And since his condition enables him to engage in the most lucrative pursuits, it may be said that the proprietor's labor harms society more than it helps it.

Whatever the proprietor does, the consumption of his income is an actual loss, which his salaried functions neither repair nor justify; and which would annihilate property, were it not continually replenished by outside production.
II.

Then, the proprietor who consumes annihilates the product: he does much worse if he lays it up.

The things which he lays by pass into another world; nothing more is seen of them, not even the _caput mortuum_,--the smoke.

If we had some means of transportation by which to travel to the moon, and if the proprietors should be seized with a sudden fancy to carry their savings thither, at the end of a certain time our terraqueous planet would be transported by them to its satellite! The proprietor who lays up products will neither allow others to enjoy them, nor enjoy them himself; for him there is neither possession nor property.