Key Arguments

• He insists the three degrees 'support and imply each other': 'Equité cannot exist without justice; society without justice is a solecism,' making justice logically and temporally prior and foundational.
• He clarifies domains: 'Justice is sociability as manifested in the division of material things, susceptible of weight and measure; équité is justice accompanied by admiration and esteem⁠—things which cannot be measured,' differentiating quantitative from qualitative aspects.
• From this he infers a principle: 'Though we are free to grant our esteem to one more than to another, and in all possible degrees, yet we should give no one more than his proportion of the common wealth; because the duty of justice, being imposed upon us before that of équité, must always take precedence of it.'
• He uses the anecdote of the woman forced to choose between husband and brother to show how following équité (as she understood it) against justice produces wrongdoing: she 'failed in point of justice, and did a bad deed, because conjugal association is a closer relation than fraternal association, and because the life of our neighbor is not our property.'
• He applies the same principle to wages: 'inequality of wages cannot be admitted by law on the ground of inequality of talents; because the just distribution of wealth is the function of economy⁠—not of enthusiasm,' denying juridical sanction to talent‑based pay inequalities.
• He extends it to donations, wills, and inheritance: 'society, careful both of the personal affections and its own rights, must never permit love and partiality to destroy justice,' warning against legal validation of partiality that concentrates capital.
• He concedes emotional reasons to prefer certain heirs or associates (the son long in business with his father, the citizen designating his successor) but concludes that 'nevertheless, society can tolerate no concentration of capital and industry for the benefit of a single man, no monopoly of labor, no encroachment,' placing structural equality over individual preference.
• He encapsulates the whole social faculty in a material formula: 'Sociability, justice, équité⁠—such, in its triplicity, is the exact definition of the instinctive faculty which leads us into communication with our fellows, and whose physical manifestation is expressed by the formula: Equality in natural wealth, and the products of labor.'

Source Quotes

Sociability, justice, équité⁠—such, in its triplicity, is the exact definition of the instinctive faculty which leads us into communication with our fellows, and whose physical manifestation is expressed by the formula: Equality in natural wealth, and the products of labor. These three degrees of sociability support and imply each other. Equité cannot exist without justice; society without justice is a solecism. If, in order to reward talent, I take from one to give to another, in unjustly stripping the first, I do not esteem his talent as I ought; if, in society, I award more to myself than to my associate, we are not really associated.

If, in order to reward talent, I take from one to give to another, in unjustly stripping the first, I do not esteem his talent as I ought; if, in society, I award more to myself than to my associate, we are not really associated. Justice is sociability as manifested in the division of material things, susceptible of weight and measure; équité is justice accompanied by admiration and esteem⁠—things which cannot be measured. From this several inferences may be drawn.

1. Though we are free to grant our esteem to one more than to another, and in all possible degrees, yet we should give no one more than his proportion of the common wealth; because the duty of justice, being imposed upon us before that of équité, must always take precedence of it. The woman honored by the ancients, who, when forced by a tyrant to choose between the death of her brother and that of her husband, sacrificed the latter on the ground that she could find another husband but not another brother⁠—that woman, I say, in obeying her sense of équité, failed in point of justice, and did a bad deed, because conjugal association is a closer relation than fraternal association, and because the life of our neighbor is not our property.

The woman honored by the ancients, who, when forced by a tyrant to choose between the death of her brother and that of her husband, sacrificed the latter on the ground that she could find another husband but not another brother⁠—that woman, I say, in obeying her sense of équité, failed in point of justice, and did a bad deed, because conjugal association is a closer relation than fraternal association, and because the life of our neighbor is not our property. By the same principle, inequality of wages cannot be admitted by law on the ground of inequality of talents; because the just distribution of wealth is the function of economy⁠—not of enthusiasm. Finally, as regards donations, wills, and inheritance, society, careful both of the personal affections and its own rights, must never permit love and partiality to destroy justice.

Finally, as regards donations, wills, and inheritance, society, careful both of the personal affections and its own rights, must never permit love and partiality to destroy justice. And, though it is pleasant to think that the son, who has been long associated with his father in business, is more capable than anyone else of carrying it on; and that the citizen, who is surprised in the midst of his task by death, is best fitted, in consequence of his natural taste for his occupation, to designate his successor; and though the heir should be allowed the right of choice in case of more than one inheritance⁠—nevertheless, society can tolerate no concentration of capital and industry for the benefit of a single man, no monopoly of labor, no encroachment.27 2. Equité, justice, and society, can exist only between individuals of the same species.

Key Concepts

• These three degrees of sociability support and imply each other. Equité cannot exist without justice; society without justice is a solecism.
• Justice is sociability as manifested in the division of material things, susceptible of weight and measure; équité is justice accompanied by admiration and esteem⁠—things which cannot be measured.
• yet we should give no one more than his proportion of the common wealth; because the duty of justice, being imposed upon us before that of équité, must always take precedence of it.
• inequality of wages cannot be admitted by law on the ground of inequality of talents; because the just distribution of wealth is the function of economy⁠—not of enthusiasm.
• society can tolerate no concentration of capital and industry for the benefit of a single man, no monopoly of labor, no encroachment.

Context

Part V, Part I, immediately after defining équité; Proudhon derives normative consequences about distribution, wages, and inheritance from his tripartite schema of sociability, justice, and équité.