uted, and where
little business is done,--the rights and claims of each being balanced
by those of others,--the power of invasion is destroyed. There--it may
be truly said--property does not exist, since the right of increase is
scarcely exercised at all. The condition of the laborers--as regards
security of life--is almost the same as if absolute equality prevailed
among them. They are deprived of all the advantages of full and free
association, but their existence is not endangered in the least. With
the exception of a few isolated victims of the right of property--of
this misfortune whose primary cause no one perceives--the society
appears to rest calmly in the bosom of this sort of equality. But have a
care; it is balanced on the edge of a sword: at the slightest shock, it
will fall and meet with death!

Ordinarily, the whirlpool of property localizes itself. On the one hand,
farm-rent stops at a certain point; on the other, in consequence of
competition and over-production, the price of manufactured goods does
not rise,--so that the condition of the peasant varies but little, and
depends mainly on the seasons. The devouring action of property bears,
then, principally upon business. We commonly say COMMERCIAL CRISES, not
AGRICULTURAL CRISES; because, while the farmer is eaten up slowly by the
right of increase, the manufacturer is swallowed at a single mouthful.
This leads to the cessation of business, the destruction of fortunes,
and the inactivity of the working people; who die one after another on
the highways, and in the hospitals, prisons, and galleys.

To sum up this proposition:--

Property sells products to the laborer for more than it pays him for
them; therefore it is impossible.

APPENDIX TO THE FIFTH PROPOSITION.

I. Certain reformers, and even the most of the publicists--who, though
belonging to no particular school, busy themselves in devising means for
the amelioration of the lot of the poorer and more numerous class--lay
much stress now-a-days on a better organization of labor. The disciples
of Fourier, especially, never stop shouting, "ON TO THE PHALANX!"
declaiming in the same breath against the foolishness and absurdity of
other sects.

They consist of half-a-dozen incomparable geniuses who have discovered
that FIVE AND FOUR MAKE NINE; TAKE TWO AWAY, AND NINE REMAIN,--and
who weep over the blindness of France, who refuses to believe in this
astonishing arithmetic.[1]

[1] Fourier, h