Agrarian law (French Revolution)

The decree of 18 March 1793 was passed on the motion of Barère and Levasseur (of the Sarthe). The historian Mathiez explains that "agrarian law" was what socialism was then called, and notes that the same day the Convention voted the principle of a progressive tax on luxury and wealth. In 1796 Sylvain Maréchal's Manifesto of the Equals rebutted the charge that its authors merely revived the agrarian law, calling the agrarian law or partition of land the passing wish of a few unprincipled soldiers and crowds and declaring its own aim to be common property. Dividing land to multiply owners and abolishing private ownership of land point in opposite directions. Calling the Conspiracy of the Equals an agrarian-law movement therefore contradicts the manifesto's own distinction.