estate this too great boldness may be offset by the deduction from history that no period of ownership has been characterized by the exclusive prevalence of one form of ownership, and further by the fact that a higher degree of evolution is productive of a greater variety of forms. Hence if a new regime is foreshadowed, it may be one of equilibrium not only between individual parts of society, but between competitive and socialized functions, perhaps between private property and estate. CHAPTER XI THE ETHICS OF OWNERSHIP 1 THE data of this essay may be insufficient to show an alternation of the forms of private property and estate; but there can be no doubt that legal restriction is an inherent fact in ownership, that, strictly speaking there is no private property. Augustinus Triumphus said: "Private property ceases to be such by natural law in case of necessity, by divine law for the sake of charity, by the civil law for the benefit of the state." Laws, however, are not so much the cause as the epitome of economic evolution. Plato said: "Those are the most amusing people in the world who imagine that with their everlasting enactments and amendments they will find some way of putting down the knaveries that are practiced in contracts, little thinking that they are in reality only cutting off the heads of a hydra." Yet where there is no restriction there is no law. 2 Limitation of private ownership is not only historically and legally necessary, but it is a corollary to all theories of the right of property. The fundamental theory of the right of property, that it is a human necessity, is variously called the natural right, or the human nature, or the divine right theory. Thus Kant and Hegel and Green regard the being a man a sufficient title to property. But given many men and small substance, human nature and divine right cannot be monopolized without the infringement of an equal or potentially equal title. The "labor" and the "robbery and 1 Dunning, W. A., Political Theories, p. 219. 2 Republic, ix, 426. 541] 197 1 66 violence" and the "occupancy" theories are theories of appropriation. Locke would give to the laborer the work of his own hand which he actually uses. But to be rich one must use the labor of others. Mill says: The laws of property have never yet conformed to the principles on which this justification of private property rests." Proudhon would not allow that wrong can be made right by prescription. Blackstone and Grotius and Savigny regard occupancy as a title. Upon these theories the limitation of past occupancy by present occupancy might be justified. Ownership of the present day worldwide commercial properties by occupancy would be an attenuated position. It is now not man but money that occupies. The "legal evolution or utility" theory refers to a stage subsequent to necessity and appropriation. Property is a creature of law, which furnishes its ethical basis. "Banish governments from the earth and all its fruits are as much the common property of all mankind as the air and light," says Bossuet. "The inequality that now is has been introduced by the lawes civill," says Leviathan." The Servian code says: Property is based on civil law, not on natural rights, on public utility of which law is the expression, not on abstract justice." Property is not in having but in being allowed to have. If property is the subject of law it is subject to limitation. The academic theory of distribution among the factors of production according to their productivity leaves unconsidered the actual distribution among individuals. It is therefore liable to misinterpretation as a justification of inequality of ownership. Capital is not a personality. Consequently in a distribution among men it is not entitled 1 Political Economy, bk. i. Quoted in Gide, Political Economy, p. 453. 2 I: 63. to receive anything. It is not capital that receives the return for its productive use, but the owner of capital. Since capital accumulates while men decay, the ownership of capital to the second generation must find some other justification than its productivity. When it is determined that capital produces so much and labor produces so much, and that capital accordingly should receive so much and labor so much, the laborer accepts the logic; but since capital is the product of labor alone he claims the title to it, and denies the title of those who have not labored. The laborer does not claim the product for larger consumption alone, although the larger ownership conceded to the capitalist is usually so applied in part, but for economic security and power, just as the capitalist wishes it. This security, and not enjoyment, is the chief motive of ownership. In a period of enlightenment it seems probable that greater productivity would result from a better distribution of motive. Thus adequate examination might show that both the theories of property and the economic theory of distribution require the limitation of private property. If, however, private property is conceived to be absolute, undelegated privilege, the spirit of ownership is arrogant, elementary, bestial. Lord Raoul of France may ride among his discontented villains and reason: "Now, dear knave, Be kind and tell me-tell me quickly, too- 1 Lanier, Sidney, The Jacquerie. Some millionaire religionist will spiritualize Raoul and say that the toiling multitude is the thorny stock that bears a rose. But the rose now begins to know whose sap flows in his petals, and to confess that the thorny stock has a property in his hues. Raoul has ceased to swagger, has changed from unconciliatory usage of subjects to covert sedition against masters. He is professing, perhaps, to hold his realm as the steward of his subjects. Stewardship, private initiative, supplements the law and the logic of social limitation. "The ambition to so assist in readjusting industrial relations that manhood may not be held less deserving of conservation than property," is not confined to the maladjusted. Many of the chief beneficiaries of the social undistribution inquire sincerely what they can do, without reasoning in academic fashion about the consequences of their doing. "I believe that a divine discontent should enter the breast of every man who does not have a chance at all the privileges that other men enjoy." Mr. Carnegie's gospel is this: "To set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance, to provide modestly for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him and after so doing, to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer in the manner which, in his judgment is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community-the man of wealth thus becoming the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience and ability to administer." "A public sentiment is rapidly forming which views as a reproach a very rich man who lives or living dies without connecting himself and his name 1 Small, in Am. Journal of Sociology, i, p. 571. 2 New York Times, Dec. 7, 1905. 2 |