At the utmost, the millions of buckets of water, forcibly taken from private reservoirs, half fill with a good deal of trouble the great central artificial basin in which the water, low and stagnant, is never sufficient in quantity or force to move the huge public wheel that replaces the small private wheels, doing the nation's work.
Thus, even when we only consider men as manufactures, even if we treat them simply as producers of what is valuable and serviceable, with no other object in view than to furnish society with supplies and to benefit the consumers, even though the private domain includes all enterprises undertaken by private individuals, either singly or associated together, through personal interests or personal taste, then this is enough to ensure that all is managed better than the State could have done; it is by virtue of this that they have devolved into their hands. Consequently, in the vast field of labor, they themselves decide on what they will undertake; they themselves, of their own authority, set their own limits. They may therefore enlarge their own domain to any extent they please, and reduce indefinitely the domain of the State. On the contrary, the State cannot pretend to more than what they leave; as they advance on their common territory separated by vague frontiers, it is bound to recede and leave the ground to them; whatever the task is, it should not perform it except in case of their default, or their prolonged absence, or on proof of their having abandoned it.
All the rest, therefore falls to the State; first, the offices which they would never claim, and which they will deliberately leave in its hands, because they do not have that indispensable instrument, called armed force. This force forces assures the protection of the community against foreign communities, the protection of individuals against one another, the levying of soldiers, the imposition of taxes, the execution of the laws, the administration of justice and of the police. - Next to this, come matters of which the accomplishment concerns everybody without directly interesting any one in particular - the government of unoccupied territory, the administration of rivers, coasts, forests and public highways, the task of governing subject countries, the framing of laws, the coinage of money, the conferring of a civil status, the negotiating in the name of the community with local and special corporations, departments, communes, banks, institutions, churches, and universities. - Add to these, according to circumstances, sundry optional co-operative services,[17]
such as subsidies granted to institutions of great public utility, for which private contributions could not suffice, now in the shape of concessions to corporations for which equivalent obligations are exacted, and, again, in those hygienic precautions which individuals fail to take through indifference; so occasionally, such provisional aid as supports a man, or so stimulates him as to enable him some day or other to support himself; and, in general, those discreet and scarcely perceptible interpositions for the time being which prove so advantageous in the future, like a far-reaching code and other consistent regulations which, mindful of the liberty of the existing individual, provide for the welfare of coming generations. Nothing beyond that.
Again, in this preparation for future welfare the same principle still holds.
VII.
Fabrication of social instruments. - Application of this principle.
- How all kinds of useful laborers are formed. - Respect for spontaneous sources, the essential and adequate condition. -Obligation of the State to respect these. - They dry up when it monopolizes them. - The aim of patriotism. - The aim of other liberal dispositions. - Impoverishment of all the productive faculties. - Destructive effect of the Jacobin system.
Among the precious products, the most precious and important are, evidently, the animated instruments, namely the men, since they produce the rest. The object then, is to fashion men capable of physical, mental or moral labor, the most energetic, the most persistent, the most skillful and most productive; now, we already know the conditions of their formation. It is essential and sufficient, that the vivacious sources, described above, should flow there, on the spot, each through its natural outlet, and under the control of the owner. On this condition the jet becomes more vigorous, for the acquired impetus increases the original outflow; the producer becomes more and more skillful, since 'practice makes perfect.' Those around him likewise become better workmen, inasmuch as they find encouragement in his success and avail themselves of his discoveries. - Thus, simply because the State respects, and enforces respect, for these individual sources in private hands, it develops in individuals, as well as in those around them, the will and the talent for producing much and well, the faculty for, and desire to, keep on producing more and better; in other words, all sorts of energies and capacities, each of its own kind and in its own place, with all compatible fullness and efficiency. Such is the office, and the sole office, of the State, first in relation to the turbid and frigid springs issuing from selfishness and self-conceit, whose operations demand its oversight, and next for still stronger reasons, in relation to the warm and pure springs whose beneficence is unalloyed, as in the family affections and private friendships; again, in relation to those rarer and higher springs, such as the love of beauty, the yearning for truth, the spirit of association, patriotism and love of mankind; and, finally, for still stronger reasons, in relation to the two most sacred and salutary of all springs, conscience which renders will subject to duty, and honor which makes will the support of justice.