Pnewtext-04. qxd

All people have had laws. But few people have
been happy.  Why is this so? Because the legislators
themselves have almost always been ignorant of the
purpose of society, which is the uniting of families by a
common interest.
Impartiality in law consists of two things: the
establishing of equality in wealth and equality in dig-
nity among the citizens. . . . As the laws establish
greater equality, they become proportionately more
precarious to every citizen. . . . When all men are equal
in wealth and dignity—and when the laws leave no
hope of disturbing this equality—how can men then
be agitated by greed, ambition, dissipation, idleness,
sloth, envy, hatred, or jealously?
What you have learned about the republic of
Sparta should enlighten you on this question. No other
state has ever had laws more in accord with the order
of nature; of equality. 
The Error of the Socialist Writers
Actually, it is not strange that during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries the human race was regarded as inert mat-
ter, ready to receive everything—form, face, energy, movement,
life—from a great prince or great legislator or a great genius.
These centuries were nourished on the study of antiquity. And
antiquity presents everywhere—in Egypt, Persia, Greece,
50
pNEWTEXT-04.qxd  7/13/2004  11:35 AM  Page 50

---

Rome—the spectacle of a few men molding mankind according
to their whims, thanks to the prestige of force and fraud. But this
does not prove that this situation is desirable. It proves only that
since men and society are capable of improvement, it is naturally
to be expected that error, ignorance, despotism, slavery, and
superstition should be greatest towards the origins of history.
The writers quoted above were not in error when they found
ancient institutions to be such, but they were in error when they
offered them for the admiration and imitation of future genera-
tions. Uncritical and childish conformists, they took for granted
the grandeur, dignity, morality, and happiness of the artificial
societies of the ancient world. They did not understand that
knowledge appears and grows with the passage of time; and that
in proportion to this growth of knowledge, might takes the side
of right, and society regains possession of itself
What Is Liberty?
Actually, what is the political struggle that we witness? It is
the instinctive struggle of all people toward liberty. And what is
this liberty, whose very name makes the heart beat faster and
shakes the world? Is it not the union of all liberties—liberty of
conscience, of education, of association, of the press, of travel, of
labor, of trade? In short, is not liberty the freedom of every per-
son to make full use of his faculties, so long as he does not harm
other persons while doing so? Is not liberty the destruction of all
despotism—including, of course, legal despotism? Finally, is not
51
pNEWTEXT-04.qxd  7/13/2004  11:35 AM  Page 51

---

liberty the restricting of the law only to its rational sphere of
organizing the right of the individual to lawful self-defense; of
punishing injustice?
It must be admitted that the tendency of the human race
toward liberty is largely thwarted, especially in France. This is
greatly due to a fatal desire—learned from the teachings of
antiquity—that our writers on public affairs have in common:
They desire to set themselves above mankind in order to
arrange, organize, and regulate it according to their fancy.
Philanthropic Tyranny
While society is struggling toward liberty, these famous
men who put themselves at its head are filled with the spirit of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They think only of
subjecting mankind to the philanthropic tyranny of their own
social inventions. Like Rousseau, they desire to force mankind
docilely to bear this yoke of the public welfare that they have
dreamed up in their own imaginations.
This was especially true in 1789. No sooner was the old
regime destroyed than society was subjected to still other artifi-
cial arrangements, always starting from the same point: the
omnipotence of the law.
Listen to the ideas of a few of the writers and politicians
during that period:
SAINT-JUST
: The legislator commands the future.
It is for him to will the good of mankind. It is for him
to make men what he wills them to be.
52
pNEWTEXT-04.qxd  7/13/2004  11:35 AM  Page 52

---

ROBESPIERRE:
The function of government is to
direct the physical and moral powers of the nation
toward the end for which the commonwealth has
come into being.
BILLAUD-VARENNES:
A people who are to be
returned to liberty must be formed anew. A strong
force and vigorous action are necessary to destroy old
prejudices, to change old customs, to correct depraved
affections, to restrict superfluous wants, and to destroy
ingrained vices. . . . Citizens, the inflexible austerity of
Lycurgus created the firm foundation of the Spartan
republic. The weak and trusting character of Solon
plunged Athens into slavery. This parallel embraces
the whole science of government.
LE PELLETIER:
Considering the extent of human
degradation, I am convinced that it is necessary to
effect a total regeneration and, if I may so express
myself, of creating a new people. 
The Socialists Want Dictatorship
Again, it is claimed that persons are nothing but raw mate-
rial. It is not for them to will their own improvement; they are
incapable of it. According to Saint-Just, only the legislator is
capable of doing this. Persons are merely to be what the legisla-
tor  wills  them to be. According to Robespierre, who copies
53
pNEWTEXT-04.qxd  7/13/2004  11:35 AM  Page 53

---