rics that he may dress in rags, who produces every thing that he may
dispense with every thing,--is not free. His employer, not becoming
his associate in the exchange of salaries or services which takes place
between them, is his enemy.

The soldier who serves his country through fear instead of through love
is not free; his comrades and his officers, the ministers or organs of
military justice, are all his enemies.

The peasant who hires land, the manufacturer who borrows capital, the
tax-payer who pays tolls, duties, patent and license fees, personal and
property taxes, &c., and the deputy who votes for them,--all act
neither intelligently nor freely. Their enemies are the proprietors, the
capitalists, the government.

Give men liberty, enlighten their minds that they may know the meaning
of their contracts, and you will see the most perfect equality in
exchanges without regard to superiority of talent and knowledge; and
you will admit that in commercial affairs, that is, in the sphere of
society, the word superiority is void of sense.

Let Homer sing his verse. I listen to this sublime genius in comparison
with whom I, a simple herdsman, an humble farmer, am as nothing. What,
indeed,--if product is to be compared with product,--are my cheeses and
my beans in the presence of his "Iliad"? But, if Homer wishes to take
from me all that I possess, and make me his slave in return for his
inimitable poem, I will give up the pleasure of his lays, and dismiss
him. I can do without his "Iliad," and wait, if necessary, for the
"AEneid."

Homer cannot live twenty-four hours without my products. Let him accept,
then, the little that I have to offer; and then his muse may instruct,
encourage, and console me.

"What! do you say that such should be the condition of one who sings of
gods and men? Alms, with the humiliation and suffering which they bring
with them!--what barbarous generosity!"... Do not get excited, I beg
of you. Property makes of a poet either a Croesus or a beggar; only
equality knows how to honor and to praise him. What is its duty? To
regulate the right of the singer and the duty of the listener. Now,
notice this point, which is a very important one in the solution of this
question: both are free, the one to sell, the other to buy. Henceforth
their respective pretensions go for nothing; and the estimate, whether
fair or unfair, that they place, the one upon his verse, the other
upon his liberality, can have