Talk to me of
DEBT and CREDIT, the only criterion in my eyes of the just and
the unjust, of good and evil in society. To each according to
his works, first; and if, on occasion, I am impelled to aid you,
I will do it with a good grace; but I will not be constrained.
To constrain me to sacrifice is to assassinate me.
God! I know no God; mysticism again. Begin by striking this
word from your remarks, if you wish me to listen to you; for
three thousand years of experience have taught me that whoever
talks to me of God has designs on my liberty or on my purse. How
much do you owe me? How much do I owe you? That is my religion
and my God.
Monopoly owes its existence both to nature and to man: it has its
source at once in the profoundest depths of our conscience and in
the external fact of our individualization. Just as in our body
and our mind everything has its specialty and property, so our
labor presents itself with a proper and specific character, which
constitutes its quality and value. And as labor cannot manifest
itself without material or an object for its exercise, the person
necessarily attracting the thing, monopoly is established from
subject to object as infallibly as duration is constituted from
past to future.
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