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BOLSHEVIK POLITICAL ECONOMY 61
The momentous question arises whether such a mode of
action can be said to be founded upon sound principles,
and whether it is consistent with political economy. It
will be admitted at the outset that mere acquisition by
unlawful means and without endeavour is unsound
ethically, and also from the point of view of political economy.
Similarly it is fatal for credit, the very foundation of trade
and finance, to break assumed liabilities and to repudiate
contracted debts. Such a course is, therefore, a bad
guarantee for the promotion of finance, industry, and
commerce. Plunder and theft destroy the stimulus for work
and endeavour, which are incentives in the production and
acquisition of wealth.
It is alleged that the workmen and peasants are the only
producers of wealth, that all the necessities of life are
provided for by them, and in consequence, therefore, their
labour should be rewarded while the rest of the community,
as useless drones, should not even have the right to exist !
Primarily it must be understood that the action of
appropriation, called by the revolutionaries " expropriation," but
commonly known as robbery and theft, does not come
under the head of any principle, producing, as it does,
merely a change of ownership. Those who have been
enriched by predatory dictatorial legislation will, to be
sure, turn the tables by becoming unwilling to give up
their new possessions. The peasants after having seized
the land of the previous landowners will be the first to
declare themselves against any idea of nationalisation of
the land. The workers, who have been endowed with all
the means of production, such as factories, industrial works,
fisheries, and so forth, will be loath to relinquish their new
proprietorship. It will thus become apparent that the
benefiting of the proletariat is but a lever to bring socialistic
wire-pullers to power, and to allow licence to base instincts
of rapine and deprivation of the lawful property of others.
The principle of private ownership, very far from being
eliminated, will, on the contrary, attest itself stronger than
ever before, and socialism will be beaten by the very measures
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