour of their 
 several isolated theories. Thus our Author's bold exposi- 
 tion of the evils of slavery, and the marked inferiority of 
 its results in the production of wealth, and diffusion of 
 human happiness, when contrasted with the operations 
 of free labour, will attract the favourable notice of the 
 champions of the Anti-slavery cause ; whilst the masterly 
 manner in which (Chapter I., Section 12) he exhibits the 
 superiority of the system of " Voluntary exchanges" freed 
 from all the trammels of bounties and prohibitions, en- 
 couragements and restraints, of all and every kind, will 
 find ready acceptance with the " Free Trader." The 
 advocates of a system of universal and unsectarian 
 education, also, will fully appreciate the admirable reason- 
 ing in Chapter IV., " On the acquisition and diffusion 
 of knowledge as one of the means of increasing production 
 and enjoyment, and securing the permanence of the natural 
 laws of distribution ;" and more especially the fourth 
 section of that chapter, which treats of Education, strictly 
 so called, previous to manhood. 
 
 As isolated portions, no doubt these are excellent. We 
 wish, however, to impress the reader with that which to 
 us seems the chief merit of the work as a whole, and which 
 may be briefly stated thus : 
 
 First, In laying down clearly, and logically, the great 
 fundamental principles which must be observed in 
 the production and distribution of wealth, in order 
 to attain the largest sum of human happiness. 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. xv 
 
 Secondly, In showing to what extent the carrying out 
 these principles, and the accomplishment of this 
 result, is possible under the system of individual 
 competition, and where, even under its freest and 
 best form, it must fail, from the evils inherent in the 
 very system itself. 
 
 Thirdly, In showing the immense superiority, not 
 only as respects wealth, but every other source of 
 happiness, of the system of mutual co-operation 
 in the production, and voluntary equality in the 
 distribution of wealth and the means of enjoyment, 
 over that of any other system of society hitherto 
 practised. 
 
 Fourthly, In showing that as long as the accumulated 
 capital of society remains in one set of hands, and 
 the productive powers of creating wealth remain in 
 another, this accumulated capital will, while the 
 nature of man continues as at present, be made use 
 of to counteract the natural laws of distribution, and 
 to deprive the producers of the use of that which 
 their labour has produced-; and that, therefore, the 
 great object of wisdom and benevolence, with respect 
 to the distribution of wealth, should be, to make 
 every member of society a capitalist-labourer, and 
 a contributor to the joint stock of happiness ; and 
 with this view to devise arrangements by which this 
 great object may be effected with the least possible 
 inconvenience, not only to the holders of the capital 
 already accumulated, but even to the idlers who are 
 now a mere burden on productive labour, and of 
 little benefit to themselves. 
 
xvi EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 In the language of the Author himself: 
 " Whatever the supposed inconvenience of this mighty 
 change, 'tis as nothing compared with its benefits . Political 
 changes are useful, in as far only as their obvious tendency 
 is to bring about this great change, which the unnecessarily 
 degraded mass of mankind, without knowledge, without 
 comfort, without mutual kindness, demand of the hand 
 of justice, and which the real interests of those who esteem 
 themselves privileged classes, almost equally demand." 
 
 One word, in conclusion, as to the author himself. Mr. 
 Thompson, by birth an Irishman, was a man of generous 
 sympathies, expanded mind, and extremely studious habits. 
 A large portion of his life was devoted to the study of 
 political, moral, and social philosophy, during several 
 years of which he was a student of, and residing with, the 
 celebrated Jeremy Bentham. Besides the present work, 
 which was written about the vjar 1822, Mr. Thompson 
 was the author of many other productions of a kindred 
 character, the chief of which have been published under 
 the following titles : 
 
 " An appeal of one half of the human race, Women, 
 against the pretensions of the other half, Men, to 
 retain them in political, and thence in civil and 
 domestic slavery ; in reply to a paragraph of 
 Mr. Mills's celebrated ' Article on Government/ 
 London : Longman and Co. 1825." 
 " Labour Rewarded. The Claims of Labour and 
 Capital conciliated : or, how to secure to Labour the 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. xvii 
 
 whole products of its exertions. London : Ilunt 
 and Clarke. 1827." 
 
 " Practical Directions for the speedy and economical 
 establishment of Communities, on the principles 
 of Mutual Co-operation, United Possessions, and 
 Equality of Exertions, and of the means of enjoy- 
 ment. London: Strange. 1830." 
 As a proof of the sincerity and earnestness with which 
 the author held his opinions, and the benevolence which 
 actuated him, it may be stated that, in the year 1830, he 
 made a will, leaving the great bulk of his property, con- 
 sisting of freehold estates in the county of Cork, in the 
 hands of trustees, of whom the writer was one, for the 
 purpose of still further promulgating the principles which 
 he had so long and so ably advocated, and of aiding the 
 humbler classes in any practical operations founded 
 thereon. 
 
 At the time when this will was made, the most violent 
 prejudice existed in the public mind as to the dissection of 
 dead bodies, and, except by stealth, none but the bodies 
 of executed criminals could be obtained for the use of 
 our anatomical schools. Mr. Thompson, feeling this 
 to be a great public evil, inserted the following clause 
 in his will : 
 
 " To aid in conquering the foolish, but frequently most mischievous 
 prejudice, respecting- the benevolent but to the operators, most 
 unpleasant and sometimes dangerous process of examining dead 
 bodies, incapable of feeling, for the benefit of the living ; I will that 
 my body be publicly examined by a lecturer on anatomy, on condition 
 of his returning the bones, in the form of a skeleton, natural or 
 artificial, to be preserved in the Museum of Human and Comparative 
 Anatomy, as my books, &c., are to be preserved in the Library of the 
 first Co-operative Community in Britain or Ireland." 
 
 A 
 
XV111 EDITOR S PREFACE. 
 
 Mr. Thompson died of inflammation of the chest, at his 
 residence, Clounkeen, Roscarbery, County of Cork, on the 
 28th March, 1833. For twenty years previously, he had 
 not partaken of any animal food or intoxicating drinks ; 
 his abstinence, as he informed the writer, being mainly 
 induced by a careful consideration of his own bodily 
 requirements in these respects, and because it enabled 
 him the better to pursue his mental and literary labours. 
 His illness was but of short duration. He had a clear 
 perception, however, of his approaching dissolution, and a 
 few days before his death he took advantage of this know- 
 ledge, and wrote to several of his friends on matters con- 
 nected with the great subject which had so long occupied 
 his mind. His directions as to the dissection of his body 
 were complied with, not, however, without considerable 
 opposition, amounting to almost actual violence, on the 
 part of the ignorant peasantry of the neighbourhood. But 
 the trustees have not been enabled to carry out any other 
 directions of the will. Some relatives of the deceased 
 having contested the disposition of the property, it was 
 brought within the jurisdiction of that most dilatory and 
 expensive of courts the Irish Chancery, where it still 
 remains. 
 
 CLONTAHF, Co. DUBLIN, 
 August, 1850. 
 
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 / THOSE who have observed, reflected, or written on political 
 economy, and the various branches of knowledge connected 
 with it, may be ranged in two classes, the intellectual and 
 the mechanical. Of later days, and in this country, con- 
 spicuous amongst the intellectual speculators or philoso- 
 phers stands Mr. Godwin, the author of " PoliticalJustice." 
 Equally eminent amongst the mechanical reasoners, parti- 
 cularly in his earlier productions, is Mr. Malthus, whose 
 treatise on the " Principles of Population" is become almost 
 the text-book of a politico-economical sect, j 
 
 The intellectual speculators, informed by their own 
 feelings of the gentle, ever-springing, and all-sufficient 
 pleasures of sympathy and intellectual culture, their 
 animal wants being all comfortably supplied and therefore 
 exciting little of their attention, little studious perhaps of 
 the physical laws of nature, of the physical constitution of 
 man and the beings that surround him, conscious of their 
 own power of restraining and regulating what they regard 
 as the grosser propensities of our nature, proclaim man as 
 capable of attaining happiness by his mental powers alone, 
 almost independent of material subordinate agency. To 
 such a superiority have they elevated the thinking part of 
 the human organisation, as to suppose that man may 
 hereafter, by the perfect use of it, will his own health 
 independent of the material agents usually employed to 
 
 A2 
 
XX PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 promote it. They have thought that the mind may com- 
 mand mechanical operations, such as ploughing or navi- 
 gation, without the intervention of intermediate physical 
 means. How these mysterious processes, these wonders 
 of volition, were by possibility to be carried on, con- 
 sistent with any established analogy of things, could not 
 of course be explained. 
 
 Whatever advances mankind may make in the arts of 
 social happiness, they must be indebted to an enlarged 
 and minute acquaintance with the surrounding universe of 
 things and of themselves, and to the wise use and distri- 
 bution and regulation of them. The intellectual specu- 
 lators on political economy, however, wishing to make 
 man all thought, affect to disdain labour as mechanical 
 and grovelling, unaware of the -paramount principle of 
 utility, by which alone the worth or worthlessness of every- 
 flung must be estimated. What is thought, but motion 
 produced and. felt in the brain? what is labour, but motion 
 communicated to, and in co-operation with, the ever-active 
 energies of nature ? And by what standard is the supe- 
 riority of either species of motion to be estimated, but by 
 their relative tendency to produce human happiness ? 
 
 If the class that I have termed intellectual speculators, 
 leave material things and physical agencies too much out 
 of their calculation, those whom I have termed mechanical 
 speculators adopt the opposite extreme. With them, 
 intellectual power and sympathy form no part of the 
 creature man ; he is altogether a mechanical agent, like 
 the plough, or the loom, or the horses, with whose motions 
 he co-operates ; and he is to be urged to labour by the 
 same rude means that operate on other animals. Those 
 who call themselves pure political economists, and profess 
 to have no other object but wealth in contemplation, 
 belong, more or less, to this class. By them the sublime 
 
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. XXI 
 
 notions of intelligence, benevolence, or mutual co-operation 
 and perfectibility, are held in derision. Their sole object 
 is, so to arrange, as that the machines whether living, 
 as cows, men, or horses, and propelled by food and air, or 
 inanimate, and propelled by steam or water should 
 produce in the greatest abundance all articles of food, 
 clothing, shelter, and elegance, or caprice ; and that, on 
 the other hand, means should be devised that an abundance 
 of consumers should be found to use the articles produced, 
 so that every year a continual demand should be kept up 
 for these or similar articles. By what means, or by whom 
 the articles were produced, whether by camels, horses, 
 men, slaves or not slaves, whether by hard labour or easy 
 labour, by healthful or life-consuming exertion, signified 
 not ; except in as far as the wear and tear of the dead or 
 living machinery might enhance the price and lessen the 
 production. By what means, or by whom these articles 
 were consumed, whether by the mass of the producers, to 
 diffuse gladness through a smiling population, or by a few 
 living in palaces, surrounded by unenjoyed waste and 
 sickly appetites, signified not. The problem with them 
 has been, how to raise the greatest produce and to ensure 
 the greatest consumption or efficient demand. No con- 
 siderations but such as related immediately to wealth or 
 exchangeable value, were admitted into the reasonings 
 of these severe economists. Amongst these mechanical 
 reasoners there are shades of opinion as well as amongst 
 the intellectual speculators ; and they occasionally adopt 
 more or less of their adversaries' views. 
 
 Is it to be wondered at, that neither the one nor the 
 other of these two classes of reasoners on political economy 
 and human happiness, called here the intellectual and the 
 mechanical, have arrived at truth ? that no consistent and 
 useful system of human labour and the most wise and 
 
XXU PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 wholesome distribution of its products, has yet been 
 devised between them ? that while each of them have dis- 
 covered on their own side a good deal of truth, their chief 
 felicity has consisted in developing the errors of their 
 opponents ? How should it be otherwise ? Man is not a 
 mere machine like a steam-engine or spinning-jenny, nor 
 an uncalculating animal like the horse or the ox whose 
 labour he employs. Nor is man a mere intellectual agent, 
 without properties in common with both the inanimate 
 and the living things around him. Man is a complicated 
 being. Like the timber or the wool on which he operates, 
 he is liable to the impulses of external things. Appro- 
 priate agents produce chemical and mechanical changes 
 on his structure, both within and without, just as on other 
 masses of matter, The overwhelming force of the current 
 or the tempest equally shatters and sweeps away him and 
 all inanimate obstacles, whether the shed which he has 
 reared for his protection or the plank to which he clings 
 for succour, in proportion to the mass and powers of 
 resistance of each. Certain living powers, the result 
 of organisation, developing themseves in nervous and 
 muscular motions, enable man to increase but a little his 
 power of resistance. Like all other animals, man exists 
 but on the condition of keeping up the eternal excitement 
 of air and food; like the best organised of them, he is 
 liable to various sources of enjoyment and of pain, by 
 means of the terminations of different species of nerves in 
 what are termed organs of sense on different parts of the 
 body : like them, he is liable to certain impulses arising 
 from internal secretions, entirely independent of his 
 volition) and thence to certain propensities, desires, or 
 wants, inseparable from his actual organisation. But 
 unlike condensed or aerial particles of inanimate matter, 
 unlike any known vital organisation but his own, not only 
 
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. Xxiil 
 
 is he liable in a super-eminent degree to the feelings 
 arising from the observation of all things around him and 
 their relation to himself, not only to the feelings of memory 
 perpetuating these original feelings of observation, but 
 also to those of comparison and reasoning. Hence he is 
 enabled to look in upon his own structure, to look forward 
 into futurity, to calculate the effects of his actions, and 
 thence to be guided by distant as well as immediate 
 motives. By proper training, he is enabled to add to the 
 pleasures of the senses and of internal excitement, the 
 pleasant feelings of intellectual cultivation ; and by the 
 wise regulation of his appetites and passions, he not only 
 increases indefinitely their pleasures, but avoids the evils to 
 which want of foresight would lead them, and contracts a 
 sympathy and inclination to benevolent co-operation with 
 his fellow-creatures. 
 
 Can we reason then on any matters, in which the 
 labour, voluntary or forced, of such a creature as this, is 
 the chief ingredient, as we could respecting sheep or the 
 wool separated from their bodies, or respecting the powers 
 of air, water, steam, and machinery ? Or can we justly 
 reason on any matters in which such a creature as this is 
 chiefly concerned, as if he were all composed of intellect 
 and benevolence, as if he were uninfluenced by the 
 chemical and mechanical laws of nature operating within 
 and around him, as if he could shake off the feelings and 
 impulses co-existent with the several stages of his organi- 
 sation, as if he were gifted with a mysterious power of 
 producing changes within and around him, by mere volition, 
 without the intervention of the usual ascertained natural 
 agents or causes? like the power ascribed to the great 
 spirit or mind of nature, in the poetical creation of all 
 things ? 
 
 I conceive, then, that in order to make the noble dis- 
 
XXIV PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 coveries of political economy and magnificent they are 
 when viewed in their proper connexion useful to social 
 science, the application of which becomes the art of social 
 happiness, it is necessary always to keep in view, the 
 complicated nature of man, the instrument to operate with, 
 and the creature to be operated upon. Without a constant 
 reference to it, the regulating principle of utility is sacri- 
 ficed, and the grand object of political economy, the inde- 
 finite increase of the accumulations of wealth, or of its 
 yearly products, become worthless objects, consigning to 
 the wretchedness of unrequited toil three-fourths or nine- 
 tenths of the human race, that the remaining smaller por- 
 tion may pine in indolence midst unenjoyed profusion. ^It 
 is not the mere possession of wealth, but the right distri- 
 bution of it, that is important to a community, j It is 
 with communities as with individuals. Men cannot be 
 happy without the physical means of enjoyment, which in 
 all civilised societies consist chiefly of objects of wealth ; 
 but, with a comparatively small portion of these objects, 
 men may -be happier than they have ever been seen to be ; 
 while, though surrounded with them to superfluity, they 
 may still be miserable. \Tis not the multitude, but the 
 use and the distribution of the objects of wealth, with 
 which society is chiefly interested. Hence the necessity 
 of considering wealth, not only in its effects on industry 
 and reproduction, but also in its moral and political 
 effects, in every way that it can influence human happiness^ 
 Moralists have been, for the most part, ignorant of 
 physical science and of the truths of political economy; 
 theologians affect to disdain all other knowledge but their 
 own peculiar and profitable dreams ; political economists 
 profess to direct their sole attention to the production and 
 accumulation of wealth, regardless of its distribution 
 further than as it may influence re-production and accu- 
 
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. XXV 
 
 mulation, leaving to moralists, politicians, and statesmen, 
 its effect on happiness, and drawing a broad line of dis- 
 tinction between their solid material speculations and the 
 airy philosophy of the mind. Nay, more ; the chemist 
 and the mechanic, the manufacturer, and the merchant, 
 have, till lately, affected to disdain the speculations of 
 political economists, as mere theories, inapplicable to the 
 realities of their respective operations. 
 
 What is to be inferred? Not that we condemn the 
 division of knowledge any more than the division of 
 labour ; but that we would have it limited to the improve- 
 ment of its own particular branch, and not have it applied 
 to the immense concern of social happiness without regard 
 being had to all those other equally important data on 
 which a just application must depend. Social science, the 
 science of morals, including legislation as one of its most 
 important sub-divisions, requires not' only a knowledge of 
 what is technically called morals, and political economy, 
 but of the outlines of all that is known, with a capacity 
 for following up any particular branch that may be, on 
 particular occasions, conducive to tlie general end. None 
 of these speculators have confined themselves to their own 
 peculiar province, but have adventured, without appro- 
 priate knowledge, on the direct application of their 
 isolated speculations to social science. A few illustrious 
 exceptions might be named, one of whom has done more 
 for moral science than Bacon did for physical science ; for 
 whereas Bacon did no more than point out the new and 
 secure road to physical discovery, he has not only pointed 
 out the right road to moral investigations, but has made 
 such progress in it as no man ever before conceived, much 
 less accomplished. Following in the road which -he has 
 demonstrated, our object is to apply to social science the 
 ascertained truths of political economy, making these 
 
XXVI PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS, 
 
 and all other branches of knowledge subservient to that 
 just distribution of wealth which tends most to human 
 happiness. 
 
 In every nation, and in almost every age, of the world, 
 the blessings of equal comforts to all, and the enormous 
 evils of great inequality of wealth, have been dimly seen 
 and recognised ; and vain and ignorant efforts have been 
 made to establish a just distribution. (Force is the instru- 
 ment employed by ignorance to accomplish everything, 
 even justice itself; to establish equality, therefore, was 
 force employed. But no sooner was force made use of, 
 than security fled, and with security production, and con- 
 sequently the means of happiness. Here, therefore, is the 
 cruel dilemma in which mankind have been placed. Here 
 is the important problem of moral science to be solved, 
 I" how to reconcile equality with security; how to reconcile 
 I just distribution with continued production."] This problem 
 it is the object of the following pages to develop, to trace 
 its consequences, and to point out those just and gentle 
 means by which the natural laws of distribution may be 
 everywhere introduced, and by which security, impartially 
 applied to all, and not exclusively and hypocritically 
 applied to a few, may become the firmest guarantee, 
 instead of being the eternal opponent, of rational and 
 healthful equality ; as it is the only sure basis of the con- 
 tinued reproduction and accumulation of wealth. 
 
 This momentous problem has not been yet fully solved. 
 Mere political economy has not attempted to solve it. To 
 the minds of a few enlightened men, the first principles 
 necessary for its solution may be familiar ; but none of 
 them has yet undertaken the task of bringing to a point 
 the scattered rays of knowledge on this subject, applying 
 them all to the distribution of wealth. To diffuse, and by 
 diffusing to direct to practical use, the knowledge acquired 
 
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. XXV11 
 
 on this branch of social science, to lead forth from the 
 calm closets of philosophical inquirers, where they have 
 delighted and elevated the minds of a few, into the world 
 of life and action, those important truths, which it behoves 
 all mankind to know and to practice, to assist in wiping 
 out the stain from science, noticed thirty years ago by 
 Condorcet, but still adhering, that though she had done 
 much for the glory of mankind, she had done nothing or 
 little for their happiness, is to me an object of the most 
 anxious desire. 
 
 Who can throw his glance over the affairs of the civi- 
 lised portion of mankind, and not rejoice?* Who can 
 behold the proofs, everywhere and every day exhibited, of 
 the diffusion of real knowledge, and not rejoice? Who 
 can behold all the civilised nations of mankind, either in 
 the very act of calmly new-modelling their social institu- 
 tions, according to their respective degrees of knowledge, 
 or on the point of undertaking the bounteous, the magni- 
 ficent, the inevitable operation, and not rejoice ? Who is 
 there that sees not, that whatever may be the absolute 
 quantity of knowledge or of the articles of wealth in a com- 
 munity, it is not their abundance, but their right use and 
 distribution, that constitute the happiness of that com- 
 munity? Is not this, therefore, peculiarly the time to 
 investigate with uncompromising steadiness the natural 
 laws of distribution, to ascertain how far legislatures and 
 individuals may usefully co-operate with these tendencies 
 of things, that new organisations of society may reject 
 those perennial sources of vice and misery which ancient 
 ignorance engendered ? 
 
 But if the aspect of the great commonwealth of civilised 
 nations, and the interest which we of these countries have 
 
 * Written in 1822. 
 
XXV111 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 in the general progress of events, be not sufficient to 
 awaken our attention to a matter momentous like the 
 present ; there is an aspect of things nearer home, in our 
 very bosoms, which challenges our attention this moment 
 to the distribution of wealth. How comes it, that a nation 
 abounding more than any other in the rude materials of 
 wealth, in machinery, dwellings, and food, in intelligent 
 and industrious producers, with all the apparent means of 
 happiness, with all the outward semblances of happiness ex- 
 hibited by a small and rich portion of the community, should 
 still pine in privation ? How comes it that the fruits of 
 the labour of the industrious, after years of incessant and 
 successful exertion, are mysteriously and without im- 
 putation of fault to them, without any convulsion of nature 
 swept away ? It is not for want of physical knowledge : 
 it is not for want of abundant materials of wealth to make 
 all comfortable : it is not for want of the capacity or 
 inclination to abundant reproduction. To what, then, is 
 this strange anomaly in human affairs to be attributed 
 this misery in the midst of all the means of happiness ? 
 
 *-~* T-T-- * -* *" *- ***" 
 
 That savage tribes, ignorant of the means of production, 
 disinclined to labour, should be overtaken by want, were 
 a matter of no surprise ; but that where art and nature 
 had run, as it were, a race of emulation in the prodigality 
 of their gifts to intelligent and v industrious millions, that 
 these millions should be disenabled from enjoying these 
 products of their own creation this is the mystery, this 
 the astounding spectacle. To what but to a vicious disferi- 
 bution of wealth can this extraordinary phenomenon be 
 
 ^,,tH*"*~' is*~ ^^" 
 
 attributed ? What so natural as the cry of injustice, under 
 such circumstances ? What so natural and so usual as the 
 imploring of the interference of the strong arm of power, 
 to remedy such injustice? What so necessary as to ascer- 
 tain the causes of this vicious distribution ? whether they 
 
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. xxix 
 
 are of a temporary or of a deep-rooted and permanent 
 nature? whether present appearances are anything more 
 than the full development, the maximum, of the evils 
 inherent in long-established errors and radically vicious 
 institutions, now brought to the crisis of their injurious 
 operation ? whether there are in art or nature any means 
 to be found, excluding the use of force, which would make 
 impossible the recurrence of similar calamity, and sub- 
 stitute a universally benevolent, self-regulating, and self- 
 preserving distribution for the present, engendering the 
 evils notoriously experienced? Can any inquiry be more 
 called for, not with a view to mere topical, temporary, 
 remedies, but to radical cure ? 
 
 The tendency of the existing arrangement of things as 
 to wealth, is to enrich a few at the expense of the mass of 
 the producers ; to make the poverty of the poor more 
 hopeless, to throw back the middle classes upon the poor, 
 that a few may be enabled, not only to accumulate in per- 
 niciously large masses, the real national which is only 
 the aggregate of individual capital, but also, by means 
 of such accumulations, to command the products of the 
 yearly labour of the community. Who is not alarmed at 
 the every-day increasing tendency to poverty on the part 
 of the many, to the ostentation of excessive wealth on the 
 part of the few? Who sees' not the gradual undermining 
 of the nation's resources, the sickening of the very spirit 
 of industry on the part of her producers, if this progress 
 cannot, by a recurrence to first principles, or otherwise, 
 be arrested ? Is it not time to inquire whether, by the 
 laws of nature and society, we are doomed to submit to 
 actual and anticipated evils, such as these, under the peril 
 of enduring still greater, if we rashly attempt to remove 
 them? All moral and political wisdom should tend mainly 
 to this, the just distribution of the physical means of hap- 
 
XXX PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 piness : for how senseless would it be to send codes of laws 
 and maxims of morals to the savages of New Zealand for 
 the regulation of their passions, if matters were not so 
 adjusted, as that if not by gift at least by the exercise 
 of their faculties, these savages might be put in the way 
 to procure not only the means of existence, but of comfort 
 in life ! 'Tis in the use and distribution of these that all 
 their good or bad qualities, their vices or virtues, must be 
 chiefly developed. Skill and persevering industry are 
 necessary to produce the objects of wealth, the means of 
 enjoyment. Truth or falsehood are used to facilitate their 
 acquisition by exchange or otherwise. Honesty is dis- 
 played in respecting the acquisitions of others : violence and 
 cruelty in ravishing them from their producers ; prudence 
 and temperance in so regulating their use, as to secure all , 
 the immediate pleasures they are capable of producing, 
 without the drawback of those contingent remote evils 
 which would follow a blind obedience to instinctive feelings; 
 and beneficence in yielding to the grateful emotions of 
 sympathy under the guidance of wisdom, and making 
 wealth tributary to the happiness of others. In this way 
 is the most important portion of our virtues and vices so 
 indissolubly connected with the distribution of wealth, that 
 to speak of morals and legislation with an affected con- 
 tempt of such matters, is to grasp at a shadow and to leave 
 a substance is to add hypocritical or ignorant insult to 
 the miseries of communities. 
 
 Should we find that that mode of distribution which 
 political economy requires, militates against political 
 utility, while general morality is silent, we must weigh 
 the claims of wealth and politics and carefully adjudge the 
 balance. Should we find the increase of wealth and sup- 
 posed political utility calling for one mode of distribution, 
 and universal morality prescribing another, we must, con- 
 
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. xxx ( 
 
 / sistently with our principles of promoting the greatest 
 mppiness of the whole, compel both wealth and politics to 
 bend to that distribution which ensures the greatest virtue 
 the greatest happiness. But should we be so fortunate as 
 find that that species of distribution of wealth which 
 ends most to its production and accumulation, tends also 
 to political utility more than any other possible distri- 
 ition of it, and affords the grateful aspect of the widest 
 iffusion of moral habits, while it is, at the same time, so 
 simple as to require no cumbrous legal machinery almost 
 no machinery at all, for its support; we shall unite all 
 impartial voices in approbation of a mode of distribution 
 o recommended. Such, and attended with so many con- 
 curring benefits, is, it is believed, the mode of distribution 
 'the description of which follows. 
 
 Three modes of human labour are discussed and con- 
 trasted in the following pages -first, labour by force or 
 ompulsion, direct or indirect; second, labour by un- 
 restricted individual competition; third, labour by mutual 
 o-operation. The last of these modes of human labour 
 that by mutual co-operation, is shown to be as superior in 
 duction and happiness to the second, or that by indi- 
 vidual competition, as the second is superior to the first or 
 labour by force or compulsion. 
 
 The immediate incident that gave rise to the inquiry 
 pursued through the following pages, is as follows :-I n 
 one of the literary societies established in the city of Cork 
 for the diffusion of knowledge, a gentleman, celebrated 
 
 his skill in the controversies of political econoir 
 thought proper to descant on the blessings of the in 
 of wealth, as now established; on the depended 
 consequent gratitude which the poor should f 
 rich; on the too-great freedom and too-grea' 
 wealth of the United States of America 
 
XXX11 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 topics. Astonished at such notions, and particularly from 
 such a man, the writer not only repelled them at the 
 time, but determined to enter into the subject, and to lay 
 it before the society in the shape of an essay, for future 
 and more enlarged discussion. As the essay proceeded, 
 the importance and extent of the subject seemed to in- 
 crease ; and the confused and erroneous notions prevailing 
 almost everywhere, in print and conversation, redoubled 
 the zeal for its completion, to whatever extent the interests 
 of truth might require. Thus has the proposed essay ex- 
 tended to the present inquiry. 
 
ON THE 
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH 
 
 UNIVER8IT V 
 
 CHAPTER I.VCXUFOR 
 
 INVESTIGATION OF THE NATURAL PRINCIPLES, RULES, OR LAWS, 
 ON WHICH ALL JUST DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH OUGHT TO BE 
 FOUNDED; DEDUCED FROM OUR ORGANISATION, AND THE CIRCUM- 
 STANCES, PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL, WHICH SURROUND US. 
 
 UTILITY, calculating all effects, good and evil, immediate 
 and remote, or the pursuit of the greatest possible sum of 
 human happiness, is the leading principle constantly kept 
 in view, and to which all others are but subsidiary, in this 
 inquiry. In Bentham's " Introduction to the Principles 
 of Morals and Legislation," and the first chapters of the 
 celebrated " Traites de Legislation," this principle, recog- 
 nised by Helvetius, Priestley, Paley, and others, is deve- 
 loped and established for ever, to the exclusion of all 
 other pretended tests of morals. 
 
 No subject is more interesting, or if rightly treated 
 more useful, than the Distribution of Wealth ; because 
 on its just and wise distribution will be found to depend, 
 not only, directly, the physical comforts of every commu- 
 nity, but, consequentially, in a very great degree, the 
 quantum of morality, of the pleasures of sympathy, 
 prudence, and benevolence, as well as of intellectual 
 enjoyment, within its reach. 
 
 The distribution to be here inquired into, is that which 
 
2 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 will promote the greatest possible quantity of human hap- 
 piness, or the greatest happiness of the greatest number. 
 It will be seen that this greatest number is never a mere 
 majority, but nine out of ten, or ninety out of a hundred, 
 of the whole community. In fact, the real happiness of 
 the whole, even of the apparently sacrificed minority, will 
 be found to coincide with the greatest happiness of the 
 greatest number. The greatest possible quantity of 
 human happiness, the greatest happiness of the greatest 
 number, the happiness of the community, and the happi- 
 ness of the whole, will therefore be found, in almost all 
 cases, to imply the same, and may, for the most part, be 
 indifferently used. 
 
 The propositions on which the natural laws of distri- 
 bution are founded, appear to me so plain, as to ensure 
 assent as soon as they are understood, and the consequences 
 flowing from them are the most universally extensive in 
 their application, and most intimately connected with 
 human happiness. They should be therefore freely can- 
 vassed ; for, if true, they should be always kept in mind, 
 to direct our reasonings on moral and political subjects : 
 if false, the sooner their errors are pointed out the better, 
 that they may not be injuriously applied in practice. 
 
 It will be asked, " What is meant by the words, natu- 
 ral principles, natural rules, or natural laws, of distribu- 
 tion, to be here inquired into ?" 
 
 By natural laws of distribution enlightened political 
 economists do mean, or ought to mean, those general rules 
 or first principles, on which all distribution of wealth 
 ought to be founded, in order to produce the greatest 
 aggregate mass of happiness to the society, great or 
 small, producing it. The most appropriate meaning, 
 perhaps, which can be given to the word, natural, in 
 conjunction with the words, laws, rules, or principles, of 
 distribution, is simply such as require no factitious aid, 
 which demand the removal or the non-imposition of 
 restraint, instead of new machinery for their support. 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 3 
 
 The laws here spoken of have never been written or 
 promulgated, still less enforced ; they exist only in the 
 discussions of the inquirers after truth, and if admitted by 
 rational men after the most severe scrutiny that can be 
 applied to them, will become the rules of action and the 
 guides of real written law as to the distribution of wealth. 
 The propositions to be proved in this chapter are the 
 following ; placed here consecutively, that the reader may 
 bear their connexion in mind : 
 
 SECTION 1. Wealth is produced by labour; no other 
 ingredient but labour makes any object of desire an 
 object of wealth. Labour is the sole universal 
 measure, as well as the characteristic distinction of 
 wealth. 
 
 SECTION 2. The object to be aimed at in the distribu- 
 tion of wealth, as in its production by labour, is to 
 confer thereby the greatest possible quantity of 
 happiness, i. e. of pleasures, whether of the senses 
 or of a moral or intellectual nature, on the society 
 producing it. 
 
 SECTION 3. All members of society (cases of mal- 
 conformation excepted) being similarly constituted 
 in their physical organisation, are capable, by similar 
 treatment, of enjoying equal portions of happiness. 
 SECTION 4. The happiness of the greater number is to 
 be preferred to the happiness of the lesser number : 
 otherwise, the object in view, the production of the 
 greatest possible quantity of happiness, would be 
 sacrificed. 
 
 SECTION 5. Those means of enjoyment or happiness 
 which come under the name of wealth, being produced 
 by the application of labour, guided by knowledge, 
 to the materials afforded by nature, sufficient stim- 
 ulus, in the way of motive, must be afforded to put the 
 necessary labour guided by knowledge into motion, 
 to produce this wealth. 
 
 SECTION 6. The strongest stimulus to production 
 B 2 
 
On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 (and that which is necessary ^6 the greatest 
 production) that the nature of things will permit, is, 
 " security" in the entire use of the products of labour 
 to those who produce them. 
 
 SECTION 7. All voluntary exchanges of articles of 
 wealth, implying a preference, on both sides, of the 
 thing received to the thing given, tend to the increase 
 of happiness from wealth, and thence to increase the 
 motives to its production. 
 
 SECTION 8. The forced abstraction of the products of 
 labour, the objects of wealth and means of hap- 
 piness, from any individual, will cause more loss of 
 happiness to him than increase of happiness to the 
 person acquiring. 
 
 SECTION 9. The forced abstraction of small portions 
 of wealth from any given number of individuals, 
 will lessen the whole quantity of happiness more 
 than it can be increased by the additional pleasures 
 conferred on any one or more individuals enjoying 
 these united small forced masses. 
 
 SECTION 10. Therefore, the produce of no man's 
 labour, nor the labour itself, nor any part of them, 
 should be taken from the labourer, without an equi- 
 valent ~by him deemed satisfactory. 
 
 SECTION 11. The materials of wealth should be so 
 distributed as to accomplish the double object of pro- 
 moting the utmost possible equality of enjoyment 
 and the utmost possible production ; that is to say, 
 to promote the utmost possible equality of distribu- 
 tion " consistent with security /' the degree of de- 
 velopment of every useful human energy, physical 
 and intellectual, and of course of the production of 
 wealth, depending on the degree of security enjoyed. 
 
 SECTION 12. To accomplish this just distribution, no 
 encouragements, or restraints, partaking of the 
 nature of wealth, whether of a positive or negative 
 kind, on the direction given to labour, or on the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. o 
 
 free interchange of the products of labour, should 
 be instituted or upheld. 
 
 SECTION 13. That inequality in the distribution of 
 wealth, and that alone, which arises from securing 
 to every man the free use of his labour and its pro- 
 ducts, and the voluntary exchanges thence ensuing, 
 should be upheld ; because without that extent of 
 inequality, there would be no security, without 
 security, no production, without production, no 
 wealth to distribute. 
 
 SECTION 14. All other species of inequality of 
 distribution, being not only unnecessary, but inju- 
 rious to the excitement of production, should be 
 repressed ; because they unnecessarily detract from 
 the benefits of equality, and thus lessen the sum 
 total of happiness, the object aimed at in the 
 distribution of wealth. 
 
 SECTION 15. General inference from the above pre- 
 mises, " Natural Laws of Distribution," or General 
 Rules, the observance of which is necessary in order 
 to attain the greatest happiness derivable from 
 wealth : 
 
 First, All labour ought to be free and voluntary, as to 
 its direction and continuance. 
 
 Second, All the products of labour ought to be secured 
 to the producers of them. 
 
 Third, All exchanges of these products ought to be 
 free and voluntary. 
 
 SECTION 1. 
 
 WEALTH 18 PRODUCED BY LABOUR : NO OTHER INGREDIENT BUT LABOUR 
 MAKES ANT OBJECT OF DESIRE AN OBJECT OP WEALTH. LABOUR IS TUB 
 SOLE UNIVERSAL MEASURE, AS WELL AS THE CHARACTERISTIC DISTINCTION, 
 OP WEALTH. 
 
 The word, wealth, signifies " that portion of the phy- 
 sical materials or means of enjoyment which is afforded by 
 
6 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 the labour and knowledge of man turning to use the ani- 
 mate or inanimate materials or productions of nature ;" or, 
 more concisely, wealth is " any object of desire produced 
 by labour." 
 
 Value in exchange is not necessary, though it almost 
 always attaches, to the idea of wealth ; for small commu- 
 nities have been rich and happy by labour in common, 
 without any exchanges. Would not woollen cloth be wealth 
 though every man made his own coat ? Without value in 
 exchange, an article, ever so much an object of desire to 
 him that owns it, and produced by ever so much of his 
 labour, can have no marketable value ; it will not in a 
 market be exposed for sale to those who have no desire for 
 it : but that does not make it the less an object of wealth 
 to him who desired it because it was useful, and who wisely 
 employed himself in its fabrication for his own use. 
 , \ Without labour there is no wealth. Labour is its 
 distinguishing attribute. The agency of nature constitutes 
 nothing an object of wealth. Labour is the sole parent of 
 wealth. 
 
 National wealth is nothing more than the aggregate of 
 the individual masses of the matter of wealth. 
 
 Land, air, heat, light, the electric fluid, men, horses, 
 water, as such, are equally unentitled to the appellation of 
 wealth. They may be objects of desire, of happiness ; 
 but, till touched by the transforming hand of labour, they 
 are not wealth.) Of these, air, heat, light, the electric 
 fluid, and frequently water, though objects of desire and 
 utility, even of necessity, not only to health, but to the 
 continuance of life, are not objects of wealth. Why so ? 
 Because it requires no labour to produce them, to gather 
 them together for use, to enjoy them. They exist in such 
 quantities, and are used and enjoyed with so little exertion, 
 some of them requiring as air, light, and heat a positive 
 exertion for the exclusion of their operation upon us, that 
 no sort of labour is necessary to gratify our desires for 
 them. Droves of horses or horned cattle abounding in 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 7 
 
 regions thinly peopled, are not objects of wealth any more 
 than the air or light. There are more of them than are 
 wanting for use : no human exertion has produced them : 
 whoever will employ the labour necessary to appropriate 
 any of them, becomes their owner ; and the mere labour 
 of acquisition makes that an object of wealth which before 
 was merely an object of possible desire. Thus, as articles 
 commonly esteemed objects of wealth, lose that quality 
 under circumstances in which no labour is requisite for 
 their production; so do other articles, not esteemed objects 
 of wealth, gain that quality when under circumstances 
 making labour necessary for their enjoyment. By day, 
 the light of the sun, the most useful and grateful of all 
 light, is not an object of wealth. But let the earth continue 
 its revolution and avert from the sun its lately illumined 
 portion, and let light be still desirable for human conveni- 
 ence, and it will become immediately an article of wealth 
 under the name of the substances from which it is in 
 scanty portions extracted. The value of candles, oil, gas, 
 &c., is only the value of the light extracted from them; 
 and as science improves and the modes of extracting are 
 increased and facilitated, the value of light diminishes with 
 the smaller quantities of labour necessary for its extraction. 
 Till directed by labour, under the guidance of knowledge, 
 the powers of nature, in point of useful production of 
 articles denominated wealth, are beneath estimation. Let 
 the labour of any community cease but for one year, and 
 how many of that community would be preserved in life, 
 by the materials or energies of nature, to tell the perilous 
 experiment to the succeeding year ? Not only the comforts 
 but the very existence of all nations depend on the eternal 
 operation of labour. While the mouth consumes, the indus- 
 trious arm is reproducing. 
 
 Wealth is limited to the physical means or materials of 
 enjoyment. There are moral and intellectual, as well as 
 physical, pleasures. With these sources of happiness we are 
 not now concerned, as they are not directly comprehended 
 
8 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 in the meaning attached to the word, wealth. There are 
 also numerous physical means of happiness which come not 
 under the definition of wealth. Light, by its varieties of 
 colours, gives pleasure to the eye, water to the taste, the 
 sexes to each other; yet are neither of these means of 
 happiness denoted by the term wealth, because they are 
 the gift of nature alone, without any addition made thereto 
 by the labour or skill of man. 
 
 ^The mere utility of a thing carried to any extent and 
 superadded to its mere existence, or what we call its pro- 
 duction by the hand of nature, constitutes nothing an 
 object of wealth till labour in some shape becomes identi- 
 fied with it : then it becomes wealth. ) 
 
 What is wealth also in one country is not wealth in 
 another. Thus ice in equatorial civilised regions is an 
 Article of wealth and luxury ; while approaching the poles, 
 it becomes the bane of existence. In parched sandy 
 countries, a well of water is a source of wealth ; while the 
 land is the property of no one, not being worth the trouble 
 of appropriation. Labour was not necessary to make the 
 well, nature, we shall suppose, having produced it; nor is 
 the labour of drawing out the water to be alone estimated. 
 But the existence of the well in that spot saves the labour 
 that would be otherwise necessary to bring water there 
 from its nearest supply ; and the value of the well is to be 
 measured by the quantity of labour thus saved. 
 
 Men and women, at different times and places, have 
 been converted into mere objects of wealth ; compelled by 
 brute force, without any equivalent, to administer to the 
 pleasures of their owners. The two circumstances neces- 
 sary to constitute wealth being, " objects of desire" and 
 " procured by labour," or effort, apply to human beings, 
 like any other substances, such as iron or sheep, when 
 tyrannically converted into objects of wealth. Not only is 
 an expense of labour, of force or effort, necessary, in the 
 first instance, to make human beings slaves, and thus 
 objects of wealth, but also to retain them in slavery. 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 9 
 
 As to violence exerted to constrain, say the person of a 
 woman to submit involuntarily to man's inclinations ; 
 wherever this violence is permitted, women become pro- 
 perty, to people harems, as men do to cultivate the soil or 
 to work in domestic thraldom. 
 
 It would be little better than impertinence, in an 
 inquiry addressed to a civilised community, formally to 
 except human beings from becoming objects of desire and 
 of appropriation to each other : nor would it be necessary ; 
 for, wherever these most pernicious desires have existed, 
 so as to lead to appropriation, property has followed, and 
 they have been constituted matters of wealth, like any 
 other materials, animate or inanimate. Wherever the power 
 of appropriation has accompanied the fatal desire, the ap- 
 propriation, and the sometimes illegal, but always unjust, 
 conversion into property or wealth, has followed of course. 
 
 Numerous are the objections that may be made, from 
 partial views of particular objects, to this simple explana- 
 tion of what constitutes an object of wealth. It may 
 suffice to notice a few of the most conspicuous. Of all 
 the physical objects of desire to man, few are more attrac- 
 tive than the possession of a rich and well-cultivated piece 
 of land, yielding every year teeming harvests of grain 
 and fruits, or sending forth from its bosom useful minerals. 
 Is this land, or all its products, objects of wealth ? First, 
 Are this land and all its products objects of desire ? Circum- 
 stances evidently may exist under which neither the land 
 nor any of its products, internal or external, may be 
 objects of desire in the way of appropriation ; as where 
 rude hunters occupy it, as half a century ago was the 
 case with all the fruitful lands and immense materials, or 
 things capable of being converted into wealth, in the 
 territories of the United States, west of the AUeghany 
 mountains. Though abounding in all the physical mate- 
 rials of happiness, they were not therefore objects of 
 wealth, because not objects of desire. But when the 
 scene changed, and civilised men turned their eyes and 
 
10 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 footsteps towards them, desiring to convert them to the 
 means of happiness; were they then converted into objects 
 of wealth ? They were simply in the way of becoming so ; 
 but they were not yet so converted. Labour was 
 wanting to be superadded to mere desire, and in propor- 
 tion as labour was bestowed upon them, they were trans- 
 formed from mere objects of desire into objects of wealth. 
 The first settler cleared the timber and erected a shed, and 
 affixed the value of his labour to that part of the soil on 
 which it had been expended, and to those contiguous spots 
 rendered by it more convenient for use. A second settler, 
 paying for the labour under the name of the land, still 
 added to its value by expending more labour upon it, in 
 clearing a larger space, cultivating useful crops, and im- 
 proving the sheds, and perhaps rearing and domesticating 
 some animals. A third settler pays an increased value for 
 all these products of labour under the name of the soil to 
 which they are attached, introduces' stock and machines, 
 all produced by labour, and leaving the former erections 
 for subordinate or temporary purposes, erects houses and 
 makes fences suited for permanence and convenience. 
 Thus is a piece of rich land which was a few years ago an 
 object of no value, now converted into an object of 
 wealth. What has nature done towards this conver- 
 sion ? Nothing. What has man, what has man's labour 
 done ? Everything. All that we call the work of nature, 
 the mere existence of the land and its capabilities, were 
 in as palpable existence before the land was converted 
 into wealth as after it. Nay, by repeated culture the 
 capabilities of the best land are frequently impaired or 
 exhausted. But all this time, the minerals lying on the 
 surface of the land, or arranged in its interior, though 
 capable of the most extended use, have not been regarded, 
 have not been esteemed articles of wealth. Whence comes 
 this new phenomenon ? In general, because none of these 
 articles have been all this time objects of desire, and 
 therefore no labour has been expended upon them. Some 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 11 
 
 of them, such as coal, have not been objects of desire, 
 because other articles procured with less labour, such as 
 wood, necessarily cleared away to fit the ground for 
 cultivation, have been used instead of them. Others, 
 such as iron, from want of the skill and machinery neces- 
 sary to convert them to useful purposes on so limited a 
 scale, have been disregarded, inasmuch as less labour 
 applied to the soil would procure articles sufficient to get 
 them, or rather things fabricated from them in exchange. 
 But let an increase be made in population, let the number 
 of those requiring such articles be such as to afford con- 
 stant employment to the machinery and skill of a few, let 
 the timber be cut down and exhausted ; then will the 
 neglected iron-stone and the coal become objects of desire ; 
 then will labour be bestowed upon them, and they will be- 
 come objects of wealth. A new value will be given to the 
 land; not because nature has done anything to increase 
 the capabilities of useful application of the objects of 
 which the land consisted, but because circumstances have 
 led to the formation of desires for their appropriation, and 
 in consequence of such desires, labour has been bestowed 
 upon them. 
 
 If it be objected that these lands are bought before 
 any labour has been expended upon them of the United 
 States Government, it may be observed, that the moderate 
 price paid is but a very small remuneration for three 
 benefits which the comparatively weak individual occupant 
 derives from the powerful community from whom he 
 purchases ; by which he is saved a hundredfold in risk 
 and labour in the cultivation, in the enjoyment of his 
 land : 1st, Immediate peaceable possession ; 2nd, Gua- 
 rantee by the national force from savage attack or fellow- 
 citizens' annoyance, permitting the whole of the cultivator's 
 exertions to be directed to improvement, none of it being 
 abstracted for defence ; 3rd, Security of title in future en- 
 joyment or transfers, the original appropriation becoming 
 a public act registered and authenticated ; thus saving 
 
12 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 litigation resolvable into loss of wealth or useless expen- 
 diture of labour, with its accompanying vexation and 
 consequential evils to an interminable extent. 
 
 Nor does the fertility or barrenness of the soil require 
 any modification to be made in the definition given. 
 
 Suppose a trading colony settled on a confined barren 
 spot, as the British on the island of Malta, for the mere 
 purposes of commerce : What will determine the value of 
 the few barren spots of ground in their neighbourhood ? 
 The quantity of labour that has been expended upon them. 
 What determined that quantity of labour ? The quantity 
 that it has been necessary, or that it would be necessary, 
 to expend upon them in order to afford for sale whatever 
 articles the climate and convenience permitted, on the 
 same terms that articles equally good could be imported 
 from the cheapest accessible market. If more money were 
 demanded for a vineyard, an orange-grove, or a corn-field, 
 than this mass of labour, with the necessary profits of 
 capital, as they are called, and superintendence, would 
 amount to, it could not be given without loss ; because the 
 productions of the spot would not repay the interest of 
 the capital deposited, with the yearly expenses of culture 
 necessary to meet the rival foreign article. The value, 
 again, of the articles brought from abroad would depend 
 on the quantity of labour there necessary to produce them. 
 
 In such way would the value of a piece of land be 
 determined for agricultural purposes on such an island. 
 In what way would it be determined for building or for 
 pleasure-ground ? The value of building-ground depends 
 on the quantity of labour in carriage and otherwise which 
 the situation would save, and in the probability of quicker 
 sale or letting it would afford; all which are resolvable 
 into the saving of labour. The price of pleasure-grounds 
 depends on the competition of the desires of the rich. To 
 these, when wealth is viciously divided, and when great 
 ignorance is joined to great wealth, it is hard to assign a 
 limit. The loss of other enjoyments, which the acquisition 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 13 
 
 of a spot so over-valued by caprice beyond its agricultural 
 or building value, would entail on its acquirer, is almost 
 the only check to this competition. Still, however, in all 
 cases, the two ingredients of desire and labour are neces- 
 sary to constitute an article of wealth. If nature have 
 limited the supply of the article so that labour cannot fur- 
 nish the demands of desire, the artificial value of caprice 
 commences ; but whereas, in ordinary cases, the value of 
 an article of wealth extends to the smallest quantity of 
 labour that could produce it, here the value of caprice 
 cannot extend even as far. Scarcely any amount of labour, 
 not such as any individual fortune could purchase, could 
 create a new river, for instance, and form sites upon it, or 
 continue exploring the earth till new diamonds or similar 
 baubles, equal in size to the largest known, were dis- 
 covered. Even this surplus artificial value, therefore, comes 
 within our rule; for not only can it never exceed the 
 amount of labour necessary to produce similar articles, 
 but it seldom reaches that amount. The amount of labour 
 expended or saved on objects of desire, is therefore in all 
 cases the utmost limit of their value, and that which con- 
 stitutes them articles of wealth. 
 
 Though the proposition heading this section asserts 
 that labour is the sole measure of the value of an article of 
 wealth, it does not assert that this sole measure is in all 
 cases an accurate measure. As an article must be an ob- 
 ject of desire to be an article of wealth, and as these desires 
 and preferences are apt to vary with circumstances both 
 physical and moral, particularly with the quantum of 
 knowledge (of science and art) of the means of converting 
 to use the materials and energies of nature, it is evidently 
 impossible that the absolute quantity of labour can be any 
 accurate index to these. Superfluous trinkets without use 
 are sought after by the savage and the courtier. Under 
 representative self-government, they would be equally dis- 
 regarded as things conferring merit, and reduced to their 
 commercial value, to the value of real use. Uninformed 
 
14 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 nations may disregard the sea-weed and the siliceous sand 
 on their shores ; by the union of which, by means of heat, 
 into one substance, light and warmth might be enjoyed in 
 their dwellings ; and should other substances supply the 
 place of these, in cheaper substitutes, they would, if not 
 wanted for other puposes, be equally disregarded by civi- 
 lised nations. What is asserted is, that in any given 
 state of society, with any given desires, at any particular 
 
 (time, labour, employed with ordinary judgment on objects 
 of desire, is the sole measure of their values ; and under 
 such circumstances, an accurate measure. 
 
 There is no one article of desire, usually esteemed an 
 article of wealth, which has not been, and which is not, in 
 many places, denied that title. There are tribes, by whom 
 neither corn, nor cottons, nor woollens, nor gold, nor rice, 
 nor silver, would be esteemed articles of value, or wealth ; 
 but there are no tribes,-lhere are no human beings, with 
 whom human labour is not esteemed an article of value. 
 Ignorant or enlightened, poor or rich, depraved or benefi- 
 cent, labour is everywhere, to all men, an article of value ; 
 it is everywhere the price paid for the continuance of exis- 
 tence as well as for the means of enjoyment. It is the 
 only universal commodity. Nowhere without human 
 labour or effort can objects of desire be obtained in such 
 quantity or state of preparation as to support life. 
 
 \ Enough, it is hoped, has been said to prove, that " wealth 
 is produced by labour ; that labour is the sole ingredient 
 by which an article of desire is converted into an article 
 of wealth ; and that labour is the sole universal, though 
 still not an accurate, measure, of the value of wealth.") 
 
 From what has been said follows also the truth of these 
 propositions : 
 
 i First, The mere desirableness of, or desire for, any 
 physical, or other, object, does not constitute it an 
 object of wealth. 
 
 Second, Nor does its rarity, nor its beauty, nor the 
 pleasure, ever so pure, intense, or permanent, that 
 
OF TH 
 
 VNIVERS 
 
 OF 
 
 Most conducive to Human Happiness. 15 
 
 may be afforded by it, nor even its necessity for ex- 
 istence, constitute it an object of wealth. 
 Third, Nor, of course, does its utility, or its subservi- \ 
 ency to any or all of the above, or to any other, uses, * 
 constitute it an object of wealth. 
 Fourth, Labour alone, added to the desire for physical 
 
 things, constitutes them objects of wealth. 
 There are also two circumstances to be noticed, which 
 when combined exclude physical things, though objects of 
 desire, from having labour bestowed upon them so as to be 
 constituted articles of wealth, viz. 
 
 First, The exhaustless supply of some physical objects 
 
 of desire. 
 
 Second, Their existence in a state fit for use. 
 Such are the light of the sun, the air, sometimes water, 
 atmospheric heat, &c. 
 
 Having a clear idea of what wealth is, we shall be able 
 to understand each other when we speak of its distribution. 
 Let us proceed, then, to our next section. 
 
 SECTION 2. 
 
 THE OBJECT TO BE AIMED AT IN THE DISTRIBUTION OP WEALTH, AS IN ITS 
 PRODUCTION BY LABOUR, IS TO CONFER THEREBY THE GREATEST POSSIBLE 
 QUANTITY OP HAPPINESS (i. B. OP PLEASURES, WHETHER OP THE SENSES, 
 OR OP A MORAL OR INTELLECTUAL NATURE) ON THE SOCIETY PRODUCING: IT. 
 
 Our organisation has made us sentient beings, that is to 
 say, capable of experiencing pleasure and pain from 
 various sources. The only rational motive to exertion of 
 any sort, whether to acquire wealth or for any other pur- 
 pose, is to increase the means of happiness, or to remove 
 or lessen causes of annoyance, immediate or in prospect. 
 To add to happiness, therefore, wealth is produced. If 
 nature produced spontaneously an abundance of food and 
 all other comforts for the use of man, as she does of air for 
 his respiration, no effort would be made to produce or ap- 
 propriate them, no distribution would be thought of: every 
 
16 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 one would take and consume as his wants demanded. 
 With the sole view of adding to happiness, wealth, which 
 nature does not give, is produced by labour; and the 
 greater the happiness produced, the more satisfactory must 
 be the effort. If we are delighted with one portion of hap- 
 piness as arising from our wealth be it enjoyed by whom 
 it may we must be more delighted with two portions, and 
 with three still more than with two ; and so on with any 
 increase, to any extent of the number of portions. And as 
 wealth can only be produced with a view to being made 
 the means of comfort or enjoyment by its use or consump- 
 tion, and as it must be distributed in order to be consumed, 
 that distribution must be the best which gives the greatest 
 number of portions of enjoyment, which gives the greatest 
 possible quantity of happiness to those, the society or com- 
 munity, that produce it. The community producing the 
 wealth will not send the fruits of their labour to add to the 
 happiness of a neighbouring community, because that com- 
 munity possesses equal facilities for the production, because 
 there is no reason to suppose a greater capacity for happi- 
 ness amongst other communities, and because such gra- 
 tuitous supply would annihilate the motives to production 
 in the idle community receiving, as well as in the giving, 
 unrequited, community. 
 
 The organisation of man is so constituted as to enable 
 him to enjoy an extent of happiness indefinitely greater 
 than that of such an animal as an oyster, or any number of 
 oysters, or perhaps even of any number of horses ; there- 
 fore is his comfort to be preferred indefinitely to the com- 
 fort of such inferior animals, whenever their happiness is 
 incompatible with his. If, now, anyone human being could 
 demonstrate that his organisation so excelled that of his 
 fellow-men as to enable him to experience indefinitely 
 greater happiness than the rest of his species, his claim, 
 like that of man above the oyster, ought to be allowed, and 
 wealth and all other means of happiness ought to be ap- 
 plied to him, as by such application they would be the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 17 
 
 most productive. Even such a state of things would not 
 violate our present rule. The greatest quantity of happi- 
 nes, wherever it may he found to alight, must be pursued. 
 ^The only reason that can be given for the production of 
 wealth at all, is, that it adds to the means of happiness : 
 the only reason that it should be distributed in one way 
 more than another, is, that it tends more to produce, to 
 add to the stock of happiness, the object of its production, 
 by one mode of distribution than by another.) Consistently 
 with this principle, if the slavery of nine out of ten and the 
 superlative happiness of the tenth increased the sum total 
 of happiness, that distribution of slavery should be pur- 
 sued. All that is asked by this first principle, is, that the 
 greatest quantity of agreeable sensations, both in intensity 
 and duration, should be the object aimed at in the distribu- 
 tion of wealth. To deny it, would be to affirm that pain is 
 to be preferred to pleasure, that no sensations are prefer- 
 able to agreeable ones, that no feeling, which is tantamount 
 to non-existence, is to be preferred to feeling or existence. 
 Happiness in the abstract, and the greatest possible quan- 
 tity of it, being then our first object, let us proceed to 
 ascertain what mode of distribution will ensure the most of 
 it. Our next proposition is, 
 
 SECTION 3 
 
 . ) 
 
 ALL MEMBERS OF SOCIETY (CASES OP MAL-CONFORMATION EXCEPTED) BEING 
 SIMILARLY CONSTITUTED IN THEIR PHYSICAL ORGANISATION, ARE CAPABLE, 
 BY SIMILAR TREATMENT, OF ENJOYING EQUAL PORTIONS OF HAPPINESS. 
 
 C Within a few months after birth, the senses of men are 
 eloped to nearly as great perfection as they attain 
 through life. Educate them or not, sounds, odours, colours, 
 flavours, and external contact, will operate upon them ; 
 and no particular accidents occurring, they are equal in 
 point of development, or capacity for use and enjoyment, 
 to all men. Far different is it with the organisation on 
 
 c 
 
18 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 which our mental feelings depend. Neglect them, they 
 are little superior to those of the ape ; cultivate them to 
 the extent of what is now known, and they much excel 
 what poets feigned of the mind or morals of the old 
 immortal gods. Instead, then, of supposing in the cere- 
 bral organisation anything more intractable, or anything 
 less liable to change than in the senses, the fact is directly 
 the reverse. Instead of a greater tendency to inequality 
 in the organisation on which the feeling of thought 
 depends, the original inequalities of that organisation 
 are more liable to be rectified and improved by education 
 or circumstances, than those of the organisation of the 
 senses. But these general facts "admitted, it will perhaps 
 be said, that " as there are peculiarities of constitution, 
 called idiosyncrasies, tending to particular vital actions 
 and appetites, to be operated upon by particular medicines, 
 so there are peculiar tastes of the senses and of the 
 mind." This is true, but it does not weaken our general 
 position ; for, not to mention that many of these peculi- 
 arities, particularly the moral and intellectual, are clearly 
 the result of circumstances or education, yet are these 
 inequalities so trifling as not to affect, on the whole, the 
 aggregate of pleasures of any particular sense, not to say 
 the aggregate of all the pleasures of sense of any indi- 
 vidual, and still less the -aggregate of all his pleasures, 
 sensual, intellectual, and moral. But were even this the 
 case which it clearly is not were the capacity for the 
 aggregate sum of pleasures lessened by these peculiarities ; 
 what mode, what measure, have we to ascertain where or 
 by whom this superior aggregate of pleasures, arising 
 from such peculiarities, is enjoyed? 
 
 (To us, therefore, such inequalities of capabilities of 
 enjoyment do not exist, because they are by us inappre- 
 ciable : they cannot enter into our moral and political 
 calculations ; for they can no more than the galvanic fluid 
 be seized and measured. The fact of their inequality is 
 one thing, the possibility of measuring the degrees of this 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 19 
 
 inequality, so as to make them serve as the basis of dis- 
 tribution, is another. "Pis in vain that we say that 
 different degrees of susceptibility to happiness exist, if we 
 cannot demonstrate where they are, and in what propor- 
 tions y without this they can be of no practical usey But 
 let us advance another step in the argument. Suppose 
 that these capabilities, or susceptibilities, of enjoyment 
 were, in the sum total of pleasures, different in different 
 individuals, suppose, moreover, that we had discovered a 
 mode of measuring them ; another difficulty, of a practical 
 nature, and insurmountable, occurs. Who are to be the 
 measurers of these susceptibilities ? the rich or the poor, 
 the young or the old, the studious or the illiterate ? Are 
 we to institute a court, and to impanel a jury, in the case 
 of every individual ; or, if this be too troublesome, are we 
 to use a judge without jury, and label every man's neck, 
 to say nothing of the women, with tickets of susceptibility 
 of one to one hundred, supposing these numbers to com- 
 prise the extreme lengths of the chain ? Behold ! no sooner 
 are our labels attached, no sooner is this delicate opera- 
 tion performed of valuing susceptibilities, than changes 
 begin to take place, and the most accurate valuation 
 becomes deranged. Accidents, diseases, the progress of 
 years, mental or moral improvement or deterioration, all 
 these causes are in unceasing activity ; so that the table of 
 susceptibilities of one year will be quite inapplicable the 
 succeeding year, or perhaps the succeeding month. We 
 must dismiss, then, as altogether unworthy of considera- 
 tion, the notion of influencing the distribution of wealth 
 by speculations as to the capacities for enjoyment of dif- 
 ferent individuals. Whether, under similar treatment, with 
 like incidents and diseases, similar moral or mental qualities 
 would be developed, is not now the question : 't is merely 
 whether similar treatment, operating on healthy organ- 
 isation, will produce equal capabilities as to the aggregate 
 of enjoyment, though it will also, perhaps, be found that in 
 ninety-nine cases out of one hundred similar treatment will 
 
SO On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 produce similar intellectual and moral qualities also. As 
 to our immediate subject indeed, the distribution of wealth, 
 even so much is not required. 'T is not the suscepti?jility 
 to every species of enjoyment which is demanded for our 
 main argument, but simply to those particular enjoyments 
 arising from the use of the objects of wealth. That " all 
 sane members of society, similarly treated, are capable of 
 similar degrees of enjoyment from equal portions of 
 wealth," will now, I trust, be admitted, though the larger 
 proposition as to an equal capacity for all species of 
 enjoyment which appears to be equally incontrovertible 
 should be denied ; always keeping in mind the impos- 
 sibility of acting on these inequalities, even if they were 
 proved to exist. In the application of punishment, indeed, 
 the susceptibilities to pain may usefully be taken into 
 account in order to render those punishments equal, oppor- 
 tunity being afforded in such cases of inquiring into 
 individual circumstances. 
 
 Let it be always recollected that our reasonings apply 
 to the capabilities of all human beings as formed by nature, 
 and modified by external circumstances. If an actual 
 state of degradation of a great portion of any community, 
 and a consequent incapacity of physical enjoyment, could 
 be exhibited, it would not weaken our argument, until it 
 could be shown that the portion of the community so 
 degraded, had been subjected to similar treatmentjvii}*. the 
 more fortunate members of the same community.^ 
 
 SECTION 4. 
 
 THE HAPPINESS OF THE GREATER NUMBER IS TO BE PREFERRED TO THE HAPPI- 
 NESS OF THE LESSER NUMBER ; OTHERWISE THE OBJECT IN VIEW, THE PRO- 
 DUCTION OF^THE GREATEST POSSIBLE QUANTITY OF HAPPINESS, WOULD BE 
 SACRIFICED. 
 
 This proposition necessarily follows the preceding ; 
 for if all sane persons are, by similar treatment, capable 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 21 
 
 of equal portions of enjoyment, to say, that the happiness 
 of two of these equals is to be preferred to one, is no more 
 than saying that two or any other number are more than 
 one. Happiness being the object, the sum total would be 
 lessened by the abstraction of any portion of it. Why, 
 then, the necessity of stating a self-evident proposition ? 
 Because, though sometimes admitted in theory as to 
 smaller associations, it has been most flagrantly and la- 
 mentably neglected in practice, not only as applied to 
 society at large, but even in its application to these minor 
 associations. To enumerate the practices that prevail in 
 violation of this principle, would be to enumerate almost 
 every case of privilege and exemption. It must be 
 observed again, that though this, like the other proposi- 
 tions, is expressed in general terms as applicable to every 
 species of happiness, to happiness derived from all other 
 sources as well as from wealth, because they are thought 
 to be universally true ; yet is our general argument con- 
 cerned with no more than this, that that portion of the 
 happiness of the greater number, which is derived from 
 wealth, is to be preferred to that portion of the happiness 
 of the smaller number which is derived from the same 
 source. The direct operation of wealth is chiefly to afford 
 the means of more extensive pleasures of the senses : it is 
 only indirectly that it operates to increase our moral and 
 intellectual pleasures ; and when unequally distributed, 
 and in very large masses, it tends, as will be proved, to 
 eradicate almost entirely these higher moral and intel- 
 lectual pleasures. 
 
 " Should not the happiness of the intelligent and the 
 moral," some will, perhaps, weakly ask, " be preferred, in 
 the distribution of wealth, to the happiness of the ignorant 
 and vicious?" First, it was dissimilarity of treatment 
 alone that made the one enlightened and the other igno- 
 rant, the one moral and the other vicious. None so ready 
 to proclaim this truth as the intelligent and the moral. 
 Ask them from what sources their happiness is derived ; 
 
22 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 ask them how much of it proceeds directly from mere 
 wealth, and you will be astonished at the scantiness of the 
 proportion of their enjoyments arising from that source, 
 beyond the supply of the average comforts of life. Will 
 they wish, will they demand that the physical enjoyments 
 of others should be deliberately sacrificed to theirs ? that 
 the distribution of wealth should be directed out of its 
 natural channel of free labour and voluntary exchanges, 
 to favour them ? Will they desire, by any artificial regula- 
 tions, to obtain the fruit of other men's labour without their 
 consent, and for which there is no equivalent given ? 
 
 Far from the intelligent, far from the moral, would be 
 such a wish. The happiness of the wise and good could 
 not be promoted by such means ; they require the forced 
 sacrifice of no man's happiness, of the happiness of no por- 
 tion of their fellow-creatures, to promote theirs. Such injus- 
 tice would but mar their happiness instead of increasing it. 
 They respect the happiness of all other men equally with 
 their own. But suppose the case were the reverse ; sup- 
 pose that the wise and moral did, in this unwise and 
 immoral way, require the sacrifice of the happiness of 
 others, of the greater number, to theirs, how should we 
 find out who were the moral and the wise ? By the form- 
 ing of such wishes ? Who would not then put in his claim 
 for morality and wisdom ? Every individual would assert 
 his exclusive claim. To avoid this confusion, we give to 
 whom ? the power of deciding who are to be the favoured 
 virtuous and wise. If to those in power, whose legislative 
 measures regulate the distribution of wealth, will they 
 prefer the interest of the wise and good to their own exclu- 
 sive interest ? Or will they not find out at once that they 
 are the wise and good ; that to themselves and their friends, 
 as the wisest and the best, the preference should be given ; 
 if the happiness of a smaller is to be preferred to the 
 happiness of a larger number ? 
 
 Let us turn to which side we may, it will be impossible 
 to find any rational ground for preferring the happiness of 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 23 
 
 the smaller number as derived from wealth, or indeed 
 from any other source, to the happiness of the larger 
 number. The happiness of the greatest number must 
 therefore be always kept in view by the moralist and 
 legislator, without any regard to morals, manners, intel- 
 lectual or other qualities. In fact, our argument does not 
 encumber itself with the supposition of the actual existence 
 of any inequalities of character or circumstances. We 
 take mankind as actually constituted by nature, and as 
 capable, by similar treatment, of being fashioned by circum- 
 stances ; and under these data, we ask what is best to be 
 done in the way of the distribution of wealth ? A future 
 stage in the inquiry will lead us to an investigation of the 
 best mode of introducing our natural arrangement into a 
 society labouring under the evils of forced and artificial 
 arrangements for distributing wealth. 
 
 The happiness of the greater number is therefore to be 
 preferred to the happiness of the lesser number, in what- 
 ever arrangements may be made respecting the distribution 
 of wealth. We may now pass on to the next, our fifth pro- 
 position ; which endeavours to show that, 
 
 SECTION 5. 
 
 THOSE MEANS OF ENJOYMENT, OR HAPPINESS, WHICH COME UNDER THE NAMH 
 OF WEALTH, BEING PRODUCED BY THE APPLICATION OF LABOUR AND KNOW- 
 LEDGE TO THE MATERIALS AFFORDED BY NATURE, SUFFICIENT STIMULUS IN 
 THE WAY OF MOTIVE MUST BE AFFORDED TO PDT THB NECESSARY LABOUR 
 GUIDED BY KNOWLEDGE INTO MOTION TO PRODUCE THIS WEALTH. 
 
 For every voluntary human exertion, an adequate motive 
 must be afforded ; and the longer continued and more pain- 
 ful the exertion ; the more remote, the slighter, and more 
 doubtful, the advantage to be derived from the exertion ; 
 the more powerful must be the motive to produce the effect 
 required. Man in his first wild uncivilised state, like the 
 other animals surrounding him, is urged to exertion al- 
 most exclusively by the feelings of hunger, and the desire 
 
24 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 of enjoying the pleasures of taste. Satisfied at first, like 
 other animals, with seizing what nature throws in his way 
 of vegetable or animal nutriment, he never learns till these 
 fail him, to domesticate, to confine, and rear, wild animals, 
 or to imitate the processes of nature in sowing a kernel or 
 seed with the view of reaping the grain, or gathering the 
 fruit to he produced by them. He is urged in all things 
 by the pressure of want, or by the apprehension of future 
 want; less frequently, by the desire of pleasure. The great 
 obstacle to the development of exertion amongst mankind, 
 not only in its earlier stages, but through all its subsequent 
 struggles, is the want of "security" No sooner has the 
 provident matured and brought forward in a state for use, 
 for consumption, the articles of food those being always 
 the first objects of human foresight and industry than 
 they are exposed to the attacks of all around, urged by 
 superior strength or the urgent calls of appetite. The first 
 obstacles to the progress of industry in the acquisition of 
 wealth are, want of adequate motives to conquer the love 
 of ease, want of foresight, want of apprehension, want of 
 knowledge to devise the means of producing or increasing 
 the quantity of the articles required. When these difficul- 
 ties are surmounted, when knowledge has been acquired, 
 when motives sufficiently urgent have been developed by 
 circumstances ; there remains still a condition without 
 which all knowledge to produce, all desire of producing, 
 must remain eternally barren and unproductive of effec- 
 tual exertion the want of security. Without it, exertion, 
 continued exertion, is impossible. Even with its most 
 assured aid, it is often almost impossible to conquer the 
 indolence of savage man. Frequent efforts have been 
 made in North America by individuals and governments, 
 on a confined and on an extensive scale, on whole tribes 
 and on a few selected from the mass of uncivilised men, to 
 induce them to change their habits of indolence for indus- 
 trious habits ; but almost uniformly without success. 
 Whether it is possible, by other means of persuasion and 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 25 
 
 new combinations of industrious exertion, to overcome 
 these difficulties, is a question which it is not necessary 
 here to discuss. 
 
 It must be observed, however, that as it is the impulse 
 of want, of necessity, which prompts the exertions of the 
 savage, in his wild state, even to support his existence ; so 
 is it the same impulse of want, of necessity, aided by 
 habits acquired in early life, which prompts the exertions 
 of the productive labourers of civilised communities. 
 The savage must hunt for his animal or vegetable repast, 
 or starve ; the civilised labourer must ply his tools, and 
 pursue his industry, or he must starve also. If the unci- 
 vilised man is asked to adopt the slow producing labours 
 of civilisation, he has always an alternative, the old 
 hazardous chase, or the new persevering and slowly but 
 certainly-rewarded toil. But to the civilised labourer, no 
 such alternative is presented. To him no wilds of nature 
 are open to allure him to liberty and risk, to exertion and 
 repose. He must persevere in industry, or perish ; neces- 
 sity compels him to labour in order to live. Annihilate 
 the neighbouring woodlands or immeasured plains of the 
 savage, and he too, like the civilised labourer, must work 
 or starve. But, from want of acquired habits of industry, 
 his exertions will be grudged, and will be limited to the 
 rudest supply of physical wants. Knowledge, motives 
 to labour from, seeing the good effects it produces around 
 him, secure enjoyment of what his labour produces, all 
 these favourable circumstances are insufficient to make 
 the savage industrious. Yet the civilised man is indus- 
 trious under apparently similar circumstances; similar, 
 certainly, as far as mere wealth is concerned. We must 
 look, then, beyond mere wealth into the intellectual consti- 
 tution of man. In what do these two supposed sets of 
 labourers, the civilised and uncivilised, now differ ? In the 
 different habits which each of them has acquired in early 
 life. The wants and circumstances of the savage, have 
 impressed upon him the habit of occasional violent exer- 
 
26 On, the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 tion, of long rest, of freedom from restraint, and have in 
 a great measure absolved him from the necessity of so 
 regulating his conduct as to avoid the ill-will and ill-offices 
 of those around him ; with social morality, springing out 
 of the relations of men to and dependencies upon each 
 other, he is little acquainted. Circumstances of a very 
 different nature surrounding from his birth the civilised 
 man, he acquires the habit of gentle and continued labour, 
 of short repose, of skill in handling certain tools, of using 
 and therefore wanting certain small gratifications, and of 
 shaping his conduct to the restraints of established laws, 
 established customs, or established force, and consulting 
 the passions and interests of those around him. Such 
 being the difference of character, of inclination, of the 
 two individuals or classes of men, the savage and the 
 civilised, when both are newly-placed, as we have described, 
 under exactly similar external circumstances, let us further 
 inquire how these different habits have been gene- 
 rated, and how they must be altered or amended. 
 Habits are generated by false or true associations, by false 
 or true views of interest. Habit is the constant repetition 
 of the same act or series of actions ; but for doing the 
 first act or for repeating it there must be some reason, 
 some inducement, some motive, dread of pain or desire of 
 pleasure. In savage life the motive to exertion is urgent, 
 is direct, the immediate necessity, by direct means, of ap- 
 propriating food from the common storehouse of nature. 
 The call is seldom made, but when made cannot be resisted. 
 Hunger and thirst provided for, the call for labour ceases, 
 and indolence reigns. There is no reason to fear but that 
 the habit of yielding to this energetic call will always remain 
 in full force in the mind of the savage. The reason of the 
 habit is true, energetic, and always present. The drilling, 
 the habit of the civilised man, will lead him to be operated 
 upon by motives more distant than those necessary to 
 impel the savage to action. Habit will not, however, 
 supersede the necessity of adequate stimulus, in the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 27 
 
 shape of rational motive to exertion in the production 
 of wealth ; it will- merely facilitate the development of 
 motives, which without the acquired habit of industry 
 would produce no effect whatever. Industrious habits 
 render men accessible to the motives for production. With- 
 out these habits of activity, men are not accessible to any 
 motives but those of immediate wants. The habit of 
 exertion, therefore, however developed, whether mechanic- 
 ally, rationally, or from a union of both reason and autho- 
 rity, will produce nothing without motive. Motives of 
 interest are the vital air to those whose industrious habits 
 are formed : a constant supply of these is eternally neces- 
 sary to keep up the production of wealth, to diffuse its 
 vivifying effects through society. A review of the state 
 or progress of all nations, whether industrious or indolent, 
 will prove that industry has everywhere prevailed exactly 
 in proportion to the motives held out in the form of 
 rewards of industry, enjoying the product of its labour. 
 
 In many parts of the world, at this moment, force has 
 been substituted for voluntary motive, and the dread of 
 pain, compulsion, have been made to produce the stunted 
 imitations of healthful voluntary exertion. In an econo- 
 mical point of view, this labour has been proved to be the 
 most expensive ; in a moral point of view, it abstracts 
 from the mass of human happiness. If there be any truth 
 in the principles here laid down, no proof of the compara- 
 tive cheapness of production by compulsory labour, no 
 proof of the impossibility of procuring any desired portion 
 of wealth without such labour, would suffice for a moment 
 to justify its introduction or continuance. The simple 
 question of justice to be asked is " Is the sum total of 
 human happiness, including that of the slaves as well as cf 
 their masters, lessened or increased by substituting com- 
 pulsory for voluntary labour?" To ask such a question 
 is absurd ; because if compulsory labour produced more 
 happiness, there would be no need of using compulsion 
 it would become voluntary. 
 
28 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 All motives arising from terror being then excluded, 
 and man being to be operated upon as a voluntary agent, 
 sufficient stimulus must be applied, in the shape of volun- 
 tary motive, to induce him to continue the exercise of 
 those habits of industry, which in civilised life he must 
 more or less have formed. Where is this sufficient stim- 
 ulus to be found? Our next proposition undertakes to 
 solve this question. 
 
 SECTION 6. 
 
 ( THE STRONGEST STIMULUS TO PRODUCTION (AND THAT "WHICH IS NECESSARY TO 
 \ THE GREATEST PRODUCTION) THAT THE NATURE OF THINGS WILL PERMIT, 18 
 
 "SECURITY" IN THE entire use OP THE PRODUCTS OP LABOUR, TO THOSE 
 
 TVHO PRODUCE THEM. \ 
 
 We have already seen, that no extent of knowledge on 
 the part of the productive labourers, no profusion of 
 motives tempting them to exertion, not even the acquisi- 
 tion of industrious habits, will induce them to persevere 
 in the continued production of wealth, if they are not by 
 some means protected, whether by their own strength or 
 by co-operation, in the use of what their labour has pro- 
 duced. To continue voluntary labour, uncompelled, for the 
 benefit of others, would be a proof of insanity; and has 
 in fact, on a national scale, never occurred. It is a moral 
 impossibility. In order to continue voluntary production 
 at all for it may be begun without reflection or by the 
 way of experiment the producer must derive the expected 
 benefit from the thing produced. But this general princi- 
 ple admitted in words, has been pertinaciously opposed in 
 practice. The constant effort of what has been called 
 society, has been to deceive and induce, to terrify and 
 compel, the productive labourer to work for the smallest 
 possible portion of the produce of his own labour. The 
 object of those who instituted and maintained such a state 
 of things, was altogether different from the simple object 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 29 
 
 which is here put forward as the only just end of legisla- 
 tion, of morals, or of the association of men, the produc- 
 tion of the greatest possible quantity of human happiness. 
 Such men, possessing mostly the wealth and the ruling 
 powers of society, have uniformly established their sub- 
 ordinate objects as ultimate ends of pursuit; such as the 
 support and continuance of their order, the continuance of 
 the system of rule, whatever it might be, which they had 
 introduced; the continuance, at all events, and increase of 
 their own superiority in wealth, power, and happiness. 
 Now, to promote different objects, different means must be 
 used. It were childish to expect results from a set of 
 measures favourable to one object, which were instituted 
 with a view to opposite results ; except by way of ignorance 
 or accident no such consequence can follow. The only 
 candid way of reasoning on the first principles of economy 
 and legislation is, to avow explicitly our ultimate object. 
 The ultimate object of political economy has been to increase 
 the absolute mass of accumulated wealth in society, leaving 
 it to moralists and politicians to divide the yearly produce 
 and the permanent accumulation, in whatever proportions 
 their mysterious wisdom might think fit ; satisfied with 
 the achievement of increasing the wealth (the productive 
 powers of the labour) of society, and confident that 
 comfort and happiness must, somehow or other, or some- 
 where or other, be the necessary consequence of increased 
 and increasing wealth. The rich and the powerful, with 
 eye intent on the direction of this wealth, when produced 
 to their own use, were altogether soothed and pleased with 
 speculations developing the easiest means of multiplying 
 all the objects that could minister to their delights ; and 
 they fancied themselves, from their adventitious command 
 over these means of enjoyment, the dispensers of food, 
 clothing, and habitation to the productive classes. " Enough 
 must be left with the labourers," say the rich, " to make 
 them work." All beyond this was so much lost to themselves ; 
 nay, worse, tended to make the working classes discon- 
 
30 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 tented, insolent. With such ultimate objects in view, the 
 absolute quantity of wealth to be produced was only a 
 secondary object, and held no importance, except as minis- 
 terial to the most abundant supply of their own means of 
 enjoyment. It is necessary, then, candidly and explicitly 
 to avow, that we hold all such objects as the mere produc- 
 tion and accumulation of wealth, to be childish ; all such 
 preferences of the happiness of one class of human 
 beings over that of another, to be absurd, cruel, unjust ; 
 that no regulation, no institution, ought to stand in the 
 way of, ought to be one moment substituted for, our 
 principle of the greatest happiness ; that we accept 
 of no parley, no compromise with any other interest ; 
 that our principle must reign uncontrolled, and suffer 
 no divided empire. The question, then, comes simply to 
 this : 
 
 The object being to promote the greatest sum of 
 happiness to the productive classes for even the increase 
 of wealth, if it were not accompanied with an increase of 
 happiness, would cease to be an object of rational desire 
 will these productive classes be more happy (all other 
 circumstances, climate, institutions, morals, manners, &c. 
 being equal) in the use of a part or of the whole of what 
 their labour has produced ? 
 
 Suppose a thousand individuals, healthy, willing to 
 work, with acquired habits of industry in different depart- 
 ments, associated together for mutual support on the 
 system of mutual co-operation and economy by all the 
 aids of science, applied by art to useful purposes. Suppose 
 them without tools, without a supply of clothes or food, 
 till their labour could be made productive, without land to 
 till, without materials to work upon. 
 
 Behold them provided with nothing but habits of in- 
 dustry and skill. What shall we say ? Can mere industry 
 and skill surmount these giant bars to happiness, to exist- 
 ence ? How shall we stimulate this helpless colony into 
 exertion sufficiently energetic to conquer so many obstacles, 
 
 I 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 31 
 
 and to raise themselves into the enjoyment of the comforts 
 of existence ? By giving them security in the entire use, 
 the free disposal of whatever their labour can procure, 
 shall we accomplish this desirable object? or by giving 
 them anything less than the entire ? Assuredly the ques- 
 tion is preposterous. Assuredly the difficulty is, how 
 without removing some of these obstacles, how without 
 some additional encouragement, to put the labour of such 
 a colony into productive motion. The difficulty assuredly 
 is, how without compulsion the compulsion of want 
 superseding that of force to make such a colony labour 
 at all, further than necessary to existence ; the prospect of 
 acquired comfort out of the produce of labour being so 
 remote. 
 
 To accommodate matters to this striving colony, the 
 owner of the land comes forward and says that he will 
 not insist on an equivalent in labour for the purchase of 
 his land ; but he will be satisfied with disposing of the 
 yearly use of his land, getting in return every year so much 
 labour, measured by its products, so much of the increase of 
 the soil, as may be deemed an equivalent. The colony then 
 undertakes to give the produce, every year, of a portion 
 of its labour applied to the soil, in the way of rent for the 
 use of the soil and its productive powers. The owners of 
 the rude materials for manufactures make a similar claim 
 on the labour of the colony, for the use of the materials 
 with which to work up the clothing and other comforts of 
 the colony ; the productive labourers yielding a portion of 
 the value of the articles they make to the suppliers of the 
 materials, which portion constitutes their profit. Some- 
 times even the owner of the tools to work with, if they be 
 very complicated and costly in their structure, or require 
 permanent fixtures or buildings, make a similar demand 
 on the unprovided labourers ; and even those that possess 
 the food that the labourers must consume until the pro- 
 duce of this labour is in a state for consumption or exchange, 
 demand a profit, a portion of the return of the labour, 
 
32 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 for their aid, with repayment of the whole of the food 
 advanced. 
 
 Will any one ask, Why should the labourer be burdened 
 with payment of a part of his labour for the entire cost or 
 the use of the tools, clothes, food, materials, or land, with 
 or upon which he works ? Why not give him the whole 
 absolute produce of his labour without any of these deduc- 
 tions ? Because other people who have appropriated this 
 land, these materials, by labour or voluntary exchanges, 
 who have made these tools or clothes, who have co-operated 
 with nature in the production of this food, require the 
 same stimulus to continue their productive industry ; 
 require the same "security," in the entire use of what 
 their labour has produced, that is demanded for the un- 
 provided labourer. We must not rob one producer to 
 encourage another. Security in the entire use must be 
 administered impartially to all. By violating the security 
 of another, the productive labourer annihilates with his 
 own hand his own claim to security not only in 
 the entire use, but in any use of what his labour has created. 
 No exchanges but such as are voluntary, no possessions but 
 such as industry has acquired, are reconcileable with im- 
 partial security. As to- the amount of compensation claimed 
 by capitalists, that will be considered hereafter. 
 
 Now, with all these deductions to be made from the 
 produce of the labour of the colony, will its productive 
 labour yield such a surplus as to afford more than sufficient 
 stimulus to set the colony to work for the sake of such a 
 remuneration? Even under such terms, the pressure of 
 extreme want for they must work or starve it may be 
 said, will compel them to work. Yes, truly. But is this 
 the strongest stimulus, the highest reward that the nature 
 of things will permit ? Is this giving to productive labourers 
 the entire use of the whole of the produce of their labour ? 
 Can political economy devise no further expedient, no 
 additional encouragement to cheer, to reward the labours 
 of such men? In the way of wealth, and on a scale of 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 33 
 
 such extent as to produce anything like national utility, 
 political economy can do no more than this ; and this is 
 giving the labourer security in the entire use of the pro- 
 duce of his labour. 
 
 But, be it always recollected, this is exactly the situa- 
 tion of every unprovided labourer in every civilised com- 
 munity. 
 
 Still it will be objected, " May not bounties be given ; 
 may not rewards, honorary or otherwise, be held out ; 
 may not contributions, subscriptions, be raised, to buy for, 
 and present to, the colony, that which they must otherwise 
 hire. None of these things will be done on a large scale, 
 because capitalists will not risk their capital without being 
 assured of the ordinary profit. And for the payment of 
 this profit, not to speak of the risk of their capitals, they 
 will hardly be satisfied with the guarantee of such a com- 
 munity. It is evident that voluntary transfers could never 
 "be expected on a large scale. To force wealth, obtained 
 by productive labour and voluntary exchange, from those 
 who have produced it, in order to encourage others to pro- 
 ductive labour and voluntary exchange, is evidently un- 
 doing with the one hand what the other is aiming to 
 accomplish. As to bounties or honours, in a case of 
 tremendous exigency like this, they would not be thought 
 of. They may mis-direct labour ; the question here is to 
 produce it. 
 
 But may we not try whether the drilling of supersti- 
 tion through the associations of early education, will not 
 lead the labourer to work as a matter of duty for less than 
 the entire use, and whether these associations would not 
 be a more energetic and productive principle of action? 
 The whole history of the exertions of human industry has 
 belied this hope. If superstition could stunt the growth 
 of the faculties as directed to one subject or one line of 
 thought or exertion alone, without weakening the faculties 
 themselves ; if men could be kept children in one matter, 
 and that the most important of their lives, without being 
 
 D 
 
34 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 spiritless, uninventive, and unproductive in every other 
 matter then might such a scheme succeed. But such is 
 not the constitution of our nature. Gross deception destroys 
 that curiosity, that elasticity of mind, which is requisite for 
 vigorous exertion. The unfailing effect of such schemes 
 has been to render men stupid or ferocious, but always 
 passive, slaves, producing almost nothing for their own 
 comfort or that of their masters. 
 
 If superstition, or false or pretended knowledge, can 
 give no new stimulus, no stimulus at all, but is an absolute 
 drawback on industry, real knowledge will wonderfully 
 strengthen and accelerate its efforts, and produce the full 
 development of human capabilities. But knowledge can 
 never act as a substitute for the stimulus of the entire use 
 of the products of labour. On the contrary, it would 
 make this entire use the first condition of productive in- 
 dustry; but with this condition, it would indefinitely 
 increase its powers. 
 
 But, in addition to the obstructions to the development 
 of industry, which nature or the progress of cultivation 
 throws in the way of the savage, or the civilised, man, or 
 of the American settler, there are other obstructions of an 
 appalling nature, and to an indefinite extent, which have 
 been foolishly, or wantonly, or cruelly thrown in the way 
 of the productive labourer. Those who have no visible or 
 tangible equivalent in the way of the exchange of wealth 
 to bestow, have seized on parts of the produce of his 
 labour. His consent has not been asked to sanction the 
 transfer. No equivalent, by the labourer deemed satisfac- 
 tory, whether of a physical or intellectual nature, has been 
 afforded him. Under no circumstances in the world has 
 labour on a grand scale been so free and secure in the 
 entire use of its products as in the United States of 
 America ; and nowhere has it been so productive. In 
 proportion as the reward of productive labour has departed 
 from this maximum, sohave the efforts of industry been 
 relaxed ; till at length, at their extreme point of apathy, 
 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 35 
 
 from want of voluntary stimulus, brutal force has been 
 used to extort, by means of terror, a reluctant produce 
 from the arms of wretchedness. All history proclaims 
 this truth ; and it might be illustrated from thousands of 
 pages. The same reason that would justify the taking 
 away one portion of the produce of labour without the 
 labourer's consent which is the golden and universal 
 check that we are in search of would justify the taking 
 away any other portion ; till in the end, no stimulus being 
 left, no possible exertion, no production but in obedience 
 to physical want or compulsion would ensue. 
 
 (it is hoped, then, that all difficulties have been removed, 
 in the way of admitting that " the strongest stimulus to 
 production that the nature of things will permit, is security 
 in the entire use of the products of labour to those who 
 produce them.") 
 
 How far the claims of capitalists injuriously abstract 
 from this entire use, will be inquired into hereafter. 
 
 SECTION 7. 
 
 LL volunttry EXCHANGES OF THE ARTICLES OF WEALTH, IMPLYING A PREFER- 
 ENCE, ON BOTH SIDES, OF THE THING RECEIVED TO THE THING GIVEN, TEND 
 TO THE INCREASE OF HAPPINESS Ji-ROM WEALTH, AND THENCE TO INCREASE 
 
 THE MOTIVES TO ITS PRODUCTION. J 
 
 Without exchanges there can be no industry, no con- 
 tinued production of wealth. Labour without exchanges 
 would be nearly as useless as exchanges without labour, as 
 no one man can produce all the articles necessary to his own 
 well-being. Suppose again a colony of 1,000 labourers 
 or 1,000 individuals, including the usual proportion of 
 women and children. The whole of these must not only 
 be fed, but clad, and provided with dwellings, furniture, 
 and other conveniences. By what process shall all these 
 numerous wants be supplied ? Shall every individual endea- 
 vour to supply all his wants himself, make his own tools, 
 
 D 2 
 
36 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 build his own house, till the ground for his own food, 
 search out the materials for his own clothing and furniture, 
 and manufacture them himself? But if every man should 
 provide all his own wants, why should not every woman 
 provide also hers ? Why should not she also, till, build, 
 manufacture clothes, food, tools, &c. for her own use? 
 Because, not having as much strength as man, and a great 
 portion of the time of her most vigorous years being de- 
 voted to the rearing of successive children, not only 
 would she not have time to accomplish all these objects, 
 but what she attempted would be inefficiently performed. 
 Convenience would require that the woman should occupy 
 herself with that species of labour, useful to herself and 
 her companion, and their offspring, in which her peculiar 
 organisation, and thence resulting powers, would be the 
 most productive. This reason is so very striking, that 
 none but the most brutal and stupid of savages have been 
 uninfluenced by it. In a few cases in savage life, the men 
 have made the women carry burdens, work in the fields, 
 as well as mind the house ; rewarding them with compul- 
 sion and blows, making them complete slaves ; as amongst 
 some tribes in North America. The object of these savages, 
 however, was not to increase production, but to gratify 
 their own love of ease, of* idleness, and domination. 
 Our object being different, different means must be used to 
 attain it. Now, the very same convenience with respect 
 to the increase of production, and thence of enjoyment, 
 which would lead the man and the woman of one hut into 
 different species of labour, would lead different men of the 
 same community into different modes of production,, or 
 rather into the production of different articles. If all 
 were to work at all trades, all would have to learn all 
 trades. Evidently as much skill could not be learned in 
 all trades as in one or a few. Here is, then, a loss of skill 
 by the effort of every man to produce every article of his 
 wants for himself. Then comes a second inconvenience of 
 loss of time in turning from one operation to another ; not 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 37 
 
 only the time lost of putting up one set of tools and 
 materials and getting out another, of locomotion from 
 place to place, but the chance of abstraction of mind or 
 interruption from without, during the passage from one 
 employment to another. But this is not at all ; one 
 man may live in the neighbourhood of water or wood, and 
 thence may find it more easy to catch the fish or make the 
 tools, the materials for which are at hand. Again, some 
 operations require the strength of many, others such ex- 
 pedition as only many hands can supply, both in agricul- 
 tural and manufacturing operations. If such operations 
 are undertaken by solitary individuals, it must be at a great 
 disadvantage, one labourer unassisted not producing perhaps 
 the one hundredth part, instead of the fifth part of what 
 five co-operating could produce. Moreover, some men are 
 of weakly constitutions from defect of organisation, disease, 
 or accident, or may have acquired a particular delight and 
 skill in a particular line of labour. The weak or the 
 skilful may produce double the value of useful things in 
 that line of labour for which they are adapted. Their time, 
 therefore, would be comparatively lost in any other occupa- 
 tions. Another obstacle superior to all these together 
 comes in the way. There is scarcely a spot on the globe 
 capable of feeding the smallest community, say ours of 
 1,000 individuals, that contains within its own bounds all 
 the rude materials of clothes, tools, &c. necessary for the 
 comfortable existence of its population. If, then, all 
 members of every community, or of any colony, made 
 themselves, individually, all articles to supply their respec- 
 tive wants ; all their productions would be wretchedly 
 deficient in quality and in quantity, and many of the most 
 useful articles for production or consumption must be 
 entirely- dispensed with. Still other evils assail the scheme 
 of solitary unaided exertion. Can the independent sup- 
 plier of his own wants predict exactly the capacity of his 
 stomach, or his family's stomach, or even the number 
 of that family for the year ? If he could, can he also fore- 
 
38 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 tell the produce of the soil and the accidents of the seasons ? 
 Is he sure, therefore, that his best-regulated exertions will 
 procure him exactly enough of food to supply his yearly 
 wants ? and that no useless surplus will be produced ? 
 Will the leather for shoes, thongs, and other uses, always 
 require a whole hide, neither more nor less ; the chairs or 
 table always require a whole tree, neither more nor less ; the 
 coat require exactly a whole fleece ? and so on of all other 
 rude materials. If there be a deficiency or superfluity of 
 food, clothing, or other manufactured articles, what is to be 
 done with this superfluity? how is this deficiency to be 
 supplied ? Is the superfluity to be turned to no account, to 
 be an absolute loss ? Is the deficiency to be submitted to 
 with its train of privations, famine, sickness, and perhaps 
 death ? Where is the remedy to be found ? In voluntary 
 exchanges : so simple, so efficacious. Without the use of 
 exchanges, the application of labour to the appropriation 
 or modelling for use the productions of nature, would be 
 comparatively barren and inoperative in increasing wealth, 
 and the pleasures derivable from it. Exchanges, therefore, 
 are as necessary to useful, to enlarged, production, as 
 labour is. 
 
 We have in truth presumed far beyond the nature of 
 things, far beyond the experience of any community how- 
 ever small, in supposing that individual exertion for the 
 exclusive use of its separate members, could procure for 
 the labourers a comfortable subsistence. \Co-operation of 
 labour on some occasions, division of labour on other 
 occasions, are necessary to ensure anything worthy the 
 name of production. Over-production and under-produc- 
 tion, from natural or accidental causes, where no exchanges 
 took place, would be so frequent and so discouraging, that 
 all stimulus to labour, so uncertain and unsatisfactory in 
 its results, would be taken away. No skill in anything 
 could be acquired, no one object of necessity or convenience 
 could be good in its kind. The herculean effort to produce 
 everything by solitary effort, would be relinquished by the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 39 
 
 individual or the individual family, as soon as undertaken ; 
 and nothing but what the necessity of existence demanded, 
 would be ultimately produced. 1 
 
 Not only, then, in order to make labour productive to 
 any extent, but in order to set the human arm to work at 
 all, in order to raise man from the most degraded state of 
 savage wretchedness, the utility of exchanges must be 
 discovered, and exchanges must be practised. Take away 
 the faculty of exchanging, and you annihilate the motives 
 to labour. Give life to the principle of exchanges, and no 
 solitary exertion of labour is lost. What is useless to the 
 individual producer, or even to those around him, brought 
 into the common stocky will find some person with whom 
 it is an object of desire, and who will give for it some 
 equivalent in exchange. 
 
 We are thus led to the moral effects of exchanges. Use- 
 ful as they are in an economical point of view, indispen- 
 sable as they are to the production of wealth and the 
 physical comforts in its train, they are no less indispensable 
 for the evolution of morality, of beneficence. Shall we 
 picture to ourselves what man would be, what an isolated 
 family of the human race would be, if working for itself 
 alone, and deprived of the resources and benefits of ex- 
 changes ? Nothing to give to, nothing to receive from, 
 any other individual, no co-operation implying mutual 
 exchanges of labour, man is an object of apprehension, of 
 distrust to his fellow-creature. What kindly feeling can 
 spring up in the human mind under such circumstances ? 
 Instead of benevolent feelings, those of an entirely oppo- 
 site nature must, under such circumstances, be engendered. 
 Envy and rapine on the one side ; alarm, suspicion, and 
 hatred on the other. Such a state of things as individual 
 labour without exchanges, would be a school of vice. But, 
 change the scene, let the utility of mutual exchanges be 
 once understood; let their mutual blessings be felt in prac- 
 tice, and what was lately a theatre of rapine, a school of 
 vice, becomes a nursery of social virtue. Man being, in 
 
40 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 common with all other animals, essentially a sentient being, 
 it is impossible that any line of action should be followed 
 by him which did not tend in his opinion, directly or indi- 
 rectly, immediately or remotely, to his well-being. Tell 
 him to be virtuous, to be beneficent, to promote the happi- 
 ness of his fellow-creatures; you must show him it is his 
 interest to be, and do so. Tell him to be virtuous, and sur- 
 round him With such circumstances as make the virtues you 
 recommend contrary to his apparent interest ; his conduct 
 will unhesitatingly follow in the line of what seems to him 
 his interest, and all exhortations in opposition thereto, will 
 be unheeded and inoperative. Improve his powers of com- 
 paring and judging, teach him to observe the consequences 
 of his own actions as well as those of others, as well as 
 their immediate effects, teach him foresight; and then, sur- 
 rounded by favourable external circumstances, all the 
 virtues will necessarily spring up. 
 
 What does the simple introduction of exchanges tell to 
 man, capable of appreciating the truth? He sees that in the 
 numerous ways pointed out, the co-operation of his fellow- 
 creatures with him, and of him with them, is necessary to 
 their mutual happiness ; he becomes interested in the success 
 of their joint labours ; he feels a sympathy in their exertions ; 
 his feelings are carried out of himself in this first and simplest 
 exchange of labour. When he finds that he has produced more 
 of any article than is necessary for the supply of his own im- 
 mediate wants till new exertions can procure a new supply ; 
 when he finds another person possessing an article which 
 he wants, but which is to his neighbour a superfluity, and 
 when in consequence he makes an exchange, giving super- 
 fluity for superfluity, receiving an object of desire for an 
 object of desire; here again mutual satisfaction is produced, 
 mutual sympathy is excited, pleasure is felt at the same 
 time, from the same cause, by both, and thus a pleasurable 
 association is formed, and the discovery is made that the 
 happiness of others is not necessarily opposed to our own, 
 but is frequently inseparably connected with it. The more 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 41 
 
 of these mutually convenient exchanges that take place, 
 the more man becomes dependent on man, the more his 
 feelings become sympathetic, the more social he becomes, 
 the more benevolent. He finds that these mutual good 
 offices generate in his neighbour kindly dispositions, and 
 thence, when an opportunity occurs, kindly actions. He 
 partakes himself of a kindred disposition ; and thus all 
 traces of ferocious isolation become lost, from a perception 
 of real and palpable interest. 
 
 Thus it appears that not only do all exchanges of the 
 products of labour, tend to increase happiness, and thence 
 the motives to the production of wealth, but that they are 
 also at the basis of social virtue and of production, and 
 without them labour itself would be inefficient to any exten- 
 sive usefulness. 
 
 Would it not be trifling to ask whether these exchanges 
 should be in all cases voluntary or forced, or whether 
 forced should in any case be substituted for voluntary 
 exchanges ? What virtue is there left in these exchanges if 
 they are not voluntary ? is not this circumstance the very 
 essence of them ? ^Take away voluntariness from an ex- 
 change, take away from the labourer without his consent 
 the produce of his labour, and what is the result, what is 
 the operation but brute force and robbery ? As all voluntary 
 exchanges confer happiness equally on both the parties 
 concerned, and promote production and benevolence; so do 
 all involuntary exchanges annihilate industry and virtue.y 
 They are- in every respect opposed to each other, the one 
 operates on the understanding and leads captive the will ; 
 the other condescends not to reason, but forces away what 
 it demands. When the surplus produce of a man's 
 labour is taken from him, it may be either without any 
 pretence of any return, of any equivalent in exchange, 
 or it may be accompanied with such equivalent as the 
 stronger party may deem adequate. The first of these cases 
 was despatched in our last section, where it was shown that 
 security in the entire use of all the products of labour was 
 
42 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 necessary to ensure even the rude beginnings of produc- 
 tion. Where part of the surplus products of labour are 
 taken away contrary to the wishes of the owner, and it is 
 pretended to giye an equivalent in exchange ; either that 
 equivalent is in fact a real equivalent with which the pro- 
 ductive labourer ought, if he knew his own interest, to be 
 satisfied, or it is not a real equivalent, being in fact of no 
 value, or of none commensurate to the thing taken. First, 
 the equivalent given is supposed to be fully equal in real 
 value to the thing taken, but through the obstinacy or 
 ignorance of the producer, it does not to him appear to be 
 a full equivalent, he is dissatisfied with it. In this case, 
 what is wanting to be done by the person forcing the real 
 equivalent on the productive labourer ? What more simple 
 and easy than his task? He has but to enlighten the igno- 
 rance, to explain the truth, to show his own interest to the 
 person whom his proposed exchange would serve. Observe 
 the difference between the continued employment of force 
 in such real exchanges, and the employment of reason, of 
 knowledge. Knowledge once diffused, reason once con- 
 vinced, all difficulty in the way of such useful exchanges 
 for the future, is removed ; the operation once performed, 
 is performed for ever. All such future exchanges enliven 
 industry and promote mutual kindness, by affording mutual 
 and voluntary compensations of enjoyment. But where 
 force is once employed to compel an exchange ever so use- 
 ful, it is not the less necessary to employ it a second time, 
 but the more necessary. Ill-will is generated by the em- 
 ployment of force ; a false and unfavourable association is 
 formed, that of pain, with proffered exchange ; prejudice is 
 thus called forth ; and indignation at presumed injustice 
 takes away the power of reversing hasty decisions. It is 
 therefore the more necessary to continue the employment 
 of force, or the apprehension, the alternative of force, to 
 compel such exchanges, than it was originally to employ 
 it ; reluctance increasing, when the reason is unconvinced, 
 with every repetition of the violence. 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 43 
 
 ^Another argument equally cogent in favour of the use 
 of knowledge and persuasion, instead of force, in effecting 
 exchanges, is, that the persuasion, the satisfaction of the 
 producer for by the supposition the other party is per- 
 suaded and satisfied is the best test, that the nature of 
 things will permit, of the utility of the exchange.] It is not 
 an unerring test. No such tests are to be found amongst 
 creatures whose reasoning powers are imperfect. But, 
 compared with any other supposable test, it is the most 
 likely to be true, nay, it is impossible to devise any other 
 test that can serve, a moment, as a substitute for it. By 
 this test the two parties interested, and with opposing inte- 
 rests, must be convinced ; by the other only one : double 
 the pleasure of satisfaction, therefore, in this case. All the 
 cases that can be brought forward, of both of the exchang- 
 ing parties being in error, such as exchanges of slaves for 
 spirits or implements of destruction,' prove nothing. For 
 it is not pretended that the power of voluntary exchanges 
 will give to mankind at once, or at all, perfect wisdom. ; it 
 will produce, not an unerring perfection, but an infinity 
 more of production and happiness than any other arrange- 
 ment. No other arrangement can possibly be devised that 
 will not lead directly to the domination of the crafty and 
 the strong, to all the combined miseries of force and fraud. 
 The simple and obvious remedy for those cases where both 
 exchanging parties are mistaken as to their real interest, 
 is to show them their mistakes, to give them knoioledge. 
 As soon as they see their mistake, they will of course cor- 
 rect it. This operation of showing them their interest, is not 
 only the most certain and lasting remedy, but the speediest. 
 After preventing these exchanges a thousand times, 
 the disposition the judgment remaining uninformed 
 is still as fully inclined as before to engage in them through 
 any number of years ; but when once the judgment is dis- 
 abused, such exchanges cease of themselves. Ignorance 
 must be always compelled ; but knowledge once diffused 
 keeps the springs of real interest in motion without any 
 
44 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 further, without any external, aid. In the case of the 
 exchange of slaves, however, the principle of security, of 
 voluntary exchanges, has been altogether violated. The 
 original vice of the acquisition of the slave mingles itself with 
 every future operation. What slave was ever obtained by 
 voluntary exchange ? When did savage or civilised man 
 ever voluntarily surrender for a little water and a bit of 
 bread, the power of bruising or torturing their bodies or 
 minds, and of extorting labour at the option of a master ? 
 The disposal of labour, of the smallest portion of labour, 
 the exchange of the produce of labour, of its minutest part, 
 must be voluntary ; and yet the disposal of the whole man 
 that includes all labour, all exchanges, all volition, may be 
 involuntary or forced. How could our principles of free 
 labour and voluntary exchanges, be more signally violated 
 than in this case ? 
 
 The question, then, is reduced to the voluntary exchange 
 of two things, fairly and voluntarily acquired. Both par- 
 ties, we shall suppose, are in error; the production of one, or 
 the other, or of both of the articles to be exchanged, was per- 
 nicious ; or the exchange was conducted on unfair principles. 
 Under such circumstances, the probability is, that the ex- 
 changing parties only participate in the general ignorance 
 and false associations of those around them as to such mat- 
 ters ; and still the only remedy is the diffusion of knowledge. 
 For, though it were possible which it is not to place an 
 unerring director of exchanges over such a community, still 
 the violation done to the principle of security in interfering 
 with voluntary exchanges, would not only preponderate 
 over the pretended good to be derived from any superiority 
 of judgment, but would sap, and ultimately annihilate, 
 the springs to industry, and thence to virtue and happiness. 
 
 From what has been said it appears evident, that secu- 
 rity in voluntary exchanges is as necessary, as in the free 
 use of labour and of its products. They are the parents 
 of production, and not only of production but of morality 
 and happiness, Without them man could scarcely raise 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 45 
 
 himself above the inferior animals, on whom he now so 
 proudly looks down. No substitute can be devised for 
 voluntary exchanges;* no superiority of force or of intel- 
 lect, real or supposed, of either of the individuals con- 
 cerned or of any other persons, can in any case be usefully 
 substituted for voluntary exchanges. They are founded 
 on the interest, and produce the satisfaction, of the parties 
 concerned. Their operation extends through the whole 
 structure of society, to the grand outlines of its organisa- 
 tion, as well as to the minute operations between man and 
 man, and to all his social relations. They are founded on 
 the utility of the employment, in all things, of reason and 
 persuasion, instead of brute force; and the great extent 
 and influence of their operation will be hereafter more fully 
 developed. The same principles of justice, because of 
 benevolence, of benevolence, because of tendency to pro- 
 mote the greatest happiness, that should regulate the 
 distribution of wealth, particularly the principle of volun- 
 tary exchanges, should regulate all human intercourse, 
 and pervade all human institutions. Wherever this prin- 
 
 * The plan of labour in common, and mutual co-operation, may be 
 cited as a practical objection to this position. In those societies, or 
 small associations of a few hundred to a few thousand individuals, pro- 
 duction and happiness proceed, it may be said, without any exchanges. 
 
 Perhaps it may be more correctly said, that this system as far, 
 and only as far, as it is perfectly voluntary is the perfection of volun- 
 tary exchanges and of the kindly feelings they engender. In this 
 system, every one labours for every one, every one benefits and is 
 benefited by every one. Though there is no exchange of individual 
 articles from individual to individual, there is a constant and universal 
 exchange of benefits. This universal system of voluntary exchanges, 
 could only be elicited by wisdom in a very improved state of social 
 science. It is but applying the principle of one individual exchange 
 to the mass of all the labour of every individual. If the ultimate 
 benefits of this general system of exchanging the whole labour of 
 every individual for portions of the products of the labour of the rest 
 of the community, be found more productive of happiness than the 
 system of individual exchanges, why should it not be pursued ? It is 
 not substituting a new principle to that of exchanges, but applying it 
 on a comprehensive and universal scale. 
 
46 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 ciple is neglected, misery and vice follow in proportion to 
 the extent of the violation. This will be exemplified 
 further on, when the forcible exactions made for support- 
 ing existing establishments come under review. 
 
 SECTION 8. 
 
 (THE FORCED ABSTRACTION OF THE PRODUCTS OF LABOUR, THE OBJECTS OF 
 
 > "WEALTH AND MEANS OF HAPPINESS, FROM ANY INDIVIDUAL, WILL CAUSE 
 
 MORE LOSS OF HAPPINESS TO HIM THAN INCREASE OF HAPPINESS TO THE 
 
 PERSON ACQUIRING. J 
 
 Although few will in words deny this principle, yet 
 does almost every one habitually act in flagrant violation 
 of it, or unconcernedly witness its violation. Laws, even, 
 and institutions are enacted and upheld in opposition to it. 
 Its application and misapplication are universal ; and so 
 are the evils or benefits resulting from it. It is necessary, 
 therefore, that it should be put in a clear light. 
 
 When forced abstraction is made from any individual 
 of the products of his labour, the objects of wealth, in what 
 does the loss which he has sustained consist ? what are the 
 constituent parts of the evil which he has experienced? 
 On the other hand, what is the gain which the party 
 taking has made, and what are its constituent parts ? Let 
 us review these two masses and compare them together, 
 that we may see where the balance of evil lies. 
 
 First, as to the mere articles themselves, which are 
 taken from the one and seized by the other, they are 
 evidently, in most cases, the same in the hands of both 
 parties ; what the one immediately loses the other gains, as 
 a pound of flax, a bushel of corn. The one loses the corn or 
 the flax; the other gains it : no loss or waste of the materials 
 is necessarily attendant on the transfer, though it may 
 most frequently occur. It is our object to reduce things 
 to their simplest elements ; therefore let us suppose that 
 what is lost by the one, is gained, without defalcation, by 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 47 
 
 the other. A bushel of corn will go as far in feeding, and 
 a pound of flax towards the clothing, of one individual size 
 and appetite being equal as of another. 
 
 The article, then, itself not being affected by the transfer, 
 the gain of matter capable of usefulness being as great in 
 the one case as the loss in the other, we must look out for 
 other sources of difference in the two cases ; and we shall 
 find them in the immediate feelings, the state of mind, of 
 the two parties concerned, and in the future consequences 
 resulting to each of them from the operation. 
 
 The man who forcibly takes the corn, consumes and 
 digests it like the producer : his taste and hunger are 
 gratified notwithstanding his robbery. But what are the 
 associated feelings which arise in his mind, from the laws 
 of his organisation, while the animal consumption is going 
 on ? An ox might consume corn forced from another ox, 
 just as if it had not been so obtained; but no human 
 animal, ever so rude, is without those powers of mind 
 which produce feelings necessarily associated with such 
 enjoyments. The man of force consumes, but, while he 
 consumes, he cannot help knowing that he has excited the 
 ill-will of him whom he has plundered ; he knows that he 
 is liable to his ill-offices, that if opportunity occurred the 
 plundered article would be taken back by the producer, 
 the owner. He has, morever, a feeling of his own injustice, 
 and sometimes a feeling of regret, of pity, towards those 
 whom he has wronged. He knows that he Would not like 
 that another person should take away from him what 'he 
 had with much labour produced ; and though he yields to 
 the temptation of enjoyment, and seizes what he can from 
 another, the feeling of the injustice must occasionally in- 
 trude, and, so far, lessen his satisfaction. Should he be 
 above all fear from insecurity, should he be beyond all 
 remorse for injustice, he will perhaps be the more acces- 
 sible to pity for the miseries caused by his plunder. Or, 
 under a last supposition which is a very rare one, and 
 almost impossible he may be without fear, remorse, or 
 
48 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 pity ; and if so, what will be his capacity for enjoyment ? 
 That of the hyaena. The mere animal feeling of the 
 moment, without foresight or sympathy, without any of the 
 pleasures of judgment or benevolence to increase his 
 animal gratifications, or to fill up their intervals with 
 lighter but more frequently-renewed pleasures. In fact, 
 however, such a human creature could hardly exist ; for if 
 he had sagacity enough to make his force available to cope 
 with the combined sagacity and strength of his neighbour, 
 and to prevail in his seizures, he must have sagacity 
 enough to perceive some at least of the effects of his 
 conduct. If he had no more sagacity than the hysena, 
 his attacks would be repelled with equal facility. But 
 still, were such a human creature possible, what immediate 
 pleasure would the corn give him ? The sole pleasures of 
 taste and hunger : after these, mere insensibility ; no 
 pleasures of association, or of communicating enjoyment 
 to others ; whereas in the case of the producer, the corn 
 supports his existence to make it the vehicle not only of 
 the pleasures of taste and hunger, but of all the other 
 gentler pleasures incident to the sagacity requisite for 
 industrious labour. Still, perhaps, it will be objected, that 
 we have omitted in our enumeration the greatest pleasure 
 of all felt by the seizer of another's labour, the pleasure 
 of success of successful rapine or injustice to be sure, but 
 still of success. 
 
 But whether in savage, half-civilised, or civilised com- 
 munities, the mere pleasure of success in plunder, could 
 never, of itself and unattended with the gratification of 
 want, be of much effect; for, not to speak of its being 
 counterbalanced by apprehension, it is met by a much 
 greater pleasure, that of successful industry, on the part 
 of the producer. 
 
 Now, to oppose to these pleasures of the plunderer, of 
 him who forcibly abstracts the products of labour, the 
 means of wealth and happiness, from the producer of 
 them, what immediate pleasures has the man of industry 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 49 
 
 to bring forward? He physically consumes just like him 
 who took away his wealth; but what are the feelings 
 necessarily associated in his mind with the physical enjoy- 
 ment? The pleasures of successful industry, not of the 
 effort of an hour or a day, but of a long-continued course 
 of effort, all directed to one object and all brought to the 
 wished-for result ; the pleasure of skill, of perseverance, 
 of success. These accumulated pleasures are brought, as 
 it were, to a focus at the time of enjoyment ; they have 
 filled up all the moments of production, and now memory 
 brings them forward to heighten the enjoyment. These 
 are all included in the pleasure of employment, of having 
 aomejized purpose in life, which fills up all the voids of 
 existence, and keeps out the pressure of weariness and dis- 
 gust. He knows, moreover, that his success is attended 
 with the sympathy and good opinion of all the peaceable 
 and industrious members of the community. All these 
 soothing associations which the man of force is without, 
 are superadded, in the case of the industrious, to the mere 
 pleasure of success; so that in this respect alone the 
 success of industry is infinitely more pleasurable than the 
 success of force. 
 
 But let all these considerations be forgotten, let the 
 pleasure of the success of the one be supposed to be equal 
 in intensity and extent to that of the other, the main point 
 of distinction between their mental feelings, their asso- 
 ciated pleasures, must be still dwelt upon. 
 
 A sense of injustice, of remorse, of fear, must trouble 
 the enjoyment of the one; while a sense of justice, of 
 peace, and of requited effort must enhance the pleasure of 
 the other. The one is insecure in his enjoyment, fearing 
 loss on every side ; the other, injuring no one, is undis- 
 turbed by the dread of privation : the one naturally resorts 
 to secresy, silence, and fraud to protect him; the other needs 
 not the aid of such treacherous allies. 
 
 Dismissing, then, the immediate feelings of the indus- 
 trious, and the seizer by force, let us proceed to the second 
 
 E 
 
50 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 head of comparison, and point out the future consequences, 
 as to the production of wealth or other desirable objects, of 
 permitting the products of industry to remain for use in 
 the hands of the producer, or permitting any part of 
 them to be forcibly abstracted from him for the use of 
 another. 
 
 What are the consequences to the labourer ? what are 
 the consequences to him who takes by force the produce 
 of another's labour ? In both cases the extinction of the 
 motives that lead to productive labour, and of course the 
 discontinuance of that labour itself, where it has been pre- 
 viously active ; or its early and immediate withering, where 
 it is only showing its first efforts ; or its utter disregard 
 from the chance of acquiring the means of enjoyment with- 
 out labour. 
 
 The productive labourer has toiled, and the fruit of his 
 labour is taken from him. Why should he work again ? 
 His sole object in labouring was to procure for himself 
 some object of utility ; that is to say, of remote or of im- 
 mediate gratification. At the moment that his labour, 
 guided by foresight, had produced the object which was to 
 constitute his reward, that reward is forcibly abstracted 
 from his grasp, and he finds that he has laboured in vain. 
 What is the consequence ? The springs of his industry are 
 relaxed ; he can no longer securely rely on procuring by 
 means of labour those comforts or enjoyments, the prospect 
 of which supported him in his toil. The first time that 
 the produce of his labour is taken from him, he is alarmed, 
 and has less reliance on industry as a means of procuring 
 enjoyment ; the next time, he is still more alarmed, and 
 his reliance is still further weakened; till, by degrees, from 
 the frequent repetition of such forcible seizures, his incli- 
 nation to industry is rooted out, from his experience of 
 the utter unproductiveness of his toils. What now is the 
 amount of this evil, the loss of the spirit of industry to the 
 industrious man ? Is it the loss merely of the article or 
 of the one or two or five or ten articles, the produce of his 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 51 
 
 labour, which had been forcibly abstracted from him ? By 
 no means. These losses, grievous as they are, are 
 nothing to the real and absolute future losses of the pro- 
 ductive labourer. He loses with his industrious habits, 
 all those comforts, renewed through his life, which per- 
 severance in industrious- pursuits would, with security, 
 have given him. Were the pleasure, then, of the spoiler 
 ten times as great in the enjoyment of the articles 
 abstracted as that of the productive labourer in the enjoy- 
 ment of the same article, and were twelve spoliations 
 requisite to banish the spirit of industry ; still, from the 
 discontinuance of the production of these articles on the 
 part of the industrious, his monthly, weekly, or dally 
 enjoyment of them would through his whole life be lost. 
 Here, then, is a balance of evil: as the pleasures of a life 
 of enjoyment, in any particular line, derived from any 
 particular article, are to the pleasures of a few hours' 
 enjoyment derived from the same article ; so are the 
 pleasures of the industrious to those of the plunderer. 
 Such is the superiority of the good effects of protecting 
 from forced abstraction the products of labour. Mark, too, 
 every instance of success on the part of him who forcibly 
 seizes, renders less probable his future supply by dis- 
 couraging production ; while every enjoyment, every 
 instance of success in productive labour, confirms the 
 habits of the industrious, gives a new stimulus to his 
 exertions, and renders more probable his future supply. 
 
 But it may be said that it is an extreme and improbable 
 case to suppose the forced abstraction of the whole of the 
 produce of the labour of the industrious, that in fact it is 
 but a part, but what he can spare, over and above his 
 necessities, that he generally loses, and that this partial 
 abstraction will not materially affect his industry. In the 
 first place, every abstraction operates injuriously as far as 
 it goes ; the alarm excited by the abstraction of a part 
 extends to every atom left, and makes the whole insecure .; 
 and if the whole have not been abstracted, 'tis most pro- 
 
 B 2 
 
52 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 bable that the want of opportunity or of power, not of 
 inclination, saved the remainder. The explanation, how- 
 ever, lies deeper. So urgent are the motives to gratify 
 hunger and to support life, that no attacks on the products 
 of labour can exterminate that portion of exertion which is 
 requisite to allay such imperious wants. But for mere 
 existence, without comfort, what is requisite ? The casual 
 labour of the savage, of the wretched husbandman of 
 Syria or Egypt, as described by Volney in his admirable 
 Travels, fearful lest he should over-supply his wants and 
 feed his plunderer. Were there no produce of industry 
 left from the frequency of rapine, so strong are the 
 cravings of appetite that men would, like rats, on the 
 failure of food, kill each other for the chance of surviving. 
 'Tis allowed, therefore, that the forced abstraction of the 
 products of labour will not annihilate the desire of existing, 
 or rather of shunning the miseries of want. But is this 
 industry ? are such the hopes, the rewards, of productive 
 labour ? Destroy production to this extent, and popula- 
 tion and happiness will decrease where they now exist, 
 till busy towns and valleys become as the abode of the 
 savage ; and under such circumstances the uncivilised will 
 never assume the comforts of industry. Are not these 
 effects dreadful enough ? but must the race of man abso- 
 lutely cease to exist ? The relaxation of industry, however, 
 will do no more : it will do no more than bring men down 
 to this level. Industry, therefore, consists not in the pro- 
 duction of what is merely necessary for the support of the 
 lowest animal existence, but in supplying as many 
 additional sources of physical enjoyment as possible, 
 superadded to these mere means of existence. The 
 cravings of want alone are sufficient to urge every animal 
 to provide for its gratification ; but the cravings of want 
 will do no more, and nothing less energetic than these 
 cravings is sufficient to make head against the abasement 
 caused by the forcible abstraction of any part of the 
 products of labour. Until labour becomes voluntary and 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 53 
 
 excited by motives of less urgency than the necessities of 
 existence, it is not called industry. Everything that 
 comes under the name of industry, or of voluntary labour 
 with the view of increasing our enjoyments, is evidently 
 incompatible with the forcing away from the labourer that 
 article, greater or less, which he had produced with the 
 sole view of enjoying it. 
 
 But we may advance a step further. We have seen that 
 without voluntary exchanges industry could not exist, and 
 that industry implies co-operation and society. The force 
 committed on the one, is therefore known to all around him. 
 In whatever way force has been employed to take from him, 
 it may be employed to take away from them the products 
 of their industry. Distrust and apathy increase and dif- 
 fuse themselves through the whole community, till that re- 
 laxation of industry which has occurred to one becomes 
 general, from the very same cause, through all the pro- 
 ductive labourers of the community. From a relaxation 
 of industry, comes a diminution of production : from a 
 diminished production, comes a diminished consumption, 
 a diminished enjoyment. Thus the loss of the happiness 
 of numbers without limit, of the whole community, is the 
 result of the insecurity arising from the forced abstraction 
 of wealth, on partial occasions, from a few individuals. It 
 is not, then, by the pleasures of a life of industrious enjoy- 
 ment as felt by one individual, as contrasted with the 
 temporary pleasures of plunder, that we are to estimate 
 the evils of forcible abstraction, but by the loss of the 
 pleasures of industrious enjoyment through the lives of 
 the whole of an industrious community, and the loss of the 
 pleasures of the moral habits thence resulting to them all. 
 
 Such are the inevitable effects of violating the principle 
 of security, in the forcible abstraction from the productive 
 labourer of the product of his toil. It signifies not by 
 what name the spoiler may be called, whether his act be 
 deemed expert, brave, and meritorious, as amongst the 
 wandering Arabs, whether it be deemed illegal as in the 
 
54 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 flagrant cases of robbery amongst what are called civilised 
 nations, or whether the abstraction be sanctioned by law ; 
 in every case, the sole question to be asked is, " Is the 
 abstraction voluntary, or is it forced ?" If the abstraction 
 be forced, no form or ceremony of law or superstition can 
 alter its nature or effects. On the voluntariness of the 
 exchange all its merit depends. Take away this ingre- 
 dient ; let the produce of labour be taken without equiva- 
 lent satisfactory to the owner, and all the evils mentioned 
 to individuals and to society result from it ; restore this 
 ingredient, satisfy him from whom the article is taken, 
 and the forcible abstraction becomes a voluntary exchange, 
 the most useful and beneficent of social operations. Is 
 any abstraction of the products of labour just? The 
 sufficient and only answer ought to be, "Is it voluntary?" 
 
 SECTION 9. 
 
 THE FORCED ABSTRACTIONS OP SMALL PORTIONS OP WEALTH FROM ANY GIVEN 
 . NUMBER OP INDIVIDUALS, WILL LESSEN THE WHOLE QUANTITY OP HAPPINESS 
 MORE THAN IT CAN BE INCREASED BY THE ADDITIONAL PLEASURES CON- 
 FERRED ON ANY ONE OR MORE INDIVIDUALS ENJOYING THOSE UNITED SMALL 
 FORCED MASSES. \ 
 
 We have already seen that the happiness gained to the 
 spoiler by the forced abstraction of the matter of wealth, 
 the product of industry, is as nothing compared with the 
 happiness lost in consequence of the same operation. To 
 diminish the evil to the sufferer, an expedient has been 
 put forth and very generally acted upon, the expedient 
 of dividing the shares of loss into as many and as small 
 lots as possible, so that they may ultimately- become 
 almost imperceptible and afford no contrast of privation 
 to the glare of enjoyment exhibited by the one, or small 
 number, who use the things seized. In this case, the 
 enjoyment of those who forcibly take, remains a fixed 
 quantity : the object is not to increase their enjoyment, 
 but to lessen the pressure on those who are forced to 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 55 
 
 contribute. Our inquiry is, therefore, does it produce 
 this effect ? 
 
 Where the forced abstraction of wealth, the product 01 
 industry, is made in one heap from one, the loss of the 
 absolute material is certainly to that one, just a thousand 
 times as great as it would be if shared amongst one 
 thousand in lots of one each. Here, in the absolute 
 material, there is neither loss nor gain : the same amount 
 is raised in both cases. We must look, therefore, for any 
 differences, for any points of comparison, beyond the thing 
 seized to the feelings produced by the seizure in the minds 
 of those who suffer the loss. It is not said that every 
 poor industrious man losing a shilling is as much dis- 
 tressed thereby as the wealthier from whom 1,000 shillings 
 are taken, and who has more left after the 1,000 are 
 removed, than the poor after losing the one. Suppose 
 that the loser of the one suffers but the tenth part as much 
 and this is surely an ample concession as the loser of 
 the thousand, the loss on the whole will be as 100 to one. 
 There will be in this case one hundred times the loss of 
 happiness by diffusing the loss divided into small portions, 
 that there would be by abstracting it at once from one 
 individual ; because, though every individual of the poorer 
 thousand suffers but the tenth part of him who loses the 
 whole in a mass, yet as there are 1,000 of these smaller 
 sufferers for one of* the larger, these 1,000 tenths added 
 together will make 100 whole parts, each equal to the 
 suffering of him from whom the whole was taken in one 
 mass. If it be alleged that the feelings of the poor, from 
 whom these numerous smaller portions are necessarily 
 taken, are reconciled by the habit of privation and suffering 
 to the loss, it may be equally alleged that the feelings of 
 the rich who make the abstractions are equally blunted by 
 habit to enjoyment. Habit, operating equally in both 
 ways, at both ends of the scale, diminishing equally 
 enjoyment and suffering, must therefore be left out of the 
 question. 
 
56 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 No doubt there are powerful motives, altogether inde- 
 pendent of the greater or smaller portion of suffering 
 produced by division or concentration, which urge those 
 who forcibly abstract, to prefer the system of diffusion and 
 subdividing the shares of loss. When the seizure is from 
 a great number in small lots, the injustice of the operation 
 seems to be forgotten in its equality. An equal distribu- 
 tion of injustice is apt to be regarded as a species of 
 justice, the principle of the measure being forgotten in the 
 consideration of its mode of operation ; whereas nothing 
 is more evident than that the mode of operating the most 
 iniquitous measure may be impartial and just. By con- 
 fusing these two positions, such an advantage is taken as 
 to divert the mind from the nature of the abstraction itself, 
 from its effects on individual or social happiness ; and the 
 illusion is assisted by the small quantity in each case 
 demanded. 
 
 Those very reasons, however, which make it prudent 
 or wise on the part of the spoliator to subdivide and 
 diffuse the loss in every case amongst as many as possible, 
 are those which would render this very diffusion unde- 
 sirable to the community. It is the interest of the com- 
 munity that the real effects of every seizure should be 
 known ; that no operation, by which delusion might be 
 practised, and rapine, shrouding itself under the guise of 
 equality to ensure the better chance of success, should be 
 permitted. When an injustice is committed, it is the 
 interest of the community that it should be seen, felt, 
 known, and duly appreciated. When any act is done, 
 whether just or not, it is the interest of all that its real 
 effects should be known. Therefore, whatever mode of 
 forcible seizure exhibits the nature of the operation in its 
 truest colours, is most useful to the community, were even 
 the balance of immediate suffering in favour of conceal- 
 ment, which it has been shown not to be. 
 
 Having shown that the division of the forced loss into 
 many shares, does not lessen, but in most cases increases, 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 57 
 
 the sum total of suffering, instead of annihilating it, as in 
 the language of political quackery, it remains now to 
 prove, that this waste of happiness caused by the diffusion, 
 is more than equal to the gain of happiness experienced by 
 those amongst whom the matters abstracted are divided. 
 
 It makes no difference to the question, whether the 
 articles abstracted are divided amongst one or many. 
 Dividing amongst many is only a repetition of a similar 
 operation ; and the evil depends in every case on the 
 absolute quantity of wealth taken by each as compared 
 with the number and situation of those who are compelled 
 to suffer the loss ; the greater in each case the gain, the 
 lesser the comparative happiness derived from it. Of 
 1,000 portions of the matter of wealth, the first 100, 
 suppose, are necessary to repel hunger and thirst, and 
 support life. The use of this first portion is as life to 
 death : the value is the greatest of all human values, 
 including the capacity for all other enjoyments, for which 
 nature or education may have adapted the individual. 
 What is the effect on the same individual of the application 
 of a second mass, say of a second 100 of these por- 
 tions of wealth ? Nothing ecstatic, no change as from Hfe 
 to death ; simply the addition of some of the most obvious 
 comforts of life demanded by real convenience. The effect 
 of these second 100 in intensity of enjoyment, is so 
 infinitely beneath that produced by the first 100, as to be 
 incapable of any comparison. We proceed, however, and 
 to this second we add a third 100, and ask what is the 
 effect of this third equal supply ? Does it produce an 
 equal portion of happiness with either of the two former ? 
 With the first, it admits of no comparison ; with the second, 
 of very little : the first was existence, life or death ; the 
 second, real comforts ; this third, what ? imaginary com- 
 forts, such as the opinions and customs around us render 
 desirable. These are acquired by the third hundred ; but 
 they are unaccompanied with the craving recommendations 
 of want, or even of real comforts, and are recommended 
 
58 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 by public opinion alone and doubtful utility. The recom- 
 mendation of public opinion, observe, was not wanting to 
 the two first portions, while the effect of the third 100 
 depends on it alone ; its effect in producing happiness is 
 therefore proportionally weak, and is much less than the 
 second, but not so much less than the second as the second 
 was less than the first. To the three lots of 100 portions 
 each, of the matter of wealth, we add a fourth lot of the 
 same kind. The individual is already supplied in wants, 
 in real comforts, in comforts of opinion the most approach- 
 ing to utility : how shall he apply this additional, this 
 fourth portion ? He necessarily looks out for those lighter 
 sources of enjoyment, which hold the second rank in the 
 opinion and customs of those around him. This process 
 of seeking out lesser gratifications is . unavoidable ; for, 
 with the previous 100 the choice was open, and those 
 enjoyments esteemed the most desirable would naturally 
 be selected first. This fourth addition, therefore, gives a 
 still less absolute increase to happiness than the third, but 
 the difference between its effect and that of the third is less 
 apparent. We now give a fifth addition of the means of 
 enjoyment in another hundred portions of the objects of 
 wealth. How shall this fifth mass be applied? Wants, 
 comforts, real and unreal, secondary conveniences, are 
 already supplied. A search must be instituted for con- 
 veniences of a still more doubtful nature ; and fancy and 
 caprice begin their empire. The fifth addition is still less 
 productive of absolute increase of happiness than the 
 fourth ; and if, in order to add to enjoyment, we make 
 another addition of another hundred portions of the articles 
 of wealth, we shall find that this sixth mass is still less 
 operative than the fifth. Utility having been long ago 
 gratified, caprice begins now to display itself in the mere 
 changes of form or quality of the articles used, or in the 
 acquisition of the objects of mere pomp and exhibition. An 
 addition still decreasing is made to happiness by this sixth 
 100; and if we add a seventh, the effect on happiness 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 59 
 
 will be proportionally less ; till the mere habit and 
 pleasure of accumulation becomes almost the sole influ- 
 ential motive to the acquisition. Every hundred added is 
 less and less productive of absolute increase of happiness 
 to the possessor : but the difference of effect of each 
 addition is less and less as we recede from the first por- 
 tion and the first addition ; till at length an addition equal 
 in amount to that which allayed hunger and secured 
 existence and its capacities of enjoyment, becomes a 
 matter of mere indifference. 
 
 We have now seen what are the additional pleasures 
 conferred on those who enjoy the united small forced 
 masses of wealth, abstracted from numerous contributors. 
 lf the enjoyment of the first portion which the rapacious 
 receives, suppose, from the first of the 1,000 contributors, 
 is considerable, that, from the last of the 1,000 portions, 
 will be scarcely perceived. Now, it mostly happens that 
 the person receiving these 1,000 portions, is not in the 
 same circumstances, is not in equal want, with those who 
 contribute the 1,000 portions; and, therefore, even the 
 first portion, on him, will produce a very trifling effect in 
 the way of pleasure, compared to the pain of the loss. 
 And, while the pleasure of the gain is, as we see, diminish- 
 ing with every portion added, the pain of the loss remains 
 the same to each forced contributor, be they ever so ex- 
 tensive. The pleasures from every new portion are always 
 diminishing till they become imperceptible, while the pains 
 of loss are the same throughout, and never decrease) Here 
 are already fearful odds against him who forcibly abstracts 
 the products of others' labour. But all this goes on the 
 supposition of the first portion (if given to one in circum- 
 stances similar to those of the contributors) producing an 
 effect in happiness gained by the enjoyer equal to that lost 
 by the producer. The fallacy of this position was demon- 
 strated in the last section, in which it was shown that the 
 evils of the loss (though abstracted by the rapacious most 
 in need) of the industrious producer, were as almost 
 
60 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 infinity to one, when compared with the pleasures of the 
 gain to the despoiler ; the pleasures of the gain being as 
 nothing in the comparison. The steps of our argument, 
 then, are as follows, and are all facts of universal notoriety: 
 
 First, the evil of the loss and its consequences to the 
 productive labourer exceed in a degree very great, though 
 not capable of being put down in numbers, the advantages 
 of the gain to the rapacious, though both were in equal 
 want, and though one portion only of wealth were taken 
 from one producer. 
 
 But, second, those who forcibly seize are almost never 
 in equal want with the producers : whence a second 
 aggravation of the evils of the loss. 
 
 Third, those who forcibly seize, take more than one 
 portion from one producer ; they take other equal por- 
 tions from other producers ; the evil of the loss of each 
 portion succeeding the first, remaining the same, while the 
 pleasure of the gain is diminishing to infinity ; whence a 
 third aggravation of the evil of the loss. 
 
 Fourth, we shall see hereafter that, from causes inhe- 
 rent in the physical and intellectual constitution of man, 
 and in the objects and circumstances surrounding him, the 
 capacity for enjoyment decreases with the acquisitions of 
 excessive wealth (that wealth only being here called exces- 
 sive which is procured by any other means than those of 
 free industry and voluntary exchanges) ; whence a fourth 
 aggravation of the evil of the loss. 
 
 It appears, then, that our position is entirely estab- 
 lished. The lightening of the pressure of forced abstrac- 
 tion, by means of division and diffusion, is a mere delusion. 
 Where the desire with the power of forcible abstraction 
 exists, the process is diffused as the producers increase, 
 and the largest quantity that can with prudence be with- 
 drawn from each and every one of them, is the only limit 
 to the demand. The principle of security, in its branch 
 of voluntary transfer, once violated, there is no other 
 limit to oppression than the caprice of the rapacious, 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 61 
 
 whether the spoliation is supported by laws or decrees, or 
 by them marked out for punishment. 
 
 SECTION 10. 
 
 (THE PRODUCE OP NO MAN'S LABOUR, NOR THE LABOUR ITSELF, NOR ANY PART 
 OF THEM, SHOULD BE TAKEN FROM THE LABOURER, WITHOUT AN EQUIVALENT 
 
 by him DEEMED SATISFACTORY. THE PRINCIPLE OF VOLUNTARY EXCHANGES 
 
 ADMITS OF NO EXCEPTION.) 
 
 The general fact as to the evils of compulsion is con- 
 ceded ; but in particular cases it is still contended that 
 " labour or its products may be abstracted when a real 
 equivalent is given, although the producer may not be 
 able, from ignorance, to appreciate the value of the equiva- 
 lent. It may not be always possible to satisfy the selfish 
 ignorance of the producer or labourer, though one hundred 
 times a real equivalent were offered him in exchange for 
 his labour, or for the article of wealth it had produced." 
 In such case we say universally, Let no exchange be made. 
 The benefit of the equivalent, though real to the enlight- 
 ened, will be altogether swallowed up and lost in the evil 
 of the compulsion. 
 
 We wish to obtain from the industrious a portion of 
 his labour, or an article of wealth the product of his 
 labour. There are two modes of proceeding to accomplish 
 this desire ; compulsion, or the offer of such an equivalent 
 as shall lead the possessor to a voluntary transfer. In all 
 ordinary cases we suppose it conceded that compulsion 
 would be most pernicious. What are the extraordinary 
 cases in which compulsion might be permitted ? It will be 
 said, Where the equivalent is really sufficient, and where 
 the ignorance of one of the parties is such as to preclude 
 him from seeing its real value. 
 
 It is desired to make an exchange. How is this desire 
 known ? by the expression of the wish of one of the parties 
 only? That cannot be; for to make an exchange, the 
 concurrence of at least two is necessary. Without two 
 
62 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 desires there can be no exchange. One desire may lead to 
 rapine. But the second party comes forward and consents 
 to an exchange, provided an unreasonable equivalent is 
 obtained. Who is to ascertain the unreasonableness ? 
 This insuperable difficulty we pass by, and admit the 
 claim to be really unreasonable. Shall the unwilling be 
 compelled to take a reasonable equivalent ? The evils of 
 forcible abstraction have been pointed out. Until the 
 possessor or labourer is satisfied, the abstraction is 
 forcible, for so much as to him ; and the usual evils of 
 force will follow. What are the benefits, in this case, to 
 counterbalance these evils? The allowed superior real 
 value of the equivalent forced upon him. Involuntariness 
 will deprive it of all its value, and turn its blessings into 
 poison. Now, it is clear that if there be in the nature of 
 things any mode by which the use of the really superior 
 equivalent can be transferred to the unreasonable bar- 
 gainer without incurring the evils of force, of forcible ab- 
 straction, that mode should be pursued. That mode does 
 exist, and consists simply in enlightening the mind of 
 the unreasonable. The unreasonable has intellectual 
 capacity equal to that of him who kindly wishes him to 
 take a superior equivalent, or he has not. If the capacity 
 be equal, the benefit of the exchange which is supposed to 
 be a real benefit can be surely demonstrated to him. If 
 his capacity be inferior, the advantage of superiority of 
 intellect is supposed to be on the side of reason ; and in 
 such case is not persuasion certain ? Why is it not, then, 
 universally employed? To save the trouble of showing 
 the truth to those who, by the supposition, are in possession 
 of it, and of superior intelligence too, to explain and 
 demonstrate it. What possible reason is there why all the 
 evils of force should be suffered in order to save trouble, 
 the trouble of persuasion, to those who are in possession 
 of the truth ? What is this trouble ? what is the amount 
 of it ? where are to be found the constituents of this evil, 
 of this trouble of persuasion ? Is persuasion unarniable or 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 63 
 
 unins tractive ? Is persuasion, by unfolding the truth, and 
 showing the real qualities and relation of things, and the 
 real consequences, immediate and remote, of actions, less 
 instructive to him who persuades, than to him to whom the 
 persuasion is addressed ? 'Tis impossible to say to which 
 of the parties it is most useful. To the ignorant it gives 
 knowledge and happiness, by teaching him his real interest, 
 and inspires him with the pleasurable feeling of gratitude 
 for the benefits received. To the intelligent it affords an 
 opportunity of exercising and improving his talents, leads 
 him to gentleness and benevolence, and supersedes the incli- 
 nation to violence and injustice. Thus does this pretended 
 trouble, this scarecrow, turn out, on examination, to be a 
 real benefit, a benefit which wisdom would invent, if nature 
 had not prescribed it. So triumphant, on an accurate 
 analysis, are found the benefits of reason, of persuasion, 
 of gentleness, so fatal the effects of compulsion and 
 violence, that even the very evils, falsely said to flow from 
 an undeviating adherence to justice, are found to be 
 blessings. 
 
 (Behold the benefit, the ^appreciable benefit, of the 
 universality of the principle of voluntary exchanges of 
 exchanges deemed satisfactory equally by both parties ! 
 It operates as a simple and all-sufficient check to arrest 
 force, fraud, or injustice, in any shape, under the guise of 
 exchange ; it necessitates the exercise of intellect and 
 benevolence ; and there is not in the nature of things any 
 other check to be substituted for it^) On the principle of 
 voluntary exchanges, is the equivalent offered by either of 
 the parties unsatisfactory to the other, though really 
 useful to him ? What stronger motive can be conceived 
 for the exercise of the mental powers of the party wishing 
 the exchange ? In order to succeed in his object, to get 
 the equivalent desired, he must persuade ; in order to 
 persuade, he must cultivate his own reasoning powers he 
 must study the disposition, the mind, of him whom he wishes 
 to convince ; he will show the uses to which the equivalent 
 
64 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 may be applied ; he will communicate knowledge, in order 
 to excite a counter-desire to his own to get the exchange 
 effected. He will also study the feelings of him whom he 
 wishes to persuade ; he will neither do nor say anything 
 revolting or offensive he will seek to soothe and to please 
 him, and will thus learn the habit of conciliation and kind- 
 ness; and what interest first prompted, habit will confirm. 
 Exchanges, leading man out of himself, thus become the 
 parent of benevolence, as well as of intellectual culture. 
 The utility of the check to injustice from the universality 
 of the voluntariness of exchanges, proceeds as much from 
 its extreme simplicity as from its universal application. 
 Who so ignorant, so devoid of understanding, as not to 
 know, without the possibility of error, when the industrious 
 is satisfied with the equivalent offered him for his labour or 
 its produce? Who can effect a mistake on this head? Without 
 voluntariness, the equivalent is not delivered. Where force 
 is excluded till both parties are satisfied, there is no act 
 done. 'Tis the plainest of human transactions. How much 
 unlike the opposing system of compulsion, forcing a real 
 equivalent ! Where is here the check ? Where is here 
 the simplicity ? Check, there is none : for the unsatisfied 
 party, being ignorant, is mute ; or, if complaining, is not 
 listened to. The will, the unrestrained will of one of the 
 interested parties, is the rule; and that will must be 
 influenced by the varying speculations of his mind, as to 
 the fitness of the exchange for those on whom in every 
 case it is proposed to force it. And with a volition secured 
 from the control of any other motives than those arising 
 from its own views of its own isolated and exclusive 
 interest, what mortal ever continued to judge rightly to 
 act with justice ! What less than omniscience can pene- 
 trate the fitness that is to square with the circumstances 
 of others, to know their varying feelings and wants ? What 
 mortal could undertake, what mortal could conceive, a task 
 so complex, so inscrutable ! lf voluntariness, or mutual 
 satisfaction, be the extreme point of simplicity, compulsion 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 65 
 
 is surely its opposite, the extreme point of complexity and 
 confusion. 
 
 Here nature, supported by the clearest deductions of 
 reason, presents to our hands a check to all injustice in 
 matters of wealth, so clear, so simple, so effectual, that 
 nothing can be wished beyond it. Why, then, search for 
 arbitrary and artificial checks to restrain the operation of 
 that fraud and force which we voluntarily permit, when 
 we sanction any departure from the strict rule of justice, 
 the mutual and complete satisfaction of both of the parties 
 making exchanges ?^ No other check can be devised; for, 
 if it be said that the progress of reason, and consequently 
 of morality, will ultimately show the one party judging 
 for both the real comprehensive interest of both, in oppo- 
 sition to the supposed immediate interest of the one, 
 what should prevent the dissenting party from being 
 equally accessible to the influence of reason, and the 
 acquisition of morality? Nay, by the supposition, the 
 dissenting party will be more liable to the influence of 
 reason ; for the exchange being really for his benefit, and the 
 other party anxious to unfold the truth, the real operation 
 of the exchange, is it not certain that such a real interest 
 must be soon understood ? Whereas, in the case of the 
 party exclusively wishing for such exchange, there is a 
 constant temptation of immediate interest to misjudge in 
 his own favour, the power being vested in his own hands 
 of deciding for the interest of both himself and another. 
 Where the equivalent is a real one, and ought to be mutu- 
 ally satisfactory, there is no place for the influence of 
 reason on the mind of him who is already satisfied ; but 
 the constant probability, nay certainty, is, that the prin- 
 ciple of compulsion once established, the influence of reason 
 on the mind so circumstanced, under no necessity of cul- 
 tivating it, would be gradually diminishing instead of 
 increasing, till it would be finally proscribed as a useless 
 labour, and force under the guidance of caprice would be 
 omnipotent. 
 
6G On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 One strange error still remains opposed to the very- 
 simple proposition at the head of this section of our argu- 
 ment. A notion is very prevalent that the products of 
 labour, and labour itself, are very dissimilar in their na- 
 ture, and entitled to very different portions of regard. 
 Articles of wealth, and the wealthy, are universally looked 
 upon with complacency, while those who have accumulated 
 nothing, who have mere capacity to labour, are regarded 
 with indifference, with aversion. Wealth and poverty, that 
 is to say, wealth, and the producers of wealth, are contra- 
 distinguished from each other, are regarded as at irrecon- 
 cilable hostility. To protect wealth to its possessors, every 
 expedient is devised ; to protect that productive energy 
 which called wealth into being, is deemed superfluous; nay, 
 everywhere, even, are systematic combinations made to 
 control the free exercise of labour. Many, therefore, who 
 freely admit, nay who maintain, that no atom of any 
 article of wealth, the product of labour, should, under 
 any pretext, be taken from its possessor without an equi- 
 valent by him deemed satisfactory, have as fiercely main- 
 tained that labour, the productive spring of wealth, might 
 be abstracted from its possessor, without a satisfactory 
 equivalent. 
 
 It is presumed that no one who has proceeded thus far 
 in these pages, could be influenced for a moment by the 
 sophistry of such pretended distinctions. Shall we respect 
 the mere unconscious, inanimate matter which labour has 
 produced, and shall we not more respect the persevering 
 hand guided by the intelligent mind that produced it? 
 Take away from the costliest article, silk, purple, or gold, 
 the labour employed in their production, and what are 
 they worth ? Of no human use, as articles of wealth, are 
 the unwrought materials. If it required no labour to ap- 
 propriate them, though ever so useful, like the air or the 
 water, they would be of no exchangeable value. 'Tis labour 
 that makes them what they are. Labour is that ingredient 
 which turns the otherwise useless materials scattered abroad 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 67 
 
 by nature, into the means of happiness to man. It is labour 
 alone that gives them their value and currency as articles 
 of wealth. Without it, if they were ever so useful and 
 there is no article of wealth more useful than the light 
 which enables us to distinguish every article around us 
 they would not be noticed as articles of wealth. These 
 articles are respected by the judicious, only in as far as 
 they embody and represent skill and labour, and as they 
 tend, in the use, to promote human happiness. When we 
 value an article of wealth, it is in fact the labour concen- 
 trated in its fabrication and in the finding or rearing of its 
 natural material, that we estimate. Wliat more absurd, 
 therefore, than to pretend to respect wealth produced by 
 labour, and to disdain the labour that produced it ? 'Tis 
 admiring " Milton's Paradise Lost," and at the same time 
 affecting to despise the intellect that imagined it. 
 
 Again for what reason is it that the "free disposal of 
 the products of labour must be respected, for which we 
 should not also respect the free disposal of labour itself f 
 Keproduction, morality, and happiness, require equally 
 that labour and its products should be shielded from all 
 force or involuntary exchange. Take away what labour 
 has produced, or anticipate and seize on, as it were before- 
 hand, what labour is about to produce; where is the diffe- 
 rence in the operation? where the difference in the pernicious 
 effects? If any, the difference would be in favour of seiz- 
 ing the products after production rather than anticipating 
 them, because the relaxation of the producing industry is 
 avoided where the products already exist, and the effect of 
 discouragement would be only against future productions. 
 But where the labour is compelled, the product itself to be 
 seized upon is raised and completed with diminished energy. 
 We deprecate the forcible seizure of an article of wealth, 
 not for any evil, any ill effect, to be produced on the article 
 itself, on the inanimate object, but for the evil to be pro- 
 duced on the intelligent agent, on the mind of the producer. 
 The article itself is not necessarily injured, is equally capa- 
 
68 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 ble of use whether transferred voluntarily or involuntarily ; 
 but the alarm, the sense of insecurity, the discouragement 
 of future production, the disinclination to labour which is 
 defrauded of its reward, are produced equally by compelling 
 labour, or seizing, or giving an unsatisfactory equivalent 
 for its products. The injurious effects on the mind of the 
 industrious, limiting future production and producing other 
 moral, as well as these economical, evils which are the 
 only points to be regarded are the same whether labour 
 or its products are attacked ; and the products of labour 
 can in no case be considered but as the representatives of 
 labour itself. The dead material is nothing, the active mind 
 and hand are the sole objects, in our present point of view, 
 of philosophical and moral regard. Under what pretext 
 could I demand that the labour of any human being should 
 be forcibly directed to my benefit, that could not be equally 
 pleaded by that person in demand of the unrequited benefit 
 of my labour? Further on, it will be pointed out how very in- 
 considerable are the effects on production and happiness, of 
 the wealth absolutely accumulated in any society, compared 
 with the powers of future production of that same society. 
 The universality of the principle of the freedom and 
 voluntariness of exchanges being established, it will be in- 
 cumbent on those who plead in any case for a departure 
 from the rule, to demonstrate particular benefits from the 
 departure in that case, preponderant over the general bene- 
 fits of the rule. 
 
 SECTION 11. 
 
 THE MATERIALS OP WEALTH, THE PRODUCTS OP LABOUR, SHOULD BE SO DISTRI- 
 BUTED, AS TO ACCOMPLISH THE DOUBLE OBJECT OP PROMOTING THE UTMOST 
 
 POSSIBLE equality OF ENJOYMENT AND THE UTMOST POSSIBLE production ; 
 
 THAT IS TO SAY, SO AS TO PROMOTE THE UTMOST POSSIBLE EQUALITY OF 
 DISTRIBUTION CONSISTENT WITH SECURITY: SECURITY ALONE CALLING FORTH 
 THE COMPLETE DEVELOPMENT OP EVERY USEFUL HUMAN ENERGY, PHYSICAL 
 AND INTELLECTUAL, j 
 
 As it has been attempted, it is hoped successfully, to de- 
 monstrate, that all well organised human beings are capable, 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 69 
 
 by similar treatment, of enjoying equal portions of happiness, 
 particularly of that species of happiness which arises from 
 the use of articles of wealth, and that of course the happi- 
 ness of the greatest number of such similarly constituted 
 beings must be constantly preferred to the happiness of 
 any smaller number, when found which under wise 
 arrangements would scarcely ever be the case incompa- 
 tible with each other; it would seem to follow that it 
 should be our object to promote equally the happiness of 
 all without any distinction of persons, and that equality of 
 happiness should be the object aimed at. For if they be 
 all equally capable of enjoyment, why give more to one 
 than another ? If this system of absolute equality were 
 consistent with production, it ought to be universally ad- 
 hered to. Successive portions of wealth diminish in their 
 power of producing happiness when added to the same in- 
 dividual's share ; but when divided amongst many indivi- 
 duals, the productive power of each portion is wonderfully 
 increased, though the glitter of the effect may not be so 
 apparent. The demand of justice would seem then to be, 
 that the mass of wealth of the society should be divided in 
 equal portions amongst its members. 
 
 This argument would be irresistible were not labour 
 necessary for the production, for the existence, of wealth. 
 This circumstance introduces a limitation to equality ; 
 which limitation, however, must be guarded within the 
 strictest limits of its proper end. Wherever equality does 
 not lessen production it should be the sole object pursued. 
 ^Wherever it decreases really useful production (that 
 which is attended with preponderant good to the pro- 
 ducers), it saps its own existence, and should cease. Let 
 us illustrate this limit, which nature seems to have placed 
 in the way of the wide wish of beneficence, the impartial 
 hand of justice. 
 
 Suppose any article, now an article of wealth because 
 an object of desire, and requiring labour for its production, 
 such as wheat, or sugar, or hats, were produced, by the 
 
70 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 mechanism of nature or by any other means, independent 
 of human effort ; suppose it to be produced, not like air or 
 daylight, superabundant for the wants of all, but in such 
 quantities as would give a limited supply to each indivi- 
 dual in the community. Suppose that the supply 
 increased regularly with the increase of population, with- 
 out any exertion from any part of that population, but 
 never to that extent to give an abundance to all that 
 wanted. Water and air and light are useful articles, as 
 useful, or more useful, than either wheat or sugar or hats ; 
 but though they are not, for the most part, in any way 
 dependent on human co-operation for their supply, they 
 exist in such excess as not to afford the means of our pre- 
 sent illustration. Suppose, then, such a quantity of hats, 
 always increasing with the increase of population, pro- 
 duced yearly without human effort, as, if equally divided, 
 to afford one hat or two hats to every individual in the 
 community for his yearly consumption. What distribu- 
 tion of these hats will produce in the consumption the 
 greatest possible quantity of happiness ? Shall we give 
 three or four, or ten or twenty hats every year to some 
 individuals, and leave others without any hat to wear, 
 exposed to the changes of the weather, the moisture, cold, 
 and the fervours of the summer's sun ? The owner of the 
 additional number exchanges being out of the question 
 could derive no benefit from his superfluity, but the grati- 
 fication of the childish vanity of the constant newness of 
 the article he wore, say a new hat every month. If the 
 enjoy er of the twelve hats in the year were of a well- 
 regulated intellect and acquainted with the pleasures of 
 sympathy, he would feel infinitely more pain or discomfort 
 in the contemplation of the evils suffered by those whose 
 share of hats he used, and of course^ left unprovided, than 
 he could feel pleasure of vanity from the use of the addi- 
 tional unnecessary hats. But, be this as it may, let all 
 the gratification which ignorant selfishness can picture to 
 itself as arising from such a cause, be felt by the possessor 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 71 
 
 of the many hats, what is the amount of the additional 
 good gained to him, in comparison to the good lost (or 
 evils endured) by those compelled to forego the use of those 
 hats ? There are no limits to the consequential evils that 
 may arise to the health, independent of the daily disre- 
 putableness and discomfort, of those who are compelled to 
 do without hats. The question, therefore, will admit but 
 of one answer. An entire equality should be preserved in 
 the distribution of such articles, as every departure there- 
 from trenches immediately upon happiness, adding nothing 
 to the gainer in comparison to what it takes away from 
 him from whom the article is withheld. Strict equality 
 is the invariable rule of justice and benevolence. Were a 
 mere article of luxury procured in any limited quantity 
 without human effort, the effect would be the same, ; 
 diminution of happiness would always arise from inequa- 
 lity of distribution. When a luxury becomes multiplied 
 and many shares are given to one person, it soon ceases to 
 be to him a luxury, it becomes a mere necessary, not a 
 necessary of nature, but of pure convention, and with 
 thirty times the quantity he frequently, from sated 
 appetites, enjoys less than the consumer of the one, to 
 whom that share is a luxury. Therefore, in all cases, 
 whether of luxuries or necessaries, wherever labour has 
 not been used in the production, equality must be observed 
 in the distribution in order to produce the largest sum total 
 of happiness. 
 
 But, in all those cases in which wealth is the article to 
 be distributed, labour is necessary for its production : 
 labour in searching for, labour in capturing or tending, 
 labour in separating, labour in fashioning and preparing, 
 as applied to pearls, jewels, and other precious stones, to 
 domestic or wild animals, to extracting ores, saccharine or 
 other juices, to the fabricating of all manufactures. In 
 some shape labour must be applied to an article of use or 
 mere desire, in order to constitute it an article of wealth ; 
 and without labour there is no wealth. In the mere effort 
 
72 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 of seizing and appropriating what had before been seized 
 and appropriated by no one, as in taking water from a 
 common well, it is the application of labour alone that 
 turns that into property which before belonged to no one. 
 Labour, therefore, as before proved, is the universal parent 
 of wealth. 
 
 Having found out this ingredient which separates those 
 objects of desire and utility, which are called wealth, from 
 all other objects of use or desire to which the term wealth 
 is not applied; let us suppose another case to be put 
 abreast of the preceding case of wheat, sugar, hats, 
 obtained without labour. 
 
 We now suppose an equal quantity of wheat, sugar, 
 hats, to be produced every year that were obtained spon- 
 taneously before. The same quantity of all these articles 
 is every year at the disposal of the community ; but the 
 yearly labour of one-half, or some other portion, of the 
 community has been employed in producing them, in 
 seeking for their materials, extracting and fashioning them. 
 Shall we in the distribution of these articles follow the 
 same rule of equality and impartiality that we advocated 
 before ? Will an equal distribution of these articles, 
 obtained by means of labour, tend to produce the greatest 
 possible quantity of happiness, as it would have done in 
 the case of those same articles when obtained yearly with- 
 out any labour of any individual ? 
 
 Every one sees that a new law of distribution must 
 here be introduced. Every one sees that the blessings of 
 equality cannot in this case be obtained without injury, 
 without producing unpleasant feelings and emotions, to 
 those whose exclusive labour has been employed in the 
 production of the articles in question. The industrious 
 whose time has been occupied, whose mental and corporeal 
 powers have been respectively on the stretch, to produce 
 these articles with the view of adding to their own 
 comforts, stand forth and claim as their own, as their pro- 
 perty, what their labour alone has made what it is, distin- 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 73 
 
 guishable from the unappropriated and unwrought articles 
 around them. To take from them what their arm guided 
 by their mind has produced, is like taking from them a 
 part of themselves. It represents and exhibits in a palpa- 
 ble form their superiority to the unthinking, the improvi- 
 dent, the indolent. The motive to their exertion was the 
 use of the articles to be produced ; and the free use implies 
 the power of free disposal. Is it useful to encourage this 
 claim of right, this notion of exclusive property, on things 
 appropriated and formed by labour ? Without the acknow- 
 ledgment of this right, it would be evidently folly to pro- 
 duce them at all. Without it they would cease to be pro- 
 duced. (As soon, therefore, as a new supply of articles 
 springs up that are produced by labour, a new law of 
 distribution, or a modification of the old law of equality, as 
 applied to articles not produced by labour, must be devised. 
 The one set of articles will be produced to all eternity, 
 though no labour be exerted in producing them ; the other 
 exist by labour, and derive all their value, as articles of 
 wealth, from the labour bestowed upon them. This new 
 law, rule, or suggestion of wisdom, therefore, is, as before 
 established, " Secure, to the producer the free use of what- 
 ever his labour has produced.y Here, then, is a new rule 
 of action, apparently antagonizing with the former rule of 
 equality, counteracting it in all cases where labour is 
 employed in producing an article of usefulness, real or 
 supposed. 
 
 What shall we do, then ? shall we renounce the blessings 
 of equality as ideal, and not applicable to that real state of 
 things attendant on human associations ? By no means. 
 First, the rule of equality must always be followed where 
 no labour is employed in the production. Second, Wher- 
 ever a departure is made (which ought scarcely ever, if 
 ever, to occur) from the principle of " securing to every 
 one the free use of his labour and its products," that 
 departure should always be in favour of equality ; not to 
 increase the necessary and unavoidable evils of inequality. 
 
74 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 Wisdom and justice, then, looking forward to enjoyment, 
 and to production as the necessary means of enjoyment, 
 admit, in its fullest extent, the claim of the industrious to 
 the exclusive use of the produce of their industry. Is this 
 admission a hardship on the rest of the society who have 
 not produced, from want of foresight, from want of skill, 
 from want of strength, from want of activity ? Must the 
 rule of equality and all its increase of enjoyment be 
 given up in favour of the producer, and must the non- 
 producers be left destitute while the producers have an 
 excess ? 
 
 The producers have an excess that is to say, have 
 more than their own immediate gratification demands. 
 Absolute equality in the distribution of articles produced 
 by labour that is to say, of articles of wealth (meaning 
 always labour by competition, the ordinary mode of labour 
 of all societies), is impracticable, or if practicable would, 
 under the system of individual competition, be unwise. 
 As absolute equality in such articles is out of the question, 
 the next object of wisdom and benevolence is to make as 
 near an approach as possible to equality, as near as is con- 
 sistent with the greatest production. 
 
 The producers have an excess. What is to be done with 
 this excess? The improvident, the non-producers want. 
 How are they to obtain ? (Here a third principle, that of 
 " voluntary exchange," presents itself, which reconciles 
 all the apparent contrarieties of equality and security. 
 This principle, steadily pursued, leads to the utmost prac- 
 ticable equality, is a branch of security, necessitates 
 the greatest production of the objects of wealth, and thus 
 ensures the greatest mass of happiness.^ 
 
 The non-producers want. They want, because they 
 have been unemployed while the industrious were pro- 
 ducing an excess beyond their own immediate wants. If 
 not absolutely idle, they have been comparatively jinin- 
 dustrious, because the producers have found the means to 
 exist, as well as the non-producers, while their skill and 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 7o 
 
 labour were perfecting for use some unappropriated mate- 
 rials. The non-producers want ; but they have nothing 
 to give in exchange, nothing in the shape of wealth. What 
 is wealth but labour concentrated in an article of desire ? 
 The non-producer has" not now this ; but, as long as he 
 has labour and faculties, he has the means of producing 
 it, he has that which alone gives it its value, which makes 
 it what it is ; the fountain of wealth, of property, is within 
 him. The non-producer has two modes, apparently dif- 
 ferent, but in reality the same, of procuring from the pro- 
 ductive labourer the excess of his industry. He may 
 either put his labour under the direction of the producer, 
 the owner of the article he wants, until he gives him 
 an equivalent in labour ; or he may apply his labour 
 himself to the searching for, or preparation of, some 
 article which the owner may deem a satisfactory equi- 
 valent. 
 
 TThe only rational object of the production of wealth, as 
 of all other human effort, being the increase of happiness 
 to those, of whatever number, who produce it, equality 
 of distribution tending the most efficiently to this end, 
 except in as far as limited by equal and impartial security, 
 and the freedom of voluntary exchanges (implied in secu- 
 rity) leading directly to the utmost possible equality con- 
 sistent with reproduction by individual competition ; what 
 other conceivable means can there be of educing the 
 greatest sum of happiness from wealth which it is capable 
 of producing, than by maximising the blessings of equality 
 and security ? So far from being irreconcilable with each 
 other, it is only by an undeviating adherence to (real) 
 equal security that any approach can be made to equality. ) 
 What has been hitherto worshipped under the false "namer . 
 of security, has been the security of a few at the expense 
 of the plunder, the degradation of the many, particularly 
 of the whole mass of the operative, the real, producers of 
 wealth. This spurious unequal security is as much op- 
 posed to equality of wealth, as equal security is friendly 
 
76 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 to it. Security as to wealth implies the free disposal of 
 labour, the entire use of its products, and the faculty of 
 voluntary exchanges. The maintenance of this real and 
 equal security tending to the greatest production, leads 
 also to the utmost possible equality. These two objects of 
 pursuit, therefore, so far coinciding as that the greatest 
 quantity of the one will lead to the greatest quantity of 
 the other, what so simple as the rule of action ? promote 
 in everything the greatest possible security, and you pro- 
 mote the greatest production and the greatest equality. 
 In as far as you depart from equal security, you lessen 
 equality ; in as far you interfere to promote inequality, 
 you lessen security. 
 
 Can there, then, be any question as to the propriety of 
 so distributing these articles of wealth as to produce this 
 two-fold result ? Is there any other secondary and subor- 
 dinate principle of distribution to be kept in view (the first 
 and paramount principle being always the production of 
 happiness) superior to this, or to be in any way regarded 
 in comparison with it ? 
 
 The false principles that have guided mankind, the 
 injurious objects they have had in view in the distribution 
 of property, are almost without number. In one end only 
 do they seem to have all met in the promotion of the 
 supposed interest of those in power and possession. To 
 maintain equality and security, equality as far as recon- 
 cilable with security, was never contemplated by them. 
 Sometimes, from a confused view of the benefits of equa- 
 lity, they have endeavoured to establish and maintain it 
 in an absolute manner ; but this was only done at the 
 expense of making slaves of half the community, the pro- 
 ductive labourers, as in Sparta, and in a less flagrant 
 degree in the other states of Greece, or of eternal com- 
 motions and speedy relinquishment of an impracticable 
 undertaking, as in the early ages of Koine, or the first 
 institutions of Christian communities. Veering between 
 equality and security, not knowing how to reconcile the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 77 
 
 opposing claims of these mortal adversaries, one or the 
 other gained the ascendant, as the pressure of the evil from 
 its opponent happened at the time to be most severely felt ; 
 and, for want of knowledge, the best men have advocated 
 and forwarded the most atrocious injustice. This happened 
 even in Republican governments, where the good of the 
 greatest number was the presumed object in view. But, 
 under all other systems and institutions, where such an 
 object as the happiness of the greater number was, not 
 only not an object of contemplation, but was systematically 
 disregarded, and where the acquisition, the increase, and 
 the perpetuating of wealth and power, to those posses- 
 sing them, or either of them, was the declared object of 
 pursuit ; where the interest of the greater number was at 
 times incidentally pursued, as the interest of horses is 
 pursued, to make their work more profitable to their mas- 
 ters ; there ignorance and violence usurped, and vested, 
 sometimes in one, sometimes in a few, sometimes in many, 
 the wealth of the community ; and short-sighted and rapa- 
 cious views almost always impoverished, and always made 
 vicious and miserable, the whole of that community. Un- 
 der all systems of rule, the principle of " voluntary 
 exchanges" has been almost equally violated ; in practice, 
 the violation has not been carried so far in some as in 
 others. But the principle has been everywhere disre- 
 garded ; and, with the sacrifice of the principle of volun- 
 tary exchanges, has been necessarily sacrificed the prin- 
 ciples and the blessings of equality and of security ; the 
 only mode of deriving the greatest happiness from each of 
 these being, as has been shown, by means of entire volun- 
 tary exchanges. The English system of government is 
 the most complete example of the coalition of different 
 particular interests, combining for mutual advantage to 
 promote each other's views ; the general interest that of 
 by far the greater number of unclassed persons, of pro- 
 ductive labourers, being altogether overlooked, except in as 
 far as, by the physical or mental laws of nature, the inte- 
 
78 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 rest of the producers happens to be identified with that of 
 some of the governing classes. As a priest; as a lawyer ; 
 as a lord ; as a member of some corporations, each varying 
 from the other in caprice of charter and by-laws ; as the 
 holder of certain tenures in a county, regulated by no one 
 principle of intelligence, probity, or even pecuniary value ; 
 as one of the army or navy ; as a collector or consumer of 
 the public revenue ; in any of these capacities, an indivi- 
 dual's interest may be attended to in a direct manner, as 
 forming part of the larger interest of which he constitutes 
 a part. In an indirect way also, if a man has wealth 
 enough, he can buy of a borough owner or patron, for one 
 or many years, the power of voting in the making of laws 
 for the community ; or if he be very rich, he can almost 
 command a senseless addition to his name, which promises 
 him and his descendants for ever the faculty of co-operating 
 in the making of laws. As a man, born in the country, 
 ever so wise and intelligent, his interest is in no way recog- 
 nised by the English system, which is founded on the union 
 of the more prominent particular interests not on a regard 
 to the rights and happiness of sentient and rational beings. 
 Here, also, as elsewhere, the rights and happiness of one- 
 half the human species, women, are not only not considered, 
 but altogether denied ; the pernicious consequences arising 
 out of which antisocial and preposterous state of things, on 
 the interest and happiness of society at large, require only 
 to be seriously examined, to become obvious to all. Yet 
 was this system of political institutions, with all its evils 
 and absurdities, the best that is to say, the least produc- 
 tive of evil, of any which circumstances had generated 
 amongst extensive communities, till the establishment of 
 the representative and elective system in the government 
 of the United States of America. There was the only 
 sound principle of just social institutions first solemnly 
 proclaimed and acted upon. " No representation, no taxa- 
 tion," elsewhere unmeaning words, are there the unde- 
 viating rule of action ; except in the iniquitous case of 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 79 
 
 slaves in many of tho states, and in the degradation of 
 women, there as amongst all mankind. 
 
 (What is now the inference as to our argument from 
 this apparent digression ? Can any one for a moment hesi- 
 tate to admit that in all those communities the principle 
 of " voluntary exchanges," and of course of equality and 
 security, have in fact been, and, to ensure their very exis- 
 tence, must have been, systematically violated ? What 
 principle have they uniformly and necessarily substituted ? 
 The application of force. Force, more or less disguised, 
 has been the support of them all, in utter contempt of the 
 principle of returning to the productive labourer an equi- 
 valent by him deemed satisfactory j 
 
 Now, there is in fact no intermediate principle between 
 the principle of " voluntary exchanges" by means of equi- 
 valents satisfactory to each of the exchanging parties, and 
 the empire of " brute force." The degree of force em- 
 ployed, and the direction in which it is exerted, may vary ; 
 but the principle is the same, whether the robber or the 
 ruler seizes on any portion of wealth, the product of labour, 
 without giving an equivalent satisfactory to the producer. 
 No intermediate principle between these two can be even 
 conceived. Half-voluntariness is involuntariness for the 
 portion wanting to make the satisfaction complete; and for 
 that balance compulsion is the only alternative. 
 
 All social institutions have hitherto been merely for- 
 tuitous experiments during the infancy, and of course igno- 
 rance, of human affairs, in social science. But reason has 
 now entered the interesting field, and will mould the vast 
 materials, discordantly scattered around, to utility, to 
 human use and comfort. 
 
 With respect to the distribution of wealth, there re- 
 mains no other mode than the sublime simplicity of justice, 
 " secure to every man the free disposal of the entire pro- 
 ducts of his labour." Nothing more is wanting for man 
 to perform in the way of distribution, the hand of nature 
 will do the rest. 
 
80 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 SECTION 12. 
 
 TTO ACCOMPLISH THIS JUST DISTRIBUTION, no encouragements, no restraints 
 
 PARTAKING OP THE NATURE OF WEALTH, WHETHER OP A POSITIVE OR NEGA- 
 TIVE KIND, ON THE DIRECTION GIVEN TO LABOUR, OR ON THE FREE INTER- 
 CHANGE OP THE PRODUCTS OP LABOUR, SHOULD BE PERMITTED. J 
 
 fit is impossible that any encouragements or restraints 
 partaking of the nature of wealth, should be given without 
 violating the principle of security, and in most cases also 
 aggravating the unavoidable evils of inequality. These 
 encoiiragements or restraints of social science are denomi- 
 nated in the language of commerce, bounties, protections, 
 apprenticeships, guilds, corporations, monopolies, as apply- 
 ing to those whom they favour Awhile as applying to those 
 excluded, to the great mass and majority of the individual 
 members of all societies, they are denominated prohibitions, 
 contraband, &c., engendering the utmost cruelty of punish- 
 ment to uphold the pernicious privileges which they confer. 
 (No privilege less than universal (which is no privilege at 
 all, but a common right founded on utility) can be con- 
 ferred on any individual or number of individuals, except 
 at the expense of the rest of the community.'} The more 
 flagrantly unjust the advantages are to the ravoured, the 
 greater is, of course, the reluctance of the unfavoured, the 
 rest of the community, to submit to them ; the more pro- 
 bable their efforts to contravene them. But in proportion 
 to the strength of the motives, and thence of the probable 
 efforts to contravene, must be the extent and intensity of 
 the means, by terror and violence, to repress. Hence, the 
 more unjust the privilege, the more atrocious must be the 
 means effectually to uphold it. These considerations, which 
 apply to every branch of social regulation, are alone suffi- 
 cient to condemn any attempt to interfere with the free 
 circulation of labour and the free disposal of its products. 
 
 Wherever the new mode of direction proposed to be 
 given to labour is in reality more productive, more useful, 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 81 
 
 than the old mode, nothing more is necessary than the 
 beneficent operation, which has been almost universally 
 neglected, of showing those concerned, by the diffusion of 
 knowledge, that it is their interest to adopt it. But, as if 
 to demonstrate the conscious selfishness of all forced 
 monopolies, as all privileges and monopolies must be for 
 the dread of unprotected monopolies in a community of 
 free labour is worse than a bugbear monopolists and their 
 favourers have uniformly endeavoured to conceal all their 
 schemes, all their knowledge, all their means of rendering 
 labour more productive, and of acquiring increased profit. 
 The history of all monopolies and monopolists will prove 
 these facts. As they are founded on exclusion, they are 
 supported by the repression of knowledge and exertion. 
 They are inconsistent with the diffusion of knowledge, 
 which it is the duty of every friend to society to effect, in 
 order to render labour, to whatever useful object directed, 
 more productive. The moral effects, therefore, of privi- 
 leges, guarding to a few the exclusive right to direct their 
 labour in a particular channel even supposing that the 
 wealth of the community was for the moment increased 
 thereby are such as universally to condemn them. 
 
 Fortunately, however, the moral and economical effects 
 of privileges and exclusions point the same way. Neither 
 at their first establishment, nor at any subsequent period 
 of their existence, do they tend to increase, but to diminish, 
 the aggregate of the mass of national wealth. n?heir real 
 object never has been to increase the sum total of the pro- 
 ducts of labour, but to add to the profits of the favoured 
 individuals, necessarily at the expense of the rest of the 
 community.) The pretext sometimes put forward to pal- 
 liate their injustice, has indeed been, that they brought 
 into existence a mass of wealth which would not otherwise 
 have existed. But a few observations will demonstrate the 
 futility of this pretext. 
 
 A community, consisting of a greater or smaller num- 
 ber of individuals, are in the habit, every year, of pro- 
 
 G 
 
82 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 ducing a certain quantity of articles for food, clothing, 
 habitation, and for other sources, real or supposed, of hap- 
 piness. It is thought by some person that the community 
 would add very much to its happiness by producing, in 
 addition to all these, some other article which it had not 
 been in the habit of producing. It is evident that the mere 
 wish of one or of the whole community, to acquire a new 
 article (if no improvement of skill or machinery takes 
 place), can simply direct a portion of their energies to its 
 production, leaving an equal quantity of the old employ- 
 ment. The new article produced is obviously apparent, 
 and strikes the eye of every one ; while the diminution of 
 the old is not, on a large scale, perceived. This new 
 article is one with which the community have been before 
 acquainted, or of which they know nothing. If the com- 
 munity know nothing of it, 'tis impossible they should 
 have any desire to enjoy, or, of course, to produce it. 
 What is then to be done ? Simply to make them ac- 
 quainted with its uses by description, by affording them 
 information on the subject in a word, by knowledge. By 
 using the article, and exhibiting its uses, this knowledge 
 would of course be more expeditiously and impressively 
 conveyed. This done, or the community already ac- 
 quainted with its benefits, what remains to induce its 
 production ? The desire to enjoy it that is to say, the 
 demand, being excited, what is to prevent its production ? 
 Most probably, the want is still the want of knowing how 
 to produce it the want of knowledge. But, perhaps, the 
 productive labourers are already fully occupied in pro- 
 ducing what they deem of superior importance to the new 
 article. Here an effectual bar is opposed to the introduc- 
 tion, till accumulation of capital, the products of labour, 
 or improvements in machinery, or additional skill, ren- 
 dering labour more productive, sets free a portion of labour 
 for the production of the new article. Perhaps their 
 climate or their soil is not adapted to its production. 
 Perhaps they have not the acquired skill of hand, or 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 83 
 
 of muscle, requisite to its production. In all these cases, 
 is it equally desirable to introduce the cultivation or 
 manufacture of the article ? and what must be done 
 to introduce it when desired? Where all the productive 
 power of the community is already employed in raising 
 articles deemed of superior utility, the introduction of the 
 new article, though in itself an object of desire, would 
 evidently displace the production of articles affording su- 
 perior enjoyment. Where it might be advantageously 
 substituted, there, certainly, it would be wise to introduce 
 it, the soil and climate permitting. But, where the soil 
 and climate oppose, it never can be usefully introduced, 
 from the great waste of labour in forcing, or in ineffectually 
 endeavouring to force, its production. Where the soil and 
 climate oppose, and where there is a superfluity of the old 
 articles formerly produced by the community, the obvious 
 expedient is to "make an exchange!' provided also the 
 the articles in excess are objects of desire to the foreign 
 producers of the new article. But, it may be said, where 
 there are no obstacles of soil or climate, why not produce 
 it at home, and thus acquire the double advantage of pro- 
 ducing the articles to be exchanged, and the new articles 
 to be got in exchange for them ? This is an impossibility, 
 a mere mistake. Both of these articles, the exchanging 
 and the exchanged, could not be at the same time produced 
 at home. Suppose the article wanted was woollens, the 
 article to be raised and sent for it, linen. Before the new 
 article was desired, there was linen enough produced to 
 supply the community ; why, therefore, waste labour in 
 producing more, if not for a useful exchange ? But the 
 new article is to be raised at home, and no exchange is to 
 take place. Therefore, that labour which, in case of 
 exchange, would have gone to produce the equivalent, 
 linens, is now directed to produce immediately, at home, 
 the new article desired, woollens. If the new article be 
 produced at home, an equivalent of articles to procure it 
 in exchange will not be wanting, and, therefore, will not 
 
 G 2 
 
84 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 be produced. Whether the new article is obtained at home 
 or in exchange, the quantity of productive labour neces- 
 sary for the enjoyment of it is the same. In the one case 
 we devote, say, every five men and women out of a hun- 
 dred, to the production of woollen ; in the other case we 
 devote them to the production of linen, over and above 
 what we want for our own consumption, to be given in 
 exchange for the woollen. The one is a direct, the other 
 an indirect, operation to effect (at the same expense) the 
 same object a supply of the new article of desire, woollens. 
 There is no advantage gained in producing the woollens at 
 home, though there be no hindrance of soil or climate, 
 provided, as was laid down, the community was previously 
 fully and usefully employed. In all such cases, then, no 
 encouragement is wanting, because the object to be pro- 
 moted by it would not be desirable. 
 
 The most plausible ground, however, taken by the 
 friends of encouragements in the way of wealth, rests on 
 the following statement. In a thriving intelligent country, 
 they admit that all such measures are unwise ; but, in a 
 country favoured by nature with navigable waters, with fer- 
 tility of soils, salubrity of climate, minerals within the earth's 
 bosom, a teeming population, unemployed, and turning to 
 no account the materials of happiness within and around 
 them for such a population, under such circumstances, 
 they demand encouragements to call forth their industry. 
 
 Alas ! alas I such a state of things is a demonstration 
 that the principles of security and equality have been 
 grossly violated such a state of things is a demonstration 
 that the products of labour have been torn from the pro- 
 ductive labourer without an equivalent by him deemed 
 satisfactory ; that voluntary exchanges have been disre- 
 garded ; that discouragements and obstructions innumerable 
 have been thrown in the way of industry ; that physical 
 and moral knowledge has been shut out from the minds of 
 the community; and that sophistry and falsehood have 
 been impressed upon them. Before a hand is raised or a 
 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 85 
 
 foolish thought turned to afford encouragements, invitations, 
 to the exertions of such a community, remove from them 
 the mountains of obstructions under which they are buried. 
 Whistle to an imprisoned bird to break the meshes of an 
 iron cage, and fly through to the pecking of a morsel of 
 sugar on the outside of it till then, cease to insult a 
 community so circumstanced, so bowed down, so robbed, 
 with offers of encouragements to industry. They want 
 none of such encouragements they ask no more than to 
 cease to discourage them. Encourage them! with what? 
 from whence should such encouragements come? From 
 the produce of their own industry. There is no other pro- 
 duce from which such encouragement, in the shape of 
 wealth, can come to a whole community, or to a portion 
 of the whole community, except from the remaining por- 
 tion. Will you draw down, by your prayers, from heaven, 
 wealth ready made to shower encouragements on the way 
 of the industry of a people ? Encourage them with their 
 own ? No. But cease extracting it from them. Unloose 
 the chains from the hands of the productive labourer. Rob 
 him of no portion, not an atom, of his labour, without an 
 equivalent by him deemed satisfactory. 
 
 (But, if the refinements of exaction are still to be per- 
 severed in ; if, backed by terror, and ultimately rendered 
 operative by force, almost the whole produce of labour is 
 taken from the producer, and scarcely enough left him to 
 support a miserable existence ; if the labourer be paid in 
 forced wages, regulated at the caprice of those whose 
 interests are opposed to his, after forced tithes and forced 
 taxes of all sorts have been levied upon him ; if the prin- 
 ciple of " security," guaranteeing to the producer the entire 
 use of the products of his labour proved to be essential 
 to the most complete development and continuance of suc- 
 cessful industry be thus systematically and pertinaciously 
 trampled under foot, how absurd to talk of encouragements ! 
 If to remove absolute and galling restraints if to cease to 
 practise devastating violations of the principle of security 
 
86 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 be encouragement, in such a sense let encouragement be 
 afforded, until every exchange is voluntary, and till neither 
 labour nor its products are demanded, without an equiva- 
 lent deemed satisfactory by the producer.) Many of those 
 things of those regulations which have been called encou- 
 ragements, such as bounties and drawbacks, are, in truth, 
 nothing more than the removal, partial or complete, of 
 previous forcible restraints thrown in the way of industry. 
 A drawback, as its name imports, is nothing but the return, 
 under particular circumstances, of a part or the whole 
 amount of the duty, the forced levy, made on the produc- 
 tion, carriage, or transit, of certain articles, or, in other 
 words, a forcible seizure of a portion of the products of 
 labour. These, therefore, are no superadded encourage- 
 ments, and do not come under the meaning of our term ; 
 they do but partially remove certain universal obstructions 
 to free labour. Hereafter will be pointed out the only 
 mode by which any species of impost can be reconciled 
 with the principle of security, which requires free labour 
 and voluntary exchanges. As levied hitherto, they have 
 been plain and direct inroads on security and all its bles- 
 sings. Hitherto, the meaning of the word security, and 
 all the advantages in its train, have been reserved exclu- 
 sively for the rich ; it is time that the real producers of 
 wealth, the active and skilful labourers, should partake of 
 its benefits, that strict justice, that perfect equality, should 
 be observed in affording " security" to both rich and poor, 
 that the same word should no longer have one meaning 
 for the smaller and influential portion of society, and ano- 
 ther, diametrically opposite, for the vast majority. 
 
 What shall be said, then, to bounties 9 to premiums 
 or rewards absolutely given, over and above the natural 
 returns of labour, still further to remunerate, and to urge 
 to renewed exertion, the productive labourer? Here is 
 exhibited not only a disposition to leave untouched in the 
 hands of the producer all the products of his labour, but to 
 increase those products . This language, and the measures 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 87 
 
 to which it would lead, on a large scale, are perfect absur- 
 dity and impossibility. It has been shown that there is 
 no other fund in nature for the repayment and satisfaction 
 of labour than what itself produces. A nations labour 
 must repay itself. 
 
 But a particular subordinate branch of industry, some 
 influential person thinks, is strangely neglected, and would 
 add much to the comfort of the community if established. 
 First, this influential person may be wrong ; next, if he be 
 right, and know better than the rest of the community, why 
 not impart his knowledge to them ? by means of which, 
 some amongst them would adopt and introduce this par- 
 ticularly useful branch of industry. 
 
 By what mode of operation is it expected that a species 
 of industry, a direction of labour, which is now avowedly 
 so far from being productive as to require a premium to 
 enable it to exist, will, by the continued application of that 
 premium, become so productive as to be worthy of pursuit, 
 and able to support itself, like other trades, without the 
 premium ? The bounty, by giving a factitious profit to 
 the trade, draws many into it from other trades, leads 
 them to acquire the new habits and skill peculiar to it, 
 leads them to construct those edifices, to procure those 
 tools and machines, which are necessary for the successful 
 pursuit of the new line of industry. Do any of these 
 operations, this new direction of labour, this accumulation 
 of the products of labour, under the name of capital, in the 
 new line, tend to make it more productive than the old ? 
 If the actual machinery, or processes of the new direction, 
 be improved after the bounty, so might the old have been 
 improved without the bounty. It is an effectual demand 
 operating on intelligence that would improve the old as 
 well as the new. To ascertain the effect of the bounty, 
 and of the bounty alone, we must suppose that processes 
 and machinery on both sides, the new and the old, remain 
 as when the bounty began. How, then, can the bounty 
 make that profitable in the end, which, previously to the 
 
88 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 bounty, and without the bounty, was unprofitable ? "It 
 will call the public attention to the new occupation, and 
 will lead to the acquisition of habits of skill amongst the 
 workmen." But, in a state of free labour and voluntary 
 exchanges, does not interest keep intelligence always on 
 the stretch for improvement, and eternally excite the 
 artisans to increased skill ? Or, if affairs be complicated, 
 do not bounties increase the complication, confuse the 
 judgment, and deter from free speculation, by the uphold- 
 ing of artificial and arbitrary regulations ? "By the 
 bounty an article is produced for the society, the value of 
 which they could not know till they experienced its utility ; 
 but, after this experience, they will continue to use it." A 
 rare and modest price, truly, to be paid for an experiment, 
 which, after all, may turn out undesirable as probably as 
 useful I Individual interest, and the communication of 
 information in the particular line, is surely the proper 
 and the sufficient expedient an expedient risking no 
 possible evil, but operating entirely in good. How, then, 
 can bounties alter the nature of things ? how can they 
 make that profitable which was previously unprofitable, or 
 make that ultimately profitable which is not immediately 
 so ? It is evident that a bounty can produce no such 
 effects. Its whole useful effect is limited to its supposed 
 instrumentality in making people acquainted with their 
 interest in the use of new articles ; and its first step to 
 produce this accurate knowledge of facts, is to distort the 
 features of the case ! Individual exertion, the removal of 
 restraint, and the diffusion of knowledge, are the only 
 unobjectionable means of accomplishing such objects. 
 
 Now comes the explanation of the mode by which the 
 bounty is supposed ultimately to cause the new article to 
 be produced at a lower price than at the beginning. By 
 means of the bounty, a great deal of labour in the shape 
 of capital will have been accumulated in the new employ- 
 ment, supported all the time by the bounty. If any part 
 of the bounty be withdrawn, the buildings and machinery 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 89 
 
 cannot follow the new direction of the bounty. If the new 
 direction of industry be abandoned, or in part relinquished, 
 on the withdrawing of the whole or of any part of the 
 bounty, the buildings and materials are probably useless, 
 or of little value for any other purpose ; and the loss of 
 time and want of knowledge for other pursuits, keep the 
 followers of the new pursuit still engaged in it. It does 
 not follow, therefore, that, though the new trade may 
 support itself when the bounty is withdrawn, it is as 
 productive as other hardy trades which the circumstances 
 of the country demanded without the aid of bounties. 
 Where the trade will ultimately support itself, to the 
 bounty it is perhaps indebted for more or less of its 
 capital. But this accumulation of capital would not 
 ultimately support it long, if a losing trade a losing 
 trade will swallow up any amount of capital. If, there- 
 fore, it ultimately succeeds without the bounty, the cir- 
 cumstances of the society must have changed during the 
 continuance of the bounty, from other causes entirely 
 unconnected with it, and the trade would, without any 
 aid restraints being supposed out of the way have 
 sprung up of itself. The more frequent result is, that 
 when the bounties supporting particular trades are with- 
 drawn, those trades languish and die, notwithstanding the 
 temptation to continue them, from the great losses attend- 
 ing the breaking up of establishments, and, of course, the 
 inclination to continue them at reduced profits. When, at 
 the end of a great number of years, during which the 
 bounty has been constantly applied, we perceive a parti- 
 cular branch of industry fully developed, and supporting 
 itself on its own resources, we are apt to look on all this 
 industry as the child of the bounty. 'Tis true that, without 
 the bounty, if the circumstances of the community did not 
 require it, that particular direction of industry would not 
 have been produced ; but, in another direction all other 
 circumstances, soil, climate, intelligence, capital, &c. being 
 the same a greater portion of industry would have been 
 
90 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 developed. In every case in which a bounty has so appa- 
 rently succeeded, it has done no more than prematurely to 
 force, at a greater or less expense of the wealth of the 
 community, a particular branch of industry, which, in a 
 short period, without any of the evils of bounties, would 
 have vigorously burst into existence, and have spread its 
 roots firm in the wants or the wishes of the people. Where 
 the new direction of labour becomes ultimately profitable, 
 it is owing to circumstances entirely unconnected with the 
 bounty. 
 
 The mere fact of giving a bounty, shows that industry 
 is deemed desirable by those who give it; that public 
 attention, or at least the attention of many who think the 
 most, is directed that way. The bounty could not have 
 caused this original attention ; it is only a means of accom- 
 plishing its purpose. The establishment of the bounty 
 excites in others, and diffuses this attention ; which object 
 might be better accomplished in a way quite unex- 
 ceptionable. As the bounty and the interest, and fre- 
 quently the improvement, co-exist, the one is deemed the 
 cause and the other the effect, without any nice discrimina- 
 tion, any laborious analysis. The discrimination of causes 
 is the great difficulty of moral and economical science. 
 
 It will not be inferred from any observations here 
 made, that the absurd notion is maintained, that the pro- 
 ductive labourers of a country, whether as direct labourers, 
 machinery-makers, or capitalists, are always able to judge 
 of the most useful mode of directing their own productive 
 powers ; or that, in point of fact, their powers are always 
 necessarily employed in the way most tending to increase 
 their individual wealth, or the aggregate of that of the 
 community. This would be to assert that knowledge and 
 wisdom are at the point of perfection, in every successive 
 and varying state of society. At this present period more 
 knowledge is acquired than at any preceding period ; yet 
 there are, every day, changes, improvements made ; pre- 
 ceding errors are every day rectified. Productive labourers, 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 01 
 
 therefore, are no more infallible, have no more arrived at 
 the end of knowledge, than those who kindly or presump- 
 tuously think for them. Their efforts are frequently 
 directed by fortuitous combinations to labours of caprice, 
 sometimes of mischief and vice, of caprice, when directed 
 (if voluntarily directed) to such purposes as raising pyra- 
 mids for the dead, or palaces for the corruption of the 
 living ; to mischief and vice, when producing articles 
 injurious to health and abridging the period of life, such as 
 intoxicating liquors in larger quantities than are necessary 
 for medical use, such as supporting and pampering an idle 
 priesthood or army, to prostrate the understanding or the 
 undrilled physical force of a community. But, in all these 
 cases of erroneous application of a part, and sometimes by 
 far the greater part, of the productive powers of a com- 
 munity, it will invariably be found that one or the other, 
 most frequently both, of two circumstances occur. The 
 principle of security has been egregiously violated towards 
 the labourers ; by force, their labour or its products 
 have been abstracted or misdirected ; or, they have been 
 deficient in knowledge to see their true interests. For 
 either of these evils what is the remedy? Not surely 
 bounties, in the proper meaning of that term ; but removal 
 of restraint and diffusion of knowledge. 
 
 Though bounties are given, still knowledge must be 
 diffused to attain the ultimate object ; but the existence 
 of bounties makes the diffusion of knowledge more difficult. 
 The evil effect of bounties, as to knowledge, does not even 
 rest here ; not only do they supersede the necessity of 
 information as to the utility of the new mode of industry; 
 not only do they render it more difficult to acquire that 
 accurate knowledge ; but they tend to repress all useful 
 inquiry, and to lay prostrate human reason, rendering man 
 a mere mechanical creature. 
 
 There is another injurious effect of all bounties, in what- 
 ever state of social regulation, simple or complicated, they 
 may have been afforded an evil which is greater as the 
 
92 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 bounty is more injudicious. Those who engage in any new 
 line of industry, supported by a bounty, require a larger 
 profit, to compensate for the uncertainty of the continuance 
 of the bounty, and of course of the trade, than those en- 
 gaged in free occupations self-supported. The consumers 
 pay, of course, this increased profit, whether in a higher 
 price or in an increased bounty. 
 
 " These considerations," it may still perhaps be urged, 
 " do not apply to that artificial aspect which society 
 actually exhibits, encumbered with imposts, bounties, 
 restraints, and every species of complication." 
 
 To every degree of complication, however, and to every 
 stage of society, these principles, it is conceived, do apply. 
 Where security is every day violated, the security of the 
 poor man, of productive labourers, of an immense majority 
 of every community, it is wished to give a bounty to a 
 particular branch of industry. If this be not done by 
 removing some restraint, by ceasing the practice of some 
 particular violation of security, how is it to be done ? By 
 adding additional restraints, by practising new violations 
 of security, in addition to those already inflicted? To 
 obtain the amount of the bounty, new plunder is com- 
 mitted, and less of the products of their labour are left to 
 all the industrious but the new order to be favoured at 
 their expense. It makes what was before bad, still worse; 
 what was before oppressive, still more oppressive. If any 
 given amount can be spared in the shape of bounty, surely 
 the same amount can be spared in the remission of some 
 restraint the removal of some obstacle to the free deve- 
 lopment of industry. 
 
 If it appear that the operation of bounties is, in so 
 many ways, to mar the blessings of equality and security, 
 what shall we say of monopolies, of corporation-guilds, of 
 forced apprenticeships, and such like contrivances, whose 
 tendencies are frequently to counteract and nullify each 
 other, and whose endless regulations have filled with vex- 
 ation and perplexity almost every path of human industry? 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 93 
 
 It would lead us too far to enter into but a very limited 
 discussion of such matters ; though a right understanding 
 and explanation of them would illustrate and confirm all 
 our previous principles. It is hoped that those principles, 
 with the observations made on bounties, will be sufficient 
 to guide to the true nature of such expedients. 
 
 The interference of law, or the public force of the com- 
 munity, is essential to constitute a monopoly. Where all 
 labour is free, and all exchanges voluntary, there can be 
 no monopoly : such operations are excluded from our 
 present consideration. Monopolies are of various kinds ; 
 sometimes they permit a few individuals to exercise ex- 
 clusively a particular line of industry as the making of 
 snuff, tobacco, porcelain, &c. ; sometimes they permit any 
 one, or every one, of a whole community to engage in a 
 particular trade, but exclude foreign countries, or colonial 
 settlements or dependencies, of the same community, as 
 refining sugar for the consumption of the community; 
 sometimes they limit to a particular set of men the export 
 of certain or of all articles to other countries ; and some- 
 times the import of some or all articles from those coun- 
 tries, such as the East India Company as formerly and 
 as newly regulated ; sometimes they confine to particular 
 colonial settlements the faculty of supplying the commu- 
 nity with certain articles, such as sugar, rum, &c., from 
 the East or West India colonies of all European powers, 
 each community admitting exclusively for its own supply 
 the products of its own colonies ; sometimes they establish 
 a mutual and reciprocal monopoly in the supply of certain 
 articles, such as the old (Methuen) treaty between England 
 and Portugal, for the mutual preference of the wines of Por- 
 tugal in England, and the woollens of England in Portugal. 
 
 Monopolies are more degrading and revolting than 
 bounties, inasmuch as bounties seem to operate entirely 
 in the way of reward, in the way of encouragement and 
 over-payment; they are of an exhilarating nature, and 
 wear the appearance of generosity ; their pernicious effects 
 
94 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 are disguised and confounded with other circumstances 
 and causes ; bounties frequently invite all who may think 
 proper to direct their industry, with the addition of the 
 bounty, in the way they point out. But monopolies wear, 
 throughout and from the commencement, the harsh fea- 
 tures of restraint and punishment ; they openly and avow- 
 edly favour the few at the expense of the many, under the 
 same pretext that has been made use of to justify bounties, 
 that, though injurious for the present, they will ultimately 
 establish a useful branch of trade which would not other- 
 wise, have existed. 
 
 (Monopolies seem to be liable to all the objections 
 that have been urged against bounties, but one; and 
 to be liable to most of them in a much stronger 
 manner than bounties are. They are liable to addi- 
 tional objections which do not press against bounties. 
 The objection to which they are not liable is, that 
 while a direct tax, or a portion of the public revenue, 
 raised by direct taxation, is applied to the payment of 
 bounties, there is no necessary call on the public funds for 
 anything in the way of pecuniary aid in the establishment 
 of monopolies. Monopolies act by taking away the rights 
 of others ; bounties, by pretending to superadd factitious 
 rewards to industry, forgetting the ' only source, the pro- 
 duct, the reward, of the successful industry of the rest of 
 the community from whence such rewards can be ab- 
 stracted. The evils produced, in a greater or less degree, 
 by both bounties and monopolies, may, perhaps, be eol- 
 lected under the following heads : 
 
 1. They violate the principle of security. 
 
 2. They violate the principle of equality^ 
 
 These two evils, clearly established, are quite sufficient 
 to condemn such expedients as bounties or mono- 
 polies ; for, if the productions of the whole society be 
 lessened by the violation of security, and the aggre- 
 gate happiness lessened by any inequality not neces- 
 sary to security, any subordinate effects, were they 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 95 
 
 all in good, arising- from them, could be only partial 
 drawbacks from the paramount mischiefs of inse- 
 curity and inequality. But bounties and monopolies 
 agree also in producing the following additional 
 evils. Or, perhaps, it may be more correctly said, 
 that the following evils are but illustrations of the 
 violations of equality or security ; into one or the 
 r other of which they may be all ultimately resolved. 
 / 3. They are both liable to enormous abuses of misap- 
 plication and consequent loss of national wealth, from 
 the necessary imperfection of knowledge of facts and 
 judgment, on the part of their favourers supposing 
 them to be always well disposed. 
 
 4. They are both founded on the admission, that the 
 direction of industry which they favour is less profit- 
 able than the average of other modes of employment. 
 
 5. They both require larger profits to compensate for 
 the uncertainty of the continuance of their privileges. 
 
 6. They are both liable to be more wastefully carried 
 on than other unsupported directions of industry; and 
 they produce fraud and favouritism, in the working of 
 thejr necessarily complex machinery. 
 
 7. .T.hey both tend to raise the prices of other com- 
 modities, by artificially withdrawing the labour and 
 capital usually employed in them. 
 
 8. They both remarkably discourage the acquisition 
 and diffusion of physical and economical knowledge. 
 
 9. Both expedients, bounties and monopolies, are quite 
 superfluous, though unaccompanied with any of the 
 preceding evils ; because appropriate means are at 
 hand to accomplish all the good expected from them 
 without any of the evil.) 
 
 (The evils incident to monopolies, over and above those 
 which they share in common with bounties, may be classed 
 as under : 
 
 1. Monopolies require punishments, mostly cruel and 
 sanguinary, for their support. 
 
96 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 2. They generate atrocious avarice and injustice in the 
 favoured traders, from the abuse of the power en- 
 trusted to them to support the monopoly. 
 
 3. They have in fact, in almost every instance, turned 
 out ruinous as trading speculations, and have dege- 
 nerated into theatres of corruption and plunder on 
 the part of the agents, at the expense of the trading 
 company of the community at home, and of the 
 foreigners over whom their power has extended/) 
 
 A few words, after what has been already said, will 
 show that monopolies are justly chargeable with all the 
 evils here attributed to them. 
 
 First, as to those evils of which they partake in common 
 with bounties. They violate the principle of security as 
 flagrantly as bounties do, but not exactly in the same 
 visible way. They do not attack security by levying forced 
 contributions as bounties do, by taking from the thriving 
 the products of their industry, to lavish them on x a species 
 of industry which cannot support itself. But they violate 
 security by arresting the arm of the labourer, the skill of 
 the artisan, the adventurous energy of the carrier, from 
 using their productive powers in that direction which may 
 be the most useful to them. (Monopolies do not wait until 
 the products are made; they anticipate them they strangle 
 them in the birth. Monopolies act by exclusion; they 
 exclude all but the favoured few from employing their 
 labour, or exchanging the products of that labour in a 
 particular line ; they restrain the right to free labour and 
 voluntary exchanges in all the rest of the community^ 
 Suppose that a labouring artisan has produced a hat or 
 pair of shoes, for his own use, or to procure some article 
 of desire by its exchange. This article, or its equivalent, 
 or part of its equivalent, in money, is forcibly taken from 
 the producer to raise the fund for the payment of bounties. 
 But, in the case of monopolies (as, say, of hat-making), 
 the artisan is restrained from making the shoes or the hat. 
 Where is, then, the difference, as to use and enjoyment, 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 97 
 
 between taking away an article when made, or preventing 
 it from being made ? If the article be taken when made, 
 and the robbery stop there, it may be made again ; but, 
 in the case of the prohibition, the power itself of producing 
 is arrested, is annihilated. The attack on security is, 
 therefore, the more flagrant when immediately directed on 
 labour itself, on the power of production, the characteristic 
 constituent of every article of wealth. 
 
 Monopolies are also chargeable, as well as bounties, 
 with violating the principle of equality. The equality 
 here advocated is not absolute, forced, equality ; but the 
 utmost possible degree of equality compatible with secu- 
 rity, with free labour and voluntary exchanges. (Bounties 
 violate equality by taking from the industrious a part of 
 their earnings, and giving them to a favoured few, enrich- 
 ing them at the expense of the community, instead of 
 protecting all under the aegis of free competition. Mono- 
 polies more flagrantly violate equality, by interdicting a 
 supposed menus of useful exertion, and, therefore, of hap- 
 piness, to all, but some privileged individuals. The wealth 
 they produce is necessarily the most partial possible, the 
 least diffused, the least depending on individual exertion 
 and skill ; and, therefore, for these and other reasons, the 
 least productive of happiness^ We have seen that the more 
 any given mass of wealth is diffused provided that each 
 portion of it remains in such quantity as to be appreciable 
 in its capacity of exciting enjoyment, and provided the 
 minute labour of the division does not overbalance the 
 minute enjoyment the more happiness it produces. The 
 paramount claims of security, in order to ensure produc- 
 tion and existence to mankind, form the only justifiable 
 limit to the universal agency of this benignant principle. 
 Security being provided for, equality is the universal law 
 of justice. By it, the utility of every institution must be 
 tried. What shall we say, then, to an institution like that 
 of monopolies, which first violates the principle of security, 
 and then entirely tramples on the principle of equality 
 
98 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 by taking from or restraining the many, the poor, the 
 weak, and giving to the few, the rich, the strong ? Had it 
 respected security, its attacks on equality might have 
 been palliated. Were it really necessary to uphold secu- 
 rity, its attacks on equality would be justified. But instead 
 of any such justification or palliation, it prostrates equally 
 the two principles of security and equality the most 
 essential to human happiness. 
 
 These two evil tendencies, to violate security and to 
 violate equality attendant equally on monopolies and 
 bounties are sufficient, as before observed, to banish 
 their use for the pretended purpose of increasing the 
 production of wealth, or of happiness, by its distribution. 
 Still, however, by glancing over some of the minor evils 
 produced by them, we shall be the more fully and perma- 
 nently convinced, not only how utterly unnecessary such 
 contrivances are for the most just distribution of wealth, 
 but how completely they are incompatible with such just 
 distribution. 
 
 " Trades carried on by bounties and monopolies re- 
 quire larger profits to compensate for the uncertainty of 
 their continuance." Mr. Mill says, in his " Elements of 
 Political Economy," chapter on Bounties, that the person 
 engaging in a protected trade gets no more profit than 
 the profit of capital in other trades, competition bringing 
 down his profits thereto. Competition produces no absolute 
 equality of profits or of wages of labour in society ; but a 
 relative equality, all circumstances of risk, skill, unpleas- 
 antness of the occupation, &c., considered. No man will or 
 does engage in a dirty, dishonourable, or hazardous trade, 
 without the expectation of higher profits or wages than if 
 employed in ordinary occupations almost free from risk, 
 demanding no peculiar skill, and almost certain as to their 
 continuance. To the lowest that will repay these incon- 
 veniences, competition will bring down the wages or profits 
 of protected as well as of other trades. But for this addi- 
 tion attending the encouragement or restraint, the society 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 99 
 
 pays ; while, by those concerned in the protected lines, 
 the addition is not felt as a real increase of just remunera- 
 tion. 'Tis so much lost, and a real loss to the community; 
 a loss created by the act of protection. It is true, that 
 monopolies, though causing higher prices to the commu- 
 nity for the articles they deal in, have very seldom afforded 
 the ordinary profits of trade to their members. This arises 
 from another vice which swallows up and supersedes the 
 present ; the unfaithfulness of their ministers and agents, 
 deliberately preferring their own private interest, as ser- 
 vants, to the general interest of the trading monopoly. If 
 the public pay a higher price for the article afforded by the 
 monopoly, it is quite immaterial to that public into whose 
 pockets that higher price goes. 
 
 Another of the mischiefs arising from monopolies as 
 well as bounties, is, that " they are liable to be more 
 wastefully carried on than other unsupported directions of 
 industry, and they produce fraud and favouritism in the 
 working of their necessarily complex machinery." The 
 exercise of care and economy depend, other things being 
 equal, like the exercise of other qualities, on the degree of 
 interest engaged in producing them. In private pecuniary 
 affairs this vigilance, this prevention of waste, is at its 
 highest ; for be the character what it may, whether indo- 
 lent or active, it will be most vigilant when engaged in per- 
 sonal concerns, provided they are such as to be deemed in 
 themselves important. A trade supported by bounties may 
 be conducted by individual vigilance, and is therefore little 
 liable to this abuse ; but the mischief is almost insepar- 
 able from monopolies. Where but the hundredth or the 
 thousandth part of the mischief will fall personally on the 
 agent who relaxes in vigilance, or commits, or suffers to be 
 committed, waste, the same anxiety and the same exertion 
 cannot be expected to prevent waste, that would naturally 
 be expected where the whole of the evils arising from 
 neglect must fall on the negligent. It will not be said 
 that moral principle, in large concerns, will supply the 
 
 ir 2 
 
100 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 place of individual interest. The whole history of man 
 proves that when these two principles are placed, whether 
 fortuitously or from a fatal system, in opposition to each 
 other, moral principle will yield to immediate private in- 
 terest. Besides, the great end and object of all mono- 
 polies being to make profits, that paramount object is 
 apt to get possession of all minds to the exclusion of every 
 other, and principle never pleads so weakly as when 
 opposed to gain in such a concern. Under a system whose 
 governing principle was mutual co-operation and benevo- 
 lence, it is possible that social motives might be so identi- 
 fied with personal, as to become the rule of action ; but 
 here, where private gain is the sole moving spring, to 
 relinquish an opportunity of promoting it, is looked upon 
 rather as stupidity than morality, and the admissible modes 
 of seeking private interest at the expense of the concern, 
 become so enlarged and varied from sympathy of mutual 
 interests amongst the servant, or master-conductors, that 
 the words fair and honourable, change their nature, 
 and become applied to any profitable neglect, or other mode 
 of gain, that can be practised with impunity. Bounties 
 are notoriously liable to frauds on the part of the claimants, 
 notwithstanding the frequently complicated machinery to 
 prevent them, the very subordinate agents of prevention 
 becoming parties in the fraud : while favoritism in the 
 dispensing of posts and places in monopolies is so constant, 
 that the chance of the influence to obtain or procure one of 
 them often becomes the sole motive of adhesion to the 
 concern. 
 
 It is another of the mischiefs arising from these expe- 
 dients, that " both bounties and monopolies remarkably 
 discourage the acquisition and diffusion of physical and 
 economical knowledge." Their tendency is to discourage 
 all freedom of thought and calculation on the part of the 
 community : physical and politico-economical knowledge 
 coming more immediately in contact with these instruments, 
 are more particularly operated upon by them. Bounties 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 101 
 
 and monopolies imply a judgment formed, a dictation prac- 
 tised on the community, as to the direction in which their 
 industry should be employed. There is no appeal made to 
 the understanding of the people, no exposition, no expla- 
 nation, given, no concurrence solicited, no examination 
 permitted. The will of those who have the power, and 
 whose interest mayor may not be involved in the operations, 
 determines that such a direction of industry shall be pur- 
 sued, and levies money or lays restraints to carry it into 
 effect. To question this supreme will, is an insult to its 
 omniscience, if not an attack on its authority. All discus- 
 sion, all activity of mind, being useless, or being even 
 judged presumptuous, ceases. Of what avail to question 
 operations which are clothed with the arm of power ? Sub- 
 mission and prostration of the understanding to the abso- 
 lute wisdom of the legislators of trade and commerce, are 
 sought for by such legislators with an avidity always pro- 
 portioned to their want of comprehension of mind, and 
 exactly in the inverse ratio of their merits. Of what use to 
 the industrious and intelligent to weigh, to calculate, to 
 experiment on the most useful modes of directing their 
 productive powers in the creation of wealth, when they 
 find everything arbitrarily regulated for them? Kestraints 
 and encouragements taken out of the hand of nature, and 
 lavished at the caprice of the legislator ? Of what use can 
 intellectual exertion, under such circumstances, directed to 
 such objects, be ? Of what use, but to excite the ill-will of 
 those who have the sovereign direction? 
 
 Physical knowledge, that which consists in an examina- 
 tion of all natural productions, inanimate, vegetable, and 
 animal, with the view of applying them to use, guiding, or 
 co-operating with the productive forces and energies of 
 nature ; that species of knowledge which is the basis of all 
 industry, is peculiarly discouraged by artificial regulations 
 and encouragements. As long as the field of enterprise is 
 open, every useful quality of bodies, every physical energy 
 of nature, is eagerly sought after, that it may be applied to 
 
102 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 use by the discoverer. But, under the system of bounty 
 and restraint, the laws of nature are compelled to give 
 way ; industry is forced and artificial, and the productive 
 powers of nature are restrained as well as the energies of 
 man. 
 
 The last of the objections stated as applying equally to 
 bounties and monopolies is, that " they are both super- 
 fluous, though unaccompanied with any of the preceding 
 evils, because appropriate means are at hand to accom- 
 plish all the good expected from them without any of the 
 evil." 
 
 (On this part of the subject a capital error has fre- 
 quently prevailed. The useful tendency of encourage- 
 ments and restraints, and the whole artificial system of 
 corporations, apprenticeships, &c., have been held to be 
 demonstrated by the fact of the great improvement which 
 took place in every part of Europe, where, by means of 
 such contrivances, the old horrid system of feudal idleness, 
 superstition, and rapine, was replaced by industry and 
 independence. One observation, it is hoped, will set this 
 objection to rest. The whole feudal system was nothing 
 but a mass of the usurpations of force, an all-pervading 
 violation, in gross and in detail, of the principles of secu- 
 rity and equality. Succeeding, therefore, to such a system, 
 and compared with it, the establishment of corporations 
 and of privileges to the associated, was, in fact, to an 
 immense extent, the removal of feudal restraints, the 
 asserting, in opposition to feudal barbarism, the principles 
 of security and equality ; and all the good effects of such 
 establishments arose from their conforming to the princi- 
 ples we have laid down, bating the evils which their 
 ignorant violation of these principles produced, and still 
 generates in a new state of things, in which the monster 
 of feudality is almost conquered. The restraints which 
 these establishments impose, as compared to the rule of 
 justice, of security and equality, are most mischievous, 
 and ought to cease. The restraints which they impose, 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 103 
 
 compared with that utter insecurity and usurping rule of 
 force, that characterised feudal times, is as vexatious mis- 
 chief compared to utter desolation. The reason of these 
 an ti- feudal establishments not producing pure good, was 
 the restraints which they still retained or invented. In no 
 state of society could such encouragements or restraints 
 be wise ; but to expect that absolute wisdom, as to the 
 regulation of industry, would have sprung up at once 
 amidst feudal proscription of intellect, is no more rational 
 than to expect that the steamship would have sprung forth 
 as soon as the first boat of wickerwork and skins was 
 launched on the waves. The steamship, set afloat by im- 
 provements in mechanics and chemistry, is worthy the 
 improved knowledge of the age ; while, to our shame, the 
 corporations and restrictions of barbarous ages, the wicker- 
 work and skins of political economy, are still our ne-plus- 
 ultra of wisdom in active, whatever it may be in theoretical, 
 social science. It is plain, then, that the origin of even 
 the restrictive and partially protecting system itself, is an 
 argument against its continuance, and in favour of our 
 principles.) 
 
 In a country desolated by a system of brutal force 
 about equal in atrocity with the feudal system, in Egypt, 
 Syria, or in almost any other part of the Turkish despot- 
 ism, where the every-day principle and practice of what is 
 called government, is a systematic violation of security, 
 where ignorant rapacity snatches from the hand of the 
 producer the fruits of his labour, till all industry is extin- 
 guished, and the scanty exertion of despondency scarcely 
 remains sufficient to perpetuate by reproduction the means 
 of existence ; in such countries, even the restrictive and 
 protecting system would be a comparative blessing. Had 
 Bonaparte remained in Asia, and established there free 
 industry, instead of returning to desolate Europe, man- 
 kind would have been indebted to him, in proportion to 
 the restraints which he would there have removed from 
 the development of human thought and action. Even the 
 
104 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 ordinary European restrictive system would be there com- 
 parative liberty, and would operate as partial security did 
 on the feudal system ; but it would be absurd to conclude 
 from thence that it was the restrictive and not the anti- 
 restrictive part of that system that produced the good 
 effect. 
 
 Having thus dismissed those evils, in which restraints 
 and encouragements, monopolies and bounties, for the 
 most part agree, it remains that we notice the mischiefs 
 almost peculiar to monopolies. 
 
 (The evil or mischief first noticed is, that " monopolies 
 require punishments, mostly cruel and sanguinary, for 
 their support.") Without punishments, law-making and 
 restraints are useless every law must have its sanction 
 (in cases of civil law, restitution is the sanction) ; and 
 those laws which are the most useful to monopolies, giving 
 them the greatest exclusive privileges, are exactly those 
 which require the most terrible sanctions, as violating 
 most flagrantly the common rights and sympathies of 
 mankind. Hence the necessity for exemplary punish- 
 ments, in direct ratio to the injustice of the monopoly. 
 That all monopolies the Dutch, the Spanish, the English, 
 in Europe, America, and Asia have been enforced by 
 punishments frequently the most atrocious, is a matter of 
 history ; and the necessity of such punishments to support 
 such establishments is quite natural and palpable. When 
 the law inflicts punishment for what is really an immoral 
 that is to say, a pernicious action, as for stealing, fraud, 
 burning, or murder although the punishment may be 
 severe and sanguinary, and tend to brutify and harden the 
 people, still the real evil of the crime the insecurity and 
 alarm arising from its prevalence if unrestrained, operate 
 so strongly on the peaceable and the industrious, as to 
 counterbalance the horror produced by the punishment, 
 and to weaken the sympathy for the tormented criminal* 
 But, in the case of cruel punishments, or of any punish- 
 ments, inflicted in support of monopolies, where is the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 105 
 
 equivalent for the violence done to human feelings ? for 
 the acute sympathy with the sufferer ? for the association 
 of cruelty and injustice with law in general, and the con- 
 sequent hatred of all law ? The act for which the punish- 
 ment is inflicted is a strictly moral, a meritorious act, that 
 of directing labour where it will be most productive ; the 
 crime is imaginary, and of the law's creation. All notions 
 of justice are reversed, the intellectual faculty of the com- 
 munity is bewildered, morality has no basis on which to 
 found its judgments ; and if the terror of punishment suc- 
 ceed which it never has done where the temptation was 
 strong and the profit of contravening high it can only be 
 at the expense of the degradation of the activity and the 
 intelligence of the community. 
 
 (A second evil imputed particularly to monopolies, is, 
 that " they generate atrocious avarice and injustice in the 
 favoured traders, from the abuse of the power intrusted to 
 them to support the monopoly.") History concurs here 
 also with the tendencies of things in proving this additional 
 mischief. The atrocities of the agents of the great Dutch 
 monopolies both in the East and West India Islands and 
 on the Main, of the English in the East Indies, and of the 
 Spaniards in supporting their eternal restrictions in Ame- 
 rica, must be familiar to every one who has read the history 
 of these companies, or of the nations to which they belong. 
 To produce a famine, or an approach to a famine, that a 
 speculator might enrich himself by means of those advanced 
 prices which would produce disease and the lingering death 
 of his fellow-creatures, is but a specimen of the expedients 
 resorted to by avarice when entrusted with power without 
 accountability. Where monopolies are established at home, 
 whether in favour of the executive government, or of indi- 
 viduals, so much cruelty of this kind is not practised, the 
 government watching over the monopolists under its eye 
 and jealous of their assumption of power; or, if itself 
 practising the monopoly, having still more important ob- 
 jects and cares to distract its attention from the mere pur- 
 
106 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 suit of avarice. 'Tis in case of foreign monopolies, where 
 a so-called civilised nation entrusts to a company of its 
 trading citizens the pretended right which the parent so- 
 ciety never possessed and could not confer of sovereignty, 
 of ruling, of restraining, whether by laws or through mo- 
 mentary despotic will, the labour, property, and person of 
 the inhabitants, with the sole view of making subservient 
 to avarice, that sovereignty over tribes or nations discovered 
 by navigation, that the iniquity of the system has most 
 glaringly displayed itself. 
 
 (A third evil imputed particularly to monopolies, is, 
 that " they have, in fact, in almost every instance, turned 
 out ruinous as trading speculations, and have degenerated 
 into theatres of corruption and plunder of the agents, at the 
 expense of the trade, of the community at home, and of the 
 foreigners over whom their power has extended." ) These 
 facts alone, the ascertained and historical result of almost 
 all monopolies, supported by power (for without force. 
 there can be no monopoly, all voluntary exchanges being 
 not only innocent but salutary), are sufficient to banish 
 such expedients for ever from all enlightened legislation. 
 The experiment has been tried over and over again, on the 
 most extensive scale, by nation after nation, in almost 
 every trading portion of the globe, and the question has 
 been decided against monopolies as expedients to ensure 
 mercantile gain. Experience has as satisfactorily shown, 
 that they are instruments of the waste and ruin of capital 
 compared with trade carried on by the activity and econo- 
 my of private enterprise, as that the power of windmills is 
 excelled by the immense and regular energy, of steam. 
 All great monopolies, ending with the English East India 
 Company, have become insolvent. Notwithstanding its 
 mercantile losses, this company still exists, partly by means 
 of what is called revenue, taken by force from the unfortu- 
 nate inhabitants of Hindostan, to help to balance its losses 
 partly by the contracting of a debt, which it will never be 
 able to pay. To levy revenue for such a purpose, so 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 107 
 
 foreign from at least the usual ostensible pretext of apply- 
 ing it to the support of the public institutions, for dispens- 
 ing justice, morality, education, &c., through the community 
 who pay it, has been reserved for the impudence of a 
 trading company. Legally plundering the people with 
 whom they trade, to make up for the balance of losses, 
 caused by every species of waste and abuse ! ! Why, then, 
 does this Company continue to exist? Private sinister 
 interest and political considerations support it. Its ori- 
 ginal mere mercantile object is now entirely lost in these 
 new views and interests. It is continued, first, for the 
 sinister interests of the servants, military, civil, and mer- 
 cantile, of the Company ; next, to prevent the Government 
 at home, as now constituted, from making a still worse 
 use of what is called the patronage, or at all events to 
 keep this patronage in the hands of the Company's 
 Directors. In no hands, however, neither in those of the 
 Company nor the Government, should such patronage be 
 placed. 
 
 Thus it is that these monopolies are attended with evils 
 incalculable. To the friends and connexions of those who 
 have influence in the direction, and to their interest alone, 
 the interest of providing for them by making their for- 
 tunes in India, where they themselves become the governors 
 and agents of the governors, without any interference of 
 the inhabitants of the country in their own affairs ; to the 
 sordid interest of these agents, destined to bring in suc- 
 cession the spoils of Asia to Europe spoils exacted either 
 by open plunder or by a grinding taxation is the right to 
 security, equality, and political liberty, of nearly a hun- 
 dred millions of rational creatures deliberately sacrificed ; 
 because they were, perhaps, almost as wretched before we 
 visited them ! And when these men, so enriched by foreign 
 plunder, come home, their wealth, effeminacy, and oriental 
 habits of oppression and contempt for the rights and feel- 
 ings of their fellow-creatures, make them admirable tools 
 in diffusing servility and corruption at home, as if to avenge 
 
108 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 on British freedom and happiness the untold miseries and 
 degradation of the East. Yes, this is indeed a moral retri- 
 bution ; not the capricious sporting of imaginary beings 
 with the destinies of human creatures, but the unerring 
 operation of the laws of our physical and mental organisa- 
 tion, necessitating a course of vicious action to those whose 
 habits have been formed by the practice of corruption, 
 cruelty, and oppression. 
 
 But to return. I There is another mode, a branch 
 of the system of monopoly, of encouraging a home 
 trade at the expense of all foreign competition, by 
 laying duties, not for the sake of revenue, but for 
 the mere sake of protection, on all rival foreign 
 goods. Its importance may justify a short separate 
 consideration. 
 
 First, We are no more permitted, by the principle of 
 utility, to invade the security the right to free labour 
 and voluntary exchanges of foreign communities, than of 
 that in which we live ; because it will lead to retaliation 
 and reprisals, by which our own industry will be, in return, 
 equally shackled by them, and to effects of their ill-will in 
 whatever other way they may have an opportunity of 
 showing it ; so that, striking at their rights, is indirectly 
 attacking our own. 
 
 Second, Such mercantile duties on foreign productions 
 raise the price, while they deteriorate the quality of the 
 articles protected, on all the home consumers they raise 
 the price, because, if the home goods could be made at 
 home as cheap as the foreign, protection by duty or other- 
 wise would be superfluous ; and they deteriorate the qua- 
 lity, because they prevent the full effect of foreign, added 
 to home competition. 
 
 Third, They give no. additional profit to the home 
 manufacturers (risk of discontinuance, &c., considered), 
 competition amongst themselves soon bringing that down 
 to the level of profit of similar occupations whatever 
 more they get is only a premium injuriously taken from 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 
 
 109 
 
 the rest of the community, to compensate for their risk, 
 ignorance, &c., in the new undertaking. 
 
 Fourth, As affecting the national capital, the aggregate 
 of that of individuals, as a whole, they lessen it and its 
 total produce, by diverting a part of it out of its former 
 more profitable employment, whatever , that might have 
 been, into the new employment, the natural profit of 
 which would not support it without removing competition 
 by the duty. 
 
 Fifth, If the protecting duty be high, it leads to all the 
 miseries, vices, contempt of law and justice, which ought to 
 be the same, waste of property, &c., of smuggling, and to 
 the expenses, punishments, and vexatious restrictions, 
 necessary to enforce a collection of the duty. If, on the 
 contrary, the duty be low, so as to render smuggling not 
 worth the risk, the protection is, in that very same pro- 
 portion, inefficient and uncalled for. ) 
 
 After the lengthened investigation which we have given 
 to the oft-reprobated, but still widely practised, systems of 
 interference with free labour and voluntary exchanges, by 
 pecuniary encouragement or penal restraint, it will not be 
 necessary to dwell on the minor expedients of petty cor- 
 porations, varying in every city and town, and violating 
 in a hundred ways the principles of free industry. They 
 all invade, in a greater or less degree, the sacred principle 
 of security (with us no hypocritical principle, favouring 
 the rich alone), but sacred to the protection of the labour 
 .of the poor, as well as of the products of labour possessed 
 by the rich impartial to all. Such laws also invade the 
 sister principle of equality which should never be de- 
 parted from but in obedience to security because they 
 forcibly take from the poor, to increase the store or the 
 enjoyments of the rich. For their minor evils, arising 
 from their peculiar objects and circumstances, they must 
 be left to the discernment of the reader. 
 
 Having now proved that neither pecuniary reward nor 
 the exertion of force, that neither encouragements nor 
 
110 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 restraints, are wanting, but are, on the contrary, extremely 
 prejudicial to the production of wealth by labour, let us 
 proceed to the next proposition. 
 
 SECTION 13. 
 
 [That INEQUALITY IN THE DISTRIBUTION OP WEALTH, AND that alone, WHICH 
 
 ARISES FROM SECURING TO EVERY MAN THE FREE USE OF HIS LABOUR, AND 
 ITS PRODUCTS, AND THE VOLUNTARY EXCHANGES THENCE ENSUING, SHOULD 
 BE UPHELD; BECAUSE, WITHOUT THAT EXTENT OF INEQUALITY, THERE WOULD 
 BE NO security, WITHOUT SECURITY NO PRODUCTION, WITHOUT PRODUCTION 
 
 NO WEALTH TO DISTRIBUTE. } 
 
 Were food and all other objects of wealth supplied to 
 man, like light, air, and in most places water, in such 
 quantities as to be abundant for all, without the necessity 
 of any human effort for their production ; and were it pro- 
 posed, in order to make them produce more happiness, to 
 limit their consumption by the greater number of indi- 
 viduals of the community, that the remainder might have 
 more than they could consume ; who is there that would 
 not exclaim against the absurdity of such a proposal ? Or, 
 were they only in such quantity, but still unconnected 
 with human exertion, as to afford but a limited supply to 
 all, enough for mere necessary use but not for superfluity ; 
 would not the person, in this case also, be deemed irrational 
 who should propose to increase the sum total of the happi- 
 ness of the community, by any inequality of distribution, 
 taking from some what was merely necessary, in order to 
 load others with satiety ? The absurdity and the mischief, 
 in the latter case, would be the greatest ; for those who had 
 at best but merely necessaries, would suffer more pain in 
 being deprived of them to add to the superfluities of others, 
 than those who previously possessed abundance. Suppose 
 a third case, that a given supply, any how obtained, but 
 without the intervention of human exertion, that would 
 give but a treat to all, were every year, every month, or 
 every day, acquired by a community ; the enjoyment of 
 any individual using at the same time 500, 1,000, or any 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. Ill 
 
 other number of those portions, would scarcely, from the 
 laws of our organisation, double the enjoyment of any one 
 of those from whom one of the single shares was taken or 
 withheld. This, it is hoped, has been already made evident 
 in Sections 8 and 9, and will be further proved when we 
 inquire into the effects of excessive inequality of wealth on 
 the happiness of a community. 
 
 In all cases, then, whether of a large or small supply, 
 where human effort has not been concerned in the produc- 
 tion, equality of distribution is the rule of justice. Let 
 the reader pause, reflect, and speculate, and assign, if he 
 can, any other justification, amongst beings similarly con- 
 stituted, capable of equal degrees of happiness, of a 
 departure from the law of equality in distribution, than 
 the necessity of human exertion for the production. (There 
 can be no other justification of a departure from equality 
 of distribution. Its blessings are so transcendently great, 
 so productive of immensely increased agreeable sensations, 
 peace, and benevolence, that never but when justified by 
 the necessity of continued production should they be 
 departed from.) To this superior necessity, and to this 
 alone, must they yield ; and to this necessity must they 
 be strictly limited. 
 
 fWhat is the circumstance which distinguishes the 
 objects of wealth as means of enjoyment, from other means 
 of enjoyment which come not under the name of wealth ? 
 The necessity of labour for their production. In nothing 
 but in being the creatures of human labour, do they differ 
 from other sources of enjoyment. Without labour they 
 could not exist. Without security which means the 
 exclusive possession by every man of all the advantages of 
 his labour labour would not be called forth. Therefore, 
 in the distribution of such articles where labour is em- 
 ployed, called articles of wealth, and in these alone, 
 equality must be limited by security, because in no other 
 case are equality and production incompatible with each 
 other. ) What is the reason of this ? that equality is not, 
 
] J 2 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 wherever attainable, to be desired? is it that equality 
 itself is not founded in justice and productive of happiness ? 
 Far from it. But because its paramount blessings cannot 
 be obtained, when applied to one particular class of objects 
 of desire, those which are produced by labour, called 
 objects of wealth, without destroying the source, the supply 
 of such objects. Were it possible to ensure a reproduc- 
 tion by labour of the articles equally consumed, all the 
 advantages of equality would be as fully derivable from 
 the equal distribution of objects of wealth, as of any other 
 objects of desire, or materials of happiness whatever. 
 
 A celebrated practical as well as philosophical inquirer, 
 conceives that he has demonstrated experimentally that 
 reproduction and equality are not incompatible even when 
 applied to objects of wealth, produced as they all are, by 
 labour. He conceives that he has proved that other 
 motives, besides individual necessity and the love of the 
 factitious pleasures of superiority of wealth, can be found, 
 and made to operate with sufficient energy, to ensure a 
 constant reproduction of abundant wealth, for the equal 
 use of the whole community. As almost all falsehood and 
 violence, and as all stealing proceeds from inequality of 
 distribution of wealth; he would certainly be no mean 
 benefactor to his species, who could demonstrate the prac- 
 ticability of thoroughly eradicating, by removing the 
 causes of, these the most numerous by far of human 
 miseries and vices. The mischiefs arising from the mis- 
 regulation of our appetites, passes, and desires, and from 
 the want of knowledge and loss of the pleasures of intel- 
 lectual culture, would be the only ones to which the atten- 
 tion of society would be then anxiously directed : and the 
 whole attention being concentrated on these, the prospects 
 of indefinite improvement would be captivating indeed. In 
 a separate chapter those views will be investigated, which 
 are by no means regarded as visionary speculations, but as 
 some of the most important problems of social science that 
 were ever submitted to the consideration of mankind. 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 113 
 
 In the course of our argument in this inquiry, we 
 have, however, all along reasoned on the supposition of 
 labour by individual competition, and taken it for granted, 
 that the reproduction of wealth and security were incom- 
 patible with equality of wealth.. By no scheme or 
 combination affecting a whole community, have these 
 discordant principles been ever yet in human practice re- 
 conciled. But to assert that they could not, as moral 
 wisdom improved, be found reconcilable, would be as 
 presumptuous reasoning from ignorance, in morals, as to 
 assert, in physics (and not many years ago the writer 
 heard the assertion made by an experienced naval officer, 
 who now owns a steam-vessel and practises what he pro- 
 nounced impracticable) that it would be impossible to 
 apply steam navigation to the ocean or to strong river 
 currents. No part of our argument is built even on the 
 practicability of reconciling these two hitherto rival prin- 
 ciples of security and equality ; or rather of reproduction 
 and equality : for although equality might leave every one 
 secure in the possession of his equal share by taking away 
 the motives to plunder, it would remain still, under such 
 circumstances, to supply motives to production. This is 
 the real difficulty. Conceding, therefore, so much on the 
 one hand, we must strictly guard, on the other, against 
 the abuses and false inferences that may be drawn from 
 this concession. Wherever inequality is not called for by 
 the clear necessity of security, not of that false security 
 which is partially applied to soothe the imaginary alarms 
 of the rich, protecting mere possession however acquired, 
 while it overlooks violence applied to the very means of 
 existence of the poor ; but of that equal and just security 
 which is alike to all ; equality is to be pursued as the 
 means of the greatest happiness derivable from distribu- 
 tion. Quite opposite to this has been the current philo- 
 sophy, in order to uphold the enormous practices every- 
 where in operation, and outraging equally the principles 
 of -security and equality. There is scarcely a violation of 
 
114 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 the principle of security, for which the maintenance of 
 that principle has not served as a pretext. The word, 
 security, once laid hold of by the lovers of exclusive privi- 
 leges and possessions, and but partially understood or 
 wilfully misrepresented, has been reserved for the pro- 
 tection of the rich and powerful alone, to guard their 
 possessions, however acquired, though at the expense not 
 only of equality, but of the security of the rest of the 
 community, and has been by the rich used as a cover for 
 every oppression nay, as a justification of the most atro- 
 cious cruelty, the worst species of vice. To justify that 
 transcendent enormity, the slave-trade, including in itself 
 all the complicated evils combined arising from the viola- 
 tion of the principle of security, the name of that same 
 principle of security has been as unblushingly as absurdly 
 profaned. Allowing for a moment that our demonstration 
 of the sole original right to property, as founded on free 
 labour and voluntary exchanges, is erroneous ; allowing 
 that it would tend to the happiness of a community that 
 property should be acquired by its members by force or 
 fraud, and that such acquisitions should be eternally by 
 force or fraud maintained ; still the simple question of 
 security comes to this. There are two human beings, the 
 slave and the owner, equally concerned in the main- 
 tenance of this principle of security. If the slave were a 
 house or an ox, or any such species of property, and not a 
 sentient being like the owner, the principle of security 
 would then apply to the owner alone ; but wherever man 
 and labour are concerned, the principle of security will 
 apply. To the owner the principle of security says, 
 "Your property, that is to say, the free use and direction 
 of your labour and all your faculties (not interfering with 
 similar rights in others), and the right of voluntary ex- 
 changes for the products of that labour ; and also, as an 
 item of this your property, your expectation of so much 
 happiness from the use of the living machine (provided it 
 was acquired by free labour or voluntary exchange), shall 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 115 
 
 be awarded to you." But to the slave the same principle 
 of security says, " Your property, that is to say, the free 
 use and direction of your labour and all your faculties 
 (not interfering with similar rights in others), and the 
 right of voluntary exchanges for the products of that 
 labour, shall be awarded to you" How can justice in 
 this case reconcile security with security ? the security of 
 the master with the security of the slave ? It is impos- 
 sible. But in such and a thousand similar cases, where 
 two moral duties interfere with each other, and it is im- 
 possible to perform them both, what is the conduct which 
 necessity, in compliance with the principle of the greatest 
 good, requires ? That the lesser duty should be sacrificed 
 to the greater : making always such compensation, where 
 practicable, to the party suffering, as will not be attended 
 with other preponderant mischief. 
 
 Having thus shown, in so flagrant a case, the mischiefs 
 practised and justified under the pretext of doing homage 
 to the principle of security, it will be easy to detect its 
 abuse in all other cases. Equality of enjoyment, arising 
 from equality of distribution, is never to be sacrificed, but 
 when a real, not an imaginary, security, demands it as 
 necessary to reproduction. For what purpose should any, 
 the smallest portion of inequality not necessary for pro- 
 duction be maintained ? To maintain the happiness of those 
 who profit by the inequality ? But you thereby destroy a 
 much greater portion of happiness of those at whose ex- 
 pense the inequality is acquired. There is no other reason 
 than the necessity of supplying motives to production for 
 any portion of inequality of distribution. 
 
 How far an approach to the blessings of equality may 
 be carried, when all obstacles of force and fraud to the 
 entire development of free labour and voluntary exchanges 
 shall have been removed, and when knowledge shall be 
 equally afforded to all members of a community, it would 
 be hazardous to predict. That it would approach, however, 
 very nearly to a system of mutual co-operation by common 
 
 i 2 
 
] 16 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 labour, there can be no doubt. And as every approach to 
 this state consistent with the greatest production, is always 
 to be kept in view, hence arises the peculiar duty of those 
 who seek the greatest happiness of the community in 
 which they live, to oppose every institution, regulation, and 
 effort, tending to add to those unavoidable evils of inequal- 
 ity which security requires. If equality and security, or 
 production, can be reconciled by the diffusion of knowledge ; 
 or, in other words, if motives equally or more efficient 
 than those arising from personal gain, can be put into 
 operation to ensure an equally large production, no doubt 
 social motives ought to be preferred to selfish. This phe- 
 nomenon, however, remains to be exhibited in practice, as 
 well as proved by theory : and as all its operations must 
 be eminently and essentially voluntary / as all force and 
 fraud must be equally excluded from its establishment and 
 continuance ; the system here advocated, of free labour 
 and voluntary exchanges, will quietly lead to the adoption 
 of everything useful in it. 
 
 ? (it may be said that we are conceding the very basis of 
 our argument, when we admit, for a moment, the 
 possibility of reconciling security or production with 
 equality of distribution. True, as far as concerns the 
 system of labour by individual competition, the ordinary 
 system of human labour, and the only one yet spoken of, 
 security is not reconcilable with equality of distribution. 
 We have been hitherto contrasting the system of free 
 labour by individual competition with the employment of 
 force, compulsion, or restraint of any kind. Of production 
 by mutual co-operation resting on individual security, or 
 voluntary equality in the distribution and enjoyment of the 
 products of united labour, a succeeding chapter will treat 
 at length.) 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 117 
 
 SECTION 14. 
 
 [ALL OTHER SPECIES OP INEQUALITY OP DISTRIBUTION, BEING NOT ONLY 
 UNNECESSARY BUT INJURIOUS TO THE EXCITEMENT OP PRODUCTION, SHOULD BE 
 REPRESSED (ABSTAINED FROM) ;*BECAUSE THEY UNNECESSARILY DETRACT PROM 
 THE BENEFITS OP EQUALITY, AND THUS LESSEN THE SUM TOTAL OF 
 
 HAPPINESS, THE OBJECT AIMED AT BY THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. J 
 
 Many of those who support the last proposition, but 
 for reasons different from those which we have given, and 
 in our opinion on false reasons, would reject altogether 
 the present. Having proved the advantages of inequality, 
 the necessity even of a considerable portion of it, for the 
 very existence of every community, labouring by indivi- 
 dual effort, enjoying themselves the larger shares, the 
 prizes, in this unequal distribution, they are apt to regard 
 inequality as a positive blessing, instead of a necessary 
 evil to be endured only as far as that necessity demands. 
 Hence the countenance which political economy has been 
 supposed to give, which its misapplication has certainly 
 given, to the support of almost every usurpation on the 
 equal rights of men. Inequality once proved a blessing, 
 the more this blessing was diffused the better, the greater 
 masses of this blessing the influential few could appro- 
 priate to themselves, the better. Nothing further re- 
 mained than by an equal misapplication of the principle 
 of security, to uphold for ever these supposed blessings of 
 the greatest possible inequality ; and thus enlist science 
 in the maintenance of every existing system of force and 
 fraud. No wonder that such reasoners should assert the 
 necessity, not only of that species of inequality which was 
 necessary to production, but of every possible degree of 
 it, in the extravagant contemplation of which they could 
 find any sickly delight. Was a voice 'heard in favour of 
 the outraged rights of the suffering many of any commu- 
 nity, on the ground of the inequality of wealth ? "It 
 proceeds from an ignorance of political economy," was the 
 
118 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 reply. "Such complaints would lead to equality and 
 rapine : security, the security of the rich, requires the very 
 evils ignorantly complained of." 
 
 Is this reproof merited ? is it true ? does it not fall 
 back on the heads of those who use it ? It is hoped that 
 those who have gone thus far in this inquiry are persuaded 
 that political economy, rightly understood, and humanity, 
 are much more intimately allied than the supporters of 
 the inequality of rights and of happiness would fain ad- 
 mit ; it is hoped that, seeing clearly the reason for the 
 permission of inequality its necessity for security and 
 reproduction they see also the limits to which it ought 
 to be confined ; that all further extension of inequality 
 impairs production and lessens security, as much as its 
 extension so far increases the one and strengthens the 
 other ; that when further extended, it always violates in- 
 stead of supporting the principle of security, violates, in 
 numerous and vital points, the security of the many, to 
 maintain, on trivial or imaginary points, the security of 
 the few. We would ask, what is that species of inequality 
 which should be maintained over and above what is neces- 
 sary for equal security and reproduction ? That such 
 inequality is destructive of happiness has been already 
 seen, and will be shown more fully in the next chapter, on 
 the effects of the excessive inequality of wealth. If not 
 for happiness, for the greatest happiness of the whole 
 community, for what purpose should such inequality be 
 maintained ? Because a community would not otherwise 
 possess works of splendour and magnificence ? If such 
 works were not found by the community to contribute to 
 its happiness, they ought not to be produced or main- 
 tained. If they were esteemed by the community to 
 contribute to its happiness, common labour and exertion 
 would provide them for public use. That splendour and 
 that magnificence which are founded on the depression of 
 the many, and afford gratification to a few, are to be 
 deprecated; because such gratification is vicious, arising 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 119 
 
 from the contrast of tlie grandeur of the few with the 
 destitution of those around them, and from the envy and 
 influence to which such grandeur gives birth. Where 
 objects of beauty, taste, and magnificence, can be procured 
 for public use, without preponderant evil in the cost of pro- 
 duction, there can be no question of their desirableness as 
 tending to increase happiness ; but no forced inequality 
 of wealth can ever be instituted for this purpose with- 
 out lessening the sum total of the happiness of the com- 
 munity. 
 
 As to the second question, whether the rich derive such 
 an increase of happiness from splendid things, as more 
 than to counterbalance the evils of forced inequality, there 
 is surely no one to maintain the affirmative. The real 
 pleasure derived to the rich from such things is not the 
 pleasure of skill, proportion, &c., for with that, ownership 
 has nothing to do ; and by too frequent repetition, such 
 pleasure ceases : but it is the mere pleasure of vanity, of 
 the influence over the opinions and actions of others, which 
 such magnificence affords. When this pleasure also 
 becomes the daily and hourly enjoyment of life, it, too, 
 palls on the appetite, and degenerates into a mere want, 
 begetting anger, disdain, hatred, and all the malevolent 
 passions when its usual gratification is withheld. This is an 
 evil inevitably incident to all factitious sources of distinction, 
 and reduces their balance of pretended enjoyment to almost 
 nothing. To the community, there is a great balance of 
 pain in the display of matters of mere private magnifi- 
 cence, considered only as things to be looked at ; envy 
 and awe entirely superseding all pleasurable feelings of 
 sympathy. 
 
 Another phantom that has been put forward to justify 
 a greater degree of inequality of wealth than is necessary 
 for free labour and voluntary exchanges (which have been 
 proved to be necessary to the greatest production of wealth 
 and the greatest quantity of happiness derivable from 
 wealth), is, that without this forced inequality it would be 
 
120 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 impossible for certain institutions, certain privileged bodies, 
 certain modes of faith, certain systems of physics or 
 morality, to maintain themselves in a community. That 
 it would be impossible, without such or similar forcible 
 means, to preserve many such institutions and systems 
 in existence, is at once explicitly conceded. But, with 
 this concession, the short and simple reply is, Such insti- 
 tutions and systems ought no longer to exist, regard 
 being had, where possible without preponderant mischief, 
 to the feelings and happiness of the immediate occupants. 
 For what purpose are institutions, and systems, and 
 orders of men supported, or rather for what purpose alone 
 ought they to be supported, amongst a community of 
 rational beings ? For their own exclusive and individual 
 benefit, forgetting or deliberately sacrificing the happiness 
 of the rest of the community ? Public morality now 
 renounces so monstrous an avowal ; and the supporters of 
 all systems and institutions are now driven to show, as 
 well as they can, the utility, the tendency of what they 
 advocate to promote the happiness of the community. 
 Now, in what way can any of these things tend to promote 
 a nation's happiness, that would render necessary for that 
 purpose the sacrifice of personal security and of the 
 greatest happiness derivable from wealth ? Take these 
 away, the enjoyment of security and of the objects of 
 wealth, and for what other purpose, for the production of 
 what other species of happiness to the community, could 
 these institutions, or castes, or systems, be made useful ? 
 Are all the other sources of our enjoyment put together 
 if it were possible to disconnect them, and if they could 
 separately exist or be enjoyed to be at all compared with 
 the enjoyments derived from wealth, from labour ? Let 
 the pleasures of security and wealth be maintained, and 
 all other sources of enjoyment will take care of themselves, 
 either as having an existence without any voluntary effort 
 on our part, or as arising out of the just distribution of 
 wealth. The pleasures of sympathy and love, of the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 121 
 
 healthful working* of our animal economy, and the grate- 
 ful supply of air, of knowledge, of the regulation of our 
 propensities, all come under this description. What is the 
 pretended good for which we are to sacrifice the pleasures 
 of equality limited only by equal security? Is it to obtain 
 the favour of heaven? to enjoy happiness hereafter? And 
 is it by violating security, by forcibly taking from one to 
 lavish on another, that we are to obtain the favour of 
 Heaven? The empire offeree and forced inequality, would 
 be indeed necessary to support such impotent absurdities. 
 Whatever mode of the distribution of wealth tends to the 
 most happiness, must be most pleasing to a benevolent 
 being. Heaven, therefore, can never be interested in 
 forced inequality, though those that abuse its name for 
 their own selfish purposes, may. 
 
 Is it to uphold a particular system of government, or 
 any branch of any system of government, that forced ine- 
 quality, that inequality not called for by security, must be 
 upheld ? What is the object of all just government ? W 7 hat 
 but to promote by just laws, ninety-nine out of a hundred 
 of which are directly or indirectly concerned with wealth, 
 the greatest happiness of the whole community, or, where 
 that is not practicable, of the greatest number of the com- 
 munity ? But this very object is the end aimed at by our 
 distribution. No government, no institution or branch of 
 any government, no caste, should be upheld by society 
 which contravenes this just distribution; because, by so 
 doing, it contravenes the only useful, and, therefore, the 
 only just, object of its existence. The more ancient any 
 institution is, that contravenes this object, that has stood 
 in the way of this distribution, the more of human misery 
 it must have caused, or of happiness it must have pre- 
 vented, and the sooner it ceases to existthose subject to 
 it persuaded of its evil tendency and wishing its removal 
 the better. 
 
 For what other purpose, then, could it be necessary to 
 maintain forced inequality, or any degree of inequality 
 

 122 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 beyond what is called for by security ? Is it to uphold 
 truth, to perpetuate the belief in a certain system of doc- 
 trines, of morals, of philosophy ? First, of philosophy, of 
 physical truth. Of all the benefits we derive from physical 
 knowledge, the most important by far is the power which 
 it ultimately gives us of turning to use, in the shape of 
 articles of wealth, the materials and energies of nature, 
 making human labour more available in the production of 
 the means of enjoyment. The other uses of knowledge, 
 the pleasure of the intellectual pursuit and the raising of 
 the mind above superstitious fears, which are almost always 
 founded on an ignorance of the laws (or regular course) of 
 nature, are surely in no way dependent on excessive ine- 
 quality of wealth. On the contrary, excessive inequality 
 narrows and lessens these sources of happiness from wealth, 
 and converts them, in the hands of a few, into mere means 
 for upholding their exclusive objects, whatever they may 
 chance to be. That physical truth, or real physical know- 
 ledge, cannot be discovered, demonstrated, or perpetuated 
 without the aid of forced inequality of wealth, of inequality 
 not demanded by security, scarcely any one will at present 
 contend, the whole current of experience and every-day 
 facts are so entirely opposed to such a notion. Almost all 
 useful discoveries have been made by persons in moderate 
 or lowly circumstances ; the pressure even of want having 
 been frequently the original impulse that launched genius 
 on its wings. Excessive wealth almost annihilates all 
 motives to exertion. Competence may be requisite to 
 remove disturbing considerations; but here the influence of 
 wealth ceases ; and there is no greater foe to competence 
 than forced inequality. Any awe or respect, that makes 
 us admit, or believe, or rather pretend to believe, any pro- 
 position, without full conviction, grounded on satisfactory 
 appropriate evidence, is altogether pernicious to the dis- 
 covery or communication of truth, and ought to be anxiously 
 guarded against. The evidence, and nothing but the evi- 
 dence, ought to influence the mind. 
 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 123 
 
 Will forced inequality of wealth tend to improvements 
 in morals, and ought it to be maintained for the advance- 
 ment of morality ? Morality, that is to say> the direction 
 of our voluntary actions to useful, to the most useful, pur- 
 poses, requires adequate motives to set it into action. On 
 the just or unjust, the wise or unwise, the forcible or the 
 voluntary distribution of wealth in a community, depend, 
 much more than upon any other, or all other causes com- 
 bined, the nature and the energy of these motives to good 
 or evil. "Pis the worst of folly, or the worst of insincerity, 
 to affect to separate morality from wealth, from the con- 
 sideration of those solid influential motives to good or evil 
 conduct, which the possession or the want of the materials 
 of happiness, supplied by wealth, affords, For what, in 
 the ultimate resort, on almost every occasion, is the great 
 contest between morality and immorality, between law and 
 crime ? for what, but for the possession of the objects of 
 Wealth ? Wealth, at the same time, supplies the motives to 
 vice and virtue, and is the object of pursuit, and the instru- 
 ment of reward. Where force is excluded, and reason must 
 win its purposes by persuasion addressed to competence, 
 there will exist the maximum of motives for the practice 
 of the social and personal virtues. But just such is the 
 state of things under the natural distribution of equality 
 limited by security. Forced inequality can never, therefore, 
 be anything but destructive to morality. 
 
 To render our argument complete, to meet our oppo- 
 nents on that ground where silence might be construed into 
 a surrender of the universality of our principle in their 
 favour, we ask, " Should any degree of inequality not de- 
 manded by security, be maintained for the support of what 
 are called spiritual doctrines, or creeds, for belief in any- 
 thing beyond the strict severity of evidence adduced to sup- 
 port it ?" The absurdity of any compulsion, whether in the 
 way of wealth or otherwise, in support of any such systems, 
 Mussulman, Jewish, or Christian, is a thousand times more 
 flagrant than in support of the ordinary physical truths of 
 
124 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 natural science. All knowledge or pretended knowledge 
 is interesting to mankind, and ought to be attended to, in 
 proportion to the extent, the certainty, and the proximity 
 of the advantages it promises to afford. Is this, the spi- 
 ritual species of study or speculation, judged important by 
 mankind ? they will naturally, from a regard to their in- 
 terest, attend to it. Is it not judged by mankind to be of 
 any leading importance to them ? they will not, and ought 
 not to be compelled to attend to it. 
 
 Persuasion alone is to be admitted, to exhibit to men 
 the importance of spiritual doctrines. What more is neces- 
 sary to demonstrate to mankind their truth ? If such doc- 
 trines be true, appropriate evidence will command assent 
 to them, as to other physical or moral truth, from all ordi- 
 narily organised beings. But over and above this, there is 
 Divine influence, in the case of spiritual doctrines, giving 
 tenfold efficacy to ordinary human means of persuasion. 
 And as we have shown that it would be the extreme of folly 
 to permit any forced inequality of property, or any other 
 species of force, to aid in the discovery, maintenance, or 
 diffusion, of unsupported human knowledge ; so would it 
 be incredibly more absurd to permit any such interference 
 to aid that whose pretensions are Divine. The genuine 
 and the loud voice of history, and of every day's experience, 
 declares, that in proportion to the absurdity of spiritual 
 doctrines is the demand for force to maintain them ; that 
 force is a mere succedaneum to make up for the deficiency 
 of evidence ; and that all doctrines, requiring any such aid 
 for their support, demonstrate their own weakness, useless- 
 ness, and falsehood. Such doctrines are weak, because it 
 is one of the distinguishing attributes of truth to rely fear- 
 lessly, even to presumption, on its own powers of persuad- 
 ing : they are useless, because, if their importance to human 
 happiness could be shown, men would as willingly attend 
 to them as to any other means of well-being : they are 
 false by their own showing, inasmuch as they acknowledge 
 themselves incompetent to operate conviction without the 
 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 125 
 
 extraneous, corruptive, and terrific means of wealth and 
 force. Allow to any one man, or set of men, on the face 
 of the earth, wealth and force, to discover, uphold, or pro- 
 pagate what they call truth ; and what possible reason can 
 be given that any other man or set of men whatever, from 
 the lama of Thibet to the African fetiche-man, should not 
 be favoured with similar means to uphold and propagate 
 their supernatural notions ? Truth, physical, moral, or 
 spiritual, requires, admits of, no means of persuasion but 
 the exhibition of appropriate evidence, and the removal of, 
 or the abstinence from, force. 
 
 SECTION 15. 
 
 WHAT PROPORTION OF THE PRODUCTS OP THEIR LABOUR OUGHT THE LABOURERS 
 TO PAY FOR THE USE OF THE ARTICLES, CALLED CAPITAL, TO THE POSSESSORS 
 OF THEM, CALLED CAPITALISTS? 
 
 In Section 6 it was promised that this amount of com- 
 pensation, exacted by capitalists from the productive 
 labourers, under the name of rent or profits, as claimed 
 for the use of land or other articles, should be inquired into. 
 
 The rule of free and voluntary exchanges would appear, 
 on a first view, to operate tremendously against the mere 
 unprovided productive labourer, with no other possession 
 than his capability of producing; for all the physical 
 materials on which, or by means of which, his productive 
 powers can be made available, being in the hands of others 
 with interests opposed to his, and their consent being a 
 necessary preliminary to any exertion on his part, is he 
 not, and must he not always remain, at the mercy of these 
 capitalists for whatever portion of the fruits of his own 
 labour they may think proper to leave at his disposal in 
 compensation for his toils ? Is this situation of the pro- 
 ductive labourer irremediable ? even under the shield of 
 free labour, entire use of its products, and voluntary 
 exchanges ? Are there no limits to these taxes on industry, 
 to- these exactions of capitalists ? Is the amount of these 
 
126 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 exactions altogether arbitrary, or are there any natural 
 limits to its excess ? 
 
 (There are two points of view under which this most 
 important matter may be considered. First, Are these 
 deductions from the labourer, of the products of his labour, 
 just ? do they intend to increase production, to increase the 
 enjoyments derived from production ? 
 
 Second, useful or not, Can they, without preponderant 
 evil, without the employment of force which would anni- 
 hilate all production, be avoided?^ 
 
 (That every abstraction made from the labourer of the 
 products of his labour, whether by open force, or by the 
 indirect compulsion of want extorting a species of volun- 
 tary acquiescence, must proportionally decrease his 
 motives to production, and consequently the amount of 
 production, is sufficiently apparent.*) The effect in dis- 
 couraging production is beyond dispute. It signifies not 
 the hand, whether rich or poor, or by whatever name 
 called, that abstracts any part of the products of labour, or 
 prevents their acquisition ; in proportion to the amount of 
 products withheld, whether called profits, or taxes, or 
 theft, or any other mode of loss, will be the discouragment 
 to reproduction. ^The necessity of maintaining existence 
 alone, not the cheerful desire of increasing happiness, will 
 become the prevailing stimulus to labour, as the use of 
 its products is withdrawn from the producer .^ This being 
 so, what is the proportion of the products of labour with- 
 drawn from the labourer by capitalists alone ? and what 
 would be the additional motives to production if these 
 defalcations ceased to exist ? 
 
 These defalcations vary in different countries, in the 
 
 same country at different times, and according to the 
 
 species of labour from which they are substracted ; but 
 
 they appear to subtract at least one-half of the products of 
 
 f labour from the use of the producer, even where capital is 
 
 i most abundant, and the competition amongst capitalists 
 
 as far as such competition can aid the labourers most 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 127 
 
 active. First, the labourer, say the mechanic at woollens 
 or cottons, earning about two shillings a-day or about 
 thirty pounds a-year, pays for his house or lodging about 
 five pounds a-year. He has evidently no other fund out 
 of which to pay this rent than the produce of his labour, 
 whether deducted by the capitalist for whom he labours, 
 or by labour paid to another. Next comes the claim, of 
 the employer who owns the buildings in which the 
 mechanic works, the unwrought materials which he is to 
 fabricate, and the machinery (the tools) with which he 
 must operate, as well as the wages to be advanced until 
 the wrought article is exchanged. The amount of this 
 capital, fixed and circulating, may be from thirty to a 
 hundred pounds for every labourer employed, the average 
 profit on which may be set down at ten pounds. There 
 can be no other source of this profit than the value added 
 to the unwrought material by the labour guided by skill 
 expended upon it. The materials, the buildings, the 
 machinery, the wages, can add nothing to their own value. 
 The additional value proceeds from labour alone. The 
 spade may as well be called the parent of the grain, instead 
 of the labourious arm that wields it, as any of these 
 articles constituting capital, can be called the parents of 
 the manufactured article. 'Twas labour that gave to all 
 these their value as wealth, before they came into the hand 
 of the mechanic; and by his additional labour alone can 
 their value be still further increased* un the usual course 
 of things, then, the productive labourer is deprived of at 
 least half the products of his labour by the capitalist ; the 
 amount of his labour being thirty pounds, and his rent and 
 the profits on the stock that is said to employ him, being 
 fifteen pounds.} 
 
 'Tis of no avail to say that the operative labourer does 
 not understand the machinery by which the fruits of his 
 labour are thus subtracted, that he regards the operation 
 as inevitable, and takes what he can bargain for as the 
 most that the nature of things will allow him. The owner 
 
128 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 of the capital most frequently understands as little of these 
 matters as the working mechanic. But the ignorance of 
 the labourer does not increase the absolute quantum of 
 remuneration left him after the demands of capitalists are 
 satisfied. According to this amount of remuneration will 
 his future exertions the necessities of existence excepted 
 be. Whether withheld by the niggardliness of nature, 
 or the justice or injustice of man, the unproductiveness of 
 enjoyment from labour, must dimmish the desire to 
 produce and the amount of production. 
 
 " Without this capital, in the shape of machinery, 
 materials, &c.," it will be insisted, that " mere labour would 
 be comparatively unproductive ; and therefore it is but 
 just that the labourer should pay for the use of that, with- 
 out which, by whomsoever owned, his mere productive 
 powers would be inefficient." 
 
 Doubtless, the labourer must pay for the use of these, 
 when so unfortunate as not himself to possess them ; the 
 question is, how much of the products of his labour ought 
 to be subtracted for their use ? 
 
 (Two measures of the value of this use, here present 
 themselves : the measure of the labourer, and the measure 
 of the capitalist. The measure of the labourer consists in 
 the contribution of such sums as would replace the waste 
 and value of the capital, by the time it would be consum 
 with such added compensation to the owner and superin- 
 tendent of it, as would support him in equal comfort with th 
 more actively employed productive labourers. The mea 
 sure of the capitalist, on the contrary, would be the addi 
 tional value produced by the same quantity of labour, i 
 consequence of the use of the machinery or other capital ; 
 the whole of such surplus value to be enjoyed by the capi- 
 talist for his superior intelligence and skill in accumulating 
 and advancing to the labourers his capital, or the use of iy 
 
 The difference of the amount to be paid by the labourer 
 for the use of the capital necessary to enable him to exert 
 his productive powers, according to these two different 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 129 
 
 measures, is immense. It is the difference between almost 
 perfect equality, and excess both of wealth and poverty. 
 Let it be illustrated on the calculation just made. The 
 labourer pays five pounds a-year for his house. The house 
 cost fifty pounds, and is calculated to last fifty or one hun- 
 dred years. By the labourer's measure of the use of this 
 article of capital, he should pay one pound or ten shillings 
 a-year rent for the yearly loss in value, according to the 
 time the house would be in consuming, with a trifling sur- 
 plus to repay the trouble of the owner say five shillings 
 a-year out of each of a hundred houses, or as many as it 
 would employ one man to superintend, amounting to 
 twenty-five pounds a-year to enable him to enjoy as much 
 as any of the operative labourers. Fifteen to twenty-five 
 shillings a-year rent, instead of one hundred shillings, 
 would be for this item the charge on the labourer. For 
 the use of the capital of his employer, it would be in about 
 the same proportion, or something more, in consequence of 
 the more perishable nature of the capital employed that 
 part which consists in machinery not being liable to last as 
 long as the house. If fifty pounds be the amount of the 
 working capital, and, if the average of its duration be 
 thirty-five years, two pounds a-year must be paid to 
 replace this yearly waste, and for the trouble of the capi- 
 talist greater than that of the mere house-owner, and 
 requiring more skill and time say, ten shillings instead of 
 five are to be added. Fifty shillings a-year profit instead 
 of two hundred shillings, would be for these remaining 
 items, the charge on the labourer. Adding the rent and 
 profits together, the labourer would have to pay sixty -five 
 to seventy-five shillings per annum, for the use of one 
 hundred pounds capital, instead of the three hundred 
 shillings, or fifteen pounds, the half of the whole amount 
 of the products of his labour, which he now pays. Were 
 the labourer employed in agriculture, the value of the land 
 and stock necessary to render the powers of the agricultural 
 labourer productive would have to be estimated, instead of 
 
130 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 the manufacturing capital; and the charge for its use 
 would be something less. Were the labourer the owner of 
 his own capital, the five shillings a-year compensation to the 
 owner of the house, and the ten shillings a-year compensa- 
 tion to the owner of the capital, would still be saved to him, 
 the care necessary to preserve his own capital being rather 
 pleasurable than painful to himself and requiring no re- 
 muneration, the real wear and tear being all the necessary 
 expense that he must incur. Were this one hundred 
 pounds capital the produce of his own labour, it would be 
 of still less cost ; and one-half the yearly amount of labour 
 now paid to the capitalists, would be sufficient to replace 
 in the labourer's hands, the several items of capital by the 
 time they were respectively consumed. 
 
 Such being the measure of the labourer of the value of 
 the use of the capital necessary to make his labour pro- 
 ductive, what is the measure of that value as made by the 
 capitalist ? Before the invention of machinery, before the 
 accommodation of workshops, mills, or factories, in which 
 to labour, what was the amount of produce which the un- 
 aided powers of the labourer produced ? Whatever that 
 was, let him still enjoy, with the additional ease and 
 comfort in the production which the superiority of the 
 tools and the protection of the buildings afford. To the 
 maker of the buildings or the machinery, or to him who 
 by voluntary exchange acquired them, let all the surplus 
 value of the manufactured article go, as a reward for, and 
 stimulus to, his superior intelligence in the fabrication or 
 acquisition of them ; for the advance of the material on 
 which he works, let the labourer pay in the same propor- 
 tion, according to its value and the time he retains it, 
 as without the material neither buildings nor machinery 
 could be turned to account, and the merit of appropriation 
 and accumulation is as great in the case of materials as of 
 buildings or machinery. His improved dwelling-house 
 being one of the items preserving his health and strength 
 as well as the articles kept therein, and thus contributing 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 131 
 
 with the other capital to make his labour more productive, 
 or to increase his healthful time for labour, let the rate of 
 the profit of other capital determine this likewise. Or let 
 the whole capital for which the labourer pays, rent and 
 profit, be regarded as one common instrument to add to 
 the productive powers of his labour ; and let the several 
 owners of this capital share between them, in proportion 
 to its amount and perishableness, the additional value thus 
 given to the labour of the ignorant producer. Let the 
 labourer enjoy with more ease and comfort what he 
 formerly enjoyed ; but let all the rewards of superior 
 intelligence be secured to those possessing it, the accumu- 
 lators of capital. 
 
 What says justice, what says utility, to these rival 
 claims ? Equality pleads altogether in favour of the pro- 
 ductive labourer. Security stands neuter, prohibiting to 
 either party the use of compulsion. If the measure of the 
 labourer prevails, what is the consequence ? (Accumulation 
 beyond the means necessary to enable every labourer to 
 make his labour productive, will not be urged on by such 
 irresistible motives as now prevail ; but this point attained, 
 the desire of further accumulation would become compara- 
 tively weak, being excited by little hope of enjoyment, either 
 in the way of vanity or comfort, beyond that possessed by 
 operative labourers^ the chief recompense for accumulation 
 | being the substitution of mental and gentle muscular ex- 
 I ertion for more efficient, perhaps more healthful bodily 
 labour. As to real comfort, that of the operative labourer 
 would be so much increased, that the accumulator would 
 not lose so much by being reduced to his level as present 
 appearances might indicate. The richest capitalist would 
 be but reduced to a situation intermediate in point of wealth . 
 between his present situation and that of the present de- 
 graded labourer. In point of real happiness, the situation 
 of the labourer and capitalist would be perhaps equally 
 improved. ^But in proportion as motives to accumulation 
 beyond this point, for mere vanity and distinction, lost 
 
 j 2 
 
132 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 their force, motives to that degree of accumulation neces- 
 sary to render labour productive would be strengthened 
 and would increase. The whole of the products of labour 
 being ensured to the producer, the utmost energy would be 
 employed in production, and necessarily in the acquisition 
 and retaining of those means or instruments indispensable 
 to render labour productive. The yearly produce, and 
 consumption of the products of labour, to increase enjoy- 
 ment, being the real object of rational effort, in comparison 
 to the extent of which productive power, the extent of ac- 
 cumulation is as nothing, and accumulation being con- 
 sidered merely as a means to this great end, the universal 
 desire of enjoyment and of production as the only path to 
 lead to enjoyment, would ensure to every one the posses- 
 sion of the capital required for such purposes.) Every 
 year, as human labour became more productive by machi- 
 nery or otherwise, the rewards of labour would be increased; 
 houses, machinery, dress, food, would be improved, not for 
 a few accumulators or capitalists, but for all. Capital 
 would be increased in a tenfold ratio, though in masses 
 almost equal, and universally diffused, because every one 
 would be interested in its accumulation, and would be able 
 to accumulate it as far as really useful, that is to say, as 
 far as worth the trouble by rational men of producing it. 
 The mass of national wealth would be immensely 
 greater than at present, though no person might possess 
 ten times more accumulated capital than his neighbour. 
 All the increase of happiness proved to arise from equality 
 of distribution, would prevail ; and men would produce for 
 the sake of the absolute comforts to be derived from 
 wealth, not for the sake of mere relative comforts, of a 
 comparison of their superiority with the wretchedness of 
 their fellow-creatures. 
 
 If, on the contrary, the measure of the capitalists 
 prevails, what is the consequence ? Whetted by the stim- 
 ulus of the gratification of unbounded desires, of superi- 
 ority without assignable limit to the destitution around 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 133 
 
 him, the desire of accumulation supersedes with the capi- 
 talist even the love of enjoyment. To inequality of 
 wealth there is no bound : it becomes the ruling passion : 
 the distinction which it confers, the envy which it excites, 
 urge men on to acquire it by any means ; talents, virtue,] 
 are sacrificed to it. Every expedient which force and 
 cunning can use to appropriate the fruits of other men's 
 labour, and with this view to turn the mass of mankind 
 into ignorant contented drudges, is erected into a custom 
 or a law. A universal and always vigilant conspiracy of 
 capitalists, of necessity the most intelligent, exists every- 
 where, because founded on a universally existing interest; 
 to cause the labourers to toil for the lowest possible, and to 
 wrest as much as possible of the products of their labour 
 to swell the accumulations and expenditure of capitalists. 
 (Yet such is the rage of these men for distinction, for ex-, 
 penditure as an instrument of distinction rather than of 
 any direct enj"oyment7that the products of the labour of 
 thousands are swallowed up for no other end than to 
 gratify such unsubstantial desires.,) What accumulated 
 wealth there is in such a community, is gathered into the 
 hands of a few ; and as well from its bulk as from its 
 contrast with the surrounding poverty, it strikes every eye. 
 The productive labourers, stript of all capital, of tools, 
 houses, and materials to make their labour productive, toil 
 from want, from the necessity of existence, their remune- 
 ration being kept at the lowest, compatible with the 
 existence of industrious habits. The mass of national 
 wealth, though its individual heaps might be a thousand 
 times greater than under nearly equal distribution, bears 
 no proportion to what it would be, if smaller portions of 
 capital necessary to make labour productive, were posses- 
 sed by the productive labourers, by all. The extremes of 
 luxury and magnificence prevail. The evils of inequality 
 are pushed to the utmost. The desire of accumulation 
 reigns unbounded : production is stimulated chiefly by 
 want. 
 
134 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 , I In point of fact, neither the measure of the producer 
 kor of the capitalist prevails ; but a measure between the 
 two, formed out of the conflict of their opposing interests, 
 and varied by a thousand casual circumstances in every 
 society. The measure of the capitalist of the value of the 
 use of his capital, pushed to its extreme, would annihilate 
 production from its zeal to accumulate, or to appropriate, 
 to itself the products of labour. The measure of the 
 labourer, without the universal diffusion of knowledge and 
 justice, could not prevail. In proportion as force and 
 fraud have been removed in the progress of the develop- 
 ment of wealth, the tendency has been towards the 
 measure of the labourer; and every expedient, legal or 
 otherwise, employed to counteract this tendency, has 
 resulted from selfishness or ignorance, and lessened the 
 mass of enjoyment. The amount demanded for the use of 
 capital depends more on the mode of its distribution than 
 on the absolute quantity accumulated. Whatever may be 
 the amount of the capital accumulated, whether large or 
 small, if it all remain in the hands of the producers, the 
 price demanded for the occasional use of any portion of it 
 would necessarily be at the lowest, from the few persons 
 unprovided with capital, and of course the feeble com- 
 petition for the use of it. But where all the capital of the 
 community is in the hands of men called capitalists, and 
 scarcely any remains in the hands of the producers, there 
 will the price of the use of it be very high, whether the 
 absolute quantity of capital be large or small, from the 
 multitudes, the great majority of the community unpro- 
 vided with capital, and of course the immense competition 
 to obtain the use of it. The greater the supply of 
 capital amongst the capitalists, the lower of course will be- 
 come the price of its use, the numbers of the unprovided, 
 and the competition remaining the same. But the absolute 
 amount of capital in the hands of the capitalists of any 
 community, affords no guarantee to the efficient producers 
 of wealth that the remuneration of their labour will be in- 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 1 35 
 
 creased, that a greater proportion of its products will be 
 left in their hands at their own disposal. Under systems 
 of insecurity, capitalists will not find or deem it their in- 
 terest to permit their capital so to increase as to reduce 
 materially its profits or the cost of its use. When accu- 
 mulating to this point, the desire of enjoyment shows 
 itself in increased luxury of expenditure.) In foreign wars, 
 by means of loans, capital is expended by political power : 
 it is utterly consumed and annihilated ; and in return its 
 owners acquire, under the guarantee of political power, a 
 claim on the products of the annual labour of the working 
 community : whereas, had this capital been applied to the 
 maintenance of productive labour, instead of being con- 
 sumed in loans, and thus taken out of the market of 
 competition ; instead of entailing a burden on productive 
 labour, it would bring down the profits of stock, and thus 
 tend to throw more of the products of labour into the 
 hands of the producers. The burden without equivalent, 
 the interest on the loan, would be altogether saved to the 
 industrious community, and for their labour, capitalists 
 would besides be compelled to pay them more liberally 
 no new expedient being devised to check this natural ten- 
 dency of things. 
 
 (Our second question with respect to the deductions 
 from the products of labour taken by capitalists for the 
 use of the articles constituting their capital, was " useful 
 or not, can these deductions be avoided without the produc- 
 tion of preponderant evil in the employment of force?" 
 If the simple removal of restraints, and the consequent 
 diffusion of knowledge, be not sufficient to abate these 
 deductions, they ought not by any other means to be 
 abated : for no other means than those of force remaining, j 
 the employment of such an instrument would annihilate j 
 production. All institutions and expedients contravening ' 
 the rules of distribution here laid down being removed, the 
 producers being permitted to follow their real interests, 
 and the acquisition as well as the enlargement of knowledge 
 
136 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 being facilitated to all, those deductions would soon be 
 reduced to the lowest compatible with reproduction, and 
 the producer would gradually recover the entire use of the 
 products of his labour, or the nearest approach to it which 
 the ultimate and extended interests of all producers would 
 permit.} The different modes of production and distribu- 
 tion, by which producers, as rational beings, under the 
 shield of equal security, as specified under the name of the 
 natural laws of distribution, might accomplish this object 
 of enjoying the whole of the products of their own labour, 
 will be pointed out. Enough at present to get a glance at 
 the mighty evils spread over the producers, wherever the 
 capital necessary to make their labour productive is accu- 
 mulated in any other hands than their own. 
 
 SECTION 16. 
 
 GENERAL INFERENCES FROM THE FOREGOING PREMISES. STATEMENT OP THE 
 
 "NATURAL LAWS OF DISTRIBUTION," OR GENERAL RULES OR PRINCIPLES, THE 
 OBSERVANCE OF WHICH IS NECESSARY IN ORDER TO ATTAIN THE GREATEST 
 
 HAPPINESS DERIVABLE FROM WEALTH. 
 
 If we have entered with great earnestness and* minute 
 detail into the proof of the propositions at the head of the 
 several sections of this chapter, it has been with the view 
 of establishing a few simple, intelligible, and most impor- 
 tant rules, to serve as first principles in the distribution of 
 wealth. As we have hitherto proved directly their truth, 
 that is to say, their accordance with the organisation and 
 circumstances of man, and their tendency to promote the 
 greatest happiness to be derived from wealth ; so shall we, 
 frankly and unhesitatingly, follow in subsequent chapters 
 wherever truth may further lead us, in the development of 
 all the other consequences interesting to mankind, that 
 appear to flowjrom an undeviating adherence to these 
 simple rules. 'These are what may be called the 
 natural laws of distribution.} The observance of these 
 rules or laws will lead, without effort, to the enjoyment of 
 the greatest portion of the benefits of equality that can be 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 137 
 
 had without preponderant evil, i. e., without violating secu- 
 rity, and with security curtailing and ultimately annihil- 
 ating production itself, Every person exercising them is 
 of course bound to respect the same rights in every other 
 member of the community. | The grand secret demonstrated 
 is, that it is the interest of all communities to substitute 
 reason and voluntariness, for force, in the distribution of 
 wealth, as well as in all their other concerns ; that in the 
 distribution of wealth, as in every other department of 
 morals, the duty and the interest of individuals coincide, 
 mingle with, and form the aggregate of national happiness, 
 f In the preceding sections what have we proved ? First, 
 It is evident that if we wish to extract from wealth the 
 greatest happiness it is capable of affording those who 
 produce it, we shall be of opinion that " all labour ought 
 to be free and voluntary, as to its direction and continuance." 
 
 All labour should be " free" from external compulsion 
 as to its direction and continuance. On all unappropriated 
 articles labour ought to be free, because, no appropriation 
 having been made, no rival claim can be set up ; no consent 
 is to be asked. On appropriated articles labour is to be 
 free from all external compulsion, the consent of the appro- 
 priator having been obtained. 
 
 All labour should be " voluntary" as to its direction and 
 continuance/; that is to say, not only should no external 
 compulsion restrain its action on any unappropriated 
 or conceded appropriated article ; but even to direct it to 
 any of these, no motives but those capable of moving the 
 will, through the reason, the affections, or both, should be 
 employed. Man can only be induced to act through the 
 will, or by force : there is no alternative. Delusion is still 
 voluntariness, and knowledge is its appropriate cure. For 
 the lengthened proof of this first rule or law of distribu- 
 tion, the reader is referred to the five first sections. 
 
 What is the second rule that the preceding facts and infer- 
 ences have proved ? " All the products of labour," it has 
 been shown, "ought to be secured to the producers of them." 
 
138 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 The object being to promote happiness, and, of course, 
 the greatest quantity of happiness ; and this quantity 
 depending, other things being equal, on the quantity of 
 articles of wealth produced to promote that happiness ; 
 that quantum of use of the products of labour ought to be 
 enjoyed by the labourer, which will call forth this greatest 
 happiness and greatest production. 
 
 Under the present system of things, the producer is, 
 as to happiness, at the very lowest point of the scale at 
 which he can be kept, consistently with the continuance of 
 his efforts. As is production, the expedients of insecurity 
 restrict the acquisition of skill, and the use of capital (the 
 materials of production) to so few, and render such num- 
 bers utterly useless to production, that with one-half the 
 labour which is now extracted from the misery bf a few, 
 four times, or, perhaps, ten times the quantity of produc- 
 tion, on the whole, would be obtained from the active 
 energies of an equally-informed and skilful community, all 
 enjoying the whole of the products of their individual exer- 
 tions. The accumulation of the general capital of the 
 community for a few accidental exceptions, to a small 
 amount, would cause no perceptible derangement in any 
 other hands than those of the real operative labourers, 
 necessarily arrests the progress of all industry, but that 
 which will leave the usual remuneration of capital which 
 the time and circumstances afford, to the holders of the 
 capital. Though millions might be made happy by employ- 
 ment on the existing capital, land, food, houses, machines, 
 of any community, if rendered skilful and permitted to 
 use them at a profit, say one-fourth, or any proportion, 
 less than that which a very few skilful labourers of the 
 same community could be made by limiting, by direct and 
 indirect means, their enjoyments to nothing, to yield to 
 the holders of the capital ; yet as long as that force-sup- 
 ported organisation of things continues, by which one set 
 of men possess the productive powers alone, and another 
 possess the physical means of putting those productive 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. " 139 
 
 powers into operation, so long will the latter, the capi- 
 talists, use the means in their power to render the labour 
 and the happiness of all labourers subservient to their 
 greatest interests ; so long will the happiness of the whole 
 human race be sacrificed, if necessary in the estimation of 
 capitalists, to produce an additional quarter per cent, 
 profit. The labourers in their place would do the same, 
 being all equally the creatures of the circumstances sur- 
 rounding them. As long as two hostile masses of interest 
 are suffered to exist in society, the owners of labour on 
 one side, and the owners of the means of labouring on the 
 other, as long as this unnatural distribution is forcibly 
 maintained for without force, wielded by ignorance, it 
 could not be maintained so long will, perhaps, as much 
 as nine-tenths of attainable human productions never be 
 brought into existence, and so long will ninety-nine hun- 
 dred parts of attainable human happiness be sacrificed. 
 To obviate these evils, by excluding force altogether from 
 the distribution of wealth, it is necessary to observe our 
 second rule, "All the products of labour should be secured 
 to the producers of them/LJ 
 
 For the lengthened illustration and proof of this ^second 
 rule of equal security in respect to property or wealth, see 
 Sections 6, 8, 9, and 10. 
 
 There is still another rule to be deduced from the pre- 
 cecffng sections, making with the two former what we call 
 the " natural laws of distribution," or principles of security 
 respecting property or wealth. "All exchanges of the 
 products of. wealth ought to be free and voluntary." In 
 Sections 7, 11, and following, this proposition is proved. 
 
 As in the first rule, principle, or law, respecting the 
 direction and continuance of labour, so in this respecting 
 exchanges of the products of labour, the word " free/' as 
 well as "voluntary," is made use of. Exchanges must be 
 free as referring to external constraint, and must be volun- 
 tary as respects the intelligent agent. Were the word 
 " free" not made use of, it might perhaps be said, " All 
 
140 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 the exchanges that are permitted, ought to be voluntary ; 
 but there are many exchanges which it would be unwise to 
 permit." To obviate, therefore, the possibility of misun- 
 derstanding the meaning, the second word is introduced ; 
 though the first alone, in its fair signification, might be 
 sufficient to convey the whole intended meaning. In Sec- 
 tion 12, this rule of exchanges has been developed. 
 
 Our lengthened discussions, it will be seen, have had 
 for their sole object to remove all regulations and inter- 
 ferences with labour and its products depending on force ; 
 and to substitute knowledge and persuasion for them in all 
 matters relating to wealth, by means of intelligible and 
 simple first principles or rules of action, the observance of 
 which, constituting what is called security as to property, 
 would lead of itself, without effort, to the utmost possible, 
 nearly approaching to a perfect, equality of distribution 
 of wealth, and thus to the greatest happiness derivable 
 from it. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF THE EVILS ACTUALLY PRODUCED BY FORCED INEQUALITY 
 OF WEALTH. 
 
 IT is one thing, to have shown the benefits that are neces- 
 sarily attendant on a distribution of wealth, such as the 
 natural course of things, under the shelter of impartial 
 justice between man and man, aided by the constant ad- 
 vancement and diffusion of knowledge, would produce. To 
 exhibit the evils of a contrary course, of an attempt at 
 forcing wealth into certain hands, or of maintaining it in 
 those hands by partial regulations and without such forced 
 and partial regulations it can never be so maintained 
 will carry our main argument to the highest point of what 
 we may call moral demonstration. All the evils arising 
 from excessive inequality of wealth, from that inequality 
 which is effected either by direct force or by unequal laws, 
 may perhaps be usefully referred to one or other of the 
 following heads : 
 _I. Of its moral evils. 
 
 1. Excessive inequality of wealth, that is to say, all 
 inequality over and above that which is necessary to sup- 
 port the natural laws of distribution free labour entire 
 use of its products and voluntary exchange diminishes 
 the sum total of human enjoyment, by subtracting from 
 the masses of happiness of the greater number. 
 
 2. It does not add to the happiness, on the balance of 
 its effects, of those few who possess the larger shares. 
 
 3. It engenders positive vices in those having the larger 
 shares, in the excessively rich. 
 
 4. It excites the admiration and the imitation, and in 
 this way diffuses the practice, of those vices of the rich in 
 the rest of the community, or produces in them other vices 
 
142 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 arising out of their relative situation in respect to the 
 excessively richj 
 
 [Tl. Of its economical evils. 
 
 1. Its yearly income is consumed by unproductive 
 f&v labourers, and is therefore so much annual loss of the pro- 
 ductions of the national industry. 
 
 2. It encourages such arts and trades, in the exchange 
 of its income, previous to consumption, as are the most 
 insecure and unequal in their remuneration, and therefore 
 the least tending to national welfare/] 
 
 III. Of its political evils. 
 
 It necessarily leads to the usurpation of the powers of 
 legislation, as well as of the executive and judicial authority, 
 by those unqualified by education to exercise them aright, 
 and with interests hostile to the general or national 
 interest. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 OP THE MORAL EVILS PRODUCED BY FORCED INEQUALITY OP WEALTH. 
 
 Who will deny that excessive inequality must diminish 
 the sum total of human enjoyment, by subtracting from the 
 masses of happiness of the greater number, in as far as 
 that happiness consists in the pleasures dependent on the 
 possession of wealth ? If any number of heaps of any 
 article be exposed, and a little be taken from each, nothing 
 is more clear than that each individual heap will be les- 
 sened. Just so it is with happiness : we cannot measure 
 directly the sensations and other feelings that constitute 
 happiness itself; but we can measure the physical means, 
 the instruments by which these pleasurable feelings are 
 excited. These means being lessened in each, the aggre- 
 gate of individual, which alone constitutes the general, 
 happiness, is diminished. Were the riches of the rich any- 
 thing more than the annual or other periodical products of 
 the labour of the rest of the community then, and in this 
 imaginary state of things, it might so happen that the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 143 
 
 wealth of the excessively rich might exist without a deduc- 
 tion, exactly correspondent in extent, from the portions of 
 the rest of the community. It follows, then, that excessive 
 inequality, being attainable only by deductions from the 
 products of the individual labours of the whole of the rest 
 of the community, must lessen the sum total of the enjoy- 
 ments derived from the wealth of that community. To 
 justify this inequality, caused by force or unequal laws, it 
 would be necessary to show that the additional happiness 
 enjoyed by those having excessive wealth is so great, as 
 more than to counterbalance the in dividual deductions from 
 the happiness of those who have produced the wealth, the 
 society at large. But so very far is this from being the 
 case, as already shown in the 8th and 9th sections of the 
 last chapter, that we shall find, that 
 
 The second evil arising from that inequality of wealth 
 which can only be produced by violence or unequal laws, 
 and which renders exertion unnecessary for the continuance 
 of the possession of wealth called here, excessive ine- 
 quality, is, that it does not add to the happiness even of 
 those few possessing the larger shares. This result arises 
 from several facts always recurring, in the way of ante- 
 cedents and consequents, called " laws of nature," observed 
 in the play of our physical organisation. Inequality of 
 wealth, acquired in any other way than by means of the 
 voluntary exchanges of successful industry, or the free 
 gift of wealth so acquired, is, on an immense probability of 
 chances, attended with this effect, that as it renders exertion 
 unnecessary, so it renders it unpractised. Exertion, im- 
 plying an effort attended with some degree of discomfort 
 before its ultimate object can be produced, requires to be 
 stimulated by some adequate motive ; and the excessively 
 rich, as a body, being without motives to exertion, are 
 condemned to inaction and listlessness : they know not 
 how to pass away, or (very energetically speaking) to kill 
 their time ; they feel the void, the wearisomeness of exist- 
 ence ; for them has been formed the word ennui, to denote 
 
144 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 the wretchedness of a continual want of sensations, physical 
 or mental 
 
 " The veriest pang the wretched find, 
 
 Is rapture to the dreary void, 
 The leafless desert of the mind, 
 
 The waste of feelings unemploy'd." 
 
 Hope has no brightening prospects for them ; desire 
 no wish, by exertion, to be accomplished. What are the 
 expedients to which they are necessarily driven, in order 
 to fly from this vacuity of thought and feeling ? To renew 
 and repeat eternally the pleasures of the senses ? To enjoy 
 an eternal banquet of tastes, of sounds, of forms, and colours, 
 of odours, and of all the varieties of feeling .? Alas ! nature 
 interposes and baffles the schemes of contentment, not to 
 say of happiness, from such continual excitements. It is 
 a fact always recurring, and what we call a law of nature, 
 that the nerve excited beyond a certain time, or a certain 
 degree, loses the power of enjoyment, till relieved by rest 
 and abstinence. Nay, this law of our nature, this fact of 
 our organisation, goes even further. Not only are rest and 
 abstinence required to recover the capacity for a renewal 
 of sensual pleasures ; but if we presume to push these 
 pleasures to excess, if we go a step beyond the point of 
 gratification, by way of forcing nature to more intense or 
 lengthened enjoyment, she indignantly repels us from, her 
 bosom, and lassitude, and disgust, and loathing, infallibly 
 succeed, and even the capacity for enjoying future sensual 
 pleasures is more or less impaired ; not to speak of remote 
 constitutional effects in predisposing to disease, and lessen- 
 ing the duration of life. Supposing that wisdom or pru- 
 dence avoids these latter evils, how are the unoccupied rich 
 to fill up the dreaded daily void spaces of their existence ? 
 In sauntering, trifling, gossiping, in worthless pursuits, or 
 in pernicious pursuits, say the experience of all ages and 
 nations, and the very nature of our organisation. Happy 
 are they amongst them, who can make to themselves an 
 interest in vying with their grooms or coachmen in the care 
 of hunting dogs, or the fashionable mode of brandishing 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 145 
 
 their whips, and guiding their brown or grey horses. If 
 extravagance of foolish expenditure do not accompany 
 these pastimes, time is at all events killed by them, and 
 the dreaded feeling of the vacuity of life is removed. 
 After the idlers and the foolishly busy, come the perni- 
 ciously busy, professed sensualists, intriguers, gamblers, 
 &c. Those who require stronger excitements to keep 
 awake the feeling of existence, are of this class ; and 
 numerous, and to be pitied they are, their pursuits being 
 justly denominated vices, from the miseries which they 
 entail on themselves and others. 
 
 We may conclude, then, that the excessively rich is not 
 as happy as the moderately rich ; because, in sensual 
 pleasures, nature will not permit him to go beyond what 
 the moderately rich has the means to gratify ; because he 
 has no uniform aim or object of exertion in life which the 
 moderately rich and the occupied possess, to maintain their 
 station or to advance it ; and because long leisure hours 
 are occupied with silly or pernicious pursuits, while the 
 few hours of leisure after exertion of the employed, are 
 turned to pleasure, though the walk, the air, the sun, the 
 skies, may be their sole invigorating causes of delight. 
 
 But we have undertaken to show that not only is exces- 
 sive wealth unable to make the excessively rich happier 
 than the moderately rich, but " it engenders positive vices 
 in the possessors of these excessive shares of wealth." The 
 vices produced by excessive wealth, under the name of the 
 vices of luxury, have been, in almost all countries and 
 ages, the themes calling forth the reprobation of moralists. 
 Stealing, lying about the ordinary concerns of life, stingi- 
 ness, at least towards their equals, are not the vices of the 
 excessively rich ; but sensual excesses, a disregard of all 
 the personal virtues of prudence, an irreclaimable selfish- 
 ness arising from an over-estimate of their own importance, 
 and of the superior value of their own happiness, want of 
 fortitude to bear the ordinary evils and casualties of life 
 these are the vices inseparable, in a great majority of cases, 
 
 K 
 
146 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 from the possession of excessive wealth. That sensual 
 excesses are vicious, merely, like all other vices, because 
 they tend to misery, no one, I believe, will dispute : that 
 those who have the means, without effort, of indulging, as 
 it is called, in these excesses, will be more apt to yield to 
 them than those who are not so well provided with the 
 means of enjoyment (or if provided by means of exertion, 
 giving a substitute and a habit of other pursuits), cannot 
 be disputed. Amongst the poor the necessities of their 
 existence, amongst the middle classes the defect of suffi- 
 cient means, limit, respectively, the possibility or the pro- 
 bability of sensual excess ; while amongst the excessively 
 rich there is no restraint to the headlong gratification of 
 appetite, but enlarged views of distant evils ; which en- 
 larged views, on the one hand, are in no way confined to 
 the rich ; while, on the other hand, they have the least 
 aptitude to be influenced by them. As to the restraining 
 motive of public opinion, the influence of religion, of the 
 laws, these are, not to say equally operative on the rest of 
 society as on the rich, but much more operative. There 
 remain, then, greater means of gratification with the rich, 
 and, therefore, other things being at least equal, greater 
 excesses and abuse of sensual pleasures. 
 
 The tendency of excessive wealth to produce improvi- 
 dence, cannot be doubted ; and though the want of prudence 
 is not so great a vice, as not being attended with so great 
 evils, to the very rich, as to the moderately rich, not to speak 
 of the poor, to whom it would be perdition ; yet it is neces- 
 sarily incidental to excessive wealth ; and vicious, in as far 
 as it tends to induce misery to themselves, or indirectly, to 
 others. The sensual excesses and the improvidence of 
 excessive wealth, are necessarily accompanied with a want 
 of fortitude in bearing the casualties of life. To excel in 
 anything, exercise and habit are necessary : the whole 
 range of human ingenuity is employed to remove every 
 source of pain and disquiet from the very rich ; to avoid 
 every appearance of pain or discomfort is the study of their 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 147 
 
 lives ; and in the education of their infants this principle 
 of warding off immediate physical evil is entirely followed 
 out. What is the consequence ? As they are not per- 
 mitted ever to run the risk of experiencing physical evil, 
 they cannot acquire the habit of enduring it with fortitude. 
 Fortitude, like the strength of a particular muscle, must 
 be acquired by exercise, by early habit. When the exces- 
 sively rich suffer ever so slight a pain, physical or mental, 
 every one around, not to speak of paid servants and ex- 
 pectants, sympathises, or seems to sympathise, with him : 
 when the poor man suffers, sympathy is regarded as an 
 act of benevolence, not of expected good manners. The 
 constant operation of this unequal sympathy must inevi- 
 tably produce in the minds, not only of the excessively 
 rich themselves, but of the bulk of mankind their enviers 
 and admirers an over-estimate of the importance of their 
 happiness, as compared with that of the rest of their fellow- 
 creatures. 
 
 Our next position is, that " excessive wealth excites the 
 admiration and the imitation, and in this way diffuses the 
 the practice of the vices of the rich, amongst the rest of the 
 community ; or produces in them other vices arising out of 
 their relative situation to the excessively rich." On this 
 point, nothing is more obvious than the universal opera- 
 tion of the most common principle of our nature that of 
 association. The wealth, as the means of happiness, of the 
 excessively rich, is admired or envied by all ; the manners 
 and character connected with the abundance of these good 
 things, always strike the mind in conjunction with them, 
 and the approbation excited by wealth, naturally spreads 
 itself over its adjuncts. Can those qualities not be de- 
 lightful which are joined with such delightful things ? 
 Now, does it tend to the happiness of society i. e., of the 
 individuals who compose society that such qualities as 
 sensuality, imprudence, pusillanimity, and selfishness, 
 should be viewed through a fallacious medium, and pal- 
 liated, and excused, and followed, rather than reprobated 
 
 K2 
 
148 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 and shunned? Can it tend to the happiness of society 
 that its wealth, the produce of its industry, should be so 
 distributed as to raise such qualities as these in the public 
 estimation, by ensuring their practice on the part of the most 
 influential of its members ? From the false glare through 
 which these qualities are viewed, there are many even 
 who regard them rather as amiable weaknesses as mere 
 venial faults, than as vices, the more dangerous, because 
 treacherously pernicious. 
 
 Besides the imitation of these injurious qualities prac- 
 tised by the rich themselves, it is a curious infelicity 
 attending the existence of excessive wealth, that it 
 generates other vices in the rest of the community, not 
 dependent on imitation, and of which the example is 
 not necessarily set by the rich themselves. An over- 
 anxious pursuit of wealth as the one thing needful to 
 obtain not only physical pleasures, its more appropriate 
 object, but as the means of power and reputation, to the 
 exclusion of all other means, such as those of genius or 
 virtue, constituting personal merit is eagerly instituted 
 by all, and becomes the moving spring of society. " Get 
 wealth, if possible, honestly ; but at all events get wealth," 
 becomes an established maxim. Consequent on the over- 
 anxious pursuit of wealth, are the servility and cor- 
 ruption to which excessive wealth gives rise throughout 
 the community in which it exists. Wealth becomes the 
 only medium of influence ; and for wealth everything is 
 sold. Truth, honour, the affections, the person which 
 should be the prize of excited regard and love, political 
 rights of immense but remote utility, nothing in life so 
 sacred as not to find its price in money. Hence a universal 
 rushing into every vice and crime, attended with the hope 
 of impunity, that promises to attract this universal good. 
 Where excessive wealth does not exist, men have not the 
 means to bribe their fellows to the meannesses, or the 
 cruelties, of iniquity ; for so distasteful is vice so much 
 does it excite the reaction of the injured, and the oppro- 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 149 
 
 brium and ill-offices of society, that it will not be practised 
 without such an equivalent as excessive want, ungoverned 
 passions, or excessive wealth, have to bestow. As the mass 
 of the community become easy in their circumstances, the 
 influence of excessive wealth is reduced ; and it is forced 
 to direct itself to less revolting modes of control. But 
 these enormous masses have a constant tendency to prevent 
 or retard this ease of circumstances ; and their influence is 
 not thereby eradicated, but directed to other objects, and 
 rendered on the whole less pernicious : it endeavours to 
 accomplish by corruption, by the equivalents of wealth, 
 what, in a less advanced state of society, would be effected 
 by the force of the servile hireling. A David, in modern 
 times, could not, for a small bribe, procure the murder of 
 the husband of her whose beauty excited his desire, but 
 would expend thousands in purchasing the courtly acqui- 
 escence and utter blindness of the husband; and thus, 
 through all society, would wealth operate in buying vice. 
 So universal, so notorious, so inevitable, is this effect of 
 excessive wealth, that nothing is more common than for 
 the haughty corrupters themselves, to affect or to feel con- 
 tempt for the tools and creatures of their own systems and 
 temptations, and to justify the use of such means from the 
 absence of all those moral qualities which their very 
 employment had eradicated ; or rather which, under the 
 existence of such a state of things, could never have 
 been excited. 
 
 SECTION 2. 
 
 OP THE ECONOMICAL EVILS OP FORCED INEQUALITY OP WEALTH. 
 
 Of this class of evils, the most palpable, but the most 
 misunderstood, or most strangely misrepresented, is, that 
 the yearly income of excessive wealth is consumed by unpro- 
 ductive labourers, and is, therefore, so much annual loss of 
 the productions of the national industry. 
 
 Why is one x species of labour called productive and 
 another unproductive ? Because the one species of labourer 
 
150 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 produces a visible and tangible article of the matter of 
 wealth, in lieu of, and to replace, that portion of wealth 
 which he received by way of equivalent for his labour ; 
 while the other produces nothing visible or tangible, gives 
 no article of wealth back in exchange. Two men get two 
 shillings each, for their day's labour : the one produces at 
 the end of the day a tangible and useful basket, the source 
 of future economy and comfort, and which will procure in 
 exchange any other equivalent object of desire ; the other 
 produces for his two shillings, bows and grimaces and 
 obsequious answers from time to time, which, when the 
 motions are over and the day is past, would, if put up to 
 auction, hardly find a purchaser, as there would be nothing 
 but the remembrance of them to give as an equivalent ; 
 the two shillings, or their worth in meat, drink, or clothing, 
 have been in this latter case consumed without return, and 
 society is so much the poorer; but in the case of the 
 maker of the basket, production has been going on at an 
 equal pace with consumption, and the wealth of society is 
 not by such consumption diminished, but in general 
 increased, as something more is generally produced to be 
 accumulated under the name of capital. In the same way, 
 by everything consumed by the rich themselves and by 
 every one of their dependants, of those amongst whom 
 they divide their wealth, without, a tangible equivalent of 
 the matter of wealth produced by their labour during the 
 consumption, the wealth of the society is daily decreased 
 to the whole amount of such consumption. What then ? 
 do not the excessively rich feed the productive labourers ? 
 could they, the productive labourers, live, and produce, 
 and consume, and enjoy, if there were none such ? They 
 could indeed ; and it is they alone who feed, and clothe, and 
 pamper, the rich. Who ever heard that the excessively 
 rich ever gave his wealth to the productive labourer, with- 
 out exacting a return, an equivalent fully equal in value 
 to the portion of wealth he gave in exchange? If the 
 excessively rich give to the productive labourer of corn, or 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 151 
 
 hats, five shillings, for a bushel of corn to the one, or five 
 shillings for a covering for the head to the other ; would 
 not the same producer of hats, or of corn, be equally bene- 
 fited if the excessively poor had made a similar exchange 
 with him ? Is the money, the medium of exchange or the 
 representative of value, or the article of value given itself 
 in exchange, more valuable because it has come out of the 
 hands of a rich man, or a rich man's domestic, than if it 
 had come out of the hands of the poor ? Is gold given in 
 exchange more heavy, or corn more nourishing, because 
 they have passed through the hands of idleness? In 
 neither case is the seller obliged to the excessively poor, or 
 to the excessively rich, for the exchange, any more than 
 they are obliged to him ; every voluntary exchange imply- 
 ing a preference of the thing received, on both sides, to the 
 thing given. But every article of wealth consumed, whether 
 of food, clothes, furniture, &c., without the production of an 
 equivalent, of an equal mass of wealth, is so much, in an eco- 
 nomical point of view, lost to the community. The consump- 
 tion of the productive labourer never decreases the wealth 
 of society, because he never consumes but on the condition 
 of reproduction. Not so with the unproductive ; every 
 atom of wealth consumed by him is so much deducted from 
 the general stock. 
 
 It is clear that the expenditure of excessive wealth, 
 indeed of all income consumed by unproductive labourers, 
 is annually lost to society; no return, in the shape of 
 wealth, being afforded by it. So much sophistry has been 
 employed on this head by the luxurious and the timid, 
 seeking to establish a fancied unreal merit for the pos- 
 sessors of excessive wealth, and thence a sympathy in its 
 support, that numerous objections to this simple truth 
 might be stated and exposed. Real utility is the only 
 basis on which any particular distribution of wealth, or 
 any other human institution, will henceforth depend. It 
 is wise, therefore, rejecting all fallacious supports, to seize 
 and rely on those which are true and good. These, as far 
 
152 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 as the distribution of wealth is concerned, it is our object 
 to point out and illustrate. Happy, were it a frequent 
 question amongst the rich, " In what way do I benefit 
 society, what equivalent do I afford it for the excess of the 
 matter of wealth consumed by me, without reproduction, 
 over and above what productive labourers consume ? If 
 I give no return in the way of reproduction, let me in some 
 other way contribute to the public good." 
 
 If, then, any man wishes to know whether he is a pro- 
 ductive labourer, or a mere consumer, in the great field of 
 national wealth, let him simply ask himself, " whether he 
 produces anything of exchangeable value, during the day, 
 the month, the year, of his consumption, to the full amount 
 at least of what he has consumed ?" If he have produced 
 nothing directly himself, has he, by the making of tools, 
 machines, &c., set productive labourers to work; or has 
 he, by any contrivances, by acting as carrier or agent 
 between the producers and consumers, or by any other 
 means, enabled them, by concentrating their attention, to 
 produce more than they would otherwise have done ? If 
 he have not been, directly or indirectly, instrumental to the 
 reproduction of as much, or more, than he has consumed of 
 the tangible matter of wealth, he is not only useless, but 
 pernicious to society as far as the increase, nay the 
 preservation, of the national wealth, is concerned. What 
 moral equivalents the excessively rich give to society for 
 their enormous consumption, we have already seen. 
 
 We have now to show that " excessive wealth encou- 
 rages such arts and trades, in the exchange of its income 
 previous to consumption, as are the most insecure and 
 unequal in their remuneration, and, therefore, the least 
 tending to the national welfare" f~A luxurious man has 
 not the capacity of increasing the size of his stomach, or 
 the dimensions of limbs and trunk, so as to elaborate a 
 greater quantity of food, or to demand a greater extent of 
 clothing, than the poor or the moderately rich. What 
 does he, then ? As he cannot increase in quantity, he will 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 153 
 
 excel in quality ; at all events, he will use something 
 different from other people, and more costly, in order to 
 distinguish himself from them in some way requiring less 
 labour than moral or intellectual superiority.'"] In those 
 countries where there are no manufactures or commerce 
 where there is no comfort in the way of food, no neatness 
 of dress, amongst the community where not only the 
 productive labourers have been unable to accumulate 
 capital, but where there are even no middle class with 
 capital (the produce of labour to facilitate its future pro- 
 gress) where there is no intellectual culture, no know- 
 ledge, no public opinion ; there, as in all the East, and, 
 until lately, in the despotisms of Europe, the rich ex- 
 pended in sumptuous clothing, in the childish ornaments 
 of uncommonly glittering gems, and such optical splen- 
 dours attached to their persons, vast portions of their 
 wealth. But, in countries where capital and comfort 
 have, in spite of folly and rapine under the name of 
 government, increased amongst the community ; where 
 the middle orders, under the name of plebeians, &c., 
 have acquired the means of purchasing feathers and pre- 
 cious stones, and similar gew-gaws, to vie with the exces- 
 sively rich in the ornament of their persons ; there, the 
 rage for the pomp of dress amongst the excessively rich 
 becomes weakened. Why so ? Because it no longer serves 
 the purpose for which it was originally used ; it no longer 
 distinguishes the wearer ; it no longer points him out to 
 the gaze of the vulgar as an envied mortal, clad, and 
 beautified with clothing, beyond other men. "Pis curious 
 to see the mean and brutal contrivances to which, by the 
 aid of legislation, and under the cloak of morality, the 
 rich have had recourse, when they found themselves in 
 danger of being out-vied in finery of dress by the produc- 
 tive classes, by the industrious. They have been con- 
 stantly in the habit of inflicting sumptuary punishments, 
 through the instrumentality of what have been called 
 " sumptuary laws," on all those not belonging to them- 
 
1-54 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 selves, or, to use a conventional phrase, not of their rank, or 
 caste, who should imitate the finery of their dress ; thus 
 forcibly monopolising to themselves the distinctions of 
 apparel. Where such efforts have not been made where 
 no law has prohibited the competition, the rich (as in 
 these countries) have fairly given up the competition of 
 the distinctions of dress, and have resorted to other means 
 of showing their superiority of wealth. Numerous horses 
 and chariots, costly equipages, rich liveries, and constant 
 change of exquisite materials for their own persons, become 
 .the means of distinction to the rich. These cannot be so 
 easily imitated ; a mock coach and horses cannot be made 
 like a mock diamond, nor can ordinary or rational men 
 overtake the velocities of fashionable changes of attire. 
 In the article of food, also, 'tis what is costly and exquisite, 
 but at all events what is uncommon what serves to distin- 
 guish, and, in their opinion, to raise, them above the rest 
 of the community, that they use. Their furniture, also, 
 everything about them, is liable, from the same principle, 
 the desire of making their wealth the means of distinction, 
 to the changes of taste or caprice ; for, if Grecian models 
 were universal, the excessively rich would spurn them. 
 Variety, even under the guidance of caprice, must be their 
 idol ; for, what is the main object of their lives but to excite, 
 to keep up, by artificial means, those emotions for which 
 the satiety of excessive wealth has precluded the usual 
 excitements ? The changes and the variety of external things 
 are amongst the most effectual means, in their power, of 
 accomplishing this object. In all their pleasures, then, 
 variety, novelty, rarity, will be a main ingredient. What 
 effect will this state of things produce on the species and 
 character of the artisans, with whom the rich exchange a 
 portion of their income previous to consumption ? 
 
 It will not call into being any productive labourers who 
 would not otherwise have existed ; it will create nothing. 
 What will it do, then ? It will simply give a new direction 
 to the labour of a given number of the productive classes ; 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 155 
 
 it will divert them from the production of ordinary and 
 substantial things for every-day use, to the production of 
 those which are costly, rare, and liable to the changes of 
 fashion. Were there none, or but little, of excessive wealth, 
 there would be no demand for what had not real utility or 
 permanent beauty, according to the best notions prevalent 
 at the time ; mere novelty and caprice could not be indulged 
 in at the expense of real comforts. But whete all real wants 
 and comforts are supplied to saturation, without personal 
 exertion, unreal wants must be excited, or there will be no 
 mode of employing the superfluity of wealth; it would 
 otherwise lie idle, or be given to productive labourers 
 in exchange for useful works for the public good. Very 
 seldom is the latter alternative of getting rid of superfluous 
 wealth resorted to, and still more seldom the former. It is 
 employed, then, in what are called elegancies, luxuries 
 partaking more or less of caprice. The ordinary wants and 
 comforts of society remain through ages nearly the same ; 
 the food, and clothing, and form and mode of constructing 
 dwellings, change but slowly ; they depend on physical 
 circumstances of climate, natural productions, degree of 
 intercourse with foreign nations, all modified by the know- 
 ledge of the age. All these circumstances change but very 
 slowly. The nature and form of the productions to which 
 they give rise, partake, of course> of their steadiness of 
 character. Wants remaining the same, it takes a genera- 
 tion to change the fashion of an article ; and, during this 
 slow revolution of demand, the productive labourers have 
 time to accommodate themselves to the change. 
 
 But there exists, in the very nature of things, a constant 
 source of caprice in the demand for all those extra articles 
 of luxury called for by excessive wealth. If they were 
 necessary or conducive to any palpable comfort, nature, or 
 our organisation, would constantly indicate the articles to 
 be procured, and the demand would be, and for such articles 
 is, constant. But, where all wants are already gratified, 
 and nothing left even for the adaptations of convenience, 
 
156 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 mere chance or caprice, that is to say, inappreciable mo- 
 tives, must guide the choice. The effect is, that, one year, 
 the productive labourers whose industry produces what are 
 called Cashmere shawls, another year those who dive for 
 pearls, another year or another period those who dig or 
 search for diamonds, are called into active industry ; and, 
 if the caprice causing the activity of the demand be intense, 
 their reward is very liberal ; for these freaks of demand 
 must be supplied at once, or they are apt to turn their 
 longings towards other and more speedily attainable frivo- 
 lities. The urgency of the caprice enhances the demand 
 for the peculiar species of labour, for the article in request ; 
 and this naturally induces many to leave other lines of in- 
 dustry, and engage in the more liberally paid, new branch. 
 At length, however, the sickly ardour of fashion relaxes 
 the bauble, become old or familiar, ceases to please, and the 
 trade in the superfluity, so lately active, is now compara- 
 tively at a stand. On the fixed and moveable capital 
 employed during the great demand, there must be more or 
 less of loss in transferring it to other employment. Such 
 trades are a species of lottery a gambling concern. High 
 prices attended the fever of the demand ; the producers 
 were well paid, enjoyed much, probably foolishly, intem- 
 perately, from the irregularity of the supply, and from 
 want of previous habits of arranging expenditure to such 
 liberal payment. Sudden demand begat habits of impru- 
 dence and dissipation ; sudden ceasing of the demand throws 
 many into absolute want, or reduces the payment of the 
 wages of all down to, or below, the price of ordinary labour, 
 or produces at the same time both these effects, each in a 
 minor degree. Privation of customary enjoyment, misery 
 to a less or greater extent, are caused by these changes 
 want always, on a number of persons, begets vice. If 
 sudden over-payment begat excess and intemperance, sud- 
 den lowering of wages engenders falsehood, theft, cruelty. 
 The savings of high wages are not reserved for the wants 
 of a future reduction ; but the remembrance of them em- 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 157 
 
 bitters actual privation, and engenders a feeling of injustice. 
 The inclination, the ability to work, remain as before ; but 
 employment, without any fault of the labourers, is taken 
 away from them. How have they deserved this ? To repair 
 the injustice, they will prey on the produce of the industry 
 of others. Unoccupied, with disposable energies liable to 
 any direction, they yield to any impulse, to which projects 
 engendered by themselves or others, of a political, fanatical, 
 or any other description, may give rise. Idleness, voluntary 
 or forced, of the rich or of the poor, is the fruitful parent of 
 misery and vice. 
 
 jit is plain, then, that not only is the ultimate consump- 
 tion of the yearly income of excessive wealth, an annual 
 loss to the community of a portion of the products of 
 labour, most of which would be converted by a wiser dis- 
 tribution into an eternal accumulation of capital ; but even 
 that species of industry which it peculiarly encourages, in 
 its exchanges previous to consumption, is, of all species of 
 trade and labour, the least conducive to the public goodJ 
 
 SECTION 3. 
 
 OP THE POLITICAL EVILS OP FORCED INEQUALITY OP WEALTH. 
 
 [Under this head we shall point out but the following 
 overwhelming evil. 
 
 Excessive wealth necessarily leads to the usurpation of 
 the powers of legislation, as well as of the executive and 
 judicial authority, by those unqualified by education to 
 exercise them aright, and with interests hostile to the general, 
 or national, interest.^ 
 
 The object to be aimed at in legislation, to which every 
 political, as well as economical, regulation should tend, is to 
 promote the greatest happiness of the community, t. e., of 
 the greatest number of' the community. Now, is there not 
 one essential requisite 'to be possessed by any persons 
 undertaking to make regulations having this object in 
 
lt)S On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 view, without which neither knowledge nor activity is of 
 any avail, but rather become the means of mischief? Is 
 it not an essential requisite that the makers of these regu- 
 lations should have a sympathy, a fellow-feeling, an identity 
 of interest, with the community, that is to say, with the 
 greater number of the community, for which the regulations 
 are formed ? Or, if it be impossible that they should have 
 this identity of interest, or at all events this lively sym- 
 pathy, is it not necessary that they should be under the 
 real and bond fide control of those whose interests they 
 represent, of the produce of whose labour, and of all of 
 whose rights they exercise the disposal? Or rather, in 
 order to accomplish this undertaking supposing always 
 the undertakers to be possessed of such appropriate know- 
 ledge as the age allows is it not necessary for the security 
 of the community that this double guarantee should be 
 imposed ? that sympathy and accountability should both of 
 them be required from those entrusted with the solemn 
 charge of making laws, and exercising the judicial and 
 executive powers ? 
 
 If this be so, if these be plain political truths, how 
 shall we find them to apply to the excessively rich ? Have 
 they a sympathy, a fellow-feeling, an identity, or, even in 
 any obvious respect, a community of interest with the 
 community, with the greater number of the community ? 
 First, as to their wealth (in as far always as not obtained 
 by free labour or voluntary exchatfge, or not requiring 
 active industry for its preservation), it stands in direct 
 contrast to the poverty of the greater number of the com- 
 munity, even to the moderate means of the active mem- 
 bers of society possessing capital. Their wealth, acquired 
 for the most part by original spoliation and perpetuated 
 by injurious laws, not acquired by industry, by free 
 competition and voluntary exchanges, is a constant source 
 of pride to them, and of envy to those who do not possess 
 it. The excessively rich, as a class, like all other classes 
 in every community, must obey the influence of the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 159 
 
 peculiar circumstances in which they are placed, must 
 acquire the inclinations and the characters, good or bad, 
 springing out of the state of things surrounding them from 
 their birth. Haying always possessed wealth without 
 labour, they look upon it as their right, and their family's 
 right, always to possess it on the same terms. Not only 
 do they look down on the productive labourers of the 
 community as beings below them, but" they affect a marked 
 superiority over those who purchase wealth by means of 
 accumulations produced by successful industry and volun- 
 tary exchanges. All history, and the state of things at 
 present in every country of the globe, prove this invariable 
 disposition of excessive wealth appropriated to particular 
 classes. To uphold, to perpetuate, and to increase, their 
 wealth and influence, their wealth, as the chief means of 
 their distinction, is their ruling object, at the expense of 
 whoever may be affected by it. How is this to be accom- 
 plished ? By labour, by industry ? Those they despise. 
 By a shorter mode ; by seizing on political power, and up- 
 holding a system of things, varying with the circumstances 
 of different countries, and calculated to keep down the rest 
 of the community, they endeavour to perpetuate their own 
 superiority of wealth from the participation of that unceas- 
 ing envy with which they are surrounded. 
 
 In point of wealth, there is evidently a contrariety of 
 feeling and interest between the excessively rich and the 
 rest of the community. How stands the case with respect 
 to those other features in the characters of both, in which 
 wealth is not directly concerned ? Are the habits and the 
 pursuits of the excessively rich, so much in accordance with 
 the habits and pursuits of the rest of the community, as to 
 generate a sympathy and regard for each other's happiness 
 in spite of the tendency of the inequality of wealth ? No ; 
 but they tend to aggravate tenfold this inequality. Mark 
 the difference of the moral and intellectual qualities, of the 
 habits, of the manners, the whole character, of the rich and 
 the poor, of the very rich arid the industrious, of the pro- 
 
160 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 ductive, and the immensely over-fed unproductive classes. 
 In all, they are unlike to each other ; in their virtues, in 
 their vices, in their pleasures, in their pains, in their occu- 
 pations, in their amusements. Do they ever associate 
 together the very rich with the poor ? For what purpose 
 should they associate ? The pursuits and the conduct of the 
 rich man, if followed one day by the poor, would involve 
 him in ruin for life ; while, to the rich, it is but a day's 
 pastime. The niggardly parsimony which, to the rich, is a 
 matter of contempt, is necessary for the poor man's exist- 
 ence ; and yet the generosity that the poor practice towards 
 each other, in comparison to their means, is such as should 
 make most rich men blush ; though, the actual sum given 
 being small, the rich affect to despise it, and think they are 
 more generous because they give, numerically, more. How 
 can the very rich exchange thoughts or feelings with the 
 poor ? Were all the wisdom and benevolence that poetry 
 ever blended together stamped on the character of the 
 poor, what attractions could they possess for the rich, 
 unaccompanied with those manners, mostly conventional, 
 with which excessive wealth associates all claim to respect ? 
 The influence of manners amongst the excessively rich, is 
 all-commanding ; and this influence must necessarily con- 
 tinue : for hazardous, energetic, and doubtful pursuits, 
 being out of their course of life, their time being unoccu- 
 pied, and demanding light amusements to fill it up, sub- 
 stance being banished from their occupations, form and 
 manner must be substituted for them. 
 
 The same circumstances operate between the rich and 
 the middle classes, but in an inferior degree. Friendly 
 intercourse and association between the active industrious 
 classes and the excessively rich, there is none, until by 
 means, of whatever description, the thriving amass such 
 wealth as to be admitted into the superior class. Then, 
 with an imitation of the manners of the great, and of their 
 lavish expenditure, a ticket of admission is easily procured, 
 deficiency of merit or intellect being no bar to the union. 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 161 
 
 The active classes have not time to associate with the 
 idle. The unoccupied rich are without understanding, 
 without interest, in those occupations of the active, which 
 engross their leading thoughts and desires. Occasional 
 intercourse in matters of business, in the exchange of 
 wealth, in which the class of the rich always affect the 
 character of givers and obligers, takes place between them ; 
 but the intercourse of Mends, the intercourse of equals, 
 never, or most rarely, occurs. The tone of mind of the 
 two classes is quite opposed to each other ; the one serious 
 and active, the other gay, or wearing the face of gaiety, and 
 enjoying; the one accumulates, the other expends and 
 consumes. As similarity of pursuits, of character, and 
 manners, is requisite, at least to a certain extent, to beget 
 sympathy and mutual regard between different individuals 
 and different classes ; and as a marked contrast of pursuits, 
 of character, and manners, exists between the industrious 
 and the class of unoccupied rich, so is it impossible that 
 there should be much sympathy between them. The 
 industrious classes have more knowledge and better man- 
 ners than the poor or the working classes. But still, the 
 unoccupied rich look on the industrious as at an immea- 
 surable distance from them. With the mere poor, they 
 will not risk the contamination of their breath ; with the 
 middle classes, they will condescend to speak ; but as to 
 inferiors their tone, their manner, everything betrays 
 their consciousness of the superiority of wealth. Where 
 are, then, to be found the sympathies of the very rich ? of 
 those who have nothing else to do but to find food for 
 pleasurable sensations and emotions ? Have they no sym- 
 pathies to exercise ? they, to whose unoccupied time such a 
 new stock of never-ending gentle pleasures must be par- 
 ticularly valuable ? On whom, then, are they expended ? 
 The sympathies of the very rich are called forth and ex- 
 pended on those whom they regard as their equals, and on 
 them alone. It could not, it cannot be otherwise ; we are 
 not blaming the rich for these tendencies of their situation ; 
 
 L 
 
162 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 we are merely investigating facts, and tracing them to the 
 circumstances by which they are produced. With the 
 excessively rich, the excessively rich sympathise ; all their 
 pursuits, their pleasures, their virtues, their vices, their 
 manners, their peculiar system of rules of honour, as sub- 
 stitutes for the diffusive morality of utility ; all these pro- 
 duce amongst them an esprit- de-corps, which makes them 
 regard each other as the most important class, as those for 
 whose particular happiness society is, and ought to be, con- 
 stituted. With each other's pleasures and pursuits they 
 are interested. These constitute the world to them. 
 
 Such being the inevitable tendency of excessive wealth, 
 when made the patrimony of any class, to narrow the range 
 of human sympathy to the comparatively few of the same 
 class or situation in life, what is the consequence ? how 
 does it affect our argument ? Is it peculiar to the exces- 
 sively rich, that their hopes and fears are excited and 
 engaged for what is interesting to those in similar circum- 
 stances with themselves ? By no means. There is not a 
 class or corporation in society to which the same rule will 
 not apply. The poor, the middle classes, the higher order, 
 the priests, the lawyers, all contract sympathies with each 
 other, to the exclusion, more or less, of the rest of society; 
 and the measure of this exclusion depends on the number 
 of points of contact remaining between them and the com- 
 munity at large. Those who are entirely independent of 
 all others, have the fewest points of contact with them. 
 
 It has been shown that the object of the distribution of 
 wealth, of all wise legislation respecting it, ought to be to 
 produce the greatest happiness of the greatest number. 
 Who sympathise the most with the greatest number ? The 
 poor certainly, the productive classes ; for their own pur- 
 suits, manners, and amusements, must touch them most. 
 If, therefore, the poor had knowledge, the best knowledge 
 of their age, as to the best means of promoting their own 
 happiness, to. them, as sympathising with by far the 
 greater number, ought the formation of regulations for the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 163 
 
 general good to be entrusted. To the class of excessively 
 rich, as sympathising with but a very few, they ought last 
 of all to be entrusted. But there is another quality besides 
 an identity of interest, or mutual sympathy, which is 
 necessary, which is indispensable, for the formation of use- 
 ful regulations; it is knowledge. Very seldom have the 
 poor, the great majority of the productive classes, know- 
 ledge ; if a few of them have hitherto acquired knowledge, 
 they have been almost universally raised above their class, 
 and have ceased to be poor. Seldom, therefore, from this 
 radical defect, can a poor man in the present state of 
 society be a fit person for the important task of legisla- 
 tion. If want of knowledge precludes the poor, want of 
 interest, of sympathy, excludes the excessively rich. 
 Whom, therefore, ought society to choose, whom would 
 they of necessity choose, under a natural arrangement? 
 Those possessing the requisite knowledge, that sympathise 
 most largely with the community. Poverty, equal to that 
 of the majority, as denoting an identity of interest and con- 
 sequent sympathy, would be the greatest recommendation, 
 provided it were joined with adequate knowledge. Exces- 
 sive wealth, as being the most opposed to identity of inter- 
 est and sympathy with the mass of the community, is the 
 most unfit to be entrusted with the making of national 
 regulations, though it possessed appropriate knowledge ; 
 because its interest, as a class, would misdirect its know- 
 ledge ; and the more knowing such men, the more skilful 
 they would be in shaping and rounding systems of exclu- 
 sive laws. The poor being necessarily excluded from want 
 of knowledge, the excessively rich from want of sympathy, 
 and misdirection of knowledge ; there remain those, whose 
 situations give rise to a fellow-feeling of interest with the 
 greater number, to an equality of knowledge with the fore- 
 most of the age in which they live, and to a direction of 
 that knowledge for the benefit of the greater number. 
 These are not to be found, either amongst the very poor or 
 the very rich of the community, but are to be selected in 
 
 L2 
 
164 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 the large intermediate space between the two ; always bear- 
 ing in mind, that want of wealth, superior to what the 
 majority of the community enjoy, other things ( 'qualifica- 
 tions ) being equal, is a recommendation, as securing an 
 extended sympathy, instead of a disqualification. The 
 more of this sympathy, the less need of counter checks. 
 
 But things being so, what has been, what must ever be, 
 the c.onduct of the excessively rich in qvery community 
 where an arbitrary inequality of wealth is maintained by 
 force, or by unjust, and, therefore, unwise, laws ? The 
 excessively rich, everywhere, and from their very nature, 
 seek to possess themselves of those very important func- 
 tions, for the useful exercise of which they are the most 
 incompetent. Whence arises this phenomenon? Simply 
 from the education of the very rich, and the circumstances 
 surrounding them through life. The unoccupied rich are 
 without any active pursuit ; an object in life is wanting to 
 them. The means of gratifying the senses, the imagina- 
 tion even, of sating all wants and caprices, they possess. 
 The pleasures of power are still to be attained. It is one 
 of the strongest and most unavoidable propensities of those 
 who have been brought up in indulgence, to abhor restraint, 
 to be uneasy under opposition, and therefore to desire 
 power to remove these evils of restraint and opposition. 
 How shall they acquire this power ? First, by the direct 
 influence of their wealth, and the hopes and fears it engen- 
 ders ; then, when these means are exhausted, or to make 
 these means more effectual, they endeavour everywhere to 
 seize on, to monopolise, the powers of government. Where 
 despotism does not exist, they endeavour to get entirely 
 into their own hands, or, in conjunction with the head of 
 the state, or other bodies, they seize, as large a portion as 
 they can, of the functions of legislation. Where despotism 
 does not exist, or is modified, they share amongst them- 
 selves all the subordinate departments of government; 
 they monopolize, either directly or indirectly, the com- 
 mands of the armed force, the offices of judges, priests, 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 165 
 
 and all those executive departments which give the most 
 power, require the least trouble, and render the largest 
 pecuniary return. Where despotism exists, the class of 
 the excessively rich make the best terms they can with the 
 despot, to share his power, whether as partners, agents, or 
 mere slaves. If their situation is such, as to give them a 
 confidence in their strength, they make terms with the 
 despot, and insist on what they call their rights; if they 
 are weak, they gladly crawl to the despot, and affect to 
 glory in their slavishness to him for the sake of the dele- 
 gated power of making slaves to themselves of the rest of 
 the community. Such do the histories of all nations prove 
 the tendencies of excessive wealth to be. 
 
 [This, then, is the career, the career of power, in oppo- 
 sition to the career of industry, of virtue, or of intellectual 
 superiority, to which the situation of the rich imperiously 
 summons them. The necessity of their condition forces on 
 them this career in preference to every other, as well to 
 preserve what they have, by whatever means, acquired, 
 as to fence themselves round with new securities against 
 the jealousies and intrusions of the mass of the community. 
 Under the nanie of rights or privileges, these possessors of 
 excessive wealth have usurped advantages over all other 
 classes, sometimes to the full extent of throwing the burden 
 of taxation, the whole cost of supporting the administra- 
 tion, which they alone were permitted to wield and to 
 enjoy, on the productive classes ; always, to the extent of 
 securing to themselves some advantages, entirely inde- 
 pendent of personal merit, withheld from the rest of the 
 community. 
 
 The radical defect in the constitution of society, that 
 which must necessarily engender every other evil, is the 
 excessive inequality of wealth. Wherever this radical evil 
 is permitted to exist, no free institutions, no just laws can 
 be made, or, if made, can be long supported. Without its 
 influence, no man would dare to assume the power of 
 making laws to dispose of the produce of the labour, of the 
 
166 On the Distribution of Wealth, fyc. 
 
 actions, and of the lives of rational beings, without being 
 authorised by them so to do, and without being accountable 
 to them for so tremendous an exercise of power. 
 
 Till mere wealth ceases to be the prime object of pur- 
 suit, mankind will never make any essential progress in 
 useful knowledge and beneficence. When the sanction of 
 public opinion shall be, as it may be, directed to the acqui- 
 sition of knowledge and beneficence, with the same inten- 
 sity that it is now directed to the pursuit of wealth, then 
 these will constitute personal merit, and will be, as they 
 ought to be, the leading objects of human pursuit, the solid 
 basis of human happiness. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF THE COLLATERAL BENEFITS OF THE NATURAL LAWS OF 
 DISTRIBUTION, "FREE LABOUR, ENTIRE USE OF ITS PRODUCTS, 
 AND VOLUNTARY EXCHANGES;" THAT IS TO SAY, OF EQUALITY 
 LIMITED BY SECURITY. 
 
 THERE is an effect, paramount to all others, the fruitful 
 parent of good, which will diffuse itself over the whole of 
 society, to be expected from following the natural laws of 
 distribution. They exclude force ; and, with force, they 
 exclude fraud. Eeason is the only successor to force ; 
 and she becomes by means of persuasion, and expression 
 through the public opinion, the arbiter of public affairs, as 
 Well as of the private transactions of life^ Let us point 
 out its effects in a political, economical, and moral view. 
 And first as to its political effects. 
 
 " If abstracting wealth, or levying money, by rulers, 
 without giving an equivalent deemed satisfactory to every 
 one from whom the value is taken, be a violation of 
 security, how can governments," it will be urged, " be 
 supported ? Must they ask the consent of every one from 
 whom they levy a tax ? Either they and the blessings of 
 order must cease, or the exercise of security in this 
 unlimited sense must be given up, and with it the natural 
 laws of distribution." 
 
 [Fortunately for mankind, security is reconcilable with 
 legislation, taxation, and the most perfect execution of all 
 useful laws. Nay, more, without the entire maintenance 
 of the principle of security, without unreserved respect 
 for the natural laws of distribution, no just legislation, no 
 just interference with human wealth or human actions, 
 can take place. Eespect for the principle of security is 
 the basis of all just government. 
 
103 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 How is this to be accomplished ? How is this problem 
 to be solved ? 
 
 Simply by means of the representative system of 
 government. The principle of security, producing the 
 greatest possible degree of equality and happiness, is 
 absolutely incompatible with any other species of govern- 
 ment.! It is the touchstone of all just legislation. Real 
 bondyide representation of every person possessing or 
 producing wealth, of every adult person capable of 
 engaging in rational voluntary transactions, and of course 
 of being influenced by the laws made. This right of 
 security is no metaphysical right, founded on abstract 
 principles, but necessary to evolve, at the same time, the 
 greatest production and the most useful distribution of 
 wealth, the chief operative means of human happiness. 
 Will it be said that even by means of representation, we 
 sacrifice the universality of our principle ? that individual 
 assent to every act interfering with the labour, or its 
 products, of any individual, would on our principles be 
 necessary to constitute just government? and that indi- 
 vidual legislation which is an impossibility in large 
 communities would be rendered necessary ? We reply, 
 Even individual legislation and immediate self-taxation 
 would imply a previous agreement of all to abide by the 
 decision of the majority, in all those cases where the 
 desires of the majority and minority are incompatible. 
 Without this previous understanding, no mutual action, 
 no system of co-operation could ever exist. It is a 
 condition necessary to all communion. Any one dis- 
 approving of this condition, cannot belong to the society ; 
 and all that such individual could claim would be, free 
 permission to withdraw from the society, and to connect 
 himself with any other; which permission would be so 
 obvious and useful an individual right, that every com- 
 munity should sanction it. The very act, then, of voting 
 in concert with others, necessarily implies a recognition of 
 the principle of adopting the act of the majority for that of 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 169 
 
 the whole. Now, under the system of representation, the 
 most extended, where millions, or tens of millions, of men 
 co-operate together, nothing more than this admission is 
 required to make the acts of the representatives of a com- 
 munity the voluntary acts of every individual in it. The 
 majority of the united representatives carry with them the 
 voices of the majority of their respective constituents, and 
 the acts of this majority become the acts of all the indivi- 
 duals of the community. In those cases where the will 
 and interest of the minority are not incompatible with those 
 of the majority, they ought to be pursued and promoted, 
 as well as those of the majority ; 'tis only in those cases 
 where they are incompatible, that either, and if either, of 
 course the smaller, should be sacrificed. If, then, a 
 majority of this great community, through their represen- 
 tatives, think proper, for any purpose, useful or not, to 
 appropriate any part of the products of their labour; 
 though they may act foolishly, as well as wisely, in such 
 appropriation, they can never be charged with violating by 
 it the principle of security. This is the only secret for 
 reconciling security with legislation, with the complete and 
 voluntary execution of all laws, even of those which inter- 
 fere with the products of labour, instead of the continued 
 execution of them through the terror of an armed host, 
 supported again by violating the security of the commu- 
 nity. This is not the occasion to enumerate all the bless- 
 ings of representative government. Enough to show, that 
 no other is reconcilable with the principle of security. QA11 
 pretended right to govern without delegation from the 
 governed, assumed by a single person, or by many, under 
 whatever name, in as far as it presumes to interfere with 
 the products of labour, or the direction of labour, stands in 
 hostility to security, to the natural laws of the distribution 
 of wealth. Representation and election alone are com- 
 patible with it. 
 
 We cannot even conceive any other plan than that of 
 representation for obviating the evils of insecurity. If 
 
170 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 any other could be devised, it would then be necessary 
 to compare its good and evil effects with those of repre- 
 sentation, and to give the preference to the most useful 
 expedient. The system of perfect equality of^ property in 
 a community, brought about by voluntary co-operation, 
 would not obviate the necessity of representation, in order 
 to reconcile public contributions with security ; for, not to 
 say that these communities, necessarily small not ex- 
 ceeding villages in size must have internal regulations, 
 they must also have connexions, in the way of exchange, 
 with neighbouring communities or individuals, and must 
 be as much interested in all works and institutions of 
 national utility, as any other portions of the great national 
 community amongst whom they may live. For these 
 purposes representation is indispensable. Common objects 
 must be attained by a great community, either by its own 
 immediate acts, or by the instrumentality of others. If 
 by others, without any power to that effect by the com- 
 munity, security is violated ; if in consequence of powers 
 given by the community, the representative system is 
 brought into effect. There are no half-way expedients 
 between voluntary and involuntary ; there are no auto- 
 matic motions in the rationale of government. 
 
 The first grand political benefit, then, from which 
 almost all others emanate, of an entire obedience to the 
 natural laws of distribution, is, that they render necessary 
 the universal establishment amongst all communities suffi- 
 ciently enlightened to perceive its utility, and of course to 
 maintain its action, Kepresentative Government. 
 
 Let us proceed to another political advantage of se- 
 curity. 
 
 \A. community, respecting the natural laws of distribu- 
 ^ ' tion, and enjoying all the individual happiness resulting 
 from the greatest possible equality of wealth consistent 
 with security, would be as little anxious to annoy their 
 neighbours by war, as they would be inclined to submit to 
 the unjust seizure of their property, the fruits of their 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 171 
 
 labour, by others^ Brought up in the exercise of laborious 
 industry accustomed to respect the acquisitions and the 
 rights of others as they value their own aware of the 
 mischiefs of brutal force, and of the unfailing and boun- 
 teous results of labour guided by intelligence ; what mo- 
 tives should lead such men to rush like a banditti on their 
 unoffending neighbours ? They know well, that while 
 plunder necessarily lasts but for a day, industry is the 
 only permanent resource of a community ; and that- their 
 plundering expeditions must necessarily be accompanied 
 with a dereliction of their industrious pursuits. No stand- 
 ing armies would be maintained, nor thought of, by such 
 a community ; nor would they be necessary. For external 
 affairs, "let other communities manage their own con- 
 cerns ;" for the rest, reason and reciprocity are the only 
 means of influence they wish for. For internal affairs, 
 what member of the community has not health and 
 strength, knows not the art of self-defence, feels not the 
 blessings he enjoys, calculates not the rights by the main- 
 tenance of which these blessings were created and are 
 upheld ? And what member of such a community would 
 not know his place, and would not hasten to co-operate 
 nay, would not throw himself into the breach to repel 
 the aggressions of violence ? Such a community, enjoying 
 abundance, but at the expense of labour, uncorrupted by 
 forced inequality and idleness, would be a mountain of 
 brass against foreign plunderers, and would be too happy 
 at home to turn plunderers themselves. 
 
 [_Such being the beneficial effects of the principle of 
 security, on the frame of government, on the public 
 strength of a community, what would be its influence on 
 penal law, and the administration of justice? The unre- 
 strained tendency of the distribution of wealth, being so 
 much towards equality, excessive wealth and excessive 
 poverty being removed, almost all the temptations, all the 
 motives, which now urge to the commission of crime, 
 would be also removed^ What would be the effect of this 
 
172 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 abatement of motives to crime ? Not only all sanguinary, 
 all cruel punishments, educating the people in hardness of 
 heart, would be utterly banished, but the gentlest punish- 
 ments would be sufficient to make head against the remain- 
 ing weakened motives to crime, and the punishment of 
 shame would be every day more operative, and become a 
 larger ingredient in the evil of every other punishment. 
 This mild state of penal law would operate again on 
 manners, and reason and useful sympathies would be 
 constantly gaining new strength over the savage ignorant 
 inclinations of violence. If penal laws would be more 
 mild, they would be also more certainly and easily exe- 
 cuted, and without the exhibition of any public force, 
 j [jThe next political benefit that occurs as arising from a 
 strict observance of the natural laws of distribution, is, 
 that, all the expenses of all the machinery of government, 
 would be reduced to their lowest point ; and all the wealth 
 thus saved every year from unproductive consumption, 
 would be expended in rewarding the exertions and increas- 
 ing the comforts of the producers, or icould be devoted to 
 works, everywhere diffused, of public utility and enjoy- 
 ment. / It is evident that if all the members of a com- 
 munity contributed, either themselves directly, or through 
 their representatives, what they thought necessary for the 
 public purposes of government, they would give as little, 
 and get as much in return, as possible. As in all other 
 transactions, they would get the best article, the article 
 they wanted, on the lowest terms that the actual market 
 of appropriate talents could afford. The reason of the 
 present wasteful and overwhelming expenses of govern- 
 ment, is obvious, The persons who order directly or 
 indirectly, and levy the contributions, are those who 
 themselves consume, or oblige others by sharing with 
 them the consumption of them. Thus a double error, or 
 vice, is committed. Not only are they, the produce of 
 whose labour and industry is forcibly taken, to pay the 
 contributions, debarred from the right of settling the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 173 
 
 amount, but the men who, of all others, should be the 
 last permitted to exercise any such power, the consumers 
 or distributors of the contributions, are the regulators of 
 it. The consequence naturally and, as long as human 
 nature remains constituted as at present, necessarily is, 
 that the largest possible sums which the patience and 
 privations of communities will permit the prudence of 
 their rulers to abstract from the yearly products of their 
 labour, is taken from them ; and the largest possible 
 amount of these sums is expended, not only unproduc- 
 tively as to any return in the shape of wealth not only 
 without any other possible equivalent to the community, 
 but in a manner tending as directly as possible to destroy 
 all the useful virtues, and to substitute the concurrent 
 vices, of excessive wealth and poverty, with political 
 degradation superadded. The chief use to which these 
 enormous forced contributions are mostly applied, is to 
 maintain a large armed force to overawe the discontents 
 to which they give rise, as well as to afford the occasional 
 amusement of war to the rulers. It needs surely no 
 proof, that if the contributors awarded their own contribu- 
 tions, they would give as little and get as much as pos- 
 sible. And why should they not? Is not cheapness a 
 universal blessing ? cheapness of intellectual and physical 
 exertion, as well as of the articles of wealth, the quality of 
 the article bought being of course unchanged ? The cheap 
 undertakers, having less influence, and being more under 
 control of the contributors, having no other merit but the 
 goodness of their work to recommend them, would be 
 driven to perform the work best. 
 
 To induce the rich or their connexions to activity, to 
 exertion of any sort, a stimulus proportionally strong 
 must be applied the magnitude of it depending on the 
 average of the expenditure and acquired habits of these 
 rich men. As they could not be induced to work for the 
 value of the offices according to the rate of payment for 
 such services in private life, the payment must be raised 
 
174 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 till worth their acceptance. Nomination being absolute 
 amongst themselves, all competition is of course excluded. 
 The result is, in general, that with a part a very small 
 part of the excessive payment, they hire appropriate 
 talent to perform the real duty where there is any real 
 duty to be performed and consume unproductive!?/ 
 always, and almost always perniciously, the funds of 
 which the laborious community is thus plundered. The 
 pretence of less liability to corruption from over-payment, 
 is a widely and mournfully ascertained falsehood. In 
 every country, and from the known principles of human 
 nature, the best articles are obtained where the real com- 
 petition value and no more is given for them. Where the 
 proper means to ensure integrity are neglected, the only 
 effect of excessive payment is to render necessary higher 
 bribes, or more of the matter of corruption in some avail- 
 able shape. Deliberately to pay beyond the real market 
 value of any article, physical or intellectual, whether on 
 the part of the community or of a private individual, 
 might be passed by as a species of insanity merely, if the 
 deep corruption of the motives and the deadly influence of 
 the effects on public happiness did not call for an effectual 
 restraint. 
 
 I The next and the last beneficial political effect, that we 
 -, shall notice as necessarily attendant on obedience to the 
 ' natural laws of distribution, is, that all religious asso- 
 ciations would become voluntary. \ Who is bold enough 
 to say, that any established system of religion in Europe, 
 that is now supported by aid of the public force, would 
 continue to be upheld in its present state of expenditure, 
 if that support were withdrawn, and if the voluntary con- 
 sent of all, the produce of whose industry is now taken for 
 its support, were rendered necessary for the payment? 
 
 If it be said that no religion, neither the religion 
 of Mahomet, of Confucius, or of Jesus, could support 
 itself without attacks on security, by the forced abstrac- 
 tion of wealth, to pay its priests, it is replied, that no 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 17o 
 
 religion ought to exist on such terms, inasmuch as no 
 religion can confer advantages to be at all put in com- 
 parison with the blessings of security : without them, the 
 purest religion, the mildest, the most sublime morality, 
 would be but vain sounds ; with them, whatever was 
 lovely and true in religion would become the uncon- 
 strained belief and practice of every happy and enlight- 
 ened mind. Not only has experience proved that religion 
 can exist, without interfering with the natural laws of 
 distribution by violations of security, but it has increased 
 and flourished, as during centuries in Ireland and in 
 Greece, under, and in spite of, the forced abstraction of its 
 own resources from its own communicants, to enrich a 
 rival and hated priesthood, or to feed the force that 
 enchained it. Does British policy support by forced 
 contributions the Hindoo priests of the East, or the 
 Fetiche system of the Negroes of the West Indies ? and is 
 there any one that fears that, in consequence of the mere 
 not granting of that support, these two systems of religion 
 will immediately cease ? No ; even with knowledge and 
 power against them, they hold their ground : and shall 
 not that religion which comes from God, and is supported 
 by God, with the aid of the most improved human talents, 
 preserve itself without robbery, while every vulgar super- 
 stition holds up its head in spite of robbery ? 
 
 SECTION 2. 
 
 ECONOMICAL BENEFITS OF THE NATURAL LAWS OP DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 Let us now notice a few of the most striking beneficial 
 effects which would result, in an economical point of view, 
 from upholding equal security, as dictated by the natural 
 laws_ of distribution. 
 
 Perhaps the leading economical benefit is, that produc- 
 tion would be increased, and capital accumulated, with a 
 rapidity, and to an extent, hitherto unknown. The influ- 
 
176 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 ence of security in increasing production, the means of 
 enjoyment, and in increasing happiness, by the just distri- 
 bution and increased consumption, by the whole productive 
 community, of these added means of enjoyment, has been 
 already shown. It remains to show, that the increased 
 accumulations of such a community, would proceed, in an 
 equal ratio, with their increased consumption. It is plain 
 that if all that was produced by labour in a year, were 
 consumed within the year, no accumulation could take 
 place. Capital is nothing mysterious : 'tis nothing else 
 but that portion of the products of labour which is not 
 immediately consumed. For ultimate consumption, or what 
 is in this case called, use, are all articles whatsoever, that 
 are not immediately consumed, produced. No rational 
 beings would produce, but with a view to consumption or 
 enjoyment, immediate, or permanent, or remote. Eipe 
 fruit is consumed the day it is produced and matured, 
 shoes, and other articles of clothes, are consumed within 
 a few months after their production, the grain of one har- 
 vest is consumed within the succeeding year, till industry 
 directs the slumbering energies of nature to the production 
 of a new supply. A spade, a pick-axe, a chair, a table, a 
 loom, are consumed, or, as we say in this case, are worn 
 out, in a few years, according to the use and the care 
 bestowed on them. A house, if well built, will not be con- 
 sumed or worn out in fifty years ; a good painting will not 
 be consumed or decayed in many centuries ; public build- 
 ings, of a massive structure, as bridges, senate-houses, 
 porticos, temples, may abide the consumption or use of 
 thousands of years ; while statues, the fairest works of art, 
 seem to smile at decay, and have outlived the immortality 
 of the immortal gods, whose representatives they are, the 
 embodied creations of pleasing human qualities. What- 
 ever is not made for use, is made in vain : of this sort, 
 under the influence of despotism and insecurity, are the 
 pyramids of Egypt vain memorials of immense exertions ! 
 While the beautiful remains of the architecture of ancient 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 177 
 
 Greece, that have survived the barbarism and superstition 
 of ages, seem to await the re-inspiring touch of freedom and 
 security to become again the theatres, for all the citizens, 
 for all the members of the community, of patriotic and 
 scientific exertions, where the love of knowledge and of 
 virtue will be associated with the magnificence of the sur- 
 rounding scenes of nature and of art. An apple, then, 
 consumed in a minute, and a statue enduring for thousands 
 of years, are equally products of labour, and made solely 
 for enjoyment, by means of their use. Doubtless, the 
 more durable any article, the less comparative labour 
 bestowed upon it, and to the greater number of men, and 
 succeeding generations of men, it is the means of comfort, 
 whether by means of shelter as a building, by means of 
 passage as a bridge, or by simple contemplation and asso- 
 ciation as a statue, the more useful it is. If an apple 
 could give the renewed pleasure and nourishment of eating 
 for fifty successive days, it would be fifty times as valuable, 
 though its exchangeable value would decrease. The bene- 
 ficial consequence would be, that so much human labour 
 would be set free for the production of other objects of desire; 
 What, then, is capital ? and how is it distinguished 
 from the other yearly, or monthly, or daily, products 
 of labour ? Sometimes the distinction arises simply from 
 the use to which the products of labour may be applied, 
 the hands in which they may be placed ; but more com- 
 monly from the permanence of the article produced. All 
 buildings, bridges, docks, cities, inclosures, laying out and 
 reclaiming of lands, ships, machinery, pictures, statues, 
 and other desired works of art, though as much the pro- 
 ducts of labour as the apple, are distinguished as capital 
 simply from their permanence, though in daily use, and in 
 the course of a more or less gradual consumption. Flour, 
 milk, shoes, hats, meat, coats, gowns, laid in by a family 
 for current use, are not capital, but materials for consump- 
 tion; while, in the hands of the flour-factor, dairyman, or 
 milk-vender, shoemaker, hatter, butcher, tailor, and 
 
 M 
 
178 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 mantua-maker, they form, respectively, the stock or 
 capitals of their trades. In the one case, the use was 
 immediate consumption, without any view to any further 
 exchange. In the other case, consumption by the owner 
 is excluded, and exchange is the sole object, or, at all 
 events, is the sole use, of the possession. Sometimes that 
 partial use, which does not amount to the wearing out, or 
 scarcely injuring, of the article, as the use of silver-ware, 
 may render an article at the same time an object of use or 
 consumption, and capital or stock, or, as it is sometimes 
 called, capital-stock. What, then, is the most accurate idea 
 of capital ? It is that portion of the products of labour 
 which, whether of a permanent nature or not, is capable of 
 being made the instrument of profit. Such seem to be 
 the real circumstances which mark out one portion of the 
 products of labour into capital. On such distinctions, 
 however, have been founded the insecurity and oppression 
 of the productive labourer the real parent, under the 
 guidance of knowledge, of all wealth and the enormous 
 usurpations over the productive powers of their fellow- 
 creatures, of those who, under the name of capitalists, or 
 landholders, acquired the possession of these accumulated 
 products, the yearly or permanent supply of the commu- 
 nity. Hence the opposing claims of the capitalist and the 
 labourer. The capitalist getting into his hands, under the 
 reign of insecurity and force, the consumption of many 
 labourers for the coming year, the tools or machinery 
 necessary to make their labour productive, and the dwell- 
 ings in which they must live, turned them to the best 
 account, and bought labour and its future products with 
 them as cheaply as possible. The greater the profit- of 
 capital, or the more the capitalist made the labourer pay 
 for the advance of his food, the use of the implements or 
 machinery, and the occupation of the dwelling, the less of 
 course remained to the labourer, for the acquisition of any 
 other object of desire. 
 
 The circumstances that really influence the abundance 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 179 
 
 of the objects of wealth are these abundance of materials 
 to work upon, abundance of tools or machines to work with, 
 and knowledge of the mind, as well as skill of hand, to 
 elaborate out of these the objects desired. The natural 
 course of things should seem to be, that every productive 
 labourer should possess his own materials, his own supply 
 of food while working, his own tools, his own dwelling, 
 with appropriate skill and knowledge to guide these 
 elements of production. 
 
 Now, under the auspices of the natural laws of distri- 
 bution, what would be the progress of mechanical or agri- 
 cultural industry, in the very commencement of these pur- 
 suits ? Occupation by improvement being the natural title 
 to unoccupied land, any man having the means to work 
 with, and to whom the produce of land was an object of 
 desire, would appropriate as much land as his necessities 
 demanded. To expend his labour in merely inclosing, 
 with a view to future possession, a larger tract than he 
 could cultivate, would be absurd, because, if his labour 
 were spent on mere inclosing, he must starve ; in order to 
 live, he must render the land productive of food. The 
 competition of others, and the mere distance of the benefit 
 to be derived from mere in closures, would prevent them, 
 even if the necessity of food by cultivation did not inter- 
 fere. If again he inclosed more than he wanted, what 
 would be the price- of such inclosure ? Just the labour it 
 cost, or its value, a full equivalent and no more ; for, why 
 should those who can get, by the labour of inclosing, new 
 land, give more than the value of that labour for land 
 already inclosed ? This is clearly its natural value, so that 
 inclosing more land than was necessary for use would not 
 be thought of. The incloser or inclosers of the land must 
 have been possessed of the means of existence, food, 
 clothes, dwelling, and of the tools and seed to work with, 
 or else they could never produce. What must be the 
 amount of their production ? A year's supply ; but a 
 supply of food, enough not only for their own use during 
 
 M2 
 
180 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 the year, but for procuring, by exchange, those articles of 
 clothing, furniture, or other objects of desire, which they 
 could not make for themselves, or which they found it 
 more convenient (costing less labour or being cheaper) to 
 get in exchange, would constitute this supply ; land would 
 be exchanged, that is to say, the labour laid out in land, in 
 convenient parcels, just like any other commodity; the 
 whole of the products of labour would go for remuneration 
 to the producer, and for whatever he gave away, he would 
 receive a satisfactory equivalent. 
 
 But from idleness, want of skill, or accident, some 
 other individuals might want food, tools, &c., and, not 
 oeing possessed of any equivalent fabricated by any other 
 exertion of industry, might be compelled to sue for food to 
 those who, by cultivation, had procured it. They would 
 give their labour for the articles they wanted. Be it 
 observed, however, these cases would be exceptions to the 
 general rule, which is that of equality of physical powers 
 and accidents. This small number of exceptions, again, 
 would be kept down by two circumstances ; the voluntary 
 support and supply by the friends or family of the most of 
 them in case of accident, and the facility of acquiring the 
 means (tools, &c.) of independent cultivation. 
 
 If such would be the progress, as to capital, of the 
 producers of food, agriculturists, there would be still less 
 tendency to inequality amongst the mechanics. It very 
 seldom takes a year, as in agriculture, of continued labour, 
 to bring to perfection any manufactured article more 
 frequently a month, a week, a day. So much the less 
 dependent on the owner of capital would the mechanic be, 
 whom accident or folly had left without his proper stock 
 of the means of living while at work. The acquisition of 
 a few articles by exchange of his manufacturing labour, 
 with economy, would soon replace the little he lost ; and 
 he, too, would soon again unite capitalist and labourer in 
 his own person. It is not meant to say, that there would 
 be no permanent class of labourers under the free opera- 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 181 
 
 tion of the natural laws of distribution ; but that mere 
 labourers, altogether destitute of capital, would be ex- 
 tremely few and very well remunerated, receiving the 
 whole produce of their labour, a small compensation 
 deducted for the loan or advance made them. In such a 
 community would there be no capitalists, such as we now 
 see them, engrossing the accumulated products of the 
 labours of thousands? There would be very few such. 
 But, in such a community, would there be no accumu- 
 lation of capital? Its accumulation would be immense, 
 and greater than under any forced or fraudulent distribu- 
 tion ; so that there would be a profusion of capital without 
 capitalists. How could these things be ? The great body 
 of the productive labourers would be capitalists them- 
 selves, owners of the capital (improvements, food, tools, 
 seed), necessary for the cultivation of their small spots of 
 land, of which they would be, of course, the entire owners ; 
 and the great body of the manufacturers would also be 
 capitalists as well as labourers, each man owning his own 
 little stock to enable him to work. Though the interest of 
 such men, working for themselves, would lead them to 
 exert all their energies to increase their enjoyments, 
 which they could only do by increasing their production, 
 part of which, for their own convenience, necessarily 
 becomes fixed or accumulated, and is called capital ; 
 although they would accumulate much more capital than 
 would be done by unequal distribution ; yet, does it not 
 follow that their absolute accumulation of capital should 
 be great. That depends on the quantity of materials 
 afforded by nature, on the knowledge possessed by the 
 community, on the tools and machines to work with, and 
 the skill of operation to employ all these to advantage. 
 Whatever be the state of these things, whether deficient or 
 flourishing, the increase of capital will, under all varia- 
 tions, be infinitely greater where the enjoyments and the 
 skill of nearly the whole community are on the alert for 
 its accumulation, than where the grandeur of a few capi- 
 
182 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 talists only is interested to increase their display, at the 
 expense of the comforts, and to the depression of the 
 energies, of the rest of the community. Whatever may 
 be the state as to knowledge, &c., the accumulation will 
 be immeasurably greater, or where the capital is widely 
 distributed, or where the productive labourers are capi- 
 talists, than where capital is confined to the hands of a few. 
 Without knowledge and materials, as on the mountains of 
 Iceland or Greenland, even security and just distribution 
 could not do much ; while insecurity would make the 
 desolation of man equal to that of nature. So immense, 
 under favourable circumstances of materials, skill, know- 
 ledge, &c., and under the shield of equal security main- 
 tained by giving free scope to the natural laws of distri- 
 bution, is the progress of the accumulation of capital, that 
 in one generation, along the banks of the Ohio and 
 Mississippi, in the American United States, inclosures, 
 villages, manufactures, towns, whole states, have been 
 created by labour. These constitute the wealth of a 
 country, in whatever hands, whether in those of the few 
 or the many, they may be placed ; while the quantum of 
 happiness depends on the distribution. The same lands, 
 under Spanish insecurity and immense land-owners and 
 capitalists, had slumbered unproductive for ages. These 
 are the extremes, it is true, of the operation of the two 
 principles ; but let us ever bear in mind, that, in exact 
 proportion as we follow the dictates of the one or the 
 other, will the result be, both in happiness and accumu- 
 lation. 
 
 " But how," it will be asked, " could great manufactures 
 and great enterprises of commerce be carried on without 
 great capitalists?" It is great capitals that are wanted for 
 some few undertakings, not great capitalists. Provided the 
 capital is produced, it signifies not whether it comes out of 
 one or fifty hands. 7 Capital being everywhere diffused by 
 security, a hundred or a thousand shares would be raised 
 for any useful purpose, among shrewd and active men ; and 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 183 
 
 those in whom they had the most confidence would conduct 
 the concern as long as the conductors retained that confi- 
 dence : and those conductors would esteem themselves 
 amply recompensed by a remuneration equal or very little 
 superior to that of their associates, in addition to the gra- 
 tification of the esteem, as evinced by thej;rust reposed in 
 them by these their associates and equals, j If the operation 
 were in a manufacturing establishment^" the joint-stock 
 would buy the machinery and erect the buildings ; or the 
 one or the other might be hired from those who had made 
 them. Ordinary manufacturing establishments requiring 
 but moderate capital would be carried on, as now, by indi- 
 viduals .j (Whether the subscribers to the joint-stock would 
 receive their shares of yearly benefit from the concern in 
 the shape of wages, or profits, would be quite immaterial 
 to the community. It could only be received in the shape 
 of increased wages where all of the contributors were em- 
 ployed in the manufacture. Such establishments would be 
 an efficient check on the efforts of great capitalists of 
 whom very few could exist, from the eternal competition of 
 intelligent men with small capitals to depress injuriously 
 the wages of labour. ] Where the manufacture was such 
 that each productive labourer could finish at home a part 
 of the fabric, he would purchase the materials, in whatever 
 state of preparation, and sell them, when completed, either 
 to the consumer, if the market were small, or to a factor, if 
 the markets were remote, and it required skill to select 
 them. 
 
 Where the establishment was one of commerce, 
 particularly of foreign commerce, a larger capital would 
 be required, and the concern would most frequently be 
 conducted by individual hands, or by a few, from a 
 peculiar knowledge of the wants and productions of remote 
 nations which such business requires, and which industrious 
 producers have not facilities to acquire. Where a foreign 
 trade which very seldom happens could not be carried on 
 without larger capitals than the union of a few individuals 
 
184 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 in a mercantile house would produce, resort would be had 
 to shares, as in the case of manufactures ; and all the spare 
 capital of the thriving producers would naturally employ 
 itself in this way, when holding out higher inducements 
 than the employing of the same capital in internal improve- 
 ments mines, canals, bridges, and such works whether to 
 facilitate universal industry and interchange, or to advance 
 a particular branch of industry. The savings of prudent 
 sharp-sighted men, like these industrious producers, would 
 not be rashly adventured in foreign speculation, till every- 
 thing around them, at home, was assuming the features of 
 garden culture, and domestic comfort. The real internal 
 happiness of the members of such a community, depending 
 on increased production, and consumption, and freedom, 
 and activity of interchange, would not be sacrificed to the 
 glittering display of a forced foreign trade. No laws on the 
 subject would be necessary ; the interest and intelligence 
 of the industrious would produce the result in the most 
 useful manner. A working, thinking, people, would not be 
 led astray by projects in the air, but would exercise a 
 deliberate judgment. On the other hand, when a fair 
 prospect of success presented itself, they would cheerfully 
 embark, anxious to exchange the surplus productions of 
 their community, for whatever useful articles any other 
 nation could produce at less cost of useful labour. These 
 voluntary associations of small capitalists would be depen- 
 dent on no bounties, would demand no monopoly or 
 exclusive protection ; the meanest individual in the state 
 might enter into active competition with them a check 
 necessary to their own interest, their own good manage- 
 ment, if not called for by still higher considerations. 
 
 An admirable effect arising from these joint-associations 
 of numerous small masses of capital, whether in the line 
 of manufactures or commerce, would be, that they would 
 act as insurance companies, guarantying from utter loss, 
 and possible misery, those hardy pioneers of industry and 
 prosperity who first essay unexplored roads. In case of 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 185 
 
 failure, even complete, which would seldom occur, the loss 
 to each contributor would be but small and retrievable ; 
 and the splendid wealth of a great capitalist of to-day 
 would not be followed, not only by his own destruction, but 
 that of numbers connected with him, to-morrow. 
 
 Thus, by the operation of these numerous circumstances, 
 is the capital of the community rapidly accumulated in 
 masses the most favourable to enjoyment, and all pernicious 
 inequality is prevented, simply by not imposing restraint, 
 or, in other words, by following the natural laws of 
 distribution. 
 
 Under the depressing competition of producers, engen- 
 dered by the present system of insecurity, the employers 
 are self-punished. Their calculation is, that whatever 
 can be saved from the labourers will go to enrich them- 
 selves. This might be the case if man were a machine 
 like the loom, uninfluenced by moral, and operated upon 
 by mechanical, causes, alone. The production being, then, 
 a given quantity, whatever the employers took, the sum 
 total of the produce would not be lessened. But this is 
 not the case : man is liable to more, and more subtle, 
 agencies, than the mere machine. Suppose him to be 
 producing abundantly deprive him by restraint, by plun- 
 der, legal or otherwise, by grave regulation, of half the 
 produce of his labour, and the amount of the whole pro- 
 duce begins immediately to decrease. The motives of 
 enjoyment and independence, which led him to improve 
 his skill and sharpen all his faculties, have ceased to exist; 
 he is dissatisfied, careless, hopeless ; he works no more 
 with the usual alacrity, the produce is for another ; he is 
 jealous and envious of that other ; he looks on his em- 
 ployer as his enemy, and grudgingly gives him extorted 
 labour ; he has no pleasure, because he has no interest, in 
 seeing admirably finished work; as the object of the 
 employer is to extort as much from him as possible, it 
 becomes his fixed policy to give as little and as bad work, 
 and to idle as much as possible. Thus is the whole quan- 
 
186 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 tity produced, always lessened by every increase of the 
 short-sighted avarice of the employers. Too ignorant or 
 too selfish to see the real causes (want, in various ways, 
 of security) of the falling off of the produce, they 
 impute it to the awkwardness, the ignorance, the per- 
 verseness of the labourers to that ignorance, perverseness, 
 and awkwardness, which were their own work. Produc- 
 tion goes on decreasing ; the lower the wages, the less 
 valuable, even compared with the wages, the work done. 
 The productive labourers are miserable, and the employers 
 are punished. Instead of seeing the real causes of the 
 mischief, they exclaim against the idleness, the dishonesty, 
 the depravity of the labourers ; and force, the ready and 
 eternal resort of ignorance, is employed, to repress the 
 vices and keep down the demand for unmerited high wages 
 for such men. As the employers have influence in making 
 the laws, and the productive labourers have none, new 
 restrictions, new penal laws, more barbarous and absurd 
 than the preceding, are enacted ; and the employers are 
 forced to console themselves with the exercise of vexatious 
 tyranny in lieu of their decayed profits. Meantime the 
 producers take measures to defeat these iniquitous laws ; 
 they endeavour by a counter-force to make head against 
 the violences instituted against them ; they resort to plots 
 and combinations of violence, to defeat the violence of 
 power, which seeks, under the name of law, to repress 
 their spirit, and, with their spirit, their industry, for ever. 
 They endeavour, by unjust violence towards their own 
 members, and sullen threats against their employers, to 
 keep down the depressing competition of low wages. They 
 follow the vile example, which, by ex parte laws of their 
 own making, their employers give them, of issuing decrees 
 forcibly to regulate the wages of labour. While the laws 
 of the state and of corporations keep down labour, the laws 
 of their little associations endeavour to support it. Eegu- 
 lations of the most vexatious description, and summary 
 punishments the most brutal, are enforced by them, to 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 187 
 
 uphold their wages. The law punishes the productive 
 labourer who will not work for the regulated hire ; the 
 combination law punishes him who dares to work under 
 the wages regulated by the mechanics themselves. Thus 
 is a community converted into a theatre of war ; hostile 
 camps of the employers and labourers are everywhere 
 formed ; and that alacrity and energy which, under the 
 influence of equal security, are expended in multiplying 
 productions by means of increased knowledge, skill, and 
 application, are here devoted to contrive the means of 
 mutual annoyance and persecution, legal or not legal; 
 and, in the mutual rage of the parties, not only capital, 
 but lives are sacrificed ; capital, the means of reproduction 
 and enjoyment, is wantonly consumed by fanatic ignorance; 
 and murders, in spite of the law, and by the law, are com- 
 mitted, to revenge the alleged injustice of the parties on 
 each other. Such is the state to which society is reduced, 
 under the depressing competition for low wages. When 
 these counteracting measures of violence are not pursued 
 by the productive labourers to counteract the legal rob- 
 beries and violence of the selfish and short-sighted em- 
 ployers, the labourers of a community sink into listless 
 wretchedness ; and industry and prosperity are banished, 
 with the freedom of exertion and of competition, that are 
 necessary for their development. 
 
 It is evident, then, that the depressing competition of 
 labourers for lowness of wages, whether it ends in the anni- 
 hilation of all hope and exertion, or in the establishment 
 of counter-combinations and mutual rancour and violence 
 between the labourers and employers, is almost equally 
 fatal to the hope of accumulating capital. The labourers 
 look with an evil eye on the accumulations of the capi- 
 talist ; the capitalists survey with jealousy the savings of 
 the poor. The competition of low wages, or decreased 
 remuneration, is as unfriendly to the accumulation of 
 capital, as the exhilarating competition for increased remu- 
 neration, by means of increased and superior productions, 
 
188 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 is favourable to it. An equal and uniform regard to the 
 natural laws of distribution, " free labour, entire use of 
 its products, and voluntary exchanges," will, alone, ensure 
 the greatest accumulation, as well as the greatest produc- 
 tion of wealth, by upholding everywhere the exhilarating, 
 to the exclusion of the depressing, competition for wages. 
 So natural is the presumption in favour of the tendency of 
 excessive wealth, to accumulate capital beyond the ten- 
 dency to the same effect of the natural laws of distribution, 
 as well from the more glaring effect of large, though thinly 
 scattered, masses on the eye, as from the sympathy of all 
 the aspirants to wealth, in favour of the envied holders of 
 these large masses, that too much care cannot be taken to 
 counteract, by exposing, so very common and so very per- 
 nicious an error. 
 
 SECTION 3. 
 
 MORAL BENEFITS OP THE NATUEAL LAWS OP DISTBIBUTION. 
 
 /The great and paramount moral blessing, consequent 
 on equal security, produced by the natural laws of distri- 
 bution, is, that excessive poverty and excessive wealth 
 being removed from society, the peculiar vices of luxury 
 and want would almost ceaseT^ The vices of the very poor 
 and the vices of the very rich, mutually productive of each 
 other, and necessarily generated by the circumstances sur- 
 rounding each of the classes, are the great moral sources of 
 human misery, The middle class, those who are above 
 want and not exposed to luxury, are comparatively, and 
 many of them absolutely, moral, commanding their own 
 passions, and endeavouring to diffuse happiness around 
 them. If the middle classes are not, in most commu- 
 nities, as perfect as the theory of their situation would 
 make them, the reason is, that they live in the midst of, 
 and of course exposed to, the contaminating atmosphere 
 and the touch of the vices of both poor and rich. The rich 
 above, and the poor below, court their imitation of hetero- 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 189 
 
 geneous follies and vices ; and having themselves, in 
 common with all the rich, at longer or shorter intervals, 
 necessarily sprung from the poor, many of them have been 
 educated, more or less, in their peculiar vices. And yet, 
 from the mere circumstance of an approach to equality in 
 their condition that equality brought about and main- 
 tained by their own continued exertions they are justly 
 spoken of as the class that supplies the materials for what- 
 ever of commanding intellect, attractive virtue, and per- 
 severing activity, society can boast. 
 
 What was mentioned above as to crimes, may be re- 
 peated here as to virtues and vices. As most of the crimes 
 that desolate society have their origin in excessive in- 
 equality of wealth, the greater part of them emanating from 
 the continued or sudden pressure of poverty and wretched- 
 ness, so do most of the virtues and vices of men proceed 
 from the same source. All crimes are vices ; that is to 
 say, no actions ought to be declared crimes by the law, and 
 marked out for punishment, which were not vicious ante- 
 cedently to the law, which were not productive of prepon- 
 derant mischief to society. And, moreover, those vices 
 only, which are at the same time the most mischievous, and 
 the punishment of which, would not bring after it a train of 
 evils, preponderating even over the mischief of the vices, 
 ought to be erected into crimes. [ Thus necessarily limited, 
 we see, at once, how impotent are the mere restraints of 
 law, to generate a virtuous community. Very few are the 
 actions which it can regulate J By attempting too much, 
 by its eternal restraints, it has hitherto done more to 
 perpetuate poverty, vice, and wretchedness amongst man- 
 kind, than to produce good. Henceforward, guided by the 
 best wisdom of the age and nation, continually improving, 
 and, therefore, changing, like the other sciences directed to 
 the impartial production of happiness, under the system of 
 representation, it will become the beneficent guardian of 
 every blessing, rather than the stern avenger of crime, the 
 jailer of exclusive privileges and usurpations. 
 
190 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 How should the wretchedly poor be virtuous ? Who 
 cares about them ? What character have they to lose ? 
 What hold has public opinion on their actions? What 
 care they for the delicate pleasures of reputation, who are 
 tormented by the gnawings of absolute want ? How should 
 they respect the property or rights of others, who have 
 none of their own to beget a sympathy for those who suffer 
 by their privation ? How can they feel for others' woes, 
 for others' passing-light complaints, who are tormented by 
 their own substantial miseries ? The mere mention of the 
 trivial inconveniences of others, insults, and excites the 
 indignation, instead of calling forth their complacent sym- 
 pathies. Cut off from the decencies, the comforts, the 
 necessaries of life, want begets ferocity. If they turn 
 round, they find many in the same situation with them- 
 selves, partaking of their feelings of isolation from kindly 
 sympathies with the happy. They become a public to each 
 other, a public of suffering, of discontent, and ignorance ; 
 they form a public opinion of their own, in contempt of the 
 public opinion of the rich ; whom, and their laws, they 
 look upon as the result of force alone. From whom are 
 the wretched to learn the principles, while they never see 
 the practice, of morality ? of respect for the security of 
 others ? from their superiors ? from the laws ? The con- 
 duct of their superiors, the operations of the laws, have 
 been one practical lesson towards them, of force, of 
 restraint, of taking away, without their consent, without 
 any equivalent, the fruits of their labour. Of what avail 
 are words, or precepts, or commands, when opposed, when 
 belied, by example ?/ These can never supply motives to 
 virtuous conduct. Motives arise from things, from sur- 
 rounding circumstances, not from the idleness of words and 
 empty declamation. Words are only useful to convey and 
 impress a knowledge of these things and circumstances. 
 If these states of things do not exist, words are mere 
 mockery. 
 
 In all points the reverse, would be the morals of the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 191 
 
 industrious producers of a community, who were taught 
 from their childhood, not by vain words, but by facts, 
 respect for the security and comfort of others, by the 
 undeviating respect paid by the law, and all around them, 
 to their own security. Enjoying the full produce of their 
 labour, nothing being taken from them without a fair 
 equivalent, they would respect the acquisitions of others. 
 Their wants satisfied, they would esteem it a wrong that 
 others should be distressed, and would feel it soothing to 
 their injured feelings to relieve them. The temptations to 
 theft, to fraud, and lying, being removed, these vices 
 would not be necessary, and would not be practised. 
 There would be no public opinion of suffering, to wage 
 war against the public opinion of the well-fed and the 
 powerful. Vice would find no sympathy, because it would 
 be the interest of no one to shelter it. Kindly feelings 
 and beneficent conduct would expand. The sphere of 
 enjoyment, like the heat of the sun, would be multiplied a 
 hundred-fold by the reflections from the cheerful hearts 
 and smiling countenances of encircling happiness. Virtue 
 would consist in blessing, and being blessed; and all 
 voluntary, useless mortification would be spurned as in- 
 sanity. But, as self-restraint is indispensable to real per- 
 manent happiness, men, intent on obtaining it, would look 
 anxiously into all the remotest consequences of their 
 actions ; they would investigate the effect on happiness of 
 every habit which they might form ; and would acquire 
 such dispositions of fortitude, self-command, and universal 
 sympathy, as would render them capable, and, therefore, 
 deserving, of happiness, in any possible state of existence. 
 Industry, the daughter of equal security, supported by 
 labour, and enlightened by knowledge, would be held in 
 universal honour. Not to labour, not to contribute to the 
 grand mass of human weal, would become a matter of 
 shame, of reproach : not to be usefully employed, whether 
 through the mind or the hand, in the production of satis- 
 factory equivalents for existence, would be as discreditable 
 
192 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 though in some cases accumulated wealth might render 
 such labour not necessary to existence as it is now fashion- 
 able, to lead a life of trifling, vicious, idleness. Every 
 active talent, every research, every speculation tending to 
 usefulness, would be nursed into life. Knowledge of the 
 mind would be in demand, as skill in the hand, and all 
 other useful faculties. Ease of circumstances would enable 
 all to afford an equivalent for the elements of knowledge 
 by means of education. Knowledge would no longer be 
 monopolised to support the power and wealth of a few, but 
 would be diffused, like cheap cottons, as one of the means 
 of happiness to all. 
 
 Equal security being incompatible with excessive 
 wealth, activity of mind and body being in honour, the 
 vices peculiar to wealth would almost disappear. Heartless, 
 impotent, un enjoying sensuality, would be left without the 
 materials for its wretched excesses. Temperance would 
 be proved, by the most vulgar arithmetic, to be the means 
 of adding an hundred-fold, both in intensity and duration, 
 to all our pleasures, even moral or intellectual, as well as 
 physical. No stupid admiration of mere glittering, useless 
 trappings of wealth, would be seen ; utility would be the 
 touchstone of everything. The excessive and voracious 
 pursuit of wealth, as the mere means of influencing the 
 minds of others, without reference to its peculiar enjoy- 
 ments, would be deemed a ridiculous disease; for its 
 powers of influencing, alone, without appropriate moral or 
 mental qualities, would be gone. Pride, caprice, and 
 oppression, would find no congenial soil to take root, in the 
 midst of a society of active, intelligent, and independent 
 men. Those of the rich, not usefully employed from 
 higher motives, would be shamed into some line of active 
 emulation. Their leisure time would be devoted to pre- 
 paring themselves for the high duties of legislators, 
 judges, teachers, or to extending the bounds of science, or 
 improving the processes of the arts ; or, by the cheap 
 performance of those honourable duties, requiring intellec- 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 193 
 
 tual activity alone, they would reduce to the lowest the 
 expenses of government and instruction. 
 
 In such a state of society, what food would be left to 
 nourish the ambitious aspirations of any lover of mere 
 power or splendour? To obtain the approbation and 
 admiration of their industrious and independent fellow- 
 citizens, will be the object of the lives of those who seek 
 public employment ; for on the suffrages of such men will 
 the nomination to public employments directly or indi- 
 rectly depend. And are such a community likely to be 
 dazzled by the display of splendid vices, by mere theatrical 
 exhibitions of oriental baubles, without use, sparkling 
 stones and brilliant tissues ? Are such men likely to lend 
 themselves to be made the instruments, the tools, of am- 
 bitious plotters ? What motive could be held out to them ? 
 They are not starving ; and the risk of punishment, or even 
 disgrace, would a thousand times outweigh any promised 
 hope of pay or plunder. They cannot be oppressed, while 
 the products of their labour and the free use of their 
 faculties are secured to them by the laws. The very basis 
 on which the community rests, the foundation of their 
 industry, the first principle of their morals, is voluntari- 
 ness and satisfactory equivalents for everything. And 
 amidst such men, will force be an instrument likely to 
 overawe or to dazzle ? Will not the very name of its 
 employment be so odious, as to brand with the epithets 
 of fools or madmen those who dream of wielding it in 
 contempt of the overwhelming strength of all the com- 
 munity. 
 
 A view of the effects, economical, political, and moral, 
 arising more or less directly from undeviating adherence to 
 the natural laws of distribution, might be pursued at great 
 length, as their operation includes and affects almost the 
 whole of human actions and institutions. Enough perhaps 
 to have pointed out here their most obvious and striking 
 effects. {Jt is not pretended they would remove vice, 
 remove crime, remove moral misery, and thus make 
 
 N 
 
194 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 human associations or communities paradises of the poets ; 
 still less that they would remove physical evils, any more 
 than they could banish occasional monstrous productions 
 of organisation. But they would reduce all these evils to 
 their lowest term ; would render uncommon and disreputable 
 those vices which are now supported by circles of per- 
 verted interests ; would lay the basis for permanent and 
 always advancing ameliorations fjwould elevate the great 
 mass of a community into industrious, intelligent, moral, 
 and happy beings ; and would multiply inconceivably the 
 chances of superior virtues and talents, to make tributary 
 new portions of matter and energies of nature to human 
 enjoyment, tending to raise man to a situation a thousand 
 times perhaps more elevated beyond what he now is, than 
 his present state in civilised life surpasses that of the 
 wretched savages living on the raw fish of the shores of 
 New Holland, or in New Zealand devouring each other. 
 
 One cheering circumstance, above all, attends the im- 
 provements in human affairs brought about by the just, or 
 what we have called the natural, in opposition to the 
 forced or factitious, distribution of wealth. Whatever 
 advance is made must be permanent ; there can' be no re- 
 trograde movements to poverty, vice, and degradation. 
 The change being founded on the interest of the individual 
 members of the community, not on enthusiasm, force, or 
 terror, and the natural laws of distribution once in opera- 
 tion ensuring their own preservation, there can be no fear 
 of losing the benefits gained. Hitherto, by neglecting 
 this enduring basis of social institutions, the establishment 
 of partial good has been but temporary. Without the 
 natural distribution of wealth, without the greatest possible 
 equality of wealth consistent with security, it is impossible 
 that representative institutions should long continue. 
 Ancient legislators, aware of this truth, but not knowing 
 the natural means of inducing, without force and by 
 means of equal security, that basis of equality which 
 they wished, adopted the strange and tremendous error of 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 195 
 
 instituting forced equality, of founding liberty on slavery, 
 industry on eternal violations of security, the happiness of 
 the citizens on the subjection or degradation of all excluded 
 from that title. Such heterogeneous elements necessarily 
 produced eternal conflicts. The representative system, 
 the inevitable consequence of the establishment of equal 
 security, was unknown. So intimately connected and 
 dependent on each other are these two great blessings, 
 equal security and representativeor self-government, that 
 the establishment of the one necessarily includes that of 
 the other : the penalty, at all events, of not adopting the 
 one, is the loss of the other. Without equal security, 
 representative government cannot continue ; without re- 
 presentative government, security cannot continue. The 
 principle of insecurity, involuntariness, and plunder, is 
 essential to monarchy, aristocracy, and any mixture of 
 them ; pure representative government alone is compatible 
 with security. 
 
 It is time to notice an objection which will be made to 
 the laws of free labour and voluntary exchange ; an 
 objection, however, which, it will be seen, becomes another 
 instance of their useful operation. 
 
 " If acquisition, by means of free labour and voluntary 
 exchanges" it will be said, " be the sole useful, and 
 therefore the sole just and moral, title to the possession of 
 the articles of wealth, or property, what is to protect the 
 actual possessors of wealth, particularly of masses of 
 hereditary land, in the enjoyment of their revenues ? 
 Would not such principles unhinge the rights of pro- 
 perty r 
 
 The consequence following from these natural laws of 
 distribution as to the absolute nullity of jjrjginal^itle, or 
 right, on the part of the acquirers by force or fraud, by 
 any means but those of free labour or voluntary exchanges, 
 to the parcels of lands, coins, or other commodities 
 which they or their descendants may possess, is admitted 
 in its fullest extent ; and this principle is made the basis of 
 
 N2 
 
196 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 all future, as it ought to have been of all past, acquisition. 
 But such concession as to the nullity of original right, can 
 decide nothing as to the expediency of upholding or 
 interfering with the present, the actual distribution. To 
 support property acquired without force or fraud, the 
 utility of the acquisition is sufficient : no benefits to 
 society, as has been proved, can at all come in competition 
 with those resulting from the protection of such acquisitions, 
 by adhering to the simple, natural rules of distribution. 
 
 But, to support property acquired by force or fraud, by 
 robbery, on a larger or a smaller scale, by any other 
 means than those of labour, skill, exchange for a satis- 
 factory equivalent, or free gift, requires a longer and more 
 intricate process. The utility of the actual distribution 
 must, in such cases, be proved, in defect of the utility of 
 the original acquisition or original right. It must be 
 proved that all evils of insecurity arising from the original 
 injustice of the acquisition, have ceased to exist ; that such 
 voluntary transfers have been made, such habits formed, 
 such expectations excited, amongst the present possessors, 
 as more than to counterbalance the extinguished evil of 
 original injustice and of any other existing mischiefs which 
 such possessions may cause to society. We are now 
 speaking, not of rules to guide lawyers, but of the supreme 
 laws of morality for the guidance of legislators. If the 
 evils of the original injustice have ceased to exist, if no 
 peculiar injury is caused to the structure or frame of society, 
 or social institutions, by these masses of property more 
 than by others, the right to the enjoyment of them ought 
 to be equally upheld by society. But as it is impossible 
 that enormous masses of wealth could have been got 
 together and perpetuated by individuals without the aid 
 of law, or of vicious institutions made and perpetuated, 
 whether by law or custom, supporting force or fraud ; it 
 becomes the imperative duty of every community to root 
 out of their laws and institutions whatever may have this 
 injurious tendency, interfering with the natural laws of 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 197 
 
 distribution. For any loss arising from the simple with- 
 drawing of protection to force or fraud, no compensation 
 should be made, any more than for the abolition of the 
 right of the few to assault the many; because no compen- 
 sation could be given by the community without prepon- 
 derant mischief, without increasing excessive wealth and 
 its pernicious influence, and without continuing under 
 another name the previous robbery of the community, out 
 of whose future labour alone the compensation could come. 
 Were the strict rules of equal justice followed, compen- 
 sation should rather be made to the injured for past 
 wrong ; but as the very magnitude of the wrong would 
 make that impossible, and as the demand would lead only 
 to the perpetuating of malignant passions, it is more useful, 
 and therefore more just, to forget the past, except as a 
 guide to the future. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ON THE ACQUISITION AND DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE, AS ONE OF 
 THE MEANS OF INCREASING PRODUCTION AND ENJOYMENT, AND 
 SECURING THE PERMANENCE OF THE NATURAL LAWS OF DIS- 
 TRIBUTION. 
 
 HITHERTO, in speaking of labour, we have always included 
 in that term the quantity of knowledge requisite for its 
 direction. Without this knowledge, it would be no more 
 than brute force directed to no useful purpose. In what- 
 ever proportion knowledge is possessed, whether in whole 
 or in part, by the productive labourer, or by him who 
 directs his labour, it is necessary, in order to make his 
 labour productive, that some person should possess it. In 
 the subdivisions of occupations, and of labour itself, it 
 becomes at times so separated from labour in complicated 
 society, that we must consider it apart, in order to esti- 
 mate its relation to the production of wealth and hap- 
 piness, and to guard against the mischiefs to which even 
 this noble instrument has been perverted. 
 
 Without a certain portion of knowledge men cannot 
 live ; at least they cannot live in larger numbers than the 
 scanty produce of the chase, or fishing, or of wild fruits or 
 roots, disputed with the lower animals, and spread over a 
 boundless tract of land, can supply ; and even so to con- 
 tinue existence, requires as much knowledge as the lower 
 animals possess, or rather more, to make up for the 
 deficiency of strength in man. To enable men to live in 
 numbers, in society, they must either domesticate animals, 
 if those fit for the purpose are near them, or must learn the 
 art of raising and protecting, by inclosures or otherwise, 
 the fruits of the earth. For either of these purposes 
 knowledge is required, to guide labour to production. By 
 this first acquisition of knowledge, man saves his race 
 
On the Distribution of Wealth, fyc. 199 
 
 from wretchedness and perhaps annihilation ; and with 
 less labour, and less painful labour, enjoys a happier 
 existence. Food and shelter are the two great means of 
 comfort, as well as of existence, to man. Shelter is 
 stationary, as of huts or houses ; or accompanying the 
 person, as clothes. As man suffers pain from various 
 circumstances and incidents, he naturally endeavours to 
 remove them, or to obviate their effects ; as he gets the 
 experience of new means of enjoyment, he endeavours to 
 secure, to perpetuate, or to enlarge them. Hence his 
 observation and invention are again called into activity, 
 to devise the most durable and agreeable modes of 
 supplying his food and shelter. This leads to further 
 acquisition of knowledge, of the qualities and uses of 
 bodies, called, when acting on an extended scale or with 
 great effect, the powers or energies of nature, as well as of 
 the laws of nature. The man of knowledge and the pro- 
 ductive labourer come to be widely divided from each 
 other ; and knowledge, instead of remaining the handmaid 
 of labour in the hand of the labourer to increase his 
 productive powers, to guide its distribution so as to raise 
 to the highest its capacity of giving enjoyment, has almost 
 everywhere arrayed itself against labour, not only con- 
 cealing its treasures from the labourers, but systematically 
 deluding and leading them astray, in order to render their 
 muscular powers entirely mechanical and obedient. , . It 
 could not be expected, while these multifarious branches 
 of knowledge were being acquired by man, setting out 
 from the post of mere helpless ignorance, that he should 
 have been able to raise himself at once to the calm and 
 lofty examination of the direction of all these means of 
 happiness, of all the propensities of the beings like 
 himself surrounding him, to the production of the greatest 
 possible quantity of enjoyment for all. 
 
 In the earlier stages of society, labour and knowledge 
 naturally accompany each other, The most intelligent 
 becomes the most industrious, to turn his knowledge to 
 
200 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 account. /Jhe perfection of civilisation will reunite labour 
 and knowledge." In the course of the progress from 
 rudeness to civilisation, it was perhaps unavoidable, it was 
 certainly quite natural, that labour and knowledge should 
 be widely separated ; the processes of labour became more 
 varied and complicated, and required more of nicety and 
 skill ; the progress of knowledge embraced more objects, 
 and required more time and attention for its acquisition. 
 In the earlier stages of society, labour and knowledge 
 accompanied each other, because they were both simple 
 and easily understood. In improved civilisation, under the 
 influence of perfect security, they will again re-unite, 
 improved and mature, to part no more, because the 
 happiness of all demands it ; and because the very progress 
 and development of the social art has unfolded the means. 
 
 This intimate union between knowledge and labour, or 
 industry, becomes the more indispensable, when we reflect 
 on the great tendency of impartial security to produce 
 happiness, both directly and indirectly, by the great 
 abundance and equality of wealth to which it leads. Per- 
 haps the very establishment of perfect and equal security, 
 pre-supposes such an advance in civilisation and social 
 science, such an ample experience of the results of past 
 combinations, that the very same wisdom that establishes 
 the natural laws of distribution will necessarily be able to 
 obviate all causes counteracting their continuance. 
 
 Assuredly the community that is wise enough to esta- 
 blish, from a conviction of their utility, the natural laws 
 of distribution, will also be wise enough to diffuse and 
 perpetuate, through all its members, that knowledge, which 
 is essential to its support. Let us see what the means are 
 by which this is to be accomplished ; and what are the 
 effects to be expected from knowledge, on the production 
 and distribution of wealth, and on the happiness thence 
 resulting. /We may observe as to the effects of knowledge, 
 or the modes in which it would operate, that it is in threfe 
 ways intimately connected with our subject : 
 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 201 
 
 It devises the means of constantly improving the arts, 
 rendering labour more productive in quantity, or 
 quality, of its productions, or in both, and thus 
 indefinitely increasing wealth as a means of enjoy- 
 ment. 
 
 It indefinitely increases the enjoyment to be derived 
 from these materials of wealth, by teaching the 
 effects of food, air, heat, &c., on our bodies, and the 
 mutual effects of the actions and passions of our- 
 selves and others, on each other and ourselves, 
 ensuring the practice of prudence, comprehending 
 self-restraint, fortitude, and benevolence. 
 It keeps the blessings of equal security from the 
 natural laws of distribution constantly under the 
 mental contemplation of the members of the com- 
 munity, and thus renders any retrograde movement 
 to insecurity, misery, and vice, impossible. "1 
 Such are the certain effects of knowledge as it relates 
 to wealth. No one will probably contend that knowledge, 
 diffused amongst the members of a community, living 
 under- the natural laws of distribution, would produce any 
 other effects than these, or to the exclusion of these. We 
 come, then, to the means by which this desirable distri- 
 bution of knowledge, as well as of wealth, is to be accom- 
 plished. There are three obvious modes of diffusing 
 knowledge, constituted as communities now are. 
 
 The first is by means of institutions ; which form that 
 state of things and of action surrounding individuals, 
 begetting their habits, and the information connected with 
 them. 
 
 The second is by means of writings, or discourses, pri- 
 vate or public, addressed to the adult population,, OK any 
 portion thereof. 
 
 The third is by means of education, addressed almost 
 exclusively to the youny. 
 
202 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 SECTION 2. 
 
 OP SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS, AS ONE OP THE MEANS OP DIFFUSING OR SUPPRESSING 
 KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Of all the means of diffusing useful knowledge, that 
 which effects it by domestic, political, or other social insti- 
 tutions, when those institutions are founded on reason and 
 truth, is the most certain in its operation, and the most 
 permanent. As far as it goes, it is the most complete 
 instrument, preserving itself by its own operation ; but its 
 operation has been hitherto very limited as to extent of 
 knowledge ; more frequently, indeed, it has served to cor- 
 rupt, to extinguish, or to shut out knowledge from the 
 productive and useful members of a community. Under 
 the head of institutions are comprehended all the tactics 
 and operations of domestic, religious, and political esta- 
 blishments, all the circumstances and states of things 
 arising from these, by which men are surrounded, and in 
 the midst of which they have been brought up and live ; 
 reading, and writing, and what is commonly called educa- 
 tion, in its limited sense, being excluded. Let an English 
 child be sent, at a year old, to Turkey, and a child of the 
 same age from Egypt, or Asia Minor, to England. The 
 young Mussulman, on being settled in an English family, 
 mingles with all its daily household scenes. It imitates 
 the actions, it acquires the sentiments, by degrees it joins 
 in the occupations of those around it. Whatever know- 
 ledge is required in the practice of the arts which it is 
 taught, it becomes possessed of; and this knowledge, thus 
 daily learnt and practised, and combined with so many 
 associations, becomes fixed and indelible. Habits of acti- 
 vity, of industry, of cleanliness, of truth, of temperance, of 
 sobriety, of honesty, of mutual kindness, or the reverse 
 of all these, are formed by imitation, and by the influ- 
 ence of the opinion, leading to the good or ill offices, of 
 those around it. The conduct and opinions, again, of those 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 203 
 
 around it, are necessitated chiefly by the comfort or wretch- 
 edness in which they live, arising from the wise or unwise 
 distribution of wealth. Whatever places of worship its 
 guardians frequented, it would frequent ; whatever cere- 
 monies or forms of a religious, legal, or social nature it 
 witnessed habitually, would operate on its mind, in com- 
 mon with those of its associates. The rewards and punish- 
 ments, private or legal, would operate variously on its 
 mind, as mildness or barbarity prevailed. Again, accord- 
 ing to the different station in life in which it was brought 
 up, it would assume a peculiarity of character, from pecu- 
 liarity of situation and circumstances. As it grew up, it 
 would share, if a man, in all the political combinations 
 which its station, under the arbitrary regulations of society, 
 permitted. Thus would the sentiments, the habits, and 
 the knowledge of the Christian citizen of Britain, be 
 acquired by the transplanted infant of Mahometanism, 
 simply by the operation of the surrounding institutions, 
 without any education of books when young, or of dis- 
 courses, oral or written, when advanced to manhood. 
 
 The young Christian transported to Turkey, would, by 
 a similar process , become as certainly a sincere follower of 
 the last and greatest of the Prophets, as the young 
 Mussulman had become the disciple of Jesus and of 
 Christian establishments. There is but one God, would 
 resound on all sides ; and with this would be associated an 
 undefined horror of those monsters who worshipped three 
 gods, or divided or compounded the Divine nature. Thus 
 initiated as soon as it can articulate, the young transported 
 Christian partakes of the meals, observes the ceremonies, 
 witnesses and joins in the daily pursuits of the family with 
 which it lives. Its opinions are formed by those of its 
 elders around. Whatever it sees done, it imitates ; 
 whatever is thought right to be done by others, it is by it, 
 also, the most helpless and ignorant, thought right to be 
 done. It mingles in the pursuits, it shares in the 
 pleasures, it participates in the sympathies of its associates. 
 
204 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 The young Mussulman sees what is called justice arbitrarily 
 administered ; and always in the habit of witnessing the 
 giving of presents to propitiate the judge, he never doubts 
 the propriety, or inquires into the effects, of these presents, . 
 any more than the uneducated Briton does into the similar 
 effects of law-taxes and expenses in Britain. He sees no 
 responsibility on the part of those entrusted with power; 
 he contracts the notion, that irresponsibility towards those 
 over whom it is exercised is a necessary appendage of 
 power; and force soon constitutes right in his mind. 
 [Responsibility and equal justice unknown, the young 
 Mussulman feels no check to the exercise of every 
 impetuous passion as years develop them within him ; he 
 imitates in this respect his associates, and, with the 
 scimitar and the turban, he puts on the ignorance, the 
 ferocity, and the whole character of the Turk. 
 
 We may suppose a third case. Suppose a child/ -no 
 matter whether Christian, Turk, or prematurely devoted 
 to the Grand Lama, to be introduced into a community of 
 rational beings living under the influence of equal security. 
 -He sees every person enjoying the produce of his labour ; 
 he sees nothing taken from any person without a satisfactory 
 equivalent. He is thus imbued, as his life lengthens year 
 by year, with the first principles of justice ; he is taught 
 an industrious employment ; he respects industry, he 
 respects peaceful labour, because he sees them practised . 
 and respected on account of the benefits they produce.' 
 Every one around him practises honesty and speaks truth, 
 because the motives to dishonesty and falsehood are 
 removed, from the easy mode of satisfying want by means 
 of industrious pursuits ; falsehood being merely an 
 auxiliary vice to facilitate unjust acquisitions. The 
 neatness, the order, the skill, practised by those around 
 him, he sees and imitates. He partakes of all the feelings 
 of the family, and the associates with whom he lives ; but 
 as all force is excluded, and voluntariness is requisite in 
 every transaction respecting the objects of wealth, so 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 205 
 
 naturally and necessarily is the same principle extended 
 to every operation of the mind. Though he participates, 
 therefore, in the feelings of others, he also learns by 
 degrees to judge of them ; that is to say, of their 
 propriety, and the consequences of indulging in them. As 
 he grows up, he is called to partake in all the institutions, 
 political, judicial, administrative, of the community. These 
 call forth the exercise of his faculties ; and the power 
 they give him, and his mode of exercising them, render him 
 to himself, as well as to others, an object of respect. He 
 feels the force, he partakes in the awarding, of public 
 opinion. It becomes a new incentive to the practice of 
 industry, and of everything deemed reputable. To what- 
 ever line of active exertion, whether intellectual, or in the 
 way of the fine or the more useful arts, accidental circum- 
 stances or peculiar aptitude may lead him, he devotes his 
 pleased attention, supported by the universal activity 
 around, by the disreputableness of idleness, by the hap- 
 piness of useful activity, and by the elevating approbation 
 of an intelligent and virtuous community. Living in such 
 a community, where the influence of mere wealth was 
 reduced, from the equality of fortunes, to its lowest level; 
 where public opinion became the substitute for the influence 
 of. wealth, and where talents and virtues were the essential 
 means of attaining public approbation, who shall limit the 
 excellence to which the pupil of such a state of things, 
 domestic and political, may attain, in whatever pursuit he 
 follows ? Must not his life, in such a community, be as 
 useful as happy ? 
 
 Such is the mode of conveying knowledge and forming 
 character, by means of institutions alone, without any 
 regular preceptors, without any systematic instruction. 
 As we find that errors of judgment, antipathies, and vices 
 of conduct, formed in this way until manhood, are, for 
 the most part, indelible through life, though opposed by 
 the clearest demonstrations of reason and interest; the 
 habit being once formed and become a part of the agent, 
 
206 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 we must see the immense efficacy of the mere establishment 
 of the principle of security in forming the characters; the 
 intellectual and moral habits of a community. But would 
 the natural laws of distribution, if once established, and 
 if in all branches of their legislation and conduct respected 
 by any community, be self-sufficient ? adequate to their 
 own support? Ought nothing more to be done in the 
 way of diffusing knowledge, by such a community, 
 beyond the establishment of the facilities and induce- 
 ments for acquiring it, which such a state of things would 
 present. 
 
 By the governing part of a community, even where 
 security prevailed, except at the immediate requisition of 
 their constituents, nothing more ought to be done. By 
 the intelligent members themselves of the community a 
 vast deal more ought to be done, and would in the present 
 state of information be done, both in the diffusion of know- 
 ledge to the adults, and in the education, or training, of 
 the young. The reasons are these. The free inquiry 
 resulting from security, would always bring forth, without 
 any interference of the government, whatever useful 
 knowledge was possessed on any interesting subject by 
 any member of the community, from the desire of doing 
 good, of reputation, of swaying the public opinion, of the 
 love of truth, and, in many cases, of pecuniary profit. 
 The interference of mere power is always uncongenial to 
 the interests of truth, which should stand on its own 
 merits alone. When pretending to prop truth by its 
 authority, the exercise of power creates a bias, a distur- 
 bance of mind, necessarily pernicious, because not pror 
 duced by any additional evidence appropriate to the case., 
 In upholding equal security, equal freedom of thought, of 
 expression, and of action, the government does all that it 
 can usefully do towards the enlargement of the bounds of 
 knowledge, or its diffusion amongst adults. 
 
 Of the two great branches of human knowledge, phy- 
 sics and morals, the one is absolutely arrested in its 
 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 207 
 
 growth by government interference. On this, the moral 
 branch, the guidance of the actions of men, every govern- 
 ment supposes itself perfect, as in law, religion, morality, 
 political economy, &c. They frequently persecute and 
 punish, whether directly, by the infliction of evil, or indi- 
 rectly, by withholding benefits, those who presume, not 
 only to make improvements, but to think differently from 
 what they have established. Their interest being in this 
 department opposed to all change, their interference must 
 be always, and in the highest degree, pernicious ; but, as 
 to physics, it is their interest (when they are sane enough 
 to see it) that those subject to them should be as knowing, 
 as skilful, and as productive as possible, of the means of 
 enjoyment, for their, use. Still, notwithstanding the inte- 
 rest of governments, and their love of glory, even physical 
 knowledge is everywhere repressed by them. Certain 
 systems must be taught and learned. Utility is not the 
 touchstone of what they disseminate, Teachers, well paid 
 and indolent, are jealous of the unlicensed, meddling with 
 their pursuits ; and odium is by them always directed to 
 innovation. In consequence, the truth is, that almost all 
 advances, even in physical science, and almost all efforts 
 to diffuse knowledge, by publications immensely varied, 
 have been the work of volunteer labourers, in every part 
 of Europe. Were nothing known, or nothing diffused, but 
 what these establishments effected or permitted, we should 
 be now in little better than the darkness of the middle ages. 
 These establishments have been reluctantly dragged on by 
 the spirit and improvements of these later times. 
 
 Let us reflect for a moment on the immense effect, 
 liitherto too lightly considered, of mere institutions in 
 forming the human character, entirely independent of 
 literary instruction to young or old, rendering men active 
 or indolent, ferocious or gentle, intellectual or brutish, as 
 the train of actions or circumstances dependent on them, 
 varies. If little attention, in proportion to their import- 
 ance, has been bestowed on the effects now every day 
 
SOS On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 producing, and in past times produced, by these manu- 
 facturing engines of human character ; still less thought 
 has been directed to the immense benefits which social 
 institutions, in accordance with the principle of security, 
 must, henceforth, inevitably produce on all human beings, 
 self-subjected to their beneficent influence. 
 
 An objection must here be obviated, though coming 
 from those who have, of all men, the least right to make 
 it. The supporters of old institutions (all of them founded 
 on the principle of force force in levying the means of 
 their existence compulsion in rendering necessary the 
 assent to certain opinions) object to the improvement of 
 the human character by means of institutions, as tending 
 to drill men into machines. 
 
 It is freely admitted that, were this moral objection 
 well founded, there could be no advantage produced by 
 the mere multiplication and equal distribution of the objects 
 of wealth, which could be adduced as a set-off against it. 
 The benefits of free exercise of the judgments of all,- on all 
 propositions, on which they are called upon to entertain 
 any opinion, particularly if that opinion necessarily leads 
 to action, and of perfect voluntariness of action, are so 
 transcendently great, and so equally indispensable to -the 
 continuance of wealth, of knowledge, and benevolence, that 
 it is quite evident that any institutions, the support of 
 which implied a dereliction of these advantages, would be 
 too dearly purchased. In as far as any institutions, old.or 
 new, require such a sacrifice, they stand plainly condemned 
 by the principles of this inquiry. No institutions are here 
 advocated but- such as operate on the will of intelligent 
 agents, through their understandings. 
 
 Now, as all old institutions, political, social, or domes- 
 tic, are founded on principles the reverse of these, namely 
 on repressing the exercise of the judgment of those who 
 learn, or who are subjected to them, in deference to the 
 mandates of ttiose who framed them, and in thus leading 
 the will, either by perversion of the understanding or by 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 209 
 
 absolute compulsion ; it does secrn. strange that the admirers 
 of such old institutions should perceive and remonstrate 
 against the deformity of their own principles when con- 
 nected with new institutions. 
 
 Human actions are produced by desires operating on the 
 will. What generates, what gives rise to, these desires ? 
 The circumstances surrounding the actors. What is meant 
 by these circumstances ? The state of plenty or destitution 
 in which they are placed, with respect to the comforts and 
 conveniences of life, the degree in which they are de- 
 pendent on the will of others for pleasures or pains. On 
 what, again, do these casualties, wealth or poverty, freedom 
 or slavery, with respect to voluntary actions, depend? On 
 what but on the institutions, the different expedients, de- 
 vised and upheld by the rulers possessing the public force, 
 to maintain wealth and power so distributed as may best 
 coincide with their particular views ? By these expedients, 
 or institutions, men's actions are restrained and regulated : 
 to some, power over others is given ; from others, all 
 power is taken away nothing left but the most abject 
 submission, and, attendant on abject submission, abject 
 want. 
 
 Various are the institutions or expedients, that men 
 wielding the public force have had resort to, to generate 
 motives for the guidance of the actions of their fellow - 
 creatures in subserviency to their wishes. First of all, 
 are what are called the political institutions, which, in 
 fact, frequently include all the rest. Of these political 
 institutions, that of paramount importance is the deter- 
 mining who are to exercise the powers of governing the 
 community, of making permanent or temporary regula- 
 tions, applying and executing them, which affect, in every 
 possible way, the industry and the actions of the indivi- 
 duals constituting that community. What is it that renders 
 the law-makers, those who guide the public affairs of com- 
 munities of men what makes statesmen, as they are called, 
 men of more comprehensive views, of more improved 
 
 o 
 
210 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 intellectual power, than other men excluded from their 
 means of information ? What but the habit of exercising 
 these powers ? of exercising their judgment on these mea- 
 sures ? of learning in the school of legislation and public 
 action such as they are what others are excluded from 
 learning? Is it wished to make all mankind as intellectual 
 as these few, in this universally-interesting, science-? Give 
 them the same opportunities, admit them into the same 
 school, give them a share in the making and the executing 
 of the laws which concern their own welfare ; and the same 
 circumstances will give birth to the same results. But do 
 you wish to make the community at large much more 
 honest, more moral, than the present race of statesmen ? 
 still bring them up in the school of legislation ; for on 
 them, as to disposition to promote the public good, must 
 the operation of the circumstances of such a school be 
 altogether different from what they are on the few to whom 
 their operation is now exclusively confined ; and this with- 
 out supposing an atom more of inherent tendency to virtue 
 in the many than in the few. Let the many be as blindly 
 determined to pursue their own interest in preference to 
 any other, as the few can be ; what is the consequence ? 
 If wise enough as to the means, they pursue this interest 
 in the most effectual manner. But what is this interest of 
 the many ? "Tis the very and the sole interest which 
 enlightened wisdom, guided by benevolence, would wish to 
 promote. The many, from the very nature of their feel- 
 ings, promote, as far as they see how, the only rightful 
 interest, their own. The few, also, pursue their own ; but 
 this being opposed to the interest of the many, is the 
 wrongful, the sinister interest, and ought to be repressed. 
 Under the influence of security, the more knowledge every 
 individual in every department possesses, the better ; be- 
 cause the more clearly he would see that the actual com- 
 bination produced more of comfort to all concerned than 
 any other that could be proposed ; or, if he could propose 
 any better for the happiness of all, he would feel confident 
 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 21 1 
 
 that it would be adopted. His motives to exertion, instead 
 of being diminished, would be increased by his knowledge ; 
 for he would see that industry was as necessary to produc- 
 tion as production to happiness, and obedience to the public 
 regulations, ordained by those whom he co-operated to 
 authorise to make them for the good of all, and whose 
 maladministration he could at all times co-operate to 
 remedy, was but obedience to what he had contributed to 
 establish as most conducive to general good, meaning 
 thereby, the mass of individual good. Those political 
 institutions, then, which are founded on the basis of self- 
 government, by means of representation and election, are 
 the most powerful instruments for diffusing knowledge ; in 
 the first instance, of what it most concerns men to know, 
 their moral relations with their fellow-creatures ; next, of 
 physical nature, sciences and arts, from excited curiosity 
 and activity .; both one and the other species of knowledge 
 called forth from the double operation of these institutions, 
 in producing the best regulations, and in serving as a 
 school for the evolving of virtue and talent from the adult 
 population. 
 
 It is a possibility, and but a possibility, and therefore 
 stated that it may not be said to be overlooked, that under 
 the best constitutional code (that which determines who 
 are to co-operate in the making, applying, and executing, 
 public regulations), the worst, or at least very pernicious, 
 regulations may be made. The formation of a wise con- 
 stitutional code for a great community, requires, perhaps, 
 more comprehension of mind and wisdom of combination, 
 than the formation of any minor regulation. The very 
 same powers of mind applied to the very same objects, 
 must be employed in the one case as in the other. How 
 very improbable, then, that a community, wise enough to 
 adopt the best constitutional code the most difficult work 
 should be wanting in wisdom to adopt useful subordi- 
 nate regulations matters of less difficulty ! 
 
 But suppose, notwithstanding the institutions gene- 
 o 2 
 
212 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 rated by constitutional laws, that pernicious regulations 
 do exist in a community, such as field or domestic slavery, 
 enormous taxation and a host of revenue laws to maintain 
 it, restrictive systems of commerce, laws of primogeniture, 
 or other laws interfering with the division and free 
 exchanges of property, the exclusion of women from civil, 
 necessarily following their exclusion from, equal political, 
 rights, with a hundred other enormities that might be 
 named; we have to inquire what effect these several minor 
 institutions produce as to the diffusion of knowledge and 
 the progress of production. 
 
 Under the Turkish system of despotism, blacks and 
 whites, men and women, are impartially, under certain^ 
 contingencies, converted into articles of wealth under the . 
 name of slaves. Under the United States system of 
 liberty, professing to be founded on reason and the equal' 
 rights of all men, slavery is established against one great 
 branch of the human race, because they differ in a few m 
 physical circumstances, chiefly colour, from those who 
 make them, like horses or dogs, articles of property. 
 What, now, is the effect of such institutions, upheld equally 
 by despots and self-called freemen, on the extension and 
 diffusion of real knowledge, or of such knowledge as tends 
 to add to the powers of production, to render the articles- 
 produced more productive of happiness by ameliorating 
 the physical or moral constitution, or to secure the conti- 
 nuance of equal security and the natural laws of distribu- 
 tion ? It is a curious fact that the institutions of slavery 
 are apt to be less atrocious under despotism than in free 
 states. Men themselves free, are more atrocious tyrants 
 over their slaves than the slave-owners of despotism. And 
 well are they punished for such foul institutions. All that 
 intellectual energy, which, under other circumstances, 
 would be devoted to the extension of the bounds of know- 
 ledge, or the diffusion of what was known in one or other 
 of the three above-mentioned modes, is now necessarily 
 directed to frame and uphold expedients for retaining the 
 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 213 
 
 slaves in slavery. What little mental power of observing 
 and judging also is left the slaves, is expended in counter- 
 expedients to lighten their work, or to break their chains. 
 The policy of the slave -owner is of course to keep the 
 slave as ignorant as possible. It would be impossible to 
 devise an institution more destructive of knowledge as to 
 improvements in sciences and arts. How stands it as to 
 improvements in the physical and moral condition of the 
 community? What but mutual alienation, mutual hate, 
 can exist between master and slave, where all is power and 
 enjoyment on the one side, all is forced submission and 
 destitution on the other ? Can they be honest, who can 
 have no property, whose labour can acquire them. nothing? 
 Why should they speak truth, where the benefit of speak- 
 ing it is only for masters whom they justly execrate? 
 How can they who are tormented, or who are in the hourly 
 dread of being tormented, have other feelings than those 
 of hypocrisy and revenge ? The pleasures of sympathy 
 and benevolence cut off from the master from the absence 
 of the necessity of exercising them, he seeks other means 
 of happiness, and wallows in sensual pursuits, in cruel 
 sports, and the indulgence of brutal passions. The master 
 is only less wretched and immoral, less devoid of prudence 
 and humanity, less limited in intellect, than the slave. 
 
 All institutions, then, supporting slavery, or in as far 
 as they have that tendency, are not only incapable of 
 being made useful for the increase of knowledge and pro- 
 duction, but are amongst the most effectual engines for 
 the ultimate annihilation of knowledge, production, and 
 happiness. 
 
 Under no head, perhaps, so appropriate as that of field 
 or domestic slavery, can be introduced the institutions, 
 almost universally prevailing, whether in despotisms or 
 republics, respecting that half of the human race which 
 hypocritical sensuality calls the most lovely, the most 
 innocent, and the best portion of it women. Man is to 
 woman the most lovely and joy-exciting creature in the 
 
214 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 universe, as woman is to man ; therefore as to loveliness,, 
 and similar nonsense, the account is balanced. Nature h&s 
 given woman less strength, and has subjected her to enor- 
 mous physical inconveniences and pain, from which men 
 are exempt. Are these reasons why man should add to 
 these natural and unavoidable evils, artificial restraints and 
 evils that may be avoided ? or should he not rather endea- 
 vour to balance them, and render a compensation for 
 natural unavoidable evils, by artificial advantages, that 
 happiness might be ultimately equal to all ? But let us 
 look to the absolute effects as to the diffusion of knowledge, 
 of the domestic, civil, and political slavery in which women 
 are held. First, one-half of the knowledge and of the 
 happiness to be derived from it, that might be enjoyed by 
 all adult human beings, is wantonly sacrificed, by with- 
 holding from women the means equal to those enjoyed by 
 men, of acquiring knowledge. In whatever way this 
 knowledge may operate, whether as giving pleasure in the 
 immediate intellectual culture and activity, whether as a 
 source of the only useful power and influence on mind, 
 or as acquiring gratification from new articles of wealth, 
 the effect is the same ; the sacrifice is wanton ; 'tis like 
 deliberately consigning one-half the wealth of a commu- 
 nity every year into the ocean. Next, the general intellect 
 of the whole community, male and female, is stunted or 
 perverted in infancy, or more commonly both, by keeping 
 from, women the knowledge possessed by men. The first 
 years of childhood must be everywhere, from physical 
 conveniences, under their control; falsehoods instead of 
 facts, false reasonings, and pernicious habits, must be 
 instilled in proportion to the ignorance of the tutors ; and 
 the whole of after culture, even when judiciously directed, 
 is frequently insufficient to undo the mischiefs of early 
 false associations, instead of being free to direct its whole 
 energy to the implanting, through the senses and judgment, 
 useful facts, and truths, and habits, tending to happiness 
 on the, at least unperverted, mind. Third, the intellectual 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 
 
 improvement of men, and every possible advance in know- 
 ledge (art and science), are chained down and arrested by 
 the imperious necessity for mutual happiness from asso- 
 ciations, the most near and intimate that human nature 
 allows, between men and women. By the maintenance of 
 ignorance in women, one-half of the human race is opposed 
 in interest to, is in never-ceasing conspiracy against, the 
 intellectual superiority of the other half. Women must 
 make the most of the good qualities they possess to acquire 
 influence over, and happiness from, men, as men do with 
 respect to women, as well as towards each other. What's 
 the consequence of this universal law of human nature ? 
 The alienation of women from mental pursuits, necessarily 
 throws all their exertions into the physical line, beauty, 
 dress, manner, arts of exciting desire, or associations con- 
 nected with it. All sensual things, and things of immediate 
 domestic concernment, in which they can share, are neces- 
 sarily put forward, and preferred by them to intellectual 
 pleasures, to things of public or national interest, in which 
 they cannot share. Thus, possessed of the means of ex- 
 citing the strongest of human propensities, all this influ- 
 ence is directed to the triumph of passion and feeling, of 
 immediate enjoyment and short-sighted and selfish plea- 
 sures (or at most confined to the domestic circle), over the 
 pleasures of enlarged benevolence and comprehensive know- 
 ledge. The ignorance and the local selfish views of women 
 are a balancing force always -in operation, to bring down 
 to their own level the expanding sympathies and aspirations 
 for knowledge of men. Whatever, not them, man sets his 
 heart upon, is with them a rival ; and every art of mali- 
 cious ignorance (for knowledge ceases to be malicious) ia 
 put into motion to decry its value. The incessant action 
 of this fatal domestic machinery too surely accomplishes 
 its purpose. The ignorant and the short-sighted sensu- 
 alists amongst the men, lend their weight, to court women's 
 favour, in decrying qualities unprofitable to them; and 
 thus are the stronger half of human kind justly punished, 
 
216 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 in the diminution of their own virtue and knowledge, for 
 depriving the' other, the weaker, half, of the means of 
 acquiring them. 
 
 The only and the simple remedy for the evils arising 
 from these almost universal institutions of the domestic 
 slavery of one-half the human race, is utterly to eradicate 
 them . Give men and women equal civil and political rights . 
 Apply the principle of security, impartially, to all adult 
 rational human beings ; and let property on the death of 
 parents be equally divided between all the children, male 
 and female. Then would be seen a double emulation of 
 knowledge, and consequently of virtue; an emulation 
 between the two sexes at school and in after life, and an 
 emulation on the part of women, in adding their influence 
 to the rewards of public opinion, in the general encourage- 
 ment of intellectual qualities, instead of their general de- 
 pression ; and sexual pleasures to both parties, instead of 
 being diminished, would be increased a hundred-fold, inas- 
 much as they would be stripped of all their grossness, and 
 associated with intellectual and expansive sympathetic 
 pleasures. By the annihilation of this one iniquitous insti- 
 tution of the domestic slavery of one-half of 'a community, 
 and substituting a perfect equality of rights and duties, the 
 progress in acquiring and diffusing knowledge would be 
 more than doubled. 
 
 Wherever we turn our eyes over the machinery of 
 society, the irresistible effects of institutions, or of those 
 states of things and circumstances in which mankind find 
 themselves placed with respect to each other, both as affect- 
 ing knowledge and production, arrest the attention. 
 Several have been glanced at ; it might not, perhaps, be 
 unprofitable to pass before us all social institutions with 
 this view, would it not lead too far. 
 
 From the conjoined operation of all these institutions, 
 major and minor, on a community supposing no oral or 
 written addresses to adults or school education existed 
 would the character, including the moral habits, and the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 217 
 
 knowledge of a people, be formed. By these all their 
 actions, all their wants, are liable every moment of their 
 lives to be operated upon. There is no external know- 
 ledge addressed to children or to adults, which can coun- 
 teract their influence; the knowledge must destroy the 
 institutions, or the institutions will blot out the knowledge. 
 If, then, it be thought desirable that habits of industry, 
 of truth, of fortitude, of temperance, of prudence, of bene- 
 ficence, of mental cultivation, be universally formed 
 amongst communities of men, as a basis for the greatest 
 production, and maximum of enjoyment from wealth, the 
 first attention of the wise will be directed to the exist- 
 ing institutions which stand directly in the way of the 
 formation of those habits amongst the people, and which 
 implant habits diametrically opposed to them. Institu- 
 tions, and the interests they engender, operate, in com- 
 parison with mere knowledge, as things operate, compared 
 with the words which represent them, as the taste of a 
 peach, or the sting of a wasp, does, compared with its 
 description. In order to clear the way, to afford an 
 opening for the commencement of the diffusion of useful 
 knowledge and moral habits amongst a community, all 
 counteracting institutions should be removed ; everything 
 which impedes the greatest equality of the distribution of 
 wealth consistent with security, or, in other words, which 
 is incompatible with the natural laws of distribution, ought 
 to be removed. Then would be seen the incalculable 
 effects which real knowledge addressed to the adult, and to 
 the young, in the way of education, in facilitating and 
 increasing production and forming moral habits, the 
 elements of happiness, would produce. Then would begin, 
 not the perfection of the human character and of social con- 
 dition, but the commencement of their forward career. All 
 the skill and activity which are now employed for mutual 
 competition and annoyance, would then be employed for 
 mutual co-operation to the common good. 
 
 Almost all the useful knowledge that has been hitherto 
 
218 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 diffused, and the improvements that have been made, have 
 been done in spite of existing institutions. In the early 
 ages of the existence and the associations of the human 
 race, before the art of writing was discovered, and even 
 through subsequent ages, before the further improvement, 
 the art, by means of printing, of diffusing writings through 
 a community, was discovered, the formation of human 
 character necessarily depended altogether on the existing 
 institutions. In all countries, these institutions 1 were 
 necessarily the result of fortuitous circumstances, and 
 were almost universally the work of ignorant force or 
 fraud, or a combination of both ; the object always being, 
 so to order things that the successful party might enjoy 
 power and all means of pleasure/ at the expense of the mass 
 of the community. It could not be otherwise : mankind, 
 till late ages, have had very little knowledge on physical 
 subjects; still less on extensive moral combinations. Seldom 
 has a feeble effort been made, founded on imperfect know- 
 ledge, by a whole community, as in ancient Greece, Italy, 
 &c., at self-government ; than, soon, marred by that same 
 want of knowledge, and the consequent usurpations of some 
 aspiring body of men over the rest of the community, the 
 institutions were perverted. It is but of late that, even in 
 theory, has been admitted the first principle of social jus- 
 tice, that " the sole object of all institutions and laws ought 
 to be, to promote the happiness of the whole of the com- 
 munity ; or, where there was any incompatibility, that the 
 happiness of the greater number should be always preferred 
 to that of the lesser." Hence the almost universal preva- 
 lence of institutions, by which the happiness of the mass 
 of the community is, as well through ignorance as by sys- 
 tem, sacrificed to the supposed interests of the few who 
 happen to possess the political power. It would be indeed 
 surprising, if institutions, the motley mixtures of the 
 results of force, fraud, and ignorance, should, except 
 by chance, have operated favourably to the interests 
 of the whole or the majority of the members of com- 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 219 
 
 munities. As soon as, in spite of their pernicious ope- 
 ration, knowledge shall have penetrated amongst those 
 subjected to them, they must all be remodelled with a view 
 to universal happiness, 
 
 This, and all- other good, must be effected by the acqui- 
 sition and diffusion of knowledge. The first mode of 
 exciting, diffusing, or suppressing knowledge, by means 
 of institutions, being disposed of in the few preceding 
 illustrations, we pass to the second, by means of instruc- 
 tion, verbal or written, addressed to the adult members of 
 a community. 
 
 SECTION 3. J 
 
 OP INSTRUCTION, VERBAL OR "WRITTEN, ADDRESSED TO ADULTS, AS THE SECOND 
 MEANS OF DIFFUSING OR SUPPRESSING KNOWLEDGE. OBSTACLES TO ITS 
 PROGRESS. 
 
 Hitherto, mankind have been governed by the unre- 
 flecting habits formed by institutions, with the necessary 
 supplement of force always at hand to restrain their aber- 
 rations. Henceforth rational beings must be governed by 
 reason. Since the invention of the art of printing, a new 
 and altogether incalculable power of operating on mankind, 
 has been silently working its way. The individuals hap- 
 pening to possess power in different communities, have 
 more or less aided its progress as a new means of support 
 or gratification to themselves, or annoyance to their ene- 
 mies. This power is that of increasing knowledge, the 
 improvement of human reason ; when diffused and ex- 
 pressed, on matters of general interest, it becomes that 
 moral force, before which all other is doomed to yield, the 
 force of public opinion. In former ages this moral engine, 
 even if its capabilities had been known to a few, could not 
 have been called into action, from the prevalence of vicious 
 social institutions, and from the want of diffusion and quick 
 communication by the press. It is now on the point of 
 governing all civilised communities. It is becoming alike 
 the arbiter of public and private morals, and the modeller 
 
220 . On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 of all institutions. When formally expressed, it will be 
 the legal ascertained will of a rational community regulat- 
 ing its own affairs. 
 
 There is no species of knowledge, to the acquisition 
 and diffusion of which, the ignorance and jealousy of men, 
 happening to possess the governing powers of communities, 
 have not opposed themselves. The reason is, that their 
 power was necessarily founded upon, or associated with, the 
 ignorant notions of physical as well as moral events and 
 reasonings, which prevailed at the time their ascendency 
 over their fellow-creatures commenced. The less they 
 knew of governing mankind by their interests, the more 
 were they under the necessity of supporting their power 
 by pretensions to superior knowledge and frauds of all 
 sorts, always ultimately supported by brute force. Of 
 these, one of the most common, was the pretension to an 
 intimacy with, and delegation from, supposed superior 
 beings. Under such a partnership, these men frequently 
 promulgated, to increase and perpetuate their influence, 
 systems of physics, and morals, or of morals, embracing 
 more or less of physics, as a support to, or sometimes as 
 forming part of, the laws and institutions which they 
 framed. Hence those who succeeded the first active 
 founders, necessarily ignorant and indolent from want of 
 motives to exertion, would revenge, if they could, any 
 doubt or disrespect shown to any part of the ill-arranged 
 machinery on which their power was built. Hence almost 
 all great discoveries in physics, astronomy, the form and 
 structure of the earth, of the human frame, &c., have been 
 persecuted, and their discoverers denounced as impious or 
 seditious. 
 
 In this way warred, in every part of the earth, institu- 
 tions and power with knowledge, till the discovery of the 
 art of printing assured to knowledge the ascendency. 
 Since that time, knowledge has been gradually gaining on 
 brute force and institutions hostile to security. Within 
 the last fifty years, chiefly from the impulse of the mere 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 221 
 
 hope of rational political institutions, so much activity and 
 ardour of inquiry has been put forth, and science and art 
 have made such conquests over the external substances 
 and powers of nature, in rendering their properties and 
 energies subservient to human use; that the productive 
 powers of labour in preparing the physical means of well- 
 being, have been multiplied in some lines two, in others a 
 hundred, and in others even to a thousand-fold, and objects 
 have been accomplished which were thought beyond the 
 possibility of human power. These mighty physical 
 improvements have taken place of late years, because 
 those in possession of the political power of communities, 
 without being an atom more disposed to promote the 
 general good when opposed to their apparent particular 
 interests, have been intelligent enough to perceive that 
 the more sciences and arts were improved, and the more the 
 productive classes of the community produced, the more 
 would there remain for them, from which, in a hundred 
 ways, to extort plunder. Hence, in England and other 
 countries, many of the ancient restrictions on security have 
 been removed; this prospect of more extensive plunder by 
 taxation, operating at least as one out of the many motives 
 that produced, in different times and places, the gradual 
 relaxation of barbarous laws, or of the open abuse of force. 
 But the productive classes, the great majority of the 
 members of civilised communities, have been hitherto very 
 little if at all benefited, even in physical comforts, by the 
 increased productive powers of labour. In the shape of 
 profits, in the shape of unrelenting taxation, the increased 
 productions of their labour have been taken away from the 
 producers, and bestowed on certain idle, most frequently 
 pernicious, unproductive classes, generally leagued with 
 those in possession of political power. And in such igno- 
 rance have these productive classes been kept of their own 
 interests and of self-respect, and so universally has the 
 pernicious economical dogma been upheld of the necessity 
 of low wages to flourishing manufactures, and the no less 
 
222 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 foolish dogma of the prosperity of a country depending on 
 the mere number of its people, that no prudential foresight 
 could be by the productive classes exercised, in the way of 
 limiting the increase of children to the probability of an 
 adequate maintenance. Until knowledge on moral, parti- 
 cularly legislative, subjects, is diffused, this will be the 
 deplorable issue of the utmost possible improvement in 
 the physical sciences and arts, and in the increased produc- 
 tive powers of labour, that the unproductive in larger 
 numbers will be pampered with larger surfeits of sensual 
 indulgences and sloth ; while the producers will, from 
 the contrast between their poverty and the lustre of the 
 luxuries they have manufactured for the unproductive, be 
 the more despised. The true remedy, then, for the deep 
 and variously ramified evils of society, is to improve and 
 diffuse political and other moral knowledge. The two 
 reasons for this are quite incontrovertible : first, physical 
 knowledge has comparatively no enemies or obstacles ; 
 second, all improvements in physical knowledge will be 
 quite unavailing, without correspondent advances in moral 
 science or knowledge. 
 
 "What, then," it may be asked, "remains to be done, but 
 that those who conceive themselves possessed of political 
 and other moral knowledge not yet diffused, should endea- 
 voar to diffuse it ? Are not the same means, writings and 
 discourses, open for the diffusion of moral, that have been 
 used for the diffusion of physical knowledge ? Do not the 
 same motives present themselves, pecuniary profit, love of 
 influence, love of reputation, love of intellectual activity, 
 and sometimes, or mingled up with these, benevolence ?" 
 
 It is certainly on the diffusion, by individual effort, of 
 moral knowledge, that all hopes of human improvement 
 and happiness must be founded. From existing institu- 
 tions the most that can be expected, is a mitigated hostility. 
 A free unobstructed course, is all that knowledge would ask, 
 or ought to accept of, from any institutions. From the 
 moment that authority interferes, and pretends by its fiat 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 223 
 
 to render truth more plain, from that moment an improper 
 bias is thrown on the judgment, and the result must be, 
 prejudice, in the exact ratio that authority supersedes the 
 exercise of the judgment. It may not be useless, however, 
 to bring together the most prominent of the obstructions 
 that still stand in the way of the diffusion of moral truth, 
 amongst the adult members of almost every existing com- 
 munity. 
 
 The first obstacle comes from the ignorance, the preju- 
 dices, and particularly the poverty, caused by the insecurity 
 produced by existing institutions. 
 
 The great majority of all communities are, by the 
 present machinery of society, absolutely debarred from 
 any exercise of judgment whatever, on the wretched sub- 
 stitutes for knowledge presented to them before manhood ; 
 and in point of real knowledge, that is to say, useful, phy- 
 sical, and moral facts and deductions, they are, even in this 
 memory and repetition system, taught almost nothing. 
 All the little really useful knowledge they acquire, is 
 worked out by the incidents to which they are exposed by 
 the operation of the surrounding institutions, and other 
 circumstances not under the control of these institutions. 
 So undoubted is the fact of the extreme ignorance of the 
 great majority of mankind, that until lately, it was esteemed 
 foolish or criminal to endeavour to substitute knowledge 
 for this ignorance ; and there are still those who openly 
 maintain, and many more who secretly strive for, the per- 
 petuating of this ignorance. 
 
 Now, the obstacles arising from this ignorance have 
 not been sufficiently attended to. It is with the powers of 
 the mind, or the brain, as with the muscular powers. If 
 they have not been exercised when young, and susceptible 
 of any impulsion, they acquire either a habit of rigidity, 
 of inaptitude to motion, or an unfavourable direction of 
 motion. It seems, indeed, that even when the muscular 
 powers are found least susceptible at mature age, the defect 
 is chiefly to be found in the mind : for, let the mind be 
 
224 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 roused, let desire to succeed, and consequent attention be 
 once called into life, the inaptitude or false motions of the 
 muscles will gradually give way, strength will penetrate 
 into the fibres with exercise and hope, and the facility and 
 quickness of success will surprise the agent. Therefore, 
 wherever the mind, the judging faculty, has never been 
 roused into action and exercised, no resource is left to 
 operate on any part of the human machine, and least of 
 all upon the mind itself. The exercise is an effort ; is a 
 new thing; the pleasure of the exercise has never been 
 experienced, and is not believed to exist; no good has 
 ever been derived from it, and therefore it will not be 
 believed that any can be derived. Address the senses, 
 the passions yes : but the faculty of reasoning is im- 
 movable. Such is the difficulty of rousing ignorance, 
 where any train of thought requiring the least exertion, is 
 necessary to enable it to see its own interest. What must 
 it be where, superadded to ignorance, certain propositions, 
 the province of the judgment, have been forced' upon .the 
 memory, and with these have been implanted associations 
 of terror and antipathy, attached sometimes to the very 
 name of anything new in the way of knowledge, partjcu- 
 larly moral knowledge ? In every part of the world, the 
 ignorant are taught to attach nothing less -than infallibility 
 to the notions on political and other moral subjects which 
 those in power have thought proper to imbue them with. 
 Never having been taught to doubt, they cannot conceive 
 the possibility of forming more than one opinion on 
 one subject, and that opinion, of course, the right one, 
 and that opinion, of course, their opinion. And the greater 
 the ignorance of those men in power, and the more 
 pernicious the absurdity of the notions impressed, the 
 greater, of course, is the necessity to guard those 
 whom they teach, with such adjuncts of terror, antipathy, 
 and infallibility. When to these obstacles in the way 
 of reasoning with the minds of ignorance and folly (the 
 road being supposed open to address them by way of dis- 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 225 
 
 courses or writings) is added another arising from the 
 poverty of the great majority of every community, depriv- 
 ing them of the means of finding access to any information, 
 verbal or written, which might be addressed to them, may 
 not the friend of the " plain and simple truth" be well dis- 
 couraged? Amongst the middle and higher classes, the 
 obstacle of poverty, of course, does not exist. But the 
 obstacles of prejudices, growing out of the interests and 
 the associations of their professions and classes, are equally 
 inveterate. The noble, the lawyer, the priest, have been 
 severally subjected to, and live by, institutions repressing 
 all freedom of inquiry, and drilling them, without examina- 
 tion, to the reverence for, and support of, certain dogmas, 
 regulations, and -establishments; and one of the leading 
 associations in which they all agree is, that those who 
 dispute their notions, ought, if possible, to be tormented 
 till they cease disputing them.j"~This necessarily arises 
 from their having taken up their opinions without inquiry ; 
 for, if they knew any reasons, they would find pleasure, 
 fronv vanity, love of intellectual activity, or desire of doing 
 good, in showing the truth and utility of their opinions 
 and practices. There remain, then, to be operated upon, 
 with some fair probability of success, the middle classes of 
 the industrious, whose pursuits do not necessarily beget 
 peculiar interests or prejudices hostile to impartial inves- 
 tigation. Even amongst the interested and prejudiced 
 classes, there are to be found individuals more influenced 
 by the general interests, than by those peculiar to their 
 own body. 
 
 Another host of obstacles to the diffusion of moral 
 knowledge, arises from the circumstance that every part 
 of this field, unlike the field of physics, is already occupied 
 by a set of men, who derive wealth, possess power, and 
 claim infallibility, in consequence of the notions they 
 entertain, and are in the habit of disseminating, on these 
 subjects. Go to the most important branch of morals, 
 legislation to the most important limb of this branch, the 
 
 p 
 
226 On the Distribution, of Wealth 
 
 constitutional (that which determines who shall make, 
 apply, and execute the laws), and you will find it every- 
 where in possession of a parcel of mountebanks, who 
 will admit of no reasonings, whose whole support and 
 never-varying reply is, "It is established ; it is the con- 
 stitution ; we have power, and, like any other pirates, 
 we '11 keep what we have as long as we can." On the 
 utility of the powers which they exercise, these men permit 
 no discussion. Sometimes they publish their will, in the 
 shape of an edict or law, consigning to torments, most 
 frequently to death, those who point out the evils arising 
 from their system of rule. Mostly their arbitrary -will is 
 executed without the formality of any edicts. Sometimes, 
 as in England, they denounce banishment on all wno twice 
 express disrespect of them or their proceedings. Now, 
 till men can as freely discuss the utility of the political 
 existence of a jury, a king, a president, a noble, a repre- 
 sentative of the people, as of the culinary convenience 
 of copper kettles, moral truth the most important for 
 mankind to know cannot be elicited. The natural 
 difficulties of the inquiry are quite enough, without super- 
 adding artificial difficulties. Suppose that people were 
 liable to be thrown into prison, tormented to death with 
 cold, damp, and privations, bereft of the earnings of their 
 industry, because they endeavoured to convince as many 
 as they could, in all possible ways, by speaking and 
 writing, that copper kitchen utensils were pernicious to 
 health, to length of life, and consequently to happiness ; 
 and suppose that the makers of these utensils had the 
 power of punishment in their hands would there be much 
 chance of the improvement of culinary vessels while such 
 a system of persecution lasted ? Yet, such exactly is the 
 case with the holders of political power. If their system 
 is useful no matter whether founded yesterday or ten 
 thousand years ago truth, which is merely showing 
 things as they are, will confirm it ; if not useful, it ought 
 not to exist beyond the time that the majority of those 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 227 
 
 liable to its operation are convinced of its inexpediency: 
 Respect paid to anything' pernicious, established or not 
 the yielder of respect believing it to be pernicious is a 
 vice ; disrespect is a virtue. 
 
 From the political branch of moral science, if we pro- 
 ceed to the judicial, or the ethical (that of private morals), 
 Y\ T C shall find in the same way, almost everywhere, the 
 ground occupied by pretenders to infallibility. Already, 
 systems are established; their advocates share the public 
 wealth, and wield the public power, or are upheld by it. 
 The bonze, the mufti, and the European" priest and lawyer, 
 are all of them equally indignant that any part of their 
 systems should be called into dispute. What care they for 
 their effects, except as far as they yield themselves the 
 means of enjoyment?- Why should they have troubled 
 themselves about their effects on the happiness of the 
 community? They find, by their own experience, that 
 they produce happiness to themselves, and, therefore, they 
 must be good. What business is it of theirs, to show the 
 inquisitive and the idle what their effects are ? they exist, 
 therefore they are good therefore those who say they are 
 not good, are ill-disposed. All the lives of these men have 
 been employed in getting their respective systems mostly 
 nonsense, or worse than nonsense by heart. The utility 
 of their systems, as to the happiness of the majority of 
 the community, never entered into the contemplation of 
 , them or of their founders ; nor, if it had, were they pre- 
 pared to form a right judgment on the subject. 
 
 So necessary, however, to human happiness, and so 
 attractive is the pursuit of moral science, so interesting is 
 the just distribution of wealth, and the simple but sublime 
 right (founded, as all other rights and duties ought to be, 
 on utility alo'ne) of self-government, as well in man's pri- 
 vate as social capacity ; that, as in the age when untutored 
 r/eason sprang from the cold embrace of the superstitions 
 of a thousand years, so that now she is comparatively ma- 
 ture and wise from experience, men will everywhere be 
 
228 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 found ready to yield whatever blood and torments, poll- 
 tical, legal, or religious persecution may still demand, till 
 moral science shall be as unshackled as physical science, 
 till nothing shall be esteemed too sacred for the uncom- 
 promising scrutiny of reason, and till all support shall be 
 withdrawn from all institutions, old or new, but their per- 
 ceived utility. 
 
 -There are still other obstacles, of no mean amount, 
 opposing the discovery or diffusion of moral knowledge. 
 In physical knowledge, almost every useful discovery has 
 a fair chance of receiving an adequate, sometimes a more 
 than adequate, pecuniary reward, either by its immediate 
 application (guarded, if wished for, though at a totally 
 uncalled for expense, by patent) to some of the arts; or 
 by adding to the chance, by means of reputation, of being 
 employed, or attracting pupils, as a public teacher. In 
 moral discoveries, on the contrary, there is scarcely ever 
 any possibility of such application to any of the useful 
 practical arts, as could be turned into a source of pecu- 
 niary profit. The well ordering of the intellectual and 
 moral machine, a school, by new processes (for, if by the 
 old, it would be only superior management) may, perhaps, 
 with a few other instances, look like exceptions ; though, 
 even in schools, real improvements are effectually, though 
 indirectly, repressed by existing institutions. Perhaps the 
 only way of remuneration common to physical and moral 
 science, is publication by means of the press, of books, pam- 
 phlets, newspapers, &c. In this way it is, that, whatever 
 good has been done, in the way of sapping old established 
 errors by the diffusion of knowledge, has taken place, that 
 profit may have been gained by the diffusion. So influential 
 have newspapers become by applying moral science to pass- 
 ing events, that they have acquired, by way of eminence, the 
 title of the public press. One branch of moral science, poli- 
 tical economy, exciting less the fears, than the hopes, of ex- 
 tended physical enjoyments, of rulers and those connected 
 with them, and confining itself to the almost mechanical 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 229 
 
 consideration of wealth, has bee'n pretty freely canvassed ; 
 still, perhaps, with more of reputation than profit to those 
 engaged in it. The most profound and celebrated writer 
 on legislation, in this or any other country, has devoted a 
 long life and an ample fortune to his favourite pursuit. 
 
 . Such are the sources of aid, in the way of pecuniary 
 profit, to the discovery and diffusion of moral truth : for 
 all discussion must ultimately lead to truth. 
 
 Another peculiarity in favour of physical over moral 
 
 -' knowledge is, that a secret in physical science does not 
 necessarily require to be widely diffused, in order to be 
 useful to society. The knowledge of a particular process 
 in any manufactory, though known to but a few manufac- 
 turers, and by them kept secret, might still ameliorate the 
 quality or cheapen the production of articles of enjoyment, 
 so as to benefit all using the articles as well as the makers. 
 But" moral benefits, being for the most part to be obtained 
 by the amelioration of institutions, and almost air amelio- 
 rations requiring a sacrifice of wealth, power, or reputation 
 for infallibility, on the part of those supporting and sup- 
 ported by them, they can only be changed by the public 
 voice, after a long contest, influencing those in power to 
 make or permit the amelioration. If the enemies to the 
 use of the power of steam demanded that it should not be 
 employed till a great majority of those able to judge on 
 the subject were convinced of its effects, and demanded its 
 employment, would not some sinister interest be suspected, 
 particularly if they, at the same time, had establishments 
 worked on other principles, and endeavoured to prevent any 
 discussion at all as to the effects of steam ? Yet no more 
 than this is asked of the opponents of moral improvement, 
 that free discussion should take place, and that when the 
 majority of those interested, judged any proposed changes 
 improvements, they should then, and not till then, take 
 place. Even under free institutions, no amelioration of 
 them could, or ought to, take place, till the majority of 
 those interested demanded it ; though, under such insti- 
 
230 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 tutions, the agents of the community would be the most 
 anxious to promote discussion, or to invite and adopt 
 ameliorations ; or if they opposed what was deemed useful 
 by the community, they would be immediated displaced by 
 more faithful agents. This comparative slowness of oper- 
 ation to produce practical good is, therefore, inherent in 
 moral truth ; though under institutions founded in security 
 and free discussion, the process of diffusion and persuasion, 
 by means of the press, might be incalculably accelerated, 
 
 Another obstacle to moral science arises from the pecu- 
 liar difficulty of its cultivation. Whereas physics deal in 
 things that can be seen and felt, and made objects of the 
 senses, and can be subjected to every variety of experi- 
 ment ; in morals scarcely any rational experiments have 
 yet ever been made ; all has been the result of the fortuitous 
 shock of passions and interests ; and it requires the nicest 
 discrimination to refer the moral effects to their real causes. 
 The unorganised matter of physics is without feeling, and 
 may therefore be decomposed as much as we please to 
 prove the particular effect of every component part of the 
 aggregate cause ; while in morals all are acting in masses, 
 and we can neither simplify the alternate agent and patient, 
 man, or the numberless co-operating circumstances that 
 are acting upon him. Even when we are sure of the direc- 
 tion in which the cause operates, we can rarely do more 
 than approximate the quantum of the effects. We have no 
 accurate weights or measures for moral quantities. And 
 yet this, necessarily the latest, as the most difficult, species 
 of knowledge, is just that which the audacious perverseness 
 of rulers has everywhere assumed to be perfect perfect 
 in proportion to the ignorance of the ages, in all other 
 matters, in which it was introduced ! Henceforth, under 
 the institutions of security, by the removal of all interests 
 opposed to improvement, there will be no more difficulty 
 in trying any rational experiment (and none not deemed 
 rational will be entered into by communities of men where 
 their own happiness is at stake), than is experienced by 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 231 
 
 individuals in physical matters, where their private inter- 
 ests are concerned. Besides these larger experiments, 
 when the various existing obstacles shall have been 
 removed, moral experiments, on a small scale, will be 
 made ; with a view, if successful, to their application on a 
 large scale, provincial or national. 
 
 As if all these obstacles were not enough in the way of 
 the acquisition and diffusion of moral knowledge, the craft 
 of rulers has erected another obstacle; and taxation has 
 tremendously opposed .itself to the diffusion of knowledge, 
 doubling or trebling the price of books, particularly of the 
 political press. 
 
 Such being the obstacles to the discovery and diffusion 
 of moral knowledge amongst adults, what hope can remain 
 of its useful application to the distribution of wealth, or to 
 v the engendering of such habits as will increase the enjoy- 
 ments to be derived from the absolute quantity of wealth 
 which a community may be in the yearly habit of produc- 
 ing ? Physical knowledge is little concerned in the distri- 
 bution of wealth, but increases indefinitely its production ; 
 moral knowledge must regulate its distribution. This 
 species of knowledge, however, from the impulse given by 
 what is already acquired, in spite of all obstacles, must go 
 on increasing till it extinguishes the empire of force in 
 human affairs, and substitutes that of persuasion. The 
 interests of mankind will ultimately ensure the free discus- 
 sion of moral subjects, and particularly their application 
 to the production and distribution of wealth. Every year 
 the adult population will become more accessible to reason 
 and their own interest, till they perceive and admit the 
 crying injustice (amongst so many other prejudices), of 
 forcing the minds of children into an uninquiring assent to 
 their opinions, or to any opinions on any subject, beyond 
 what the evidence produced would demand of unbiassed 
 minds. From that time, when human beings shall begin 
 to be thus educated to truth alone, according to the evi- 
 dence, without any pre-excited partialities for any opinions, 
 
232 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 will the progress of instruction to adults be rapid and influ- 
 ential to an extent hardly now to be conceived. Moral 
 and physical truth will proceed hand in hand ; and their 
 utility will be seen altogether to depend on their intimate 
 union. 
 
 The third mode, therefore, of diffusing knowledge, so 
 influential in the production and distribution of wealth, by 
 means of education, previous to manhood, remains to be 
 inquired into. 
 
 SECTION 4. 
 
 OF EDUCATION, STRICTLY SO CALLED, PREVIOUS TO MANHOOD, AS THE THIRD MODE 
 OP DIFFUSING KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 The all-pervading influence of institutions) over all the 
 members of a community, the hitherto partial, but ever- 
 increasing influence of instruction or disquisition addressed 
 to the adult members of a community, having been in- 
 quired into ; it remains to see what can, or ought to, be 
 done, in the way of education before entrance into life, 
 towards the diffusion of useful knowledge ; particularly of 
 moral knowledge of such as will make physical knowledge 
 productive of preponderant good, by leading to the uni- 
 versal reign of equal security, and of the utmost equality 
 of enjoyment compatible therewith. 
 
 Numerous have been the questions raised of late years 
 on the subject of early education. For a long time it was 
 altogether opposed as a most alarming evil by those inter- 
 ested in, or prejudiced in favour of, establishments, as such, 
 independent of their utility, Though all open opposition 
 has ceased> yet have the friends of education done little, 
 even with the aid of their new instruments, derived from 
 Lancaster and Bell. The reasons of the failure are obvious. 
 Its partisans were too sanguine, and expected too much 
 from it as a single instrument of good. Many of them 
 were as viciously determined to make use of the new instru- 
 ment, to diffuse, without inquiry, their peculiar views on 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 233 
 
 moral subjects, particularly theological, as were their 
 opponents ; hence the contest was, who should have the 
 drilling of the machines by the new mode ; whether to 
 truth or to error, they were still, and equally, to be drilled : 
 the. object was not to give the people knowledge for their 
 own sakes, but to swell the numbers of the future partisans 
 of some unimportant dogma. Another cause of failure was 
 in the nature of the new instrument of teaching itself; it 
 has been found that youths drilled ever so well to the 
 system at the head seminaries, could not superintend 
 establishments similar to those where they were educated, 
 from want of enlarged views and a general knowledge of the 
 human mind ; when anything unexpected occurred, they 
 had no general principles to guide them. There is, more- 
 over, a radical defect in the systems of Bell and Lancaster, 
 that the understanding is by them altogether sacrificed to 
 the memory ; this defect admits of an easy remedy ; but 
 neither Bell nor Lancaster had the comprehension of mind, 
 or the real honesty of purpose, with respect to the inde- 
 pendence of the minds of their pupils, even to wish to 
 discover it. 
 
 Still education, even in its most restricted sense, and 
 making every allowance for the over-zeal or want of 
 knowledge of its exclusive advocates, may and will become 
 a co-operating instrument of transcendent importance in 
 the diffusion of knowledge. Education, in its comprehen- 
 sive sense, including the effect of all external circumstances 
 operating to form the mind and habits, is not now under 
 contemplation ; 'tis the reading, writing, hearing, and 
 examining, by means of sensible signs, that take place in 
 school or by means of books the formal instruction alone, 
 not the incidental received previous to mature age, to 
 which the attention must be confined. Hitherto, what 
 little effect this instrument, thus restricted, has produced, 
 on the great majority of the community, has been to co- 
 operate with existing institutions in forming passive habits 
 of blind obedience. 
 
234 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 School education comprehends two important branches 
 of mental culture, the intellectual and moral, in its limited 
 sense, the acquisition of knowledge and the formation of 
 moral habits. Both of these are produced exclusively by 
 operating* on the mind or brain. Habits and dispositions 
 are formed, just as knowledge is acquired, by operating 
 on the mind or brain alone. The effects of that state of 
 the brain called knowledge, are more frequently exhibited 
 in speech and writing ; while the effects of that state of the 
 brain, denoted by the words, disposition, or habits, are 
 more frequently exhibited in muscular actions and mo- 
 tions. It is a falsehood, as strange as pernicious, to speak 
 of the heart as holding a divided empire with the mind, or 
 brain, in producing our voluntary actions, or as having 
 any more connexion with thought or feeling than the lungs 
 or stomach. The feeling and the judgment are equally a 
 cerebral operation; the judgment, like all other mental 
 processes, is only a modification of feeling. What is the 
 consequence ? Therefore, it is to the culture of the 
 mind alone, that we must look, discarding all poetical 
 absurdity about a second ideal agent, called the heart, for 
 the formation of good habits, as well as of sound judgment 
 and accurate perception. 
 
 Now, in which of these two modes of mental culture is 
 school education calculated to produce the most efficient 
 and useful effects ? Beyond all comparison, in the con- 
 veyance of knowledge, it is calculated to produce the great- 
 est good. But to which of these two branches have its 
 efforts been hitherto, as affecting the great majority of com- 
 munities, almost exclusively directed? To the moral 
 branch, the formation of habits. But habits are generated 
 by circumstances formed by institutions, over which 
 schools have no control, and which they must follow or 
 confirm, under pain of repeating to unhearing ears their 
 disregarded precepts, because opposed to real interests 
 acting from without. 
 
 Here, then, we have a satisfactory explanation of the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 235 
 
 little progress made in education, inasmuch as that branch, 
 in which its useful influence must be indirect, has been 
 almost exclusively pursued by direct means, and by means 
 dictation, force, terror, &c. otherwise the most unwise. 
 Where, indeed, it has co-operated with vicious institutions, 
 confirming the terror and antipathies by them excited, its 
 influence has been sometimes great, but, in proportion to 
 its magnitude, pernicious. 
 
 One reason, and by no means an unsatisfactory reason, 
 why so little has been done in the way of communicating 
 knowledge by means of school education, is, that till lately, 
 little real knowledge, physical or moral, was known, and 
 as little as to the mode of communicating it. The things 
 taught, or professed to be taught, at schools and it was 
 necessary to teach something to fill up the time were 
 therefore necessarily mere words, or idle speculations, or 
 empty precepts, impotent even when tending to good. 
 
 But the truth is, the little that has been done, or 
 attempted to be done, by any community for the education 
 of the great majority of its members, to whatever end per- 
 verted, or however unwisely conducted, must be set down 
 in the scale of utility as nothing. Wherever any real efforts 
 have been made in the line of formal education previous to 
 manhood, they have been directed to the exclusive advan- 
 tage of the privileged, or at all events of the rich, who 
 .could provide for their own education. Witness the esta- 
 blishments, colleges, universities, inns-of-court, <fcc., all 
 supported, directly or indirectly, out of the toils of the 
 productive classes, for the benefit, the exclusive benefit, of 
 the few. They are necessarily exclusive, because the 
 expenses attending them are so great that ninety-nine 
 hundredths of the people are shut out from them. The aim 
 and object of these institutions, and the' discipline pursued 
 in them, have almost invariably been directed, not to the 
 investigation and diffusion of whatever in moral or physical 
 science might be esteemed true, but to the support of cer- 
 tain prescribed opinions and institutions, on the utility of 
 
236 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 which all doubt and examination were denounced as vices, 
 and deserving of horror and punishment ; establishments, 
 to drill the unproductive, at the expense of the productive 
 classes, into interested and zealous machines for perpetu- 
 ating the institutions, however pernicious, under which 
 they originated, and keeping down for ever from knowledge, 
 and consequently from comfort, the great mass of the com- 
 munity, by monopolising the little real, or supposed know- 
 ledge of the times. 
 
 What says the principle of utility to such establish- 
 ments for the education of the few, and those the richest of 
 the community ? Were such establishments ever so wisely 
 conducted, ever so useful to those few, and to the enlarge- 
 ment of the bounds of knowledge, what would that 
 principle say to them, which demands the pursuit of the 
 happiness, and consequently of the knowledge, as one of 
 the means, if not the most important of the means, of hap- 
 piness, of at least the majority, and consequently the 
 greatest happiness, of the whole of a community ? 
 
 It demands that the direction of such establishments 
 should be changed, and that, instead of being used for the 
 interest of a few, they should be devoted to the improv^- 
 ment of the whole community. 
 
 " But to make all wise, or to make the majority wise,," 
 say the favourers of exclusion, "is an impossibility ; -.the 
 effort would be vain, and would be unproductively lost. 
 Better to concentrate the means and operate on a few ; 
 through whom, well instructed, more knowledge will be 
 diffused through the whole, than could be done by any 
 fruitless attempt at immediate communication through the 
 whole ; at all events, better to have a few wise than all 
 ignorant." 
 
 Exactly similar excuses, and with equal confidence, 
 have been put forward to justify the eternal efforts of what 
 has been honoured as legislation, to keep down the wages, 
 the comforts, of the productive classes. "All cannot be 
 rich ; therefore, at all events, take care to add .superabun- 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 237 
 
 dantly to the wealth of the few ; for wealth by being dissi- 
 pated is lost, and all become poor and wretched. Better 
 have a few rich and happy than all paupers." 
 
 To both of these allegations it may be replied, that the 
 uniform tendency of any exclusive advantage, under the 
 institutions of insecurity, whether wealth or knowledge, is 
 to prompt the possessors of that advantage to use it as a 
 means of still further superiority, not as a means of les- 
 sening, by diffusion or otherwise, their own comparative 
 importance. As to wealth, the evil effects of its forced 
 inequality, both as to production and distribution, have 
 been already pointed out. 1 For inequality in the diffusion 
 of knowledge, there is less excuse than for inequality in the 
 distribution of wealth ; because the knowledge of one can 
 in no^possible way lessen the knowledge of others ; but the 
 fa<;t is, that unequal knowledge has been sought almost 
 solely with the view to unequal wealth. 
 
 t Let us inquire, then, whether the majority of any civi- 
 li^ed- community could by education not counteracted by 
 other instruments be made as intelligent and moral, and 
 consequently, as happy, as those who are now the most 
 intelligent and moral classes of any community. It may 
 be shown that the means are at the command of every 
 community, of making the majority of its members much 
 more intelligent and moral institutions flowing from 
 'representation or self-government co-operating therewith 
 than any of the present wealthier classes. 
 
 It is not insinuated that, in opposition to institutions, 
 and to the existing state of knowledge, school education, 
 under the direction of a parcel of rich zealots could such 
 be found would effect this. No ; it must proceed from 
 the deliberate conviction of the majority of a community 
 that it is a thing " right to be done;" in which case, the 
 means are at hand. If the interests of the absolute 
 numerical majority of a community were, as they ought 
 to be, the only interest, attended to, whenever any smaller 
 interest was incompatible with it, that majority would at 
 
238 (hi tin' Dislrit.Hlion of M '/////// 
 
 nlice percrive (heir ililcl'r I, ;|||.| n|'i|;iili Hie Ci Ml.'e I'VII I i \ e 
 blt'HHinpi'S <>!' knowledge, |.\ mrallS n|' rd IKM I in||, Id lie 
 
 imparlully diHponHod In nil. l\>r is it insinuated Ihal any 
 of the. old in, '.1 1 1 ii I ii Hi; 1 ,, upheld by insecii I'll \ , could, OOnSuh 1 
 lenlly with (heir eiidn ranee, cooperate in tin 1 c, I ;i Mish- 
 
 Iliellt of It Hyslelll nl' Universal ri I ||c;| I j< ill , \ylm.r di/lill 
 
 iii.Jiiii;'- rli:ir;icli'ri,ilic, in order In In- ii^rl'iil, Mlioiild In- In 
 Iciicli nttthimj />/// llir Irnlli ; Mini, is In Hiiy, nnl, \vli:il i(,i 
 founders COllOpivod In I..- Mir Inilli, Iml wluilcvrr, nn 
 iiii|iiirv, mi;>;lil ii|>|>r;ir A; ///r rr///o//rr/ lo lc (lie Inilli; ;i 
 HyHlrm <!' <'duc;ilioii, uliidi .dioiild :iv:iil ilsrl I' nl' no terror, 
 
 of no force, of no seductions, of no false associations, ..r 
 
 no JliilipiilliioS, to influence HH- jnd^im-nl ; wliii-li should 
 demand no iwrivm-r lor <i>n/ \\\\\\ \( nl inns or |irn|in;'il join, 
 old or new, Iml. wliai Ilicir |icrcci\c(| nlilily ( .r Inilli 
 ih'cc, ,,a ri I \ r and \ nl mil a n I \ engendered, 
 
 l ( \-ir diU'crml. from , n.-li species of cdncalioii is Ilia! 
 aH'onled In Hie richer cla.v.e.-. nl' MM- cnininiinil y , or to 
 lho,.e I'nr \vliD..e in, I rucl inn I he II lit io Hill Innd.; provide. 
 To leach \\hal ia (rue in real e\i, Hence, in niihire and in 
 
 lad \vhai is useful (or tending to preponderant happi 
 
 IH-MM) in (he cniiHiMpiences and ellecls of aclions and insli- 
 Inlioii,;, i,, not. (lie nlijecl. |i n Inrl n na I el \ , alum, I all who 
 ha.ve ad\nca!ed (he can,.- of education, \\helher lor (lie 
 richer or the poorer cltlHHOH, \vln-llier IViendly to old 
 institutions or wishing to introduce new ones, seem to 
 h.MVO boon inoculated wilh (he very disease \\hich Ihey 
 condemn in all hnl I heniM.dves ; I hat of leachiii;>; I hei r nun 
 opinions \vilhnnt nppropriale evidence, uddressin;'; Ihein 
 prc'iiialnrely In mind,', nnl yet prepared In jud<>;e, and 
 nTiiMiii}'; the perlecl liherl\' ol' ji.-;.;rul nr di,,;ieiil mi review 
 nl' I he evidence adduced. The only nUmpiy allemlaii! on 
 Hie pupil';* non assent Io ////// prnpn;-.il ion nu';lil In he, (hat 
 simple and natural, sullicicnlly ;c\cre and ellicacioii;; 
 
 obloquy, designated l\ (he word ,sV///vW////, us when 
 
 npplicd In one nut nl' ii class or of n llmnsaiid, nnl ahle In 
 iiii.lerslaiid, when prn|erly explained. Ilia! "(he Ihrce 
 
> llunnin 
 
 Of ovory lri:iii;-;li' MIV n|ii:il I" I u < nylil 
 Till tbifl !iiiiil:iiii<'iil:il error nml \ !, in education, lli- 
 |,iv iinii! '-It t.ftiiiioii* in:;!r;nl n|' truth lie, 
 
 id, tr;|.| til' III |H-n|.n r. (i|Hliiii||;l \\illl llirir iv;i nil . |n r 
 iim'Mli'J.-Mlinll, in r\li|-|.:itr.|, III.' IIIMJoril) of r\.Ty (M)lll 
 
 mimilv will In-, moro or loBH, EOaohlttMj nmvrd al Hi. n 
 |ilr;i,'inv .-iiid for Ihrir pnilil hy (In- inouilii li> li:iv- 
 
 Irninrd lln-iii. Tlic inriiiliriM ,!' <'\crv c mimilv !' 
 
 Hrnlinil. r:iliiiii:il liciii;?;^, :unl !' c.nir.u- tin- miijnril y >!' 
 
 I Im incillliiT.;, : linilld iir ciliicnlcd I'nr Ilicir n\vil 
 
 \\ ill: II \\c\\ In llirir c\\ll li;i|i|iillr; : , Mll'l Iliil In 
 
 (lie Illlllllicr ill' Ilic Inlliiucr, 1 , nl' III.' n|iininli;;, j.liy, I.M I i.r 
 
 llir|;i|ill\ nicill, Hl'i,|iM.-ii-;i| i.r Mllll ! llnili .; -'I c;i I . <>r In lir 
 
 iiiidli- in. I riiiiirlilnl lii Ihi- inlrrr;;!,! ul' :iny 'lji,i:i nr i-l:i: : : T:'. 
 
 (if Midi U'lllll. "<-\ rr ; Miry nll(llllll I ir Cl 1 1 1 I'M I c< I l.r/// 
 
 ,sv//-rw fi/,ttn: Ami MM it in clcnrly I In- inlcn-i I nl' n\ 
 n on in n nil \ , in nnlci- In Inrin ri^'lil jnd^inciilH, In HCC I hinj^rt 
 
 bej iv;il|y arc, HH- n-:il (|ii:ililir:< Mini I'l'lil! iollH ()!' 
 pliy ir;il nl.jrrlM, iv;il |;i.-|,i :,nd Mir PI-M! cnilHc.| uciiccM of 
 lieiioilH, il I' Ihrir iiil.i-rcMl, In In- lMii;;lil. nnlhiinj lull thr 
 truth ; (In- Irnlli in.Miiiii"; nnlliin;'; mniv HIMII HiJH. 
 
 I\(W, III Illr III' I |il;irr, Mir rdl|r;ilin|| wllirll rvry 
 
 civili . --d riiiiiiiinnily IIM.; imw MM- IIICMIIM nl' mi I.MI-I in;-; In 
 :ill il.< liicinlx'i'H IIIMV, Mini n:ilnr;illy \vmild, he in Ihin 
 iv |" * i uprrinr In Ihr r||nrl;i hilhrrln iniidc in in. I illiii}/; 
 
 r.i! -dinnd Mnd Mnii|i:iihii-H iii greater or leaser numbera, 
 
 Illldi'l- lln- : Illrld nl' Inrrr Mild lr| T ..r. illln llir mind.', nl' Mir 
 
 rirh nr (In- jiiinr. Tmlli, pliyHirjil mid innriil, would hr 
 HilK'cn-ly Ilic Holr nhjri-l of j n I r| |rrf KM I |.lir. ill!, hrdillHC ill 
 llir Jicijlli limn nf HIM! Mlnlir rn|||<| llir inliTr;-'! of fl 
 
 cniiiniiiniiy hr iniind in in- phirrd. \| innp bodies, claaflos, 
 
 |.rivih'|.rrd nrdcrn, p.-irlir;-'., IIMAC Innnd Ihrir Intereal 111 
 
 ll|ilinldin;'- IrliH.',, pr.irlirr , Mild ill. til III inll,;, IliiW" 
 illcniiHiHldil \vilhlrnlli Mini nlilii\ :i nil. ! i ny llir \\hnlr 
 rniiiiniiiiily, prn\idrd Ihry favoured lln-ir |.Mrl imhir .- \rln 
 inl:ro8tH. Unl. wilh IL <-nninninil y :il. h-n-'r, Ilii.--. mnld 
 
 liol. hr llir ,-M, r. Trillll .'Mil \\i\\V\* hr iliilnJCMl In llir 
 
240 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 interests of a whole community : if subordinate interests 
 are found incompatible with it, they ought to give way. 
 
 Here, then, is an obvious reason why no really useful 
 plan of national education can be founded on a base less 
 extensive than that of the great majority of a community ; 
 because the interests of no less a body can go hand in hand 
 with the pursuit of physical and moral truth, the great 
 intellectual polar-star of education. 
 
 But what are the means, the expedients, by which not 
 only moral and physical truth is to be diffused amongst 
 the great majority of a community, instead of the doctrines 
 and dogmas hitherto taught to a few, but by which the 
 quantity and usefulness of the matters taught to them will 
 be so much extended as to put to shame the scanty stock 
 of really useful information hitherto afforded even to the 
 privileged classes ? How is this useful physical and 
 moral truth to be unfolded to them? First, by discarding 
 at once about nine-tenths of the utterly useless matter now 
 taught, or pretended to be taught, to the richer classes ; 
 second, by retaining the one-tenth of useful matter; and, 
 third, by substituting highly useful and interesting matter 
 from the lately investigated experimental and practical 
 sciences, entirely adapted to the minds of youth, for the 
 parrot-memory work of grammars and foreign words now 
 practised. 
 
 " What ! an education like this, superior to anything 
 ever yet given, even to the most favoured, in the way of 
 education, to be now given to every member of the com- 
 munity ! Suppose the thing desirable and tending to the 
 happiness of the community, where are to be found the 
 means of doing it? Where the materials for such extensive 
 physical instruction? Where, above all things, the funds 
 requisite to carry so vast a scheme into effect ?" 
 
 Of all the difficulties in the way of the education of a 
 whole community, the most alarming to ordinary eyes will 
 probably be the expense ; and just those who have been in 
 the habit of seeing with complacency the products of the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 241 
 
 labour of the community lavished on the most useless or 
 > pernicious objects, will be those who will exclaim the 
 loudest against the application of even a small portion of 
 the fruits of their own industry to the real good of all, 
 instead of the glittering exclusive interest of a few. But 
 what would the expense of such an object be ? 
 
 Suppose a community, like England, Ireland, and 
 Scotland, consisting of twenty millions of individuals of all 
 ages, the youth of whom it is proposed to educate, giving 
 them suppose five years of instruction each. It will be 
 found that we should have to provide for two millions of 
 pupils every year. One master or mistress, by means of 
 lessons (to be made}, with the aid of an improved appli- 
 cation, avoiding the evils, and retaining the advantages, of 
 the monitor and self-teaching system, could manage a 
 .school of five hundred children, say three to five ; aver- 
 aging four hundred. One pound a-year paid by, or on 
 account of, each pupil, would afford an ample remunera- 
 tion for masters of enlarged minds, fully equal to the task 
 of instruction, besides affording one hundred, or one 
 hundred and fifty, pounds a-year, as might be required, 
 for supplying and keeping up the materials of instruction, 
 and repairs of the building. The whole sum required 
 every year for thus educating the whole community of 
 twenty millions of the human race would be two millions 
 per annum ! Only two millions per annum ! 
 
 One half of the expense of education, or ten shillings 
 a-year, ought probably to be paid, and all of it, the whole 
 pound, if they thought fit, might be paid by the parents of 
 the pupils ; but none should be refused for poverty. 
 
 It is almost preposterous to show how very light such 
 a contribution would be, amongst a community of twenty 
 millions. The yearly contribution would be two shillings 
 from each individual, were none of the salaries paid by the 
 parents. But, as the probability is, that more than half 
 would be paid by the parents, for many, who now pay ten 
 and twenty times a pound a-year for drilling all intellectual 
 
 Q 
 
242 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 capacity out of their children's heads, would gladly pay at 
 these schools the whole price of a rational education, and 
 even assist many others in making the full payments, 
 the expense would, in this case, be of course further 
 reduced to one shilling a-year national contribution from 
 each individual in the community. 
 
 The community of twenty millions of individuals, of 
 whom we have been speaking, pay now in Government 
 and provincial taxation of all sorts, tithes, poor-rates, and 
 all provincial charges included, about one hundred millions 
 of pounds per year, out of the yearly products of their 
 labour. For what is this immense sum paid no, but 
 forcibly taken away from them ? All but a very little, 
 for the continuing them in their present ignorance, and 
 actual or comparative wretchedness ; in Ireland actual, in 
 England with what they have been, what they might be, 
 and with what those whom their industry supports, are. 
 The one-hundreth part of this sum would raise these 
 twenty millions of individuals, if applied in the way of 
 education, into rational, industrious, moral, and happy 
 beings. Look at your army ; look at your navy ; look at 
 your colonies ; look at your provision, from accountable 
 and unaccountable sources, for the injurious luxury of 
 one man of hereditary legislative and executive wisdom ; 
 look at the sums expended in sectarianism ; look at the 
 dead-weight pensions for successful murders ; look at 
 the pensions and sinecures for no murders or employment 
 at all; look at the yearly interest of. your debt; and say 
 which of these could not well spare the sum necessary for 
 the education of the whole people ; or rather say which of 
 them, or whether the whole of them together, can be put 
 in competition, in point of utility, with this great object ? 
 And yet who so light-headed as to suppose that any such 
 application will be made of any part of these forced 
 contributions, by the men who levy them (averaging, as 
 they do, about five pounds a-year from every man, 
 woman, and child), in contempt of the delegation and 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 243 
 
 inclinations of nine out of ten of the community whom 
 they control ? No : till the community, through its 
 representatives, frees itself from the locusts that are 
 consuming, in unhealthy idleness, almost every green 
 thing the land produces, it must remain in ignorance as 
 well as wretchedness. "Tis the community's voice alone 
 that will confer this blessing on all, even on the descendants 
 of those (then happier than their parents) who are now the 
 champions of exclusive institutions : 'ti the community's 
 voice alone that will command the diffusion of knowledge, 
 because it is not reconcilable with the interests of anything 
 less than the whole community, that knowledge should be 
 equally diffused. 
 
 But the very extensiveness and perfection of the scheme 
 we advocate, will subject it to objections. 
 
 " Reading and writing yes we can still manage 
 them, perhaps, if they know only so much ; but to make 
 them as wise as ourselves, who then shall manage the 
 people ?" Who shall ? or who ought ? The very object is to 
 enable a community to manage its own affairs, to make 
 men equal to the task of self-government, both in private 
 and public life ; to banish every partial interest incompatible 
 with the welfare of the whole community ; and to give the 
 great majority of the community the requisite knowledge to 
 discover the means, as they have already the interest, to 
 pursue and attain their own greatest possible happiness. 
 The objector would find himself a more intelligent, moral, 
 and therefore happier being, co-operating in one of these 
 communities, than sharing in the management of ignor- 
 ance, wretchedness, and discontent. If a little knowledge 
 be good, the most that can be given, is better. 
 
 "Yes," it is urged, "but there is preponderant 
 mischief in giving the people too much knowledge ; 
 because it consumes time, many years, which are thus 
 abstracted from useful industry, from adding to the 
 physical comforts, the enjoyments derived from the matter 
 of wealth, of the families of which they form a part." 
 
 Q2 
 
244 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 Now, the majority of a community are either industrious 
 and comfortable, or the reverse, to a greater or less degree. 
 If comfortable, they can afford the loss of the time of one 
 member ; if the reverse, there is no loss, the time not 
 being worth any other application, and so of any 
 intermediate stage of poverty or industry, in proportion as 
 the loss of the time is expensive, it indicates an equally 
 high reward for the remaining occupied industry of the 
 family. But what is the real amount of this loss of time ? 
 It need not be much more than half the day for three or 
 four years ; as active muscular exercise is necessary in 
 youth to relieve intellectual exertion, and this exercise 
 would be found in the pursuits of industry for part of the 
 day. Say, then, half the pupil's time is lost for four .years, 
 the whole for two ; but at an age, when its industrious 
 application would not earn more than a third of the 
 industry of an adult. If we say it would earn the half, we 
 have two years half adult earnings, equal to one year's fu,il 
 wages given for a useful education, over and above -the; 
 small sum of money that the parents might contribute to 
 the school. What is gained for this sacrifice ? TW puj^l.' 
 lives, suppose, thirty years after his education. By tne 
 knowledge and the industrious habits acquired during such 
 an education, would not the productive powers of tbose 
 thirty years be increased one-thirtieth ? would they not 
 more frequently be increased one-fourth or one-half? 
 Would not such education afford the chance of engaging 
 with effect in superior lines of industry, and of thus inde- 
 finitely increasing the productive industry of future life ? 
 Would not the moral habits, the attention to domestic 
 economy, and to health, say only the one virtue sobriety, 
 acquired during such an education, save more than a thirtieth, 
 sometimes a quarter or a half of future earnings ? besides 
 the diseases and shortening of life which it would obviate ? 
 Would not the pleasing elements of knowledge acquired 
 during such an education, supply materials for useful and 
 interesting thought and conversation, during labour or 
 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 240 
 
 during leisure, as well as banish pernicious thoughts and 
 conversations, by which the happiness of every hour of 
 life would be doubled, or indefinitely increased ! Would 
 not the real knowledge, the acquaintance with the ordinary 
 regular operations, called the laws of nature, which such 
 an education would afford, guard its pupils for ever from 
 the impositions and the mental horrors produced by impos- 
 tors or fools on ignorant credulity? Would not the 
 knowledge of rights and duties, oLthe uses and tendencies 
 of institutions, which such an education would confer, 
 create such self-respect and rational attachment to useful 
 institutions, that no fear could ever exist of a return to the 
 vices and miseries of forced inequality and insecurity ? 
 Would not the natural laws of distribution be for ever 
 secured ? would not the moral and political interest, 
 inspired by such an education, in the discussions, regula- 
 tions, and happiness of the provincial or national legislative 
 measures of such a community, of both of which every one 
 would feel himself a constituent member, create new 
 and elevated sources of sympathy, of the purest and 
 cheapest mental enjoyment, always varied, renewed with 
 every opening year, with every rising day ? Nor, in relation 
 to society at large, are the effects of the diffusion of 
 knowledge less conspicuous and useful. All the physical 
 'resources of the territory of a community would be soon 
 knoivn and brought into use ; not a mineral, plant, animal, 
 or useful indication of any sort, would long escape the 
 curious eye of the everywhere well-informed peasant and 
 mechanic, All the talents of all the community would be 
 developed and brought forward for the public service ; and 
 universal competition would carry to the highest, the 
 integrity as well as the skill of public agents in legislation, 
 justice, or executive offices. All the sciences and arts 
 would be everywhere advancing and improving in the 
 double ratio of the increased number of their cultivators, 
 and of the increased activity of the exhilarating competi- 
 tion thereby produced. 
 
246 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 Are these effects real ? are they not the natural conse- 
 quences to be expected from such an education, when not 
 counteracted by other opposing circumstances ? If so, is 
 not the one year's sacrifice of the wages of an ignorant 
 rustic or mechanic abundantly recompensed by such 
 advantages ? Where is now the balance of the account ? 
 Will preponderant mischief, or good, arise from this 
 real education ? for learning to read and write is only 
 acquiring the keys of the store-house of knowledge, is 
 merely introductory to real good. 
 
 One circumstance attending the diffusion of useful 
 knowledge, by means of education, amongst the children 
 of the poorer classes, of the great majority of every 
 community, has not been sufficiently attended to. The 
 children of the poor have a greater aptitude for intellectual 
 instruction than the children of the rich, up to the age 
 that both are sent to school ; the children are as much 
 more intellectually apt, as the adult are less apt than those 
 of the better-provided classes ; and both proceeding from 
 the same cause. While children, the poor are not waited 
 upon, are not carried about, do not find their wants antici- 
 pated, are not guarded by posts and nurses and attendants 
 from all that might molest ; hence they are compelled to 
 use their own ears, eyes, and limbs, and quickly to 
 exercise the judgment to avoid evils and to seek for good. 
 In all these respects the children of the rich are in an 
 opposite situation ; and more accidents and mischiefs arise 
 to them from want of culture of their own faculties, conse- 
 quent on over-watching, than happen to the children of 
 the poor from the little experiments they are constantly 
 but cautiously making of their expanding senses, strength, 
 and feelings. Again, the minds of those surrounding the 
 young of the poorer classes are more on a level with their 
 companions than those of the rich ; hence they feel more 
 interest and have more communication, more interchange 
 of ideas with them, and all about simple things, objects of 
 sense, exactly suited to the faculties of children. But the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 247 
 
 adult rich have either real knowledge, or conventional cant 
 and jargon which they call knowledge, or supposed refine- 
 ment of manners and sentiments, all equally uninteresting 
 because unintelligible to their children. When the rich, 
 ever so well informed, address children, they generally, 
 whether from vanity or ignorance of the mode of com- 
 municating knowledge, present to them complex, or 
 abstract, or really absurd, though school, or college-learnt 
 notions, which serve no other purpose than to bewilder 
 them. Now, the parents and friends of poor children 
 cannot so disgust, by prematurely surfeiting, their under- 
 standings ; therefore until the children come to a level of 
 knowledge with their instructors, the simple and uninformed 
 are better companions for them than the learned, if these 
 learned have not learned the art of the gradual communica- 
 tion of knowledge. But from the time that real intellectual 
 or school education begins, the poor child, the best to work 
 upon, has been hitherto entirely neglected ; and all effort 
 has been expended to form exclusively the children of the 
 rich. Hence the adult rich acquire again the superiority 
 over the adult poor aided, of course, by their greater 
 intercourse with life and its incidents. Again, the excite- 
 ment to a poor child when put into a theatre of education, 
 is greater than to a rich child. To the poor 'tis a gain, a 
 source of hope, a novelty, an introduction to those above 
 him ; to the rich child, it is a loss of liberty, a source of 
 dread because of restraint, nothing novel but everything 
 less comfortable than at home, and no honour in the intro- 
 duction to poorer children or to a dreaded schoolmaster, 
 nor any indefinite hope of future advantage. 
 
 Such are, and in so many ways, the peculiar facilities 
 attending the honest wish of diffusing real knowledge, by 
 means of education, through the productive, the really 
 useful and efficient, classes of a community. But it is the 
 community alone that will give such a blessing to itself. 
 
 Thus, in this chapter has it been attempted to show 
 how knowledge is actually diffused or suppressed, and how 
 
248 On the Distribution of Wealth, fyc. 
 
 it may be diffused to an indefinite extent over the whole 
 face of society, by means the most simple and altogether 
 at hand ; applying 'to literary as to all other labour, the 
 plain wisdom of the natural laws of distribution, " free 
 labour, implying unrestrained competition, entire use of 
 its products, and voluntary exchanges." 
 
 Of the three great instruments institutions, instruc- 
 tion to adults, and education for the diffusion of know- 
 ledge and formation of moral habits, with the view of 
 indefinitely increasing, by rendering more susceptible of 
 enjoyment, the pleasures to be derived from a*tfcles of 
 wealth, as well as of perpetuating the wisest distribution 
 of them, and multiplying their reproduction, we have now 
 treated. The object has been so to develop their mode of 
 operation that they may cease to be perverted from their 
 legitimate object, the greatest happiness of the whole com- 
 munity, that labour and knowledge may be re-united and 
 may henceforth accompany and befriend each other, that 
 industry may no longer labour in vain. But neither of 
 these instruments can produce its genuine good effects if 
 counteracted by the others. They must all act harmoni- 
 ously, education, institutions, and public information, in 
 order to produce all the inappreciable benefits of which 
 they are susceptible. Little, comparatively, can be done 
 by education if opposed by the other two. But the time 
 is fast approaching when they will be all co-operating 
 instruments in the pursuit of truth, the necessary basis of 
 human happiness ; and the articles of wealth will be as 
 much multiplied as the enjoyments to be derived from 
 them will be increased. 
 
CHAPTER Y. 
 
 OF THE PRESENT STATE OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH, AS 
 RESULTING FROM THE INSTITUTIONS OF INSECURITY; AND OF 
 THE MEANS OF REDUCING THE EXISTING FORCED EXPEDIENTS 
 OF UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION, TO THE VOLUNTARY MODE OF 
 EQUALITY LIMITED BY SECURITY. 
 
 UNDER the above head a chapter is written, consisting of 
 about one hundred pages. This chapter is for the present 
 withheld for two reasons ; first, lest the development of 
 the effect of particular institutions, in addition to the few 
 of a more prominent nature which have been already 
 noticed, might lead to unnecessary and avoidable irritation 
 of those now mechanically working under, and moulded by, 
 such institutions, to modes of action pernicious to the 
 general welfare, the universal interest ; second, that the 
 inquiry might be comprised within one volume, and might 
 as speedily and economically as possible be submitted to 
 public consideration. 
 
 The concurrent operation of all these expedients of 
 insecurity, in opposition to the natural laws of distribution, 
 is in this chapter pointed out, and from a balance of the 
 evil and fancied good they produce, they are shown to be 
 inimical to equality limited by security, and consequently 
 to the greatest happiness. An attempt is made to arrange 
 them, not with any view to logical accuracy, but merely to 
 facilitate their examination. The subject is divided into 
 five heads, as follows : 
 
 SECTION 1. Of the GENERAL EVILS of the abstraction 
 by political power of the products of labour without 
 the consent of the producers or owners of them ; 
 termed here PUBLIC plunder, and shown to be more 
 extensive, more difficult of cure, and consequently 
 more pernicious , than PRIVATE plunder. 
 
250 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 SECTION 2. Of those particular institutions or expe- 
 dients, whose most obvious effect is to GENERATE 
 forced inequality of wealth or that inequality not 
 called for by equal security. 
 
 Such are, 1. All laws or contrivances interfering with 
 what ought to be the equal right of 
 all to unappropriated articles. Such 
 are, 
 
 Game laws. 
 
 Many of the navigation and fishing 
 laws and customs. 
 
 All laws, customs, &c., controlling 
 what ought to be the equal right of 
 all to appropriate by labour, air, 
 water, minerals, &c., not previously 
 appropriated. 
 
 2. All laws or contrivances which limit the 
 
 free direction of labour to articles 
 previously appropriated by the la- 
 bourer, or with consent of the appro- 
 priators. Such are, 
 
 Those which require apprenticeships to 
 particular trades. 
 
 Those which require freedom of guilds 
 to practise trades in particular places. 
 
 Those which control the locomotion of 
 labourers through, or out of, the 
 community. 
 
 Those which establish monopolies ; 
 which distribute bounties. 
 
 Those which impede the free direction 
 of labour, with a view to, or under 
 pretence of, external or internal de- 
 fence, revenue, <fec. 
 
 3. All laws or contrivances which control 
 
 the rate of the wages of labour, 
 diverting them from that standard to 
 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 2ol 
 
 which the natural laws of distribution 
 would lead. Such are, 
 
 Those which violate security by whole- 
 sale, called slave laws. 
 
 Those which compel labour without any 
 reward. 
 
 Those which compel labour for less 
 than the labourer chooses to take. 
 
 Those which regulate, by raising or 
 lowering, the wages of labour. 
 
 Those which prevent peaceable combi- 
 nations of labourers to keep up or 
 advance their wages. 
 
 Those which aid combinations of capi- 
 talists or others to keep down the 
 wages of labour. 
 
 Those which, under the name of by-laws 
 or local laws, regulate and oppress 
 labour in particular districts. 
 
 Those which prohibit labour on parti- 
 cular days. 
 
 j SECTION 3. Of those particular institutions or expedi- 
 ents, whose most obvious effect is to PERPETUATE 
 forced inequality of wealth. Such are, 
 
 Those which establish hereditary power. 
 
 Those which aim to establish perpe- 
 tuity of property, without labour, in 
 the descendants of particular indivi- 
 duals. I 
 
 ' SECTION 4. Of those particular institutions or expedi- 
 ents, whose obvious effect is both to GENERATE AND 
 PERPETUATE forced inequality of wealth. 
 
 Such are, 1. All laws or contrivances for abstracting 
 
252 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 the products of labour, without the 
 consent of the producers, by politi- 
 cal power, for its own immediate use. 
 Such are, 
 
 Those which levy taxes in kind 
 tithes, &c. 
 
 Those which levy taxes in money. 
 
 Those which levy taxes concealed, or 
 included in the price of commodities. 
 
 Those which control the mercantile 
 
 value of the currency. 
 
 2* All laws or contrivances which seize the 
 annual products of labour to idemnify 
 capitalists or their representatives, 
 for wealth, by them given to political 
 power, and by political power squan- 
 dered. Such are, 
 
 Those which levy taxes under the 
 name of interest for what are called 
 public debts. 
 
 3. All laws or contrivances whose effect is to 
 monopolise knowledge to a few, keep- 
 ing the mass of society in ignorance 
 and delusion. 
 
 Those which supply places and means 
 of education exclusively to the rich ; 
 neglecting at the same time the edu- 
 cation of the poor. 
 
 Those which monopolise to the rich 
 the knowledge, and consequent means 
 of wealth and influence, derived from 
 theology. 
 
 Those which monopolise to the rich 
 the knowledge, and consequent means 
 of wealth and influence, derived from 
 law. 
 
 Those which monopolise to the rich 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 253 
 
 the knowledge, and consequent means 
 of wealth and influence, from medi- 
 cine, and from all other pursuits 
 requiring knowledge, j 
 
 ^SECTION 5. Of the means of reducing these existing 
 expedients of FORCED unequal distribution, to the 
 VOLUNTARY mode of the natural laws of distribution, 
 inducing equality, limited only by equal security. 
 
 1. The universal establishment of representative insti- 
 
 tutions on the best plan the actual knowledge of 
 the community permits ; giving a just foundation 
 to public morals, the parent (by means of institu- 
 tions) of private morals. 
 
 2. The gradual removal under these, by simply with- 
 
 drawing the force that protects them, of all the 
 above institutions violating equal security and 
 sacrificing universal happiness. 
 
 3. The diffusing of every species of knowledge of phy- 
 
 sical and moral truth (not the notions of the pro- 
 pagators) amongst the whole community ; parti- 
 cular attention being directed to those of the 
 community most devoid of knowledge and most in 
 want of it.~7 
 
 The object, or the effect, sometimes one, sometimes 
 both, of almost all the past and existing institutions of 
 society, however variously modified, has been to increase 
 the unavoidable evils of inequality, justifiable to any extent 
 only by the superior claims of equal security. By equal 
 security as to matters of wealth, is meant the faculty of 
 " free labour, entire use of its products, and voluntary 
 exchanges." On these principles, called the natural laws 
 of distribution, should be founded all regulations of posi- 
 tive law, and of human conduct unconstrained by law, 
 respecting wealth. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 BENEFITS AND EVILS OP THE PRINCIPLE OF INDIVIDUAL COM- 
 PETITION IN THE PRODUCTION OF WEALTH AND HAPPINESS, AS 
 COMPARED WITH THAT OF MUTUAL CO-OPERATION. 
 
 HITHERTO the object of this inquiry has been, to con- 
 trast the system of equal security of all adult sentient 
 beings never yet more than partially established in any 
 community with all past and present systems respecting 
 wealth, more or less violating equal security. The object 
 has been to contrast security with insecurity, freedom of 
 labour with the empire of force and fraud, the exercise of 
 the instruments of persuasion and knowledge, with those of 
 ignorance and delusion. 
 
 The only modes or systems of labour hitherto practised 
 amongst men, have been those of labour by constraint, or 
 those of labour by individual competition. The immense 
 advantages of the entire freedom of individual competition, 
 over any regulations not founded on the persuasion and 
 voluntary acquiescence of those whose actions they regu- 
 lated, have, it is hoped, been demonstrated. The utility of 
 equal security has, it is hoped, been proved. 
 
 But, equal security established ; the right of every 
 adult rational human being, male or female, to free labour, 
 entire use of its products, and voluntary exchanges, being 
 established, a new question presents itself. Is there no 
 mode of human labour consistent with security- whose 
 paramount importance even to production has been 
 demonstrated but that of individual competition ? May 
 not a mode of labour be found, consistent with security, 
 and still more productive of happiness, than labour by 
 individual competition? Will equal security permit no 
 further approach to equality, and consequently to virtue 
 and happiness, than that which individual competition can 
 
On the Distribution of Wealth, fyc. 255 
 
 effect? Manifold, as has been seen, are the benefits of 
 individual competition when compared with systems of 
 restraint, of involuntariness, are there no means of obtain- 
 ing the blessings of unrestricted individual competition 
 abundant production, and development of all the faculties 
 without the evils which, even in its best form, must 
 accompany such individual competition ? Nay more, 
 may there not be found a mode of labour consistent with 
 security, which will not only obviate the evils of individual 
 competition, but which will afford its peculiar benefits 
 abundant production and development of all the faculties 
 to a greater, an incalculably greater extent, than the 
 best arrangements of individual competition could afford ? 
 
 No mode of labour can produce preponderant good, 
 which does not respect the natural laws of distribution, 
 " free labour, entire use of its products, and voluntary 
 exchanges," or the principle of equal security regarding 
 wealth. 
 
 But if, respecting these laws, and producing otherwise 
 greater benefits than labour by individual competition, 
 there can be found any mode of labour which will satisfy 
 the questions above put, that mode of labour should be 
 preferred. 
 
 Such a mode of labour has been proposed. It has 
 been called the system of labour by mutual co-operation ; 
 and its object and effect are to produce perfect volun- 
 tary equality of enjoyment of all the fruits of united 
 labour. This system has been partially used in several 
 places to such an extent as to prove its practicability. Its 
 utility, and superiority to the system of individual compe- 
 tition, remain to be inquired into. 
 
 There are, then, three systems of human labour, that I 
 of constraint by mingled force and fraud, that of free indi- 
 vidual competition (the mode hitherto advocated in this 
 inquiry), and that of mutual co-operation. 
 
 Before entering on the consideration of the system of 
 labour by mutual co-operation, the subject of the next 
 
256 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 chapter, it may be useful to point out some of the good 
 and bad effects of the principle of individual competition as 
 compared with that of mutual co-operation. 
 
 Let us observe that whatever good now exists in 
 society, arising from 
 
 1. Activity, of mind and body, in pursuit of wealth ; 
 
 2. Knowledge and benevolence, to the degree existing ; 
 are to be attributed to the efforts of free individual com- 
 petition, in opposition to the constant efforts of ignorance 
 to restrain by force or fraud the equal security, or free 
 individual competition, of individuals. To these may be 
 reduced, and in these may be comprised, all the blessings 
 of individual competition. Activity, knowledge, and 
 benevolence, to the extent in which they now exist, 
 admirable when compared to the desolation of the rudeness 
 and ignorance of savage life, of despotism, or of super- 
 stition, have been produced by individual competition. 
 
 But what is the amount of the activity, the knowledge, 
 and benevolence now existing, compared with what it is 
 desirable for the happiness of communities of the human 
 race, that they should be ? First, as to activity : of 
 absolute activity, there is not one-half that there might be; 
 of well-directed activity, not the tenth part. As to know- 
 ledge, it has been, in many communities, assiduously 
 cultivated of late years, but confined to a very few, and 
 used as a mere tool to acquire wealth and power ; the dif- 
 fusion of knowledge amidst the great mass of men, is still 
 little more than a mere speculation. As to benevolence, it 
 is unfortunately confined to fewer individuals than even 
 knowledge ; so powerfully in all past ages, as well as at 
 present, have the institutions of society, generating the 
 circumstances surrounding men, and these circumstances 
 generating their habitual motives to action, forced men 
 into selfishness to the exclusion of benevolence. 
 
 It is true that the undeviating adherence to free 
 competition under equal security, would wonderfully 
 increase useful activity, would almost banish pernicious 
 
Most conducive, to Human Happiness. 257 
 
 activity, would extend and diffuse real knowledge, and 
 with real knowledge benevolence would expand. But to 
 this increase of useful activity, of knowledge, and benevo- 
 lence, there are limits in the very nature of the principle 
 of individual competition itself. These limits necessitate 
 certain evils, which it is useful to have fully in view, that 
 the mind may be always alive to the means of removing or 
 modifying them ; or until they can be removed or modified, 
 that they may be submitted to as unavoidable evils, and not 
 rendered the sources of irritation and unavailing regret. 
 
 The most prominent of these evils, arising from free 
 competition in its most unrestricted and best form, may 
 perhaps be comprised under the following heads : 
 
 1. It retains the principle of selfishness, necessarily 
 warring with the principle of benevolence, as the lead- 
 ing motive to action, in all the ordinary affairs of life. 
 
 2. It paralyses the productive powers as to wealth, of 
 one-half the human race, women, by the waste and 
 other mischiefs of individual family arrangements ; 
 and renders difficult, if not impossible, that equalisa- 
 tion of rights and duties between the sexes, which is 
 necessary for the equal enjoyment and greatest 
 happiness of all. 
 
 3. It occasionally leads to unprofitable or injudicious 
 modes of individual exertion, from the limited field 
 of judgment open to individual minds. 
 
 4. It affords no adequate, no unobjectionable, resource 
 for sickness, old age, mal-formation, and other 
 accidents incident to human life. 
 
 5. It obstructs the progress of useful physical and 
 moral education, by the prejudices and despotism of 
 continued domestic control, rendered overwhelming 
 by command of individual property ; and it also 
 obstructs the progress of general knowledge, from 
 the necessity of concealment, in order to render 
 improvements in science and art tributary to 
 individual gain. 
 
25S On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 In the very principle of individual competition do all 
 these evils seeni to be inherent ; preponderating in good as 
 that principle appears to be, when compared with the 
 principle of restraint by force and fraud. As we have 
 shown, however, what labour by free individual competition 
 can do for human happiness, it is right to show what it 
 cannot do. To remove these evils, we must seek out 
 another principle; or, if that cannot be found, must 
 endeavour to reduce these unavoidable evils to their lowest 
 term, and to bear them so reduced as patiently as we 
 would unavoidable physical calamities. 
 
 The first and the greatest objection to the principle of 
 labour by individual competition in its most perfect form, 
 is, that "it retains the principle of selfishness as the 
 leading motive to action in all the ordinary affairs of life." 
 The object of all the exertions of individual competition 
 as to wealth, is to acquire for immediate enjoyment or 
 accumulation, individual property. Every individual 
 striving for self at the ultimate peril of want, destitution, 
 and death, there is a constant motive operating to regard 
 the interests"of others as opposed to his own* There is, 
 therefore, a constant temptation to sacrifice the interests of 
 others to his own as often as it can be done, by whatever 
 means may seem necessary to accomplish the end. Hence j 
 the necessity of the interference of law, with its brutal pun- 
 ishments, in order to counteract this tendency of selfishness. 
 Hence the number of actions taken under the sanction of 
 law, erected into crimes and marked out for punishment, 
 till men are reduced to be the automata of arbitrary regula- 
 tions. It will be in vain to object that all virtue, even bene- 
 volence, must be founded on self-interest, under all 
 possible social arrangements. True. But comprehensive 
 wisdom, resting on the most enlarged experience, demon- 
 strates that self-interest is never so effectually promoted, as 
 when it is sought for as the general result of the happiness 
 of all those liable to be influenced by the conduct of any 
 individual agent. In those cases in which the happiness of ; 
 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 259 
 
 others is not diminished by the pursuit of individual good, 
 their benevolence smiles on the individual exertion. 
 Selfishness seeks its self-interest primarily, and to the 
 exclusion of others. Benevolence seeks its self-interest in 
 conjunction with the happiness of all whom its actions 
 may influence, arid as the result of that general happiness ; 
 the aggregate mass of happiness being primary, self 
 secondary and mingling with it. 
 
 In all the pursuits of life under individual competition, 
 this unhappy tendency to war with benevolence might be 
 pointed out. Every labourer, artizan, trader, sees a 
 competitor, a rival, in every other labourer, artizan, and 
 tracer near him; and not only so, but they all see a 
 second competition, a second rivalship, between the whole 
 of their calling and the public. In medicine, it is the 
 interest of the physician to cure diseases, but to cure them 
 as slowly and with as much profit as the competition of 
 other medical men will permit. It is the interest of all 
 medical men that diseases should exist and prevail, or their 
 trade would be decreased ten, or one hundred, fold. Hence 
 the almost universal inattention, nursed by the interest of 
 physicians, to regimen, to the preservation of health, by 
 attention to food, air, moisture, cleanliness, and all other 
 circumstances influencing it. It is the interest of man- 
 kind that the state of health should never be deranged ; it 
 is the interest of the healers of wounds and diseases that 
 these incidents calling for their exertions and remunerations 
 should be as frequent as may be. Individual remunera- 
 tion is thus opposed at every step to the principle of 
 benevolence; and the only remedy to the public evil 
 which the system admits, is private competition between 
 individuals of the same calling, mitigating the evils of 
 selfishness on a large scale, by developing them on a 
 smaller. It is certainly desirable for human happiness 
 that there should be no opposition between these two 
 principles, but that they should, if possible, proceed har- 
 moniously to the same object, the promotion of the great- 
 
260 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 est sum of universal happiness. From the pursuit of 
 self-interest in the acquisition of individual wealth, proceed 
 almost all vices and crimes. These vices and crimes must, 
 to a certain extent, continue, till the interest of self ceases 
 to be opposed to the interest of others. 
 
 The next evil that seems to be inherent in the principle 
 of individual competition in the pursuit of wealth is, that 
 "it paralyses the productive powers, as to wealth, of one- 
 half the human race, women, by the waste and other mis- 
 chiefs of individual family arrangements, and renders 
 difficult, if not impossible, that equalisation of rights and 
 duties between the sexes, which is necessary for the equal 
 enjoyment and greatest happiness of all." 
 
 Individual family arrangements, rendered necessary by 
 the pursuit of individual wealth, confine the exertions of 
 one woman to the domestic affairs of herself and family, 
 though there may be no really useful employment for 
 three hours in the day. The fires, the meals, must be 
 prepared, and all the little items of domestic drudgery 
 done at stated hours. To remedy this enormous waste 
 of time and unproductive thrift, it has been proposed that 
 numbers of families adjoining each other, should form a 
 common fund for .preparing their food and educating their 
 children, thus relieving the women from a considerable 
 portion of unproductive domestic drudgery, and of course 
 rendering much of their time disposable for useful pursuits. 
 There is nothing more desirable than such a scheme. But 
 it can never rest at this point; either the principle of 
 mutual benevolence will be engendered by it and will pre- 
 vail, in which case it will lead to entire mutual co-opera- 
 tion and equality of enjoyment of the products of united 
 labour ; or the principle of selfishness will prevail, and 
 the habit of individual acquisition will bring back in every- 
 thing the love of individual expenditure and enjoyment, 
 were it but for the sake of the distinction, however dearly 
 purchased, of those, whose individual efforts procure them 
 the most wealth. The loss, therefore, of the greater por- 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 261 
 
 tion of the time of women may be reckoned inherent in 
 the system of individual competition. The magnitude of 
 this loss is appalling : suppose it to be but one-half the 
 time of women, it is one-fourth of human effort, for machi- 
 nery now so completely supersedes the necessity for mere 
 animal strength in all the more delicate and valuable exer- 
 tions of human industry, that women, if equally trained, 
 might be as productively employed in them as men. 
 
 "While women continue to be condemned to the seclu- 
 sion and drudgery of half-idle slaves, all their actions 
 liable to the arbitrary control of other human beings, 
 their exertions and duties limited to looking after the 
 domestic comforts, as they are called, of their masters and 
 children, they will never rise in the scale of social existence. 
 To be more respected, they must be more useful. In the 
 race of individual competition for wealth, men have such 
 fearful advantages over women, from superiority of strength 
 and exertion uninterrupted by gestation, that they must 
 probably maintain the lead in acquisition by individual 
 effort. Inferiority of wealth, other circumstances being 
 equal, necessitates inequality of enjoyment. Let know- 
 ledge be equally and impartially conveyed to both sexes, 
 let civil and political rights be equal to both, let acquired 
 property at the death of parents be equally distributed to 
 male and female ; still the inequality of powers in the 
 race of individual competition for wealth, must have a 
 continual tendency to keep the average acquisitions of 
 women under those of men, and of course to decrease 
 their average enjoyments. But while individual competi- 
 tion exists, is it probable that man will not continue to 
 make use of his greater facility in the production and 
 acquisition of wealth, to withhold an equality of know- 
 ledge and of civil and political rights from those over 
 whom nature has given him animal, physical, advan- 
 tages ? 
 
 The third evil here imputed to the very principle of 
 individual competition is, that "it must occasionally lead 
 
262 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 to unprofitable or injudicious modes of individual exer- 
 tion, from the limited field of judgment open to individual 
 minds." 
 
 The system of labour, under the present wretched prac- 
 tice of individual competition, controlled and disheartened 
 everywhere by the expedients of insecurity, depends for 
 its very existence on the extraction of profit out of it, to 
 the holders of the food, tools, and materials, necessary to 
 make labour productive. Till this condition, of profit to 
 capitalists, can be complied with, labour, though teeming 
 with the capabilities of making millions happy, must lie 
 entirely dormant. Hence, and from the depressing com- 
 petition of labourers amongst themselves, the unskilful- 
 ness, the unprofitableness, the almost absolute idleness as 
 to useful production, of more than one-half the human 
 race, even in those countries where most fully, or least 
 uneconomically, employed. Under equal security, every 
 man becoming possessed of the physical and mental 
 means necessary to make his labour productive, every 
 labourer being also capitalist, the great mass of these 
 evils would doubtless disappear. But, still, while indivi- 
 dual competition exists, every man must judge for himself 
 as to the probability of success in the occupation which he 
 adopts. And what are his means of judging? Every one, 
 doing well in his calling, is interested in concealing his 
 success, lest competition should reduce his gains. "What 
 individual can judge whether the market, frequently atagreat 
 distance, sometimes in another hemisphere of the globe, is 
 overstocked, or likely to be so> with the article which incli- 
 nation may lead him to fabricate ? He is evidently reduced 
 to act on the most general and vague probability. And 
 should any error of judgment, whether induced by useful 
 originality of view, by two great caution or too great con- 
 fidence, lead him into an uncalled for, and, therefore, 
 unprofitable line of exertion, what is the consequence ? A 
 mere error of judgment, though attended with the utmost 
 energy of activity and benevolence, may end in severe 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 2G3 
 
 distress, if not in ruin. Cases of this sort seem to be 
 unavoidable under the scheme of individual competition in 
 its best form. If by any other scheme of human labour 
 they could be avoided, it would surely be desirable that 
 that mode of labour no preponderating evils following in 
 its train should be preferred. As long as the practice of 
 useful modes of action, called virtues, do not uniformly 
 conduce to the happiness of the individual practising them, 
 as long as institutions obscure the judgment, or prevent 
 the possibility of judging respecting the consequences of 
 actions, so long will morality remain a game of chance, 
 and fail of acquiring that respect, attachment, and pursuit, 
 which human welfare requires. Here is, therefore, in the 
 very principle of individual competition, a source of occa- 
 sional misery, and of falsification to the calculations of the 
 most useful virtues, activity and industry, guided by 
 benevolence. 
 
 The principle of individual competition is moreover 
 charged with " affording no adequate, no unobjectionable 
 resource for mal-formation, sickness, or old age, or for 
 numerous accidents incident to human life." 
 
 It is evident, that no system of individual competition, 
 however freed from force or delusion ; that no system of 
 labour by mutual co-operation or by any other conceivable 
 mode ; that no advancement of the neglected art of pre- 
 serving health, can ever, wholly, obviate the above evils. 
 Under all possible combinations, they must occasionally 
 afflict humanity. All that can be done, is to afford the 
 utmost compensation that the nature of things will admit, 
 in the way of mitigating the evils when they arrive* The 
 remedy proposed for them, under the system of free indi- 
 vidual competition, by the celebrated Condorcet, is the 
 extension of the principle of " Insurances," to be adapted to 
 every possible contingency of distress. The evils attend- 
 ing these expedients supposing the schemes and man- 
 agement to be unobjectionable are, the unavoidable 
 expense of the management, the risk, however small, of 
 
264 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 failure of the fund, and the risk of accidents befalling 
 non-subscribers. How utterly futile, under all past and 
 present systems of insecurity, where the productive 
 labourers are every day becoming more productive and 
 more depressed, and where the number of mere idle 
 consumers is every day increasing, and those increasing 
 numbers more greedy after the vanities of mere unenjoy- 
 ing means of distinction, would be the hope of any gene- 
 ral good from any such insurance schemes, need not be 
 mentioned. Under all existing systems of insecurity, the 
 advancement of knowledge is made use of by the few to 
 devise new and more ingenious expedients for new exac- 
 tions, or for rendering the old more productive. But 
 though representative institutions prevail, though the 
 happiness of all the sentient rational beings of a commu- 
 nity be impartially sought under the natural laws of 
 distribution; still will the class of evils now before us 
 prevail, occasionally and from accidental circumstances, 
 in however mitigated a form. There is no doubt that 
 human happiness would be increased if such evils could 
 be universally compensated or mitigated when they oc- 
 cur without any of the risks of schemes of insurance. 
 How far this may be practicable will be seen in the 
 next chapter on the new scheme of labour by mutual 
 co-operation. 
 
 We come now to the last evil imputed to the principle 
 of individual competition, that " it obstructs the progress 
 of useful physical and moral education by the prejudices 
 and despotism of continued domestic control, rendered 
 overwhelming by command of individual property ; and 
 it also obstructs the progress of general knowledge 
 from the necessity of concealment, in order to render 
 improvements in science and art tributary to individual 
 gain." 
 
 In order to do justice to the principle of free individual 
 competition in everything, we must suppose that all the 
 existing restrictions on the diffusion of real knowledge, to 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 265 
 
 the young as well as to adults, have ceased, and that a 
 scheme of universal education, as comprehensive, and at 
 least as useful, as that proposed in the fourth chapter, has 
 been adopted; such improvements being evidently com- 
 patible with individual competition. What obstacles will 
 still remain in the very principle itself to the acquisition 
 of truth by the young? All parents are more or less 
 incrusted with the prejudices, on all subjects, moral and 
 physical, of their infancy, which they have never been 
 able to inquire into ; and amongst all those prejudices, 
 there is not one more pernicious to human improvement 
 than the common notion, that, in consequence of their 
 being parents, the formation of the mind of their children 
 belongs of right to the caprice of such parents. That the 
 power of forming such infant minds to virtue or to vice, to 
 wisdom or to folly, must, while the system of individual 
 competition for wealth lasts, remain in the hands of the 
 parents ; and that more evil would be produced by trans- 
 ferring such power to any other hands, than by letting it 
 remain in the hands of the parents, cannot be disputed. 
 But the power is one thing, and the propriety of using, or 
 the most useful mode of using, such power is another. 
 White men have the power of making black men and 
 white women slaves : it does not follow that they act 
 justly, that it adds to the mass of general happiness, of the 
 happiness of the black or white slaves or slave-owners, 
 that such power should be so used. Just so as to the 
 power of forcibly constraining the limbs or the minds of 
 children. In China now, and lately in these countries, 
 the feet or the head or the trunk of infants were twisted 
 and forced out of their natural development. All the 
 rational in these countries, have now relinquished the bar- 
 barism of constraining the palpable visible development 
 of the physical frame, from attending to the ill effects of 
 such restraints in producing deformity, impotence, and 
 disease. But the development of the mind being unseen, 
 and the ill effects of constraint consequently more difficult 
 
266 On^the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 of demonstration, the far more mischievous effects of force 
 as applied to mental operations, have been overlooked. 
 The only wholesome food for the mind lead where it may 
 is truth, or a perception of things as they really exist 
 or have existed in nature. If parents have the right, 
 because they have the power, of- applying poisonous food 
 to the body, so have they the right to apply the poison of 
 falsehood to the minds of children. The laws of all but 
 the most savage countries punish the one, the other as 
 atrocious act, popular morality scarcely yet condemns. 
 No human being can justly, or without preponderant evil, 
 assume that all or any of his notions are true, and force 
 them, without inquiry, into the mind of any other human 
 being. Are the diseases of the mind, are false judgments 
 misguiding conduct, and bitter hatreds withering all glow 
 of benevolence and provoking universal retaliation, less 
 productive of misery than diseases and deformities of the 
 body ? Freedom to the mind and body, are necessary to 
 their perfect development ; the ultimate and greatest hap- 
 piness of the individual through the whole of its existence, is 
 the only rightful object of education, as it is of human life. 
 Now, as long as the production and acquisition of 
 wealth by individual competition lasts, as long as all 
 parents are possessed of the separate individual hoards on 
 which the comforts, the existence, of their children depend, 
 so long must all parents possess a tremendously despotic 
 power over the minds as well as bodies of their offspring, 
 not only during childhood and youth, but, though in a 
 modified degree, as long as the parents live a power 
 altogether independent of reason and justice, checked only 
 by public opinion, and that public opinion again chiefly 
 formed by those possessing the power. So vast a power 
 in the hands of every parent, at least of every male parent, 
 wise or foolish, must be liable to enormous abuses ; its 
 existence, and of course its liability to abuse, seem to be 
 inseparable from the system of individual competition; 
 and from the natural inclination to save trouble and men- 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 267 
 
 tal exertion, power must be generally used, when to be 
 had, in lieu of influence by persuasion and benevolence. 
 If any system of human labour and exertion could be 
 devised, by which the whole of this parental power that 
 could be used to evil purposes, should be lopped off, while 
 all that could be well employed, that is to say, for the 
 purposes of persuasion and beneficence, should be retained, 
 would it not be desirable that such change should be 
 effected ? and that the use of mere brute force and terror 
 should be superseded in parental education as well as in 
 all the other concerns of life ? 
 
 Again the principle of individual competition " ob- 
 structs the progress of general knowledge, from the neces- 
 sity of concealment in order to render improvements in 
 science and art tributary to individual gain." In all cases 
 justice must be done to the principle of individual competi- 
 tion, by giving it credit for the removal of all the evils 
 which equal security, or the natural laws of distribution, 
 would banish. Still, while individual competition lasts, 
 every one must endeavour to make available for the 
 increase of his individual hoard, though all were capitalist 
 labourers, whatever powers of mind or body he might 
 possess. To endeavour to render these powers common 
 to all, would be to divest himself with his own hand of his 
 advantages for the acquisition of happiness. Concealment, 
 therefore, of what is new or excellent from competitors, 
 must accompany individual competition, though shielded 
 by equal security, because the strongest personal interest 
 is by it opposed to the principle of benevolence. Is it 
 possible to devise a state of things, in which these prin- 
 ciples should run exactly in the same direction ? in which 
 it should not be the interest of self to confine knowledge 
 or anything useful, but to diffuse them and make them 
 the possessions of all ? in which every motive for useful 
 activity would not only be left in full operation, but would 
 be increased, while all motives to pernicious activity, exer- 
 cised at the expense of others, would cease ? As long as 
 
268 On the Distribution of Wealth, 8fc. 
 
 individual competition lasts, the interest of self must be 
 the primary object of pursuit, the general good being 
 necessarily subordinate thereto, and to be pursued only 
 when conducive to the primary interest. Knowledge and 
 all other advantages must be more or less exclusively or 
 jealously guarded ; the evil to a certain extent seems inse- 
 parable from the very principle of individual competition. 
 If the interest of self could be made to co-exist with that 
 of others, and to be mingled with it so as to form one 
 homogeneous undistinguishable mass, this would surely 
 be an improvement on the principle of individual competi- 
 tion. The separation of self-interest from the general 
 interest, not to say the opposition of the one to the other, 
 must tend to the exclusive guarding of knowledge, like 
 any other possession, as one of the efficient means of pri- 
 vate benefit. 
 
 Such appears to be the amount of the evils, or of the 
 most material of the evils, inherent in the system, however 
 modified or improved, of labour by individual competition, 
 and, of course, of individual property. No community 
 of property can possibly co-exist with production by indivi- 
 dual competition. The two principles are irreconcilable. 
 Individual competition necessitates individual possession 
 and individual enjoyment. To demonstrate the benefits 
 of this same principle of individual competition, when 
 freely operating under the protection of the natural laws 
 of distribution, as opposed to all past and present sys- 
 tems of insecurity supported by mere force and delusion, 
 has been one of the leading objects of this inquiry. 
 
 But such are the benefits of equality, if to be had 
 without violating security, that any system of labour 
 founded on the reconcilement of these two principles, on 
 their equal and concurrent activity, would be amongst the 
 most desirable objects of human attainment. Such a system , 
 embracing all the advantages of individual competition 
 and individual property, without any of their disadvan- 
 tages, has been proposed. It must be examined. 
 
CHAPTER YH. 
 
 OP-VOLUNTARY* EQUALITY- IN- THE- DISTRIBUTION OF-WEALTH. 
 LABOUR-BY CGKOPERATION-OPPOSED-TO'LABOUR-BY- INDIVIDUAL 
 COMPETITION, 
 
 IT has been shown in our first chapter, that of all possible 
 modes of distributing the objects of enjoyment, amongst 
 any number of individuals, perfect equality of distribution 
 tends to produce the greatest quantity of happiness, 
 provided the shares are not so reduced as to render 
 their acquisition an object of indifference ; and that such 
 equality does not infringe on equal security. 
 
 An indistinct perception of this truth, has led the every- 
 where degraded majority of mankind, in all ages, to look 
 with an evil eye on the systems of forced inequality of 
 wealth under which they have been compelled to live, and 
 has been the fruitful cause of divisions and strife amongst 
 communities. Smarting under the evils of inequality, 
 evils aggravated in a thousand ways by expedients, many 
 of which have passed under our review, they have at times 
 endeavoured, by the clumsy instrument of force, to rectify 
 the evils of which they complained. But the application 
 of force, although it might rectify for a moment the evils 
 of inequality, brought in its train evils still more tremen- 
 dous. Industry and reproduction, we have shown to be 
 incompatible with the forced equality of wealth ; that 
 security in the use of the products of labour and in the 
 free exchange of those products, which is necessary to 
 ensure reproduction, is annihilated by the exercise of 
 force. Non-production is a greater evil than inequality of 
 distribution. Hence the necessity, at all hazards, and by 
 whatever miserable expedients, of upholding what was 
 called security. Under pretence of maintaining this 
 security, equal to all, political power has everywhere 
 established real and enormous insecurity, protecting its own 
 
270 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 acquisitions and those of a favoured few, however obtained, 
 but violating at its pleasure the security of the rest of the 
 community ; thus wantonly superadding to the necessary 
 and unavoidable evils of inequality, the unnecessary, 
 avoidable, and, therefore, factitious evils of insecurity. 
 
 Under the name of systems, or institutions, of insecurity, 
 and system of equal security, the effects of these two modes 
 of conduct on the wealth, the intelligence, the dispositions 
 and the happiness of communities have been pointed out 
 and contrasted. 
 
 So far have we arrived in the argument. Equal 
 security, or the natural laws of distribution, must be 
 maintained, in order to ensure reproduction ; and par- 
 ticularly in order to ensure the largest and most useful re- 
 production ; but as equal security comprehends a power of 
 voluntary exchange or transfer, a choice between labour in 
 co-operation with any number of individuals and individual 
 exertion, as well as between the common and the individual 
 use or enjoyment of the articles produced; a way is left 
 by operating on the understanding, to influence the 
 affections and the will to many different modes of produc- 
 tion and distribution, all of them compatible with equal 
 security. The products of individual exertion may be 
 equally and voluntarily divided amongst any number of 
 associated individuals, though the quantity produced by 
 each might be ever so various. This mode of equal 
 distribution and common enjoyment of articles produced 
 by individual exertion, has been often .tried ; particularly 
 under the auspices of Peter and the other Apostles, by the 
 first Christian communities at Jerusalem and elsewhere ; 
 but its continuance has never been found practicable. The 
 only expedient for equality of distribution worthy of con- 
 sideration, is that which is founded on mutual co-operation, 
 if not on equality oT co-operation, in the production. 
 Equal distribution and enjoyment seem to be incompatible 
 with individual production. 
 
 The important question therefore presses upon us. As 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 271 
 
 equality of distribution has been shown to be attended with 
 preponderant evil when obtained at the expense of the 
 forcible transfer of the acquisitions of industry, " is it, or 
 is it not, possible to bring about this desirable state of 
 equality of distribution and enjoyment amongst communi- 
 ties, without violating equal security, without the employ- 
 ment of force, and by means simply of the voluntary 
 transfer of the acquisitions of industry?" If, without 
 violating security, without the employment of force, 
 without the transfer of the products of his labour from 
 the industrious producer to the idle non-producer, perfect 
 equality of distribution of the articles of wealth, the 
 products of human labour, could be effected, it would be 
 the manifest interest of communities that it should be so 
 effected. 
 
 To effect this desirable equality of distribution of the 
 articles of wealth, different expedients have been proposed 
 by intelligent and benevolent men. There is not one 
 of those expedients which has not been founded either 
 on the employment of force and the consequent violation of 
 security, or on the delusion of the understandings of those 
 subjected, or proposed to be subjected, to them. Force or 
 fraud, or combinations of these, are the means which men 
 have hitherto employed, through ignorance of more 
 appropriate means, for effecting even the most benevolent 
 or praiseworthy objects, schemes of equality, as well as 
 others. 
 
 To examine, after what has been said through the 
 whole course of this treatise, systems of equality proposed 
 to be maintained by force, by constant violations of equal 
 security, would be a waste of time. Almost as little 
 worthy of attention are those systems of equality main- 
 tained by delusion, whether by mistaken or wilfully misre- 
 presented views of interest on the part of the proposers of 
 them, or of those to be influenced by them, or of both. A 
 real statement of facts, and those facts really consistent 
 with the interest of those invited to co-operate in an equal 
 
272 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 distribution of wealth, are the preliminaries requisite to 
 entitle any proposer of even voluntary equality of distribu- 
 tion to a hearing from the advocate of equal security. 
 Equality of distribution, if rendered practicable by being . 
 rendered consistent with equal security, and if proposed 
 to be brought about by the operation of the understanding 
 on the will of rational agents, from a calm view of real 
 interest ; far from being a scheme to be repelled without 
 examination, would merit, from the mere novelty and 
 reasonableness of the terms in which it was proposed, as 
 well as from its all-comprehensive influence on human 
 happiness, the most anxious and dispassionate consideration 
 of every real lover of human happiness. To reconcile 
 equal and perfect security with equality of distribution, is 
 a problem of mighty import, which legislators and philo- 
 sophers, or those few of them whose efforts have been 
 sincerely directed to the production of the greatest mass 
 of happiness, have laboured in vain to unravel, and which 
 they have almost always concluded, by abandoning in 
 despair of a solution, or by cutting through. Wide will be 
 the admiration, delightful the sympathy of mankind for 
 him who shall have solved this problem, and shown them 
 how to reconcile and to enjoy, at the same time, all the 
 blessings of the equal distribution of wealth and those not 
 less prolific of good which spring from equal security and 
 its overflowing reproduction. 
 
 r~An individual has been found bold enough to undertake 
 aM to put forward, on rational principles, a solution of 
 this mighty problem, " how to reconcile equality of 
 distribution with perfect security." This individual is Mr. 
 Owen, of New Lanark, in Scotland. Mutual co-operation, 
 and equality of distribution, are the instruments by which he 
 operates. In whatever language he may clothe his ideas, 
 this is the real and laudable object, and would be the effect, 
 of those magnificent combinations, the result of a rare union 
 of profound thought and unequalled practical knowledge, to 
 which he invites the attention of all men interested in the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 273 
 
 pursuit of happiness. To estimate the practicability and 
 the utility of this plan, according to the principles herein 
 developed, is a duty necessarily arising from the under- 
 taking to demonstrate the happiest distribution of wealth. 
 The mode of inquiry shall be, not that of an advocate for 
 or against, not so much the plan of the individual as the 
 principles of the new combination in their supposed most 
 perfect form. Whatever is supposed imperfect or un- 
 essential to the main design, will not be noticed, as the 
 object is to ascertain truth, not to support or condemn an 
 individual. 
 
 In the first place, then, the developments in the first 
 chapter, demonstrating the increased happiness produced 
 by equality of distribution (when not obtained at the 
 expense of equal security), are entirely in accord with his 
 principles. He everywhere assumes, and reasons on it as 
 a first principle, that equality of distribution tends most 
 to happiness. In establishing this important principle, an 
 equal and mutual support is afforded to his principle of 
 social security by mutual co-operation, and to the system 
 herein advocated of equal individual security by equal 
 competition. Both systems repose equally on the natural 
 laws of distribution. In the prima-facie benefits of equality, 
 the two systems of social security (co-operation) and indi- 
 vidual security (competition) are agreed. But the system 
 of individual security requires a restraint on equality in 
 order to ensure reproduction ; while the system of social 
 security professes to require no restraint on the full 
 enjoyments of equal distribution! 
 
 Again the two systems, of social security and of 
 individual security, equally deprecate all the past institu- 
 tions of communities as founded on restraints, exclusions, 
 monopolies, and injurious competition, and generating by 
 a variety of expedients forced inequality of wealth and all 
 the mischiefs in its train hitherto prevalent since history 
 has preserved records of human communities. The object 
 of both is equally to banish these evils. The object of 
 
 s 
 
274 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 both is to show that those injurious institutions may be 
 easily and peaceably replaced, and to the increase of the. 
 real happiness of all, by substituting more simple institu- 
 tions for them :pmt the system of social (or common) 
 security by co-operation, professes to remove altogether 
 the evils of insecurity and inequality, while the system of 
 individual security by the most chastened competition, 
 professes to do no more than to reduce to their lowest 
 term the still unavoidable ills of partial inequalityjf 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 ESSENTIAL OB CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OP THE SYSTEM OP VOLUNTARY EQUALITY 
 \ OF -WEALTH. 
 
 Let us now inquire what are those essential and charac- 
 teristic circumstances by which the system of social 
 equality must be judged as compared with all other 
 schemes of social organisation, whether those of insecurity 
 or of equal individual security ? 
 
 In justice to the system, and in superior deference to 
 truth, it is necessary that it should be clearly understood 
 as a preliminary, that it is proposed that the new institu- 
 tions of social equality shall be founded on truth alone, on 
 the real and perceived interest of those engaging in them, 
 and on the voluntary consent of every individual member. 
 All force, all fraud or delusion of any kind, are excluded, 
 both in their original formation and their subsequent 
 economy. The system of social equality thus reconciled 
 with our principles of perfect equal security, we come to 
 the proposed essential and characteristic arrangements. 
 
 It is proposed, that any number of individuals, whose 
 mutual co-operation can, according to circumstances, say 
 from five hundred to two thousand or upwards, produce 
 for the common use and enjoyment of all, the greatest 
 quantity of the objects of wealth contributing to human 
 happiness, shall voluntarily associate together to produce 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 275 
 
 by their united labour, with all the aids of science and art, 
 such maximum of the means of enjoyment : supply and 
 demand being thus rendered always commensurate to each 
 other. 
 
 It is proposed, that these communities shall in all cases 
 cultivate so much good land, at least, as will provide for 
 their own healthful and pleasurable existence, say half an 
 acre to an acre and a half for each individual ; that where 
 Imman labour is more productive, and otherwise more 
 useful, than that of inferior animals, as in the spade hus- 
 bandry, it shall be used in preference ; and that the surplus 
 of their labour shall be directed to the fabrication of the 
 most useful clothing, habitations, and furniture, and lastly 
 to the fabrication of suclfarticles of minor comfort or "con- 
 venience as may be most desired, or of things which may 
 be exchanged for them, or which may be necessary to 
 discharge the debts contracted by, or the charges of political 
 power imposed on, such communities in common with the 
 rest of society. The direction of the surplus of labour to 
 manufacturing or agricultural pursuits, to be determined 
 by local circumstances, such as soil, natural products, 
 markets, acquired skill, and pecuniary means, of the co- 
 operators. 
 
 It is proposed, that where these individuals so associating 
 for mutual happiness, have the means, say about forty 
 pounds for each individual, and four times as much for a 
 family, they shall contribute sufficient for the erection of 
 their dwellings and the purchase of the necessary stock 
 and machinery, agricultural or otherwise, in such a situa- 
 tion as they may approve, and on such a plan as may be 
 submitted to them, and of which they may also approve, 
 combining health and convenience with the greatest facili- 
 ties for production. Where they are more wealthy, the 
 contribution of about another forty pounds a-head, would 
 buy the land on which their habitations would be built, 
 and their agricultural and manufacturing operations con- 
 ducted. 
 
276 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 It is proposed, that these associations, if not rich enough 
 to buy the land, shall rent the land; and if not able to 
 erect their own dwellings and other buildings, or buy their 
 own stock, shall borrow the amount requisite for one or 
 both of these purposes ; the land and the buildings with 
 the fruits of their labour being security for the rent and 
 the amount borrowed. Any person, whether intending to 
 live in the community or not, may subscribe any amount 
 for these purposes ; the interest to be paid out of the pro- 
 ducts of the yearly labour of the community, and the 
 capital borrowed, itself, to be ultimately repaid out of the 
 same fund. Any subscriber to the building fund, wishing 
 to live in the community and share its benefits, without 
 co-operating in the labour, may do so on paying a certain 
 sum (perhaps forty pounds), annually, to be allowed him 
 out of the amount of his subscription; or, yielding the 
 subscription to the community, he may become a non- 
 working member ; the proprietors of the subscribed stock 
 for building, appointing a committee, and the working 
 associates another, to arrange and erect the whole estab- 
 lishment, and to purchase the agricultural and manufac- 
 turing machinery, (fee. 
 
 It is proposed, that each individual shall be fed and 
 clad out of the common store, that the children and young 
 people shall sleep in common dormitories for the different 
 sexes and ages, and that single adults shall have one 
 private apartment each; if married, or two men or two 
 women living together, to have two rooms between them, 
 with use of the public rooms for dining, reading, lectures, 
 amusements, &c. The number of private rooms liable of 
 course to be increased according to the funds and notions 
 of convenience of the community, or according to the 
 amount of subscription to the capital fund. 
 
 It is proposed, in order to render more productive, 
 more healthful, and more pleasant, the labour of these 
 co-operators, that they shall all be alternately employed 
 jn agricultural and manufacturing industry. It is there- 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 277 
 
 fore desirable that amongst the co-operators should be those 
 skilled in every useful art, that they may, by proper 
 arrangements, communicate to each other the knowledge 
 and skill necessary for such useful alternation of employ- 
 ments. Should none skilled in any particular line of 
 industry, thought to be desirable by the community, be 
 found amongst the co-operators, some persons so skilled, 
 and not of the community, must be induced, through bene- 
 volent or pecuniary motives, to teach the co-operators the 
 art required. 
 
 It is proposed, in order still further to increase the 
 useful products of the labour of the community, that 
 women shall be relieved from the care of children over two 
 years old, and frolxTthe drudgery of family cooking ; the 
 children being to be educated in common, under a proper 
 number of superintendents, but always under the eye of 
 the parents, and the culinary arrangements for the whole 
 cpmmunity to be performed in a common kitchen ; meals 
 to be taken in the common sitting-rooms, or in the private 
 apartments of the co-operators, at their pleasure. The 
 departments of labour, agricultural and manufacturing, 
 or, otherwise, to be done by women,, to be such as is best 
 suited to their physical and intellectual powers. 
 
 It is proposed, that all the children of the community 
 shall share the best physical and moral education that the 
 present state of knowledge" and the means of the community 
 can afford, incomparably superior to the 'best education 
 that the best educated in society now receive, giving them 
 an outline of all real knowledge exposed to their senses 
 and expanding judgment, adapted to the real wants of their 
 future lives, and embracing the application of science to the 
 useful arts, with occasional practice and illustration from 
 the establishments in the midst of which they are educated, 
 and of which they will become, when adult, joint pro- 
 prietors. The expense of such education, to be the labour 
 of a proper number of the associates ; or in the beginning, 
 if there are none qualified, assistance for this purpose 
 
278 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 must be derived from without. The plan of education 
 to be laid before the community and assented to by them. 
 
 It is proposed, that entire freedom as to thought and 
 worship,, on religious, as well'^s^on all other, subjects, 
 sEalT be the . rule of the community. Some of the 
 associates may be clergymen, and perform from pure 
 motives (for here no others can prevail) clerical duties, in a 
 building to be erected for that purpose, which different 
 sects might use ; or the members of the community might 
 resort to whatever churches or chapels they thought fit 
 out of the establishment. Neither the institutor of the 
 system of social co-operation, nor committee of stock 
 proprietors, nor any other individuals whatever, shall in 
 any way dictate to the community, or any part thereof, as 
 to their religious affairs. 
 
 It is proposed, that the government of the community 
 shall be inherent in itself, in all its adult, male and female, 
 members, whether by committees appointed by election, or 
 rotation, or seniority, or any other manner that may be 
 proposed to such community and by them agreed on. 
 But as the basis of the association is mutual co-operation, 
 and equal united enjoyment of the products of common 
 social industry, as the object of the institution is to identify 
 individual with social feelings and enjoyments, as all 
 individual competition is excluded ; it is evident that no 
 factitious rewards or punishments can prevail in such a 
 community ; tliey must be such as arise from the good or 
 ill opinion of the associates, to be ultimately authenticated 
 By the removal from amongst them, on payment of his 
 share in the joint property, the person whose conduct might 
 have been injurious to the general welfare. The rewards 
 and punishments must be such only as flow naturally from 
 the actions themselves, from the human constitution and 
 surrounding circumstances. The regulations would be 
 mostly directions and recommendations as to the members, 
 and exchanges as to others. The general laws of society 
 would be incompatible with most sorts of factitious 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 279 
 
 punishments in these communities. As to factitious 
 rewards from whence are they to come ? Of the common 
 stock of products the individual has already what he 
 wants ; and the community has no other fund than the 
 common stock > without making exchanges out of the 
 common stock for that particular purpose, out of which to 
 give. He that has sincerely associated for the common 
 enjoyment, will find no pleasure in individual factitious 
 rewards. Voluntariness is the life principle of these asso- 
 ciations, compulsion their death-warrant. As to the rest 
 the plan ofgovernment will be submitted to the commu- 
 nity, and they will delegate its powers to whom they think 
 fit, on the best view their knowledge will permit them to 
 take of their interest. 
 
 It is proposed, that every art and science, manual, 
 mental, or partaking of both, productive of real prepon- 
 derant happiness to the community, being within their 
 pecuniary means, and not opposed by physical obstacles, 
 as want of fuel, peculiarity of soil, &c., shall be cultivated 
 by some of the associated members of the community for 
 the common benefit of all ; the surplus hours of artists, 
 medical, or literary men, being devoted to some of the 
 healthful usefuFoccupations of the rest of the community, 
 or to the diffusing of their peculiar knowledge, by aiding 
 in the education of the young, or by experimental lectures, 
 or otherwise, to the adults. 
 
 It is proposed, that all misunderstandings (for all 
 rancorous strifes about individual wealth are removed by 
 the very constitution of the society) amongst any of the 
 associated members, shall be arranged by such internal 
 conciliatory means, arbitration or otherwise, as to the 
 community may appearT^est calculated to engender and 
 perpetuate kindly dispositions. 
 
 It is proposed, that every member of the association 
 shall be at perfect liberty to leave it whenever he or she 
 may think proper, with claim on the society for whatever 
 proportion of joint property, or of stock lent, the retiring 
 
280 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 member may be entitled to, Should any vacancy occur 
 in the establishment, the society admits a new member 
 under whatever forms of admission it may deem most 
 useful. 
 
 SECTION 2. 
 
 BENEFITS OF THE SYSTEM OF VOLUNTARY EQUALITY OF WEALTH. 
 
 Let those who are in search of truth and their own 
 happiness, pause and consider well the effects of the prece- 
 ding arrangements, proposed to be made by and for rational 
 beings co-operating together for their mutual interest. Let 
 them consider, on the one hand, what are the benefits which 
 the proposed scheme of voluntary equality, if generally 
 carried into effect, and as far as carried into effect, would 
 produce ; the restraints on equality and security, and 
 consequently on morality and happiness, which it would 
 remove. Let them, on the other hand, consider what are 
 the obstacles, if any, to real equality and security which 
 this scheme would fail in removing, and what, if any, are 
 the obstacles which its establishment, unattended with co- 
 operating arrangements of general society, would even tend 
 to aggravate. The practicability of the plan will be sub- 
 
 riently discussed. 
 The obvious benefits of the proposed arrangements 
 n to be, that 
 
 1. They would save the waste, at least within the 
 
 precincts of the association, of mere unproductive 
 consumption. 
 
 2. They would save the waste of labour and skill, now 
 
 unemployed, through mere ignorance or want 
 of market, or now uselessly, or perniciously, 
 directed. 
 
 3. They would save the waste, now consumed under 
 
 the name of profits, of wholesale and retail 
 dealers ; every co-operator being himself a joint 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 281 
 
 proprietor and capitalist; production and con- 
 sumption being shared equally by all. 
 
 4. They would save, by means of physical arrange- 
 
 ments and the communication of knowledge, the 
 waste of life, of health, and enjoyment, now 
 caused by poverty, ignorance, and neglect. 
 
 5. They would save the incalculable waste of happi- 
 
 ness now arising from the contentions, animosities, 
 and cruelties engendered by the institutions of 
 insecurity, and in some degree inseparable from 
 the most chastened pursuit of individual gain ; 
 the social combinations proposed removing the 
 causes of those crimes and vices, and by the edu- 
 cation of the understanding implanting opposite, 
 permanent, dispositions and habits. 
 
 6. They would render supply and demand always 
 
 commensurate, and reduce the economy of supply 
 and demand, population, and other contested 
 questions of morals, legislation, and political 
 economy, to fixed and easily ascertained data, and 
 ^ principles founded thereon. 
 Respecting each of these benefits some explanation and 
 detail will be necessary. That all the above are benefits 
 of the highest order, and that they are to be procured by 
 social co-operation, provided that beings like those of the 
 human race can be induced voluntarily to co-operate in 
 their production, no one will doubt. To prevent idle, 
 unproductive consumers from seizing on the fruits of the 
 labour of the industrious, to teach the unemployed, skill, 
 so as to render their labour to the utmost degree produc- 
 tive, to share amongst all the co-operators the benefits of 
 profits now confined to a few at the expense of all, to 
 improve the health and capacity for all enjoyment, and 
 consequently to lengthen the term of human life, incalcu- 
 lably to add to virtue by banishing almost all temptations 
 to vice, and to prevent the benefits of these operations 
 from being ever lost by keeping supply and demand 
 
282 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 always commensurate surely, if there be any objects of 
 human pursuit worth the attainment, these are amongst 
 them. 
 
 The benefit of social co-operation first noticed, is, that it 
 " would save the waste, at least within the precincts of the 
 association, of mere unproductive consumption." All the 
 co-operators must be productive labourers ; there would be 
 no idle capitalists or landlords ; all the productive labourers 
 would be either directly, or ultimately, landlords and capi- 
 talists ; landlords and capitalists of a joint benevolent stock 
 for social universal happiness, not for selfish individual 
 distinction, enjoyed only because contrasted with the 
 poverty and wretchedness around. Even those whose 
 ordinary labours are more of a mental than of a muscular 
 description, will find it useful for health and variety, to 
 devote a part of their time to some of the ordinary agricul- 
 tural or mechanical operations. The perverted association 
 of disgrace but the very natural association, from the 
 union of dirt and fatigue, want, ignorance, and misery 
 forced upon it now attached to labour, will, under the 
 new circumstances, be transferred to idleness, from the 
 union which will be. found between labour and comfort, 
 intelligence and happiness. Public opinion will exert an 
 influence hitherto unknown and unsuspected ; for the very 
 simple reason that every individual of the public will be 
 personally interested, the supply of the wants, of the 
 comforts, and conveniences of life, will depend on the 
 useful exertion of the industry, of the useful co-opera- 
 tion, of every other member of the community. Public 
 opinion awards now its disapprobation against the liar 
 and the drunkard; but suppose that every member of 
 the community from which that disapprobation emanated, 
 suffered' personal evil, or loss of comfort, from the effects 
 of the falsehood and drunkenness, instead of, as now, only 
 sympathising with their effects on others, with what an 
 irresistible moral effect would the expression of the public 
 opinion of such a suffering community be accompanied ! 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 283 
 
 Who can calculate its force ? Who can set bounds to the 
 wonders to which it may give rise ? But such would be 
 exactly the situation of these associated communities. 
 The comforts of every member of them would be indivi- 
 dually dependent on the active social exertions of every 
 other member ; which would give to public opinion the 
 energy of family sympathies, of family love, or family 
 disapprobation. Even now, who can bear the averted eye 
 and the altered manner of a single friend ? But under the 
 arrangements proposed, where every co-operator is a 
 friend, and an always busy friend, always employed for 
 the benefit of the idle as well as of the rest of the co- 
 operators ; who could live exposed to the alienated feelings 
 of such a community of friends, to whose intelligent and 
 interested glance, and to whose moral inspection and 
 control lie must be every day exposed? No one, 
 certainly, constituted as human beings usually are. But 
 suppose such a one to be found, incapable of being influ- 
 enced by the usual interests and sympathies of other men. 
 He would be either regarded as an unfortunate idiot, 
 whose partial insanity would be harmless, as it would find 
 no imitators, or if the example were likely to be productive 
 of mischief, the society would exercise, under whatever 
 forms and regulations might be judged most useful, its 
 power of self-preservation, by refusing the benefits of co- 
 operation, by excluding from its number the member 
 ceasing to co-operate. Once in joint possession, every 
 individual a proprietor of the land, the buildings, the 
 machinery, and other stock, the basis of their operations, 
 what could lead to the admission of a member not contri- 
 buting by his industry to the common comfort ? Nothing 
 but the possession of some peculiar talent, the exercise of 
 which might be deemed by the community more conducive 
 to general happiness than any other mode of employing 
 the individual so peculiarly disposed. 
 
 The next saving noticed from the proposed arrange- 
 ments for mutual co-operation, is, " the saving of the 
 
284 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 labour and skill now unemployed through mere ignorance 
 or want of market, or uselessly or perniciously directed." 
 For all articles of prime necessity and prime comfort in 
 these communities, their own consumption would always 
 form a market for themselves ; and the accidental greater 
 or less supply of non-essential articles would add to, or 
 detract but little from, their well-being. No one would 
 be ignorant where there would be a demand for his labour, 
 and meet perhaps the punishment of a criminal, under the 
 name of a vagrant, after traversing the land to find 
 employment ; nor would any, though unskilled and igno- 
 rant of the mode of applying their labour, be studiously 
 kept in that ignorance and awkwardness, by surrounding 
 jealousy and ever-calculating selfish competition. Under 
 the proposed arrangements of mutual co-operation, it 
 would be the interest of every member that the knowledge 
 and the skill of every one of his associates should be as 
 great as possible, as much greater than possible even than 
 his own, as his interest depends incalculably more on the 
 skilful co-operation of his associates than on his own 
 individual exertions. Under these new circumstances, 
 every one would be interested in removing the ignorance 
 and awkwardness, and infusing and adding to the know- 
 ledge and skill, of his associates, to increase the common 
 produce, as much as he is now interested to perpetuate the 
 one and obstruct the other, for fear of educating a rival to 
 his own gain; no one, under these arrangements, could 
 derive benefit- from the ignorance or awkwardness of 
 others ; no one could increase in knowledge and skill 
 without benefiting all. Thus would ignorance and awk- 
 wardness be gradually transformed into knowledge and 
 skill, and no one would fear their competition in lowering 
 the remuneration (wages) of his labour. 
 
 A community associating together under these arrange- 
 ments for the production of wealth for mutual enjoyment, 
 would form a new and rational estimate of all the wants, 
 factitious or real, which now prevail in artificial society, 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 285 
 
 that their labour might be directed to the gratification of 
 those, in the first place, which produce the greatest quan- 
 tity of preponderant good, immediate pleasure and ultimate 
 consequences, both taken into the account. Whatever, 
 though immediately pleasurable to the taste, brought by 
 the compulsion of habit to its relish, was ultimately 
 prejudicial, shortening life, inducing present or laying the 
 foundation of future disease, such as intoxicating liquors 
 and tobacco, would be at once discarded, and would not be 
 used if procurable without labour, much less at the expense 
 of what might otherwise be the best-directed labour. 
 Wretchedness of mind and body, ignorance of conse- 
 quences, exhaustion from over-work, from exposure, and 
 under-feeding, want of means to procure substantial 
 gratifications, now lead men to these pernicious momentary 
 indulgences. In the new communities, even those addicted 
 to them would soon lose their relish for them, their wants 
 being supplied with wholesome food, and all other causes 
 of perverted inclination being withdrawn. Neither, there- 
 fore, would the healthful produce of their fields and 
 orchards be converted, at a great cost of labour, into 
 consuming poison ; nor would the useful products of their 
 labour be exchanged for such pernicious articles. There 
 would be no restraint, certainly, but the exertion of their 
 own will ; but this will would be necessarily guided in a 
 short time (all motives to delusion being removed) by a 
 correct view of their own interest. The saving of the 
 waste of labour from this cause alone, would be from one- 
 third to one-tenth of the whole labour of the community 
 to say nothing of health and morals. Strange it is, but 
 true, that in proportion to the poverty and ignorance of 
 the people, the comparative amount, as balanced by their 
 whole earnings, expended on such pernicious articles, 
 increases with the ignorance and poverty. Amongst such 
 communities there would be no wholesale manufactories 
 or storehouses of poison ; physical health, by means of 
 'suitable food, clothes, and shelter, as the basis of all 
 
286 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 happiness, would be the first object sought for. Hides, 
 wool, flax, the materials of the most useful domestic 
 manufactures, the produce of their own lands would supply. 
 Fruits, honey, milk, and every useful garden vegetable, 
 labour would create in the required abundance. Exchanges 
 would therefore be very limited, and confined to a few 
 superfluities, besides the materials of the arts, such as 
 iron, &c., where not produced on the soil. 
 
 Hence arises, under this head, another saving from 
 producing and consuming on the spot, the waste of land 
 and water carriage, the labour expended on transportation, 
 which in general society amounts frequently to a tenth, 
 and from that, according to distance and bulk of the 
 article, to even one-half the cost of production on some 
 few articles much higher. Three-fourths, at least, of the 
 labour of mere transportation would be saved to the 
 associated communities by the proposed regulations. The 
 transportation labour thus saved, would be doubly pro- 
 ductive : first, the support of the men, horses, and 
 machinery, employed in transportation, would cease to be 
 a drain on the common stock of labour for useful produc- 
 tion and enjoyment ; and next, the labour of these very 
 men, horses, and transporting machines would be trans- 
 ferred to increase the common stock of useful products for 
 increased enjoyment ; for it must never be forgotten that 
 under the new arrangements, an excess of industrious 
 producers, an excess of supply, can never be complained 
 of, the whole community and all the individuals in it, and 
 all newly-admitted increase of numbers being always 
 consumers and producers to each other ; the only limit to 
 useful production and enjoyment being the distant want of 
 land and materials to work with and upon. 
 
 A further saving, under this head, would be of the 
 waste of human labour now expended in the production or 
 seeking for numerous articles, of no sort of intrinsic value, 
 but serving merely as means of distinguishing, unaccom- 
 panied with merit of any sort, certain individuals from 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 287 
 
 their fellow-creatures. Such are ornamental precious 
 stones, pearls, costly trinkets, and in general all things 
 that serve for mere distinction beyond their intrinsic use. 
 Were sparkling and reflecting stones procured as easily as 
 flowers, and sought for for their mere prettiness, where 
 not for their use, they would be as innocent ornaments ; 
 but, procured as they are at immense cost of useful produc- 
 tive labour, and giving no intrinsic enjoyment for the 
 mere pleasure of reflection to the eye is beneath ridicule 
 they are a constant drain on human happiness, not only 
 by the labour misdirected to their acquisition, but by the 
 unsocial passions and contentions which they generate. 
 A rational community, such as mutual co-operation would 
 suppose or produce, would waste its labour on no article 
 for mere distinction sake ; would bestow labour in propor- 
 tion to utility alone, i.e., to preponderant happiness, 
 present or future, over the labour of the acquisition. As 
 all the members would be equal as to wealth, the real 
 wants and comforts of all would be supplied, before the 
 factitious wants of any could be thought of; as to mere 
 factitious distinction, grounded on anything but the pos- 
 session of useful personal qualities, it would soon cease to 
 be sought for, and would be held as the fool's pursuit. As 
 soon as all possible physical wants and conveniences, and 
 all intellectual and moral pleasures of all were abundantly 
 provided for; then, and not before, would the unemployed 
 time of such a community, be as harmlessly devoted to 
 the gathering and polishing of pretty stones as to the cul- 
 tivating and gathering of ornamental pinks and roses. 
 As harmless the pearl as the rose, if as easily procured and 
 giving as much intrinsic pleasure ; but till then, it would 
 not be preferred as an ornament, but applied solely to 
 useful purposes. As to general society, these co-operating 
 communities would not envy them their distinguishing and 
 merit-suppressing baubles ; for such things they would 
 not exchange the useful products of their labour ; by far 
 different tests would they measure and award their sym- 
 
288 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 pathies to the members of their community and to all the 
 world. 
 
 A vast additional saving of the waste of time and 
 labour would be produced by the essential arrangement of 
 teaching every member of the community both manufac- 
 turing and agricultural operations. The intellect that can 
 learn one of these, can learn the other ; the facility of 
 teaching ordinary trades in a few months has been put out 
 of doubt in numerous manufacturing, poor-house, and 
 criminal, establishments, both on the Continent and in 
 England. Frost, rains, and shortness of winter-days, with 
 the addition, in some countries, of compelled holiday idle- 
 ness, subtract about one-sixth, and from that up to a third, 
 from the productiveness of the labour of agriculturists ; 
 and so must it be as long as they remain mere agricul- 
 turists. By learning other species of useful labour, and 
 having the workshops on the spot, these wasted hours will 
 be turned into the means of increased enjoyment by 
 increased production. Again, many agricultural opera- 
 tions require an immediate doubling or trebling of the 
 ordinary strength of labour; on these occasions, the whole 
 force of the community would be within call, and would 
 be trained to the operations required, the manufactures 
 suffering no loss from the temporary delay produced by 
 needful and grateful change of employment. Many 
 manufactures in their turn may not advantageously 
 occupy the whole year, the whole day, or the particular 
 season, of the individuals whose inclinations lead them 
 to make such arts their chief occupation. In the healthful 
 variety of agricultural pursuits, will such waste time be 
 advantageously employed. There are out-of-door trades, 
 too, such as the slater, now unemployed in bad weather ; 
 manufacturing workshops of clothes, furniture, con- 
 veniences, or matters for exchange, would turn to 
 account all such precious hours ; now wasted, to the loss 
 and misery of the tradesmen. The saving of the waste of 
 the productive powers of human labour by this arrange- 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 289 
 
 ment alone, substituting a variety for a fixation of employ- 
 ment, would be, perhaps, equal to a sixth of its present 
 total amount. 
 
 Another saying of waste, under the head of labour, of 
 still more importance, is that produced by the arrange- 
 ments for the employment of women, and that mechanical 
 part of the education of children called their training. 
 Women, forming one-half of human society, and not one- 
 half of useful human operations requiring, with the present 
 aids of machinery, more strength than they possess, they 
 could, if properly trained, contribute their half, by useful 
 productive labour, to human enjoyment ; that portion of 
 their time deducted which is necessarily occupied in the 
 production and care of very young children ; ' an occupa- 
 tion more useful, not to say more necessary to human 
 existence and happiness, than any other whatever. It is 
 evidently desirable for the happiness of all, that this time 
 should be as much as possible abridged. Under the 
 present system of individual effort and isolation, the 
 whole of the time of married women is taken up in looking 
 after a few children, preparing food for a few, and in other 
 little matters of what are called domestic economy. From, 
 more than five-sixths of this species of labour, the pro- 
 posed arrangements free married women, and enable them 
 to co-operate almost as effectually as the men, in contri- 
 buting, by productive labour, to the common happiness. 
 From purchasing and preparing solid and liquid food, 
 fire-making to heat and light apartments, with all the 
 attendant operations, and retail bargainings, they are 
 relieved by the common kitchen, and lighting and heating 
 apparatus managed by a few for the use of all. From the 
 care of children over two or three years of age, they are 
 relieved by common dormitories, and places of useful 
 training within their view. We may set down the 
 value of this capital arrangement very fairly as one- 
 third added to the means of human happiness, as far 
 as dependent on articles of wealth. Its other effects, pro- 
 
 T 
 
290 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 ductive of ulterior benefits in other ways, will be presently 
 noticed. 
 
 The waste of labour saved from all these sources, 
 would be such a fund of production in the hands of mutual 
 co-operation for common benefit, as, with the present aids 
 of science and art, would convert want and misery into 
 plenty and enjoyment. Under the existing restraints of 
 insecurity, all these sources of waste must go on, because 
 it matters not that the interest of the millions might be 
 promoted by putting their productive powers into benefi- 
 cial motion, if the interest of the ascendant few is not 
 equally advanced, and their comparative superiority still 
 maintained. To the capitalist, as such, neither the useful 
 employment nor even the existence, to say nothing of the 
 health, morals, and happiness, of his fellow-creatures, are 
 objects of more regard than the employment of inferior 
 animals or machines. Besides supporting and making 
 themselves happy by their labour, will they yield him an 
 average profit ? If so, let them be employed. Will they 
 not yield him an average profit ? Then let them live or 
 die as they may, with their well-being he has nothing to 
 do. Though their own happiness might be increased a 
 million of times by their united labour, the capitalist, as 
 such, is in no way concerned ; to make others as happy 
 as himself was no part of his education, but to make 
 himself richer than others. By mutual co-operation 
 alone, can the unprovided, or the slenderly provided, 
 advance at once to production and happiness, leaving to 
 the few who are well provided, the use of what they have 
 acquired. 
 
 As important as the last effect of the proposed arrange- 
 ments in saving the waste of labour, is the next pointed 
 out, of saving " the waste of profits of wholesale and 
 retail dealers ; every co-operator being himself a joint 
 proprietor and capitalist; production and consumption 
 being shared equally by all." 
 
 That this arrangement, essential to the system of 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 291 
 
 voluntary equality by mutual co-operation, is an advan- 
 tage, is here assumed, and the first chapter, section eleven, 
 is referred to for demonstration. If voluntary equality of 
 wealth be desirable its practicability will be hereafter 
 considered individual profits, implying inequality of 
 wealth, must be undesirable. With the profits of general 
 society already accumulated and formed into capital, the 
 proposed regulations do not at all interfere'; they simply 
 prevent the future growth of any such excrescences 
 amongst the associated communities. Will it be asked, 
 " How, then, could the business of distribution be done? who 
 would undertake without profit such offices of care and 
 trust?" It should rather be asked, " Who in such a com- 
 munity would not press forward for equal remuneration to 
 the discharge of duties so light, and implying so much of 
 public confidence?" The general management of the 
 affairs of the whole community by those best qualified for 
 the task, will supersede the necessity of large managing 
 capitalists for the entire, as one great compound manufac- 
 tory ; while individuals, for minute distribution in a few 
 particular departments, will supply all the retail labour 
 that such a community would require. The fact is, that 
 the retail labour would be reduced to almost nothing. 
 
 In society, as now constituted, tv^o circumstances give 
 rise to the immense waste of labour, and consumption of 
 the products of the labour of others, in the endless retail 
 establishments that everywhere meet the eye ; these are 
 the distance of the consumers from the producers; and the 
 numerous individual, personal, or family wants, that must 
 be supplied. Under the proposed arrangements, distance 
 for all essential articles between consumers and pro- 
 ducers, would be annihilated, as they would reside toger 
 ther ; and the wants of one or two thousand persons 
 would be supplied as those of one family or one individual. 
 Wants being supplied in common, there would be nothing 
 to retail. Now, five hundred families consuming bread and 
 butchers' meat, support between them ten or a dozen 
 
292 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 master butchers and bakers, besides the journeymen at 
 these trades, the journeymen doing the work, the masters 
 superintending and distributing its products, in the quan- 
 tities demanded by each customer. The waste by this 
 retail system is about one-fourth to one- fifth of the value 
 of the bread and meat, by way of profit to the master 
 tradesman, besides the necessary support of the workmen, 
 though frequently on a very uneconomical scale. These 
 retail master tradesmen and their profits would disappear; 
 and their labour, like that of the carriers, would be added 
 to the joint stock of production for mutual increased enjoy- 
 ment ; and as joint producers and consumers of the new 
 association, they would gain much in physical comfort 
 and convenience, and much more in happiness, over and 
 above what they enjoyed under the competitions and 
 anxieties of their former employments. As little demand 
 would there be for profit in the manufacture, as in the 
 retail or distribution of any article used by the community ; 
 the machinery, the tools, the workmen, the materials, and 
 the storehouse to receive the work done, being supplied, 
 the demand for profit is superseded. The retail of articles 
 of food (as well as light and heat, and all the endless 
 apparatus now connected with them), being superseded by 
 a common kitchen and common supply, whether con- 
 sumed in the common hall or in private apartments, there 
 would remain the distribution of articles of furniture, 
 clothing, and convenience. For these, one storehouse of 
 general consumption arranged according to convenience, 
 and one superintendent to note down the members 
 receiving the supply, would be perhaps sufficient for the 
 whole society ; as there would be no bargain-making to 
 consume time. Nor would there be any temptation to 
 exchange them for articles of convenience from without ; 
 for, is the object wished for a chemical or philosophical 
 machine, a useful book, or anything really tending to 
 preponderant good? In the library, the laboratory, the 
 work-shops, the reading and news-rooms of the associated 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 293 
 
 community, they would be to be found. In such a com- 
 munity, the individual appropriation of such articles of 
 common reference, not of continual use, would be regarded 
 rather as an incumbrance, than as an object of rational 
 desire. They are now sought for, first, as mere silly 
 means of distinction ; next, because no provision is made 
 for a common supply, so that even for occasional use they 
 must be appropriated. Various are the limits which 
 the prudence of different associating communities might, 
 perhaps, at first, think proper to impose on the early- 
 formed propensities of new members ; limits assuredly 
 sufficient to restrain them from any injurious development. 
 The next advantage (in order, the fourth) noticed as 
 arising from these arrangements, is, that " they would 
 save, by means of physical arrangements, and the commu- 
 nication of knowledge, the waste of health, of enjoyment, 
 and life, now caused by poverty, ignorance, and neglect." 
 On preserving the animal machine in perfect health, 
 depends not only immediate comfort, but the capacity for 
 all enjoyment and exertion, intellectual and moral, as well 
 as physical ; on its undeviating preservation, depend the 
 aptitude to disease, the consumption, and, of course, the 
 average length, of life. And yet, under the institutions 
 of insecurity, engendered by chance and ignorance, no 
 adequate precautions are taken for the maintenance of this 
 basis of all well-being to the whole, or to any part, of the 
 community. Chance and ignorance are left to direct 
 everything ; even the value of health is not known. How 
 different in their essential features the proposed arrange- 
 ments ! Were the production of health the only object, 
 instead of the production of the greatest possible quantity 
 of things useful for enjoyment, they could not more cer- 
 tainly promote it. Every essential arrangement tends to 
 the preservation of health, surely, but unostentatiously. 
 Knowledge, and the most favourable circumstances, are 
 both supplied to every individual to secure to him this 
 indispensable good. In his dwelling, clothes and food ; 
 
294 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 rest and labour, variety of occupation, choice of site 
 of the associated buildings, every known obstacle to 
 health is removed ; by every circumstance favourable to 
 the preservation of health, is the associated community 
 surrounded . 
 
 What determines now the place of habitation, and 
 labour, of the productive classes ? The conduciveness of 
 the site to the profit of the capitalist. The merest 
 accident, the vicinity of any one real or supposed con- 
 venience to the proprietor, caprice, determine the site of 
 the habitations of human beings. The evils of ill-health 
 being remote, the chance of escaping them relied on ; the 
 claims of want, the necessity of wages to existence being 
 immediate and urgent, the industrious vegetates and 
 works, wherever chance has placed, or employment invites 
 him. Bereft of capital, for the support of even a few days' 
 existence, he must work where he can get work, or starve. 
 Bad air, dampness, putrid or mineral effluvia, morbific 
 gases, frequently take years to disorganise the frame; 
 and during their gradual operation, counter-stimulants, 
 keeping up a continual excitement of fever, are generally 
 made use of. Disease at length comes; they die com- 
 paratively young, in wretchedness and pain, who might 
 have lived happily an additional ten or twenty years. 
 What consequence to the capitalist? They die; so do 
 horses, and in a much smaller number of years ; and 
 yet a succession of fine horses, or of industrious men, will 
 never be wanting, while capitalists permit them to obtain 
 food and work, while able to work. 
 
 There is still another source of delusion attending the 
 effect of situation on health. Noxious applications to the 
 longs, particularly want of pure air well supplied with 
 oxygen, do not seem to operate by any means as 
 prejudiciously on adults as on the young, particularly 
 infants. Their pulse and blood move faster; and they 
 require double the supply of oxygen that adults do, to 
 repair the rapid waste of growth. Children would die in 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 29.5 
 
 an atmosphere where men would live in health ; the 
 health of adults seems to be more dependent on heat than 
 that of children ; of children, on pure air than that of 
 adults. Hence, in crowded cities and manufacturing 
 districts, the waste of early life ; hence the distress caused 
 to parents from inferring that where they live in com- 
 parative health, their children will also live in health. 
 
 Under the proposed arrangements, the site of the 
 habitations and workshops for the whole community, is 
 not left to individual ignorance, short-sighted cupidity, or 
 caprice, but is to be chosen by the members themselves, 
 through whatever instrumentality they may think proper, 
 on a full consideration of its adaptation to health. Know- 
 ledge being within their reach, neither caprice, nor 
 momentary interest, nor want, can distract them from 
 their interest in choosing the healthiest situation. As the 
 healthiest site, by crowded buildings, want of ventilation, 
 and dirt, may be made pestilential ; by adopting the open, 
 square, or quadrangular form surrounding certain indis- 
 pensable buildings and exercise grounds, the healthiness 
 of the situation will be preserved, and pure air for the 
 utmost demand of the quickest circulation, and most rapid 
 growth, will always surround and pervade the community, 
 in the gardens, the fields, the workhouses, the dwellings. 
 Even in the mode of communicating heat in winter, by 
 diffusing it equally through the air of the apartments, 
 instead of its partial emission from fire-places, heating 
 injuriously one part of the frame, or of those present, at 
 the expense of the rest, health will be promoted hand-in- 
 hand with economy. The dirt, emuvia, and inequality of 
 the heat of coals, will be exchanged for cleanliness, 
 purity of air, and equality of temperature, a circumstance 
 more necessary than any particular degree of heat, to 
 preserve health ; equality round the whole frame, as well 
 as equality through different periods of time. 
 
 No less effectually, and admirably, are the peculiar 
 circumstances necessary for the health of the children 
 
296 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 provided for, by means of their early classification, as 
 soon as they have sufficient muscular power to be capable 
 of training, than those for the health of the adults. By 
 the common and airy dormitories, and grounds, and apart- 
 ments, for the exclusive education of the children, they 
 may be supplied with quantities of fresh air, heat, and 
 liberty of muscular motion, which might not be either 
 grateful to the feelings, or useful to the health of their 
 parents, at their private apartments. The health and 
 comfort of both parties will gain by the classification. 
 While forced, as now in common society, old and young, 
 into one small space together, their health and comfort are 
 certainly incompatible with each other. One or the other 
 must be sacrificed. The new arrangement provides 
 equally for both, and improves both. 
 
 The general site of the whole buildings, and the parti- 
 cular relative position of all the individual apartments 
 being adapted to serve the most useful supply, according 
 to the different ages, of pure air, dryness, heat, light, con- 
 sequent cleanliness, with the addition of as many objects, 
 rural and other wise, pleasing to the senses, as may be 
 within command ; the quality and mode of supplying the 
 food of the whole community, are made equally tributary 
 to the health of the inhabitants. Of all the uses of food 
 to gratify the sense of taste, the appetite of hunger, to 
 supply strength, and rotundity as connected with beauty, 
 to facilitate intellectual or moral exertions, to increase the 
 enjoyment of any particular sense there is not one which 
 ought not to be made altogether subservient to the pre- 
 servation of permanent health; i.e., perfect freedom from 
 all pain, all uneasiness, free action of all the viscera, and 
 of all the animal functions, and perfect use of all the 
 faculties, muscular and intellectual. The simple reason 
 is this : Promote health, and you are in a state to enjoy 
 the greatest desirable quantity of any of these, or any 
 other, ulterior sources of happiness ; promote any of these 
 secondary objects of food at the expense of health, and 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 297 
 
 you not only sacrifice all other pleasures to the one sought, 
 but find that the want of general health takes away the 
 faculty of enjoying even the one pleasure sought, nourish- 
 ing, at the same time, a depraved appetite, which extin- 
 guishes all power of self-command, and consequently of 
 change of system. From want of early training and 
 education, directed to any one useful pursuit connected 
 with human happiness, co-operating with the other insti- 
 tutions of insecurity, the wretched and only objects now 
 sought for from food, are, on the part of the poor, the 
 mere means of prolonging life in whatever state of wretch- 
 edness, and on the part of the rich, the pampering, and 
 necessarily the over-excitement, of the pleasures of taste. 
 The consequence is, habitual uneasiness from undue 
 actions of the system to all, occasional diseases of one sort 
 to the poor, of another to the rich, and universal abridg- 
 ment of the term of life ; for there is no other way of 
 prolonging life than by keeping up permanent health. 
 Alternate health and skilful treatment of disease are most 
 useful to the trade of medicine ; but to all other human 
 beings uninterrupted health should be the object. Now, 
 under the new arrangements, permanent health being the 
 paramount object sought for from food, the subordinate 
 depraved tastes and objects of the rich or the poor must be 
 equally disregarded, and that species of food must be pro- 
 vided by the labour of the community, if possible directly, 
 if not by exchange, which experience has found to be most 
 conducive to this end. 
 
 To the substance and texture of the clothing of the 
 whole associated community, with reference still to per- 
 manent health, the interest of all will direct their attention. 
 On this subject, as on that of food, accurate experiments, 
 extending, under an exact similarity in all other influential 
 circumstances, through the different periods of life, remain 
 to be made. 
 
 In the arrangements for variety of occupations, rest 
 and labour of all the members, the same paramount 
 
298 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 principle of health is kept constantly in view. Being the 
 first requisite to happiness, no increase of wealth is put in 
 competition with it. One additional year of happy life 
 would be ill bestowed for the addition of all the wealth in 
 the universe ; for to the happiness of a community pos- 
 sessing the simple but sufficient means of all natural, 
 intellectual, and moral pleasures, what addition of happi- 
 ness, even for a day, could it give them to be called the 
 possessors of the world's wealth if to be made use of for 
 themselves, and not to be directed to the raising of others 
 to a state of happiness equal to theirs ? With this view, as 
 well as for other purposes, only second in importance, all 
 members of the community are to be conversant in some 
 species, both of agricultural and of manufacturing industry, 
 in occupations of a sedentary as well as of an active nature, 
 in occupations to be performed within in wet and cold, as 
 well as without in fine weather, in the long dreary evenings 
 of winter as well as in the fine closings of summer days. 
 Now, the health of the agricultural labourer is frequently 
 attacked by the cold, wet, and damp, to which he is 
 unavoidably exposed. As the seasons wait for no man, as 
 he must be either altogether idle, or make the best of a bad 
 day, as he can call on no assistant to make up by co-opera- 
 tion for neglected labour, the agriculturist must brave the 
 seasons in spite of health. Now, also, the manufacturer, 
 confined from morning to night in apartments more or 
 less unwholesome, deprived of the proper use of air, 
 exercise, heat, becomes a prey, in his turn, to weakness, 
 perhaps loss of appetite, and peculiar diseases, from which 
 it is impossible for him to escape, under the penalty of 
 starving, by means of such a period of absence from labour 
 as would be necessary to re-establish his health. With 
 agricultural labour, which would accomplish this object, 
 he is unacquainted, and would neither be hired by the 
 farmer, nor admitted to intrude amongst the agricultural 
 labourers : he therefore frequently struggles through a 
 life of disease, and dies* 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 299 
 
 It is, however, conceived, that the object sought for, by 
 saving the waste from unproductive consumption, from 
 unemployed or misdirected productive powers, from whole- 
 sale and retail profits, is merely to increase to the utmost, 
 the quantity of articles of wealth, in the shape of accumu- 
 lated goods, or what is called capital? The ultimate 
 object is not accumulation, is not capital, but enjoyment, 
 immediate or future. Herein differ the mere political, and 
 the moral, economist. The accumulation of wealth or 
 capital, and particularly in large masses, is the sole object 
 of the mere political economist; happiness, health, par- 
 ticularly of the productive many, are with him secondary. 
 Here they are primary ; and wealth, and particularly accu- 
 mulation, are only secondary. True it is, that in a great 
 number, perhaps in a majority of cases, the accumulation 
 of capital, from labour, even under the restraints of inse- 
 curity, has produced more happiness than would have 
 existed without such accumulation. Hence, the proposi- 
 tion was generalised ; and from this most partial experience 
 it was inferred, that to produce the happiness of society 
 as far as wealth was concerned the one and only thing 
 necessary was to increase production, accumulation, capital, 
 which to be apparent must be in large masses and in a 
 few hands. The moral economist, on the other hand, 
 never loses sight of the great polar star, happiness, from 
 all sources, in the greatest quantity, consequently of the 
 greatest number. Before wealth, and as the basis of all 
 happiness from whatever source, he finds it necessary 
 to maintain health ; wherever the two are incompatible, 
 wealth must be unhesitatingly sacrificed. 
 
 Wherever, therefore, employments injurious to health, 
 cannot, by additional labour in the way of mechanical or 
 chemical contrivances, not exceeding in value the article 
 gained, be reconciled therewith, such employments, with 
 their pretended advantages, must by a community of 
 rational men be relinquished. By savings from every 
 possible source of waste, an immense mass of productive 
 
300 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 power is brought together for the common benefit of the 
 associated community. Enough can be spared from this 
 fund to render all employments healthy ; or, if this be 
 unattainable, to substitute others productive of prepon- 
 derant benefit. Enough can be spared from this fund to 
 obviate injurious fatigue, to prevent labour from ever 
 ceasing to be an occupation of useful, and, therefore, inter- 
 esting amusement, to afford time for relaxation, for mental 
 amusement, for the enjoyment of every pleasure of the 
 senses, and social, of which the human machine, under the 
 guidance of prudence, is susceptible. Wherefore were all 
 the sources of waste of human capabilities so rigorously 
 scrutinised? To turn human beings into endless producers 
 for production's sake ? No, but to economise time for 
 every rational employment, for the enjoyment, by the 
 whole community, according to their advances in talent, 
 wisdom, virtue, and the varieties of their physical consti- 
 tution, of all other sources of happiness, besides those of 
 ivealth. Of these, health being the first and the basis 
 of all the rest, neither time nor exertion will be devoted to 
 any occupation incompatible with it ; and the mode and 
 quantity of muscular exertion most conducive to it, will be 
 diligently studied, and with cheerful alacrity supplied, 
 whether it be three, or fifteen, hours, out of the four-and- 
 twenty. 
 
 Besides all these means, chiefly physical and arising 
 out of the very structure of the community, for the pre- 
 servation of health, the youth of the whole association, 
 male and female, will learn, as one of the most useful 
 branches of human knowledge to all, the structure and 
 functions of the human machine, the mode of operation of 
 the arrangements surrounding them, and all those minute 
 circumstances which tend to derange or favour the healthful 
 play of the vital powers. 
 
 Health thus amply provided for by the proposed 
 arrangements ; the next class of obstacles to human happi- 
 ness generated by insecurity, which they would remove, 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 301 
 
 are those which render impossible while they exist, the 
 acquisition of habits of social and personal virtue by the 
 members of the community. The proposed arrangements 
 " would save the incalculable waste of happiness, now 
 arising from the contentions, animosities, and cruelties, 
 engendered by the institutions of insecurity, and in some 
 degree inseparable from the most chastened pursuit of 
 individual gain ; the social combinations proposed removing 
 the causes of those crimes and vices, and by the education 
 of the understanding implanting opposite permanent dis- 
 positions and habits." 
 
 Look round society, examine the contentions that 
 embitter life, the actions, sometimes the mere words, or 
 supposed intentions, which criminal laws have erected into 
 offences, and which they visit, in the name of humanity, 
 with all the cruelty of torturing punishments ; look to the 
 deceits, perjuries, forgeries of all sorts, that encompass all 
 our transactions ; look at the deeds of violence, and fraud, 
 that desolate human life. From what source do nine out 
 of ten, nay, ninety -nine out of a hundred of them, directly 
 or indirectly, proceed? From what, but from the pursuit 
 of individual gain ? from the pursuit of individual wealth, 
 whether for the mere sake of influence or distinction, or 
 for the sake of the supposed immediate selfish benefit, to 
 be derived from the article sought ? For the gratification 
 of any passion or desire unconnected with wealth, scarcely 
 any contention certainly no injurious contention is 
 excited ; because either the means of gratifying such 
 desires are ample and open to all, or else force or fraud 
 cannot aid in the acquisition of those personal qualities 
 which are the objects of such desires. The sexual passion 
 is the only exception ; though what are called its aberra- 
 tions, are in reality almost always connected with wealth, 
 yet are there some few cases in which wealth is in no way 
 concerned. 
 
 Now, as to all the vices and crimes arising from the 
 mere pursuit of individual gain, by the competition of 
 
302 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 individual with individual, or with all other individuals, 
 nothing is more plain, than that such vices and crimes 
 could not have place in a society where no such thing as 
 individual gain, as individual possession, was known. 
 Though the clothes, and the private apartments, may be in 
 some measure called individual possessions, at least 
 during the time of occupation and use, yet, as every other 
 member of the community has apartments and clothes, 
 equally extensive and good, adequate to every rational 
 personal demand, what motive can there be for any 
 contention about the possession of any such articles? 
 Wherefore are perjuries, and forgeries, and frauds, of all 
 sorts, now practised ? To facilitate the acquisition of some 
 portion of individual wealth. But in these associated 
 communities of voluntary equality of wealth, there would 
 be nothing to be gained by these perjuries, forgeries, or 
 other species of falsehood ; the motives to lying, as to 
 theft, would be withdrawn, and, therefore, without sup- 
 posing any change whatever in the nature of man, he will 
 cease to lie and steal, simply because he will find in his 
 altered circumstances, that nothing is to be gained, no 
 increase of happiness, by lying and stealing. 
 
 Thus, by the simple operation of the proposed arrange- 
 ments, will the crimes and vices of falsehood and violence 
 respecting property, cease within such communities ; as a 
 lamp ceases to burn, when the oil or gas that supplied it is 
 withdrawn. 
 
 The passions of envy, jealousy, hatred, pride, vanity, 
 &c., and the crimes against person or property, to which 
 they sometimes give rise, are almost always connected 
 with property ; and will, therefore, cease with the altered 
 circumstances of joint and social possession and enjoyment. 
 There remain those few cases of the development of such 
 passions not connected with wealth. 
 
 At the head of private or simply personal vices 
 which seldom are, but which never ought to be erected 
 into crimes, and made punishable by the laws stands 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 303 
 
 intemperance as to eating and drinking. The poor, the 
 wretched, would now, perhaps, over-eat even at a healthful 
 meal, from the variety of the enjoyment and the certainty 
 of its non-recurrence ; but, under the proposed arrange- 
 ments, these incitements would be removed, as the health- 
 ful meal would be the universal meal, and the recurrence 
 certain. Every healthful gratification of the appetite, 
 every gratification attended with preponderant good, 
 being not only permitted but sought for by the benevolent 
 united wisdom of the community, the fool only would 
 injure himself by any excess, and the number of such 
 fools would daily decrease. 
 
 On the same principles would be regulated mere per- 
 sonal excess (disserved from all other consequences) in the 
 gratification of the sexual passion. Even under the insti- 
 tutions of partial security, those vices and crimes, uncon- 
 nected with the pursuit of wealth, which arise from 
 misgoverned sexual desire, abduction, rape, and such like, 
 are very trifling in amount or magnitude. With the 
 most partial advance in civilisation they are irrecon- 
 cilable. What now leads to the few offences of this 
 class that are committed ? Uncommon brutality of 
 disposition, or inequality of situation with the object of 
 attachment. All those cases arising from inequality of 
 situation as to pecuniary affairs, would cease at once 
 under the proposed arrangements, because every man and 
 every woman under them are equal, as to wealth ; joint 
 possessors of all wealth and all social advantages, private 
 individual possessors of nothing. Personal qualities alone, 
 therefore, would decide the attachments of love ; good 
 qualities of body and mind. From the progress of educa- 
 tion and just views of happiness, mental qualities would 
 be continually gaining on the merely animal. The 
 employment of force or fraud to operate on the conduct in 
 the co-operating communities, not being practised, nor, of 
 course, known, personal good qualities and persuasion, 
 would be the only means of exciting attachment that 
 
304 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 could occur to the members. In truth, the mutual 
 desires of the two sexes would be, under the proposed 
 arrangements, an additional link to the chain of motives 
 calling forth the cultivation of personal good (i.e., useful) 
 qualities ; and a link of what efficacy ! Who can, under 
 the present feverish toil for mere wealth and distinction, 
 by any factitious means, estimate its energy ? Now, the 
 one sex, being degraded into a mere puppet, deprived of 
 almost all civil, and of all political, rights, for the amuse- 
 ment of the other, operates as an eternal, countervailing 
 force, to all expansion of mind and enlarged benevolence ; 
 love is the seal of mental imbecility and indolence ; and 
 nature, as the poets would say, stands avenged on the 
 despotism of man, by linking him with the abject creature 
 of uncalculating sensuality which he has made. But, 
 under the proposed arrangements, woman being in every 
 respect an equal participator with man in all the blessings 
 of education, as well as in all the other benefits which the 
 combined exertions of the community can command, the 
 two sexes would operate, in a new and mutually beneficial 
 way, on each other as friends and equals. Improved 
 intellect and elevated sympathy would shrink from asso- 
 ciation with the ignorant and depraved ; the bars of wealth 
 and the impertinences of rank unknown in these commu- 
 nities, preference would have nothing else to feed and 
 banquet upon, but useful, and, therefore, estimable qualities : 
 the sphere of choice of all would be enlarged, and open to 
 all, and all artificial restraints to sincere attachment would 
 be removed. Prostitution, that most wretched of the 
 trades of insecurity, mowing down in early prime, more of 
 human life in the one sex, than the insanity of war does in 
 the other, could not exist, in such communities. Man, 
 not being the guardian of individual wealth, would have 
 no bribe wherewith to insult woman for the purchase of 
 that which loses all real value when it can be bought. 
 Woman, being in as full possession as man of all the 
 enjoyments procured by the mutual co-operation of the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 305 
 
 whole community, could not education even out of the 
 question be driven by either want or vanity, to yield to 
 such degradation. Neither distress, nor delusion, nor 
 compulsion, could turn to bitterness those ever-springing 
 sources of beneficent sympathy which, by the very laws of 
 our organisation, mature health diffuses through the frame 
 of the sexes for each other. 
 
 The vices and crimes not connected with wealth, 
 springing from the passions, such as envy or jealousy of 
 superior talents and hatred of their possessor, remain to be 
 dismissed. Against the few cases in which such passions 
 could be developed, general culture and the continually 
 operating influence of the new circumstances, would 
 provide. Utility being recognised as the standard by 
 which all qualities are to be judged, mere distinction 
 would soon cease to be an object of desire or admiration. 
 If divested of utility, present or future, to the possessor 
 or others, why should the possessor of any quality be 
 envied, not to say hated ? What good will such a quality 
 do its possessor in a co-operating community ? what 
 sympathy will it procure for him ? Admired and esteemed, 
 if the quality be useful yes. A useful quality is esteemed 
 by such a community, because it increases the happiness 
 of the possessor, or of some other members of the commu- 
 nity. Partaking of this feeling of esteem, of admiration, 
 because it is the interest of every one to be benefited by the 
 good qualities of every other member of the community, 
 and no factitious rewards being known, what is there left 
 to be envied ? what to be hated ? the utter uselessness of 
 such passions, or rather their gratuitous self-torment 
 inflicted on those who harbour them, must be so apparent 
 to an active and usefully occupied community, that they 
 would find no sympathy in the minds of any, and would 
 therefore cease. Not that occasional errors of the feelings 
 and misregulations of the voluntary actions would not 
 occur, as derangements of the animal economy from the 
 state of health would sometimes take place ; but these 
 
 u 
 
306 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 would be so rare and so light, that public opinion would 
 be quite sufficient to restrain them within harmless bounds. 
 Almost all the motives engendering vice and crime thus 
 withdrawn from a community of mutual co-operation, 
 from its mere position as such ; if we want to know what 
 would be their conduct as to positive virtue, to active 
 beneficence, we have only to inquire what is their real 
 interest? and will they be placed in such circumstances 
 that they must perceive that real interest? When no 
 possible good is to be got by out-witting, plundering, 
 or otherwise tormenting each other, it will be plainly their 
 interest to try if no increase is to be had to their 
 happiness, by cultivating as much as possible the social 
 affections. Nothing so contagious as happiness : nothing, 
 but light, so much abounding in reflections, and so much 
 dependent for its general effect on their number and 
 variety. By an association of our nature, from which 
 there is no escape, dependent partly on organisation, and 
 partly on early inevitable habit, the usual indications, by 
 means of the countenance and otherwise, of happiness in 
 those around us, excite a glow more or less lively of 
 kindred feelings in ourselves, whenever some real or 
 supposed counteracting interest does not mar the effect. 
 Scarcely any one can enjoy happiness surrounded with the 
 miserable. Scarcely any bounds can be assigned to the 
 increase which individual happiness is capable of receiving, 
 from the associations of reflected happiness : though 
 minute, yet gentle and ever-springing, they are frequently 
 of potency sufficient even to banish personal uneasiness. 
 What pleasures so cheap as these, requiring no purchase, 
 but yielding to their impulse ? What wisdom so great as 
 to increase them to the utmost? by every possible act 
 of mutual kindness to increase them ? All essential wants 
 of all already gratified, no painful personal privation 
 could interpose its chilling veto. But, if these things be 
 so, what is to prevent a community with all its wants 
 supplied, all temptations to maleficence removed, from 
 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 307 
 
 plainly perceiving its interest in this respect ? Factitious 
 interest and ignorance are the causes that lead men not to 
 pursue their real interest: these obstacles withdrawn, 
 knowledge within their reach, and the greatest sum of 
 happiness to all, the sole and avowed end of their 
 association ; is it within the scope of any rational proba- 
 bility, that such associated members should not perceive 
 that the same motives which led them to mutual co-opera- 
 tion in essential matters, demand that in every minor 
 pursuit they should seek the happiness of all by mutual 
 kindness and good offices? This is the principle of a 
 virtuous disposition ; and thus do we find it included in the 
 very ground-work of these communities. The pleasures 
 of sense so amply ^provided for, they must inevitably seek 
 for additional pleasures by cultivating to the utmost the 
 pleasures of sympathy. 
 
 The last of the advantages, not as excluding other 
 advantages, but as the most prominent, immediate, and 
 most closely connected with our subject, mentioned as 
 arising from the proposed arrangements, is, that " they 
 would render supply and demand always commensurate ; 
 would reduce the economy of supply and demand, of 
 population, and other contested questions of morals, 
 legislation, and political economy, to fixed and easily 
 ascertained data." 
 
 / The paramount mischief of all systems of insecurity, 
 by whatever subordinate and varying expedients accom- 
 plished, is, that by throwing into the hands of a few the 
 dwellings of the whole community, the raw materials on 
 which they must labour, the machinery and tools which 
 they must use, and the very soil on which they live and 
 from which their food must be extracted, these few, by 
 combining together, seizing on, or allying themselves with, 
 political power, reserving knowledge to themselves and 
 keeping the mass of the community ignorant, acquire 
 the absolute regulation of the remuneration of all the pro- 
 ductive labourers of the community, and possess the 
 
308 On tie Distribution of Wealth 
 
 faculty of forcing that community, or any portion of it, to 
 starve, whenever, from whatever causes, the exercise of 
 their industry does not, under these same expedients of 
 insecurity, yield such a return as will not only give 
 ordinary support to the labourers, but also that quantum 
 of the products of the labour to themselves, under the 
 name of profits on capital, which they have been 
 accustomed, from whatever circumstances, to look upon as 
 their due. Now, though political power were to seize on 
 nothing out of the products of labour, but to leave the 
 whole to the discretion of the owners of capital, land 
 included; yet would it be entirely in the power of these 
 capitalists, by regulations of cupidity and ignorance, to 
 prevent the development of industry, and, of course, the 
 production of human life and enjoyment. The real 
 interest of the capitalist, as such, is always and necessarily 
 opposed to the interest of the labourer ; and he will 
 always make use of all means in his power to make that 
 interest available ; the only personal check is his own cal- 
 culation, always blinded by his interest, of the effect of his 
 forced restraints on the spirit, and thence on the productive 
 powers of the labourer. 
 
 But the fact is, that though the restraints of insecurity 
 imposed by capitalists to increase their profits, or any 
 two or three of those restraints, would be sufficient to keep 
 down the happiness of the labourers ; and though also the 
 public plunder of the products of labour by political 
 power would of itself be abundantly sufficient to produce 
 the same effect; yet have these two moral engines of 
 human misery always gone hand in hand, sometimes the 
 one, sometimes the other taking the lead. JN T ow, whenever 
 from either of these causes operating singly, or from both 
 operating in whatever proportions the exertions of labour 
 do not produce a healthful subsistence, after deduction 
 made of the plunder or profit, or both; it is said "there 
 is no demand for labour," the seats at the table of nature's 
 mighty banquet are occupied. The evil is said to be 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 300 
 
 irremediable ; and those who cannot find employment must 
 live as long as they can. 
 
 Under the system of equal security, of the naturaj^ 
 laws of distribution, and the simple institutions compatible 
 with them, it is evident provided that skill and know- 
 ledge were, as they might be, communicated to all the 
 members of the community that every labourer would 
 become a capitalist, that the plunder of political power 
 could not exist, and that all the members of the com- 
 munity would be producers and consumers to each other. 
 The first object of the united labour of the whole 
 community is to provide an abundance of wholesome 
 food, for their own wants at least. A reserve store a] so 
 for as many months' or years' supply as experience shows 
 may be rendered necessary for the deficiency of bad 
 harvests, forms an essential part of their economy. The 
 next object of the united labour of the community, is to 
 provide in equal abundance, but without any waste, a 
 supply of the most useful clothing for the whole, and to 
 preserve well, the common buildings and dwellings. The 
 surplus labour goes to procure, immediately or by exchange, 
 comforts and conveniences. In this state of things, 
 consumers, i.e., employers, can never be wanting ; for the 
 whole community are the consumers, the employers. Nor 
 can productive labourers be wanting, for the whole com- 
 munity are also the productive labourers. Demand, 
 therefore, and supply, of all articles necessary to health, 
 must be commensurate ; from more or less of other 
 articles, little inconvenience can be felt ; for such a com* 
 munity would be very careful how it directed its surplus 
 labour to the production of any articles, however glittering 
 the immediate profit, for which the real and regular wants of 
 society at large, did not guarantee something approaching 
 to a permanent equality of demand. Whenever the 
 community found that any part of its surplus labour was 
 misdirected, it could with the least possible inconvenience, 
 from the varied skill of its members and the possession of 
 
310 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 mechanical power, give it a new direction ; or if all but 
 the impossible circumstance arose, of a total want of 
 demand from without, in the way of exchange, for any 
 articles which the surplus labour could produce, the only 
 consequence would be, that this surplus labour would be 
 put to work under the direction of excited ingenuity to 
 fabricate home products into substitutes for external 
 conveniences, no longer to be procured without too great 
 a waste of useful labour. Thus would the tremendous 
 evil of want of employment and consequent wretchedness, 
 be absolutely banished from such associated communities ; 
 thus would supply and demand be strictly and eternally 
 commensurate ; thus would the eternal and disgraceful 
 question of want of employment for the poor, be gently 
 laid to rest; there would be no human beings in such 
 communities to whom such a degrading epithet as poor 
 could apply. 
 
 On an equal footing with the question of employment, 
 is that of population. Want of employment, excess, or 
 existence in any quantity, of a miserable population, low 
 living, whether on mere potatoes or other under-exciting 
 food ; all these and many others, so often put forward as 
 causes of the misery of the majority of the community, 
 are nothing but effects of some or other of the ever-varying 
 combinations of expedients, to which insecurity, under 
 different circumstances and according to the existing state 
 of knowledge, gives birth. Let those expedients or insti- 
 tutions of insecurity remain, not to say all of them, but 
 only a few of those which are influential, and these evils 
 will follow as certainly as water will find the horizontal 
 figure of the earth. Kemove these mighty master-springs 
 of evil, and employment, population, and food, will find 
 their level and regulate themselves ; but insult not the 
 suffering mass, the great majority of mankind, with the 
 glaring falsehood, that by means of limiting population or 
 not eating potatoes, their own happiness is in their own 
 hands, while the causes are left in full operation which 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 311 
 
 render it morally and physically impossible for them to 
 live without potatoes and improvident breeding. All the 
 laboured obstacles to human improvement, which, with a 
 view to palliate, and to blind the eyes of men (the 
 preachers doubtless sometimes themselves blind) to the 
 overwhelming evils of systems of insecurity, have been 
 put forward as arising from the principle of population, 
 have been founded on this false position, that " increased 
 comfort will necessarily lead to increase of improvident 
 breeding" All the facts of history, and all investigation 
 of human motives, demonstrate the utter falsehood of this 
 position. There is no disposition or physical interest 
 amongst mankind, elevated but one step over the merest 
 savage existence, if even in that state, to breed beyond 
 their absolute comforts, whatever they may be ; and as 
 these comforts increase, accompanied as they are with an 
 increase of knowledge, the tendency to improvident breed- 
 ing uniformly decreases with their increase. Not a single 
 instance can be quoted from history, or from the conduct 
 of any living community, of over-breeding taking place in 
 consequence of increased comfort alone, where all expe- 
 dients of insecurity had been removed. Look again for 
 illustration to the non-slave provinces of the United States 
 of North America, approaching the nearest to a state of 
 equal security. Have the inhabitants of the old States 
 increased in improvident breeding in consequence of their 
 increased comforts? On the contrary, has not their 
 increase of comforts and of population gone hand in hand, 
 and has not every new generation demanded rather more 
 than less of comfort from the associations of early habit 
 than its predecessor? The tendency to multiply has 
 certainly increased with the increase of comforts, but the 
 tendency to improvident multiplication has, as certainly, 
 diminished. Both in the old and new States, population 
 keeps up, though at a different rate of increase, or nearly 
 keeps up to the level of comforts, but does not go beyond 
 them ; though nothing lias been done in the United States, 
 
312 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 deserving the name, to give education, knowledge, to the 
 whole community. That done, and all the vile remnants of 
 insecurity removed, whenever the population of the whole 
 Union, or of any part, arrives at that state that it cannot 
 be further increased without lessening actual comforts 
 attended in the opinion of the people with preponderant 
 good, it will then cease to increase ; and reproduction will 
 exactly balance the waste of life. 
 
 In what way the proposed regulations affect population, 
 will be presently noticed. Meantime, it is evident that 
 everything in these communities, on such influential 
 matters, may be, and will be, matter of record. Experi- 
 ments in morals, legislation, and political, including rural, 
 economy, may be instituted, or inferences may be drawn, 
 with a confidence and accuracy which they have never 
 hitherto attained. The whole of the arrangements form 
 one grand moral as well as economical experiment. 'Tis 
 an experiment, as well for almost eradicating vice, as for 
 increasing physical comforts to the utmost. 
 
 To the enlightened moralist, what a field would these 
 associated communities afford ! With what a develop- 
 ment of human motives, whose very existence the infancy 
 of his science had hardly suspected, would they supply 
 him ! motives gentle and all-pervading like the descending 
 dews, unappreciated till the leafy forest and the bending 
 crops of gladness attest their universal operation. The 
 efficacy of the social motives has never yet been tried ; 
 human society, as hitherto constituted, has afforded no 
 opportunity for their development ; the experimental 
 moralist must hail their establishment whether successful 
 or not ; on experience and experiment, and the just infer- 
 ences drawn therefrom, the only solid advance that ever 
 has been or can be made in physical and moral knowledge, 
 must be founded ; all else is idle speculation, if not delu- 
 sive absurdity. 
 
 Education forming so essential a part of the proposed 
 system, it may be wondered at that it is not put prominently 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 313 
 
 forward here, as one of the advantages of the system of 
 mutual co-operation. 
 
 The main moral improvement to be expected from the 
 system of mutual co-operation, will be produced by the 
 altered circumstances of the community, not by talking or 
 writing* about rights and duties, and issuing empty threats, 
 to induce one line of conduct, while substantial motives of 
 interest are permitted to exist impelling to its opposite. 
 This applies particularly to the adults ; and to all, as far 
 as their habits had been previously formed, on first entering 
 into such a community. That part of education which 
 may be called literary, and which consists in diffusing real 
 knowledge, in communicating truth, physical and moral, 
 to the understanding, always under the caution against 
 hypocritical assent without perception or conviction to save 
 the trouble of exertion, must be communicated chiefly to 
 the younger members of the community, and would there- 
 fore be more prospective, even to them, than the other 
 benefits, which would be immediately reaped, and which 
 are incorporated, as it were, with the very movements of 
 the social machine, and which more directly relate to 
 wealth and distribution. There is certainly no part of the 
 system of more deep and ultimate importance than the 
 diffusion of real knowledge ; of which nine-tenth parts are 
 undisputed, the other tenth consisting of discoveries not 
 yet fully canvassed, nor, of course, universally admitted. 
 But no particular plan of education is laid down, nor is, 
 indeed, essential to these co-operating communities. Their 
 places and materials for instruction form part of their 
 general arrangements ; the children and all the materials 
 of art and science on the spot, and the real agricultural, 
 manufacturing, and scientific operations always in motion 
 and within sight for exemplification ; the command of all 
 circumstances so as to remove all sources of delusion and 
 false judgment, so as to present nothing but real facts for 
 the young mind to judge upon, being completely in the 
 power of the institutors ; where has ever existed, or been 
 
314 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 conceived, a situation for the education of the young so 
 replete with advantages hitherto deemed incompatible with 
 each other ? The effect of such states of things in the 
 development of all the variety of intellectual capabilities, 
 and in the implanting of moral associations, founded in 
 truth and tending to happiness, cannot be appreciated. 
 The delineation of just expectations would appear the 
 dream of fancy. 
 
 Another advantage arising out of the arrangements for 
 mutual co-operation, not here put forward, because not so 
 immediately connected with our main inquiry the dis- 
 tribution of wealth is, that just equality of rights and 
 duties, and enjoyments, which it would establish between 
 the two sexes. This, it may be said, is included in the 
 more extended equality of all the members of the com- 
 munity. Under the proposed arrangements, it is ; but not 
 necessarily under all arrangements for the equality of 
 men, either as to matters of wealth or political power. 
 However equal, men may have been proposed to be made 
 to each other, the relative inferiority of all women to all 
 men has been ever insisted on ; old association and the 
 brute right of superior strength have everywhere pre- 
 vailed. The weaker sex, as the weaker men, have been 
 universally the prey of the stronger. Moreover, as these 
 communities are all subject to the common laws of the 
 general society amongst which they are established, they 
 cannot, by any private act of theirs, alter such laws, or 
 abstract the women of their association from the capricious 
 degradation to which such laws consign them. If they 
 cannot prevent an insane husband from ordering, as he 
 would his horse, his wife, happy in such a community, to 
 leave it at his bidding; they can, at least, by the previous 
 consent of all the associated members, remove almost all 
 those occasions which would tempt husbands to the exer- 
 cise of those brutal and senseless prerogatives which almost 
 all laws give them. Disputes about property, about 
 household affairs, about children, would be rendered almost 
 
 
wndvtive t* II*me# Happiness. 315 
 
 impossible, almost all the arrangements on these matters 
 being in common. In the use of all the property of the 
 community, the woman has as ample liberty as the man ; 
 little being left to mere private household economy. "While 
 the family remains in the co-operating community, no 
 inducements fitted to operate on the minds of men, as ordi- 
 narily constituted, will be found, tempting the men to the 
 exercise of any vexatious power. In point of fact, there- 
 fore, as nothing but the pleasure of vexing could be 
 derived from the exercise, under such circumstances, of 
 arbitrary command, as all the usual motives for the exer- 
 cise of a husband's legal superiority would be withdrawn, 
 it would be soon forgotten, and sympathy and reason 
 would be the sole umpire between husband and wife, as 
 between every individual in the community and every 
 other individual. Moreover, the unmarried women of 
 such communities, would be at perfect liberty to refuse 
 any other connexions than those, perfectly equal and 
 voluntary, which might take place within the community 
 itself; neither the care and support of children, nor dis- 
 putes about succession to individual wealth, nor fear of 
 neglect of the mother in gestation, remaining any longer 
 as motives to compel women to submit to the slavery, as 
 to them, of the marriage obligations of general society. 
 Their marriages might be simple, and within the com- 
 munity, like those of the Quakers : but, not operating like 
 the Quakers for individual gain, they would be under no 
 necessity of superadding the shackles of law to their own 
 simple, voluntary, and perfectly equal contracts,-*. 
 
 Were it fit here to enlarge on all the collateral moral 
 benefits that seem necessarily to follow from the operation 
 but for a few years of such communities of social co- 
 operation, on their own happiness, or from their good 
 example on society in general, the examination of advan- 
 tages might be carried to an indefinite length. We must, 
 therefore, cease with those most intimately connected with 
 our subject, and pass on to inquire if there are any obstacles 
 
316 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 to human happiness, any restraints of insecurity, which 
 the proposed arrangements would not remove ; if there are 
 any which they would even tend to aggravate. 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 OBSTACLES TO HUMAN IMPROVEMENT WHICH THB PROPOSED REGULATIONS WOULD 
 NOT REMOVE, OR WHICH THEY WOULD SEEM TO AGGRAVATE. 
 
 One of the most curious and extraordinary features of 
 the proposed arrangements is, that they demand no 
 alteration whatever in any of the existing institutions of 
 insecurity, the protection of their joint property excepted. 
 But then, in return, their immediate benefits are confined to 
 the co-operating members. The system of equal security 
 and individual exertion, advocated in our previous chapters, 
 herein differs from the system of mutual co-operation. In 
 the system of equal security coupled with individual exertion, 
 not a step can be made by individuals without the aid of 
 the legislature ; but then the whole community is at the 
 same time benefited ; not indeed the active aid of political 
 power, but the ceasing to oppress, the removal of restraints 
 on equal individual exertion ; while, on the contrary, in 
 the system of mutual co-operation, no aid is demanded of 
 the legislator, no removal of any of the restraints of inse- 
 curity on individual exertion : the exactions of capitalists 
 and the plunder of political power, and all the expedients 
 or institutions of insecurity are passed by ; no change is 
 sought to be made in them ; to whatever pressure, whether 
 under autocratic or privileged-order institutions, the rest 
 of the general society in which they live is subjected, they 
 submit themselves likewise ; excepting in as far as those 
 very institutions have left them the faculty of ceasing, by 
 voluntary consent, to inflict on each other certain portions 
 of the evils of insecurity. If political power in no way 
 aided these communities, 'tis hardly to be supposed they 
 would be persecuted by unequal taxation, All equal and 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 317 
 
 just taxation, their economy of labour and real utility of 
 expenditure would enable them to discharge with much 
 more facility than an equal number of individuals in society 
 at large, selected indiscriminately, and in just proportion, 
 from all existing classes. 
 
 It must be always recollected, however, that no indi- 
 vidual is bound by his engagement to remain one moment 
 longer in such co-operation than he deems it his interest, 
 whether wisely or not, to continue such co-operation. No 
 power of compulsion do these communities claim. En- 
 lightened views of individual, identified with social, interest, 
 and the influence of public opinion, are to them arms suf- . 
 ficiently powerful for every useful purpose. They ask 
 no aid from law. 
 
 But let riot these proposed arrangements be charged 
 with excluding national or provincial affairs from the con- 
 sideration of the individual members. Though members 
 ,of a co-operating community, they have not ceased to be 
 members of the great general community in which they 
 live. They take no monastic vows of voluntary seclusion 
 from the world. They cease not to be men and to have a 
 country, because they engage in a large family concern of 
 many co-operating members, any more than if they had 
 engaged for the supply of their physical wants and the 
 amelioration of their habits on a smaller scale. 
 
 The sympathies of such communities will be enlarged, 
 not contracted, as their understandings are improved. By 
 reason, by generosity, they will always seek to promote 
 the public good. Different members will necessarily take 
 different vievvs of public affairs, as of all other matters of 
 human concern ; but, removed as long as they remain in 
 the community, from the pursuit of any sinister pecuniary 
 interest of general society, their opinion as to the regulation 
 of public affairs will possess the more weight as their 
 motives must be pure. Liable to the operation of all laws 
 and taxes as well as the rest of the general society, why 
 should they not be interested in its concerns, even 
 
318 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 personally interested, as far as these matters extend? 
 Where, with so much calm and benevolent anxiety as 
 amongst such men, could questions of morals, legislation, 
 education, political economy, as well as of all the physical 
 sciences, be discussed? to whom could they be more 
 attractive, or who would have better data to form judgments 
 upon them ? No more control do the proposed arrange- 
 ments seek over the political, than over the religious, 
 opinions of men ; they aim only to put them all on the 
 road of attaining mutual kindness and truth, the interest 
 of all. 
 
 With many it may be matter of objection, that this 
 system of mutual co-operation does not connect itself with 
 any particular sect or party. Having the equal happiness 
 of all in view, it can identify itself with the opinions of 
 none, but affords perfect freedom of opinion to all. Others 
 perhaps will regard it as a proof of the wisdom and bene- 
 volence of the system, that it is essentially neuter as to all 
 possible political and religious establishments, guaranteeing 
 merely the common and equal liberty of opinion of all. 
 
 We will conclude this section by briefly noticing the 
 obstacles to human improvement which the proposed regu- 
 lations would seem to aggravate. 
 
 One of the main pillars, as we have seen, one of the 
 universal expedients of insecurity, is the abstraction which 
 it makes without consent of the producers, in the shape of 
 public plunder, levied by direct or circuitous means, out 
 of the products of labour. Public plunder, now that 
 knowledge is diffusing itself, is the real support of all 
 existing systems of insecurity. jThe co-operating societies, 
 if successful in a few instances, would rapidly diffuse them- 
 selves, till economy of labour, co-operation in producing, 
 and equality in distributing, would by degrees supersede, 
 wherever such advantages could be procured, the present 
 waste of labour and happiness. But as a necessary conse- 
 quence, the production of wealth would be annually and 
 indefinitely increased ; increased, it may be said, to add to 
 
Most condticive to Human Happiness. 319 
 
 the comforts of the producers, but increased also not 
 unseen by political power, not without exciting its cupidity 
 to rifle the honey of such industrious bee-hives. | If gold 
 and silver continued the bona-fide medium of exchange, 
 and the quantity obtained from the mines remained 
 sufficient to supply the annual waste and preserve the 
 present relative proportion between money and com- 
 modities ; not only might all the present demands of 
 political power be annually paid out of the products of 
 such increasing wealth, but the amount of those most 
 tremendous iniquities of all systems of insecurity, public 
 debts, as they are falsely called, might be gradually 
 discharged. 
 
 What prospect could be more exhilarating than this to 
 the holders of political power ? They see the industrious 
 of the community forming themselves into groups, to 
 increase by mutual co-operation, instead of isolated indi- 
 vidual competition, fourfold or a hundredfold, the annual 
 quantity of wealth hitherto produced. The industrious 
 yoke themselves to the new talismanic cars of production, 
 and, without stipulating or inquiring who are to be the 
 drivers, proceed in their career of industry. Political 
 power continues to plunder ; the exaction is not felt. The 
 facility of acquisition and the sweets of possession and 
 enjoyment, whet the appetite of political power. New 
 exactions are made, the old debts of insecurity are 
 lessened, and co-operative industry still smiles, provided 
 abundantly with health and comfort, even after the satis- 
 faction of these increased demands. Political power 
 smiles also ; smiles with content ; smiles at the honest 
 simplicity of co-operative industry, and curtails no more 
 his views of magnificence at home, his ancient amusement, 
 necessary to keep up emotion, of pillage and murder of 
 human beings, under the name of war, abroad. A new 
 race commences ; a race of increased expenditure against 
 the new race of industry. As the old debts of political 
 power are diminished by tens, new debts are contracted by 
 
320 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 hundreds. What are the increased capacities for the pro- 
 duction of wealth by means of co-operative labour, when 
 compared with the increased capacities and caprices of the 
 possessors of political power, and of the thousands and 
 millions of the expectant idle, greedy of the plundered 
 honey, and anxious to form a partnership with, and 
 bulwark around, political power ? Let the one be ever so 
 great, the other must still exceed it ; because it is always 
 easier to desire and consume than to produce. 
 
 Were it one of the proposed arrangements of mutual 
 co-operation, that neither the whole co-operating com- 
 munity as a body, nor any of its individual members, 
 should interest themselves about the possession, or the 
 exercise, of the political powers of the whole provincial or 
 national community amongst which they lived, and were 
 such arrangement an indispensable condition of their 
 organisation ; it does not appear that any benefits of 
 increased production and improved habits to be expected 
 from them, would at all counterbalance the evils of inse- 
 curity, to which they would be thus subjected. 
 
 Now, were such a regulation so flagrantly destructive 
 of human sympathy and human right proposed, who is 
 there that would, on such condition, unite himself with 
 such co-operating community ? Who would withdraw 
 himself from the race of competition, the scramble for 
 wealth, the excitation of hope and fear, the presumption 
 of success, the lottery of life, in which, in a continual 
 fever, he now lives, to devote all his intellectual and mus- 
 cular powers, calmly to multiply with his fellow-men, by 
 mutual co-operation, the products of their united labour, 
 if he had not some assurance of security in the joint enjoy- 
 ment of these increased products security, not only from 
 casual, ragged, starving thieves, but from the ever-present, 
 irresistible, well-clad, and sleek arm of political power? 
 All the evils of politial insecurity would be so increased 
 by such an undertaking to submit, and new expedients 
 would be so easily devised for shackling the industry of 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 321 
 
 men working in co-operation (just as easily as they had 
 been previously devised to shackle the industry of men 
 working by individual competition), that all co-operation, 
 under such circumstances, would be vain. 
 
 The alarm, however, is groundless : no such condition 
 is to be found amongst the arrangements. Such a condition 
 would be altogether inconsistent with another necessary 
 condition that of perfect freedom of opinion on all sub- 
 jects amongst all the members. 
 
 The consequence of any submission to arbitrary plun- 
 der, of these societies, would be to counteract the natural 
 tendency of the new circumstances to operate on the minds 
 of the idle consumers. To them there would be no change, 
 but the more industry, the more honey to be plundered. 
 They would form a society and a public opinion of their 
 own, reinforced by increased numbers of idle consumers, 
 and of accumulating means of wasteful expenditure. New 
 wars, increased waste, multiplied taxation, would compel 
 expostulation and resistance, or would bury the industry 
 of the mutual co-operating societies, with all their multi- 
 plied productions, in one grave with security. Wherefore 
 should not the co-operators in these communities, deli- 
 berately warn political power that they were no more 
 inclined to accumulate thought and skill, and labour and 
 production, that the fruits thereof might be abstracted 
 without their consent, to pamper their unreal wants, than 
 to supply the real wants of the far less wicked because 
 more ignorant, the pitiful private plunderer ? Why not 
 guard against these obvious sources of contention, these 
 oscillations of misery ? Why encourage political power 
 in false and pernicious views of increased plunder? If 
 political power were sincere in its pretensions to benevo- 
 lence, it would rather voluntarily remove all existing 
 taxation from such communities, than look forward to 
 their multiplied exertions with a view to robbing them of 
 their fruits. If it be desirable that the evils of insecurity 
 should cease, why not endeavour, by every possible 
 
 v 
 
322 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 development of truth, to convince the majority of every 
 community, to arrest as speedily as possible their mis- 
 chievous career? 
 
 Such will be the course of events. Bees labour and 
 produce honey, and men consume it ; because bees have 
 neither knowledge nor foresight. But from these co- 
 operating communities of human bees, knowledge and 
 foresight cannot be withheld ; they are the very fires that 
 must kindle the mass of mankind into activity and hap- 
 piness ; more necessary to them than to the short-sighted 
 calculators of individual competition in general society, 
 whose views the necessity of existence terminates, for the 
 most part, with the day or the week. And from such men, 
 acting by mutual co-operation, whose whole scheme of life 
 is founded on comparatively remote and extensive calcula- 
 tions, is it likely that the palpable interest and necessity 
 to their very existence, of equal security, should remain 
 unheeded, uninvestigated, and unclaimed ? No ; the 
 prosperity of these co-operating communities, is not, and 
 cannot be founded on the desertion of the interests of their 
 fellow-creatures. Insecurity is equally the foe of all 
 human exertion, whether conducted by one, or by the 
 co-operation of ten thousand individuals . By the unwearied 
 exhibition of truth, the majority of every community must 
 be persuaded of the mischievousness of insecurity, that it 
 may cease for ever. 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 IS THE SYSTEM OP VOLUNTAKY EQUALITY OP WEALTH PRACTICABLE? 
 
 Thus we have seen that the evils connected with thes< 
 co-operating communities are few, transitory ; but abov( 
 all things that they are perfectly avoidable, and, whethei 
 deemed by any persons essential to them or not, are ii 
 fact such as the progress of the human mind, in and oul 
 of these societies, must ultimately, perhaps speedily, 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 323 
 
 remove ; while the advantages of voluntary equality arc 
 numerous, permanent, and such as not even equal security, 
 unassisted by mutual co-operation and common enjoyment, 
 could produce. 
 
 The simple question, then, that remains to be solved 
 seeing that such a state of society is desirable is, is it 
 practicable ? Is there anything in the nature of man, in 
 his organisation, muscular or mental, that incapacitates 
 him for such co-operation ? Is there anything in the 
 physical circumstances surrounding him, in the disposition 
 of the materials on which he must labour, or through the 
 instrumentality of which he must operate, in the climate 
 in which he may be placed, irreconcilable with the system 
 of mutual co-operation, for the production and equal 
 enjoyment of all useful things ? Are the motives which 
 the system of voluntary equality would discard, and which 
 have hitherto been the leading motives of human conduct, 
 ,the only ones by which energetic and permanent exertion 
 can be produced ? Are there no other motives equally 
 efficacious, by which the understandings of men may be 
 operated upon, to lead them to equally energetic and 
 permanent exertion ? 
 
 A fond and childish notion has been bandied about 
 from lips to lips, even of the grave and learned, that 
 " nothing but some over-ruling, some superhuman motive, 
 some general bond of artificial connexion, ever has kept, 
 or ever can keep, together, communities of equality by 
 mutual co-operation or otherwise." The short and con- 
 clusive exposure of this sophism, is this : This over-ruling 
 motive, this general bond supplied by superstition or 
 otherwise, can only produce its effect from an apprehended 
 view of interest to be gratified here or hereafter. If the 
 interest will bear examination and be real, no more is 
 wanted ; let it be universally applied ; and it will in other 
 more useful cases produce the effects of union, which it 
 has already, for less useful purposes, produced. Explain- 
 ing the real, physical or temporal, interest, in conjunction 
 
324 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 with the superhuman, must add to its interest, and make 
 it irresistible. If, on the contrary, the over-ruling motive, 
 the general bond, be, after all, a delusion how has it 
 operated? Evidently from a supposed view of interest. 
 Now, if a supposed view of interest has led men to co- 
 operate, why should not a real perception of real interest, 
 produce the same result ? Is there any magic power in 
 delusion beyond what truth possesses? It is absurd to 
 maintain that a supposed, but false view of interest, will 
 lead to more energetic action of the useful class, than a 
 true and real view of interest. It would be imputing the 
 power of thought and motion to the shadow, instead of the 
 rational agent that intercepted the light. 
 
 All the schemes of equality hitherto proposed, have 
 been found, on examination and from experience, produc- 
 tive of preponderant evil. But they have all been founded 
 on compulsion, or delusion, religious or otherwise. These 
 two species of equality rejected, it never occurred that 
 there remained a third species, which had never yet been 
 tried, the impracticability of which had never been demon- 
 strated, the system, of voluntary equality, from a compre- 
 hensive view of the utility of mutual co-operation to 
 increase individual comfort. No system of equality 
 hitherto proposed, promised any more than a fair and 
 equal division of the usual products of the ordinary 
 industry of the associated members ; none promised 
 (because they did not know the means, they did not 
 suspect the possibility of doing it) to increase those pro- 
 ducts, to an ultimate extent not to be defined, to an imme- 
 diate extent of three or four times the average comforts of 
 ordinary individual exertions. 
 
 Excelling as the system of voluntary equality does all 
 previous systems in the magnitude of the objects to be 
 gained, it does not less excel in the means by which the 
 association is formed. Force and delusion, the vulgar 
 means hitherto exclusively employed for every purpose, 
 are altogether excluded from the new system. It is 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 325 
 
 founded on the individual interest of every one of the 
 co-operating members, as perceived and recognised by 
 their understandings. The independence, the right of 
 judgment, the security of every individual are scrupulously 
 preserved. The very nature of all preceding systems of 
 equality, rendered the employment of force or fraud neces- 
 sary. The real object of the insti tutor was always different 
 from the apparent object of increasing the happiness of 
 the co-operators ; the institutors had always something to 
 conceal, some pretended magnificent end of their own, 
 some scheme of government, superstition, conquest, to 
 promote which, all the machinery of equality was set in 
 motion. Here the object is one and simple ; the institutor 
 is nothing ; the first and last end in view, is to increase the 
 happiness of the co-operators. With this object sincerely 
 and solely in view, the means must be those of persuasion 
 and security ; and in order to be permanently useful, must 
 be founded in truth. 
 
 Now, is it wise to cast aside without examination a 
 system like this, with objects and means so different from 
 all previous systems of equality, on the general presump- 
 tion of its incompatibility with human motives, or with 
 the circumstances in which men are by nature placed, 
 without taking the trouble to understand the combinations 
 proposed ? proposed, too, by a man who has in practice 
 realised to a very considerable extent the benefits he 
 promises, and whose whole solicitude is to invite an 
 examination of his principles and practice ? 
 We shall inquire then, first, 
 
 Is the system of voluntary equality impracticable 
 
 from the known motives that influence human 
 
 conduct? next, 
 Is the system of voluntary equality impracticable 
 
 from any of the physical circumstances by which 
 
 men are surrounded ? 
 
 " Whatever mode of conduct promotes the happiness 
 of men, whatever it is their interest to follow ; that mode 
 
326 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 of conduct, if otherwise practicable, they will pursue, 
 without compulsion or delusion, as soon as their under- 
 standings are really convinced that it is their interest to 
 pursue it : action necessarily follows this real persuasion, 
 as long as it lasts, and in proportion to its intensity." It 
 is presumed that all reasonable men who have investigated 
 this proposition, will assent to its truth, and therefore 
 admit it as a basis of argument. 
 
 This proposition admitted, two conditions remain to be 
 complied with before the system of voluntary equality of 
 wealth can be practised ; first, it must have a real 
 tendency to produce preponderant happiness which has 
 been already shown : next, the means must be found to 
 demonstrate to the understandings of those called upon to 
 engage in it, that it is their interest -so to engage. 
 
 On the first of the above questions, as to the impracti- 
 cability of voluntary equality from motives of human con- 
 duct, a most unwarrantable assumption is frequently made 
 by the opponents of equality, and sometimes admitted 
 by its unreflecting friends. It is said, " Self-interest 
 always has governed, and always must govern, all sentient 
 beings : any system demanding a sacrifice of this main 
 principle, however modified in its application to details, is 
 not worthy of consideration ; because, however great the 
 advantages of such a system, there are no means of 
 acquiring them, self-interest being withdrawn. This 
 principle withdrawn, nothing but force or fraud can prop 
 up systems of equality ; and equality can offer nothing to 
 counterbalance the evils of these." 
 
 So far is this objection from being true, as applying to 
 the proposed system of voluntary equality, that this 
 system is founded altogether on that self-same self-interest 
 which is assumed to be incompatible with it. The mistake 
 seems to lie here. Self-interest implies a general desire 
 to promote our own individual well-being, without reference 
 to any particular means. Selfishness implies a desire to 
 promote by all immediate and direct means in our powei 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 327 
 
 our well-being 1 , without calculating the effects of our 
 conduct on the feelings and conduct of those whom it may 
 affect, nor of course their reflex operation on ourselves. 
 Selfishness is a short-sighted and ignorant pursuit of 
 self-interest, and is necessarily hateful to those whose 
 feelings it disregards. These two words, self-interest and 
 selfishness, are frequently confounded and used the one for 
 the other. The friend of voluntary equality, execrating 
 selfishness, which is necessarily short-sighted, and the most 
 destructive foe of his system, is apt to abjure self-interest 
 also, and thus to appear to act without rational motive, 
 laying himself open to the ridicule of his antagonist. 
 Self-interest, allied with ignorance, may be, and naturally 
 is, developed in selfishness. But self-interest, allied with 
 wisdom, may be, and is necessarily, developed in the 
 cultivation of the m uscular and mental powers, in sympathy, 
 and beneficence. The selfish man is guided by self-interest ; 
 so is also he that is called the most disinterested. The 
 object sought is the same, well-being, happiness ; the 
 greatest possible quantity of these. The difference is in the 
 means by which that object is sought. The one seeks it by 
 direct, short-sighted means, ignorantly disregarding the 
 surrounding interests of other sentient beings ; the other 
 seeks it on an enlarged calculation, estimating the interests 
 of all human beings within the sphere of its influence. 
 The general pursuit of self-interest is only, in other words, 
 the general pursuit of happiness. * Though the strength of 
 mind that can look forward and appreciate distant enjoy- 
 ments and weigh them against the present, may be able 
 also to calculate the interests of others as affected by its 
 proceedings, it does not follow that it will always do so. 
 Wherever it does not, though long-sighted, it is still selfish 
 and comparatively ignorant. But he who associates with 
 others, for mutual enjoyment, through mutual co-operation 
 cannot be selfish. With him there is a necessary connexion 
 between his happiness and that of all those with whom 
 he associates. In him are conspicuous the two requisites, 
 
328 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 separating enlightened self-interest from selfishness. 
 While, on the one hand, all distant sources of happiness, 
 ever so remote, are taken into his calculation ; on the 
 other, he calculates the effects of all his actions on all 
 sentient beings around him, and their reflex operation. 
 Without this extent of view in this double direction, he 
 cannot advance a step. Selfishness he must cast off at the 
 beginning of his career, and never again embrace. By 
 self-interest, enlightened and benevolent, because it pro- 
 motes his happiness that it should be so, he will be always 
 governed. 
 
 The general principle thus cleared, the universal mo- 
 tive to all human action thus plainly put forward, without 
 pretension, and without disguise ; let us see what are the 
 particular modifications of this principle which are s%id to 
 be necessary to human exertion, and which are, at the 
 same time, said to be excluded by the system of voluntary 
 equality. 
 
 When we take a survey of human actions, important 
 and unimportant, those of the child just beginning its 
 voluntary actions, and those of the reasonable man, we 
 cannot but distinguish two great classes of motives, one 
 or the othe^ or both of which, must be always present as 
 the predisposing cause of every action. First, if a child 
 suffer its body to over-hang so far from the centre that the 
 power of the muscles shall not be sufficient to counteract 
 the force of gravity) it falls, and probably receives pain. 
 If a man tell a falsehood or betray a trust to any one on 
 one occasion, it is almost certain that he will lose the 
 advantage of being believed or trusted by the same person, 
 very probably not by others, on subsequent occasions. In 
 these two cases of the child and the man > there are 
 certain consequences, the falling, and the loss of confidence, 
 which, from their own natural organisation and that of 
 surrounding objects, sentient or not sentient, necessarily 
 follow, without any effort of theirs or others, the doing of 
 the acts. These consequences follow> as cause and effect, 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 329 
 
 according to what we call the laws of nature, physical and 
 mental. The contemplation of the probability of these 
 natural consequences, operates on the mind of the child 
 and the man respectively, and influences them not to 
 repeat such actions, lest similar unpleasant natural 
 consequences should be experienced from them. This 
 influencing contemplation forms the motive ; and when 
 it is directed to consequences like these, flowing directly 
 from the acts themselves, without any interference from 
 without, we call it the natural motive to action. 
 
 On the other hand, suppose that any person, parent or 
 not, has seen the child fall, and, according to the modifica- 
 tions of its ignorance, beats the child or beats the object on 
 which the child may have fallen, diverting the attention 
 of the child from the instructive natural circumstances 
 attending the fall, to these arbitrary beatings, exhibiting 
 or engendering cruelty, cowardice, revenge^ and impru- 
 dence. In like manner, suppose that some one overhears 
 the falsehood or the breach of trust, and in consequence 
 thereof, from an indignation which he may amuse himself 
 by calling holy or moral, cuts the finger or the cheek of the 
 offender ; here also is a consequence, out of the natural 
 course of things, following the falsehood or the breach of 
 trust. Also, a person likely to profit by the falsehood or 
 the breach of trust, might give a reward of any sort to the 
 person committing either of them another accidental 
 consequence arising out of the transaction, and no more 
 necessarily connected with it than the cutting. Yet the 
 apprehension to the child of the beating of itself, or its 
 gratification at the sympathy manifested by the revengeful 
 beating of the object on which it fell ; the apprehension to 
 the man of the cutting, or his gratification by the reward, 
 though only fortuitous circumstances, might operate on 
 the mind of the child or the man respectively, to cause a 
 repetition or a discontinuance of the actions in question, and 
 thus operate as motives to their future conduct. Now, to 
 all such motives, to all motives, whatever, not necessarily 
 
330 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 following from the actions themselves, but imposed from 
 without, we apply the term factitious. 
 
 Here, then, we have two great classes of motives to 
 human conduct, natural motives and factitious motives ; 
 both of them operating sometimes by pain, sometimes by 
 pleasure, sometimes in the shape of reward, sometimes in 
 the shape of punishment. Both of these classes of motives 
 may be dependent equally on every variety of pain and 
 pleasure ; they may be both of them immediate or remote 
 in their operation : many other qualities we shall find they 
 possess in common. 
 
 What is the reason that one action is called good, and 
 another evil, or bad? Because the one is productive of 
 preponderant good, immediate or consequential, that is to 
 say, of a clear balance of pleasures over pains, to those 
 whom it affects ; while the other is called evil, simply 
 because it is productive of preponderant mischief, im- 
 mediate or consequential or a clear balance of pains over 
 pleasures, to those whom it may affect. Why then add to 
 the evil, the pains, of the evil action, any additional evil 
 in the way of punishment, over and above what nature 
 (physical organisation and surrounding circumstances) 
 have attached to it ? why add to the good, the pleasures, 
 of the good action, any additional factitious good in the 
 way of reward, over and above what nature has attached 
 to it ? Is it not preposterous in the one case to increase the 
 evil which we affect to deplore, by adding gratuitous evil ? 
 and in the other case, is it not preposterous to add 
 artificially to the pleasures, thus holding out fallacious 
 inducements, which experience will not make good, to the 
 practice of the particular action ? What other effect can 
 these factitious rewards and punishments produce, than 
 to divert the mind of the agent from the contemplation of 
 the natural consequences of his actions, the real tests of 
 their value, to the contemplation of arbitrary lots of 
 pleasure and pain, which caprice may attach to these 
 actions, and may at its pleasure vary ? 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 331 
 
 From this first showing it would appear, that if the 
 object sought for, were simply the happiness of the agents^ 
 nothing could be more preposterous than the addition of 
 factitious rewards and punishments, to those consequences 
 of the actions themselves which nature has attached to 
 them. Where these consequences, these natural rewards 
 and punishments, were not known to the agents, it would 
 appear to be the sole duty of the really benevolent, to 
 bring forward these consequences to their contemplation, 
 that they might serve as motives to regulate their conduct 
 on future occasions. 
 
 But the fact is, that the object hitherto sought by both 
 moralists and legislators to say nothing of political 
 economists has not been the interest or happiness of the 
 agents, but the support of whatever system or set of 
 institutions, wise or foolish, they may have deemed it fit 
 or convenient to support. To support these as a primary 
 object, it has been unavoidably found necessary to sacrifice 
 individual interest as often as it interfered with them. 
 But individual interest would not be voluntarily relin- 
 quished, actions ever so injurious to the system or institu- 
 tions, would continue to be performed or avoided according 
 to the preponderant natural good or evil to be expected 
 from them, and according to the degree of knowledge 
 possessed by the calculating agents. What is to be done, 
 then, to supersede the inducements of these natural 
 motives? and to lead men to resign their real natural 
 interest in favour of this new interest sought to be pro- 
 moted? To a man who had fairly observed the conse- 
 quences of his actions, natural motives would dictate that 
 the speaking of the truth on all occasions was his most 
 obvious interest ; but political institutions, intercepting, as 
 we have seen, by various expedients, the products of his 
 labour, without his consent obtained, or, restraining the free 
 and useful direction of his faculties, mental or muscular, 
 subvert this course of natural interests, and hold out 
 energetic motives, the saving of his property from the 
 
332 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 grasp of violence, to the protection, by falsehood or any 
 other means, of the property sought to be snatched from, 
 him. Hence arises an obvious necessity for the introduc- 
 tion of factitious motives. Natural motives will lead an 
 individual to speak truth, as long as a preponderance of 
 good to all affected by the words, requires it ; and no 
 longer. But political power requires truth to be spoken 
 for its own purposes, not for the interest of the speaker, 
 after these natural motives have ceased to operate. Thus 
 man's interest is placed in opposition to his duty ; 
 arbitrarily so placed by political power, for its own real or 
 supposed benefit. The imparting of knowledge in this 
 case would do mischief to the views of political power ; it 
 would not lead man into the line of conduct pointed out by 
 political power, the surrender of his earnings or of the 
 direction of his faculties but would more clearly show 
 him how much opposed it was to his real interest to 
 surrender them. Knowledge being the enemy of these 
 usurpations, natural motives opposed to them, where were 
 motives to be sought for, to enforce a compliance with 
 them ? Where but in the factitious class ? where but 
 amongst factitious rewards and punishments, chiefly 
 amongst punishments, rewards being in their nature so 
 very limited? where but in the application or threat of 
 force or delusion ? Thus, as soon as the rules of beneficence 
 and justice are violated, factitious motives, factitious 
 rewards and punishments, become necessary to sway 
 human conduct, as a substitute for reason. 
 
 ^Now, when we assert that rewards and punishments are 
 not necessary to influence either children or adults to the 
 uniform practice of moral conduct, or that species of 
 conduct which will produce the greatest sum of happiness 
 to themselves and their associates; we allude solely to 
 factitious rewards and punishments, as opposed to the 
 natural. Instead of rejecting the aid of natural rewards 
 and punishments, we rely on them altogether as entirely 
 adequate to our purpose. But then, in order to render 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 333 
 
 them operative, we remove, by voluntary agreement, from 
 the co-operating community, all those mutual attacks and 
 restraints save the plunder of political power which 
 counteract, in ordinary life, the operation of these natural 
 motives. We show men how to place themselves in such 
 circumstances, that their interest shall be always in union 
 with their duty, that if they act wrong it must be through 
 ignorance, and that it shall be always the interest of every 
 one around them to enlighten this ignorance.} 
 
 The pretext put forward for the present universal 
 employment of factitious rewards and punishments, is the 
 remoteness of many of the natural consequences of actions, 
 the absolute ignorance of the great majority of mankind 
 of the existence of any such consequences ; and their 
 incapacity, from want of acquired habits of self-control, 
 to resist the temptations of immediate pleasure in favour 
 of such remote consequences, even if perceived. 
 
 The present besotted ignorance of the great majority 
 of human beings, and their lamentable want of self-control, 
 forming together so large a portion of their character, arise 
 altogether from the circumstances in which they have been 
 placed, that is to say, from more or less of the various 
 expedients of insecurity to which they have been subjected. 
 Were these circumstances the factitious work of insecurity 
 changed, knowledge and self-control would succeed to 
 ignorance and passion, and the remote consequences of 
 actions would be estimated as well as the immediate, their 
 value, however, always decreasing in proportion to their 
 remoteness, from the uncertainty of eventual possession 
 which remoteness includes. 
 
 The natural motives, once in operation, are permanent 
 as our organisation. They act with force exactly propor- 
 tioned to the preponderant good or evil to be produced by 
 the voluntary actions to be shunned or avoided. According 
 to the degree of knowledge, and power of self-control 
 possessed by each individual, will these motives influence 
 him to good, or to his own real, greatest, happiness, The 
 
334 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 power of self-control is a necessary consequence of a 
 sincere conviction of the real, though remote, consequences 
 of actions ; and this knowledge of consequences, and this 
 habit of resigning immediate present, for greater future 
 good, will be both acquired, just as habits of sloth and 
 intemperance are now acquired, by the operation of the 
 new circumstances, education and early training included, 
 with which the new associations will find it their interest to 
 surround themselves. 
 
 Let those, however, who doubt the possibility of dis- 
 pensing with factitious rewards and punishments, even in 
 the interior concerns of a voluntarily associated community, 
 bear in mind that these associations are still liable to all 
 the laws of the land in which they live, just as any ordinary, 
 member of society is liable to them. At the requisition of 
 any member of the association, or of any individual from 
 without, the laws of the country may be at any time 
 appealed to against him who does any act which is by such 
 laws visited with factitious punishment. These commu- 
 nities, then, by bringing into active operation the natural 
 motives to intelligence and beneficence, do not take away 
 from the aggregate of motives to useful conduct, but 
 increase them by an immense power hitherto neglected or 
 opposed. 
 
 One thing is certain, that hitherto factitious rewards 
 have been used in all ages, and particularly factitious 
 punishments in every shape of horror, towards the 
 young, in education, and towards adults, by the laws ; and 
 vice and crime seem to have thriven under their sway. 
 They have signally failed in producing virtuous conduct. 
 The combinations of voluntary equality, removing almost 
 all the temptations to vice and crime engendered by the 
 vicious institutions of insecurity ; it is conceived that fac- 
 titious motives will, under these new circumstances, be 
 quite superfluous. At all events, these motives having 
 hitherto failed, is not another course worth the trial ? 
 What, then, are the natural motives, the natural rewards 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 335 
 
 and punishments, to operate on the young and on adults, 
 to produce virtuous conduct amongst all the members of 
 the association under their new circumstances ? Natural 
 punishments are, 
 
 First, The immediate evil or pain caused by the act 
 itself to the agent or to others, when unattended by any 
 consequences. 
 
 Second, The aggravated evil of the act when followed 
 by other evils, or the preponderant evil when followed by 
 partial good or pleasure to the agent or others. 
 
 In the same way those natural pleasurable motives, 
 called natural rewards, are either the immediate good or 
 pleasure, or the consequential good or pleasure to be de- 
 rived from an action. 
 
 So simple appear the materials, natural pains or plea- 
 sures, immediate or consequential, from which must be 
 fabricated the motives for the practice of every virtue, for 
 the avoidance of every vice, under the proposed arrange- 
 ments of mutual co-operation and joint possession and 
 enjoyment I 
 
 Children, for the most part, must be induced to act 
 from motives of immediate pleasure or pain ; youths and 
 adults, according to the improvement of their understand- 
 ings, from the preponderant good or evil of their actions, 
 weighing all their consequences, immediate and remote, 
 on themselves and others. All motives of the first class, 
 leading to actions attended with immediate pain or plea- 
 sure, and not followed by any consequences, good or evi], 
 to the agent or others, are to be obeyed in proportion to 
 the magnitude of the pains or pleasures attached to them, 
 and for a stronger reason where the ultimate, are of the 
 same nature, whether good or evil, with the immediate, 
 consequences. Where the consequences are both in good 
 and in evil, to the agent and to others, there is the demand 
 for wisdom, in determining the conduct which it is most 
 the interest of the agent to pursue. 
 
 The pains and pleasures, the natural rewards and 
 
336 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 punishments, attached to actions, whether immediate or 
 consequential, are, 
 
 All the pleasures and pains of the senses and appe- 
 tites, internal and external. 
 All the pleasures and pains arising from the active 
 
 use or neglect of the muscular system. 
 All the pleasures and pains arising from the active 
 
 use or neglect of the intellectual faculties. 
 All the pleasures and pains of a purely social nature, 
 arising from our intercourse with our fellow-crea- 
 tures, those of sympathy and beneficence, and of 
 antipathy and maleficence. 
 
 There are none of these pains or pleasures which are 
 not necessarily connected with some of our voluntary 
 actions, sometimes immediate, instantaneous, in their de- 
 velopment, sometimes remote. Many also of the different 
 sorts of pleasures, or of pains, may be attached to the 
 same action : even pains and pleasures of many sorts may 
 at the same time attach to the same action. It is in these 
 cases that moral calculation is so requisite and so difficult: 
 first, to find out the real, though remote and ramified, con- 
 sequences of actions ; next, to weigh the different lots of 
 pleasures and pains, and by the preponderant good or evil 
 to estimate the value of the action. 
 
 The perfection of moral conduct on the part of the in- 
 dividual, is so to regulate his voluntary actions as to obtain 
 through the whole of his existence the greatest sum of 
 happiness, or preponderance of pleasures over pains, from 
 all these sources. To effect this, it is necessary, when 
 living in society, that he should consider himself as one 
 unit and no more, as to claims for happiness, amongst 
 those, whatever may be their number, with whom he is 
 connected. 
 
 The pleasures and pains of the first class, those of 
 feeling, taste, sight, &c., of hunger and thirst, of the sexual 
 appetite, and of the healthy or obstructed (diseased) action 
 of all the internal viscera and organs, are familiar to every 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 337 
 
 one ; and arc known to be frequently connected with our 
 voluntary actions, forming' the motives, the natural re- 
 wards or punishments, to their pursuit or avoidance. But 
 when these pleasures and pains are remote, not immediate, 
 consequences, they are apt to be overlooked, like all other 
 remote objects. So with the second set of pleasures and 
 pains, those from muscular exertion or muscular inactivity, 
 they are more operative on the young than on adults, but 
 are familiar to all. The third the intellectual, and the 
 fourth the social, pleasures and pains, are more operative 
 on adults than on the young, in proportion to extent of 
 knowledge and accuracy of judgment ; though, under a 
 judicious mode of instruction, the extent to which even 
 these may be made to operate on the young, has been 
 contemplated but by few. 
 
 From, these several sources of pleasures and pains is 
 derived an abundant supply of natural rewards and 
 punishments, not to be distributed at the arbitrary pleasure 
 of the instructor, bat to be studied by him that he may be 
 able to present them readily on all proper occasions to the 
 mind, as the effects which will inevitably follow the 
 pursuing certain lines of conduct, those attended with 
 preponderant mischief being denominated vices in con- 
 sequence of the natural pains or punishments that attend 
 them, and those attended with preponderant good being 
 denominated virtues inconsequence of the natural pleasures 
 or rewards in their train. These pleasures and pains in 
 fact include all, of which man's nature is susceptible. 
 As to number and efficiency, then, there is no want ; the 
 want is simply that of intellectual power to trace their 
 connexions with our voluntary actions. 
 
 - It may be necessary here to obviate an objection, 
 " How are children or ordinary men to be able to follow 
 the analysis of the motives by which they are governed ? 
 If such previous investigations be necessary to make them 
 virtuous, they never will be so." It is by no means 
 necessary that those even, whose lives have been governed 
 
 W 
 
338 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 by certain compounded or simple motives, should be 
 aware of these motives, much less that they should be 
 able to analyse the whole of the operations of their minds. 
 Was not the blood propelled by the heart to nourish every 
 part of the human body, before the circulation of the blood 
 was discovered? As the blood circulates, so do motives 
 operate on the individual ; he feels the agency, he obeys 
 the impulse and performs the actions, but is no more 
 bound to develop those motives, than to explain the 
 circulation of the blood under pain of ceasing to derive 
 benefit from it. The blood circulates, the motives operate ; 
 and both might circulate and operate eternally without 
 sufficient intellectual power in the agent so operated upon, 
 to look into himself and develop the animal machinery, 
 physical and mental, employed. From the progress of 
 knowledge in these communities, there can be no doubt 
 that their members would speedily comprehend the whole 
 system and motives by which their social organisation was 
 upheld ; more particularly would the children, educated 
 under this system to truth and real facts, become conversant 
 with their intellectual organisation, as well as with all 
 other branches of useful knowledge. 
 
 Such being the fund of natural rewards and punish- 
 ments, where are to be found the species of actions of 
 children or men, which these unaided consequences of 
 their very actions, are not sufficient to control ? 
 
 Any pursuit, injurious to health from its continuance, 
 intensity, or accompaniments, or, though not injurious to 
 health, so offensive to any of the senses as to outweigh the 
 benefit to be derived to the individual from it (including in 
 the individual's interest his contemplation of the social 
 benefit such action may produce), these natural rewards 
 and punishments would not cause to be undertaken. All 
 such actions or labour, therefore, now carried on to the 
 waste of human life, or the annoyance of the operators, for 
 the profit of capitalists or the luxurious convenience, the 
 supposed happiness, of a few of the wealthy of society, 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 339 
 
 would of course cease ; these motives being inadequate to 
 impel to their performance. Wherefore should such ac- 
 tions be continued? If not attended with preponderant 
 mischief, with a diminution of the sum-total of happiness, 
 these motives are sufficient to cause them to be done. If 
 attended with preponderant mischief, 'tis folly to con- 
 tinue them. 
 
 All these pernicious or excessive modes of exertion thus 
 cleared away, what remains ? That species of exertion 
 alone, which being compatible with health, comfort, and 
 even pleasure, is moreover necessary to all of these. With- 
 out compulsion or delusion, men will not exert themselves 
 beyond this point. Natural motives of self-interest, natural 
 rewards and punishments, will ensure this salutary degree 
 of exertion. 
 
 What are the natural rewards and punishments within 
 the power of a community of voluntary co-operation to 
 bestow, in order to excite and keep constantly in action 
 such moderate exertion? They are nothing more than 
 such of the pleasures and the pains of some one or more of 
 the four classes, of the senses, muscular, intellectual, or 
 social, before mentioned, as necessarily follow the yielding 
 or the withholding of such exertion. Are comfortable dwel- 
 lings in pleasant situations, is a regular supply of grateful 
 food, are neat and useful articles of clothing, objects of 
 desire and motives to exertion amongst men ? If so, four 
 times the quantity or goodness of these means of procuring 
 pleasure or avoiding pain or discomfort, would the mem- 
 bers of these communities enjoy, that the same labour 
 would procure them by individual, isolated exertion and 
 consumption. Are alternate, gentle, muscular exertions 
 and repose, necessary to preserve the health and energy 
 of the system, the capacity for all enjoyment, and to fill 
 up with an occupation and a source of interest the other- 
 wise blank and heavy hours of existence ? Just such ex- 
 ertions, and no more, as will be attended with these natural 
 rewards, do these communities require from their members. 
 
 w 2 
 
340 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 Are the pleasures of the interchange of ideas, of hearing, 
 judging, and communicating thought, so great even to the 
 Jowly in intellect, as to add considerably to the happiness 
 of life, particularly when time so devoted is withdrawn 
 from what would otherwise be spent in excessive or un- 
 healthful occupations ? If so then are such pleasures, 
 with opportunity of improvement by books or lectures to 
 any extent, to be added, as additional natural rewards, to 
 stimulate and repay the moderate exertions of the members 
 of such communities. Above all, are social pleasures of 
 any avail in throwing rapture over the otherwise almost 
 insipidities of sense, of muscular exertion, even of intellect? 
 the sympathies of respect and attachment between equals, 
 between the two sexes (also equal in rights, duties, and 
 enjoyments, and therefore yielding to each other, plea- 
 sures a thousand times increased), between childhood and 
 youth and the old, between man and all his associated 
 fellow-creatures around him ? If so, then would the com- 
 mon interest of these communities superadd such social 
 motives to individual exertion as not only do not exist in 
 ordinary society, but as are altogether banished therefrom 
 by the rivalships, jealousies, and hatreds of ordinary com- 
 petition; deterred only from force or fraud by the real 
 apprehension of legal punishment, by the idle and distant 
 threatenings of interested superstition. On what basis 
 must be laid the superstructure of these so cheap, now so 
 rarely enjoyed, pleasures of sympathy ? In the previous 
 abundant gratification of every reasonable physical want. 
 Till a sentient being is happy and satisfied within itself, it 
 cannot look out of itself for objects to partake with it, and 
 over which it may diffuse the overflowings of its happiness. 
 Physical wants are so urgent, that they cannot be bribed 
 or deluded; they must be gratified, under pain of the 
 engendering of selfishness, if not of maleficence. Where- 
 ever, as in these associated communities, all natural wants 
 are abundantly gratified, without the possibility of over- 
 excitement, there, is the fittest soil for the social affections. 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 341 
 
 Wherever contending interests are removed, and all temp- 
 tations to mutual annoyance and fraud are withdrawn, 
 there, of necessity, where nothing is to be got by mutual 
 tormenting, will sources of occupation and emotion be 
 sought for, by mutual kindness and assistance. Not a 
 smile will remain unproductive on the lips of the happy : 
 from every eye it will be reflected, through every mind 
 will it vibrate, propagating itself like the moved air when 
 thought is borne upon its bosom. Here, every one is 
 directly interested in the moral habits and in the indus- 
 trious conduct of every one. Here, public opinion will 
 have all the gentle, the pervading, the useful influence, 
 without any of the tyrannical control, of the most pure 
 domestic circle. Here, every one will read in the coun- 
 tenance of every one, the value of his exertions for the 
 happiness of all : this gentle approbation of surrounding 
 friends, will become every day, more and more, an accus- 
 tomed, a necessary solace of existence ; to be bereft of it 
 will be like the withdrawing of the solar heat from the 
 animal economy ; a principle of action, one of the springs 
 of activity, will be felt to be withdrawn, and exertion will be 
 redoubled or its direction changed, to re-acquire its vivify- 
 ing influence* When our reason tells us that this public 
 opinion is rightly directed, it is impossible to escape its 
 control as well may we expose the nerve to the passage 
 of the electric fluid, and expect to escape its peculiar sen- 
 sation. It is impossible to conceive a state of social 
 existence, in which the principle of sympathy, the force of 
 public opinion, can be so energetic, because nowhere can 
 the interest calling for its development be so universal. 
 Nowhere also have opportunities ever existed so constantly 
 recurring, for its expression. Times of labour, of meals, 
 of recreation, of social, literary, or scientific meeting, 
 every day, almost every hour of the day, afford these 
 occasions. Even in the very private apartment, the air 
 breathes the public sentiment, conveyed to it by the in- 
 creased impetus of the system from the reflecting mind. 
 
342 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 Where, out, can a member walk or move, that this all-per- 
 vading sympathy with his actions, is not likely to meet and 
 to surround him ? How even in thought can he escape from 
 it ? But, wherefore should he wish to escape from it ? 
 Can this sympathy be unjustly directed ? Can it be 
 morose or severe? Can it be such as a well-regulated 
 mind would not rejoice to share and to obey ? No actions 
 but such as are really injurious to the community, will 
 they take the trouble of disapproving ; but in this intimate 
 connexion of interests, there is scarcely a private vice, 
 really injurious to the individual, by which the public 
 interest is not affected. Is the health of any individual 
 impaired by any species of intemperance, by neglect, by 
 the effect of any ill-regulated passion ? His aid in pro- 
 duction, in instruction, in healing, in superintending or 
 distributing, is lost, in whole or in part, to the society. 
 Every one suffers by his loss of health ; every one is inte- 
 rested in his recovery of health. Here private interest 
 and public interest, here private virtue and public virtue, 
 both as to the individual and the community, are one and 
 the same ; here interest and duty are united. Every one 
 will sympathise with the pain, and be anxious to remove 
 it every one will reprove the error. But every one 
 knowing the force of circumstances and his own liability 
 to err, will endeavour to soothe, instruct, and amend, not 
 to add to the mental or physical pangs of . the erring. 
 Amongst such friends, to have erred, will but excite, when 
 the error is removed and by such means it must be 
 removed remembrances of kindness, assistance) and per- 
 suasive truth, not shame and apprehension; it will en- 
 large the mind to a perception of the utter foolishness of 
 the injurious conduct. Who is he, therefore) that can be 
 found sincerely to say that he believes not in the control- 
 ling energy of sympathy and public opinion in such com- 
 munities as these? Where, rather, is the vicious to be 
 found who will dare to encounter them ? that would not be 
 abashed and withdraw from their influence ? that would 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 343 
 
 not rather hug his vices in secret where no surrounding 
 eyes could see, where no scrutinising minds could scan 
 and present to his contemplation the frightful consequences 
 of his actions ? In such communities, would the idle or 
 the otherwise vicious remain till that natural alternative 
 which is implied in all voluntary co-operation, the reci- 
 procal avoidance of the contract by the one party when 
 the other has ceased to fulfil the conditions, should have 
 been enforced ? Would he stay till the community sepa- 
 rated itself from him ? Would a case be ever found in 
 which retirement would not precede, by a thousand degrees, 
 such forced abdication? Would not the power of expul- 
 sion, inherent in every voluntarily formed community, be 
 in this case entirely superseded by the previous uncon- 
 trolled operation of the power of public opinion ? 
 
 " Soon," exclaims an admirer of the systems of inse- 
 curity, " will the mere appetite for the necessaries, for 
 the comforts and conveniences, even for the luxuries of 
 life be gratified ; but more generous motives soon engage 
 the attention, and activity becomes more active in propor- 
 tion as it is sated with the means of enjoyment. The 
 sordid motive of mere animal gratification soon ceases to 
 operate ; the desire of excelling, the love of distinction) of 
 being admired, perhaps envied ; these are the motives that 
 act on lofty minds, and lead to all the vastness of exertion 
 and accumulation." 
 
 This objection requires to be sifted. Those, first, who 
 have gone along with the reasonings and facts of our 
 second chapter on "the evils produced by the present 
 systems of forced inequality of wealth," will reply, that 
 this motive to exertion, " the love of distinction, &c. of 
 lofty minds," for mere distinction sake, is a vicious pro- 
 pensity, because productive of preponderant evil; they 
 will reply that the pursuit of mere wealth is now over- 
 excited and in most pernicious activity, that it is quite 
 necessary for human happiness that this pursuit of wealth 
 should relax and cease as soon as all really useful wants 
 
344 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 are supplied, and just at the point where the lofty minds 
 begin to sigh for more and more wealth, as mere means of 
 factitious distinction. 
 
 But wherefore prevails the love of distinction, of 
 heaping up more than others, or expending more osten- 
 tatiously, in ordinary society ? Wherefore but to attract 
 public notice, to gain the sympathy of others ? Who 
 would labour to excel, to accumulate, to be distinguished 
 on a desert island, himself the sole proprietor? Public 
 opinion is therefore the object really sought for ; and 
 distinction by accumulation and expenditure, is but the 
 means. It is that inevitable dependence in which we live 
 on the smiles and frowns of our fellow-cjreatures, that 
 makes men seek to be distinguished by any folly, however 
 absurd, however atrocious. In these communities, the 
 public sympathy, and its expression in public opinion, are 
 to be earned in all their freshness and vigour of sincerity, 
 without any superfluous efforts after inequality of wealth. 
 Inequality of useful qualities, of social effort for the general 
 happiness, of success in any new and difficult, if at the 
 same time useful, branch of art or science; these are 
 amongst the useful distinctions to which the rewards of 
 public opinion will be attached, instead of the mere idle 
 distinction of wealth. And as this desire of public sym- 
 pathy, is allowed to be so strong in every day society as 
 to call forth these efforts of exertion and accumulation, to 
 earn which they are employed ; with what superior effect 
 will the same instrument operate, where it is so much 
 more powerful, in these communities, in producing those 
 peculiar exertions, whatever they may be, which are 
 necessary to procure it ? 
 
 " But still/' says the lover of inequality of wealth, 
 " lofty souls can never relish the overflowing smiles of 
 such a public opinion without the substantial association 
 of superior wealth. How can such lofty minds endure to 
 be no better provided for than the ordinary herd of their 
 fellows ?" We can only ask the lover of inequality, in 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 345 
 
 reply, " What proportion would these lofty souls, unsus- 
 ceptible of the ordinary sympathies of their fellow-creatures, 
 probably bear to the whole number of such communities ? 
 one in ten or one in a hundred ?" Whichever it may be, 
 does he really think the associated communities would be 
 the less happy, though all these lofty minds left them and 
 seceded in a body to exalt general society with their 
 generous motives ? or though they never condescended to 
 join in their united labours ? 
 
 No one will defend for a moment as a useful motive to 
 action, the desire of possessing more than others, or the 
 incapacity to enjoy, because all around have equal means 
 of enjoyment. It is the very principle of misanthropy or 
 malevolence. To every well-constituted, benevolent mind, 
 happiness is doubled when shared with an equal, equally 
 happy. Ten masses of happiness, those of ten human 
 beings, must not be sacrificed to decrease the happiness of 
 the eleventh grasping the whole, incalculably under what 
 it would be, if in a healthy state of aptitude for receiving 
 favourable impressions. 
 
 Public sympathy and public opinion, then, in or out of 
 these societies, is the real universal motive to action, over 
 and above the desire of gratifying real wants and substan- 
 tial or preponderant pleasures. It urges the savage to 
 slaughter or to endure pain, the superstitious to die or to 
 persecute for the error of his brain. Where public opinion 
 is most energetic, the most energetic action will be pro- 
 duced; where public opinion is most enlightened, there 
 will that most energetic, be also the most useful, line of 
 action. In these communities, public opinion must be at 
 the same time the most energetic and the most enlightened. 
 
 " Alas ! the habits of the first co-operators in these 
 communities must have been formed in ordinary society. 
 In proportion to their individual exertions, they have 
 hitherto experienced, or been taught to think that they 
 ought to have experienced, individual and exclusive 
 benefit. Individual idleness has been attended with 
 
346 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 individual loss. Individual industry has been distin- 
 guished by its superior earnings ; the idle has not eaten 
 the bread of the industrious." 
 
 If in these communities the arrangements were such 
 that the idle could eat the bread of the industrious, that 
 error would be fatal to them. But, in these communities, 
 it is impossible that there can be any voluntarily or 
 viciously idle. Accident or disease alone, will restrain 
 from that easy and delightful exertion, where social feelings 
 give a zest to the pleasures of muscular exertion, to the 
 interest of a common pursuit, in which all are principals 
 and proprietors. How is it possible that an idler could 
 remain or find support in these communities ? How could 
 he find admission ? for what purpose could his presence be 
 tolerated ? If the community were compelled to support 
 a certain quantity of idlers, there would be some sense in 
 the objection ; but to suppose that a set of men, under no 
 compulsion, should voluntarily give the fruits of their 
 labour, or permit to come or to remain amongst them, a 
 swarm, or a single individual, of the class of idle con- 
 sumers, of miserable imbecile creatures, is to suppose 
 that such a community are not benevolent, but mad. All 
 fear of discouragement on this score, then, is absolutely 
 vain. 
 
 " But, if no absolute idlers, some might not work as 
 diligently as others, and the diligent would be discouraged 
 by not receiving more reward for their labour than the 
 torpid." The absolute practice of society, shows how 
 little evil is to be apprehended from this source. Agri- 
 culturists, weavers, carpenters, sailors, respectively, even 
 now under the system of competition, work almost 
 universally for the same wages : and yet every one 
 conversant with labour knows that the best hands, 
 excelling in strength or skill, in all these lines, do once 
 and a half or twice the work that the worst do. To the 
 skilful, or the strong, or the active-minded, double the 
 quantity of work is not more irksome than half to the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 347 
 
 unskilful, the weakly, or the dispirited. The mere praise 
 of being the best workman, is sufficient to keep alive the 
 superior efforts of the superior men. The great majority 
 yield from their labour the average of production, the 
 regular motive to labour being the regular average 
 reward. And this takes place observe where there is 
 no public opinion, nothing but the necessity of ordinary 
 exertion, to secure the wages ; this takes place where 
 there is a divided interest between the capitalist and the 
 producers, where the general tendency of the whole of the 
 workmen as a body, is necessarily to do as little and get as 
 much as they can. But under the united interest and 
 ownership, under the expanded sympathies and energetic 
 expression of public opinion, of these communities ; under 
 the increased rewards of the comforts and conveniences of 
 life which an average of labour will procure equally for 
 every labourer, who can dread any discouragement to the 
 most skilful and active minded of such a community, from 
 the malevolent motive of grudging the happiness of their 
 fellow-labourer, to whom nature and circumstances have 
 not given powers of exertion equal to theirs ? No ; the 
 regret will be on the part of those, whose powers of co- 
 operation and usefulness will be the least. On the part of 
 the superior workmen, there will be a constant effort to 
 improve these. Wherefore ? Because it will then be their 
 interest to improve them, whereas now it is their interest 
 to keep them eternally back and depressed; every one 
 now thriving on the comparative ignorance and helpless- 
 ness of his neighbour. 
 
 J' But ordinary common labourers have not now, in 
 point of fact, the strength of mind to look . forward to the 
 general result of the year, much less of extensive united 
 yearly labour, as the reward of their toils : the evening 
 must bring the reward, or the motive arising from the 
 reward, however great, is lost on such minds." True, as 
 to the lowest class of imbecility of mind, produced by ex- 
 isting systems of insecurity : but altogether absurd as 
 
348 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 applied to ordinary minds living but one year under the 
 operation of the new system ; and still less applicable to 
 minds to be trained, as of the young, altogether under this 
 system. But in order to begin these communities, what 
 class or description of persons are they who will volunteer 
 out of general society ? Is it the ordinary minds of the 
 day, those who have no foresight, who can make no calcu- 
 lation ? Not one of these, from the very nature of things, 
 will join such communities : and surely the communities 
 will not implore of general society the aid of press-gangs 
 or Inquisition-familiars, to compel such to come in. If, 
 however, a number of such unfortunate creatures, as Irish 
 peasants for instance, were drawn, like fish in a net, into 
 one of these communities, and associated with but a third 
 part of their number who could see to the year's end and 
 to the common interest ; though their mental power had 
 been so nullified into stupid selfishness as to be incapable 
 of immediate foresight, of comprehension ; yet would they 
 by the operation of the system be drilled into such new 
 and agreeable habits of exertion, repose, and enjoyment, 
 as to delight in the system at the year's end, though they 
 knew not why. By degrees, wherever nature had placed no 
 cerebral defect in the way, as again in the case of the Irish 
 peasant, the understanding would be compelled to per- 
 ceive the useful workings of the system for individual 
 interest ; and it would soon be much more difficult to drive 
 out from such communities these originally stupid co-ope- 
 rators, than it was to drive them in. 
 
 " Habits" rejoins again the lover of existing systems, 
 " here the new system fails ; in these are founded the 
 duration and superiority of the existing. No matter how 
 absurd the practices, how uneconomical the labour, how 
 unjustly distributed its products, existing habits, the re- 
 sults of ages, are all formed for existing systems, f 'Tis 
 not reason, but habit, that governs men. Though truth, 
 interest, and virtue were in favour of the new, yet habit 
 alone in the other scale shall master these. "\ There has, 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 349 
 
 unfortunately, been a time when the friends of force and 
 delusion could use such language truly. That time has 
 ceased to exist. So much truth is now known, and the 
 modes of simplifying and diffusing it, of operating on the 
 understanding even of the lowly, are now so widely diffused, 
 that injurious habits of thinking and acting will be com- 
 pelled to give way to views of real interest. All habits, 
 moreover, are individual, not hereditary : at least, no strong 
 presumption of any transmitted cerebral aptitude to par- 
 ticular habits, has yet been demonstrated ; and if such 
 were, it must be very slight. Habits, then, being formed 
 with every individual, their succession through a past 
 eternity is of no consequence. Truth is an over-match 
 for delusion, and will weaken every day more and more 
 the mere force of habit. As reason improves, mere habit 
 becomes unnecessary as a guide to action. Hitherto old and 
 vicious habits have been scarcely ever attacked with any- 
 thing else than mere words, the circumstances generating 
 these habits, from ignorance or want of power to remove 
 them, being suffered to remain in full operation. The 
 principle, or one of the principles, of the new system, is 
 to reason by facts and things ; to operate on the mind by 
 circumstances, and to make use of words to explain these. 
 These habits, however, in favour of old systems and old 
 operations, are altogether over-rated ; they are in fact 
 at this moment everywhere extremely and most bene- 
 ficially weakened ; and a new impulse is sought for. This 
 impetus new circumstances will give. Though enlight- 
 ened interest and truth, rather than habit, will be the 
 ruling motives to action of the new communities; though 
 the constant effort there will be to retrace habits and to 
 compare them with real interests and real facts, yet habit 
 on such a basis of reason once established, as by such a 
 process it necessarily must be, will be as much superior in 
 useful effect and in permanence to the mechanical habits 
 of old systems, as truth is superior to error, and real in- 
 terest to delusion. Habit, then, instead of being the foe, 
 
3oO On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 will be converted as far as it is worth retaining into a 
 most useful ally of the new establishments. 
 
 It remains for us to inquire whether there is anything 
 in those motives which govern the young, which is 
 incompatible with their training under the new system. 
 
 The general facts and principle respecting the human 
 mind being the same in infancy and adult age, this branch 
 of the inquiry will not detain us long. If, as we have 
 shown, it is not only possible, but most useful, to guide the 
 actions of adults, with their increased strength, their 
 superadded passions, their increased energy of common 
 passions, by the motives, the natural rewards and 
 punishments pointed out without the addition of any 
 factitious rewards and punishments whatever within these 
 communities ; how much more easy will it be for an over- 
 whelming majority of adults to guide the voluntary actions 
 of the children of the community by such natural motives ! 
 Hitherto, one great error in the management of all 
 children, by all adults, as in the management of all adults 
 themselves by political power, has been the controlling of 
 their actions for the supposed benefit of the governors, by 
 force or fraud, instead of truth and reason. If force and 
 fraud can be dispensed with as towards the most untract- 
 able, how little need can there be of their exercise 
 towards those who are more under control ; towards those 
 who are the absolute dependents on those who govern them ? 
 
 But though adults are stronger, have new passions, and 
 stronger passions than the young, though the general 
 principles of the human mind are the same in both 
 cases ; yet if adults can be governed without force or 
 fraud, it is because they have reason to be acted upon. 
 The minds of children, it may be said, not being developed, 
 compulsion must be used to restrain them; and though 
 no laws directly apply to their actions, yet is it because 
 the laws give almost all their power, and in the most 
 arbitrary shape, into the hands of parents and their 
 delegates. 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 351 
 
 These statements of fact are to a melancholy extent 
 correct. They do not weaken, however, any of the argu- 
 ments before made use of against factitious rewards and 
 punishments. In proportion as children acquire strength 
 and the power to do injurious actions, they are capable of 
 acquiring, and by proper training will necessarily acquire, 
 reason also. As they can have no motive in this early 
 stage of their existence, except where bad passions have 
 been systematically and with great effort drilled into 
 them, to injure others, the object of the earliest part of 
 education is simply to remove from them, to keep them 
 out of the way of being themselves injured by, injurious 
 causes ; ttus giving them unobstructed scope for the 
 development of all their senses, of their muscular and 
 intellectual powers. Under this management, the mus- 
 cular and intellectual powers, strength and reason, go on 
 increasing hand in hand : by the time the child is able to 
 do anything hurtful to others, it has reason to be guided 
 to the avoidance of such hurtful actions ; nothing of course 
 but ignorance will lead it to hurt itself; for which real 
 knowledge of facts, not force, is the appropriate remedy. 
 
 But it is still curious, and useful, and necessary to 
 inquire what are the peculiar modes of instruction and 
 persuasion which are best adapted to those imperfect, un- 
 developed, periods of human existence, childhood and 
 youth ? 
 
 In childhood everything is new : and mere novelty, from 
 the nature of our organisation, wherever nothing other- 
 wise painful attends the sensation or emotion, is a source 
 of pleasure. The repetition, at a certain interval, when 
 the nerve and cerebral structure have had time to recover 
 what is called their tone, or capacity of being again acted 
 upon, of an agreeable taste, is pleasing : but if another 
 taste, equally agreeable but new, is substituted, every one 
 knows the pleasure is increased. This is one of the ulti- 
 mate facts respecting our nervous system. Now, to adults, 
 in proportion to their acquisitions, the pleasures to be dc- 
 
On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 rived from mere novelty are few, and every day diminish- 
 ing : but, on the other hand, the pleasures of comparing and 
 of judging of all these facts, of looking into consequences, 
 of inventing or hearing of new combinations of actions, or 
 of things useful in the sciences or the arts; all these, 
 under the name of intellectual pleasures, are numerous in 
 proportion to mental culture, are continually expanding, 
 and must be used as motives to the guidance of the actions 
 of adults. By reason chiefly, without neglecting observa- 
 tion and novelty, adults must be guided ; by immediate 
 observation and novelty chiefly, without neglecting reason, 
 and solely with a view to its future successful cultivation, 
 children must be guided. Adults, however limited their 
 stock of facts, find more pleasure in comparing the endless 
 combinations of these, in planning the gratification of their 
 more impetuous feelings, than in making new simple ob- 
 servations, in acquiring the neglected knowledge of facts 
 and things, and their qualities. For a contrary reason, 
 the great delight of children is in activity and curiosity ; 
 in muscular exertion and new sensations, and in comparing 
 these as their little stock increases. 
 
 Hence follow plainly, the course that should be pur- 
 sued in early education, the natural rewards and punish- 
 ments that should be made use of. The double object is 
 to infuse real knowledge or truth (i.e., real facts, real 
 things, real consequences, real resemblances and differ- 
 ences), and to implant habits tending to preponderant 
 happiness, in the young. 
 
 First, then, as to the implanting of moral or useful 
 habits. This operation is necessarily begun previous to 
 the time when the reason of the child can perceive any 
 useful tendency in the habit taught. These habits are 
 taught by means of what is called association. Let the 
 doing of any act by a child, as the killing of flies, torment- 
 ing kittens, or beating anything offensive, be always ac- 
 companied with the expression of pleasure on the part of 
 its teachers : these acts (except by the countervailing 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 353 
 
 tendency of some natural punishment, as the biting or 
 scratching of the kitten) will infallibly be deemed good 
 and fit to be done by the child in proportion to the inten- 
 sity of approbation bestowed by the teachers, particularly 
 if they themselves give the example of such conduct, and 
 add other factitious rewards, such as the gratification of 
 any of the senses, on the performance of these actions. 
 Although it is thus true that bad habits are formed, and 
 that good habits ought to be formed, and may be formed, 
 by association previous to the development of reason, it 
 does not follow that it is necessary or wise to dispense 
 with the exercise of reason when unfolded, even with 
 respect to these very habits, to the most moral and useful 
 of them. Nothing is more delicate or important in edu- 
 cation than the management of these early associations. 
 Three rules, it would appear, are necessary to be observed 
 respecting them. First, (< Let no association be used for 
 any purpose that is not founded in truth, and not only so, 
 but in truth universally recognised not only by all sects 
 , and parties, but by all civilised men." Universal kind- 
 ness, truth, fortitude these and such like universal vir- 
 tues, because it is the interest of all that they should be 
 practised towards them, may be taught ever so early by 
 the association of sympathy and by example ; but the 
 local supposed virtue of kindness to people of any par- 
 ticular sect or party, or respect for any possible speculative 
 opinion, alleged fact of history, or other matter within the 
 province of the understanding, and not necessary for the 
 immediate guidance of the child's conduct to the happiness 
 of itself, and of those affected by its conduct, should never 
 be impressed at all by any association. The necessity of 
 the case, that demands the employment of association 
 previous to the development of reason, should also strictly 
 limit its exercise to points of necessary and universal 
 morality. It is a dangerous power, of tremendous efficacy 
 for evil, of very partial and only temporary use for good 
 purposes. Second rule : " Let no moral association what- 
 
 x 
 
3-54 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 soever, however true and universal, be strengthened by 
 any factitious reward or punishment, nor even by the 
 expression of any exaggerated or affected emotion." 
 Whenf the Indian woman presses her child to her breast, 
 and points with expressions and gestures of horror to a 
 fellow-creature, a neighbour, of another aste, the impres- 
 sion, often repeated on the terrified imagination of the 
 child, remains for life, tormenting equally itself and 
 others. Though the person pointed at were a robber, liar, 
 murderer, and his arts ever so worthy of disapprobation, 
 no possible good could arise from this exaggerated ex- 
 pression ; it is not necessary for the child's preservation, 
 it takes away the power of forming a future calm judg- 
 ment of the value of the act, and can lead to nothing but 
 indiscriminate, unjudging, hatred and vengeance. Third 
 rule : " Let not the association, in any case, be so strongly 
 impressed on the mind as to render it incapable of an 
 impartial examination of the characters, or of the good or 
 ill consequences of the actions connected by it, as soon as 
 the understanding is sufficiently developed to form such 
 judgment." Be these moral associations ever so true, 
 ever so universal be the expression of approbation or 
 disapprobation ever so measured and appropriate, still, 
 if it incapacitate from future impartial judgment, with 
 respect even to the, most universally acknowledged virtuous 
 act, it leaves the agent with respect to that act (and if 
 with respect to that one, why not as to others, and to any 
 others, good or bad ?) a slave to prejudice, to the forming 
 of opinions before reasons, or without reasons. The legi- 
 timate use of association is as a substitute for reason until 
 it is developed, and an ally of reason to enhance the plea- 
 sures of perceived utility. Its exclusive use is only for 
 the immediate temporary guidance of the child. Nothing 
 more simple than the reason of this. If the actions 
 originally performed or avoided through the associations 
 of sympathy, be really productive of preponderant good 
 or evil, on an examination of all their consequences, what 
 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 
 
 ?o certain as that this examination will increase the force 
 of every useful association ; will place its future operation 
 out of the power of chance ; will apportion its energy 
 exactly in proportion to its utility, and will render reason 
 and sympathy eternal co-operators to good, instead of 
 being, as now, eternally antagonising principles of action I 
 Under the head of association is included the principle 
 of imitation. If the rules laid down with respect to all 
 moral associations are observed, imitation affects usefully 
 almost the whole of early moral training where large 
 numbers of children are brought up together; the new 
 comers almost immediately adopting the modes of acting 
 of the little society into which they are introduced. But, 
 as many actions immediately pleasing, may in their con- 
 sequences be most pernicious, and as young children can 
 know nothing about these consequences ; hence the vast 
 importance that the general actions and feelings of the 
 school or community of young people, should be useful 
 and benevolent. This is the high duty of the director of 
 early education in the skilful management of association, 
 till reason can gradually interpose to judge and unite in 
 useful bonds, interest and duty. The principle of volun- 
 tary imitation is, in ordinary cases, quite sufficient to 
 form the habits of the new comers to those of the mass of 
 pupils whom they join : bad or good, if the actions afford 
 exertion, and are repaid with the sympathy of their little 
 companions, children will immediately join in them. 
 Hence the incalculable advantage (or one of those advan- 
 tages) of training children in large numbers ; but hence 
 also the increased and awful responsibility of forming 
 aright the habits of these masses by just use of the great 
 instrument of association, in the first formation of them. 
 Where the associations are useful, the elder children will, 
 in the course of action, without effort, explain to the 
 younger as their minds open, not as lessons, but as mat- 
 ters of mutual interest, more usefully than any adult 
 teacher can do, the pleasures of which they are productive. 
 
3*56 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 Imitation in education is, therefore, secondary in import- 
 ance to association ; and its good or evil effects depend 
 entirely on the character, given to the mass whose actions 
 are imitated. A child of extraordinary vigour of muscle 
 or mind, may occasionally break the uniformity of even 
 useful imitation by new and injurious modes of action. 
 Carefully to observe, and skilfully to manage these de- 
 viations, is amongst the duties of the superintendent of 
 the general habits of the children trained. 
 
 The first object of early education, the implanting of 
 moral habits, thus provided for by a force of association, 
 fearful in its efficacy, though unaided by factitious rewards 
 and punishments ; the second object, that of infusing real 
 knowledge, presents itself. We shall find also that this 
 branch of education is better promoted by natural, than by 
 factitious rewards and punishments, and that there is 
 nothing in the way of ordinary human motives opposed to 
 this branch of education, under the system of voluntary 
 equality. 
 
 By what motives shall the young of these establishments 
 be induced to find pleasure in the acquisition of real and of 
 useful knowledge ? By the joint pleasure arising from the 
 exercise of their faculties and of novelty, and from the 
 gratification of the constant desire of these pleasures 
 under the name of curiosity. From every object calling 
 forth the exercise of any of the senses, and not otherwise 
 attended with pain, a child receives pleasure. What from 
 long repetition has ceased to please the adult, every new 
 form, colour, sound, smell, taste, is a source of gratifica- 
 tion to the young. Now, these sources of gratification 
 nature presents in almost endless variety, in the minerals, 
 plants, and animals, that people tin's globe, beyond the 
 reach of the most tenacious memory. But no sooner has 
 the child been gratified with the external form and 
 appearances, as brilliancy, brittleness, hardness, softness, 
 with the colour, smell, sound, taste, effect on the touch of 
 these objects, than it seeks for other information. Curiosity 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 357 
 
 wants to find out what the substances are made of, what's 
 inside of them, how they are composed, what's doing 
 within as well as without them. The external structure 
 known, the child wants to find out the internal. Utility 
 here again goes hand in hand with inclination : this also is 
 a kindred branch of the most useful knowledge a child can 
 acquire. The internal structure of minerals, of plants, and 
 of animals, ending with a knowledge of its own frame, the 
 most perfect and to man the most interesting and useful to 
 be known of animal forms, closes this branch of early 
 education, called " Natural History." During the exami- 
 nation of the outward and inward structure of these 
 articles, endless collateral points of curiosity respecting 
 them, the country, the soil, the climate, the people from 
 which they came, the mode of procuring them, their uses, 
 their character and habits, if animals, will be inquired into. 
 The gratification of this species of curiosity is a further 
 source of useful knowledge and of pleasure. Here again 
 nature is to be followed, and her rewards to be seized and 
 made the most of. But at the same time that the mind is 
 employed, why not let the muscular system, the love of 
 motion, be gratified ? Not a natural object presented to the 
 senses, that should not be sketched by the pupils to afford 
 employment to the hand, to teach the rudiments of the 
 useful art of drawing, and to imprint more strongly the 
 lessons on the memory. With the same view useful 
 facts and short descriptions should be written under the 
 sketches ; and thus writing as well as drawing would be 
 taught incidentally, and without any particular effort, 
 forming only a relief and a support to the main object 
 in view, the acquisition of useful facts, of real knowledge. 
 Such is the natural mode of beginning education with 
 the culture of the simplest and first acquired faculties. 
 When these objects and facts are known to the young, then 
 springs up curiosity afresh for a bolder flight. Out of 
 these materials which we find on the earth, above and 
 around us, are fabricated all articles produced by labour 
 
353 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 for human use. Food, clothes, furniture, houses, all 
 useful things, are derived from these elements ; by taking 
 them to pieces, decomposing them, causing their minute 
 component parts to operate on each other, and forming 
 new combinations under the name of chemical processes, 
 new sources of wonder are opene4. for curiosity to feed 
 upon, and applications to the useful arts of every day life, 
 are continually presenting themselves. The memory now 
 must be constantly on the stretch to bring up for use all the 
 facts acquired in the previous pursuit of natural history; and 
 the judgment is now constantly employed in more lengthened 
 comparisons and deductions of chemical investigation. 
 
 But while some of these objects of natural history are 
 made useful by decomposing or making new compounds of 
 them under the name of chemistry ; others are turned to 
 use in masses, and without destroying their texture, their 
 physical powers or properties are made use of, under the. 
 name of mechanics, to abridge or facilitate human labour, 
 to add a thousand fold to human force, and to the capacities 
 of many of the senses. In the construction and uses of 
 all these machines, and the few simple principles on which 
 they are founded, what excitement is held out to curiosity, 
 what gratification in the discovery of the powers and the 
 means they afford ! From every step in the intellectual 
 progress, the pleasure of success is derived, of looking back 
 and comparing our present with our past state of know- 
 ledge, the self-gratulation experienced on perceiving 
 ourselv.es possessed of new powers, or of increased means 
 of happiness ; for no one wilfully makes use of power but 
 as a means of happiness ; to himself always ; if wise, to 
 himself as connected with his fellow-creatures. 
 
 But to the pleasures of perception, of memory, and 
 judgment, to all others that may be styled merely 
 personal pleasures, are not confined the motives to 
 intellectual culture. Social motives are constantly present 
 and are eminently powerful in all stages of the progress, 
 but constantly increasing in strength with increasing 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 359 
 
 knowledge. These pleasures, all operating as motives, as 
 natural rewards, are the pleasures of sympathy, the 
 pleasures of intellectual intercourse, the pleasures of 
 benevolence, or those arising from a contemplation of the 
 benefits flowing from the knowledge already acquired or 
 expected from future acquisitions of knowledge. In most 
 young and ardent minds, will naturally be to be added to 
 this list, the anticipation of contributing hereafter by 
 discoveries in art or science to the further progress of 
 knowledge, of human power and welfare. 
 
 The pleasures of sympathy prompting to the acquisi- 
 tion of knowledge, are those of the children towards each 
 other, of the teachers towards the children, and of the 
 parents and the community in general towards those who 
 make the greatest progress or take the greatest pains in 
 improving themselves. Neither children, teachers, parents, 
 or the public, particularly when so wisely limited as that 
 all shall know all, and have an influence on the conduct of 
 all, can avoid feeling and exhibiting feelings of appro- 
 bation or pleasure when a superior intellect, any more 
 than when a superior article of a physical kind, is 
 presented to them. A useful article of any sort must give 
 more pleasure in its contemplation, let the causes leading 
 to its usefulness be ever so necessary, than one less useful. 
 This feeling must be perceived by the person possessing, 
 or being the object that excited it, and must give him 
 pleasure, though it were a mere unspoken recognition of 
 the act of improvement. With particular force this 
 principle, of the associations of sympathy, acts on 
 children, all of whose early actions were swayed by it. 
 There being no arbitrary punishments or rewards to divert 
 sympathy from, its proper channel, and to enlist it in 
 opposition to improvement, it will under such circumstances 
 and in such a community, where nothing but what is 
 useful is taught, operate with a force hitherto unknown in 
 education. With the useless pedantic jargon now taught 
 in schools, who out of them, can sympathise ? 
 
300 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 The next natural social motive to improvement, are 
 the pleasures of intellectual intercourse. In an education 
 directed solely to what is useful, and what must of course 
 interest by turns every member of the community, particu- 
 larly in a community constituted like this, these pleasures 
 of the pupils must be of every day's occurrence. Walking 
 the fields, learning agricultural operations, the mineral or 
 plant of the lesson selected, will be the mineral or plant of the 
 garden, the orchard, the field ; the chemical compound or 
 the machine of the lesson, will be found illustrated in 
 principle, if not in exact counterpart of resemblance, in the 
 operations of manufacturing industry,, to which the 
 children will be equally trained. To what endless interest 
 of conversation and improving little discussions, will not 
 such coincidences give rise ! how will labour be dignified ! 
 how will study be rendered familiar and attractive ! These 
 pleasures and motives to attention are not now enjoyed 
 by children, from the utter want of interest, the absolute 
 uselessness of almost all that is now taught them, as well 
 as from the repulsive methods of teaching. But where all 
 factitious rewards and punishments ara altogether dis- 
 carded from education, the teachers must study the 
 nature of mind and of the human affections, must give 
 exciting and pleasing food to the mind as well as to the 
 body, and must thus depend upon the pleasures of 
 intellectual intercourse experienced by the pupils, for 
 increase of their anxiety to add to their stctek of know- 
 ledge, the means of increasing these intellectual pleasures. 
 Various charms will attend their conversations with their 
 companions, their parents, all their adult friends surround- 
 ing them in the community; and by all will they be 
 stimulated to new improvement, to increased curiosity for 
 additional knowledge. 
 
 The next natural motive, of the social class, leading to 
 intellectual improvement, is the benevolent contemplation 
 of the benefits flowing, or to be expected from, the powers 
 to be derived from increased knowledge. This pleasure 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 361 
 
 of contemplation, requiring some extent of view, frequently 
 both a wide and a remote tracing of consequences, good 
 and evil, and a balancing of these to ascertain the prepon- 
 derance of good, is not calculated to act on the very young; 
 and, though the most noble, is therefore deferred to the 
 last of the natural rewards in education. Towards the end 
 of education indeed, utility, comprehending all good, pre- 
 sent and future, becomes the predominant motive to the 
 acquisition of knowledge. The touchstone of morals, every 
 pursuit is, with severe benignity, scrutinised by it. Long 
 before the close, however, even at the very commencement 
 of education, it operates, its force depending on the skill of 
 the teacher. From the time that the first associations of 
 infancy come to be examined and moral habits secured on 
 the appropriate foundation of reason and interest, the uses 
 of everything proposed to be learned, will be always 
 pressing themselves into the minds and upon the lips of 
 the pupils. The most simple and immediate only of these 
 uses, can be first explained to children ; but even these 
 will be to them enough to implant the principle of utility, 
 and with it that of benevolence, looking even into the in- 
 terminable future. From the mere exercise of the under- 
 standing in tracing out the uses, the affections become 
 enlisted in the pursuit ; and what was first mere calcula- 
 tion, ends from the association of fact, of the indissoluble 
 union of each individual's interest with that of his fellow- 
 creatures in the exalted and delightful sentiment of bene- 
 volence. "What's the use of this ?" Is there an intelligent 
 child who has not at some early period of his education, 
 asked this question, till repeated blows or despair of re- 
 ceiving any satisfactory answer, whether from the stupidity 
 of the teacher, or the more frequent impossibility from the 
 uselessness of the thing taught, arrest his inquiries, his 
 curiosity, and benevolence, for ever ? In the schools of 
 these communities, on the contrary, under the natural 
 system of useful, and nothing but useful tuition, tuition 
 useful to the individual taught, not to make him or her 
 
362 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 a passive slave to any other interest whatever ; from the 
 first moment such a gladdening question is asked, the pro- 
 gress of the pupil will be deemed secure. As his mind 
 expands, he will be shown and will discover new uses, till 
 the persuasion will spring up that no species of real 
 knowledge can be useless, and that for every possible in- 
 crease of knowledge, a use will some day be found. 
 
 Still another natural motive to intellectual exertion, 
 arising and combined out of almost all the foregoing, is 
 the desire on the part of the pupil of contributing, one 
 day, to the progress of knowledge and human happiness, 
 by discoveries in art, or science, or other intellectual pur- 
 suits. Who that has ever derived when young any plea- 
 sure from knowledge, does not recollect the frequent 
 expansion of this wish in his mind, though, perhaps, from 
 a mingled generosity and selfishness of motive, according 
 to the training which he had previously received ? With 
 some young persons, under the name of literary ambition 
 or emulation, it absorbs every other motive, and selfishness 
 predominates in it. From these communities, as in their 
 whole conduct, so in their plan of education, selfishness is 
 banished. Ambition, or the love of mere power, for any other 
 use than that of activity or promoting happiness, emula- 
 tion, or a desire of seeing ourselves superior, and of course 
 of seeing our fellow- creatures inferior to us, are both of them 
 motives, whether natural or factitious (for 'tis only the 
 useful natural motives that must be employed in education), 
 which are inconsistent with the principles of these commu- 
 nities ; the use of such motives being attended with pre- 
 ponderant mischief. Under the circumstances and the 
 operation of motives hitherto detailed, such feelings and 
 wishes as these would not arise in the pupils' minds. 
 Power, superiority, they would value simply because they 
 afforded the means of increasing happiness to themselves 
 and others. From every leading act of their lives, the 
 happiness of others would have been so associated in their 
 minds with their own happiness, and reason and utility 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 363 
 
 would have so strengthened this association, that the per- 
 nicious ingredients, now necessarily mixed up with the 
 young romantic wish for excellence and discovery, could 
 with them have no place. The desire of emulating others, 
 would he simply the desire of promoting as much happi- 
 ness as those others had been the means of promoting ; the 
 desire of emulating always joined with admiration and love 
 of those whose example is proposed for imitation. What 
 we admire, we must wish to imitate : whatever appears to 
 us morally excellent, we must, from the constitution of our 
 nature, admire : to imitate, to do as much good, well to 
 do more, better : the double pleasure of the active exercise 
 of the faculties and of benevolence, prompt the wish : once 
 excited, and selfishness banished from it, who can set 
 bounds to the wonders which, in communities where public 
 opinion was all powerful, it would produce ? 
 
 Hence, it is presumed, it appears, that there are an 
 abundance of useful natural motives, surrounding the 
 teacher who has the skill and the kindness to use them, 
 for all the proper purposes of the education of youth ; and 
 that there is nothing in the nature of human motives, as 
 respects the young any more than adults, inimical to the 
 system of voluntary co-operation and equality of enjoy* 
 ment. 
 
 From the foregoing sketch of matters to be taught in 
 the commencement and earlier parts of education, let it 
 not be inferred that these are the only matters : biographjr, 
 history, moral and intellectual subjects of all useful species, 
 the numerous applications of the physical sciences, and 
 afterwards of both physical and mental, to the complicated 
 operations and affairs of life, to the art of preserving health 
 and avoiding disease, to comprehensive social regulations 
 (always increasing in interest to the pupils in proportion 
 , to their extent) embracing whole districts and nations and 
 families of nations ; all these, everything really useful, 
 that is to say, attended with preponderant good, balancing 
 the time spent in education against the future approprin- 
 
364 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 tion of the same quantity of time, as to its effect on the 
 happiness of the whole life, will be assuredly taught in 
 these schools, or a basis laid for their future development at 
 the lectures given by some of the members of the com- 
 munity. To show the operation of natural motives, it was 
 necessary to apply them to some branch of knowledge : 
 and the first in order to be taught, the most interesting 
 and the most simple, presented itself: the object was not, 
 to give even a sketch of the course of education to be 
 pursued. 
 
 It is not, in fact, in the management of the young that 
 the difficulty of dispensing with factitious rewards and 
 punishments, has been felt by those whose minds were any 
 way enlarged, and dispositions kindly. Force and terror 
 are now beginning to be generally disused by all but the 
 most ignorant and brutal : the factitious motives retained 
 by any who now lay claim to anything judicious in edu- 
 cation, are limited to the arbitrary employment of, or 
 additions to, the natural motives, as shame, forced idle- 
 ness, emulation, &c. To show the injurious consequences 
 of these, would be a useful task, but wandering too far 
 from our immediate subject ; enough if it have been 
 shown that there are natural motives sufficient to render 
 their employment unnecessary. 'Tis in the management 
 of adults, that the great difficulty has been found. When 
 vices, caused by the wretched circumstances which en- 
 tangle men, run high, criminal laws interfere with their 
 restraints, terrors, and physical pains, to stay the spread- 
 ing of the evil. To dispense with these, was the difficulty ; 
 which is simply done by remodelling anti-social circum- 
 stances, by removing the temptations to vice. These 
 removed, natural motives in abundance exist, as has been 
 shown, to the practice of mutual beneficence. 
 
 But we have also to inquire under this section, " Is 
 the system of voluntary equality impracticable if not 
 from the known motives that influence human conduct 
 from any of the physical circumstances by which men are 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 305 
 
 surrounded?" This part of the inquiry need not delay 
 us long. 
 
 That numberless favourable situations for the esta- 
 blishment of such communities of mutual co-operation for 
 the supply of all the necessaries, and even comforts of life, 
 are to be found in all inhabited parts of the globe, no 
 person disputes ; the objection is, that there are some 
 spots, immense tracks of rugged mountains, barren sands, 
 or otherwise unproductive soils, where numbers could not 
 be congregated together, and, consequently, where this 
 system could not supersede that of individual exertion, 
 economy, and reward. Again, workmen in immense 
 mines, navigators, could not practise all these arrange- 
 ments. Suppose that one-tenth of all civilised nations 
 were, from these and similar circumstances, debarred 
 from enjoying, like the rest of the community, the benefits 
 supposing them to be ascertained benefits of economical 
 co-operation and expenditure, does it follow from thence 
 that these benefits are not to be enjoyed by those within 
 whose power they are placed ? As well might it be said, 
 that if all mankind cannot by any contrivance escape from 
 any particular disease, as the consumption or the gout, no 
 precautions whatever ought to be taken by the great mass 
 of mankind against the approaches* of such maladies. If 
 diseases are bad, the less of them mankind have, though 
 but by one-tenth, the better. If mutual co-operation, 
 joint possession, and expenditure, are good, the more these 
 blessings are diffused the better, though we may never 
 be able to make them universal. Have the lovers of 
 forced systems of insecurity hitherto acted on this prin- 
 ciple? Have they ceased to accumulate wealth by all 
 means in their power because they could not make their 
 fellow-creatures rich ? On the contrary, does not this en- 
 hance, to their diseased minds, the anti-social pleasures of 
 their wealth? Is not the secret dread of seeing their 
 fellow-creatures raised to an equality with themselves, one 
 of the strongest reasons of their repugnance to a system 
 
SCO On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 of equality, ever so voluntary ? where everything is to be 
 created ; and where nothing is asked to be by them be- 
 stowed? Were this system, however, securing to the 
 united labourers the entire use of the products of their 
 labour, produced, possessed, and enjoyed in common, found 
 to be practicable as well as beneficial by the great majority 
 of society ; the remuneration of the labour of the less for- 
 tunate few, who could not partake of these advantages, 
 would be raised to the average, if not beyond the average, 
 as unpleasant occupations have even now an increase of 
 wages, of the physical comforts of those living in social 
 co-operation. These intractable occupations would natur- 
 ally be the quarry to which would soar those unquiet 
 spirits, on whom no other incitement than inequality of 
 wealth and adventure, could operate as a sufficient stimulus 
 to exertion. 
 
 Another view presents itself. ^\11 those trades and 
 manufactures, or expeditions, then, which could be under- 
 taken by any of these stationary communities or by 
 detachments from them, would be undertaken, not as 
 now by one great capitalist and hundreds or thousands 
 of ignorant, depraved, overworked slaves of law or insti- 
 tutions, but by joint stock companies of equals; and 
 the results, particulariy when fostered by the kindred 
 spirit of the co-operating and co-enjoying communities, 
 would be nearly as productive of equal happiness, as the 
 united communities themselves. J 
 
 Where a situation abounded in materials, particularly 
 if bulky and difficult of carriage, and the soil was niggardly 
 of its produce, the chief operations of such a community 
 would doubtless be the working up of the bulky articles 
 near at hand, getting a mere subsistence from their own 
 immediate soil, and living chiefly by exchange. All the 
 co-operators of such a community, however, though they 
 possessed a mine, instead of an over-land manufacture, and 
 worked therein alternately with agriculture, would never- 
 theless as much be joint possessors, labourers, and 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. oG7 
 
 cnjoycrs, as the communities possessed of the finest 
 agricultural settlement. Nay, a community of mere 
 miners who did not raise a day's work of their own 
 food, but lived altogether by exchange,, might do all their 
 operations by joint labour, possession, and enjoyment, just 
 like any other co-operating community ; whether it would 
 be wise to establish such a community without any 
 agricultural labour, is another question. 
 
 As to the difference of latitude, the heat and cold of 
 climates, and the different productions for food, or exchange, 
 it is evident that none of these circumstances could make 
 any difference in the principle of co-operation and enjoy- 
 ment. Sugar, grapes, -cotton, or tobacco, (if human beings 
 remain long insane enough to throw away their labour on 
 such a pernicious poison as the latter,) may be cultivated 
 by joint labour, as well as oats, potatoes, and flax. In 
 Van Diemari's Land, it could be adopted as well as on the 
 banks of the Oronoco or the Neva. Wherever there are 
 human beings, knowledge, and suitable land, nothing but 
 despotism, or insecurity arising from some other cause, 
 restraining the freedom of action from forming such 
 communities, as in Russia, Turkey ; or the political 
 plundering of the fruits of their labour when produced, as 
 everywhere but in the non-slave States of North America, 
 could prevent their successful establishment. Mere 
 geographical limits not inducing sterility, have no control 
 over the formation of these communities. A society of 
 watchmakers and agriculturists could be as readily formed 
 on the plan in Switzerland, as a society of linen-weavers 
 and agriculturists in Ireland. The influence of climate or 
 productions, is absolutely nothing as to physical obstruc- 
 tion ; as to prudential, yes ; as, supposing the produce to 
 be lead ore, a prudent community would not, for any 
 possible consideration of profit, devote much of its labour 
 to such occupations as mining, or smelting the lead. 
 
 At present in the most civilised and fully peopled 
 communities, of whose internal arrangements we have any 
 
308 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 accurate knowledge, those of Europe and North America 
 for respecting the internal economy of the half-civilised 
 barbarians ruling over the millions of China, we "have 
 but mere rude outlines of knowledge the quantity of 
 good land and materials, or the facility of creating the 
 materials is so great, so much more than necessary for 
 the actual population under the new arrangements, that 
 it is quite idle to talk of physical obstructions. If in 
 one hundred, or one thousand, years, such obstructions 
 should present themselves, the knowledge and foresight of 
 such communities as will then exist, will doubtless be able 
 to grapple with the evils, and reduce them to their smallest 
 amount ; or, more likely, precautionary measures would 
 be adopted to prevent their approach. But how strange 
 the caution to people in search of happiness, to warn them 
 to resign the greatest happiness of the whole of their lives 
 and those of their immediate descendants, lest perad- 
 venture their children's grandchildren might not be as 
 happy as themselves ! 
 
 We may dismiss, then, all notion of physical 
 obstruction to be apprehended from the ultimate pro- 
 gression of the system, as mere idle speculations, 
 not calculated, even if true, to produce any effect on the 
 conduct of living men. To the progression towards 
 improvement by means of individual exertion and reward, 
 the very same objection of an ultimate obstruction to the 
 progress might be made every one sees how vain. The 
 subject of population will not be overlooked in the next 
 section. 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 . POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO TEE SYSTEM OP VOLUNTARY EQUALITY OP WEALTH. 
 
 In this section it was proposed to discuss the popular 
 objections to the system of voluntary equality. We must 
 endeavour to be brief; for if the reins were given to 
 speculations on remote contingencies respecting a system 
 
VWVtKbl I Y 
 
 or 
 
 Uf . 
 
 Most conducive to Human Happiness. 369 
 
 which includes all social arrangements and interests, 
 and the nature of the human mind, which has its theory as 
 well as its practice, the whole space of this inquiry would 
 not afford scope for the discussion. 
 
 First, then, we will pass by the popular objections to 
 the theory of the plan as that theory has been developed 
 by Mr. Owen, because though the theory were found 
 here and there defective, whether in an economical, poli- 
 tical, or intellectual point of view, it would no way affect 
 the practical arrangements and ascertained facts ; it would 
 prove only that the general conclusions were not accurately 
 deduced from these or other facts. Thus, for instance, 
 Mr. Owen advocates the doctrine of what has been called 
 " philosophical necessity," and says, that " the character 
 of man is formed by the circumstances surrounding and 
 acting upon him," that " his character, opinions, &c., are 
 formed for him and not by him ;" and as a consequence, 
 that " men may be trained to anything good or evil con- 
 sistent with their organisation." These propositions, as 
 understood and explained by Mr. Owen, appear to be 
 quite just. Many object because they misapprehend the 
 meaning ; others because they cannot part with early 
 associations about free-will (i.e., a power of acting or 
 forming a volition without motive, or contrary to the 
 strongest motive), as existing in point of fact, or as justi- 
 fying a being, whom they style benevolent, in tormenting 
 without object, when all benefit from example would have 
 ceased, the creatures he made. Discussions like these, so 
 delicate, and so bordering on theological reveries, cannot 
 be indispensable preliminaries to rational practical arrange- 
 ments. Let men theorise as they may about the idle 
 power of acting without motive, they all admit that this 
 power is seldom exercised, and that man's conduct is in 
 point of fact very much influenced by the circumstances in 
 which he is placed. They do not recollect that the imme- 
 diately preceding state of every man's mind is one of the 
 most influential of the circumstances, which, co-operating 
 
 Y 
 
370 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 with those from without, produce his immediate subsequent 
 conduct. 
 
 Now, be these circumstances as they may ; let men be 
 supposed to possess ever so despotic a power over their 
 wills, every one admits that it is very seldom they are so 
 foolish as to exercise this power, in opposition to their 
 perceived and acknowledged interests. So much conceded, 
 affords a basis for entering at once into an examination of 
 the popular objections to the practical arrangements. 
 These objections may be roughly classed under the names 
 of moral, economical, and political ; few of them perhaps 
 will be found strictly confined to any one of these heads ; 
 but, for the sake of order, let them be considered according 
 to that characteristic which is the most apparent. 
 
 To begin with the objections of a moral nature it is 
 said, that " the arrangements for voluntary equality are 
 founded in restraint; that though they may be well 
 adapted to the wretched, who for the sake of subsistence 
 would or must submit to such restraints, yet none above 
 the pressure of want would, for any pecuniary considera- 
 tion, submit to them." 
 
 Were this objection, so repugnant to the principles 
 advocated in the first chapter, nay through the whole of 
 this work, well founded,**the plan of pretended voluntary 
 equality must be at once dismissed ; but the fact is, that it 
 is founded altogether on an ignorance of the subject. 
 
 The arrangements for mutual co-operation and volun- 
 tary equality, are capable of different modifications. 
 Where the community is so poor as to be under the 
 necessity of borrowing the money to erect their houses, 
 to buy their land and stock, no doubt they must be under 
 such restraints and liable to such conditions", as to the 
 repayment of the capital borrowed, as any other individual 
 or individuals would be, entering into voluntary arrange- 
 ments to repay capital out of the products of labour. 
 According to the respective knowledge and benevolence of 
 those with whom they contract, the terms of repayment 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 371 
 
 and the quantum of control given to the capitalists for the 
 security of their capital, will be more or less onerous to 
 the borrowers. In these engagements, however, they have 
 the general protection of the laws of the land respecting 
 all contracts ; and if they give a power of interference 
 beyond the law, it is no longer binding on them than 
 while they find it their interest to obey. To simplify the 
 matter, we shall dismiss all those cases where capitalists 
 have any sort of control in the internal affairs of the 
 community, and then compare the restraints of ordinary 
 life with individual exertion, to the restraints of the 
 individual members of such a community, owners of their 
 own establishment. 
 
 In entering these communities and leaving them, there 
 is perfect freedom of action. Can the same be said as to 
 the employments of ordinary life, whether singly con- 
 ducted or in partnership? The individual working for 
 himself, is mostly controlled by the situation in which he 
 was born, and the establishments to which he succeeds, 
 and in which he must continue under pain of a great 
 pecuniary loss. If in partnership, the individual cannot 
 leave it without the consent of his partner. But in these 
 communities, no consent of partners is necessary ; for the 
 stock and all the operations are on so large a scale, that 
 the withdrawing of any individual member with his share 
 thereof, could produce no effect on the prosperity of the 
 whole ; there would be therefore no need to insist on the 
 consent of the community (as in small private partnerships 
 where the whole concern might be deranged by the with- 
 drawing of one partner and his capital) to the withdrawing 
 of any individual members. There would be absolutely 
 no loss of capital from a change of individual employ- 
 ments ; no perceptible inconvenience to the individual or 
 the community. This gives such a facility of changing 
 abode and occupation, as must be ever incompatible with 
 individual arrangements without great attendant sacrifices ; 
 if practicable at any sacrifice. So far, then, the restraint 
 
 Y 2 
 
372 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 is clearly and enormous]/ on the side of individual exe?'- 
 tion. v These communities remove an immense burden of 
 restraint ; they enable all their members, without loss of 
 capital to any one, without loss of time, to change their 
 abode, society, and mode of life. Supposing the removal 
 to be to another distant community on the same principle 
 of co-operation but of dissimilar occupations and physical 
 circumstances, restraint on removal is not only taken 
 away, but all risk of success in the new occupations is 
 removed, as it was in the establishment left. In fact, if 
 these establishments were numerous and in different 
 places, changes of abode and occupation, instead of being, 
 as now, some of the most serious events of life, would be 
 mere excursions or experiments of pleasure, either by 
 selling out of one and buying into another, or by simply 
 exchanging. Nor would there be any need of the for- 
 mality of the assent of the two communities or of. either 
 of them, to sanction these exchanges of abode and co-ope- 
 ration. The variety would be useful and pleasant to each 
 community, and no evil could arise from this gratification ' 
 of individual inclination ; if the advantages of the two 
 communities were noi> nearly equal, exchanges would not 
 be made ; and although the intrusion of an ordinary 
 individual from general society without the consent of the 
 community, might be productive of evil, yet the exchange 
 of an associate from a similar community accustomed to 
 and approving of the same plan of life, could not by 
 possibility produce any evil to an extensive community to 
 counterbalance the evil of restraint on its individual 
 members. On the contrary, nothing could be more useful 
 for every community than these voluntary individual 
 exchanges; by means of them, all the uncongenial 
 members of every community would be gradually with- 
 drawing to societies more attractive to them ; and the 
 result of this individual exchange and constant power of 
 choice, would be to maintain the utmost possible cordiality 
 and unanimity between the members of every community, 
 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 373 
 
 held together not only by their general interest as co- 
 operators, but by their particular attachment as friends. 
 These exchanges would operate as safety-valves to every 
 community for the retiring of every irritating and irritated 
 member, and for the attraction of members whose views 
 and pursuits would harmonise with those of their new 
 associates. 
 
 What species of restraints remain to be feared in com- 
 munities, self-governed, like these ? Vexatious internal 
 regulations, prescribing times, and meals, and rest, and 
 labour, and mode of dress, and all the details of life, almost 
 the whole interest of which arises from their voluntariness ? 
 No restraint of this, or of any sort, will be imposed upon 
 the community, that is not imposed by their own hands. 
 A restraint -self-imposed, a voluntary restraint, is a con- 
 tradiction in terms. The majority may be ill-formed and 
 may judge erroneously, but they can lay no burden in the 
 nature of a restraint upon themselves ; nor will any just 
 and rational men, forming a majority, impose any restraint 
 on even the smallest minority, except in those rare cases 
 in which' the interests or the gratification of the majority 
 and the minority are clearly incompatible with each other. 
 The minority, it is true, may be dissatisfied ; and may 
 likewise be in the right. By what human contrivance can 
 this evil be remedied, as long as men are permitted the 
 exercise of their reasoning powers ? Where has the evil 
 been reduced to so narrow a compass as here? First, 
 voluntary entrance into the community ; then perfect 
 freedom of departure, accompanied with no loss, dependent 
 on the permission or assent of no one, affording the easy 
 means to ever so small a minority to withdraw from the 
 influence of regulations, which they may deem restraints 
 and unwise, if they deem the effort hopeless of convincing 
 the community of the undcsirableness of such regulations. 
 But why should a rational man despair of making their 
 interest apparent, amongst a community of co-operating 
 IViciids ? Is it possible, on calm discussion, by writing 
 
374 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 and speaking, in public and private, where no sinister 
 pecuniary interest can exist to warp the judgment, that 
 right conclusions should not be ultimately admitted and 
 adopted, by men seeking nothing but their own happiness ? 
 where all the data for forming a correct judgment and the 
 means of proof by experiment, are in their power? To 
 talk of restraints under such circumstances, is using a lan- 
 guage which, if applied to any other communities, would 
 imply the utmost extent of freedom. 
 
 Suppose, then, the worst, suppose the majority of a 
 community so unreasonable as to pass, or to permit their 
 committee to pass, such a regulation as that all men should 
 wear their beards, or, like Peter of Kussia, that no man 
 should wear his beard, that no person should dance, or 
 play on a musical instrument, or write or recite a line of 
 poetry? Where are the sanctions to enforce these re- 
 straints ? Where are the rewards or punishments to cause 
 their observance ? We have seen long ago that all fac- 
 titious rewards and punishments are rejected from the 
 government of these communities, and that many even of 
 those, usually esteemed natural rewards and punishments, 
 are also rejected as inducing preponderant evil. Where 
 is the penalty, then, for the breach of these dreaded re- 
 straints? where are the guards of Peter to cut off the 
 beards and hew down the rebellious ? The only guards, 
 the only enforcing power is public opinion, the public 
 opinion of the community. If this public opinion be 
 formed of a very small majority, its force will be weak ; 
 the beards, or the dance, or the music, will be seen or 
 heard notwithstanding such feeble public opinion ; and the 
 expression of it will but give rise to friendly discussions, 
 which will ultimately establish through the community 
 the innocence or the injurious tendency of beards, dancing, 
 or music. Thus, public opinion being the only sanction, 
 over and above every one's view of his own interest, of 
 these restraints ; a mere majority will gain little more by 
 enacting them than to bring them forward, as matters of 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness* 375 
 
 doubtful utility, for the consideration of the community. 
 But as this can be done in the ordinary way of social 
 intercourse, it will be quite superfluous to express any 
 public opinion on the subject until the public mind of 
 almost the whole of the community is formed. The ex- 
 pression of the opinion of the majority thus formed, may 
 be useful, as ascertaining the fact of its tendency, and by 
 necessary consequence rendering it imperative on those 
 who act in opposition to it, to reconsider the reasons on 
 which their conduct is founded, to weigh all the con- 
 sequences of such actions. 
 
 Who now so weak as to dread such restraints? 
 restraints self-imposed, restraints enforced by the 
 perception of their utility alone, as announced by the 
 expression of public opinion? restraints removable, as 
 soon as their injurious tendency can be shown restraints 
 from which, though there be but a single dissentient voice, 
 the owner of that voice may remove without loss, without 
 requiring the assent of any other human being but his own ? 
 
 Shall we, after all, be told that the vital objection is to 
 this sanction itself, to the very restraint of public opinion, 
 to the tyrannic exercise of that power before which even 
 laws and institutions are compelled to bend, which pene- 
 trates all the chambers of the mind, and places there the 
 eye of man's fellow-creature and equal, scrutinising his mo- 
 tives and prescribing his actions ? Shall we be told that the 
 charm of independence consists, not only in not being dic- 
 tated to, but in not being even observed or judged of that 
 the prying curiosity and the opinions of others would root 
 out all our delicate pleasures pleasures which retire from 
 the public gaze, from the public conversation and scandal 
 still more ? 
 
 There is no doubt of the possibility of the public opinion 
 of one of these, like any other community or society, 
 great or small, being altogether misdirected; but under 
 the original and fundamental stipulation for freedom of 
 opinion on every possible subject, all real evils from this 
 
376 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 source are obviated. Where freedom of Discussion exists, 
 and sinister interests are removed, it is impossible that 
 public opinion should continue long or very injuriously 
 misdirected. 'Tis sinister interest and the force and fraud 
 by it engendered, that corrupt and brutalise public opinion. 
 The very assent to such arrangements and principles as 
 those on which these communities are founded, indicates 
 such a state of mind, on the part of the co-operators, as to 
 render quite impossible any gross misapplication of the 
 public or popular sanction. Even such moral impossi- 
 bilities, however, are guarded against by the power of 
 withdrawing. Little, indeed, is the danger that the public 
 opinion of such communities would be found revolting to 
 the intellectual or moral feelings of its most enlightened 
 members ; but great, very great, is the probability, that 
 such enlightened members would sway, to the full extent 
 of their intellectual and moral powers, the march of that 
 public opinion. Never was theatre of rational and sen- 
 tient beings so well prepared for the diffusion of truth. In 
 no community have the wise and good ever enjoyed such 
 ample opportunity of directing aright public opinion. 
 From the wise and good, therefore, will not proceed the 
 objection of submitting to its gentle, its salutary control. 
 
 But there are other classes of persons. There are 
 those who are neither wise nor good ; whose characters 
 have been so moulded by the circumstances through which 
 they have passed, to acts injurious, on a calm review of all 
 their consequences, to their own happiness, that they 
 dread the clash of public opinion, anticipating its condem- 
 nation, as applied to gambling, drunkenness, enervating 
 debauchery, insolence, idleness, and similar qualities. No 
 doubt the restraints of enlightened public opinion, where 
 all would know all, would to such men be most galling ; 
 and the more enlightened, the more benevolent, the more 
 galling. Utter concealment in the midst of the hundreds 
 of thousands of an overgrown metropolis, would bettor 
 suit the habits of such men. If prudent, they would not 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 377 
 
 join such communities if not determined to reconsider the 
 tendency of their habits, and to trust themselves to circum- 
 stances which would gradually remove them. If wedded 
 to any such habits as the above, they could not inflict a 
 greater evil on such a community than by associating 
 themselves with it. With such characters, an industrious 
 rational community would be as ill assorted, as they would 
 be with the community. They are not fit materials out of 
 which such a structure could be raised. If their habits 
 were not to be parted with, they could not long remain 
 attached to such communities ; better, therefore, never 
 to join them. It is admitted that such a community 
 would lose the co-operation of all such characters as 
 dreaded the exercise of public opinion ; but such loss 
 would be an advantage to such a community. 
 
 As to minor private uninfluential actions, and private 
 sympathies, that only pass from eye to eye, is it to be 
 believed that the majority of a community founded on the 
 absolute freedom of private opinion, would turn jailors 
 and inquisitors of themselves, would pry for their mutual 
 misery into each other's secrecies and retirements, and 
 find out a malicious pleasure in blasting happiness unin- 
 jurious to others, by dragging it into publicity and encom- 
 passing it with slander ? This abuse of the influence of 
 public opinion will not take place, simply because it never 
 can be the interest of the majority that it should take 
 place. The majority cannot be formed of the old, the 
 unfeeling, the morose. The majority must be composed 
 of those the middle-aged who will cherish every possible 
 pleasure, unattended with preponderant evil; whose in- 
 fluence will establish such a public opinion of mutual 
 kindness and forbearance, as will make slander' and prying 
 curiosity unknown in the community. Property belonging 
 to all in common, and opinion free, what is to be gained 
 by slander or molesting other persons' enjoyments ? 
 
 Compare, now, the restraints of these free communities 
 with those which prevail in general society the restraints 
 
378 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 of trade, the restraints of law, the restraints of public 
 opinion, the restraints of superstition, the restraints of 
 political power by means of public plunder, and it will 
 be seen, that the great preponderance of evil, arising from 
 restraints, is with society as at present. We have not 
 space to make the comparison in detail, under each of 
 their separate heads ; but, by way of illustration, will 
 take the first, the " restraints of trade." 
 
 In trades, the labourers of general society, without 
 tools, materials, or land to enable them to work, not only 
 under restraint, but absolute dependence to those who 
 have contrived to lay hold of all these means of production, 
 with the thousand expedients of insecurity by which 
 capitalists extract labour and life from the ignorant and 
 wretched, are as complete automatons, by the operation of 
 these expedients, though by themselves frequently unseen, 
 as the little figures dressed like men exhibited to cheat the 
 vulgar with the appearance of voluntary motion. So, in 
 general society, is the productive labourer cheated with 
 the appearances of voluntary action. The restraints of 
 insecurity, he is taught to look upon as the changes of the 
 seasons, or the dogmas of his creed : no choice with 
 respect to these is left to him. But submitting to all 
 these, he is then told he may change his abode, he may 
 work or not work, may take or refuse the wages doled 
 out to him ! Truly so ; but what is the consequence if he 
 change his abode, or refuse to work at the prescribed 
 wages? He starves. Let him go where he will, the 
 same restraints await him. Such is the hypocritical free- 
 dom from restraint, of systems of insecurity ! A prey to 
 the operation of the thousand unseen causes that annihilate 
 the demand for the only article he knows how to work at, 
 what can he do when this gentle restraint arrives ? He 
 has the option of starving, thieving, or begging, or in 
 some places of becoming a pauper. But take the case of 
 the most fortunate of the productive labourers, to whom it 
 has never happened to want such employment and remu- 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 379 
 
 neration as systems of insecurity afford. Is there one in 
 a thousand of such who has knowledge and curiosity suf- 
 ficient to prompt him to wish to visit neighbouring cities 
 or counties, to see the manners or productions of other 
 places? If so fortunate as to get regular employment, 
 they stay at home gladly, and become attached to their 
 home. 'Tis want, want of employ, necessity, in nine hun- 
 dred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, that compels 
 them to leave their homes. How very absurd, then, to 
 talk of the freedom from restraint of such beings, and to 
 contrast it with the real freedom from restraint to be en- 
 enjoyed by every individual of a community of mutual 
 co-operation, joint possessors of all things requisite to 
 make the whole of the products of their labour (excepting 
 always that which is seized by political power) their own ! 
 From all commercial and manufacturing restraints, and 
 from some of the most galling of those of taxation, these 
 communities, possessing from the first all their own capital, 
 free themselves by their voluntary mutual concession of 
 the power to over-reach and oppress each other, by the 
 very act of their mutual co-operation and joint possession. 
 No masters are, there, restraining apprentices ; no trades- 
 men restraining the uninitiated, unless by seven years 
 or corporation freedom, from following their craft; no 
 capitalists restraining wages by possession of the tools, 
 materials, clothes, food, and house of the labourer, and 
 superadding to these the absolute forcible fixation of wages ; 
 no imprisonings, whippings, and other torturing of human 
 beings, to compel them to work for this pittance ; no combi- 
 nations of masters, and counter-combinations and conspi- 
 racies of workmen, restraining and tormenting each other ; 
 no dread of worse than restraints from failure of employers, 
 or want of demand ; no restraints of trade, no regulations 
 whatever but such as are self-imposed, with a view to some 
 preponderant benefit to be enjoyed by the individual mem- 
 bers of the community, not by any abstract thing called 
 the public good, and meaning generally the supposed 
 
380 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 private interest of a few leading men. But individuals of 
 these communities, from their superior information, may 
 wish to travel to acquire knowledge and verify what they 
 have read. What follows ? If the community think that 
 more happiness is to be gained by travelling, each in his 
 turn, one month, or a longer or shorter proportion than a 
 twelfth of their time, every year, than by devoting that 
 time to the increase by labour, muscular or mental, of the 
 comforts and conveniences of life and domestic enjoyments, 
 where is the restraint to prevent them from indulging in 
 such gratifications ? They have only to will it, and it is 
 done. No fear, from the absence of the master's eye, that 
 the stock and trade left will become deranged. The few 
 absentees from such communities, can never derange the 
 operations or risk the loss of the stock ; the establishment 
 proceeds in its regular course, uninfluenced by such tem- 
 porary absence, and guided by intelligence and skill equal 
 to what has departed from it. Who, on the contrary, does 
 not see that the physical and moral restraints on the 
 locomotive powers of the productive labourers, not to 
 speak of tradesmen and even many capitalists, of general 
 society, are such that to speak of their travelling for in- 
 formation or curiosity, would be looked upon as a species 
 of insane ignorance of the world ? Again, as to the length 
 of a day's labour, and the nature of his occupation, the 
 custom of the place condemns the machine of ordinary 
 society to labour or pine ; but in these communities no 
 restraint whatever, physical or moral, compels to one 
 hour's more labour or to any species of employment which 
 the majority may deem injurious to their health, or pro- 
 ductive of any other preponderant evil. 'Tis idle to pro- 
 ceed ; there can be no comparison made between the 
 restraints of the industrious of general society and those 
 of these communities ; the life of the one is a net-work 
 of artificial restraint ; they cannot stretch [forth their 
 hand without being entangled in it; the life of the 
 other is freed from almost every other restraint but 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 381 
 
 that of nature, which renders it necessary to produce in 
 or.icr (o enjoy. 
 
 The next popular objection in point of importance, of 
 a moral nature, against the system of voluntary equality 
 by joint possession, labour, and enjoyment, is the ill- 
 grounded fear, that " it would, by withdrawing the 
 stimulus of individual reward, annihilate, or very much 
 lessen the chances of, genius, exalted talents and exertions, 
 and thus limit the career of human improvement and 
 happiness, to the abundant gratification of mere animal 
 wants." 
 
 This objection has some truth, and some error in it. 
 As far as it is true, the talents and exertions it would 
 repress, ought, for the happiness of humanity, to bo 
 repressed : as far as it is false, the talents and exer- 
 tions it would not repress, but would stimulate, are all 
 those the development of which is useful for human hap- 
 piness. 
 
 No error is more common, than to confound individual 
 reward in general, with individual reward of a pecuniary 
 nature, or of the matter of wealth. All enjoyment must 
 be individual enjoyment; all motives to produce indivi- 
 dual action must be brought home to the individual to be 
 acted upon; the pleasure of seeing others happy is as much 
 an individual pleasure, as the pleasure of eating a pine- 
 apple or other favourite fruit ; it is one of the individual 
 rewards which the constitution of our nature and sur- 
 rounding circumstances have attached to the cultivation 
 and exercise of benevolence, and serves as an individual 
 natural motive to the practice of this first of the virtues. 
 But why should a man practise this virtue of benevolence, 
 called, when put into action, beneficence ? For no other 
 possible reason than that it is clearly his individual inte- 
 rest to practise it. His individual pecuniary interest? 
 Most generally, but not necessarily so. His individual 
 interest on the balance of chances of happiness from all 
 possible sources, immediate and remote? Undoubtedly, 
 
382 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 yes. But can we say, because it is not a man's individual 
 pecuniary interest in a particular case to be benevolent, 
 that he has therefore no individual interest, or, in other 
 words, no interest at all, whether of an earthly nature or 
 to be enjoyed in ever so many millions of years, to be 
 benevolent ? If so, man must act without motive : for a 
 motive not individual is to him no motive : a social motive, 
 if you please, and not a selfish motive ; but, selfish or 
 social, it must be individual must come home to the real 
 or supposed interest of the agent, or he cannot act. 
 
 Having briefly exposed, in the last section, the motives 
 to human exertion, the desire to obtain the pleasures of 
 the senses and appetites, external and internal, those 
 derived from the active use of the muscular system, from 
 the active use of the cerebral or intellectual structure, from 
 sympathy and from all the endless combinations and 
 modifications of which these are susceptible it is enough 
 to refer to these to point out the entire fallacy of the 
 assumption and inference, that all individual motives 
 being centred in those of wealth, no stimulus to high 
 exertion can remain when these are removed. Wealth is 
 only a means of acquiring some of these advantages ; and, 
 in society as now constituted, is much more efficient than 
 it ought to be for the acquisition of them. 
 
 But without making a parade of the motives that, in 
 these communities, would call forth the exertion of every 
 useful, of every exalted talent, as well as virtue, the mo- 
 tives that absolutely produce, at the present moment, the 
 most exalted of these qualities, will demonstrate the fal- 
 lacy of the objection. Once raised above the reach of 
 want and in the co-operating communities every one 
 would be so raised the compounded motives that lead to 
 superior exertions and excellence in intellectual pursuits, 
 in actions of great difficulty, whether useful or pernicious, 
 are, the pleasures of action, muscular or intellectual, of 
 the pursuit, the pleasures of mere power, the pleasures of 
 wealth as a mere source of distinction, the pleasures of 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 383 
 
 sympathy as expressed by simple gesture, by approbation, 
 by consent, by conviction, by admiration, the pleasures of 
 benevolence, or of the contemplation of the happiness the 
 real advantages of any sort expected from the exertions 
 in question. 
 
 The use of some of these motives leads to unmixed 
 good, of some to evil, of most to a mixture of good and 
 evil. The pleasures of exertion, muscular, mental, or 
 both, in the pursuit, the pleasures of benevolence, the 
 pleasures of sympathy justly proportioned to the exercise 
 of talent and beneficence : all these motives do now usefully 
 prompt to the most energetic exertions in general society ; 
 and their operation, by the increased force of public 
 opinion, and the universal diffusion of real knowledge, 
 would, in the co-operating communities, be a hundred- 
 fold increased. The love of mere power, for the sake of 
 influencing the actions of others, without any regard, to 
 benevolence ; and the love of wealth, for the mere sake of 
 the distinction it would confer, without regard to the sub- 
 stantial use of the articles of which it is composed, could 
 scarcely exist amongst the associated communities ; nor, 
 even in general society, are these motives often productive 
 of useful exertions. Under the name of ambition and 
 avarice, they lead to an immense preponderance of mis- 
 chief. There are minor occasional motives, such as love, 
 hatred, jealousy, revenge, envy, &c., which sometimes 
 lead to energetic exertions, but are too limited in their 
 sphere of operation to be noticed here. The motives 
 which produce useful energy of thought and action exist 
 in greater force in the associated communities than in 
 general society ; the motives which only occasionally do 
 good, but which lead in general to preponderant evil, are, 
 in these communities, cleared of their pernicious accom- 
 paniments, and rendered instrumental to the higher mo- 
 tives of benevolence, sympathy, and the pleasures of 
 exertion, or activity. 
 
 It is a fact, as certain and as pleasing as it is important, 
 
384 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 that almost all the useful of the higher attainments and dis- 
 coveries of men, in science and action, have been produced 
 by the operation of the better motives; while almost all per- 
 nicious activity has been engendered by the love of mere 
 power, or mere wealth, and occasional ill-regulated passions. 
 Look to conquerors, statesmen, priests, lawyers, privileged 
 classes of every species ; avarice and ambition, love of 
 mere power, love of mere wealth, have .been their almost 
 exclusive motives to the most persevering and difficult 
 exertions. But look to all those, the discoverers of phy- 
 sical and moral truth, men of genius in the fine arts as 
 well as in mechanical operations, and you will find the 
 great majority of them, particularly the most illustrious 
 amongst them, either but partially swayed by such in- 
 jurious motives, or raised entirely ab^ve them, and under 
 the sole influence of the more useful springs to action. 
 From Homer to Milton, Shakspere, and Barry, in the fine 
 arts; from Epaminondas to Washington (and almost every 
 succeeding American President), and Bolivar, in patriotic 
 exertion ; from Anaxagoras to Galileo, Lavosier, and 
 Priestley, in physics ; from Epicurus and Socrates to the 
 founder of the principle of utility, or the proposer of volun- 
 tary equality by mutual co-operation in morals ; the men 
 who have been the most ardent and successful in useful 
 discovery and exertion, have not only been almost exclu- 
 sively governed by the useful motives, but have persevered 
 in opposition to the frowns of power and the risk of want, 
 even braving persecution. Of the men of genius now 
 living, who devote all the exertions of their lives to moral 
 and physical improvement, by writing and action, perhaps 
 the greater part suffer loss, both in wealth and power, for 
 the love of their ruling pursuit ; demonstrating the utter 
 ignorance of the human mind of those who assert that high 
 intellectual exertion depends for its excitement on such 
 motives as avarice or ambition. Although those who 
 have no extraneous means of support must live by their 
 exertions, it does not follow that the love of the wealth 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 385 
 
 necessary for their support was the influential motive to their 
 higher exertions ; because they could in general gain more 
 wealth by other less toilsome means. In general, where 
 mere love of wealth has been the influential motive with 
 men of talent, it has brought down their exertions to the 
 comparative grossness of the parent motive. To gain 
 renown, that is to say, the sympathy and the consenting 
 judgment of their fellow-creatures now living, or even to 
 anticipate the sympathies of future generations, is, at this 
 present hour, in general society, a sufficient motive with 
 numbers, to devote not only their whole time and exer- 
 tions, but also their wealth (by whatever means acquired), 
 to intellectual and other pursuits connected with human 
 improvement ; the love of activity animates others ; the 
 desire of increasing and diffusing happiness many more. 
 These three motives, in various ways compounded and 
 modified, have actually produced, and are now producing, 
 the greater part of the higher useful intellectual and moral 
 exertions amongst men; those, not rich, exerting them- 
 selves from such motives, must include the means of 
 living in their remuneration ; but it does not follow that 
 the desire of obtaining those means, was the inspiring 
 motive to those higher exertions. It is doubtful whether, in 
 almost any well-authenticated case, the mere love of wealth, 
 for its palpable pleasures or distinctions, or both, has been 
 the sole motive to any really useful exertions of genius, in 
 writing or action ; so also of the mere love of power ; they 
 have led men to difficult, to splendid exertions, but to most 
 pernicious exertions, which have been the curse of their fel- 
 low-creatures' happiness always, and mostly of their own. 
 
 In general society, 'tis only a few, the rich, that are 
 above the reach of want, and permitted to come under the 
 possible influence of these higher motives ; but even these, 
 from their education and habits, such motives can seldom 
 reach. Their wealth also, from the caprices and frauds of 
 political power and of the various expedients of insecurity, 
 is always in danger ; so that few have the opportunity, 
 
 7. 
 
386 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 and still fewer the inclination, of resigning themselves to 
 the influence of these motives, and engaging in the useful 
 exertions to which they would lead. Almost all the higher 
 intellectual exertions of society are now perverted from 
 useful general objects to the pursuits of selfish individual 
 gain ; and the highest powers are prostituted, in the race 
 of envy and strife, to stand foremost in the acquisition of 
 wealth as a source of distinction ; so that the comparatively 
 few, who, from useful motives, pursue useful objects, are 
 by the general herd looked upon as unaccountable beings, 
 fools to their own interest ; the objectors having never felt 
 any other interest but that of a pecuniary nature. 
 
 In the co-operating communities, all these circum- 
 stances would be reversed. There, all are raised above the 
 reach of want ; there, the pursuit of wealth as a mere 
 source of distinction, or for any other purpose than the 
 rational one of enjoying its products, cannot exist ; there, 
 all the young are equally educated in all really useful 
 knowledge and good habits; there, all have leisure for 
 intellectual pursuits ; there, public opinion is steadily and 
 usefully operative, and always ready to reward with its 
 sympathy and gratitude even the unsuccessful efforts of 
 him who labours by rare and difficult exertions to increase 
 the common stock of happiness ; there, will operate most 
 strongly the desire of benefiting general society, of bene- 
 fiting all of the family of mankind ; there, the paths of 
 avarice and ambition are blocked up ; there, are no paths 
 left for the development of exalted talents and exertions, 
 but such as are useful to the agent and his fellow-creatures; 
 there, are no constantly operating sources of distraction to 
 bribe or force all exalted talent and exertion into the 
 eternal career of competition for endless heaps of indi- 
 vidual wealth ; there, all the capabilities of the community 
 are kept under a species of constant requisition, by the 
 means of instruction presented equally to all, so that no 
 peculiarity of talent can fail of being called forth. 
 
 Can there be, then, any sort of comparison as to the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 387 
 
 quantity of the higher species of talent and exertion, of 
 the useful class, to be expected in these communities and 
 in general society ? for it is freely admitted, that for those 
 high qualities and actions vulgarly called great, no motive 
 will, in the co-operating communities, be to be found. 
 
 " Of the merely useful class it may be," continues an 
 objector; " on utility these communities are founded: to 
 mere useful objects will their exertions be directed. But is 
 human exertion to stop there? what becomes of the 
 ornamental? painting, sculpture, music, poetry, eloquence? 
 Are these to be abandoned as useless ? what time is left 
 for such refined pursuits ? how, under the co-operating 
 arrangements, can they be cultivated? Are these amongst 
 the useless or the pernicious pursuits ?" 
 
 The fact with respect to these secondary or lighter 
 pleasures, called ornamental or those of taste, seems to be, 
 that, in the co-operating communities, the capacity and the 
 inclination of deriving pleasure from them, will be 
 diffused to the utmost extent; that is to say, will be 
 shared by all the members of the community ; whereas, 
 in society at large, it is not one individual in five 
 hundred, who has the inclination, the time, or the means 
 of pursuing or enjoying these lighter pleasures. 
 
 Doubtless, in as far as any of these communities may, 
 on a rational estimate of the time and effort requisite to 
 enjoy the more delicate pleasures of the fine arts, deem 
 them productive of preponderant happiness over any 
 other way of expending the same time and effort, they will 
 be pursued. Beyond this point, 'tis folly, not wisdom, to 
 pursue them. The enthusiast for excellence in any of 
 these, will here be under the most favourable circumstances 
 for the development of his peculiar talent; not, as in 
 general society, seeking out patrons, and a prey to want ; 
 but here, a good general education having laid the basis 
 for all real excellence, half-a-dozen leisure hours every 
 day being at his disposal, as soon as a tendency to 
 excellence is discovered in painting, in poetry, in sculpture, 
 
 z 2 
 
388 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 in music, would it not be equally the interest of the 
 community and his own, that he should devote even some, 
 or the whole, of his ordinary working hours to his peculiar 
 talent ? Is his talent, painting, sculpture, music, poetry ? 
 he ornaments the community's buildings and grounds, or 
 amuses their ears or minds with the products of his art, 
 at the cost of ordinary labour, not, as now, at the cost 
 of one hundred times ordinary labour. The reward of 
 excellence, sympathy in the increased pleasures of his 
 friends, he obtains. Does he wish to sett his talents to 
 general society, he has but to leave the community, 
 either by selling his share to the community itself or to 
 any other purchaser; thus acquiring a stock for immediate 
 support. If he be animated with the flame of real 
 genius guided by benevolence, he will not leave the 
 community, but attract to it the additional admiration of 
 those who set a rational value on ornamental pursuits, and 
 teach the proud possessors of specimens of the ornamental 
 arts, what this real value is. Music, all will more or less 
 learn, as an accessory amusement in the course of educa- 
 tion. Drawing will be an instrument of education, 
 impressing more strongly on the mind, objects of nature 
 and art, their qualities and uses, and varying mental with 
 muscular exertion. The only useful part of poetry, that 
 which justly describes human feelings and actions and 
 objects of nature and art, surrounding them all with 
 useful, endearing, or energetic, associations, may here be 
 pursued ; pursued with all the ardour with which nature 
 and truth inspire young minds : but to these to nature 
 and truth will poetry in such a community be ever 
 subordinate. 
 
 The delicate pleasures of the fine arts thus disposed of, 
 shall we be frightened with an anticipation of a dull 
 uniformity of character ? Dulness, it need not be said, is 
 in these communities of free inquiry impossible, till all 
 the facts of nature, and the command of all her energies, 
 shall have been explored and mastered. TJien, if the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 380 
 
 mere use of all these mighty means of happiness, acting on 
 the various, and perhaps improved, nervous susceptibilities 
 of our organisation, be not sufficient to ward off dulness, 
 such communities must be satisfied to be dull. To uni- 
 formity they must also plead guilty, if to be all intelligent, 
 moral, and happy, be to be uniform. Variety of charac- 
 ters and incidents in ordinary life, and the tumultuous 
 excitements of society, arise from two sources ; from the 
 mixture of the depraved and the wretched on the one hand 
 with the general mass, and on the other from the mixture 
 of the enlightened and good, That part of the variety and 
 stirring excitement, which arises from the admixture of 
 vices and crimes, the co-operating communities certainly 
 cannot enjoy. Better to be dull, than to be excited by the 
 hearing and seeing of vices and misery. Thieving cannot 
 exist, where every one owns everything, where every want 
 is supplied, and where, of course, there is nothing to steal ; 
 falsehoods and perjuries cannot exist where nothing can 
 be gained by practising them ; civil strifes and contentions 
 cannot exist about property, where there are no indi- 
 vidual possessions : where none are in want, assaults and 
 murders cannot take place to extort the necessaries of life, 
 nor will such occupations as those of highway robbers, 
 shop-lifters, &c., exist. Hence the high excitements of fear, 
 of violence, and fraud on the one side, and on the other of 
 tormenting and life-destroying punishments at public 
 executions ; hence the high excitements from the gentle- 
 manly reverses of gamblers, from the after-pangs of 
 drunken midnight debauch, the suicides that so beautifully 
 vary the terminations of human existence, will be unknown. 
 Almost all the lofty excitements to vigilance of conduct 
 arising from these, and from crimes and vices like these, 
 will cease; and the uniformity of enjoyment, morality, and 
 happiness, arising from the cessation of crimes and vices, 
 must be borne, though such a state should appear dull. 
 But as it is allowed that a state of non-excitement cannot 
 be to sentient creatures a state of happiness, these coinmu- 
 
390 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 nities will be impelled, in order to withdraw themselves 
 from the monotony of inorganic existence, from mere 
 freedom from evil, to seek out for some exciting causes, 
 over and above the supply of their physical wants, and the 
 amusement and interest of their daily occupations. These 
 will be found in a ten-fold or a hundred-fold increase of all 
 those excitements of pleasing enthusiasm, which the 
 general pursuit of science, art, and beneficence, cannot 
 fail to produce. Not an improvement in moral or 
 physical science, that will not give more general interest 
 throughout all these communities of well-informed men, 
 than the announcement of wholesale robberies and murders 
 under the name of war and glory, now produce in general 
 society. But the feelings excited, how different' in their 
 nature and effects ! The wide wish of benevolence will 
 dilate from the expanded foreheads of such communities 
 over the interests, the affairs, of all nations; from the 
 contest of mutual destruction, their thoughts will be directed 
 to the emulation of mutual good. Whatever social 
 regulation, agricultural or mechanical improvement, have 
 been anywhere made ; whatever casualties or natural 
 phenomena occur over the globe, will be, at meals, at 
 labour, as well as at hours of leisure, the means of 
 constantly-recurring excitements to such communities, 
 while man and nature exist ; because there are none of 
 those things which, by the equal opportunities of common 
 enjoyment, will not be brought immediately home to the 
 interest of every individual. The differences of the nervous, 
 as well as the muscular and organic systems of individuals, 
 will ensure, under the rule of free inquiry, and the thence 
 resulting eternal progress in knowledge, all the freshness 
 of originality, as well as individuality, of character, which 
 is necessary for individual personal excitement. Add to 
 these, the affections of friendship and love, where these 
 feelings can neither be bought, nor sold, nor feigned, nor 
 entered into, nor bound together by mercenary motives ; 
 and it will be found that while in these communities almost 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. .'li)l 
 
 all sources of painful excitement, leading to preponderant 
 mischief, are excluded, the sources of pleasurable excite- 
 ment of the highest class, and leading always to prepon- 
 derant good, are beyond calculation increased. 
 
 The two popular objections to the proposed system of 
 voluntary co-operation, which have been discussed the 
 dread of restraints, and the dread of uniformity of cha- 
 racter are the only ones of a moral nature which appeared 
 of that importance to call for particular notice here. The 
 popular objections of an economical nature next claim our 
 attention. 
 
 (it is said, " that the establishment of these co-operatingX^? 
 communities would not root out the principle of com- 
 petition, nor the consequent injurious depression of wages ; 
 but would shift the competition from individual labourers 
 to individual communities; that, as these communities 
 increased, they would vie with each other in the sale of 
 their surplus produce) as individuals do now, and in the 
 same way bring down the remuneration of their labour ; 
 that competition in dress, in other comforts, and even in 
 luxuries, would spring up between these rival communities; 
 that wealth, instead of being pursued and hoarded by pri- 
 vate individuals, would be as keenly contended for by 
 these mutually jealous corporate aggregates of individuals." 
 
 This objection proceeds on the admission of by far the 
 greater proportion of the benefits expected from the system 
 of mutual co-operation. All the clashing of interests, and 
 the crimes and vices to which they give rise, between the 
 individual members of the communities, cease ; the advan- 
 tages of the increased productiveness of labour are enjoyed 
 by all, in increased comforts and increased leisure, dis- 
 posable to other sources of happiness ; and all the facilities 
 for education and instruction remain. Nor are these 
 blessings to be lessened until the communities become so 
 numerous as to begin to supersede the present mode of 
 production by individual competition. It would appear, 
 therefore, that an evil so remote, and extending to so small 
 
392 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 a portion of the system, might be left to find its cure by 
 means of expedients, which the increasing wisdom excited 
 by the new institutions would induce. To fling away an 
 immense mass of good, because a small portion of the 
 evils of our present institutions must, after all our efforts, 
 remain attached to it, would not appear to be wise. Is it 
 any way probable, however, that these evils would take 
 place ? 
 
 All the individual members of these communities being 
 essentially capitalists as well as labourers, and labourers 
 as well as capitalists, the one character would merge in 
 that of the other, and in all transactions the greater interest, 
 that of the labourer, would preponderate. The co-operating 
 communities have, each of them, a mass of surplus pro- 
 duce to dispose of; but under what interest do they dispose 
 of it, and to what species of customers ? They dispose of 
 it as labourers who have produced it, not to mere capitalists, 
 but to other communities, labourers (as well as capitalists) 
 like themselves. Why should these communities of 
 capitalist-labourers wish to undersell each other, further 
 than as new processes had enabled them to produce with 
 less labour ? Is it their interest to undersell ? Evidently 
 not. All underselling is a sacrifice of produce of the 
 means of happiness ; and will not take place if some 
 stronger interest do not come in the way to compel it. 
 Under the expedients of insecurity, that stronger interest 
 has place ; necessity forces the producers to the sacrifice, 
 to a sacrifice never voluntarily made, but by the lovers of 
 insecurity ignorantly or hypocritically styled voluntary. 
 This necessity of the labourers underselling the produce of 
 their labour, arises from the higher necessity of continuing 
 existence, though in a state of depression. Under mutual 
 co-operation, where could such necessity be found? 
 Neither of the communities exchanging, is under any ne- 
 cessity, for the support of existence, to sell : the very first 
 object of their mutual co-operation, is to procure an abun- 
 dance of food and the other necessaries of life. Where is 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 393 
 
 the motive then, where is the necessity, for a sacrifice of 
 their surplus produce for any other articles produced by 
 less labour than they expended in that produce ? If on 
 such terms they cannot exchange, what is to prevent them 
 from making the article immediately themselves, instead 
 of anything to be exchanged for it; or, from making a 
 substitute for it ? or, from doing without it, and directing 
 that portion of their labour into a channel entirely new ? 
 Tit is clear that the general exchanges of the co-operating 
 communities with each other, would not tend to the 
 competition of underselling, so contrary to their interest, 
 and demanded by no superior necessity, but to a demand 
 of a just equivalent of labour for labour, and no morej 
 Why wish to procure in exchange from another co-operating 
 community of kindred producers, more of an article 
 wanted than could be made by a quantity of labour, equal 
 to that which they expended on their own produce offered 
 in exchange? "Pis the interest of both communities, to 
 get as much as they can respectively for their surplus 
 produce. The desire of the one is met and checked by 
 that of the other ; neither of them is compelled to sell 
 to support existence, all the immediate wants of both 
 being supplied, and neither having any factitious advantage 
 over the other. What will be the result? Necessarily 
 the fixing on that price, the medium of exchange, which 
 will promote most the interest of both parties. What is 
 that ? The amount of the labour contained in the articles 
 to be exchanged. To aid this just estimate, spring forward 
 the habits of the lives of the exchanging communities. 
 From all their internal arrangements, the principle of 
 competition, with all its mysteries, falsehoods, and circum- 
 ventings, has been banished. To enjoy the products 
 of united labour and no more, has been the rule and 
 practice of their lives. How revolting to them the injustice 
 of taking away the products of the labour of others, 
 without the voluntary consent of the producers, either by 
 force, or by fraudulent representations of value ! Bargain- 
 
394 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 making is unknown to them. Here, then, are interest 
 and previous habits both operating on the side of justice 
 labour for labour, equal amounts for equal amounts ; if 
 no exact estimate can be found, mutual good faith will 
 arrange, to the satisfaction of both parties, the apprehended 
 amount of the labour to be exchanged, as represented by 
 the commodities. Here, also, is no counteracting neces- 
 sity, to over-rule habits and all minor interests. The 
 exchanges, therefore, will be made on the basis of the 
 presumed amount of the labour expended on the respective 
 productions. Should the labour of either of the parties 
 have been misapplied, and consequently less productive than 
 the average of labour, such defects cannot be taken into the 
 calculation; but the discovery of them will lead the neglect- 
 ful or unskilful party to revise their habits or improve their 
 machinery or skill. If these communities exchange their 
 surplus products with the capitalists of general society, 
 their principles, because their well-understood, compre- 
 hensive interests, will be the same ; but from the habits of 
 the second party, more time and trouble may be expended 
 in making the arrangement. 
 
 The interest of capitalists, which under the institutions 
 of insecurity plays so important a part, which swallows 
 up all other interests in the arrangements now made for 
 the distribution of wealth, under the proposed arrange- 
 ments of voluntary equality by mutual co-operation, would 
 cease to exist. There would be no other interest in the 
 community, but that of producers ; there would be no 
 capitalists. Capital would signify no more than the 
 necessary means of labour, or products of labour for 
 enjoyment. No capitalists distinct from labourers, no 
 capital as a source of revenue, of support independent of 
 labour, would exist. None of those evils, therefore, which 
 spring from the competition, or rather from the force or 
 the fraud of capitalists, mostly under the shield of political 
 power, could have place, either in the interior of such 
 communities, or in their exchanges. In exchanging, the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 395 
 
 communities are mere labourers, desirous of a fair 
 equivalent in labour for what their labour has produced. 
 They desire to procure for enjoyment an article which 
 they want, in lieu of one of which they have a super- 
 abundance. If they make what is called a good exchange, 
 what is the consequence ? Simply, that the whole com- 
 munity has a fourth or a fifth more for consumption of 
 the article procured in exchange. Which is more likely, 
 which is more wise, that the community should enjoy this 
 increased quantity (supposing it not to be superfluous for 
 use), or that it should direct it to be erected into a stock 
 for barter? Why should the community set aside any 
 part of the articles procured for their annual consumption 
 and enjoyment, for the purpose of obtaining profit by ex- 
 change ? Has their labour produced them more than they 
 can advantageously consume and enjoy during the year ? 
 If so, how absurd to add to it, to make provision for an 
 increase of that which is already superfluous ! or, to sur- 
 render the immediate enjoyment of large masses for the 
 future uncertain enjoyment of smaller, in the way of 
 profit ! Why o^r-labour one year, in order to under- 
 labour another? Why not spread moderate labour, so 
 necessary to health arid enjoyment, equally over every 
 year ? Though an individual might, perhaps, wisely over- 
 work, during health, to provide against contingencies of 
 disease, old age, or accident, no such reason could operate 
 with a whole co-operating community, who form an in- 
 surance company to each other within themselves, and 
 whose aggregate health never fails. If the useful and 
 healthy labour of the present year produces enough and to 
 spare for the enjoyment of the year, what is to hinder the 
 labour of the succeeding and of every future year from 
 yielding the same abundant produce ? If the mechanical 
 labour of the year have been too productive, why not lessen 
 the time for labour, and devote it to other pursuits more 
 pro4utive of happiness ? Could the foolish idea be har- 
 boured in such a community, that it is easier and sweeter 
 
396 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 to live by profit and idleness on others' labour, than by 
 industry and healthy exertion on their own? Has the 
 whole of the history of mankind told them in vain that the 
 mercantile concerns of great bodies of men have been 
 always mismanaged and directed to the aggrandisement 
 of the managers of such concerns, at the expense of the 
 capital accumulated by the previous industry of the indi- 
 vidual contributors ? And with these results of experience 
 before them, will they embark on a fallacious, or needless, 
 or wicked plan of amassing capital, to endeavour, by means 
 of the expedients of trade, to live in idleness on the produce 
 of their fellow-creatures' toils ? As far as capital is made 
 use of as a mere means of productive labour and enjoyment, 
 it may be most beneficially managed by such communities 
 through their committees or otherwise ; but from the 
 moment that it is converted into a trading stock and made 
 a source of profit, the inevitable evils of barter will follow 
 in its train. 
 
 If the communities were numerous, such a thing as 
 bartering could not exist. ' There would be but one whole- 
 sale exchange in every community, for every article neces- 
 sary for all the members thereof. Suppose these articles 
 were thirty or forty ; there would be so many wholesale 
 transactions with other communities producing such super- 
 fluous articles. Retail bartering is out of the question. 
 The same motive that led one community to exchange 
 with a manufacturing community, without intermediate 
 agents, their mutual surplus products, would lead all 
 other communities to do the same ; and though it would 
 be quite absurd for an individual to supply his small 
 demands from the manufacturer (the expense of commu- 
 nication, carriage, &c., more than counterbalancing the 
 increased sale price) in preference to the retail shop, it 
 would be as absurd, in a whole community, not to supply 
 its wholesale demands in that manner. 'Tis private indi- 
 vidual consumption that makes all the intricacies of bar- 
 tering inevitable. A wholesale speculating community 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 397 
 
 would not find customers, were it able to support the 
 immense warehouses and the immense double carriage 
 such wholesale transactions would require. Neither during 
 the progress, nor at the ultimate prevalence of such com- 
 munities, would there be any danger of their forming 
 themselves into mercantile or trading establishments. If 
 a co-operating community exported its own surplus pro- 
 duce, this would be adding only one to its yearly or half- 
 yearly exchanges. Men now accumulate capital for 
 profits, because it is acquired, not at the expense of their 
 own labour, but of the labour of others. Where the pro- 
 ducers accumulate, the check of the. inconvenience of pro- 
 duction, is always sufficient to prevent injurious accumu- 
 lation for profits, to prevent further accumulations than 
 such as are necessary to increase the productive powers of 
 their own labour. 
 
 For these reasons it may be safely relied on, that 
 these communities can never convert themselves into 
 trading companies ; it is not their interest, and they must 
 necessarily be wise enough to see their interest. 
 
 Instead of such short-sighted and abortive attempts to 
 live, by trafficking, on the labour of others, the increase of 
 enjoyment will steadily proceed amongst the co-operating 
 communities, with the progress of industry and improve- 
 ment in the sciences and the arts of life, whether effected 
 by themselves or by others. This progress will be in 
 many respects similar, in many superior, to that which 
 would take place amongst individuals under the influence 
 of equal security. A community makes an improvement, 
 in agriculture, suppose, by which grain is produced at 
 one-fourth less cost of labour than before. What are the 
 consequences ? If the quantity of grain produced were 
 before abundant for all useful purposes (including always 
 a stock in hand against the casualties of the seasons), one- 
 fourth of the labour, or time, previously directed to the 
 production of grain, is now free for any other purpose of 
 muscular or intellectual exertion, or of amusement or 
 
398 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 repose, which may be deemed most conducive to happiness. 
 By means of the press, the improvement is immediately 
 diffused through society at large ; and by the improving 
 community is enjoyed the additional pleasure of being the 
 cause of diffusing so much additional happiness, or means 
 of happiness, to all other individuals, by cheapening the 
 production of one of the articles most necessary for human 
 comfort. No patent, no monopoly, no exclusive privilege 
 of any sort would be sought for by the discoverers. These 
 expedients are induced and rendered necessary under the 
 institutions of insecurity; by the regular operation of 
 which the labourer is deprived of the products of his 
 labour, by direct plunder or by indirect fraud and terror. 
 That all motive to improvement, by the loss of which the 
 privileged as well as the industrious would suffer, may 
 not be withdrawn, patents and similar expedients are 
 resorted to, to meet such cases and to remunerate the 
 improvers. Were all the expedients of insecurity removed ; 
 were all individuals, whether producing alone or in mutual 
 co-operation, assured of the free use of their faculties, and 
 of all the products of the exertion of those faculties, the 
 desire of enjoyment on the one hand, the love of public 
 sympathy and of diffusing happiness on the other, would 
 be motives abundant to prompt to every possible effort ab 
 improvement and to repay those efforts. In another co- 
 operating community, discoveries are made by which heat 
 or light are disengaged, or by which leather, woollens, 
 or linens are fabricated at half the usual cost of effort. An 
 additional quantity of labour is thus set free for other useful 
 purposes, first in the community making the improvements, 
 next, and quickly, throughout society at large. Thus every 
 community derives immediate benefit from the progress 
 of industry wherever developed ; and the reciprocity, the 
 quickness of the extension of the mutual benefits to all, 
 produce incalculably more happiness than could be procured 
 by confining the secret and the enjoyment of each discovery 
 to the individual, or community, who made it. 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 390 
 
 In case the improvement was made upon an article of 
 surplus produce, for exchange, what would be the effect? 
 The article produced, say with half the labour, is of half 
 the value it previously was : of course, as the improvement 
 becomes generally known, double, or nearly double, the 
 quantity will be necessary to command the articles pre- 
 viously obtained in exchange. This increased quantity 
 will either supply and give enjoyment to those who were 
 before unable to purchase at the high cost of production, 
 or will give increased enjoyment of the same article to 
 those who previously used it, or will set free a portion of 
 their time and labour for other pursuits. In consequence, 
 they will be enabled by this surplus time to produce more 
 abundantly those things, whatever they might be, which 
 they were accustomed to give in exchange. They will, 
 therefore, be able to afford to give, and they will give, the 
 products of rather more than half the labour which they 
 were formerly under the necessity of giving for the now 
 cheapened articles. So as to every other thing which the 
 improving community gets in exchange for its cheapened 
 surplus produce ; the benefit will be shared between it and 
 those with whom it exchanges, in proportion to the quan- 
 tity of labour set free to each by the "reduced cost, the 
 reduced labour expended in production, of the cheapened 
 article. Thus will the benefit of the discovery of every 
 new useful article, or improvement of the old, be equally 
 diffused through the whole of society. If any of the pur- 
 chasers of the cheapened article refused to give more than 
 the exact half of the produce of the labour they used to 
 give, when its cost of production was double, the conse- 
 quence would be,, that the improving community would 
 direct a portion of its freed labour to the production of the 
 article withheld, or of some substitute for it, which, or the 
 capacity of doing which, would reduce the demand to that 
 of a fair equivalent. 
 
 If any particular community, not being, from whatever 
 cause, as industrious or skilful as its neighbours, produced 
 
400 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 less in the same time, it must be content to enjoy less, if it 
 made no exchange. Making an exchange, the value of the 
 products of its labour must be estimated by the average 
 produce of ordinary industry : to rate them higher, would 
 be to give a premium to indolence, enabling the most idle 
 and least skilful of the communities to live at the expense 
 of the industrious : rating them at this standard would 
 quicken the industry of all. 
 
 If the fear be altogether vain, that the competition of 
 these intelligent capitalist-labouring communities would, 
 in the disposal of their surplus produce, reduce it beneath 
 the cost of production, how much more vain is the fear as 
 to competition in dress, elegancies, luxuries, &c., between 
 the members of different communities ! 
 
 All communities having from nature an equal capacity 
 for production, each will direct its productive powers, or 
 enjoy repose, as it may deem most conducive to its happi- 
 ness. Objects of dress, elegance, luxury, will be estimated 
 according to their intrinsic value, their real utility ; not 
 forgetting, in the estimate, any one pleasurable quality 
 the lustre and softness of the silk, or the peculiar flavour 
 of the exotic production. All factitious importance given 
 to articles of wealth as mere sources of distinction, will 
 be forgotten with those distinctions, ' which equality of 
 wealth annihilates. If, therefore, the members of any 
 community should see those of another dressed in a 
 different way, using a new article of food, or of furniture 
 what follows ? The question occurs, Is this dress, on the 
 whole, more useful than ours, colour, form, texture, 
 material, cost (quantity of labour employed in its 
 fabrication), and all other items included ? If so, we will 
 adopt it ; and the community now using it, will aid us in 
 the calculation and instruct us in the mode of fabrication. 
 Just in the same way as to articles of furniture or food. 
 As it will be ultimately in the power of every community, 
 by so directing its labour, to use the same articles with 
 other communities, such articles can never be objects of 
 
Mo&t conducive to Hitman Happiness. 401 
 
 Tain emulation. As they will no longer indicate superior 
 individual wealth with all its present attendants, there will 
 be no public deference paid to the whims of particular 
 individuals in varying their dress or furniture. Utility 
 apart, they will be as unimportant as the colour of 
 gooseberries, exciting wonder towards the person who 
 should deem them of importance. As a stimulus to 
 excite industry, substantial use terminating in happiness 
 of some species, is sufficiently energetic for all good 
 purposes. Respecting clothing and food, many experi- 
 ments remain to be made ; little accurate knowledge is 
 yet ascertained on these, as on so many other, subjects 
 important to human welfare. 
 
 What has been said may perhaps serve as an answer 
 to another economical objection, namely, that " these co- 
 operating communities would acquire a corporation spirit, 
 that the rule of them would be seized by a few, and the 
 spirit of domination, if not of gain, would creep in, and 
 mar the expected benefits." 
 
 If these co-operating communities were governed like 
 other corporations, by charters given at the caprice of 
 political power, and containing regulations out of the 
 control of the associated members, by means of which, a 
 few or any number less than the majority of the commu- 
 nity, could make the interests of their fellow-creatures 
 (the guidance of what ought to be their voluntary actions 
 or the use of the products of their labour) subservient to 
 their supposed peculiar interests ; no doubt such ruling 
 favoured individuals would be moulded by the unfavourable 
 circumstances in which they would thus be placed ; and 
 sheltered by political power, they -would form a new sup- 
 port and partnership with it, and new institutions of 
 insecurity would be invented to control and frustrate the 
 efforts of associated labour, as they have been hitherto 
 devised to render impotent individual exertion. No such 
 communities are advocated in this ivork. Whatever com- 
 munity is not self-governed as to its internal regulations, 
 
 A A 
 
402 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 wants that security, without which all industry and all 
 enjoyment, whether hy co-operation or by individual 
 effort, are suspended by a thread, and cannot by rational 
 men be pursued in peace. Such communities, if governed 
 by charter and on corporation principles, would cease to be 
 communities of voluntary co-operation ; their charm would 
 be gone : the few of them so established would find no 
 imitators; and if such 'were the principles, the surrender 
 of private opinion as to the most interesting matters of 
 internal arrangements, on which alone they could be 
 established, they would soon cease to be instituted. 
 
 But of all the objections brought forward against 
 social improvement, whether to be produced by individual 
 exertion or by mutual co-operation, none has of late days 
 been so triumphantly put forward, as that arising from 
 what have been called the "principles of population.' 7 
 Particularly against systems of equality, has this objection, 
 half moral, half economical, been directed. It has been 
 the grand scare-crow to frighten away all attempts at 
 social improvement. It cannot, therefore, be entirely 
 passed over here, though volumes have been written upon 
 it. This objection in effect says : " Improve as you may/ 
 multiply ever so abundantly the means of physical, 
 intellectual, and moral good ; there is lurking in the very 
 constitution of man a source of evil, a principle of counter- 
 action hitherto overlooked, the mischievous action of which 
 *will be accelerated in proportion to this very improvement, 
 and will produce an extent of devastation commensurate 
 with the extent and intensity of previous happiness." 
 
 Were all this true, the question to be solved would be, 
 " Will more happiness, on the whole, be produced by letting 
 things remain as they are without effort, or by bringing 
 about alternations of splendid happiness and deep misery ?" 
 
 But the objection is founded on a gross mis-statement 
 of fact, and on an utter ignorance, as well of the artificial 
 nature of the absolute structure of society, as of the 
 human mind, and of new social combinations. 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 403 
 
 It is admitted to these objectors, that there is a physical 
 capability of increasing the numbers of the human species 
 greater than any known physical capability of increasing 
 the quantity of food necessary for human subsistence. 
 It is also admitted, that nothing could be more useful in 
 the present state of human knowledge, than to bring 
 forward this important question for minute and uncompro- 
 mising discussion. 
 
 \In the physical constitution of man, there is a possibility 
 of increasing the numbers of his kind at a quicker rate 
 than the quantity of food. There is also a physical 
 possibility of increasing the number of sheep or of silk- 
 worms beyond the quantity of food (grass, roots, or leaves) 
 necessary for their support. But who ever inferred from, 
 thence that human prudence was not sufficient, by means 
 of the most obvious calculation, to limit this possibility of 
 increase of these useful animals, to the food to be afforded 
 them, and the purposes to be derived to man from their 
 existence ? As this power of breeding in their own species, 
 is fully as much under the control of human beings, as 
 the same power in any animals which they rear; why 
 should not the same principles of prudence be used 
 in regulating the increase of men, as in regulating the 
 increase of sheep or silk-worms? This general reply 
 appears sufficient to the general objection.^ 
 
 But particulars are adduced ; a long parade is made of 
 historical facts ; and from these it is sought to be established, 
 that the mass of mankind are not only utterly devoid of 
 prudence in this particular, but that in proportion to the 
 general improvement in their circumstances, the supply of 
 food always included, they necessarily indulge in the 
 propensity to increase, till, from the mere effect of over- 
 numbers, of numbers beyond food, the old state of 
 wretchedness, or a worse state, is brought back again ; and 
 so always, and eternally in irremediable succession of 
 want, vice, and misery; and abundance, morality, and 
 happiness. 
 
 A A 2 
 
404 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 It is necessary here to premise, that were all this 
 satisfactorily proved as to the past conduct of the great 
 mass of mankind, it would only prove that great evils had 
 been hitherto experienced by this great mass, the ignorant 
 part, of mankind, from want of prudence respecting the 
 increase of numbers. It would, by no means, prove that 
 these evils were irremediable, that prudence could not be 
 acquired, and that those evils must proceed for ever, 
 because they had hitherto existed. 
 
 Instead of such conclusions from such facts with 
 respect to the improvement of the social machine, the 
 simple conclusion of reason would be exactly similar to 
 that which every maker of a steam-engine would come to, 
 on discovering a defect hitherto unperceived retarding its 
 motion, or counteracting the useful results expected from 
 it. He would look upon the discovery of the defect as no 
 unimportant step towards its removal, and would use 
 double exertion to discover the means of removing it; 
 no well ascertained law of nature (regular unvarying suc- 
 cession of natural phenomena) opposing such removal. 
 
 In this moral case, however, respecting the social 
 machine, the remedy is absolutely indicated at the same 
 time, and by the same process, that the defect is discovered. 
 The defect is the tendency to increase beyond the supply 
 of food; this defect arising from the want of prudence in 
 the regulation of a natural appetite, on the part of the 
 great mass, the ignorant mass, of mankind. If it be pos- 
 sible to impart prudence to the great mass of mankind, the 
 evils said to arise from a want of prudence are plainly not 
 irremediable. Not only has this prudence respecting the 
 tendency to increase, prevailed amongst the rich portion, 
 those living without labour, of every community; but 
 they have been constantly reproached with the excess of 
 this prudence as a vice ; they have been punished for this 
 supposed vice by foolish penal laws, and their numbers 
 have been constantly kept up by recruits from the poorer 
 classes. To impart prudence, is to impart knowledge of 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 405 
 
 facts and habits of self-control restraining immediate 
 inclination for the sake of greater preponderant good. 
 If it be possible to give this knowledge and these habits 
 to one portion of society, we are at all events so far assured 
 as to see that there is no law of nature against imparting 
 knowledge and habits of self-control to other portions of 
 society, or generally to all the members thereof. This 
 leads to the real solution of the pretended difficulty. The 
 lovers of the institutions of insecurity, know full well that 
 no law of nature prevents knowledge and habits of self- 
 control from being given to all ; but they more than fear 
 that such knowledge would be incompatible with their 
 institutions ; and with them, such institutions, systems, or 
 expedients, are of more importance than the happiness of 
 the whole human race. Therefore it is, that they lay it 
 down as an axiom, that the mass of mankind must always 
 necessarily remain ignorant and slaves to the impulses of 
 momentary feelings, inasmuch as their ill-apprehended 
 interests require, in their opinion, that such ignorance 
 should continue. " Human beings, like rats, as soon as 
 they have an abundance of food, will breed on till they 
 kill each other ; if the animals with four or two legs had 
 knowledge, this over-breeding would be stopped ; but if 
 they had knowledge and bred less, we should not be 
 able to seize on so much of the products of their labour, 
 which our wise institutions have secured to us as our pro- 
 perty ; this property in the fruits of their labour is the 
 world to us ; therefore it would be absurd, wicked, impious, 
 impracticable, and what not, to impart knowledge to the 
 majority, the working portion of mankind, who are of 
 right, and from all eternity, doomed to labour and to nothing 
 but labour." 
 
 This the diffusion of knowledge and self-control 
 amongst the individuals of all communities the only 
 important part of the population question, has been alto- 
 gether kept out of view by its supporters. (The ignorance 
 and perversity of the mass of their fellow-creatures was 
 
406 
 
 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 necessary to their system. That ignorance and that 
 perversity, were the necessary creation of the systems of 
 insecurity to which they were attached ; and they therefore 
 decreed them to be eternal and irrevocable as any of the phy- 
 sical laws of nature^) Whether they are so irrevocable, or 
 necessarily attached to the constitution of human kind, 
 those who have read the preceding pages will judge. 
 
 I But the facts which they have brought forward, in 
 support of this supposed past perverseness of ignorant 
 human creatures, over-breeding and destroying, themselves, 
 their own happiness, the moment that abundant food and 
 increased comforts afforded them the means, with prudence, 
 of enjoying it, are altogether mis-stated. The real facts, 
 as ascertained by human experience, are directly the 
 reverse; they prove that every advance made in the 
 career of industry and comfort, has a tendency to engender 
 habits of prudence, and instead of producing a superfluous 
 population greater in proportion to food and comforts than 
 the previous numbers under a smaller share of industry 
 and comforts ; their uniform tendency, on the contrary, is to 
 produce a lesser proportion. A greater absolute population 
 always follows increased industry and comforts ; but, as 
 certainly, a smaller relative population, a smaller population 
 in proportion to the increased comforts and necessaries of 
 life. It is by not attending to this distinction, not per- 
 ceiving or wilfully confounding things so different as an 
 absolute and relative increase of population, that much of 
 error on this subject has arisen. } It is submitted to those 
 who apprehend evils, so great as to arrest the progress of 
 human improvement, from the increase of population alone, 
 that even under the institutions of society, as they have 
 hitherto existed, even under the institutions of insecurity 
 where human industry has not been entirely suppressed, 
 1. Increased comforts of life have always produced, in 
 every community permanently enjoying them, 
 increased (instead of diminished) prudence respec- 
 ting the increase of their numbers. 
 
Most conduct ce to Human Happiness. 407 
 
 2. Increased comforts of life permit an absolute increase 
 
 of population consistently with the exercise of that 
 prudence. 
 
 3. Increased comforts of life prevent any relative 
 increase of population, proportioned to food, which 
 would lessen those increased comforts. 
 
 And what is still more important all these effects 
 on population arising from the possession of increased 
 comforts, have been produced without any instruction, 
 without any aid of laws respecting population, simply by 
 the influence of the new circumstances in which communi- 
 ties have found themselves placed, those new circumstances 
 affording new motives to action. What would the effects 
 on general prudence have been, and of course on prudence 
 as applied to population, had equal security, instead of 
 expedients of insecurity, been the lot of all, and had 
 knowledge been universally diffused? 
 
 An appeal to the prudential habits of every nation at 
 different periods of its history as far as those habits 
 from certain transmitted facts can be ascertained as well 
 as to those of all the different people who now occupy the 
 earth, will prove the first proposition. To instance those 
 countries which we know the best, where amongst them 
 exist in the greatest force prudential habits with respect to 
 increase of numbers ? In the poor or in the rich countries, 
 in those possessing the most or the least of the comforts 
 and conveniences of life, in Poland, Ireland, Russia, Naples, 
 or in parts of Norway, Switzerland, England, France, the 
 United States of North America ? And in what districts 
 again, amongst what classes, of all these countries, the 
 poor or the rich, those enjoying or those wanting comforts, 
 do these prudential habits most prevail ? 
 
 In Ireland it is notorious that the great bulk of the 
 community are not only without the conveniences and com- 
 forts, but often in want of the necessaries, of life. Amongst 
 those destitute members of the Irish community, it is 
 equally notorious that no prudential habits exist with 
 
408 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 respect to the increase of numbers ; but in the north of 
 Ireland, where increased industry and superior comforts 
 prevail, there prudential habits with respect to marriage 
 and increase prevail also. Tn England, where increased 
 comforts did prevail amongst the mass of the community, 
 prudential views with respect to increase of numbers 
 everywhere prevailed. In those parts of the country 
 where wages were permanently highest and most comforts 
 prevailed, there those prudential views were most prevalent. 
 Still more prevalent in the middle classes; and in the 
 richest, most of all. 
 
 In Ireland, there has been for the last fifty years an 
 immense increase of population, in the midst of the absence 
 of all the comforts of life. In the United States of North 
 America, there has been a similar increase of numbers in 
 the midst of abundance and comparative happiness. 
 Mark the explanation. In Ireland, deprived by insecurity 
 of comforts, the increase has been both absolute and 
 relative ; absolute as compared with the preceding num- 
 bers, relative as compared with means of support. In 
 America, on the contrary, where partial security permitted 
 the enjoyment of comforts to the whole community, the 
 increase has been absolute merely, not relative. In 
 America, the prudential check has operated differently in 
 different parts of the country, but everywhere preventing 
 an increase of numbers relative to food. The comforts of 
 the people have been constantly on the advance with the 
 increase of population ; population has advanced because 
 it was compatible with the continuance of increased com- 
 forts. Nay, such was frequently the remuneration of 
 labour, that very young children could earn more than 
 enough for their support, thus holding out the bounty of 
 still increased comfort to the parents on their production. 
 Under such circumstances, not to increase numbers would 
 have been the height of imprudence. 
 
 In many parts of Norway, we are told, of Switzerland, 
 and in Holland, the situation of tjie people as to the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 409 
 
 comforts and conveniences of life, has been much above 
 that of those surrounding them. The circumstances, 
 physical and political, of those countries, are very 
 different. The conduct of the people with respect to 
 marriage and increase, is also very different. The circum- 
 stances in which they agree, is in the possession of 
 superior comforts by the people. What is the consequence 
 as to increase of numbers ? That the prudential check is 
 everywhere in operation, struggling against the opposing 
 and varying expedients of insecurity, to preserve to the 
 people those comforts ; and this prudential check exactly 
 adapts itself to the varying physical and political circum- 
 stances of each country. In Norway and Switzerland, 
 where the climate is healthy, where life is long, and there 
 is no room for an increase of numbers without diminishing 
 their comforts, marriages are late. Until there is an 
 opening, by the natural departure of the previous posses- 
 sors of a dwelling and of employment, for a new marriage 
 and consequent increase, an increase does not take place. 
 But in those parts of Holland where the mortality is great 
 from the unhealthiness of the climate, and where there is 
 no more room for an increase of population than in Nor- 
 way or Switzerland, the prudential check is differently 
 exerted ; more children must be there born, as well to 
 supply the greater waste in childhood, as to succeed and 
 replace the more quickly departing adults. Earlier 
 marriages, more marriages and births, are there requisite to 
 keep up the absolute population, preserving the same 
 comforts to the new comers that the preceding occupants 
 enjoyed, or rather not diminishing the previous comforts of 
 the increasers of the population. Thus increased comforts 
 beget, under varying circumstances, an equal desire to re- 
 tain those comforts, and consequent disinclination to part 
 with them, through the expenses of marriage, as much as 
 through any other means. 
 
 In Kussia, where there are no comforts, the mass of 
 the country people being absolute slaves, sold always with 
 
410 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 the soil, like the rest of the live or dead stock, frequently 
 disposed of, detached from the soil, like the slaves in 
 the Southern States of the free Union of North America, 
 the prudential check with respect to marriage is un- 
 known. Fatigue, privation, indiscriminate intercourse, 
 regulation, may prevent the increase of slaves, black 
 or white, in Russia, the West Indies, or the United 
 States ; but the exercise of foresight, the prudential check, 
 never will. They will constantly breed up to the means 
 of support, however wretched, to which they had been ac- 
 customed ; and general ignorance, and the habit of yielding 
 to motives immediately stimulant, chiefly those of force, 
 render them incapable of calculation and quite indifferent 
 as to the effects of breeding beyond these means. All pro- 
 cesses of thought, calculation, and prudence, are left to the 
 master : obedience and labour, and enjoying what he can 
 get, are the province of the slave. 
 
 The increase of numbers in England and Ireland dur- 
 ing the last fifty years, is a demonstration of the falsehood 
 of the position, that increased comforts beget imprudence, 
 and lead those possessing them to increase their numbers 
 to an extent incompatible with the enjoyment of those com- 
 forts. In England the people had comforts, in Ireland 
 they had not. In Ireland the population has increased 
 more than fifty per cent, beyond the ratio of increase in 
 England. The cause of the increase in Ireland was the 
 possibility, from the removal of some of the previous re- 
 straints of insecurity, coinciding with the greater demand 
 for agricultural produce, which the increasing manufac- 
 turing industry of England had produced, of maintaining 
 a greater number of human beings in the same state of 
 discomfort in which they had been accustomed to live ; or, 
 perhaps, even with some little increase of comfort. The 
 cause of the increase in England was the continually in- 
 creasing productiveness of labour for many years, per- 
 mitting an increase of numbers to exist possessing the same 
 comforts previously enjoyed. In Ireland, where there were 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 411 
 
 no comforts, increase went on without prudence : in Eng- 
 land, where there were comforts, increase went on with 
 prudence, the increasing numbers enjoying like their pre- 
 decessors. True, that even in England, notwithstanding their 
 comforts, as well as in Ireland, this seeming prosperity 
 was arrested, and the increased population fell, and are 
 falling, into wretchedness. What caused this? Was it 
 the effect of increased comforts, generating imprudence, 
 and over-population ? No such thing. It has arisen from 
 the operation of circumstances, producing results, which 
 not only the prudence of the people, working hard and en- 
 joying mere comforts, could not have foreseen, but which 
 not even the prudence nor the fears of the wisest, not 
 labouring, but devoted to thought, and to thought on 
 economical, political, and moral subjects, had anticipated. 
 It arose from the deep-seated, wide-spreading, and secret- 
 working machinations of political power, operating by 
 means of the old and of superadded expedients of insecurity, 
 plundering the products of present labour, anticipating the 
 products of all future labour, and engrossing to itself and 
 the possessors of capital, all the benefits of the immense 
 facilities of production, which mechanical and other 
 improvements in the sciences and arts had put within the 
 reach of the whole community. Was it to be expected 
 from the prudence or the knowledge of the artizan or the 
 agriculturist, that he should foresee that in a few years the 
 exertion of the same persevering labour and skill, which 
 had enable him hitherto to enjoy a certain quantity of the 
 comforts and conveniences, as well as the necessaries, of 
 life, would no longer render him the same advantages ? 
 Was it for him to calculate the effect of always fraudulent 
 and devastating changes in the currency ? Was it for 
 him to calculate when it would please his plunderers to 
 order him to pay two measures of wheat instead of one, 
 which he previously paid ? Was it for him to calculate 
 the effects of the ceasing to squander in wicked expenditure 
 the hard-earned capital of the country? under the name of 
 
412 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 loans accumulating what is called a national debt? Was 
 it for him to anticipate or to provide against capricious 
 changes in taxation, the amount or the mode of levying 
 taxes, rendering certain branches of industry unproductive 
 to-day which had been most productive a few days before ? 
 Was it for him to anticipate or to provide against the effects 
 of foreign treaties, battles, revolutions, of never-ending 
 laws, each more wicked and absurd than its predecessors, 
 interfering in favour of capitalists and the privileged classes, 
 with the free direction and the remuneration of labour, over 
 which he could have no control ? the effect of which, and 
 numerous other events, in raising and depressing the 
 remuneration of labour, was perfectly indifferent to the 
 holders of political power, provided certain selfish objects 
 of their own were attained by them ? Was it for him to 
 anticipate the effects of the treacherous bounty of poor- 
 laws, the succedaneum for the mischiefs of the expedients 
 of insecurity? These were the events, all these and 
 such as these, entirely extraneous to the regular course of 
 industry, that rendered unavailing the calculations of 
 prudence : these were the events, and not the pretended 
 folly of over-breeding under increased comforts, that have 
 been bringing down the English people to the situation of 
 paupers,, and that must keep all mankind in a state of 
 want, vice, and misery, as long as they are permitted to 
 exist, as long as any institutions of insecurity, under 
 whatever new disguises they may put on, remain amongst 
 men. Were it not for these, were equal security established, 
 or even that approach to it which permits a considerable 
 share of comforts to the productive labourers, the mere 
 habit and love of immediate enjoyment, would of itself 
 guard against the loss of those comforts by over-breeding : 
 how much more when this mere selfish feeling is aided by 
 knowledge, by a prospective sympathy with the discomforts 
 of those whom imprudence would bring into the world, 
 by a dread of lowering the state of the productive labourers 
 themselves to equal discomfort ? In that country, and in 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 413 
 
 that part of every country, where the people are the 
 poorest and most ignorant, where the least comforts are 
 enjoyed, there is uniformly the greatest increase of the 
 population; and in proportion as comforts are increased, the 
 comparative progress of population diminishes, the love of 
 comforts, and the disinclination to part with them, seeming 
 always to increase with their amount. No truth of economy 
 and morals is more certain, than that the increase of 
 comforts amongst mankind engenders prudence, and 
 arrests, instead of encouraging, the tendency to increase 
 their numbers beyond the supply of those comforts. 
 
 If, under the individual exertion and competition of 
 equal or even partial security, the progress of improvement, 
 and consequent increase of comforts, would constantly tend 
 to increase the prudential check, and limit the increase 
 of numbers to the constantly increasing command of 
 enjoyments ; what would be the peculiar effects under that 
 branch of equal security, which takes mutual co-operation 
 for its mode of production, and equality for its rule of 
 enjoyment? 
 
 The general state of the country in which one or more 
 of the co-operating communities may be placed, must be 
 either stationary, advancing, or declining, as to general 
 wealth and population. 
 
 Let us suppose, then, that the state of the country in 
 which these communities exist, is merely stationary, and 
 admits of no increase of population, of nothing more than 
 the replacing by new births those who yearly cease to live. 
 In such a state of things, in ordinary society, as we have 
 seen, when the people live in comfort, the prudential check 
 is called into full exertion, and is abundantly adequate to 
 prevent any injurious increase of members, or such as 
 would lessen those comforts : but when the circumstances 
 of the people are wretched, 'tis not the prudential check 
 that operates ; prudence has no place amidst eternal want ; 
 breeding goes on as amongst the lower animals, till cold, 
 nakedness, hunger, disease seize on their victims and keep 
 
414 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 down the population by misery to the level of their 
 wretched means of support. What, then, is the modification 
 that would be presented in the use of the prudential check 
 by means of the system of co-operation, reposing, as all 
 industry must repose, under the shelter of security? 
 First, abundant comforts, and the habit of enjoying, would 
 beget an unwillingness to part with them as before. Next, 
 superior information and extended sympathy would 
 increase and justify this disinclination, from a view of the 
 discomfort it would produce to the new sharers as well as 
 to the old. True that the inconveniences of a large family 
 would not, under mutual co-operation, press so heavily on 
 the individual as under competition with the most perfect 
 equal security : but a regard for the common welfare and 
 common loss of comforts, in which their own would be 
 included, would soon become at least as powerful a curb, 
 in such minds as those of the co-operators, as the simple 
 individual motive produces in the minds of competitors. 
 Suppose this motive, however, of the loss of general 
 comforts, to be ever so much weakened, to be reduced to 
 nothing, still no evil would arise from its absence ; for the 
 circumstances of the new communities form such a barrier 
 around them in the way of population, as would seem 
 almost to render superfluous the exercise of that prudence, 
 with which, on this as on other occasions, they must be 
 pre-eminently imbued. 
 
 The case supposed is, that the co-operating community 
 cannot increase its numbers without decreasing its comforts 
 by dividing them amongst a larger number, and that this 
 numerical expansion of diminished enjoyment, will not 
 counterbalance the loss of its intensity to the smaller 
 number. It is hardly possible to conceive any set of 
 expedients better calculated to meet such a contingency, 
 than those proposed for tha co-operating communities. 
 The size of the establishment, the number of apartments 
 for married people, is determined, as well as every other 
 detail of the arrangements, for a given population. The 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 415 
 
 original settlers of a community are, say, five hundred 
 married persons, one hundred unmarried occupying rooms, 
 and six hundred children and young people of all ages not 
 adult. Any of the unmarried adults occupying rooms, 
 have the means of marrying in the community whenever 
 they please. In the course of a few years, some of the 
 elder children become adult : but in the course of these 
 same years, mortality is walking his silent rounds, and 
 many of those desiring to marry succeed to the vacant 
 rooms. Still vacancies may not occur as quickly as the 
 expanding development and health of the young would 
 demand them. Will not imprudent marriages take place ? 
 Impossible : at least, unless the parties marrying wish to 
 leave the community. If, in spite of prudence and the 
 benevolent opinion of the community, they marry ; where 
 will they live ? All the marriage apartments are already 
 occupied. Though married, they must live in the dormi- 
 tories of the young till vacancies occur for their accom- 
 modation. But the probability is that such preposterous 
 marriages would never occur, that regulations, in the 
 formation of which these adult young people would have 
 as much influence, in proportion to their intellect, as any 
 other individuals, would be formed by the whole commu- 
 nity, which, supported by enlightened public opinion, 
 would cause such premature marriages to.be unheard of. 
 Here is, therefore, the physical check, which keeps the 
 population stationary, never encroaching on absolute 
 comforts ; the state of society, by the supposition, not 
 permitting of such increase. As on a map, the circum- 
 stances of the whole community as to population, and of 
 every individual in it, are under the eye, seen, registered, 
 for the information of all. What detached community 
 living by competition, could ever afford a view of its circum- 
 stances to be in any way compared to this? Under 
 competition, the establishment of the parent must be the 
 resource of the child, and to that his attention is almost 
 exclusively directed, all else depending on chances, more 
 
416 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 or less in the nature of lottery or gambling. Under 
 co-operation, the vacancy of the particular rooms of the 
 parents, is no more under the eye of the children than any 
 other vacancy ; all, as they occur, are open to all that 
 want. Under competition there is an injurious clashing 
 of interest between parents and children, the happiness of 
 the one by marriage depending on the vacating of the 
 establishment by the other; an opposition of interests 
 frequently fatal to all benevolence, occurs, implanting one 
 set of vices in the parents, another in the children. Under 
 the system of social co-operation these injurious circum- 
 stances are withdrawn ; and no motives looking forward 
 to fortune and independence of action on the death of 
 parents, none, but such as accord with intelligence and 
 virtue, are left to operate between parents and children. 
 The depression, too, arising to the whole community from 
 the loss of an old co-operating friend, will be always soon 
 succeeded and relieved by the certain prospect of 
 lengthened happiness to the young, long and warmly 
 attached, and to whom no pecuniary, no corrupting motive, 
 none but the most generous sympathies could have served 
 for grounds of attachment. A simple rule would present 
 itself those whose names, given in by themselves, longest 
 remaining on record, should be the first married. In almost 
 all cases they would be the oldest ; and no hasty ill-judged 
 alliances could take place. Marriages would of course 
 under these circumstances be late ; later in proportion to 
 the healthiness of the community; ten years, perhaps, later 
 than where the circumstances of the society admitted of a 
 pretty rapid increase. 
 
 For the rest, it has been before shown that public opinion 
 would necessarily be in those communities, the most 
 enlightened of society, because it would have the best data 
 for judging rightly, and would have no contrariety of 
 interests opposing a right decision ; and that its influence 
 would be the most efficient, because known to every one 
 and partaken in by every one. If, even in ordinary 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 417 
 
 
 
 society, public opinion is strong enough to command the 
 chastity of the richer classes of women frequently 
 through their whole lives, can it be without influence 
 where its restraints would never be either partial or 
 capricious ? In these communities, there is no mono- 
 poly of private wealth in the hands of men, to enable them 
 to keep mistresses, seraglios, or to hire prostitutes. 
 Women have as much command as men over the common 
 property of the community, partake of the same education, 
 and thus raising themselves to the same level, cast off" at 
 one bound their antiquated degradations and miseries, and 
 at least double the happiness of both sexes by raising all 
 their intercourse to that of intelligence and affection 
 amongst equals. 
 
 So very trivial being the evils to be apprehended from 
 the principle of population amongst the co-operating 
 communities, even under the most unfavourable circum- 
 stances in which they can be placed ; what, if any, are the 
 evils to be apprehended from this principle when the 
 circumstances are more favourable and admit of an increase 
 of population more or less rapid ? The declining state has 
 not been enlarged upon, because it is impossible, the laws 
 of physical nature remaining as they now are, that 
 anything but enormous mis-government on the part 
 of political power could reduce such communities, or 
 indeed society in general, to such a state as not to 
 be able to support their own members. With any 
 other but political power, these communities would be 
 strong enough to cope. Once established, political power 
 alone would be strong enough to render them declining. 
 The decline of industry, whether carried on by competition 
 or co-operation, must arise from the want of security. 
 Nothing less can make real knowledge, so useful to man- 
 kind, to retrograde. The political power that would be 
 able and would be inclined to oppress these communities 
 when established, would also be able and inclined to 
 prevent their establishment to any useful purpose, to any 
 
 B B 
 
418 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 purpose but that of rendering them machines of despo- 
 tism a purpose altogether inconsistent with their nature, 
 which requires free exertion and palpable benefit as the 
 connecting bond of their united labour. It is under free 
 governments only, or those the most nearly approaching to 
 perfect equal security, that mutual co-operating commu- 
 nities can flourish, or even perhaps that they can be 
 established. 
 
 Declining circumstances, except from physical causes 
 or general insecurity, being impossible to such communi- 
 ties, and the stationary having been discussed, it remains 
 to be considered, what effects, as to happiness, would arise 
 from the principle of population, amongst co-operating 
 communities, in an advancing state of society. 
 
 The organisation of man affords him the sources of 
 certain pleasures, those of the senses, of the gratification of 
 hunger and thirst, of the sexual passion, of the feeling of 
 health, or the easy play of all the internal animal functions, 
 of the use of the muscular and intellectual faculties, in- 
 cluding those of sympathy and benevolence ; the aggregate 
 of all of which, or their preponderance over the pains to 
 which he may be subjected, constitutes his happiness. Not 
 wisdom, but insanity, is the conduct which refuses to avail 
 itself of the utmost possible enjoyment from all and every 
 one of these sources. The limit is the production of 
 ulterior preponderant evil, to the agent or others, by the 
 gratification, or the expenditure of time in pleasures of a 
 less value, which would add more to happiness if devoted 
 to those of a superior order. With such limitations, 
 necessary because conducing to happiness, it would be the 
 object of these co-operating communities to increase to the 
 utmost, as well the pleasures derivable from the sexual 
 intercourse, as all other pleasures. In itself every plea- 
 sure is good, and the only rational object of living. By 
 means of true and useful associations, the simple pleasures, 
 and none more eminently than those of the sexual passion, 
 may be raised in value (their grossnesses rejected) almost 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 419 
 
 beyond calculation. To produce this effect with respect to 
 this passion, what are the arrangements of the co-operating 
 communities ? First, the sphere of choice is enlarged to 
 both sexes to the utmost possible extent, even to all the 
 members of the community : next, the health, intelligence, 
 and benevolence of all these multiplied aspirants to mutual 
 sympathy are so universally excited, that the attractions 
 of the lowest and the capacity to increase mutual happiness, 
 must exist in a higher degree than amongst the best gifted 
 with these qualities in general society. 
 
 To appreciate the immense accession to human happi- 
 ness from this one source alone, the right direction of the 
 sexual passion, would appear like romance. Let it be 
 judged of from the immense mischiefs now experienced 
 from its forced misdirection under the expedients of insecu- 
 rity, leading whole hosts of religionists, ascetic moralists, 
 and fanatics, to denounce the very passion itself, to make 
 war on the continuation of their own species, and to 
 confound all pleasures, except an admiration of their own 
 extravagances, under the name of vices. In general 
 society, the choice, not only of one, but of all classes, is 
 arbitrarily reduced to the narrowest possible limits ; and 
 from the prevalence of the competition for wealth, even 
 where circumstances such as those of station are supposed 
 to be equal, personal qualities are mostly disregarded, and 
 pecuniary convenience regulates the most important con- 
 tract of human life. The denial of all education, as of all 
 equal justice, to women, rendering them for the most part 
 of no character, the passive instruments of the animal pro- 
 pensities of men, co-operates in increasing the attachment 
 to mere wealth, so that a connexion founded on esteem 
 and real mutual admiration for palpable pleasing and 
 useful qualities, as well as for nicer inappreciable circum- 
 stances, is quite a rare, and by most persons regarded as 
 a very foolish, occurrence. This limitation of choice is by 
 no means confined to the higher classes, but is difl'u .-.-il 
 through all. The lower prc.suine not to look to the higher, 
 
 BBS 
 
420 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 but revenge themselves in finding out the most trifling 
 sources of distinction amongst each other, which in their 
 eyes would make disreputable a union with one below 
 them, though the cause of inferiority may be seen by no 
 eyes but those which fancy themselves the superior. One 
 endless cause of limitation of choice, is the slightest differ- 
 ence as to wealth, or rather degrees of poverty. The 
 consequence of all which is, that sexual enjoyment be- 
 comes, like everything else in society, a matter of trade, 
 of exchange, just like any other commodity, and every 
 possible art of competition is made use of to buy the 
 persons and lives of the sex, whom nature has made 
 weaker, and want of education more ignorant, at as low a 
 price as possible. The animal pleasure is all that remains 
 even to the stronger sex, shorn of all its enchanting capa- 
 bilities of sympathetic and intellectual association, which 
 can only be enjoyed in the perfectly free intercourse of 
 equals. Privation and neglect, even as to this animal 
 enjoyment, are the lot of the higher orders and of all the 
 married of the weaker sex ; and physical and mental pain 
 after short-lived excitement, and speedy decay of the fever 
 of life, are the lot of the great majority of the remainder 
 of women, the use of whose persons is a matter of trade. 
 All these evils being supposed unavoidable consequences 
 of the sexual passion, and the institutions of insecurity 
 being supposed of superhuman appointment and incapable 
 of change, no wonder that well-meaning ignorance was 
 confounded, and, knowing nothing of the blessings which 
 the passion rightly directed might produce, prayed for its 
 annihilation, in consequence of its abuses, though that of 
 the human race were included in the prayer ! 
 
 But were it possible that the free mutual choice should 
 be enlarged under the institutions of insecurity, little 
 benefit would be derived therefrom. The general ignor- 
 ance and perversity of all, counteracting each other in the 
 pursuit of happiness, and the peculiar factitious imbecility 
 of women chaining them down the passive tools of male 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 421 
 
 animal selfishness, the numbers from which to choose 
 would add little to any other variety but that of wealth : 
 of this there would be all possible shades, but of moral and 
 intellectual qualities still a blank. The flock would be 
 larger, but the individuality of them would be the same to 
 any other eye but that of the shepherd. A continual suc- 
 cession of similar selfish propensities, of similar blanks as 
 to knowledge. In the co-operating communities, how 
 different would be this effect of increased numbers out of 
 whom to find congeniality of mind and affections ! With 
 the length, or terms, of the connexion we have nothing 
 here to do ; that matter falling under the head of general 
 legislation : but it is obvious that the question of restraint, 
 and that for life, would be disencumbered of its only plau- 
 sible excuse, the desertion of the wife and the comforts 
 and education of the children, under arrangements where 
 neither the comforts nor property of the wife or the chil- 
 dren, nor the education of the children, could be at all 
 affected by the duration of the contract. The iniquitous 
 partiality of the law, giving unbridled range to the adul- 
 teries of one of the parties, while it punishes the other, 
 those to whom nature has given less animal, and partial 
 institutions, less mental strength, in a mode next in severity 
 to the loss of existence, would, like so many other of the 
 expedients of insecurity, be evaded in the co-operating 
 communities. Divorce from bed and board, and permission 
 to re-marry, would be as acceptable, in case of ill-treatment 
 or disagreement, to the weaker party as to the stronger. 
 Community of property would dash to impotence the cruel 
 infamy of the code of exclusion against one-half of the 
 human race, leaving them without property, civil or poli- 
 tical rights, and consequently without knowledge, but 
 keeping them liable to punishment, frequently aggravated, 
 in case of contravention of the code. Hence, in these 
 communities, from all these combined circumstances, it is 
 almost impossible that any alliance of the sexes should be 
 formed on any but the most virtuous principles, from a 
 
422 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 mutual perception of good personal qualities and a sincere 
 desire to increase each other's happiness. Where there is 
 nothing but affection and personal good qualities to be 
 gained by the union, nothing else will be sought for. 
 Where nothing is to be gained by ill-treatment of the 
 physically weaker party, and where the means of tyranny, 
 equally pernicious to all, are taken out of the hands of, 
 or rather voluntarily relinquished by, the stronger party, 
 merit and kindness will necessarily be the qualities cul- 
 tivated to ensure the esteem and conciliate the affections 
 of parties so connected. No distinctions arising from the 
 impertinences of what are called birth or rank, any more 
 than of wealth, being known in these communities personal 
 qualities founded on utility, or tendency to happiness, 
 being the only sources of distinction it is evident that any 
 one having these all, after the first founders, having par- 
 taken of one common and comprehensive education of real 
 knowledge and useful habits may aspire to please any 
 other person of such a community. None, calculated by 
 peculiar shades of character and feelings to increase each 
 other's happiness, would be separated and rendered mise- 
 rable by perverted public opinion, or unfeeling private 
 pride. Not only would all the unmarried be free to all, 
 for the finding out of kindred inclinations within each 
 community, but throughout every other co-operating 
 community the universality of mutual choice would exist, 
 so that amongst all such communities, the choice would be 
 as unrestrained to the members of each other, as at home. 
 With such an opening for the exercise of esteem and affec- 
 tion, and all the pleasing associations attending on the 
 sexual passion, who, of such communities, could ever think 
 of wantonly flinging away the higher gratifications of this 
 passion for its lowest impulses, encompassed with disgust 
 and satiety, because not relieved by intelligence and sym- 
 pathy? A thousand fold, therefore, would the pleasures 
 arising from, and connected with, the sexual passion be 
 increased by mutual co-operation and joint possession, the 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 423 
 
 sources of the evils arising from its misdirection being 
 dried up. 
 
 But, will it be asked, " In this free scope for esteem 
 and affection, will not jealousies and rivalries spring up, 
 and evil from this source be increased ?" The chief cause 
 of jealousy and rivalry next to the general and all- 
 pervading principles of disunion arising from the institu- 
 tions of insecurity is the low estimate in which women 
 are now held, as mere articles of property, ornament, and 
 occasional use to men. Women are supposed to have 
 no feelings, no choice of their own ; like houses or sheep, 
 they are supposed to be quite passive as to the occupant ; 
 the perfection of the ascetic morality being that they 
 should have no feelings at all, or if any, those of alienation 
 from men and from happiness. Now, where all these cir- 
 cumstances are reversed, where women are brought up and 
 treated like rational beings, and enjoy in all respects equal 
 advantages with men, they will not, like ripe fruit or 
 bales of cloth, be fought for ; their opinion will be of some 
 trifling weight in the disposal of their persons and happiness 
 for life ; and no greater indignity could the imagination 
 frame for such women, than the supposition that they 
 were to become the willing prey of the stronger or more 
 fortunate of two contending savages. Where the choice of 
 two men is the same, the choice of the woman will of course 
 be the preponderating motive ; and vice versa, should two 
 women happen to have an equal affection for one man. 
 Besides the extent of the choice, the removal of all artificial 
 restraints, the numbers all around of intelligent and 
 amiable companions, hold out so much of hope in a new 
 choice, that it is impossible gravely to apprehend any evil, 
 further than the excitement of occasional and temporary 
 regret for accidental miscalculations, from such a source. 
 From peculiarities of physical temperament and natural 
 defects of the mental (cerebral) organisation, no state of 
 social combination can guard. 
 
 The circumstances of general society admitting, by our 
 
424 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 supposition, of an advance of numbers, how is this increase 
 to take place in these co-operating communities ? As soon 
 as some of the young become adults, wish to marry, and find 
 no private rooms in the community made vacant by nature, 
 their wishes are made knoVn. As adults, they have aa 
 much influence, in proportion to their means of persuasion, 
 in the regulation of the affairs and the disposal of property, 
 as any other members of the community. The sole ques- 
 tion is, would it add to the general happiness, that of old, 
 young, middle-aged, children, and aspirants to marriage 
 included, either that pecuniary means of establishment 
 should be afforded out of the general stock, or that new 
 habitations should be erected for the accommodation of the 
 new couples ? Whichever mode of proceeding is judged 
 wisest, will be adopted. As even now in general society 
 we find that parents sometimes abridge their actual com- 
 forts, or those they might otherwise enjoy, to establish 
 their children, feeling more happiness from sympathy in 
 the increased enjoyments of their children, than pain in 
 the loss of the personal use or ownership of the articles of 
 wealth which procured those increased enjoyments ; how 
 much more probable is it, that such pleasures of sympathy 
 will be rated at their highest, where articles of wealth are 
 estimated solely for their intrinsic use, and not at all as 
 means of factitious distinction ? So strong will, doubtless, 
 frequently be the attachment to the scenes, the incidents, 
 and the companions of youth, in these communities, that 
 many, though wishing to marry, would prefer deferring and 
 remaining amongst their friends to acquiring an estab- 
 lishment by purchase in another community, or as parties 
 of a new community. Others, again, would be pleased 
 with the variety of new settlements. None, it is pre- 
 sumed, would return into the comparative vices and 
 miseries of general society. Should the parties wishing 
 to marry, be of different communities, the rule followed, 
 that of freedom as tending to the most happiness, would 
 probably be that the parties, when agreed, should be per- 
 
Most conducive to Iftiman Happiness* 425 
 
 mitted to fix on the community they liked best for their 
 future residence (if determined to wait for a vacancy), the 
 party removing to transfer an individual's share of stock 
 from the old to the new-adopted community, The just 
 value, under prosperous circumstances, to be given to adults 
 preferring a settlement out of the community to waiting 
 for a vacancy within, would be an equal share of the whole 
 accumulated property, one out of a thousand or two thou^ 
 sand in proportion to the number of members. This, or 
 any smaller sum, would be given according to various cir^ 
 cumstances, at different times, in the same or different 
 establishments. On the freedom of choice in marriage, or 
 even the time of marrying, no restraint whatever would 
 be laid by these regulations, the general laws of society 
 rendering such restraint by compulsion impracticable, and 
 the interests of the parties themselves not rendering a vol- 
 itntary restraint probable* The effect of such premature 
 marriages, would be simply, the want of a settlement of 
 private rooms within the community > or of funds to pro* 
 cure a settlement without, accompanied of course with the 
 censure of public opinion on an act of imprudence, should 
 such connexions under such circumstances be deemed im- 
 prudent. But these casualties could only occur in a 
 declining or stationary community; the present is sup- 
 posed to be under advancing circumstances, under which 
 the accumulations of the community would be always pro- 
 ceeding, in anticipation of such regularly-occurring de- 
 mands. Where the original numbers were small, where 
 additional adjoining land could be procured, where new 
 buildings could be conveniently added to the original, or 
 an additional story given to their height, such a mode of 
 providing for increasing numbers, by enlarging the estab- 
 lishment, might be adopted ; and nothing but experience 
 will determine what -number , of co-operators, under 
 different circumstances, will give the largest result of 
 individual, and of course of universal, happiness. It is 
 evident that under such circumstances of prosperity 
 
426 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 amongst co-operating communities, no evils whatever 
 would arise from the sexual passion. Usefully and 
 easily gratified, it would be the gentle bond of universal 
 sympathy : restraint would not provoke it to crime, nor 
 would means or opportunities of excess, reduce it to 
 satiety, disgust, or cold selfish sensuality. 
 
 We come now to the last of the popular objections to 
 the system of voluntary equality, by means of joint 
 production, possession, and enjoyment, to those of a 
 political nature. The only one under this head that seems 
 here deserving of notice, is that which alleges that " these 
 co-operating communities, if successful, would gradually 
 supersede all the present institutions of society by with- 
 drawing mankind from their operation." 
 
 This objection is well founded. If the present insti- 
 tutions, the comforts, the characters, and enjoyments to 
 which they give rise, were such as they ought to be, it 
 would be superfluous to devise new arrangements to evade 
 or improve upon them. It is exactly because these 
 institutions are supposed to be defective, to be irreconcilable 
 with the real improvement and happiness of man, that 
 the new arrangements are proposed for adoption. But in 
 what way is it proposed to supersede these old institutions 
 founded in the ignorance and passions of past ages ? By con- 
 vincing those who support them, as well as those who are 
 injuriously affected by them, that their happiness would be 
 increased by joining in the new social arrangements. It 
 proposes to take nothing of acquired property from any 
 one. . Its object is to raise all, even the most depressed, to 
 an equality of happiness with those who now esteem 
 themselves the most fortunate. Now, are the holders 
 of political power, and the retainers of these institutions, 
 unwilling to trust themselves as judges in their own 
 cause ? to permit themselves to adopt what on examination 
 they may deem most conducive to their own happiness ? 
 Would they wish to bind themselves to remain, in spite of 
 their own convictions, the eternal slaves of institutions, 
 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 427 
 
 though they might wish, on examination, to be no longer 
 in bondage to them ? Or would they wish to take away 
 from their fellow-creatures that liberty of judging respect- 
 ing their happiness, which they would claim for themselves? 
 Political power has now no choice but the following left : 
 it must either adopt this alternative of free discussion, or 
 subject itself to the daily risk of the attacks of force from 
 secret combinations. The truth has got abroad amongst 
 the inhabitants of Europe, that all political institutions 
 ought to be tributary to the happiness of at least the 
 majority and if of the majority, almost always of all of 
 those whose interests they affect, and that that happiness 
 ought to be pursued in the way deemed by that majority 
 the most conducive to it. Neither compulsion nor delusion 
 can much longer govern the affairs of men. Human 
 beings must henceforth judge for themselves, and must be 
 governed through their understandings. 
 
 But, there remains another objection, partaking of the 
 nature of all the preceding, economical, political, and 
 moral, to the anticipations of equality of wealth and uni- 
 versal diffusion of happiness from production by mutual 
 co-operation. It is said, that "communities possessing 
 the richest land, though in no greater quantity than 
 necessary for their own support, will always Jiave an 
 advantage over those possessing poor soils requiring more 
 labour in culture and manure to obtain the same amount 
 of produce ; and that this advantage will be constantly 
 increasing as population advances, and less and less fertile 
 lands are necessarily brought into cultivation." 
 
 This statement supposes that the system of mutual co- 
 operation has so far advanced, that all the communities are 
 possessors of their own soil and capital ; a result which 
 would certainly take place in a few years after their estab- 
 lishment, even where the original co-operators were so 
 poor as to be under the necessity of borrowing the whole 
 of their capital. The more destitute such a community 
 at its commencement, the longer, probably, and more per- 
 
428 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 severing would be their daily labour to work out their 
 independence. 
 
 That the advantage pointed out, would be enjoyed by 
 the fortunate holders of rich land over those cultivating the 
 poor, though held by each in quantities no more than 
 sufficient for the supply of their own wants, cannot be 
 doubted. But the following considerations will show how 
 Very small is the amount* of this apprehended evil. 
 
 As there is in every country, in proportion to its 
 present population, an abundance of land of the first and 
 second quality, whether naturally rich or sterile, to sup- 
 port its present population under the system of labour by 
 mutual co-operation, and in most cases to support a much 
 larger population ; there can be no necessity for tilling 
 bad lands, not to say the worst, till the working of the sys- 
 tem of mutual co-operation shall have very much increased 
 the population of all nations adopting it* 
 
 When this shall have taken place reverting to the 
 operation of increased comforts in begetting a desire to 
 retain them, and habits of foresight and prudence to secure 
 their continuance, as well as to the operation of kno\v- 
 ledge, by education and otherwise, on the minds of young 
 and old of these communities when all the good lands 
 shall have been cultivated, it will then be a simple question 
 of calculation, how far it would be desirable productive of 
 increased happiness to the whole society to proceed in the 
 cultivation of inferior lands. Let improvements in culture 
 be what they may, as we cannot suppose but that rich as 
 well as poor lands will partake of their benefits, or that 
 they will ever make rocks, sands, and mountains as 
 fertile as loams, the difference of soils and the superiority 
 of the good must continue. There will be always in 
 every country, and almost in every district, some lands 
 so barren, that not all the labour of a whole community 
 during eight hours, or every hour of every day of the year, 
 could extort from them enough to preserve the lives of the 
 cultivators. Were rock and sands, by breaking down, 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 429 
 
 mixing, and absolute superinduction of an artificial soil 
 upon them, made productive, the want of heat, from eleva- 
 tion, would in many cases baffle the effort ; and the enor- 
 mous yearly toil requisite to keep such artificial soils in 
 repair, would always ensure the advantage of the naturally 
 fertile soils. The inequality of effort, requisite to procure 
 for different communities an equal supply of food and other 
 articles procured by labour from land, must therefore 
 continue. But we may safely trust to the wisdom of 
 future societies, to prevent a waste of their labour on such 
 unproductive soils, to discontinue their efforts at that point 
 of infertility when labour will cease to yield preponderant 
 good. The check will operate in this way. The young 
 people of the flourishing and happy communities already 
 established on the good lands, wish for marriage unions 
 before vacancies (rooms) occur in their respective estab- 
 lishments. Their share of the capital of the community 
 to which they belong, we suppose they can command. 
 What is the choice before them ? Either to join with other 
 young people like themselves, and devote the united 
 labours of their lives to improve a portion of the sterile 
 land> or to remain surrounded with every rational 
 comfort where they are, till the circumstances of the com- 
 munity permit their marriage. Let the desire of marriage 
 and settlement be ever so strong, the experience of all men 
 in all times, convinces us, that it will not be gratified at 
 the expense of the sacrifice not only of the previous 
 physical comforts of life, but of al] those ties of kindred 
 and friendship which would here so powerfully prevail. 
 What now makes emigrants and settlers on new, though 
 even the most fertile, soils ? Distress : distress of the 
 emigrants, and of the parent society from which they emi- 
 grate. Who ever heard of the emigration and new settle- 
 ment of prosperous young people, in order to anticipate 
 by a few years the period of marriage ? But even if they 
 did now take place, when every individual, without any 
 data for judging, trusts to his chance in the lottery of life, 
 
430 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 and gratifies at all hazards a present inclination, what 
 reason would that afford that under circumstances so 
 altered, where chances on all sides were reduced to certain- 
 ties, the same imprudences would occur imprudences 
 no longer, but converted into absolute insanities ? It is 
 almost needless to observe, that whatever lands could not 
 be advantageously cultivated under mutual co-operation, 
 could much less be cultivated under individual exertion. 
 To pasturage or some other use than tillage would such 
 lands be converted. 
 
 The mass of the evil ultimately apprehended from this 
 source being thus removed, we might still follow its 
 minutest traces ; we will, however, content ourselves with 
 the statement of an expedient, just to all, not a forced but a 
 voluntary expedient, by which all fear of this obstacle of 
 nature to a perfect equality of wealth from the different pro- 
 ductiveness of different soils, must be effectually dispelled. 
 
 All restraints, and of course all institutions, of in- 
 security being, as we suppose, removed, still the same 
 principle of co-operation of communities, will be requisite 
 in conducting the national affairs of common interest of 
 all the individuals of all communities, that is so admirably 
 beneficial in conducting the comparatively private affairs 
 of a family of individuals in each separate community. 
 If the principle be good for the co-operation of a thousand 
 individuals in one community, it is equally good for the 
 co-operation of a thousand or a hundred thousand com- 
 munities, where their joint interests are concerned. 
 Contributions of national wealth will still be requisite to 
 carry on national undertakings, to maintain security 
 from without, as well as from within. Public as well as 
 private plunder ceasing, the products of the labour of no 
 community being abstracted from its own use without an 
 equivalent by it deemed satisfactory, its consent must be 
 obtained to every such abstraction. The amount of these 
 voluntary abstractions or contributions for district, pro- 
 vincial, national, international, or philanthropic purposes, 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 431 
 
 would be inconceivably Bmall, when the passion for 
 individual accumulation and display of wealth had ceased, 
 and when almost all the occasions for the exercise of the 
 ordinary functions of government had also ceased, being 
 superseded by the voluntary discharge of such of those 
 duties as were found necessary within each separate com- 
 munity for its own benefit. Small as they might be, 
 suppose it was proposed to these communities, or any 
 individuals representing them, that the owners of the 
 rich soils producing more wealth, with equal effort, than 
 their less fortunate neighbours, should, according to 
 the degree of fertility of their soils, contribute towards 
 these necessary annual payments, fia it to be supposed 
 that such a contribution, for none but useful purposes, 
 would by such favoured communities be objected to ? a 
 payment in the shape of what is now called rent, the 
 accumulation of which in individual hands is one of the 
 main-stays of excessive inequality of wealth. The con- 
 test more probably would be on the part of the communities 
 with poor land, for opportunity to share the pleasure of 
 contributing to such useful objects. Suppose, again, the 
 worst, that all were selfish, and none wished to pay any 
 part of the public burden, though for purposes of which all, 
 or at least a great majority, approved, and in which all 
 were interested, the will of the majority decrees a tax in 
 the shape of rent, in lieu of all other taxes, to be levied on 
 the rich lands in proportion to their surplus fertility over 
 the poorest generally cultivated lands. By such a regula- 
 tion, the public burdens would be discharged, and perfect 
 equality as to labour and enjoyments derived from wealth, 
 would be produced. If, therefore, after the explanations 
 that have been given, the evil from unequal fertility of 
 soils is still esteemed great, the remedy is simple, is at 
 hand, and quite commensurate to the diseaseA 
 
432 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 EQUALITY OP WEALTH MUST BE ESTABLISHED BY REASON ALOKE. 
 
 Such is the survey, which truth, according to the best 
 judgment of which I am capable, compels me to take of the 
 system of voluntary equality in the distribution of wealth 
 by means of mutual co-operation, under the shelter of 
 equal and perfect security. All force and delusion being 
 removed, the co-operation of each individual depending on 
 his perception of the tendency of the proposed measures 
 to exalt his individual happiness by associating it with 
 that of others, all sinister interest or mysterious design 
 on the part of the agents and promoters of such plans 
 being removed, what remains but that rational men should 
 everywhere try so magnificent an experiment ? 
 
 Much remains to be done. Knowledge remains to be 
 diffused. Mystery must be disclaimed. The whole truth 
 in all its simplicity must be laid before the minds of all. 
 Neither from the few holders of political power, nor from 
 the real society, everywhere plundered, made vicious and 
 miserable by the wretched institutions of which the holders 
 of political power are the tools and the champions, must 
 any part of the truth be~concealed. All consequences must 
 be frankly laid open. Men must be henceforth governed 
 by their reason, contemplating their interest. These 
 communities will not be formed, and ought not to be 
 formed, by enthusiasm, any more than by the arm of 
 authority. Every individual co-operator must be, and 
 ought to be, convinced. This individual convincing, 
 remains to be achieved. It is not enough that no force, no 
 delusion, no sinister interest should exist ; the very 
 suspicion of them should be cleared away from the minds 
 of those expected to co-operate in such communities. 
 Whether Jesuits, Moravians, Shakers, or Harmonists, no 
 communities of mutual co-operation have hitherto been 
 instituted, that have not been founded on principles of 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 433 
 
 exclusion. Hence the persuasion that it is impossible to 
 found them on other principles. Ignorance on the part of 
 the flock, blind submission to their mountebank leaders, 
 proscription of all free inquiry and all other knowledge 
 than that scanty portion requisite to make them regular 
 producers and feeders, have been hitherto the characteristics 
 of labour by mutual co-operation. No wonder that the 
 enlightened and the sincere, no wonder that all lovers of 
 truth, turned from them in disgust. 
 
 These deep-rooted associations must be broken : on 
 free inquiry and knowledge, must these communities be 
 henceforth founded : their utility, not only as to food and 
 raiment, but as to every other source of human happiness, 
 particularly as to freedom from sinister control, must be 
 demonstrated. Men must ultimately see and pursue their 
 interest when plainly laid before them. A more impor- 
 tant and more extensive change in human society was 
 never contemplated by the mind of man. Keason is the 
 only agent worthy of effecting such a change. The puny 
 and suspicious aid of self-constituted political power, 
 would but mar the mighty work. The deliberate wisdom 
 of whole nations, expressed through those, or in the 
 manner, they may appoint, may hereafter facilitate to all 
 individuals so inclined, the acquisition of the entire use of 
 the products of their labour by mutual co-operation. Mean- 
 while, let individual persuasion go forth : for surely a 
 scheme for the production and distribution of wealth, com- 
 bining all the benefits of all the opposite modes of 
 human exertion hitherto practised, and for the attainment 
 in the highest degree of all other human enjoyments, a 
 scheme so wise and so beneficent, and withal so gentle 
 even to those who must be its opponents, creating and not 
 destroying, raising all and depressing none in real happi- 
 ness depressing none the progress of human knowledge 
 never, heretofore, enabled human being to disclose. 
 
 c c 
 
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 OP all the sources of error in reasonings respecting wealth, 
 none have been more frequent or more unavoidable, than 
 assuming that the circumstances surrounding the writer, 
 in whatever country writing, circumstances generated by 
 the modifications of insecurity there prevailing, were un- 
 avoidable and necessarily permanent. The institutions of 
 insecurity, generating peculiar moral or immoral habits, 
 and causing endless modifications in the production and 
 distribution of wealth, not only differ in every country on 
 the face of the globe, but are continually varying in the 
 same country. Hence the improbability of establishing 
 any permanent or universal truths on such partial and 
 treacherous foundations; but hence, also, the prevalence 
 of the error of generalising, or drawing false conclusions 
 from insufficient data. 
 
 As in physical, so in moral inquiries, we must first 
 ascertain facts. In physics, material things and their 
 properties ; in morals, institutions, actions, and their con- 
 sequences. In morals, the real difficulties and till of 
 late years the persecutions attending the inquiries, have 
 retarded this first step of science. This step, however, 
 only preparatory to real knowledge, has been looked upon 
 as knowledge itself; the materials of judging have been 
 used as a bar to prevent the exercise of judgment. Ex- 
 plaining the way in which wealth had been hitherto pro- 
 duced and distributed, inquirers thought their work was 
 done. A collection of all past laws, would be as rational 
 a substitute for the best code of legislation. 
 
On the Distribution of Wealth, fyc. 435 
 
 Our object being to ascertain that mode of distributing 
 wealth which would lead to its greatest reproduction and 
 to the greatest preponderant happiness from all other 
 sources, all former modes of production and distribution 
 have necessarily been discarded as authorities to preclude 
 our judgment as to new combinations, and have been used 
 simply as materials to enable us to form that judgment 
 aright. Slavery and free labour, with all their modifica- 
 tions, the institutions of Hindostan and those of Britain, 
 have been equally used as materials of judging, have been 
 equally spurned as authorities to preclude judgment, and 
 have been equally subjected to the rigid scrutiny of utility. 
 In this mode of inquiry, discarding all particular interests, 
 all existing modes of distribution, or rather merging all 
 particular ill-understood interests, all those aptly termed 
 sinister interests, in the universal interest, the interest of 
 the great mass of men, we have endeavoured to disentangle 
 the question from the intricacies of expedients, instituted 
 for the most part by passion and ignorance, to attain 
 objects for the most part also undesirable, and to reduce 
 the question of distribution to its simplest elements. 
 Men, labour, materials ; the materials afforded by nature, 
 out of which the mental and muscular powers of mankind 
 must fabricate all those means of happiness which wealth 
 affords ; such are our simple elements. How out of these 
 to fabricate, by means of wealth, the greatest mass of 
 happiness, has been the problem to be solved. This 
 problem solved, another inquiry, only secondary in im- 
 portance, presented itself how, with the least incon- 
 venience, to reduce the present chance-formed modes of 
 producing and distributing wealth to that mode which 
 would produce the most happiness ? 
 
 It was found in the beginning of the inquiry, that 
 equality of distribution was calculated to produce incal- 
 culably more happiness than any other mode of distributing 
 wealth, provided the ultimate lots were not so small as to 
 be unworthy the trouble of acquiring and enjoying them, 
 
 c c 2 
 
436 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 and provided such distribution were effected without the 
 evils of force. 
 
 Equality of distribution ought, therefore, to be the 
 rule, to be departed from in those cases only where reasons 
 can be given productive of preponderant good. 
 
 There being no other way of producing wealth but by 
 human effort; sometimes by individual exertion, some- 
 times by the united exertions of more than one, sometimes 
 by united exertions of hundreds ; it is obvious that if the 
 principle of equality of distribution of any given quantity 
 of wealth were extended beyond those concerned in its pro- 
 duction, though the present pleasure of enjoyment by the 
 distribution were increased, yet the motive to the future 
 production of wealth would be taken away from the pro- 
 ducers, and would by no means be given to those to whom 
 enjoyment was given by equality of distribution, without 
 having shared in the labour of production. The producer 
 or producers of wealth would never voluntarily consent 
 that what they had produced for their own purposes, for 
 their own use and enjoyment, should, after production, be 
 taken from them and distributed to increase the happiness 
 of others not co-operating in its production. This prin- 
 ciple applies equally to the cases where the wealth in 
 question has been produced by the joint efforts of two 
 hundred or two thousand, as where it has been produced 
 by two. This limitation as to equality of distribution of 
 the articles of wealth, is called the principle of security. 
 Equality must be limited by security. [_ Security means 
 " free labour, entire use of its products, and voluntary 
 exchanges." \ Without security there is no reproduction. 
 In proportioli to the completeness of the security know- 
 ledge and all other circumstances remaining equal will 
 be. the abundance of the production. In proportion to the 
 defect of the security, will be the falling off in the pro- 
 duction, till it shall ultimately cease, Whether wealth is 
 produced by one or by a thousand individuals, by indi- 
 vidual competition or by mutual co-operation, the necessity 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 437 
 
 of security to reproduction is the same. If the articles of 
 wealth produced by a thousand or ten thousand, be without 
 their consent distributed amongst twenty or a hundred 
 thousand, amongst as many as think the shares so reduced 
 worth their acceptance, will not the future productions of 
 these one thousand or ten thousand, be as much dis- 
 couraged, as the production of an individual would be by 
 a like distribution of what his single efforts had produced ? 
 
 The universal and paramount claim for security 
 which can only apply to articles procured by labour thus 
 established, and no other principle being discovered to 
 restrain the blessings of equality ; it follows that equality 
 ought always to be the rule of distribution where not 
 incompatible with security, much more where the dictates 
 of security and those of equality point the same way. 
 
 The term " security" has been stripped of the false- 
 hood and sophistry with which it has been hitherto asso- 
 ciated. The security here spoken of, is the equal security 
 of all, not the security of a few only, with the insecurity 
 of the greater number; it is the security of "the power 
 of producing," of producing indefinite quantities to be 
 consumed and reproduced every year, of the productive 
 powers of every individual, not of the mere handful of 
 accumulated products of those powers which some few 
 have, by whatever means, accumulated. 
 
 The only justifiable limit, that is to say, the only limit 
 productive of preponderant good, to equality of distri- 
 bution, being equality of security, the effects of upholding 
 impartially this principle of equal security, have been 
 anxiously traced; and it has been shown that equal 
 security impartially dealt out to all members of society, 
 instead of being confined to a favoured few, becomes in its 
 progress the companion and the only firm and unfailing 
 support of equality of distribution ; not, as hitherto falsely 
 supposed, its enemy. Though it may not produce abso- 
 lute equality, though it may not preclude the possibility 
 of casualties arising chiefly from physical causes, though 
 
438 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 some may be still found richer and some poorer than 
 others, yet will all extremes of wealth and poverty be 
 banished. The great mass of the vices and miseries arising 
 from excessive wealth and excessive poverty, will cease, 
 and those only will remain which are inseparable from the 
 competition of talent and exertion in its most useful form. 
 That spurious security, upheld by the terrors of politi- 
 cal power, and too often slavishly or ignorantly worshipped 
 by political economists, security in the enjoyment and 
 perpetuation of all existing modes of acquisition, or rather 
 of commanding the products of the yearly labour of others, 
 to their chance possessors, though wrung from the in- 
 security of the rest of the community, has been exposed ; 
 and the monstrous hypocrisy and other vices, the various 
 wretchedness, and the weakening even to the annihilation 
 of industry and reproduction in proportion to the extent of 
 its sway, which this false substitute for real impartial 
 security has everywhere produced, have been exhibited. 
 To this fatal usurper of the name of security, has been 
 given its real and appropriate title, " insecurity," and all 
 the various and ever-shifting means of force and fraud, 
 which it has employed to attain its ends, to perpetuate its 
 usurpations over the happiness of men, have been styled 
 the " expedients or institutions of insecurity." While the 
 genuine principle of equal security leads to an almost 
 actual equality in the distribution of wealth, produced by 
 impartial competition, the false principle of spurious 
 security leads to the utmost inequality of its distribution, 
 by trampling down competition and excluding all the 
 world but itself from the benefits of security. To such 
 horrible abuses has the spurious term security been 
 applied, that under its name has been justified and is still 
 upheld, the system of human slavery, that assemblage in 
 one word, that wholesale license for the perpetration, of all 
 human vices and crimes affecting the property and the 
 person of another. The security in all shapes of one 
 human being must be surrendered to maintain an incon- 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 
 
 439 
 
 Equal security 
 Protects the free direction 
 of the labour of all. 
 
 Protects all alike in the 
 entire use of the products 
 of their labour. 
 
 Protects all voluntary ex- 
 changes. 
 
 siderable atom of the security, that of part of the property 
 of another human being ! 
 
 The characteristics of genuine, or equal, security and 
 of spurious security, or of security and insecurity, have 
 been developed. 
 
 Spurious security 
 Kestrains the free direction 
 of labour to all but its fa- 
 vourites ; to whom, in ad- 
 dition, it permits the use 
 of force and fraud. 
 Permits the plunder of the 
 products of the labour of 
 all, by those having poli- 
 tical or other power. 
 Kestrains all exchanges in 
 order to increase or par- 
 petuate the acquisitions 
 of its favourites (by 
 means of which acquisi- 
 tions they engross almost 
 all the products of human 
 labour J, or to facilitate 
 the collection of public 
 plunder, or for other par- 
 tial purposes. 
 
 These characteristics of equal security as to wealth, 
 embrace what have been vaguely called the " Natural 
 Laws of Distribution," or those fundamental rules respect- 
 ing the distribution of wealth, which no law of any society 
 can violate without detracting in a proportionate degree 
 from the greatest mass of happiness which wealth is cal- 
 culated to produce : Free labour, entire use of its pro- 
 ductS) and voluntary exchanges ; so simple are the 
 rules on which all just distribution of wealth ought to be 
 founded. 
 
 Spurious security directs its almost undivided atten- 
 
440 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 tion to the actual accumulations of wealth, to the preserva- 
 tion of the divisions and modes of division which actually 
 exist : equal or genuine security, looks more to the pro- 
 ductive powers, to the capacity of producing future wealth, 
 than to the actual quantity accumulated ; and neither to 
 that portion which is, or which may be, accumulated, is its 
 attention directed with any other view than that of educ- 
 ing therefrom the greatest possible mass of human happi- 
 ness, that of the non-possessors as much as of those who 
 possess. To estimate the importance of this distinction, 
 we should inquire, which of the two masses of wealth, that 
 already accumulated even in the most wealthy community, 
 or that capable of being produced, yearly, or in a few 
 years, by ordinary skill and industry, are the greatest in 
 quantity and the most influential on human happiness. 
 
 It is little thought, by most persons not all sus- 
 pected, how very small a proportion, either in extent 
 or influence, the actual accumulations of society bear to 
 human productive powers, even to the ordinary consump- 
 tion of a few years of a single generation. The reason is 
 obvious ; but the effect very pernicious. The wealth that 
 is annually consumed, disappearing with its consumption, 
 is seen but for a moment, and makes no impression but 
 during the act of enjoyment or use. But that part of 
 wealth which is of slow consumption, furniture, machinery, 
 buildings, from childhood to old age stand out before the 
 eye, the durable monuments of human exertion. By 
 means of the possession of this fixed, permanent, or 
 slowly consumed, part of national wealth, of the land and 
 materials to work upon, the tools to work with, the houses 
 to shelter whilst working, the holders of these articles 
 command for their own benefit the yearly productive 
 powers of all the really efficient productive labourers of 
 society, though these articles may bear ever so small a 
 proportion to the recurring products of that labour. The 
 population of Britain and Ireland being twenty millions, 
 the average consumption of each individual, man, woman, 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 441 
 
 and child, is probably about twenty pounds, making four 
 hundred millions of wealth, the product of labour annually 
 consumed. The whole amount of the accumulated capital 
 of these countries, it has been estimated, does not exceed 
 twelve hundred millions, or three times the year's labour 
 of the community ; or, if equally divided, sixty pounds 
 capital for every individual. 'Tis with the proportions, 
 rather than with the absolute accurate amount of these 
 estimated sums, we are concerned. The interest of this 
 capital stock would support the whole population in the 
 same comfort in which they now exist, for about two months 
 of one year, and the whole accumulated capital itself would 
 maintain them in idleness (could purchasers be found) for 
 three years ! at the end of which time, without houses, 
 clothes, or food, they must starve, or become the slaves of 
 those who supported them in the three years' idleness. As 
 three years to the life of one healthy generation, say forty 
 years, so is the magnitude and importance of the actual 
 wealth, the accumulated capital of even the wealthiest 
 community, to their productive powers, to the productive 
 powers of only one generation ; not of what, under judi- 
 cious arrangements of equal security, they might produce, 
 particularly with the aid of co-operative labour, but of 
 what, under the defective and depressing expedients of 
 insecurity, they do absolutely produce ! It is probable 
 that were the whole society at full and easy work under the 
 co-operative system, they would be able to reproduce in a 
 year and a half (were they in the meantime supported) 
 the seeming mighty mass of existing capital ; to maintain 
 and perpetuate which (or rather the command of the 
 products of yearly labour which it serves as the means of 
 engrossing) for no one wishes to lessen it in its present 
 state of forced division, are all the horrible machinery, 
 the vices, crimes, and miseries of insecurity, sought to be 
 perpetuated. As nothing can be accumulated without 
 first supplying necessaries, and as the great current of 
 human inclination is to enjoyment; hence the comparatively 
 
442 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 trifling amount of the actual wealth of society at any par- 
 ticular moment. 'Tis an eternal round of production and 
 consumption. From the amount of this immense mass of 
 annual consumption and production, the handful of actual 
 accumulation would hardly be missed ; and yet it is to this 
 handful, and not to the mass of productive power, that 
 attention has chiefly been directed. This handful, however, 
 having been seized upon by a few, and been made the in- 
 strument of converting to their use the constantly recur- 
 ring annual products of the labour of the great majority 
 of their fellow-creatures ; hence, in the opinion of these 
 few, the paramount importance of such an instrument. 
 Of importance, that is to say of benefit, to them, yes ; but 
 of a far different, a melancholy importance to those, the 
 labour of whose life it makes tributary to the enjoyments, 
 supposed or real, of the favoured few ; of importance, as 
 compared with the labour of the lives of the productive 
 classes, none whatever. As about one-third part of the 
 annual products of the labour of these countries is now 
 abstracted from the producers, under the name of public 
 burdens, and unproductively consumed by those who give 
 no equivalent, that is to say, none satisfactory to the pro- 
 ducers, it is evident that even under the present arrange- 
 ments, this abstraction ceasing, the amount of the present 
 capital, twelve hundred millions, could be accumulated, 
 though at the expense of great privation and distress, in 
 nine years. The annual produce being four hundred 
 millions, the produce of nine years would be three 
 thousand six hundred millions, the one-third part of which, 
 or twelve hundred millions, is the capital demanded. 
 Under the co-operative system of labour, half the time, 
 or much less, would produce the same result, and allow of 
 ample comforts to the producers during the accumulation. 
 Both of these cases suppose that the present burdens of 
 insecurity were removed. While they remain, individual 
 exertion and co-operative labour must both pine ; though 
 co-operative labour would thrive, were it silly enough to 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 443 
 
 bear it, under a burden which would crush to the earth 
 individual exertion. 
 
 A fair estimate, it is hoped, may now be formed of the 
 comparative importance in the scale of human happiness of 
 accumulated wealth, as opposed to productive powers of 
 creating wealth. With the accumulated masses, par- 
 ticularly when held forth in the hands of a few individuals, 
 the vulgar eye has been always struck. The annually 
 produced and consumed masses, like the eternal and incal- 
 culable waves of a mighty river, roll on and are lost in the 
 forgotten ocean of consumption. On this eternal con- 
 sumption, however, are dependent, not only for almost all 
 gratifications, but even for existence, the whole human 
 race. The quantity and distribution of these yearly pro- 
 ducts, ought to be the paramount objects of consideration* 
 The actual accumulation is altogether of secondary irn* 
 portance, and derives almost the whole of that importance 
 from its influence on the distribution of the yearly pro* 
 ductions. 
 
 It is in this point of view that the happiness derivable 
 from wealth has been here considered. Actual accumu- 
 lations and distributions, have been always considered in 
 reference, and subordinate, to the power of producing. In 
 almost all other systems, the power of producing has been 
 considered in reference, and subordinate, to actual accu- 
 mulations, and to the perpetuating of the existing modes 
 of distribution. In comparison to the preservation of this 
 actual distribution, the ever-recurring misery or happiness 
 of the whole human race has been considered as unworthy 
 of regard. To perpetuate the results of force, fraud, and 
 chance, has been called security ; and to the support of 
 this spurious security, have all the productive powers of 
 the human race been unrelentingly sacrificed. But it is 
 here maintained that no actual mode of distribution is 
 worthy of a moment's regard, except in as far as it tends 
 to promote a preponderance of happiness of the whole 
 society > the poor as well as the rich included. 
 
444 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 To set free the future productive powers of the com- 
 munity, is what equal security demands. Actual accu- 
 mulations must be separated from the power of future 
 production. While on the one hand equal security inter- 
 feres not with the great mass of past real accumulations, 
 on the other it shields the future exertions of productive 
 power from the future continued attacks of that force, fraud, 
 and chance, to which they have been hitherto exposed. 
 
 It has been shown that equality and security equally 
 demand, that in order to obtain the greatest blessings of 
 which they are susceptible, it is necessary that every pro- 
 ducer of wealth should have the entire use of the products 
 of his labour or exertion. But as long as the labourer 
 stands in society divested of everything but the mere 
 power of producing as long as he possesses neither the 
 tools nor machinery to work with, the land or materials to 
 work upon, the house and clothes that shelter him, or even 
 the food which he is consuming while in the act of pro- 
 ducing, as long as any institutions or expedients exist, 
 by the open or unseen operation of which he stands de- 
 pendent day by day for his very life, on those who have 
 accumulated these necessary means of his exertions so 
 long will he remain deprived of almost all the products of 
 his labour, instead of having the use of all of them. 
 
 Force (as well as fraud and chance) being altogether 
 excluded, as inconsistent with genuine equal security, 
 from being employed as an instrument in producing the 
 benefits of equality of distribution, or of the greatest 
 practicable degree of equality ; and the great mass of 
 productive labourers being now without those means of 
 making their labour productive to themselves or to those 
 whom they wish to benefit by it ; it has been proved that 
 a strict adherence for the future to the natural laws of 
 distribution, free labour, entire use of its products, and 
 voluntary exchanges (implying, of course, the abolition of 
 institutions or expedients inconsistent with them), would 
 lead peaceably to this desirable result, and gradually .put 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 445 
 
 all productive labourers in possession of the several 
 articles, under the name of capital, which are necessary to 
 them to enable them to gather the fruits of their industry. 
 
 But, under the protection of the natural laws of dis- 
 tribution, or of equal security, there are two modes of 
 production which may be employed to attain this most 
 essential object, to put all productive labourers into the 
 possession of that portion of capital, and no more, which 
 may be necessary to secure to them the products of their 
 labour. It is as inconsistent with human happiness in 
 general, as with the greatest production of wealth, that 
 capital should be possessed by one set of individuals, and 
 labour by another ; utility demands that all productive 
 labourers should become capitalists, that labour and capital 
 should be in the same hands. Knowledge, in the present 
 state of the human mind, will follow the union of capital 
 and labour. 
 
 Many political economists, it is true, assert that this 
 state of things can never generally exist. If you ask, 
 why ? the reason is, " It has never been." This reason, at 
 best but partially true, is not worth examining. Not so, 
 the amount of the extortion by these means practised on the 
 producers of wealth. By taking out of the possession of 
 the labourer the articles necessary to make his labour pro- 
 ductive, and vesting them in other hands than his, in the 
 hands of a distinct set of men, called capitalists, by the 
 open and covert expedients of insecurity, the producer is 
 frequently defrauded of three-fourths of the produce of 
 his labour. If the producer owned his own house, machi- 
 nery, materials, &c. to the amount say of a hundred 
 pounds, what would be to him the yearly cost or waste of 
 such property ? If these articles lasted one with another 
 fifty years, the expense would be two pounds a-year, to 
 which for repairs add one, and three pounds a-year will at 
 the end of the fifty years replace the original capital of 
 one hundred pounds, keeping it all the intermediate time 
 in a state fit for production. Suppose the worth of his 
 
446 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 labour to be two shillings a-day for three hundred days in 
 the year, we have thirty pounds to represent the yearly 
 value of his labour ; out of which, three pounds, or one- 
 tenth, is consumed in keeping up the things necessary, 
 under the name of capital, to make his labour productive. 
 The remaining nine-tenths of the products of his labour, 
 remain free to be applied to the purposes of enjoyment, 
 either by immediate consumption or by the fabrication of 
 articles calculated for the use of many years. How 
 different is the case when this capital, instead of being 
 possessed by the producer, is possessed by another person 
 called his employer ! For the use of the one hundred 
 pounds capital, the employer will require a profit of ten to 
 twenty, say on an average fifteen, per cent. The yearly 
 value of his labour remains as before thirty pounds. Thus 
 one-third, a half, or two-thirds, of the value of his labour, 
 according to quantity of capital accumulated, and other 
 circumstances influencing the rate of profits, are abstracted 
 from him and handed over to the possessor of the capital. 
 And lest this extortion should not be sufficient, the modes 
 of regulating wages and keeping down combinations 
 amongst the producers, are resorted to, to reduce still 
 further to the smallest possible pittance, the remnant of 
 the produce of his own labour left to the producer for his 
 support. But this capital, represented by one hundred 
 pounds, if produced by the labourers themselves, would 
 not cost one-half the labour represented by that sum. On 
 the other hand, the abstraction by political power of one- 
 third of the remaining products of labour, reduces to a 
 contemptible decimal the portion of the produce of their 
 own labour left to the producer. Lest his eyes should be 
 opened to this multiplied and enormous injustice, he is 
 kept everywhere in the most profound possible state of 
 ignorance ; the advocates of insecurity shrewdly and 
 wisely suspecting that if he acquired knowledge, he would 
 become unfit for his situation, and discontented with it. 
 Doubtless as knowledge is diffused, this tremendous state 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 447 
 
 of things will cease, and the labourer possessing know- 
 ledge, will not only be entitled to, but will enjoy his 
 reward in the entire use of the products of his labour. 
 Capital, labour, and knowledge will be re-united, never 
 more to separate. 
 
 The two modes, under the shield of equal security, of 
 effecting this union are, 
 
 The mode of production by labour, with equal indi- 
 vidual competition, 
 
 The mode of production by labour, with mutual co- 
 operation. 
 
 The advantages of the system of labour by free and 
 equal competition over the present everywhere existing 
 systems of restraints and exclusions, have been pointed 
 out ; and the still superior advantages of labour by mutual 
 co-operation over the ordinary mode of labour under these 
 same expedients of insecurity, have also been pointed out. 
 The advantages of the system of labour by mutual co-ope- 
 ration over the best direction of it by individual exertion, 
 have been explained in many particulars ; enough to show 
 the great superiority of that mode of production, not only 
 as respects wealth but every other source of happiness, 
 over all the modes of production hitherto practised. It is 
 evidently for the interest of society, and even more as to 
 happiness from all other sources than from mere imme- 
 diate wealth, that as much as possible of human labour 
 should be performed by mutual co-operation ; in preference 
 to the system of individual exertion and competition, even 
 in the best form of which it is susceptible. 
 
 These two schemes of production, or systems of labour, 
 resting equally on the broad basis of impartial security, so 
 far from being incompatible with each other, must lend 
 each other support for their mutual protection against the 
 expedients of insecurity, against the revival of them, or of 
 new expedients of oppression. Whatever number of 
 individuals from the different isolated occupations of life, 
 associate together for common benefit, the rest of society 
 
448 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 is left unmolested, its previous accumulations of capital 
 untouched. The associated communities produce and 
 consume like large families, of such numbers as to supply 
 conveniently the whole of each others' wants and comforts 
 of all sorts worthy of the trouble of supplying them by 
 labour, without in any way interfering with those who 
 labour by competition. The associated communities, for 
 all important articles, are a demand and supply to them- 
 selves. If from the effect of their superior combinations 
 and universally diffused skill, they are able to undersell 
 the capitalists of general society, in the disposal of that 
 part of their produce which they raise, to be exchanged for 
 articles which they cannot at equal cost of labour produce 
 themselves at home, one important effect will be, that 
 productive labourers and all rational idlers (if such there 
 be), retailers, and such classes, will see, day by day, the 
 policy of adopting the line, always open to them, of 
 changing their mode of labour by competition for that of 
 co-operation. It is not till the co-operating communities 
 spread over the face of society, absorbing almost the whole 
 domestic and foreign supply of such articles as they 
 deem it wise to produce, that these communities will, in 
 an extensive mercantile way, clash with the interests of 
 large capitalists and their individual pauper producers. 
 Should such time arrive, then the producers by competition 
 of such articles must of necessity adopt the improved 
 method of associating together, and supplying their wants 
 by mutual co-operation. From the impossibility of living 
 any longer isolated, each striving for himself, they will 
 be forced capitalists and labourers to make themselves 
 happy by a combination of supply and demand. If they 
 are undersold in their old mode of industry, a new and 
 superior mode is always open to them; a mode which 
 does not admit of over-stocking, where on themselves alone 
 will depend the supplying of all their essential wants. 
 
 The great object of wisdom and benevolence with 
 respect to the distribution of wealth should be, to make 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 449 
 
 every member of society a capitalist-labourer and a contri- 
 butor to the joint stock of happiness ; and, with this view, 
 to devise arrangements by which this great object may be 
 effected with the least possible inconvenience, not only to 
 the holders of the capital already accumulated, but even to 
 the idlers who are now a mere burden on productive labour, 
 and of little benefit to themselves. Whatever the supposed 
 inconvenience, 'tis as nothing compared with the benefits 
 of the mighty change. Political changes are useful in as 
 far only as by establishing, or making advances to the 
 establishment of, the great principle of genuine "security;" 
 their obvious tendency is to bring about this great change, 
 which the unnecessarily degraded mass of mankind, 
 without knowledge, without comfort, without mutual kind- 
 ness, demand of the hand of justice, and which the real 
 interests of those who esteem themselves privileged classes, 
 almost equally demand. 
 
 As long as the accumulated capital of society remains" 
 in one set of hands, and the productive powers of creating 
 wealth remain in another, this accumulated capital will, 
 while the nature of man continues as at present, be made 
 use of to counteract the natural laws of distribution, and 
 to deprive the producers of the use of what their labour j 
 has produced. Were it possible to conceive that under 
 simple representative institutions, any such of the expe- * 
 dients of insecurity should be permitted to remain in 
 existence as would uphold the disunion of capital and 
 labour, such representative institutions (though all the 
 plunder of political power should cease) would be of little 
 further benefit to the real happiness of mankind, than as 
 affording an easy means for the development of knowledge 
 and the ultimate abolition of such expedients. As long as 
 a class of mere capitalists exists, society must remain in a 
 diseased state. Whatever plunder is saved from the hand 
 of political power, will be levied in another way under the 
 name of profits, by capitalists, who, while capitalists, must 
 be always the law-makers. The possession of larger 
 
 D D 
 
450 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 masses of capital than the ordinary average, by a few 
 scattered through society, and forming an exception to the 
 general rule, would produce no apparent mischief: its 
 influence in the way of extortion, would be nothing in face 
 of the general system of capitalist-producers. Producing 
 by competition, or producing by co-operation, till the pro- 
 ducers become possessed of the houses in which they live, 
 and of all things requisite to make their labour productive, 
 and to secure to their own disposal the whole products of 
 their labour, they will remain, though by whatever indi- 
 rect means, the efficient, though apparently voluntary, 
 slaves of those possessed of the things without which their 
 power of producing is vain. 
 
 But the case supposed is an impossible one. Eepre- 
 sentative institutions are incompatible with the expedients 
 of insecurity ; their very establishment includes the 
 ceasing of the most mischievous of all expedients, that 
 of public plunder, of abstracting, for any purpose, the 
 products of labour without the consent of the producer ; 
 their very establishment tends to the dissolution of the 
 league between capitalists and the holders of political 
 power ; because the great and paramount interest of those 
 not possessed of capital would be as fully represented as 
 that of those possessing it ; their very establishment gives 
 the power to the majority, whose interest it is, to abolish 
 one by one every expedient of insecurity, and at the same 
 time affords the most efficient means for the acquiring of 
 that knowledge, which is necessary to all having power, 
 for its right use, the production of the greatest mass of 
 happiness. 
 
 Inimical to every scheme of labour, to every arrange- 
 ment tending to remove those of the present pernicious 
 distinctions of society which are unconnected with moral 
 or intellectual worth, inimical to every project for raising 
 their fellow-creatures to a level with themselves, whether 
 by competition or co-operation, must the holders of 
 political power necessarily be. Otherwise they would use 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 451 
 
 that power for the sole purpose of abolishing, with as 
 little inconvenience as possible to any human being, all 
 such distinctions. Are they not, like all other human 
 beings, the creatures of the circumstances in which they 
 are and have been placed? And can it be rationally 
 expected that they will become the admirers of systems, 
 the ultimate effect of which must be to abolish all factitious 
 distinctions between them and their fellow-creatures ? all 
 those distinctions, on which depends almost the whole of 
 the little happiness of life they possess, though purchased 
 by the wretchedness of the millions of their fellow-men ? 
 No no they will patronise whatever and whomsoever 
 they can hope to make subservient to their limited and 
 mistaken views. Failing this object, no other aid can be 
 expected of them, than the withholding of brute force as 
 an answer to statements of facts and reasonings addressed 
 to the interest of mankind. Prudence will compel them 
 to this policy. As a class, conviction will never operate 
 upon them ; in proportion as knowledge is diffused through 
 the mass of mankind, they will yield through prudence, 
 not through conviction. 
 
 The system of labour by mutual co-operation appears 
 to be attended with such paramount advantages, not to 
 class or party, but to the whole of society, that it can well 
 afford a competition with individual or isolated exertion in 
 its best shape. If it cannot, it ought not to be preferred 
 or followed. Nothing but experience of the two under 
 their best forms, can or ought to convince mankind of the 
 superiority of either. The same previous circumstances 
 are requisite for the full development of both. Equal 
 security once established, and the best form of individual 
 exertion being exhibited, the real points of superiority of 
 labour by co-operation will be apparent, and individual 
 exertion will have no means of evading the proofs of its 
 inferiority by appealing to restraints no longer existing. 
 Equal security once established, a theatre boundless as 
 human efforts will be open to eVery possible combination of 
 
 D D 2 
 
452 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 labour ; and that system of labour which shall be found to 
 promote the most happiness, and the most wealth (as far 
 as worth the labour necessary to create it), will ultimately 
 supersede all other combinations, in as far as it can be 
 usefully applied. Equal security once established, those 
 who are now destitute, the poor, the ignorant, the vicious, 
 the wretched productive labourers of society, will gradually 
 acquire the small capitals necessary to enable them to form 
 large unions of co-operative labour, without depending on 
 the precarious aid of capitalists to put their productive 
 powers in motion. Equal security once established, labour 
 by co-operation will follow in its train as a necessary con- 
 sequence, should the fatal disunion between capital and 
 labour impede, while that disunion and the institutions on 
 which it is founded remain, its previous establishment. 
 Equal security once established, the co-operating commu- 
 nities, like the rest of society, may exert all their energies 
 and multiply productions in peace, assured that the whole 
 fruits of their industry will be at their own disposal. 
 
 What is the conclusion from the whole of our inquiry ? 
 
 Of all the causes which operate on the human character 
 and human happiness, none is of so much importance as 
 the distribution of wealth ; because on that depend almost 
 all those circumstances, those relations, on which the de- 
 velopment of character and happiness depends. But, on 
 the principle of utility, every existing generation having 
 alone the means of judging correctly, possesses the same 
 right, or in other words, would promote its own greatest 
 happiness by exerting the power, of so distributing all the 
 means of happiness it possesses, wealth included, as to 
 ensure that greatest happiness ; just as that same right 
 was exercised by its predecessors. 
 
 No existing distribution ought to be upheld further 
 than as it can be shown to promote preponderant good. 
 If, therefore, it increased the mass of happiness of the 
 whole community (all interests and consequences imme- 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 453 
 
 diate and remote considered), to re-distribute in any possible 
 way the accumulated wealth, land, houses, machinery, food, 
 clothes, and other materials of the whole society, and to 
 re-regulate the future direction of labour, that re-distribu- 
 tion and re-regulation ought to take place : inconvenience 
 to any party being as much as possible removed or 
 mitigated in effecting the change. 
 
 The mass of real accumulated wealth, in point of mag- 
 nitude and influence on human happiness, is so utterly 
 insignificant when compared with the powers of production 
 of the same society in whatever state of civilisation, or 
 even compared with the actual consumption for even a few 
 years of that society, that the great attention of legislators 
 and political economists should be directed to (( productive 
 powers' and their future free development, and not, as 
 hitherto, to the mere accumulated wealth that strikes the 
 eye. 
 
 Of what is called accumulated wealth, by far the 
 greater part is only nominal, consisting not of any real 
 things, ships, houses, cottons, improvements on land, but 
 of mere demands on the future annual productive powers 
 of society, engendered and perpetuated by the expedients 
 or institutions of insecurity fj 
 
 Therefore, without injury to future production and 
 happiness, all accumulations of physical things, or real 
 wealth, may be left in the hands of those who now possess 
 them, to enjoy them as they may ; the use of such articles 
 as a mere means of appropriating to their possessors the 
 wealth to be created by the future productive powers of 
 society, being that alone of which the natural laws of dis- 
 tribution would, without force, gradually deprive them, 
 or, if aided by co-operative labour, would in a very few 
 years deprive them. 
 
 If nine-tenths of any society were persuaded that it 
 would tend to the happiness of all, by means of the system 
 of co-operative labour, or any other modification of labour, 
 under the shield of equal security, that all the existing 
 
4o4 On the Distribution of Wealth 
 
 accumulations of real wealth should be equally divided, 
 so as to make all capitalist-labourers ; it would not be the 
 interest of all to use compulsion towards the minority of 
 one-tenth, being the possessors of the real wealth, to force 
 this distribution ; because, 
 
 If force, instead of persuasion, were used in the 
 formation of the new arrangements of society, what 
 guarantee could be given that force would not be used 
 by every succeeding majority, leading to the annihila- 
 tion of industry and production ? 
 
 The unconvinced possessors of the real wealth 
 would suffer more than the majority would gain, the 
 sense of injustice neutralising the pleasures of the 
 majority, and increasing the pain of the privations of 
 the oppressed. 
 
 The surplus produce of the productive powers of 
 a few years of the majority of the whole society 
 would repay this capital, if borrowed instead of being 
 taken by force, to the satisfaction of all ; or would 
 soon produce a greater amount, without the obligation 
 of borrowing ; making their own houses, machinery, 
 &c. themselves. 
 
 The small minority, possessors of the real capital, 
 would be ultimately convinced to lend, or devote it, 
 to such useful purposes if proved to be useful ; or 
 whether convinced or not, they would, whether from 
 sympathy or prudence, or both, conform to the clearly 
 expressed wishes of those around them : where there 
 is public opinion founded on knowledge, a minority 
 can never long resist it : 'tis only where there is no 
 knowledge, no public opinion, that a minority can 
 rule by force. 
 
 The small minority, possessors of the real capital, 
 whether convinced, sympathising, prudential, or not, 
 would, under such circumstances, find no other use 
 for their capital than making it instrumental to bring 
 about the new order of things generally desired. 
 
Most conducive to Human Happiness. 455 
 
 Equal security not affording them the means of using 1 
 it as an engine for extorting the bulk of the future 
 products of labour from the producers, it must remain 
 unproductive, or be employed to bring about, how- 
 ever reluctantly, the end desired. 
 If a mere majority of any society were persuaded that 
 all producers should be capitalists, all the evils of the use 
 of force would be so much the greater. Equal security, 
 and free discussion, one of its consequences, would speedily 
 accomplish, without force, everything useful. 
 
 In a word, in order to produce the greatest happiness 
 derivable from wealth, the greatest equality reconcileable 
 with security, every producer, whether agricultural, manu- 
 facturing, or in any other way affording a satisfactory 
 equivalent for wealth, OT to possess the faculty of freely 
 directing his labour, with capital sufficient to secure to 
 himself the whole products of his labour, whether pro- 
 ducing on his own account alone, or co-operating in 
 company with others ; and along with this, knowledge to 
 show him how to use and retain these advantages. 
 
 The means to bring about this desirable distribution, 
 are 
 
 1 . Simple representative institutions. 
 
 2. The entire abolition, under these, of all the restraints 
 
 of insecurity (entail, primogeniture, combination 
 local and general, wages-regulation direct or 
 indirect, monopolies of knowledge of professions, 
 of trades, bounties, game, privilege laws, public 
 plunder, with all other expedients incompatible 
 with equal security or the natural laws of distribu- 
 tion), with as little inconvenience as possible to any 
 individual; leaving untouched all past real accu- 
 mulations, but guarding all future products of 
 labour equally from all attacks of force or fraud, 
 direct or indirect, public or private. 
 
 3. The progress and diffusion of knowledge, and the 
 gradual perception of their real interests by all 
 
456 On the Distribution of Wealth, fyc. 
 
 societies, would gradually effect the remainder; 
 that is to say, everything useful as to wealth, as 
 well as to every other means of producing happi- 
 ness, in social arrangement. 
 
 OF THE 
 
 { UNIVERSITY ) 
 
 OF 
 
 THE END. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Accumulated capital unimportant as compared with productive power . 440 
 Adults, instruction to, verbally or by writing . . . .219 
 
 , obstacles to the diffusion of moral knowledge amongst . 223 
 
 Agriculture, as well as manufactures, would be taught to all under the 
 Co-operative System . . . . . . .288 
 
 America, rapid accumulation of capital in . . . .182 
 
 Apprenticeships, evils of . . . . 80, 92 
 
 Association between the rich, poor, and middle classes, description of . 160 
 Associations of small capitals would act as insurance companies . 184 
 Author of this work, some particulars of . "... xvi 
 } H s t of his other works .... xvi 
 
 Benefits of Individual Competition . . . . .254 
 
 Benefits of Co-operative System . . . . .280 
 
 Bounties, evils of . . . . . . .86 
 
 and monopolies are superfluous . . . .102 
 
 CAPITAL : 
 
 Use of, to be paid for, and why . . . . .32 
 
 In what proportion to be paid for by labourers . .125, 445 
 
 Natural progress of . . . . 125, 175 
 
 Different estimates of value of, by capitalists and labourers . 128 
 
 Would be vastly increased under " Natural Laws" . .175 
 
 What is the most accurate idea of . . . . .178 
 
 Rapid accumulation of, in America . . . .182 
 
 Accumulated, unimportant, when compared with productive power 440 
 Capitalists, how great concerns could be carried on without . .182 
 
 Capitalist-labourers . . . . 181, 282, 309, 452 
 
 Causes of human action . . . . . . . 328 
 
 Children, education of . . . . . . . 232 
 
 , arrangement for, in the Co-operative system . .295 
 
 Circumstances, effect of, on a child in England and in Turkey . 202 
 
 , Owen's doctrine of . . . .369 
 
 Coleridge's description of Social Reformers .... xiii 
 
 COMPETITION : 
 
 J>cnefit8 and evils of ...... 254 
 
 lie t;i ins principle of selfishness as motive to action . . 258 
 
 Paralyses the powers of women .... .260 
 
 Leads to unprofitable modes of exertion .... 262 
 
 A fiords no proper resource for accidents of life . . . 263 
 
 Obstructs the progress of education .... 264 
 
 Produces no aloliite equality of profits or wages . . . 98 
 
 Punishes employers ...... 185 
 
 Fatal to large accumulations of capital .... 187 
 
458 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Competitive System, effects of, on the several classes of society viii, xxix 
 Concluding Observations ...... 434 
 
 Conclusion from the whole inquiry ..... 452 
 
 CO-OPERATIVE SYSTEM: 
 
 Examined ........ 269 
 
 Essential features of . . . . . .274 
 
 Benefits of . . . . . . . . 280 
 
 Saves waste of unproductive labour .... 282 
 
 Saves waste of ill-directed labour ..... 283 
 
 Saves waste of wholesale and retail profits . . .291 
 
 Saves waste of health and life . . . . . 293 
 
 Saves waste of happiness, arising from vice and crime . .301 
 
 Renders supply and demand commensurate . . . 307 
 
 Benders population and food commensurate . . .310 
 
 Improves morals by altering circumstances, and not by mere pre- 
 cepts or threats . . . . . . . 313 
 
 Establishes equality of duties and enjoyments between the sexes . 314 
 Would not remove certain obstacles to humaii improvement . 316 
 Is it practicable . . . . . . .322 
 
 Compatible with all useful motives to exertion . . .325 
 
 Natural rewards and punishments of .... 339 
 
 Private and public interests the same .... 342 
 
 Compatible with varieties of physical circumstances . . 364 
 
 Freedom of action under . . . . . .371 
 
 Mechanical improvements under . . . . .397 
 
 Right direction of sexual passion . . . . .418 
 
 Must be established by reason alone . . . 432, 453 
 
 Popular objections to, See "Objections." 
 Corporations, evils of . . . . . . 80, 109 
 
 Cost of a national system of education ..... 240 
 
 Crime and vice the result of poverty and pursuit of individual 
 gain .... ... 190, 301 
 
 Despotic power of parents over children .... 265 
 
 Disqualifications of excessively rich for legislative functions . .157 
 
 Distribution of Wealth, present state of .... 249 
 
 , great waste in . . . . .290 
 
 , confined views on the .... 434 
 
 , most important influence on character . 452 
 
 Dwellings of the labouring classes ..... 294 
 
 Economical evils of forced inequality of wealth . . . 149 
 
 EDUCATION : 
 
 Addressed to adults . . . . . .219 
 
 Previous to manhood .... 232, 313, 352 
 
 Should consist of truth, not opinions . . . .237 
 
 Universal, where are the means for it? . . . . 240 
 
 Extensive and perfect system objected to . . . . 243 
 
 Children of poor, greater aptitude for, than children of rich . 246 
 
 Pleasures of novelty ...... 351 
 
 Implanting moral and useful habits .... 352 
 
 Importance of early associations ..... 353 
 
 Motives by which children are influenced . . . .356 
 
 Pleasures of sympathy . . . . .358 
 
 Pleasures of intellectual intercourse .... 360 
 
 Dangers of repressing curiosity of children . . . 361 
 
 Selfishness should be banished from .... 362 
 
 Effects of a thousand portions of wealth when divided into tenths . 57 
 
 Employers punished by the Competitive System . . .185 
 
INDEX. 459 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Encouragements and restraints not necessary to just distribution of 
 
 wealth . . . . . . -80 
 
 Equality of wealth, where production is not lessened, should be the 
 
 sole object pursued . . . . . .69 
 
 should be limited by security .... 437 
 
 Evils of bounties and monopolies . . . . .94 
 
 competition under its best form . . . .257 
 Excessive inequality of wealth, the radical defect of society . .165 
 Excessively rich not so happy as moderately rich . .144 
 
 . encourage trades least tending to national welfare . 152 
 
 EXCHANGES : 
 
 Necessary to happiness . . . . . .35 
 
 Moral effects of . . . . . .39 
 
 When involuntary, annihilate industry and virtue . . .41 
 
 Should not be made unless satisfactory to the producer . .61 
 
 Hitherto regulated only by " brute force" . . . .79 
 
 Wholesale, under Co-operative System . . . .396 
 
 Existing capital, if destroyed, might be quickly re-produced . 
 
 Expenditure of excessive wealth is lost to society . . .151 
 
 Factitious rewards and punishments have failed to produce virtuous 
 conduct ........ 334 
 
 Fashion, frequent changes of, induced by excessive wealth . .155 
 
 Fine Arts under the Co-operative System ^ . 387 
 
 Force is employed by ignorance to accomplish its designs, even justice 
 
 itself ....... xxvi 
 
 , reasons why it should not be used to establish the Co-operative, 
 
 or any other System . . . . . . .454 
 
 Forced abstractions of products of labour produces evil . 46, 54 
 
 Formation of character by means of Institutions . . . 202 
 
 General propositions as to " Natural Laws of Distribution" . . 3 
 
 General inferences from the " Natural Laws of Distribution" . 5, 136 
 
 Guilds, evils of 80, 92 
 
 Habits of rich, poor, and middle classes, dissimilarity of . .159 
 
 of children, how formed ...... 353 
 
 Happiness of greater, to be preferred to lesser, number . . 20 
 
 of intelligent not to be preferred to that of the ignorant or 
 
 vicious . . . . . . .21 
 
 not to be had when surrounded by the miserable . . 306 
 
 Health, how attended to under Competitive and Co-operative Sys- 
 tems ........ 293, 298 
 
 Human improvement promoted by pleasures of sympathy rather than 
 
 the love of wealth ...... 384 
 
 labour, three modes of, discussed in this work . . xxxi 
 
 Incident which gave rise to this work .... xxxi 
 
 Incomes of unproductive labourers are a loss to society . .151 
 
 Industry would be held in honour under the system of equal " Security" 190 
 Industry prevails in proportion to its natural reward . . .27 
 
 Industrious classes, why are they in a state of privation . xxviii 
 
 INEQUALITY : 
 
 As far as necessary to security, useful . . . .110 
 
 When not necessary to security, pernicious . . .117 
 
 Said to be necessary for support of certain institutions, privileged 
 
 bodies, modes of faith, systems of physic or morality . .120 
 
 Insurance companies of small capitalists .... 184 
 
 Interests of classes (except that of the largest, the productive labourers) 
 provided for in England . . . . . .77 
 
460 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 KNOWLEDGE : 
 
 As a means of increasing wealth . . . . .198 
 
 Diffused or suppressed by social institutions . . . 202 
 
 Withheld from women . . . . . .213 
 
 Verbally, or in writing, to adults . . . . .219 
 
 Of physics of little use without that also of legislation and morals 222 
 
 On moral subjects the key to all human improvement . . 222 
 
 Obstacles to the diffusion of, among adults . . . 223 
 
 By means of education previous to manhood . . . 232 
 
 LABOUR : 
 
 Is the sole parent of wealth . . . . .6 
 
 Sufficient motive must be given to . . . . .23 
 
 The savage impelled to, by want . . . 23, 52 
 
 Without exchanges nearly useless . . . . .36 
 
 Forced abstraction of its products produces preponderant evil . 46 
 Must receive its full equivalent . . . . .61 
 
 Must pay for use of capital . . . . 32, 125 
 
 Can the deductions from its products be avoided without employ- 
 ment of force ....... 135 
 
 Why is one species called productive, and another unproductive ? 149 
 Injurious change of, induced by excessively rich . . .152 
 
 By mutual Co-operation, as opposed to labour by individual 
 Competition ...... 269, 378 
 
 Labourers, restraints on, in Competitive system . . .378 
 
 Land, natural title to unoccupied . . . . .179 
 
 Legislative powers usurped by wealthy, who are unfit for them . 157 
 
 Legislators should direct attention to productive powers, rather than 
 accumulated wealth ...... 440, 453 
 
 Man is a complicated being ...... xxii 
 
 Marriages under the Co-operative system . . . 315, 418 
 
 Mechanical improvements under Co-operative system . . .397 
 
 Men of science, art, and philosophy, usually actuated by high and 
 
 generous, and not personal, motives ..... 383 
 Merits of this " Inquiry" briefly stated ..... xiv 
 Mischiefs practised under pretence of upholding the doctrine of 
 
 "security" . . . . . . . .114 
 
 Monopolies, evils of . . . .80, 92, 95, 104 
 
 and bounties are superfluous . . . .102 
 
 Moral effects of exchanges of wealth . . . . .39 
 
 Moral benefits of natural laws of distribution . . . .188 
 
 Moral conduct, perfection of . . . . .336 
 
 Moral science, problem in, to be solved . . . xxvi 
 
 Morals of a people trained under the principles of " equal security" 190, 313 
 Motives to human conduct . . . . .190, 328 
 
 Motives, not necessary they should be known to those who are 
 
 governed by them . . . . . . .337 
 
 " NATURAL LAWS" : 
 
 Defined 2, 136 
 
 Economical benefits of . . . . .175 
 
 Moral benefits of . . . . . . .188 
 
 Can be established only under representative institutions . 1 68 
 
 Would abolish war and lessen crime . . . .171 
 
 Would reduce expenses of government to lowest . . .172 
 
 Would render support of religious bodies voluntary . . 1 74 
 
 Would greatly improve morals . . . . .190 
 
 Would make all improvements permanent . . .194 
 
 Would they not unhinge the rights of property? . . .195 
 
INDEX. 4G1 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Natural motives to action, once in operation are permanent . . 333 
 
 punishments and rewards explained .... 335 
 
 value of land . . . . . . .179 
 
 Necessity of interest and duty being compatible . 40 
 
 Notion that labour itself and the products of labour are dissimilar as 
 respects exchanges . . . . . . .66 
 
 Objection met, that the Natural Laws of Distribution would drill men 
 into machines ........ 208 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO CO-OPERATIVE SYSTEM EXAMINED: 
 
 " Love of distinction" would be fatal .... 343 
 
 The industrious would be discouraged by idlers . . .345 
 
 Long-established habits could not be overcome . . . 348 
 
 Difference of soils, climates, &c. . . . . .365 
 
 Miners, navigators, &c., could not co-operate . . . 365 
 
 Philosophical necessity . . . . ... 369 
 
 Arrangements are founded on restraint .... 370 
 
 Restraints on locomotion and abode . . 371, 380 
 
 Vexatious internal regulations as to dress, labour, meals, rest, &c. 373 
 Restraints on genius and exalted exertion from want of individual 
 reward . . . . . . . .381 
 
 Repression of fine arts - . . . . . .387 
 
 Uniformity of character and pursuits .... 388 
 
 Competition would spring up between communities . .391 
 
 Rivalries in dress, elegance, luxury, &c. .... 400 
 
 Corporation rule would usurp the management . . .401 
 
 Over-population would reduce them to wretchedness . . 402 
 
 Jealousies and rivalries from sexual passion . . . 423 
 
 Would supersede the present institutions of society . .426 
 
 Unequal fertility of soils, physical obstacle to equality of wealth . 427 
 Obstacle to exertion is want of " security" . . . .24 
 
 Obstacles to human improvement which Co-operative System would 
 seem to aggravate . . . . . .318 
 
 Osborne, Hon. and Rev. S. G., on the condition of labouring classes . viii 
 Over-population said to be fatal to the Co-operative System . . 402 
 
 Owen's solution of the problem, " How to reconcile equality of distri- 
 bution with perfect security" ...... 272 
 
 Owen's doctrine of " circumstances" ..... 369 
 
 Painting, music, sculpture, &c., under Co-operative System . . 387 
 
 Parents' power over children in education .... 264 
 Peculiar vices of wealth and want would cease under natural laws of 
 
 distribution ........ 188 
 
 Pleasures of sympathy in the education of children . . . 358 
 
 Political Economy, what has been its objects ? . . .29 
 
 Political Economy, misapplication of, has supported usurpation of rights 
 
 of man by confounding equality with rapine and violence . .117 
 Political Economists not inquirers after happiness . vii 
 classification of, into the intellectual and mecha- 
 
 nical ......... xix 
 
 should keep in view the complicated nature of 
 
 man ........ xxiv 
 
 Poor, how should they be virtuous? . . . . .190 
 
 Population, regulation of, under Competitive and Co-operative Systems 310 
 Population question examined ...... 402 
 
 Private and public interests, the same under the Co-operative System 342 
 Production would be vastly increased under the "Natural Laws'"' . 175 
 I'm.LTn-ss of supposed colony of labourers . . .30, 35 
 
 Prohibitions, evils of . . 80" 
 
462 INDEX. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Property, would it not be shaken by Natural laws of distribution? . 195 
 
 Prostitution would not exist under the Co-operative System . 304, 417 
 
 Protections, evils of ... ... 80 
 
 Public opinion, influence of, in Co-operative System 282, 342, 345, 374, 416 
 
 Religious doctrines should be supported by persuasion alone . .124 
 
 Religious associations should receive voluntary support alone . .174 
 
 Rent, what is the just proportion to be paid by labourers . 125, 445 
 
 Representative system of government the only one compatible with 
 
 "Security" . . . . . . . .168 
 
 Representative system of little value if capital and labour remain 
 
 disunited ........ 449 
 
 Reproduction and equality of wealth not incompatible . . .112 
 
 Restraints, under competitive and co-operative institutions compared 377 
 Restraints and encouragements not necessary to just distribution . 80 
 Retail establishments, waste of . . . . . .291 
 
 Revolution in principles and practice of society needed . . xi 
 
 Rewards and punishments, natural and factitious . . . 328 
 
 Schemes of equality hitherto practised have been founded on com- 
 pulsion or delusion ....... 324 
 
 " Security " means " free labour, entire use of its products, and volun- 
 tary exchanges " . . . . . . .436 
 
 " Security," difference between " equal or genuine " and " spurious " 439 
 " Security" has been used only for protection of the rich . .114 
 
 Self-interest and selfishness differ ... . 326 
 
 Senior's, Mr., opinions as to objects of Political Economy . . vii 
 Sexual vices, causes of . . . . . . 303 
 
 Sexual passion, right direction of, under the Co-operative System .418 
 Slave-trade sought to be justified on principle of " security" . .114 
 
 Slave and owner equally interested in maintenance of the principle of 
 security . . . . . . . .114 
 
 Slavery not justifiable, because it abstracts from happiness . .27 
 
 in Turkey and America . . . . .212 
 
 of women everywhere . . . . . .213 
 
 Social institutions, as a means of diffusing or suppressing knowledge . 202 
 Social reformer discards all force and delusion . . . xii 
 
 Social science, requirements of . . . . . . xxv 
 
 Society a misnomer ..... x 
 
 Solution of problem, " How to reconcile equality of distribution with 
 perfect security" . . . . . .273 
 
 Summary of evils of bounties and monopolies . . .94 
 
 Sumptuary punishments inflicted to distinguish the rich . . 1 53 
 
 Superstition will not lead labourers to work as a matter of duty . 33 
 
 Supply and demand under the Co-operative System would be always 
 commensurate . . . . . .307 
 
 Truth and not opinions should be taught to children . . . 238 
 
 Utility the leading principle in this " Inquiry" . . .1 
 
 Vice of intemperance ....... 302 
 
 Vice of sexual passion, cause of ..... 303 
 
 Vices of excessive wealth among the rich . . . .145 
 
 among other classes .... 147 
 
 Vices of the passions unconnected with wealth . . . 305 
 
 Vices and virtues dependent on the mode in which wealth is dis- 
 tributed . . . . . xxix 
 Voluntary equality of wealth, See " Co-operative System." 
 
INDEX. 463 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Wages, combinations for regulating . . . . .185 
 
 War would be abolished by adoption of the principle of " security" . 1 70 
 WEALTH : 
 
 Great increase in the means of producing . . . . x 
 
 Vices and Virtues are dependent on right distribution of . xxix 
 
 What is meant by the " Natural Laws of Distribution" of . 2 
 
 Definition of . . . . . . 5, 14 
 
 Labour is the sole parent of . . . . .6 
 
 May be defined to be " any object of desire produced by labour" . 6 
 Is limited to the physical means of enjoyment . . .7 
 
 In what cases land is, and is not, an object of . .9 
 
 Not always accurately measured by labour . . .13 
 
 That distribution is best which gives greatest amount of happiness 
 
 to producers of it . . . . . .15 
 
 The only reason for its production, is to add to happiness . 1 7 
 
 All are capable of equal happiness from . . . .17 
 
 Entire use of products necessary to greatest production of .28 
 
 Mere production and accumulation of, childish . . .30 
 
 Voluntary exchanges of, increase happiness . . .35 
 
 Effects of 1,000, several portions of . . . 57,110 
 
 The greatest equality consistent with greatest production should 
 
 be observed . . . . . . .68 
 
 No artificial restraints of encouragements necessary to its produc- 
 
 tion or distribution . . . . . .80 
 
 Inequalities of, so far as necessary to security, useful . .110 
 
 Inequalities of, where not necessary to security, pernicious . 117 
 
 Keproduction and equality of, not incompatible . . .112 
 
 Inequalities of, said to be necessary for support of certain institu- 
 
 tions, privileged bodies, modes of faith, systems of physic or 
 
 morality ........ 120 
 
 Excessive, leads to usurpation of legislative powers . .157 
 
 Evils of its forced inequality . . . . .141 
 
 Moral evils of forced inequality of . . . .142 
 
 Forced inequality of, lessens aggregate enjoyment . 142 
 
 Forced inequality of, does not increase the happiness of the rich . 143 
 Excessive, engenders vice among the rich and other classes .145 
 
 Excessive, encourages trades least tending to national welfare . 151 
 
 Economical evils of forced ineualit of 
 
 equality 
 alit of 
 
 Political evils of forced inequality 
 
 Expenditure of, by unproductive labourers, is lost to society . 151 
 
 Circumstances which influence its abundance 
 
 As influenced by knowledge 
 
 Present state of distribution of 
 Principles of voluntary equality of, examined 
 Vices and crimes unconnected with 
 Women, slavery of .... 
 , to what labour should they be subjected 
 
 149 
 151 
 
 178 
 198 
 249 
 269 
 305 
 213 
 36, 289 
 
 , would be relieved from the drudgeries of life, under the Co- 
 operative System ....... 289 
 
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