All that the sovereign people, legislators, and reformers see in public office is, to speak plainly, their own benefit. - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

For some time they talked of reformation; those who apparently desired it most favoring it only for their own profit, and the people who were to be the gainers expecting little and saying nothing. For a long time these poor people, either from distrust, incredulity, or despair, hesitated to ask for their rights: it is said that the habit of serving had taken the courage away from those old communes, which in the middle ages were so bold.

In order better to grasp the thought of Malthus, let us translate it into philosophical propositions by stripping it of its rhetorical gloss: — "'"Individual liberty, and property, which is its expression, are economical data; equality and solidarity are not." "Under this system, each one by himself, each one for himself: labor, like all merchandise, is subject to fluctuation: hence the risks of the proletariat." "Whoever has neither income nor wages has no right to demand anything of others: his misfortune falls on his own head; in the game of fortune, luck has been against him." From the point of view of political economy these propositions are irrefutable; and Malthus, who has formulated them with such alarming exactness, is secure against all reproach. From the point of view of the conditions of social science, these same propositions are radically false, and even contradictory.

Friendship is precious in the hearts of the children of men. Generosity, gratitude (I mean here only that gratitude which is born of admiration of a superior power), and friendship are three three distinct shades of a single sentiment which I will call "equity" or "social proportionality. Equity does not change justice; but always taking equity as the base, it adds to it esteem and thereby forms in man a third degree of sociability. Equality makes it at once our duty and our pleasure to aid the weak who need us and to make them our equals; to pay to the strong a just tribute of gratitude and honour without making ourselves slaves to them; to cherish our neighbors, friends, and equals for what we receive from them, even by right of exchange. Equity is sociability raised to this ideal through reason and justice; its most usual manifestation is urbanity or politeness, which among certain nations sums up in a single word almost all the social duties.