products, you still have the same result.

Hitherto, we have considered the proprietor as taking part in the
production, not only (as Say says) by the use of his instrument, but in
an effective manner and by the labor of his hands. Now, it is easy to
see that, under such circumstances, property will never exist. What
happens?

The proprietor--an essentially libidinous animal, without virtue or
shame--is not satisfied with an orderly and disciplined life. He loves
property, because it enables him to do at leisure what he pleases and
when he pleases. Having obtained the means of life, he gives himself up
to trivialities and indolence; he enjoys, he fritters away his time, he
goes in quest of curiosities and novel sensations. Property--to enjoy
itself--has to abandon ordinary life, and busy itself in luxurious
occupations and unclean enjoyments.

Instead of giving up a farm-rent, which is perishing in their hands,
and thus lightening the labor of the community, our hundred proprietors
prefer to rest. In consequence of this withdrawal,--the absolute
production being diminished by one hundred, while the consumption
remains the same,--production and consumption seem to balance. But,
in the first place, since the proprietors no longer labor, their
consumption is, according to economical principles, unproductive;
consequently, the previous condition of the community--when the labor of
one hundred was rewarded by no products--is superseded by one in which
the products of one hundred are consumed without labor. The deficit
is always the same, whichever the column of the account in which it is
expressed. Either the maxims of political economy are false, or else
property, which contradicts them, is impossible.

The economists--regarding all unproductive consumption as an evil, as
a robbery of the human race--never fail to exhort proprietors to
moderation, labor, and economy; they preach to them the necessity of
making themselves useful, of remunerating production for that which they
receive from it; they launch the most terrible curses against luxury and
laziness. Very beautiful morality, surely; it is a pity that it lacks
common sense. The proprietor who labors, or, as the economists say,
WHO MAKES HIMSELF USEFUL, is paid for this labor and utility; is he,
therefore, any the less idle as concerns the property which he does not
use, and from which he receives an income? His condition, whatever he
may do, is an unproductive and