[What is Property? by P. J. Proudhon]@TWC D-Link bookWhat is Property? PART SECOND 224/323
For this value or wealth, PRODUCED BY THE ACTIVITY OF ALL, is by the very fact of its creation COLLECTIVE wealth, the use of which, like that of the land, may be divided, but which as property remains UNDIVIDED.
And why this undivided ownership? Because the society which creates is itself indivisible,--a permanent unit, incapable of reduction to fractions.
And it is this unity of society which makes the land common property, and which, as M.Considerant says, renders its use imprescriptible in the case of every individual. Suppose, indeed, that at a given time the soil should be equally divided; the very next moment this division, if it allowed the right of property, would become illegitimate.
Should there be the slightest irregularity in the method of transfer, men, members of society, imprescriptible possessors of the land, might be deprived at one blow of property, possession, and the means of production.
In short, property in capital is indivisible, and consequently inalienable, not necessarily when the capital is UNCREATED, but when it is COMMON or COLLECTIVE. I confirm this theory against M.Considerant, by the third term of his syllogism:-- Conclusion.--"The results of the labor performed by this generation are divisible into two classes, between which it is important clearly to distinguish.
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