105 



use of rare or costly books which they could 

 not procure in any other manner, and do not 

 libraries considerably increase the use made of 

 a book compared with what it could render if 

 shut up in the private library of a useless 

 bibliophile ? In the same way the collective 

 ownership of the land and the means of pro- 

 duction, in furnishing to each the use of 

 machines, tools, and land, will only multiply 

 their utility a hundredfold. 



And it must not be said that when men no 

 longer have the exclusive and transmissible 

 ownership of wealth they will no longer be 

 impelled to work because they will no longer 

 be moved by personal or family interest. 



We see for example that even in our 

 present individualist world those residues of 

 collective ownership of the land to which 

 Laveleye has so brilliantly called the atten- 

 tion of sociologists continue to be cultivated 

 and yield a rent which is not inferior to that 

 which the lands yield that are held in private 

 ownership, although these agrarian commun- 

 ists or collectivists have only the right of 

 usage and of enjoyment."* 



* M. Loria, in Economic Basis oj Society, London, 

 1894, P art i-t proves besides that in a society based on 

 collective ownership egoism of course still remains the 

 principal motive of human actions, but that it thus 

 brings about a social harmony of which it is the worst 

 enemy in an individualist regime. 



Here is besides a very small but instructive example. 

 The means of transport in the large towns have followed 

 the ordinary process of progressive socialisation : first, 

 everyone went on foot, as an exception only a few rich 

 persons could have horses and carriages ; later the car- 

 riages were put at the service of the public with a tariff 

 (the fiacres, which have been used in Paris for more than 



