“At present, a serious question is on everyone’s mind. Is inheritance just or unjust?
“I espy two philosophers who are discussing this very subject under the portico of a school of political economy. They can appreciate the questions of their own time better than I can. I shall give them the floor.
“‘People are never content with their lot,’ said the first interlocutor. ‘That axiom dates from the remotest antiquity. Will it always be necessarily true? You are free, you live without anxiety, you are happy, and that is not enough? What more do you want? History tells us that in barbaric times our forefathers blindly obeyed the caprices of a sovereign, that a cataclysm suddenly turned France upside down, that Europe felt the reverberation, and that, from that boiling over of minds suppressed by 18 centuries of slavery, the constitutional regime was born. In a few years, the face of the world changed abruptly; a new social stratum was superimposed on the old; liberty was then glimpsed. Attempts were made to reconcile it with royalty, but the wreckage of the authoritarian principle, having escaped the disaster, floated to the surface of the constitutional regime. There was a collision between the powers, and the debris of monarchy, known as divine right, foundered on a reef—in 1830, if I’m not mistaken.
“‘For the fallen monarchy, the custom-bound people substituted a mixed monarchy, which mutilated universal suffrage. However, the instinct of liberty seethed within them; a new explosion burst forth, and the victorious Republic surged forth for a second time from the rubble of that bastard monarchy. An ambitious man, however, after being appointed as its President, seized all power and, in a bold move, resuscitated the empire inaugurated by a certain Napoléon I after the first revolution. The Empire, an essentially military government, led the people to the beat of drums. War fed its insatiable cupidity until, lurching from one disaster to the next, it collapsed with a great noise. For the third time, the Republic appeared, serene and radiant. With time and patience, it repaired the damage done by the preceding regimes and, in spite of the attempts to restore the monarchy that shook its foundations, it survived, because it has imposed itself on the French heart. From that memorable day onwards, liberty emerged from the clouds that had veiled it; it gradually insinuated itself into the mechanism of government.
“‘Twenty centuries have gone by since then. Today, we have acquired the sum total of the liberty to which one can aspire, without it becoming a threat to liberty itself. An excess of liberty is bordering on absolutism. Each step that one takes forward is a step backwards. It is time to stop, believe me; otherwise, by virtue of striving for that abstraction, which is one of the infinite attributes of the Creator, and by dint of attempting to realize that which belongs to eternity, we shall sin by the opposite excess.
“‘There is a limit at which the greatest good becomes confused with the greatest evil to the point of fusion. That is the law of extremes—and truth does not reside in extremes; it resides in just compromise. Everything in this mortal world is relative, everything is perishable. Extremes suppose infinity; infinity only belongs to perfection. Now, the extremes that humans can conceive are necessarily limited, like the intelligence that conceives them, like the body to which the deposit of that intelligence has been confided, like the planet to which the deposit of that body has been confided and on which it moves, and like the planetary system, in which that planet gravitates. Infinity is God.
“‘There comes a point at which the extremes forged by the human imagination, in drawing apart, collide with an insurmountable obstacle, beyond which God reigns as master. Forced either to retrace their steps or to skirt the boundary of the obstacle in its extension, they turn in a vicious circle and end up at the same point, where they combine. That’s why extremes meet.’
“‘On what do you base your reasoning in order to maintain that the conceptions of intelligence obey the laws of circumference rather than proceeding in a straight line?’ the second interlocutor replies.
“‘I proceed by analogy and compare immaterial things with material ones. Look around you. The Earth we inhabit is a sphere gravitating in space. Its rotational movement is accomplished, as the word indicates, by tracing a circumference, as is its orbital movement around the sun. The planets and stars visible to the naked eye or through a telescope all affect a spherical form; and the word sphere means cubic circumference. The movement of the planets around the sun is accomplished in the same conditions as that of the Earth. The vault of the sky covers us like half of a globe whose other half appear at the antipodes. The horizon surrounds us like a vast circumference of which we are the center. In no matter which direction we direct or gaze, we see nothing but spheres and circumferences.
“‘Is it not the same with thought?
“‘The brain gives rise to it; it emerges, launches forward, grows by virtue of the other thoughts it encounters in its path; then it folds back upon itself and returns to its point of departure in order to combine itself with those that it has recruited in its trajectory.
“‘It progresses initially toward induction, and then returns to its first expression in the firm of deduction. Induction and deduction are necessarily linked; their intimate relationship brings them together. Invincible, as thought gains substance in associating the ideas swarming around it, it tends to return toward the initial idea. That is a phenomenon which it is sufficient to look out for to be observed. But its trajectory is not accomplished in a straight line. The ideas that are accumulated by induction are of a different order from those accumulated by deduction.
“‘What is life? A circumference that extracts us from nothingness to bring us back to nothingness. From the cradle, humans are headed towards the grave, but their short existence is divided into two distinct periods: a period of progress and a period of decline. They only acquire the plenitude of their faculties in the middle of their career. Before then, they are insufficiently mature; after then they are wearing out. Weakness numbs the body, reason thickens, memory languishes; they become children again, and death grips them as birth gave then life, feeble in body and mind.
“‘There are precocious natures that are in advance of their age: those which are not destined for a long career, of which abridger it voluntarily by forcing the growth of their intellectual faculties; there are also those to whom physical forces do not afford the time to reach old age; death strikes them suddenly, either by accident or disorganization of the vital system—but those are exceptions.
“‘Finally, if it is permissible to compare immaterial things with material ones, the soul emerges from Infinity to return to Infinity. It accompanies the body through the phases of life, suffers with it and perishes with it, but survives it and recovers a new envelope on the Earth, until, from one incarnation to the next, it returns to its point of departure: Infinity. A parcel of eternity, it returns to its element.’
“‘And what proves to you that the phenomenon does not operate in a straight line, like the flux and reflux that comes and goes in the same groove? What proves to you that the just compromise is not an apogee from which one redescends by the same path as one climbed?’
“‘The phenomena that advertise the coming and going. They present analogous points but are fundamentally different. At the beginning of life, the soul, to employ Locke’s image, is a tabula rasa on which education traces the first notions of all things. Fashioned by daily contact with other souls, it reaches maturity; then it weakens and fades with the body, all the while conserving the imprint that experience has left upon it. Thus, in the first phase, it opens itself up to life; in the second, it closes itself off therefrom.
“‘The body itself grows and develops, until that development, having no further scope, wears it out and consumes it; it is like a young bush that grows under the ascendant action of its sap, until that sap, for want of an outlet, is diverted into the branches and finally dries up and subverts itself.’
“‘I admit the hypothesis. The arguments with which you support it seem satisfactory to me—but wh
at proves that liberty has attained the appropriate level at which it ought to be fixed?’
“‘That appropriate level is not sufficiently definite for it to be permissible to set a limit on it. Humans need to be wise enough to appreciate the point at which the balance does not offend the symmetry of his judgment too obviously. By dint of seeking absolute precision, sensitivity to compensation is denatured. Since we are imperfect beings, let us not entertain the foolish ambition to achieve perfection. Let us remain within the sphere of our petty faults. The best means of attenuating them is to tolerate them mutually. Good politics does not cut, it conciliates.
“‘Of what can you complain? You all collaborate in the functioning of the machine of State. The ensemble of your voices constitutes national sovereignty. Your representatives, by their mandate, are directly subject to your jurisdiction. Ministers are chosen by a majority of those same representatives. The President is only the figurehead of power. In the final analysis, it is you who govern, you who are everything Would you like everyone to have an active part in power? How could one be heard in such a formidable conflict? That would be anarchy, and anarchy, as history has proven, is civil war. There exists on that subject a fable by a certain La Fontaine, who was one of the literary glories of the twentieth century: ‘The Old Man and his Children’:
“My dear children,” he said, speaking to his sons,
“See if you can break these bundled branches;
I’ll explain the knot that ties them together.”
The eldest, having taken them, made every effort,
And returned them, saying: “I’ll give them to the strongest.”
A second succeeded him and assumed the posture,
But in vain. A younger one also made the attempt.
They all wasted their time; the bundle resisted;
Those branches bound together no one could break.
“Weaklings,” said the father. “I’ll have to show you
What my strength can do in such an encounter.”
They thought he was joking; they smiled, but wrongly;
He separated the branches, and broke them with ease.
“You see,” he continued, “the effect of unity.
Join together, my children, let love unite you.”
While his illness lasted, he said nothing more.
Finally, feeling near to the end of his days:
“My dear children,” he said, “I’m joining our ancestors;
Farewell; promise me to live as brothers;
That I might obtain that grace as I die.”
Each of the three sons assured him, weeping.
He took their hands and died. And the three brothers
Found great prosperity, but their affairs became tangled.
A creditor claimed seizure; a neighbor brought suit.
At first our trio got out of the difficulty.
But friendship waned as success became rarer.
Blood had joined them; self-interest separated them.
Ambition and envy, along with consultants,
Regarding inheritance, arrived at the same time.
They divided things up, contesting and cheating.
The judge condemned them on a hundred points
The creditors and neighbors immediately returned,
Some claiming error, others a default.
The disunited brothers had contrary opinions.
One wanted to settle, another to do nothing.
They all lost their wealth and wanted too late
To take advantage of the branches bundled and torn apart.32
“‘Is not the State is merely an assembly of bundles whose unity gives it strength? Separate them, and you experience a force of resistance against each one that would defy all your efforts because each one merely consists of a few sticks. Untie the knot the binds each bundle, though, and the weakest hand can break the sticks separately like a piece of straw.
“‘The bundle of the State is the majority of the representatives, whose assembly constitutes power. The secondary bundles are the electors, whose assembly forms a representative. Break up the majority, and each representative, although greatly weakened, will still be strong by virtue of the electors he represents. Break up the electors, and you will have anarchy. Individually, they are nothing; collectively, they are everything.
“‘To grant a wider extension to our political rights would lead to confusion, discord and carnage. Fortunately, that is not our way.
“‘Let us pass on to our financial system. It safeguards property in land, the primary resource of our needs, by declaring it inalienable or alienable by mutation. It equilibrates as much as possible the provenance of our incomes and the ease with which we acquire them, by subjecting them to proportional taxation. It husbands the indirect contributions, relieves direct contributions and balances commercial operations. It assures us a comfortable easy existence sheltered from need, imposing on us reciprocal obligations of commerce.
“‘It makes itself the bank of our savings, which return to it 30 years after the day when they are deposited in the Treasury, leaving us time to capitalize the interest that it pays us every year and thus to recompose the capital of which it becomes the owner at the end of that interval.
“‘That wise precaution does not deprive a hard-working man of the profits he accumulates, and yet it prevents their excessive accumulation. His heirs enjoy his privilege, on condition that they subject themselves to the same economies as him.
“‘What more can you want?’
“‘I want inheritance to be completely abolished, as unjust and immoral. By what right do children enjoy the privileges due to the work and intelligence of their parents? What right does an idler have enjoy a more agreeable life than a laborer?’
“‘By what right does the mass of society enjoy, directly or indirectly, the inheritance of one of its members? What right has a stranger to profit from benefits to which he has not made any contribution of fatigue, to the disadvantage of those who are linked to the deceased by the closes of ties? On that argument, neither one has any right to it—but the children come before the stranger; that’s the law of nature.
“‘At any rate, there is a limit to the extension of the fortune. The capital reverts to the State after 30 years. The citizen, if he wants to maintain his fortune at the same level, must reinvest his interest during that period. In that way, the concentration of wealth is impossible; the more one amasses, the more reverts to everyone.
“‘Penalize idle capital, by all means. It is dormant, and only benefits one person. But respect active capital. It works, it produces, it circulates and benefits everyone.
“‘Fortune, applied to commerce and industry, fragments in the same measure that it accumulates. It comes in by one door and goes out by another. Everyone seizes a fraction of it as it passes by. As for leveling it out in a fixed, invariable, positive manner, that’s materially impossible. It would only take one day, one hour, one minute, to become confused, and for the census to begin again. After all, money is displaced by the needs of the moment. In every commercial or manufacturing operation, it is necessary in a more or less abundant quantity. To divide its traffic equally is to muzzle its activity. To muzzle its activity is to kill the life-force of a nation, Better, on the contrary, to favor activity, which involves intelligence and stimulates progress.
“‘Otherwise, one annihilates private initiative, and the annihilation of private initiative is decline. People are afraid, hesitant, reluctant. Effort is not encouraged, success offers no opportunity for recompense; people work without appetite, without hope, without an objective; they become machines. One does exactly what one must nothing more.
“‘Do you think the mass of society would be any richer if the State took possession of all capital? No. The State could not make a profit from it because it would distribute it to salaried employees, who would not be interested in business. And that is one of the defects of our nature; we only devote ourselves enti
rely to work to the extent that it is in our interests to do so.
“‘Work, in order to bear fruit, requires independence. If you paralyze it or pressurize it loses its alimentation: hope. I said, penalize idle capital; I repeat it, but penalize it with a certain restriction. Let those who have earned it enjoy it. Don’t deprive their children entire. Who knows whether nature has accorded them enough strength to merit ease by way of labor?
“‘The more I examine our financial system, the more I find it conciliatory, rational and far-sighted. It compensates, but does not cut. Idle capital returns sooner or later to the social mass; it can only be amassed up to a certain limit. Active capital is shared out proportionately.
“‘There has always been inheritance; it is necessarily so. Without dealing it a brutal blow, there are many other means of attenuating it. We possess those means; don’t demand anymore; otherwise, submitted to one another’s control everyone would become a tyrant, and the greatest liberty would consist of not being free. It would be worse than monarchy.
“‘Which, in fact, is the more tyrannical: the autocracy that crushes its subjects under the yoke of absolute power; or the sovereign people that, by dint of equalizing its rights, its resources and its intelligence pressurizes every individual in every way all the time, imposing a reciprocal despotism, so that no one dares take a step forward for fear of catching his neighbor’s eye? The two are the same, for their effects are identical; the extremes have met. There is only a nuance of nomenclature; instead of being named king or emperor, it calls itself the nation. Absolute liberty is servitude.’”
“Those two interlocutors,” Monsieur Landet continued, “comprise a Stationary and a Progressive. The Stationary has given us a rapid glimpse if the finances of his epoch. I shall continue his line of argument.
“Thus, the abolition of inheritance is under discussion. Should it be decreed? No—the interest of citizens is too tightly bound together for the thread of their practical life to be voluntarily broken. Let us abandon that chimera and pass on to positive laws.
The World in 2000 Years Page 17