Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- The revolutionary calendar
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The Jacobin mainstream and the Robespierrist ascendancy
- 2 The family ethos and the common happiness
- 3 Food rationing, collectivism and the market economy
- 4 Land tenure, shelter and the right of ownership
- 5 Progressive taxation and the fair distribution of wealth
- 6 Jobs for all and to each a fair deal
- 7 A place at school and a time for rejoicing
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- Past and Present Publications
4 - Land tenure, shelter and the right of ownership
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- The revolutionary calendar
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The Jacobin mainstream and the Robespierrist ascendancy
- 2 The family ethos and the common happiness
- 3 Food rationing, collectivism and the market economy
- 4 Land tenure, shelter and the right of ownership
- 5 Progressive taxation and the fair distribution of wealth
- 6 Jobs for all and to each a fair deal
- 7 A place at school and a time for rejoicing
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- Past and Present Publications
Summary
It is certain that the right of ownership is the most sacred of all the rights of the citizen and more important in certain respects than liberty itself.
Rousseau, ‘Economie politique’, in Encyclopédie, vol. V, 1755Beware of listening to that impostor: you are lost if you forget that the fruit belong to all and the land belongs to no one!
Rousseau, Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité, 1755The fair apportionment of essential commodities entailed no common ownership of the means of production, no wholesale redistribution of the land, no ‘agrarian law’ and few if any curtailments of individual property rights. Nevertheless, declarations of principle decreed at regular intervals by the Convention make it clear that while no erosion of the sacrosanct right of ownership would be tolerated, the ‘red scare’ was very real and the risk of such erosion taking place was clearly perceived. At its very first sitting, on 21 September 1792, Danton had moved to much acclaim that all ‘territorial, individual and industrial properties would be eternally maintained’; on 18 March 1793 the death sentence was imposed on whomsoever proposed a lex agraria or ‘any other law subversive of territorial, commercial and industrial properties’, while on 7 May the people's representatives-on-mission were charged with ‘affirming liberty and ensuring the guarantee of properties’ and on 21 September, as the Terror was inaugurated, the spectre of arbitrary land redistribution was once again squarely laid to rest.
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- Information
- Fair Shares for AllJacobin Egalitarianism in Practice, pp. 93 - 121Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996