PROPERTY AND LIBERTY
The savage in a savage country, free from all constraint of law,
custom, or government, must, I suppose, be admitted to enjoy the
greatest freedom conceivable. He is free to hunt what animals he
chooses; to pick the fruits of the earth; to gather the shells by the
seashore. He is free also to till any part of the land if he knows how
to do it; to sow and harvest it. He is also free to rob his fellow
men; to enslave them; to kill them and, if his tastes so incline, to
eat them.
But such a savage, while enjoying the greatest freedom conceivable, is
also exposed to the greatest risk conceivable; for example, he is
exposed to the risk of having the animals he hunts taken from him by
one stronger than he; if he tills the ground and reaps the harvest, he
is liable to have that harvest taken from him; and though he is free
to rob, enslave, kill, and eat his fellow men, his fellow men are
equally free to rob, enslave, kill, and eat him.
The same thing, of course, is true of his domestic relations. He may
capture any female he likes and compel her to serve as his wife; but
he is liable at any time to have his wife taken from him. As regards
his physical and domestic needs, therefore, while he enjoys the
greatest freedom possible, he is exposed to the greatest risk also.
Sec. 1. ORIGIN OF PROPERTY
It may be said for this order of things, if things can be said to have
order where there is no order, that the strong men would prefer this
system to one under which they would be limited as to the satisfaction
of appetite, passion, and caprice. But the strongest men are liable to
be subdued by a sufficient number of weaker men, as Polyphemus was
subdued by Ulysses and his crew. So the strong men in the community as
well as the weak, early discovered the importance of agreeing to
respect each one the rights of the other in the things which through
their labor they had acquired. Long, then, before there was any system
of written law, our savage ancestors recognized the right of men in
the product of their toil; and this recognition, whether we find it in
the Ten Commandments of the Jews, or the Twelve Tables of the Romans,
or in the customs of more savage races, is nothing more nor less than
the institution of property.
Although this institution of property involves an abridgment of
freedom--for under the property system nobody is free to rob
another--nevertheless it is an abridgment of freedom by which everyone
except the lazy profits; and it tends to put an end to laziness,
because, under this institution of property, only those who work can
eat.
It is because the institution of property is an abridgment of freedom
that property and liberty are treated together in this chapter. It is
impossible correctly to understand the one without the other. It will
be seen later that as civilization develops and men are crowded
together in a small space, it becomes indispensable to the convenience
of all that freedom should be further abridged; and that so long as
the freedom of the individual is abridged, not only for the benefit of
his neighbors, but of himself, the abridgment is a good thing and not
a bad. Whereas, when we find freedom being abridged to the
disadvantage of the many and the advantage of a few, then it will turn
out that this abridgment is a bad thing and not a good.
One feature about the abridgment of freedom it is impossible to
emphasize too much: In nations in which liberty is supposed most to
prevail, the abridgment of freedom is for the most part confined to
matters which involve little or no sacrifice. For example, the average
citizen does not find himself in the slightest degree hampered by the
criminal code; he does not want to kill or rob; it is perfectly clear
to him that the sacrifice he makes of his freedom to kill or rob is of
no importance by the side of the enormous security he receives as
regards those people who might want to kill or rob him.
Socialism has been much injured by certain fanciful writers who have
suggested various abridgments of human freedom that would be
altogether abominable; as for example, the undue limitation of a man's
liberty to choose his wife, and to choose his occupation. And
opponents of Socialism use these totally discredited suggestions as
weapons with which to fight Socialism; though in fact, modern
Socialism repudiates them altogether.
The institution of property, in abridging freedom, creates duties; and
in furnishing security, establishes rights. Thus we say that men have
a right of property in the product of their toil; a right to enjoy the
cabins they have built; a right to harvest the grain they have sown.
And the same thing can be said of rights and duties as has been said
about the abridgment of freedom. So long as no man exacts rights of
property in anything more than the result of his labor, so long is he
only asking what is due to him.
And the institution of property in the product of men's toil is not
only justified by convenience, but is also ordered by religion. It is
only economic expression of the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you
would that they should do unto you;" or "I shall respect your right to
the cabin you have built, as I expect you to respect my right to the
cabin I have built."
Moreover, even though this were not the rule imposed by religion, it
is a rule imposed by the principle of the survival of the fit. In the
conflict between races, those races in which rights of property were
respected were bound to prevail over those in which these rights were
not respected, because respect for rights of property such as these is
the only condition upon which a race can become prosperous, accumulate
wealth, strength, and all the resources that enable one race
successfully to fight with another. And here we see the first
reconciliation between religion and science. Both teach exactly the
same thing; that is to say, the Golden Rule.
In one sense the institution of property abridges freedom. In another
sense it enlarges it. For if a man has not only to kill his game, but
to protect it from others, he is a slave to the game he has killed
until he has eaten it. Whereas if the community in which he lives has
adopted the institution of property and respects it, he can leave his
game unprotected, and has leisure therefore for other occupation. It
will be seen ultimately that if the institution of property were
confined to the product of men's toil, the increase of knowledge of
the last few centuries would permit of another enormous enlargement of
freedom, for it would permit of the organization of labor in such a
manner that the work of securing the necessaries of life that now
costs the savage all his time, and the workingman of to-day between
eight and twelve hours of his day, need really only cost him a
comparatively insignificant fraction of it. But the demonstration of
this must be left until later.[74]
We have seen, therefore, that so long as property is confined to the
product of men's toil, all is well. The freedom of a savage life which
exposed every man to being robbed by every other man is what we call
license. The freedom, on the contrary, under the institution of
property which secures to men the product of their toil, we may call
liberty--liberty being freedom secured by law.
"Legum omnes servi sumus, ut liberi esse possumus."[75]
However simple the idea of property of men in the product of their
toil may seem to be, it has in practical life never yet been realized.
There are many reasons for this.
If a community were to attempt to-day to divide its available land into
tracts of just the size each one could himself cultivate, results would
very soon demonstrate that such a division is a physical impossibility.
Land varies much in fertility, and the amount of labor necessary to
cultivate one acre of land is very different from that necessary to
cultivate another acre of land. Men differ in their ability to
cultivate. One lacks strength; another intelligence--indeed, some lack
intelligence so much that they can never successfully cultivate their
own land, and these naturally become the employees of those who can.
Again, cultivation, of land leaves nothing for a man to do for a part
of the year, and gives him a great deal more than one man can do during
the rest of the year. It is impossible, therefore, to divide up the
available land of any community into parts which will mathematically or
even approximately correspond with the amount of work that each man can
do during the year. Then, too, the men who render great services to the
community seem entitled to larger buildings, better accommodations,
more ease and comfort, more personal service than those who render no
service beyond simply the day's work upon land. We find ourselves
confronted immediately by the enormous difficulty that results from the
inequality of land and the inequality of men, in any attempt to frame a
society which will even approximately assure to every man the product
of his own labor. These are inherent difficulties which no statesman
can disregard.
These difficulties have been enormously increased by the selfishness,
the intelligence, the violence, and the craft of men, which have been
used to secure to some such large tracts of land that the majority
were left without land altogether. And this system tends to be
perpetuated by the natural and laudable desire of every man to leave
his children after his death as well off as himself, thus creating
laws regarding testacy and intestacy of a character to secure this.
But the satisfaction of this laudable paternal instinct has had a bad
effect upon the community; for, whereas we are all disposed to allow
to every man the property which he has accumulated himself, even
though this accumulation confers upon him larger wealth than his
services warrant, we cannot but feel it improper that his issue, who
may be altogether worthless persons, should be enabled through the
success of their skilful ancestor to lead lives of idleness and even
profligacy from generation to generation. We are all, for example,
outraged to think that because John Jacob Astor over a century ago
had the forethought to invest his earnings in New York real estate,
his descendant, William Waldorf Astor, should to-day, though he has
abjured his American nationality and thereby escapes the payment of
personal taxes, nevertheless receive millions annually arising from
property which has increased in value through the labor of Americans
and not through any labor of his own.
Thus we find that owing to inherent physical difficulties such as the
inequality of land and the inequality of men, and owing to moral
difficulties some of which are reprehensible, as for example, avarice
and violence; and others commendable, such as intelligence and love of
offspring, notions of property have become altogether different in
fact from what they are in theory. Rights of property are not confined
to the product of men's toil, but cover all those things which a
family has been enabled under the law to accumulate whether by good
deeds or by bad. This has given rise to two well-defined classes--one
very small which owns land, and the other very large which owns no
land. And the fact that the small class owns land and the large one
does not own it, makes the latter dependent upon the former.
Much the same thing has taken place as regards personal property.
Relatively few men have secured control of the great industries of the
country, and are thereby in a position to dictate who shall work at
these industries, and as to the wages and conditions under which the
work shall be done.
Economically, therefore, the world can be divided into two sets of
people--a small set that owns the land and controls our industries;
and an enormous number of people dependent upon these; that is to say,
the vast majority can only work at these industries upon the
conditions imposed by a relatively insignificant minority.
The institution of property, therefore, originally destined to assure
to men the product of their toil, has altogether changed in character,
so that it--on the contrary--puts a very few men in a position where
they can exploit the labor of the rest.
A study of property and liberty cannot be separated from a study of
government, because the institution of property involves the idea of
law, and of a government to enforce the law. So long as no man seeks
to secure more property than the product of his labor, the amount of
government necessary to enforce the law need be but small--only just
enough to compel the lazy to work and to prevent them from stealing.
But the moment the institution of property is extended to cover more
than the product of labor, government has to be harsh; for as this
perverted notion of property creates a small propertied class and a
large proletariat, it is obvious that the government has to be
bolstered by a powerful organization of law courts, prisons, army, and
police in order to enable a very small minority to coerce a very large
majority. In fact, in our ancient civilizations the propertied class
consisted of either priests, soldiers, or both. In the case of the
priests, it was the domination of superior intelligence over
unintelligent superstition; and in the case of the soldiers, it was
the domination of organized force. Now, if the small propertied class
which controlled the government had governed well, or indeed had
governed without grossly outraging the governed, the whole development
of man might have been different. But it is not in human nature for a
few men possessed of autocratic power to use that power wisely. There
are exceptional periods in the history of the world when autocratic
power has been used wisely; but in the long run the opportunities
furnished by unlimited power to the evil propensities in men are
certain to result in gross injustice. Such is the testimony of
history.
Now if the few in the exploitation of the many had shown as much
temperance and wisdom as our ranch-men show to their cattle--and this
God knows is not much--the few might have enjoyed their liberty at the
expense of the many for an indefinite period. But they have shown so
little of either that in the State of New York our official Labor
Bulletin publishes that there have been for two years past about
200,000 breadwinners unable to earn the means of subsistence, and this
means--on the generally admitted average of four dependents (aged,
infirm, women, and children) to every breadwinner--a million human
beings on the verge of starvation for no fault of their own. And as
the population of New York is about one-tenth that of the whole
country, it would seem as though in this great, wealthy, prosperous
nation of ours freedom spells for some ten millions of people freedom
only to starve.
And as these ten millions are not cattle, but men and women with
hearts and brains, armed with a vote and carefully--nay,
compulsorily--educated to use this vote effectually, it does seem a
little foolish to imagine that they will continue indefinitely to
tolerate these conditions, if they can be changed.
So not only by the unfortunate majority, but also by some of the
fortunate minority who have bowels of compassion, the question is
being asked with insistence whether these conditions may not be
changed and if so how.
Conspicuous among the evils that have resulted from misgovernment by
the propertied class, are personal slavery and political despotism.
And the history of the world may be summed up as the effort of the
majority to escape from these two evils.
One reason why men have confused ideas about liberty is that they have
not carefully distinguished the various phases through which this
conflict has passed; for there are three kinds of liberty, all of
which are singularly interwoven one with the other and yet each of
which is distinctly different from the other.
There is personal liberty; that is, freedom from physical restraint.
In all civilized countries, personal liberty has been, to a large
measure, secured. Slavery, except in some parts of Africa, is
practically unknown, and every individual is protected from arbitrary
arrest west of Russia.
Next comes political liberty, which in so-called popular governments
we are supposed to enjoy; that is, we are supposed to be no longer
subject to autocratic government; we are supposed each to have a voice
in determining who are to govern us and what are to be the laws under
which we are to be governed. It will be seen later on that this
so-called political liberty is, in fact, enjoyed only by a very few
people in any country of the world, though universal franchise seems
to assure it to all.
Third and last, there is economic liberty; that is, freedom to earn
one's living. We have seen that the lawless savage enjoys economic
freedom. There is no restraint whatever upon him in procuring those
things which he needs--whether food, clothing, or shelter. We have
also seen that his position was immensely improved by the institution
of property in the product of toil, for under this definition of
property he practically enjoyed security and retained all the freedom
previously enjoyed except the freedom to rob; and he enjoyed thereby a
larger freedom because he did not have to keep perpetual watch over
the things he had hunted or produced.
But the moment the land was appropriated by a few men so that the
majority could not work on the land except as the wage servants of the
propertied class, then economic liberty came to an end; for no man can
be considered economically free if he depends upon some other man not
only for the means of subsistence, but for opportunity to work in
order to earn the means of subsistence. This economic dependence, due
to the appropriation of land by a class, results in a loss of all the
other liberties; for the franchise is of no value to a man every
waking hour of whose day has to be spent in earning a wage just
sufficient to support himself and his family. A vote can only be
effectually exercised if directed by a political education sufficient
to understand the political problems of the day, and if combined with
other votes in a political organization sufficient to carry out the
collective will of the people. The facility with which the Republican
and Democratic parties have divided the vote of the proletariat is
mainly due, I think, to the fact that the proletariat is too exhausted
by overwork to undertake political organization, though it is
beginning now to understand the necessity for doing so.
Last, but not least, a man cannot be regarded as enjoying liberty to
any appreciable extent if his actions during all the waking hours of
the day are determined, not by his own free will, but by the factory
bell.
And although it may be necessary to secure personal and political
liberty before economic liberty can be attained, it is certain that
until economic liberty be attained, neither political nor personal
liberty is effectually enjoyed. This subject will be treated at
greater length when we study the Political Aspect of Socialism.[76]
The point which it is essential to keep clearly in mind now is that
there are two notions of property, one of which is beneficent, and
furnishes a maximum of security and a maximum of liberty; the other of
which is unjust, and furnishes neither security nor liberty except to
the privileged few. The first is the theory that men are entitled to
property in the product of their labor; the second is that men are
entitled to property in things which are not the product of their
labor.
The most conspicuous of these things is land, which of course is not
the product of any man's labor, but the gift of Nature or God to the
whole race, or in America to Americans--certainly not to the
Englishman, W.W. Astor, for instance. And the appropriation by a few
men of all the tools of production--the factories, water power, steam
power, electric power, and of the great natural monopolies such as
railroads, telegraphs, telephones, tramways, gas, etc., has had just
as bad a result as the appropriation of land, for it has brought about
exactly the same condition--the exploitation of the many by the few.
This is the point which Henry George has overlooked, and it is a
failure to appreciate this fact that principally occasions the
differences between Single Taxers and Socialists. Private ownership of
land by a few was doubtless in its origin an act of spoliation;
whereas private ownership of factories and natural monopolies was the
result of the application of intelligence and labor to the
organization of industry. The latter, therefore, seems relatively
justifiable, whereas the first is not justifiable. But if the effect
of the latter is as bad for the community as that of the former, and
if there can be no escape from this system of exploitation except by
readjusting property in factories as well as property in land, does it
not seem evident that both must equally be faced?
At this point it may be well to point out that sound Socialism does
not endorse such exaggeration as Proudhon's "La propriete est le
vol"--"Property is theft," though there may be Socialists who do. On
the contrary, the fundamental basis of sound Socialism is the
distinction between property in the product of men's own toil and
property in the product of other men's toil. The one is altogether
just and beneficial; the other is unjust and detrimental.
Nor does Socialism fail to take into account the undoubted fact that
much land and many factories represent to-day an investment of
accumulated wages; and that to expropriate such land without
compensation would be as unjust an act of spoliation as the seizure of
land by violence or the enclosing of commons by craft.
On the contrary, Socialism recognizes that the problem of how to
readjust property so as to secure to men the full product of their
toil is of great difficulty and can only be solved by the application
thereto of the highest deliberation and wisdom. It appeals, therefore,
to those who have knowledge and those who have experience, those who
have studied and those who have suffered, convinced that it is by
uniting knowledge and experience and not by disuniting them that the
solution can best be attained.
We are now in a position to complete what has been said on the subject
of liberty.
Liberty is defined in all our dictionaries as "freedom from
restraint."
But it may be truly said that there is no such thing as universal
freedom from restraint. There may be indeed freedom from restraint of
man by man. But we remain under restraint to Nature owing to our
natural needs. That is to say, we are not free to spend our time as we
wish, for our natural needs compel us to devote our time to securing
shelter, clothing, and food. So also there may be partial freedom from
the restraint of Nature; but only upon the condition of restraint of
man by man, a restraint which under existing conditions bestows in
ordinate and generally unhappy leisure upon a few at the expense of
all the rest. We have therefore to recognize two kinds of restraint:
Natural restraint due to our needs, which makes us slaves to
things--shelter, clothing, and food;
Human restraint, exercised by one man over another, that puts some men
under restraint to others.
Again, the kind of freedom from restraint that exists in the savage
state is incompatible with two very precious things--security and
leisure; and there are two kinds of insecurity, corresponding to the
two kinds of restraint just mentioned:
I. Insecurity that arises from our own needs--food, shelter, clothing,
etc.
II. Insecurity that arises from the needs of others--theft, slavery,
despotism, etc.
The first--insecurity arising from our own needs--tends to make us
slaves to things.
The second--insecurity arising from the needs of others--tends to make
us slaves to people.
In the savage state or state of Nature, this insecurity is at a
maximum. A savage is a slave to his needs to such an extent that in
any climate save the tropics, he has to devote all his time to
satisfying them. And he is liable to be robbed or reduced to slavery
by men stronger than he.
It was to rescue himself from this insecurity that man created the
institution of property--of priceless value, it assured to men the
product of their labor and did not encourage one man to exploit the
labor of another. And for the same purpose man instituted law; that
is, the power for enforcing these rules--both also of priceless value
so long as they furnished security and the leisure that results
therefrom.
It was inevitable, however, that, owing to inequalities of men and of
things, the very system instituted to give security, liberty, and
leisure to all, should end by giving security, liberty, and leisure to
a few at the expense of the many.
Property, therefore, came to include two very different principles:
I. That men should securely enjoy the product of their toil.
This is believed by Socialists to be the desirable principle of
property.
II. That a few should without any toil enjoy the products of the
toil of the majority. This is the principle of property that
actually prevails to-day.
Now the bourgeois claims that the first or desirable principle of
property is unattainable and that the second is the only practical
system. This is the whole question we have to discuss.
I think that if we carefully reduce to its simplest terms the effort
of civilization to make men happy it will be found to be this:
It seeks to rescue men from the two restraints under which they labor
in a savage state:
Natural restraint due to our needs, i.e., shelter, clothing, food,
etc.
Human restraint due to the needs of others, i.e., theft, violence,
slavery, despotism, etc.
In other words, it seeks to secure for men _Liberty_, which, properly
understood, is emancipation from these two restraints. And the
blessings that ought to follow such liberty as this are two-fold:
Security and leisure. So that liberty, security, and leisure may be
described as the Trinity of human happiness; and all the more justly
because just as it is from the First Person of the Holy Trinity that
the other Two emerge, so it is from liberty that we get security and
leisure.
The real issue between the bourgeois and the Socialist is then reduced
to the following:
Can security, liberty, and leisure be enjoyed only by a few at the
expense of the many? Or can they be enjoyed equally by all?
I am glad in this connection to use the word "enjoyed," because this
word assumes--as indeed the whole bourgeois philosophy assumes--that
the few not only have security, liberty, and leisure, but that they
"enjoy" them; whereas I think it can be demonstrated that only the
worthless few have leisure and that they do not enjoy it, and that
neither the industrious nor the worthless have liberty or security at
all. In other words, the few in grasping at these things at the
expense of the many _enjoy_ none of them because of the hard fact of
human solidarity, which will drive them at last to reconsider all
these things. But this belongs to the subject of Solidarity and cannot
therefore be elaborated in this chapter.
The essential thing to be kept in mind is that the only liberty worth
having is one that will rescue us from _both_ kinds of
restraints--natural and human; that it is quite useless to throw off
human restraint and fall back into the condition of natural slavery
which seems to be the policy of the anarchist; nor is it of any
advantage to escape from natural slavery only to become a prey to
human despotism or exploitation, according to the creed of the
bourgeois. Socialism is the _juste milieu_ between Let-alone-ism on
the one hand and Anarchism on the other. Liberty, to be worth having,
must secure the greatest emancipation from _both_ restraints possible.
If we apply this notion of liberty to existing conditions, I think we
shall come to the following conclusion:
From natural slavery created by men's needs it was impossible for the
race to escape, except by the system which actually prevails--of
making the unwealthy majority work for the wealthy few. This results
in pauperism, prostitution, and crime.
Slavery to Nature in a natural or savage state practically condemns
savages to devote their whole time to procuring the necessaries of
life, and to protecting these things, once procured, from the
spoliation of their neighbors. A great stride in the progress of
humanity was made when savages began each to respect the product, of
the other's toil. And if this system could have prevailed, our late
advance in science and our consequent, control of Nature would secure
us two priceless advantages: one, security from spoilation; the other,
an organization of labor that would reduce the hours every man would
have to spend in procuring the necessaries and comforts of life to a
very small fraction of the working day. The results in leisure that
would accrue under a cooperative system will be explained later;[77]
but at this point it seems only necessary to indicate that if a man
need devote only three or four hours during the working days of his
life to satisfying his needs, he would have most of his waking hours
to devote to social service, literature, art, music, or amusement, to
an understanding of his political and economic problems, and to the
political organization necessary to secure popular control over
government for the first time in the history of the world. Every
reform movement in New York has failed because men who wanted reform
did not have the leisure to give to it; and the reform movement was
therefore left to those who devoted their whole time to it in order to
share the plunder on the day of victory. In other words, every reform
movement if successful resulted in a political machine animated by
selfish motives and therefore as bad as other political machines
similarly animated. When every man has time to protect his business
interests in the government; when these business interests are not
hostile to the general welfare, but coincide with it; and when
politics is the business of every man instead of being as now the
business of a few professional politicians, then for the first time
this world will see a veritable democracy.
Liberty, security, and leisure seem to me altogether the most
important things that we can attain through a correct understanding of
property. But owing to false notions of property created by the few
who have acquired all the property at the expense of their
fellow-citizens, there have arisen artificial conditions which have
created what may be called artificial slavery; that is to say,
personal dependence, political dependence, and economic dependence. Of
these three the last is the most important because, in consequence of
it, neither personal nor political independence is effectually
enjoyed. That these three forms of dependence are unnecessary and are
due to false notions of property which can be slowly eradicated, is
the belief of the Socialist. It is also his belief that the very
changes that will put an end to these three forms of dependence will
also set up true notions of property instead of false, and thereby
secure the priceless benefits of liberty and security on the one hand
and of leisure on the other.
In other words, Socialism proposes not to abolish property, but to
reinstate it; to relieve the rich from the insecurity and hatred to
which they are now exposed; to rescue them from slavery to wealth and
_ennui_; to confer upon them the immense consolation of knowing that
what they enjoy is at the expense of no one; that it commits none to
pauperism, prostitution, or crime; that it is earned by social
service, the only service worth doing; that the consideration they
enjoy is due to their own merits and not to inherited or ill-gotten
wealth; and to accomplish this by securing to all men the product of
their toil; by restoring property to the consideration to which it is
entitled; by furnishing to every man the maximum of liberty, security,
and leisure.
FOOTNOTES:
[74] Book III, Chapter II.
[75] Cicero, "Pro Cluentio," sec. 53.
[76] Book III, Chapter III.
[77] Book III, Chapter V. Economic Aspect.