stem: "Labor,
labor! that is the basis of property!"

Reader, do not be deceived. This new basis of property is worse than the
first, and I shall soon have to ask your pardon for having demonstrated
things clearer, and refuted pretensions more unjust, than any which we
have yet considered.

CHAPTER III. LABOR AS THE EFFICIENT CAUSE OF THE DOMAIN OF PROPERTY.

Nearly all the modern writers on jurisprudence, taking their cue from
the economists, have abandoned the theory of first occupancy as a too
dangerous one, and have adopted that which regards property as born of
labor. In this they are deluded; they reason in a circle. To labor it is
necessary to occupy, says M. Cousin.

Consequently, I have added in my turn, all having an equal right of
occupancy, to labor it is necessary to submit to equality. "The rich,"
exclaims Jean Jacques, "have the arrogance to say, 'I built this wall; I
earned this land by my labor.' Who set you the tasks? we may reply, and
by what right do you demand payment from us for labor which we did not
impose upon you?" All sophistry falls to the ground in the presence of
this argument.

But the partisans of labor do not see that their system is an absolute
contradiction of the Code, all the articles and provisions of which
suppose property to be based upon the fact of first occupancy. If labor,
through the appropriation which results from it, alone gives birth to
property, the Civil Code lies, the charter is a falsehood, our whole
social system is a violation of right. To this conclusion shall we come,
at the end of the discussion which is to occupy our attention in this
chapter and the following one, both as to the right of labor and the
fact of property. We shall see, on the one hand, our legislation in
opposition to itself; and, on the other hand, our new jurisprudence in
opposition both to its own principle and to our legislation.

I have asserted that the system which bases property upon labor implies,
no less than that which bases it upon occupation, the equality of
fortunes; and the reader must be impatient to learn how I propose to
deduce this law of equality from the inequality of skill and faculties:
directly his curiosity shall be satisfied. But it is proper that I
should call his attention for a moment to this remarkable feature of
the process; to wit, the substitution of labor for occupation as the
principle of property; and that I should pass rapidly in review some
of the