14 quotes
Nature rewards industry and skill, the legislator be he who he may, is utterly regardless of the connection between industry and plenty.
The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832)
Our leaders invent nothing but new taxes, and conquer nothing but the pockets of their subjects.
The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832)
Those who make laws, appropriate wealth in order to secure power.
The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832)
Mr. Locke says, that every man has a property in his own person; in fact, individuality—which is signified by the word own—cannot be disjoined from the person.
The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832)
Power so acquired, and privileges so established, were the basis of the present political and legal, not social, edifice of Europe.
The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832)
It is as impossible for men not to have a notion of a right of property, as it is for them to want the idea of personal identity.
The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832)
The power of making laws was long vested in those—and still is vested in their descendants—who followed no trade but war, and knew no handicraft but robbery and plunder.
The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832)
The law is a great scheme of rules intended to preserve the power of government, secure the wealth of the landowner, the priest, and the capitalist, but never to secure his produce to the labourer.
The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832)
The ideas expressed by the words mine and thine, as applied to the produce of labour, are simply then an extended form of the ideas of personal identity and individuality.
The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832)
Wherever the right of property is placed on a proper foundation, slavery, with all its hateful consequences, is unknown:—wherever this foundation is rotten, freedom cannot exist, nor justice be administered.
The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832)
Who can describe the disgusting servility with which all classes submit to be fleeced by the demands of the tax-gatherer, on all sorts of false pretences, when his demands cannot be fraudulently evaded?
The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832)
The natural right of property far from being protected, is systematically violated, and both government and law seem to exist chiefly or solely, in order to protect and organize the most efficacious means of protecting the violation….
The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832)
Among the legislative classes embodied into, and constituting the government, we must place the landed aristocracy. In fact, the landed aristocracy and the government are one—the latter being nothing more than the organized means of preserving the power and privileges of the former.
The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832)
The law, as to preserve life is that of individuals, is a set of rules and practices … intended to appropriate to the law-makers the produce of those who cultivate the soil, prepare clothing, or distribute what is produced among the different classes, and among different communities.
The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832)