The development of Mankind evidently demands that the Soil shall not be left in its wild and uncultivated state. The destiny of the human race is opposed to property in land retaining its rude and primitive form.
In the midst of forests and savannah, the savage enjoys four natural rights, namely, the rights of Hunting, of Fishing, of Gathering the fruits, of Pasturing. Such is the primitive form of property in land.
In all civilized societies, the working-classes, the Proletaires, who inherit nothing, and possess nothing, are simply despoiled of these rights. We cannot say that the primitive Right has changed its form, for it no longer exists. The form and the substance have alike disappeared.
Now in what Form can such Rights be reconciled with the conditions of an industrial Society? The answer is plain: In the savage state, in order to avail himself of his Right, man is obliged to act. The labor of Fishing, of Hunting, of Gathering, of Pasturing, are the conditions of the exercise of his Right. The primitive Right, then, is a Right to engage in these employments.
Very well, let an industrial Society, which has appropriated the land, and taken away from man the power of exercising freely and at will his four natural Rights, let this society cede to the individual, in compensation for those Rights of which it has despoiled him, the Right to Employment. On this principle, rightly understood and applied, the individual has no longer any reason to complain.
The condition sine qua non, then, of the Legitimacy of Property is, that Society should concede to the Proletaire— the man who has no property—the Right to Employment; and, in exchange for a given exertion of activity, assure-him of means of subsistence, at least as adequate as sucsuch exercise could have procured him in the primitive state.
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