to-day the suction-pump of wealth, is destined to become the
steward of the human race.

The phrase EQUALITY OF FORTUNES chafes people, as if it referred to
a condition of the other world, unknown here below. There are some
persons, radicals as well as moderates, whom the very mention of this
idea fills with indignation. Let, then, these silly aristocrats abolish
mercantile societies and insurance companies, which are founded
by prudence for mutual assistance. For all these social facts, so
spontaneous and free from all levelling intentions, are the legitimate
fruits of the instinct of equality.

When the legislator makes a law, properly speaking he does not MAKE
it,--he does not CREATE it: he DESCRIBES it. In legislating upon the
moral, civil, and political relations of citizens, he does not express
an arbitrary notion: he states the general idea,--the higher principle
which governs the matter which he is considering; in a word, he is the
proclaimer, not the inventor, of the law. So, when two or more men
form among themselves, by synallagmatic contract, an industrial or an
insurance association, they recognize that their interests, formerly
isolated by a false spirit of selfishness and independence, are
firmly connected by their inner natures, and by the mutuality of their
relations. They do not really bind themselves by an act of their private
will: they swear to conform henceforth to a previously existing social
law hitherto disregarded by them. And this is proved by the fact that
these same men, could they avoid association, would not associate.
Before they can be induced to unite their interests, they must acquire
full knowledge of the dangers of competition and isolation; hence the
experience of evil is the only thing which leads them into society.

Now I say that, to establish equality among men, it is only necessary
to generalize the principle upon which insurance, agricultural, and
commercial associations are based. I say that competition, isolation
of interests, monopoly, privilege, accumulation of capital, exclusive
enjoyment, subordination of functions, individual production, the right
of profit or increase, the exploitation of man by man, and, to sum up
all these species under one head, that PROPERTY is the principal cause
of misery and crime. And, for having arrived at this offensive and
anti-proprietary conclusion, I am an abhorred monster; radicals and
conservatives alike point me out as a fit subject