re is no country in Europe in which the public
administration has not become, not only more centralized, but more
inquisitive and more minute it everywhere interferes in private concerns
more than it did; it regulates more undertakings, and undertakings of a
lesser kind; and it gains a firmer footing every day about, above, and
around all private persons, to assist, to advise, and to coerce them.
Formerly a sovereign lived upon the income of his lands, or the revenue
of his taxes; this is no longer the case now that his wants have
increased as well as his power. Under the same circumstances which
formerly compelled a prince to put on a new tax, he now has recourse
to a loan. Thus the State gradually becomes the debtor of most of the
wealthier members of the community, and centralizes the largest amounts
of capital in its own hands. Small capital is drawn into its keeping
by another method. As men are intermingled and conditions become more
equal, the poor have more resources, more education, and more desires;
they conceive the notion of bettering their condition, and this teaches
them to save. These savings are daily producing an infinite number of
small capitals, the slow and gradual produce of labor, which are always
increasing. But the greater part of this money would be unproductive if
it remained scattered in the hands of its owners. This circumstance has
given rise to a philanthropic institution, which will soon become, if I
am not mistaken, one of our most important political institutions. Some
charitable persons conceived the notion of collecting the savings of
the poor and placing them out at interest. In some countries these
benevolent associations are still completely distinct from the State;
but in almost all they manifestly tend to identify themselves with the
government; and in some of them the government has superseded them,
taking upon itself the enormous task of centralizing in one place, and
putting out at interest on its own responsibility, the daily savings of
many millions of the working classes. Thus the State draws to itself the
wealth of the rich by loans, and has the poor man's mite at its disposal
in the savings banks. The wealth of the country is perpetually flowing
around the government and passing through its hands; the accumulation
increases in the same proportion as the equality of conditions; for in
a democratic country the State alone inspires private individuals with
confidence, because t