Poverty: Its Illegal Causes and Legal Cures — Chapter 1 : Illegal Causes of Poverty

By Lysander Spooner (1846)

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Untitled Anarchism Poverty: Its Illegal Causes and Legal Cures Chapter 1

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(1808 - 1887)

Individualist Anarchist and Unitarian Christian Abolitionist

: The greatest natural rights thinker of the 19th century was the American lawyer and maverick individualist Lysander Spooner. He responded to the tumultuous events of his era, including the Panic of 1837 and the Civil War, with pamphlets about natural rights, slavery, money, trial by jury and other timely subjects. (From: Jim Powell Bio.)
• "Again, the doctrine that the minority ought to submit to the will of the majority proceeds, not upon the principle that government is formed by voluntary association and for an agreed purpose on the part of all who contribute to its support, but upon the presumption that all government must be practically a state of war and plunder between opposing parties..." (From: "Free Political Institutions," by Lysander Spooner.)
• "There is no particle of truth in the notion that the majority have a right to rule, or exercise arbitrary power over, the minority simply because the former are more numerous than the latter. Two men have no more natural right to rule one than one has to rule two." (From: "Free Political Institutions," by Lysander Spooner.)
• "The doctrine that the majority have a right to rule proceeds upon the principle that minorities have no right in the government; for certainly the minority cannot be said to have any rights in a government so long as the majority alone determine what their rights shall be." (From: "Free Political Institutions," by Lysander Spooner.)


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Chapter 1

Lysander Spooner, Poverty: Its Illegal Causes and Legal Cures. Boston: Bela Marsh, No. 25 Cornhill. 1846.

CHAPTER 1: ILLEGAL CAUSES OF POVERTY

The existing poverty would be rapidly removed, and future poverty almost entirely prevented, a more equal distribution of property than now exists accomplished, and the aggregate wealth of society greatly increased, if the principles of natural law, and of our national and state constitutions generally, were adhered to by the judiciary in their decisions in regard to contracts.

These principles are violated by the judiciary in various ways, to wit:

1. In a manner to uphold arbitrary and unconstitutional statutes against freedom in banking, and freedom in the rate of interest; thus denying the natural and constitutional right of the people to make two classes of contracts, which will hereafter be shown to be of vital importance, both to the general increase and to the more equal distribution of wealth.

2. In a manner to extend the obligation of certain contracts beyond their natural and legal limit, and hold men liable to pay debts no longer due; thereby condemning large numbers of men to perpetual poverty and destitution, by making their expired debts a burden upon their future acquisitions, and an obstruction to their obtaining credit for the capital necessary to the successful employment of their industry.

3. In a manner to reduce the obligation of the contracts of corporate bodies below their natural and legal limit, and thus enable the privileged debtors, who have the means of payment, to withhold payment of debts actually due, and make themselves rich by making others poor.

4. In a manner to deny the legal rights of creditors, relatively to each other, in the property of their debtors; enabling and, in cases of insolvency, compelling debtors to swindle one portion of their creditors for the benefit of another; making it impossible for capitalists to determine, with any reasonable accuracy, the value of personal security for loans; rendering it unsafe for them to loan capital at all to mere laborers; and thus preventing the natural and more equal diffusion of credit among all those poor men, who are in want of capital upon which to bestow their labor, and who, for the want of such capital, are compelled to sell their labor to others for a price much below the amount of its actual products.

These erroneous decisions of the judiciary are made, in some of the cases, in obedience to arbitrary and unconstitutional legislation; in others, through ignorance of the natural law applicable to contracts, where no special legislation has been had.

It will be the object of the following essays to establish the illegality of these various decisions, and to explain their effects in obstructing the increase and more equal distribution of wealth.

But before proceeding to any legal discussions, let us, state certain economical propositions, that are obviously conducive, if not indispensably necessary, to the greatest aggregate increase, and most equal distribution of wealth, that can be accomplished consistently with the natural right of each man to the control of his own property. Having stated these propositions, we will then see whether those principles of natural and constitutional law, which our judiciary are bound to adhere to, would secure the establishment or realization of the propositions themselves.

From : Anarchy Archives

(1808 - 1887)

Individualist Anarchist and Unitarian Christian Abolitionist

: The greatest natural rights thinker of the 19th century was the American lawyer and maverick individualist Lysander Spooner. He responded to the tumultuous events of his era, including the Panic of 1837 and the Civil War, with pamphlets about natural rights, slavery, money, trial by jury and other timely subjects. (From: Jim Powell Bio.)
• "There is no particle of truth in the notion that the majority have a right to rule, or exercise arbitrary power over, the minority simply because the former are more numerous than the latter. Two men have no more natural right to rule one than one has to rule two." (From: "Free Political Institutions," by Lysander Spooner.)
• "Again, the doctrine that the minority ought to submit to the will of the majority proceeds, not upon the principle that government is formed by voluntary association and for an agreed purpose on the part of all who contribute to its support, but upon the presumption that all government must be practically a state of war and plunder between opposing parties..." (From: "Free Political Institutions," by Lysander Spooner.)
• "The doctrine that the majority have a right to rule proceeds upon the principle that minorities have no right in the government; for certainly the minority cannot be said to have any rights in a government so long as the majority alone determine what their rights shall be." (From: "Free Political Institutions," by Lysander Spooner.)

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1846
Chapter 1 — Publication.

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February 10, 2017; 5:48:31 PM (UTC)
Added to http://revoltlib.com.

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January 12, 2022; 4:52:52 PM (UTC)
Updated on http://revoltlib.com.

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