14 Jan y 1817

Necessity Cat

1 Theory

§.4. Probity how securable

17

Q. < > Well, but this democracy /arrangement/ of yours would it not involve in it universal community or universal equality of possessions?

A. Not it indeed. Only upon a small scale, and by means of the force of the religious sanction in a special manner employed in the establishing and securing of it - nor then but upon a very small scale, a scale not large enough to constitute a defensible state, can the system of universal community of possessions have place: and as to universal equality of separate possessions it is what could not have place for two days together any where. Make all possessions equal to day, you will have no possessions at all tomorrow: for it is only by the assurance of continuing to enjoy that a man will bestow the pains necessary to produce.

If therefore all persons capable of exercising a share in the supreme power had all of them a share in it no such consequence would ensue. Universal community of possessions would to their eyes be universal slavery: nor could they be so blind as not to see that howsoever the case might be in regard to equality of the shares in the supreme power, as to such possessions of which the matter of subsistence and opulence is composed, any equalization incompatible with security would be equalization but in name, destruction - immediate destruction - in effect.