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Society a system of exchanges—Security of individual property the principle of exchange—Alexander Selkirk and Robinson Crusoe—Imperfect appropriation and unprofitable labour.

Society, both in its rudest form and in its most refined and complicated relations, is nothing but a system of Exchanges. An exchange is a transaction in which both the parties who make the exchange are benefited;—and, consequently, society is a state presenting an uninterrupted succession of advantages for all its members. Every time that we make a free exchange we have a greater desire for the thing which we receive than for the thing which we give;—and the person with whom we make the exchange has a greater desire for that which we offer him than for that which he offers us. When one gives his labour for wages, it is because he has a higher estimation of the wages than of the profitless ease and freedom of remaining unemployed;—and, on the contrary, the employer who purchases his labour feels that he shall be more benefited by the results of that labour than by retaining the capital which he exchanges for it. In a simple state of society, when one man exchanges a measure of wheat for the measure of wine which another man possesses, it is evident that the one has got a greater store of wheat than he desires to consume himself, and that the other, in the same way, has got a greater store of wine;—the one exchanges something to eat for something to drink, and the other something to drink for something to eat. In a refined state of society, when money represents the value of the exchanges, the exchange between the abundance beyond the wants of the possessor of one commodity and of another is just as real as the barter of wheat for wine. The only difference is, that the exchange is not so direct, although it is incomparably more rapid. But, however the system of exchange be carried on—whether the value of the things exchanged be determined by barter or by a price in money—all the exchangers are benefited, because all obtain what they want, through the store which they possess of what they do not want.

It has been well said that "Man might be defined to be an animal that makes exchanges."[6] There are other animals, indeed, such as bees and ants amongst insects, and beavers amongst quadrupeds, which to a certain extent are social; that is, they concur together in the execution of a common work for a common good: but as to their individual possessions, each labours to obtain what it desires from sources accessible to all, or plunders the stores of others. Not one insect or quadruped, however wonderful may be its approaches to rationality, has the least idea of making a formal exchange with another. The modes by which the inferior animals communicate their thoughts are probably not sufficiently determinate to allow of any such agreement. The very foundation of that agreement is a complicated principle, which man alone can understand. It is the Security of individual Property. Immediately that this principle is established, labour begins to work profitably, for it works with exchange. If the principle of appropriation were not acted upon at all, there could be no exchange, and consequently no production. The scanty bounty of nature might be scrambled for by a few miserable individuals—and the strongest would obtain the best share; but this insecurity would necessarily destroy all accumulation. Each would of course live from hand to mouth, when the means of living were constantly exposed to the violence of the more powerful. This is the state of the lowest savages, and as it is an extreme state it is a rare one—no security, no exchange, no capital, no labour, no production. Let us apply the principle to an individual case.

The poet who has attempted to describe the feelings of a man suddenly cut off from human society, in "Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk during his solitary abode in the island of Juan Fernandez," represents him as saying, "I am monarch of all I survey."[7] Alexander Selkirk was left upon the same island as the Moskito Indian; and his adventures there have formed the groundwork of the beautiful romance of "Robinson Crusoe." The meaning of the poet is, that the unsocial man had the same right over all the natural productive powers of the country in which he had taken up his abode, as we each have over light and air. He was alone; and therefore he exercised an absolute although a barren sovereignty, over the wild animals by which he was surrounded—over the land and over the water. He was, in truth, the one proprietor—the one capitalist, and the one labourer—of the whole island. His absolute property in the soil, and his perfect freedom of action, were both dependent upon one condition—that he should remain alone. If the Moskito Indian, for instance, had remained in the island, Selkirk's entire sovereignty must have been instantly at an end. Some more definite principle of appropriation must have been established, which would have given to Selkirk, as well as to the Moskito Indian, the right to appropriate distinct parts of the island each to his particular use. Selkirk, for example, might have agreed to remain on the eastern coast, while the Indian might have established himself on the western; and then the fruits, the goats, and the fish of the eastern part would have been appropriated to Selkirk, as distinctly as the clothes, the musket, the iron pot, the can, the hatchet, the knife, the mathematical instruments, and the Bible which he brought on shore.[8] If the Indian's territory had produced something which Selkirk had not, and if Selkirk's land had also something which the Indian's had not, they might have become exchangers. They would have passed into that condition naturally enough;—imperfectly perhaps, but still as easily as any barbarous people who do not cultivate the earth, but exchange her spontaneous products.

The poet goes on to make the solitary man say, "My right there is none to dispute." The condition of Alexander Selkirk was unquestionably one of absolute liberty. His rights were not measured by his duties. He had all rights and no duties. Many writers on the origin of society have held that man, upon entering into union with his fellow-men, and submitting, as a necessary consequence of this union, to the restraints of law and government, sacrifices a portion of his liberty, or natural power, for the security of that power which remains to him. No such agreement amongst mankind could ever have possibly taken place; for man is by his nature, and without any agreement, a social being. He is a being whose rights are balanced by the uncontrollable force of their relation to the rights of others. The succour which the infant man requires from its parents, to an extent, and for a duration, so much exceeding that required for the nurture of other creatures, is the natural beginning of the social state, established insensibly and by degrees. The liberty which the social man is thus compelled by the force of circumstances to renounce amounts only to a restraint upon his brute power of doing injury to his fellow-men: and for this sacrifice, in itself the cause of the highest individual and therefore general good, he obtains that dominion over every other being, and that control over the productive forces of nature, which alone can render him the monarch of all he surveys. The poor sailor, who for four years was cut off from human aid, and left alone to struggle for the means of supporting existence, was an exception, and a very rare one, to the condition of our species all over the world. His absolute rights placed him in the condition of uncontrolled feebleness; if he had become social, he would have put on the regulated strength of rights balanced by duties.

Alexander Selkirk was originally left upon the uninhabited island of Juan Fernandez at his own urgent desire. He was unhappy on board his ship, in consequence of disputes with his captain; and he resolved to rush into a state which might probably have separated him for ever from the rest of mankind. In the belief that he should be so separated, he devoted all his labour and all his ingenuity to the satisfaction of his own wants alone. By continual exercise, he was enabled to run down the wild goat upon the mountains; and by persevering search, he knew where to find the native roots that would render his goat's flesh palatable. He never thought, however, of providing any store beyond the supply of his own personal necessities. He had no motive for that thought; because there was no human being within his reach with whom he might exchange that store for other stores. The very instant, however, that the English ships, which finally gave him back to society, touched upon his shores—before he communicated by speech with any of his fellow-men, or was discovered by them—he became social. He saw that he must be an exchanger. Before the boat's crew landed he had killed several goats, and prepared a meal for his expected guests. He knew that he possessed a commodity which they did not possess. He had fresh meat, whilst they had only salt. Of course what he had to offer was acceptable to the sailors; and he received in exchange protection, and a place amongst them. He renounced his sovereignty, and became once more a subject. It was better for him, he thought, to be surrounded with the regulated power of civilization, than to wield at his own will the uncertain strength of solitary uncivilization. But, had he chosen to remain upon his island, as in after-years he regretted he had not done, although a solitary man he would not have been altogether cut off from the hopes and the duties of the social state. If he had chosen to remain after that visit from his fellow-men, he would have said to them, before they had left him once more alone, "I have hunted for you my goats, I have dug for you my roots, I have shown you the fountains which issue out of my rocks;—these are the resources of my dominion: give me in exchange for them a fresh supply of gunpowder and shot, some of your clothes, some of the means of repairing these clothes, some of your tools and implements of cookery, and more of your books to divert my solitary hours." Having enjoyed the benefits which he had bestowed, they would, as just men, have paid the debt which they had incurred, and the exchange would have been completed. Immediately that they had quitted his shores, Selkirk would have looked at his resources with a new eye. His hut was rudely fashioned and wretchedly furnished. He had fashioned, and furnished it as well as he could by his own labour, working upon his own materials. The visit which he had received from his fellow-men, after he had abandoned every hope of again looking upon their faces, would have led him to think that other ships would come, with whose crews he might make other exchanges—new clothes, new tools, new materials, received as the price of his own accumulations. To make the best of his circumstances when that day should arrive, he must redouble his efforts to increase his stock of commodities—some for himself, and some to exchange for other commodities, if the opportunity for exchange should ever come. He must therefore transplant his vegetables, so as to be within instant reach when they should be wanted. He must render his goats domestic, instead of chasing them upon the hills. He must go forward from the hunting state, into the pastoral and agricultural.

Robinson Crusoe. (From a design by Stothard.)

In Defoe's story, Robinson Crusoe is represented as going into this pastoral and agricultural state. But he had more resources than Selkirk; and he at last obtained one resource which carried him back, however incompletely, into the social condition. He acquired a fellow-labourer. He made a boat by his own unassisted labour; but he could not launch it. When Friday came, and was henceforth his faithful friend and willing servant, he could launch his boat. Crusoe ultimately left his island; for the boat had given him a greater command over his circumstances. But had he continued there in companionship with Friday, there must have been such a compact as would have prevented either struggling for the property which had been created. The course of improvement that we have imagined for Selkirk supposes that he should continue in his state of exclusive proprietor—that there should be none to dispute his right. If other ships had come to his shores—if they had trafficked with him from time to time—exchanged clothes and household conveniences, and implements of cultivation, for his goats' flesh and roots—it is probable that other sailors would in time have desired to partake his plenty;—that a colony would have been founded—that the island would have become populous. It is perfectly clear that, whether for exchange amongst themselves, or for exchange with others, the members of this colony could not have stirred a step in the cultivation of the land without appropriating its produce;—and they could not have appropriated its produce without appropriating the land itself. Cultivation of the land for a common stock would have gone to the establishment precisely of the same principle;—they would still have been exchangers amongst themselves, and the partnership would not have lasted a day, unless each man's share of what the partnership produced had been rendered perfectly secure to him. Without security they could not have accumulated—without accumulations they could not have exchanged—without exchanges they could not have carried forward their labours with any compensating productiveness.

Imperfect appropriation—that is, an appropriation which respects personal wealth, such as the tools and conveniences of an individual, and even secures to him the fruits of the earth when he has gathered them, but which has not reached the last step of a division of land—imperfect appropriation such as this raises up the same invincible obstacles to the production of utility; because, with this original defect, there must necessarily be unprofitable labour, small accumulation, limited exchange. Let us exemplify this by another individual case.

We have seen, in the instances of the Moskito Indian and of Selkirk, how little a solitary man can do for himself, although he may have the most unbounded command of natural supplies—although not an atom of those natural supplies, whether produced by the earth or the water, is appropriated by others—when, in fact, he is monarch of all he surveys. Let us trace the course of another man, advanced in the ability to subdue all things to his use by association with his fellow-men; but carrying on that association in the rude and unproductive relations of savage life;—not desiring to "replenish the earth" by cultivation, but seeking only to appropriate the means of existence which it has spontaneously produced;—labouring, indeed, and exchanging, but not labouring and exchanging in a way that will permit the accumulation of wealth, and therefore remaining poor and miserable. We are not about to draw any fanciful picture, but merely to select some facts from a real narrative.

[6] Dr. Whately's Lectures on Political Economy.

[7] Cowper's Miscellaneous Poems.

[8] These circumstances are recorded in Captain Woodes Rogers' Cruising Voyage round the World, 1712.