The Voice of Industry (Vol. 3 No. 09 - 10 Sept. 1847)

Notes on Books.

Poverty: Its Illegal Causes and Legal Cure.
By L. Spooner. [the American individualist anarchist Lysander Spooner] Boston: B. Marsh. 1846.

This work has been sometime before the public, and has received considerable notice and criticism, both favorable and unfavorable. We dissent entirely from the conclusions of the writer, and think that notwithstanding the acknowledged legal erudition and logical power of the writer, he has signally failed, in the book before us, to establish the point which it is his aim to establish. The causes of poverty lie too deep to be reached by any modification of our judicial code. The work is for sale by Bela Marsh, No. 25 Cornhill, Boston.

Aristocracy.

Why is it that so many of those for whom we are murdering ourselves by slow degrees to support in idleness and heap up mountain-masses of wealth, look down upon us with such supreme contempt? And why do they, while through fraud and oppression they live in riotous splendor on our labor, demand that we treat them with humble deference and adoration? Ought they not rather to be truly grateful and treat us with kindness and civility?

Let no one object to the terms “fraud and oppression.” Those who consume without producing, by their own personal, useful industry, live on the labor of others; and does each one of us willingly support himself and one or two others? If not, do they not obtain their support through fraud and oppression—robbery? True, we consent to be robbed, and that for the very good reason that we are compelled to.

The Declaration of Independence says that all have an equal right to life, liberty, &c., but the child of poverty finds the rights practically denied to him. God’s earth is all monopolized, by the agency of money, and not even a spot on the public lands can he use to raise a single potato to support “life.” He can produce nothing for his subsistence without the consent of others, and hence can only live—if he be permitted to live at all—on such terms, and enjoy only so much liberty and happiness as others dictate. They give us “liberty” to devote half our time to support their lives and ministers to their happiness. And this is demanding quite enough. They are no better entitled to our respect and esteem than if they did not practice such oppression and extortion unless it be on the ground that they are useless idlers; but a watch which would not keep time, or a bee which makes no honey, might as justly claim more admiration than one which does.

It seems strange that the rich should claim our worship merely because they succeeded in depriving us of the products of our honest industry, but stranger still that it should be so freely granted. [Is it] not time to show enough respect for ourselves to loudly firmly and determinedly demand our just, equal, inalienable rights?

- J. E. Thompson

The Emigration of French Communists to the United States (From the Herald).

A French publisher, Mr. Cabet, editor of a newspaper called Le Populaire, printed in Paris, published in one of his last numbers an appeal to all the French communists, of which he calls himself chief. The article is as follows:

Workmen, let us depart for Icaria—what advantages have you here? What is your fate in this country? Recollect, children of the people, poverty seizes you when you are born, and leaves you only when you die. Filth and rags for many, deprivations of every kind, ignorance and superstitious examples of vice for all—work imposed before your strength is developed. Such is your fate. From your infancy excessive labor is imposed upon you—often attended with danger. You are obliged to expose your lives to a thousand risks for an insufficient salary. Sickness—the conscript—the livrel—no rights, no future, but a perpetual dread of the future, with fear of slavery and poverty. * * * * Such is your destiny in your youth.

How many are deprived of the happiness of marriage, and of family comforts! And for those who dared to marry, how many troubles and afflictions have they not to encounter? And in your old age, how many among you, after a laborious life, and numerous services rendered to the country have only for their share destitution, rebuke, infirmities, the hospital and death? Death which puts an end to long sufferings. Look around you and see the wealthy condition of your taskmasters, the opulence of these privileged men who had but the trouble of coming to life to enjoy riches without producing any thing, whilst you have no enjoyment and create all.

And to say nothing that is not just and true, let us not entertain towards the classes reported happy, either envy, or hatred, for they have also their troubles and tribulations. Their ruins and miseries, like ourselves, if not more. They are also victims of a very bad social organization, by which we are all their slaves, and which spreads everywhere antagonism and war, and which leaves to nobody either safety or true happiness. But if the employers and privileged persons are not happy, we workmen—we are bent under the weight of poverty, which every day becomes more and more intolerable, and which renders necessary some heroic and evil extirpating remedy.

In Icaria, in that Icaria which we are on the eve of forming in the United States of America, let us see what will be the fate and happiness of the working classes. There will be no poor people wanting the first necessaries of life, side by side with proprietors overstocked with abundance—but we all shall be proprietors or co-proprietors of an immense collective, social, inseparable, and national property—consequently, no more paupers, no more poverty, with its troubles and anguish—no more riches with their concomitant oppressions and disturbing vices—but an assured existence for all; by industry, and also abundance and good living; consequently, there will be no pauperism! No longer workmen, no longer bosses or masters, but associated—all brothers, all equal, all obliged to work according to their physical and intellectual strength. All the works will be considered as public functions, and all functions as work, consequently no more taskmasters. No more wages but an equal distribution of all products by shares, among those associated. No more want of employment neither an oversupply of labor, but order in both, and an organization the best possible that can be fixed by experience and wisdom—by public opinion and the will of the workers themselves. All the labor of agriculture or manufacture will be divided into appropriate departments, and carried on in extensive workshops. This work will be shared between all the citizens, so that each and all will be occupied and none overworked. The workhouses will be healthy, comfortable, clean and neat. Nothing will be spared by the community to help, relieve, and protect the working man.

The machinery for performing dirty, fatiguing or perilous work will be indefinitely and perpetually multiplied. All the instruments as well as the material are furnished by the community. The labor will be chosen as much as possible according to the vocation, taste, and aptitude of each workman.

All the employments will be temporary, and decided by election.

All citizens will be elected or be eligible for election according to their shares in the general interest.

No more work books, or rather chains; no more military service except that of the national militia; no more taxes, but work; and nothing will be spared to render that work short, easy, without danger or disgust, and agreeable and attractive.

The community will guarantee everybody a house, food, instruction, education, medical attendance and medicine, liberty to marry and have children, and all the reasonable enjoyments of civilization.

No aristocracy, no privilege, no inequality, but the purest democracy, as between brothers, and from that principle of brothership, equality in labor as well as in enjoyment—equality according to the ratio of distribution, in order to have every body equally happy, nobody being happier than others, and seeing nobody happier than himself. In short, in Icaria, the workmen will be the people, the nation, the society, the country—they will be a government by and for themselves—and when a most perfect education will have given to a new generation all the development that it is susceptible of, you will easily perceive that mankind will rapidly advance on all the roads of progress towards the degree of perfection designed for humanity by Nature and Providence.

Workmen! We who are now tied, abused, chained—who have no rights, are not cared for; no work, no bread, no future, as at present—let us go and seek elsewhere, for the Providence or nature which offers us all the treasures of their love and beneficence. Let us go and make the foundation of Icaria on the American Land.

The Chartist Land Plan.

The Chartists of England, at the head of whom is Fergus O'Connor, now one of the most popular men in England, are engaged in an important, and thus far successful movement. In 1845, we believe, the National Land Company was formed, for the purpose of accumulating means, through a system of co-operation to purchase, from time to time, such estates as may be for sale, at the whole sale price, and apportion them by lot in two, three and four acre farms, at the same price. This plan finds great favor with the people. We find the following paragraph in regard to it in Howitt's Journal.—Ed.

Within two years they have collected a capital of upwards of 30,000l., and purchased two estates, one one of which, that of O'Connorville, many families are located in the cottages. O'Connor is most indefatigable in his exertions, and the utmost confidence of ultimate success prevails among the Chartist body. May it be realized; for it certainly is a great experiment on the co-operative principle, and every attempt to incite the working classes to accumulate and secure property, is deserving of the warmest commendation. We cannot help thinking, however, that a union of trade with agriculture, must give a more certain element of stability to such a plan.

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.