Social Wealth Must Belong to Those Who Created It (1834) | Louis-Auguste Blanqui

The below text first appeared in Le Liberateur, no. 2, February 1834

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If we examine the source of social wealth, we find that it resides exclusively in intelligence and labour. Indeed, it is through labour and intelligence that society lives and breathes, grows and develops, and if these two forces were to withdraw from it for even a single moment it would immediately dissolve and all its members would perish as if through a sudden catastrophe.

But these two forces can only act on the condition that a third element, inert in itself, serves as an instrument to sustain the life of society in the hands of the men of intelligence and labour. This element is the land. It would seem, then, that the land should belong to all members of society equally, who, through their combined efforts, would be able to exploit the wealth it holds in its depths. But this is not the case. Through deceit and violence, some individuals seized this common land that we walk upon. Declaring themselves to be the exclusive owners of this land, they established through law that it will forever remain their property and that this right to property shall form the basis of the social order. They declare that their right to property shall dominate all the rights of humanity, and that, if need be, it may absorb them all