Point 132. Property honoured

In a capitalo-socialist democracy “ property is theft ”, just as power is usurpation. It is very true: the liberal Revolution has transformed these two social functions, which form the basis and the rule for all civilised human order, into instruments for destabilising the French heritage and into ways whereby financial and political oligarchies can rob the country of its wealth. It is institutionalised violence. Liberal capitalism, by its abusive and intensive commercialisation of all wealth and by making monetary or commercial tokens prevail over real wealth, has forcibly destabilised every class in society, and the latter are looted and despoiled by inflation, speculation and monetary agitation in exact proportion to their stability and entrenchment, their steadiness and honesty. Socialism completes this ruin by arrogating to itself the exorbitant function of a great avenger, charged with the redistribution of wealth by transferring the property of private persons to the State and from the State to its own favourites, judging itself to be the principal beneficiary.

1. Ecological science posits as a principle that property is an element of the natural freedom of families and one of the bases of order, vitality and stability for any society. All property is recognised as legitimate once it is inherited or acquired in accordance with custom and law, whether it be the capital accumulated by families or the fruits of an honest income, of savings, work, services rendered, an exchange or a normal gift, the intention and use of which is not for society to discuss.

No a priori principle, whether egalitarian or libertarian can challenge this appropriation and peaceful possession of property by families. To claim the contrary to the advantage of the State or of the collectivity in the name of a “ social mortgage ” – as socialists do – or of a universal law, would be tantamount to disturbing the ecological order.

2. This right to private property, however, cannot be the absolute and individualist right of the liberal bourgeois who brought about the Revolution of 1789. The necessity of living in society implies that this right to free possession and disposal is adjusted and therefore limited and relativised by every communitarian convention and mutual agreement, establishing the balance of social relations. Such in former times were the various controls regulating family, feudal or common goods. It is because this counterbalance no longer existed, that property – especially industrial and commercial property – acquired such a savage character in the 19th century.

Nevertheless – and here we have a second limitation naturally encountered by property, this time by virtue of the higher common good – the State, or more precisely the sovereign authority, in its capacity as recognised defender of the nation, and because it assures the peaceful possession of all property, has certain royal rights over property that justify the duties and services it is entitled to demand: taxes on property, compulsory purchase if need be, etc.