Part 15 (2/2)

Finally,characteristic is to allow the existence of the grand social law--_service for service_--while it brings the element of force into the discussion, and thus alters the just proportion between _service received_ and _service rendered_

Spoliation always bears within itself the germ of its own destruction

Very rarely the many despoil the few In such a case the latter soon becoer satisfy the cupidity of the former, and spoliation ceases for want of sustenance

Almost always the few oppress the many, and in that case spoliation is none the less underent, as in war and slavery, it is natural that force in the end should be on the side of the greater nuent, as with superstition and monopoly, it is natural that the htened

Another law of Providence wars against spoliation It is this:

Spoliation not only displaces wealth, but always destroys a portion

War annihilates values

Slavery paralyzes the faculties

Monopoly transfers wealth from one pocket to another, but it always occasions the loss of a portion in the transfer

This is an adth of oppressors and oppressed were equal, spoliation would have no end

A moment comes when the destruction of wealth is such that the despoiler is poorer than he would have been if he had remained honest

So it is with a people when a war costs more than the booty is worth; with a master who pays more for slave labor than for free labor; with a priesthood which has so stupefied the people and destroyed its energy that nothing otten out of it; with a monopoly which increases its attempts at absorption as there is less to absorb, just as the difficulty ofincreases with the eenus spoliation It has e, and restriction upon trade

Some of the forhts

Under this _regime_ the masses are despoiled, and know it

Other forms are more complicated Often the masses are plundered, and do not know it Itto spoliation, not only what is left them but what is taken from them, and what is lost in the operation I also assert that, in the course of tienious machinery of habit,it Monopolies of this kind are begotten by fraud and nurtured by error They vanish only before the light

I have said enough to indicate that political economy has adeceit and dissipating error, destroys that social disorder called spoliation Some one, a woman I believe, has correctly defined it as ”the safety-lock upon the property of the people”

COMMENTARY

If this little book were destined to live three or four thousand years, to be read and re-read, pondered and studied, phrase by phrase, word by word, and letter by letter, froeneration, like a new Koran; if it were to fill the libraries of the world with avalanches of annotations, explanations and paraphrases, I ht leave to their fate, in their rather obscure conciseness, the thoughts which precede But since they need a commentary, it seems wise to me to furnish it myself

The true and equitable law of hue of service for service_ Spoliation consists in destroying by force or by trickery the freedo one

Forcible spoliation is exercised thus: Wait till a ; then take it from him by violence