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All those proprietors
whose lot were shares are at
present above the mark
would see themselves
plundered and impoverished,
and the
whole fabric of their
expectations blown
away: and after
all the work of equalisation
would remain
yet to do, as
if nothing had been
done.
---page break---
Prossession
nothing but a
ground of expectations
Source of the further
about natural rights
Strength of the
passions added joined
to the weakness of
the understanding
A cover for
invective & the language
of a badly philosophical Bellingsgate.
A man went
acknowledge propriety
to be the
creature of the law.
The truth is that
physical relations
may generate expectation in a
weak degree – but
the full assurance
can only be derived
from law.
There is nothing a
man can have
but what it may
be necessary he should
be obliged to part
with by law.
Nobody should have experience
any that mortification
today only, but that
nobody should feel any
such mortification any
tomorrow or next day
or in short any day.
---page break---
What is . The object of an
equalisation system?
is not that any men
should have less than
they leave? No –, but that
many should have
more.
What would be the result? of of such
a plan if pursued
would be that nobody
would have anything
Such a plan
were it to be carried
into execution could
not subsist two minutes
together. The
parsimonious and
industrious money getting would
accumulate the
prodigal would dissipate.
Death would disturb the division
every moment
An law equalisation
law would be a
law for the encouragement propagation
of immorality
a law for the encouragement
of prodigality
– a law prohibiting
industry and
frugality – and that
under pain of confiscation
What is the object
of such a plan of
this sort consistently
pursued: perfect and
perpetual equality,
& nothing less. It is not
that this or that man
should see nobody above
him, but that nobody
should: it is not that
nobody
---page break---
An equalisation law
of occasional only,
would not come up
to its object: it or its
principles would be productive
of misery in abundance,
and all that
misery would be
in waste.
If permanent, it
would not be simply
injurious to society, but radically
destructive of it.
It would not cease
to operate So long
as an a single stone
in the fabric remained
upon another its
operation would not
be at an end.⊞ ⊞ The business would
be to do again at
every good season,
and at every bad
season, as upon the
every birth of every child
and again at every
death.
So long as any
one man had the
value of a handful
of corn more than any other his neighbours
the legal pillage
must go on: it
must be distributed
grain by grain among
as many as
had less where were
whose stock fell short
of the mark. Stop
where you would
you could not defend
the stoppage but upon
principles which reprobate
the commencement
of the
career.
---page break---
Thus far we
see have nothing
worse than simple
misery: the next
stage brings us to
absolute destruction.
Who would sow, if
nobody were to reap
or what is worse,
if those who had
done performed neither the
one task nor the
other were to carry bear
away the largest off the produce from
him who had performed
both?
Suppose a system
of unrelenting equalisation
established among a ships crew,
and the stock of spirits
among
other things to be the
object of it. The drunkard
no sooner on had he
emptied his keg, would
have it replenished at
the expence of the moderate
and the frugal,
and so toties quoties
while there was a drop
less in the ship: the word one
part of the crew would
destroy themselves, while
the other better part lost their
share.
How preserve
real equality, under
this scheme of normal
equalisation. Drunken
and sober they
must all
thrust their
like kegs not
cask together, and
themselves motion
lest any that two men
be behind his.
What would the
commander do all
this while, if he were
a man of prudence?
He would do what the
commander of the
shipwrecked Indiaman
did – he would
slew the cask.
The Grosvenor Indiaman
wrecked on the
Coast of Caffraria
in 1782. See Carters
Narrative London 1791.
Community of goods
One possibly practicable scheme
only remains under
the domination of the
equalisation principle, a the community of goods.
Every other scheme would be a fatal
in the first place to morality,
in the next place
to society itself, this
would only be fatal destructive to liberty.
---page break---
A thorough leveller
is a man
if there be such a
man in whom the passion
of envy has
swallowed up every
other:– a man in
whom the hatred of others
he bears to others has
got the better of the
love he bears to himself:
who so long
as for saw nobody
who was better off
than him would
be content not to be better
off than any body
above himself on
the scale of prosperity opulence
would be content to
see not to see himself above
nobodyany body – who would
part bid adieu with hope, so
as he could take
leave of fear at
the same time
Oh but all these
are but instruments
of luxury
the abuse of which
far from being a
loss would be a
riddance to the commonwealth.
---page break---
Oh – but all this
exaggerated extravagant and
impracticable – this
is not equalisation,
it is equality run mad –
What we mean is
a system of equalisation
not exaggerated like this but moderate
and practicable.
Moderate
& practicable I answer.
There is no such
thing. You must do
what run into extravagance, you must
do what is impracticable,
or you do nothing. Stop where
you will you can
stop no where for
any reason which
would not with equal
strenuousness
have forbid you ever to
begin.
In the first place
there is no reason can
be given found why any
line should be drawn
at all: in the next
place, it would be
impossible to find any
one given point at
which to draw it.
Every step you take in
the career of equalisation
makes the demand
for a new step not less the urgent,
but the more so.
Suppose at present three classes;
the most numerous
of course the least wealthy:
wealthy – To what
end strike off reduce the upper
class, leaving the
middlemost? The lowest,
while they had saw
two classes above them
found themselves revenged
upon the end
their immediate superiors
by the superiority
of the superiors
of those superiors: now
this compensation is
at an end: and the
encreased perseverence
of those who were
nearest to their own
becomes still more
intolerable.</p>
---page break---
In the first place all
articles in which
great value is included
in the compass
of a single
article and that article
indivisible,
must be sacrificed would perish altogether.
All mansions, houses and
pleasure grounds.
There are single horses
for which £2000
has been given – pictures
for which
£3000 has been
refused. Statues for
which £300 a year
has been paid in the
way of rent.
---page break---
Horses require stables
to keep them in, and
grooms to tend upon them. Pictures and
Statues require spatious
rooms to hold them –
pictures fires to in
those rooms to air
them.
All costly articles
of dress or furniture
Jewels, plate
hangings, libraries
and even single
publications if voluminous
must for
the same reason go
to the fire. Sale
will not remains cure the evil
the without lessening
it – they must be
from hand
to hand, the chase
can never cease
till they are safely
lodged in the fire.
Were they even accumulated
in one or
a few immense buildings to there
be kept and exhibited
to individuals at large
at the expense of the
state even that fear
from among the evil
would scarce lessen it,
For in the custody and
management of such
immense treasures could a
only be few only could participate:
and in regard
to treasurers like these
sale apart what is proprietorship
whenmore than custody
and management?
Oh but
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equalisation brouillon moyens d'acquirer |
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jeremy bentham |
[[watermarks::l munn [britannia with shield emblem]]] |
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benjamin constant |
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