If you cannot succeed in reconciling
this, you are bound to conclude that the law cannot organise labour and
industry without organising injustice.
When, from the seclusion of his cabinet, a politician takes a view of
society, he is struck with the spectacle of inequality which presents
itself. He mourns over the sufferings which are the lot of so many of
our brethren, sufferings whose aspect is rendered yet more sorrowful by
the contrast of luxury and wealth.
He ought, perhaps, to ask himself, whether such a social state has not
been caused by the plunder of ancient times, exercised in the way of
conquests; and by plunder of later times, effected through the medium of
the laws? He ought to ask himself whether, granting the aspiration of
all men after well-being and perfection, the reign of justice would not
suffice to realise the greatest activity of progress, and the greatest
amount of equality compatible with that individual responsibility which
God has awarded as a just retribution of virtue and vice?
He never gives this a thought. His mind turns towards combinations,
arrangements, legal or factitious organisations. He seeks the remedy in
perpetuating and exaggerating what has produced the evil.
For, justice apart, which we have seen is only a negation, is there any
one of these legal arrangements which does not contain the principle of
plunder?
You say, "There are men who have no money," and you apply to the law.
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