.....,. le CHAPTER IV. T)l.e millions of .laws which exist for the 1;egulation of humanity, appear upon investigation to be divided into three principal categories-protection of property, protection of persons, protectioi1 of government. And by analysing each of these three categories, we arrive at the same logical a-nd necessary conclusion : the uselessness and h·urtf1ilness of law. Socialists know what is mea.nt by protection of property. Laws -011 property are not made to 'guarantee either to the indi-. vidual or to society the enjoyment of the produce ,of thei1: own labour. On the contrary, they are made to rob the producer of a part of what he has crca.ted, and to secure to certain other psople that portion of the produce which they have stolen either from the producer or from society as a whole. "When, for example, the law establishes Mr. So-and~Bo's right to a house, it is not establishing his right to a cottage he has built for himself, or to . a. house he has erected with the help of some of his friends. In that case 110 one would haye disputed his right. On the contrary, the law is establishing his right to a house which is riot the p1·oduct of his labour; first of all, because he. has had it built for him by others to whom he has not paid the full value of thei-r work; and next because that ho.use represents a social value, which he could not have produced for himself. The law is establishing his right to what belongs. to everybody in general and to nobody in particular. The same house built in the midst of Siberia would not have the value it possesses in a large town, and, as we know, that value a.rises from the labour of something like fifty generations of men who have built the town, beautified it, supplied it with water and gas, fine promenades, colleges, theatres, shops, railways and roads leading in all directions. Thus, by recognising the right of Mr. So-and-So to a particular house in Paris, London or Rouen, the law is unjustly appropriating to him a certain portion of Biblioteca Gino Bianco
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