A full explanation of this antithesis will be found in my False Assumptions of Democracy(Heath Cranton, 1921, Chapter IV).
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control over self to avoid these results, are necessary to self-discipline. This, I suggest, explains the high achievements in human, spiritual and material products of those peoples who have held private ownership to be a right.) (d) It is essential for purposeful leisure. 1 (Purposeful leisure, being the means of creative thought, is in itself a creation of private property. Against this it may be argued that imprisonment, too, provides leisure, and, in the case of men like Raleigh, Bunyan, Cervantes and Oscar Wilde, productive leisure. This objection, however, cannot be meant seriously. The fact of being incarcerated imposes certain unchosen conditions even upon the man who requires only a pen and paper; it limits choice in the use of purposeful leisure, and even in the case of literary production, which is the chief use to which prison leisure can be put, requires a certain minimum age limit, beneath which the experience of life necessary for useful writing can hardly be expected.) (e) The less important but fairly obvious features of private property, which make it desirable are. (1) It is economically superior (communal undertakings, as already pointed out, tend to become "circumlocutionary"). (2) It promotes and preserves the nobler side in human nature — generosity, hospitality, patronage. (3) It is pleasurable. (To the best average natures, it is more pleasurable to be independent, self-supporting and free, than to be dependent, parasitical and fettered. It is not everyone whose artistic inspiration can ennoble, or make
1 In a society attaching responsibilities to wealth, there may be men who wish to escape these responsibilities in order to use leisure for the solution of problems not connected with the active life about them — chemical, biological, historical research, metaphysics, literature, etc. But, in that case, they should be expected, as in Feudal times, to make a voluntary renunciation of wealth — hence the creative work done by monks. This, however, would imply the existence of suitable institutions for their reception.
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him forget, a state of parasitism.) (4) To the man of average intellect and to the classes beneath him, it is a very important condition of energetic and ambitious activity. (Not every one can live so completely in the spirit as to be indifferent to material rewards.) But against this catalogue of virtues, there is a very long list of objections. (a) Private property makes acquisitiveness, cupidity, greed and rapacity possible, and, as all these infirmities are human, all-too-human, they cannot be conjured away merely by a profound Liberal or Socialist faith in the essential goodness of mankind. (b) Through (a) private property tends to accumulate in a few hands, and does not necessarily collect where virtue or human desirability is most conspicuous. (c) Having accumulated, it is frequently unwisely, viciously administered, and unwisely and mischievously bequeathed after death, under the very eyes of the disinherited. (d) It is also used to desecrate the sacred possession of leisure. The vulgar and all those who, being slaves by nature, cannot be their own masters, make leisure appear ridiculous and purposeless, and bring it into contempt under the very eyes of the disinherited. (e) As an institution it tends gradually to harden the sense of possession, so that in time people forget the contribution made by all to their individual property. (f) In capitalistic societies it can be acquired in vast quantities in so many ways that have no connexion with either diligence, good taste, great intellectual gifts, good health, patriotism or even common honesty, that it is often profane before it reaches the hands of its owner. (Profits on stock and share transactions, on valuta transactions, on forward buying of commodities or currencies, on the cornering of markets, and
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speculative deals of various kinds, not accruing to the advantage of the community at large — all of which transactions can be carried through quite successfully by a gangrenous, bedridden cripple at one end of a telephone.) (g) In capitalistic societies, moreover, it is divorced from any function or sense of duty, so that it becomes a right without a function or duty, which is absurd. (h) In capitalistic societies it also leads to the exercise of an anonymous, inhuman power over one's fellows. Power over men is not necessarily bad, as it is too often assumed to be. But the fact that it may be bad, and that in capitalistic societies there is no means of tracing where it is bad and where it is good, makes Capitalism peculiarly nonsensical and vulnerable. (The spectacle of a degenerate, overfed cripple being carried about in a litter all day, year in, year out, by six stalwart, able-bodied and wholesome men who sacrifice their best to him, would be nauseating enough as an exception; but the very justifiable suspicion that under the capitalistic regime it may in an occult form be almost the rule, makes Capitalism intolerable to all those who can only acquiesce in the power of man over man, when both the subordinate and the community as a whole benefit from the relationship.) It is no remedy of these vices to retain a central Government and to continue, or to extend, the expropriation of private property indiscriminately by means of taxes, rates and exhortations to charity. You might just as well try to rid the population of its plethoric individuals by bleeding the whole nation. Besides all such methods are merely half-hearted concessions to Communism and indicate a confusion of two principles. It is not generally realized that just as Louis XIV, by his centralisation of the government of France,
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defunctionalized his noble sand prepared the block on which they were to be beheaded, so centralized government in this country has made the functionalization of independent riches impossible, and is preparing the rich for the axe of Communism. Nor is it enough vaguely to demand the control of capital as the Chinese did over two thousand years ago. Because by control, the modern world would understand Parliamentary control by means of restrictive or Puritanical legislation, so that all that would happen would be the continuation of the status quo ante, plus certain additional penalties and constraints imposed indiscriminately on all capitalists. For instance, accumulations beyond a certain figure might be prohibited, and certain irresponsible methods of earning or bequeathing property might be stopped. But this would be leaving things as bad as ever. Because wealth, even very great wealth, in certain hands may be extremely desirable. Power is not bad in itself. It only becomes bad if it is indiscriminately granted. It seems to me, therefore, that the time has come, when some discrimination should and must be exercised regarding this matter of society's acquiescence in the retention of power. Society has achieved the curtailment of power by rough and sweeping methods in the past, and we have seen kings and hereditary legislators stripped of their prerogatives. But never since the Feudal System has there been any attempt to discriminate between which of two men, of the same claims and rank, should be allowed to seize power. And yet it is precisely the curse of sweeping and indiscriminate limitations and restrictions, that they must necessarily deprive humanity of an enormous amount of valuable guidance and service, because they are always based upon measures calculated to rule out the worst type, without retaining the best.
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But in order to discriminate, we must have some criterion of worth. For there is no longer any time to lose. The institution of private property is being assailed on all sides, and if those who have the greatest interest in defending and maintaining it do not set to and purge it of its foulness, its abuses, and its absurdities, this task will be undertaken very much more brutally and vandalistically by their opponents. But if we are ever to speak of and recognize such a thing as sacred property — that is to say, property that no one would dare, without the risk of committing sacrilege, to take from its owner, — how are we to distinguish it from that which is profane? What shall be our test? We have seen that there is nothing either in history or philosophy to justify our calling any property in excess of the individual's physical and professional needs sacred at all. It is by a mere fiction of law and habit that it ever acquired any odour of sanctity. On the other hand, no thinking man would ever deny that it may be sacrosanct. How are we to tell? How could any tribunal tell? The test of how it was acquired cannot always be relied upon. Because, whereas he may acquire it honestly or even diligently, and in a way not injurious to the public, its owner may administer it badly. The quantitative test is also useless. Because to attempt to set a limit to the actual amount a man may possess, as many legislators have done in the past, and to confiscate the balance, is to assume that no man can be a good administrator of property over a certain amount — obviously a daring and unjustifiable assumption. St. Augustine, followed by Wyclif, suggested that the test should be the quality of administration, and that a bad administrator should be separated from
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his wealth. The qualification for continued possession ought, therefore, to be good administration. Hume, taking up this argument, agreed that for a wise and just man to restore a fortune to a miser or a seditious bigot was a just and laudable act, but that the public was the sufferer. Being desirous above all to defend the sanctity of private property as such, however, he refused to allow isolated cases of this kind to weigh with him. "Though in one instance," he said, "the public be a sufferer, this momentary ill is amply compensated by the steady prosecution of the rule, and by the peace and order, which it establishes in society." But Hume had not reached our present position. He was not faced, as we are, with the alternative of justifying private ownership and of cleansing it of its foulness, or of losing it as an institution. It seems to me imperative, now, that St. Augustine's test should be ruthlessly applied, and that if private property is to be controlled at all, this should be a factor in the method of controlling it. But as a test is it clear enough? Is it proof against looseness of interpretation? I venture to doubt it. But whereas it may be difficult to determine the quality of administration precisely it cannot be as difficult to determine the value of property in a given community. Surely, however, if we may suppose it to be always possible to determine the value of property in a given community, it must also be possible to compute the loss or gain that a certain lot of property would register by the mere act of transferring it from one owner to another. It is the direst nonsense to suppose that property does not either suffer a loss or register a gain by being transferred. The policy of taxation and confiscation is built on this nonsense, and it is curious to find a philosopher as perspicacious as Hume
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generally is denying that it is nonsense, in fact definitely stating that the characteristic of what he terms "external" goods, is that they can be transferred without suffering any loss or alteration. Truth to tell, in view of the infinite diversity of men, the transference of property without actual loss or gain to that property is inconceivable. To take two extreme and obvious examples of what is meant, let us suppose the transfer of two kinds of goods — a child's toy and a wise man's fortune. Now if the first is transferred to an adult it is obvious that its whole value will be wiped out at one stroke. Even to transfer it to a child less imaginative and less resourceful than its first owner, will lead to an appreciable decline in value, which is surely capable of being registered. On the same principle, if the wise man's fortune be transferred to a gambler or drunkard, or even to a less wise owner than the first, its value must depreciate, and, what is more, culminate in a loss to the community at large. Clearly then, the crucial test of whether property in excess of a man's physical and professional needs is sacred or profane, should be to discover whether its removal from him will involve irreparable loss or actual gain to the property itself and ultimately to the community. And, according to this, we should conclude that nothing a man owns, beyond his physical and professional needs, is really sacred property unless its removal from him involves such irreparable loss. Thus, in a properly organized community, the fundamental difference between the poor and the rich would be that, whereas the poor are not equipped to hold sacred property, the rich are so equipped. In a healthy state, only those should be poor from whom property can be removed without either loss to the property itself or to the community.
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On the same principle, the rich should be those from whom property cannot be removed without loss both to the value of the property and to the community. To-day, however, there is no such differentiation. Not only the Communists and Socialists, but everybody knows that in ninety-nine per cent of cases the poor could now take over the incomes of thousands of the rich without any appreciable loss to anything or anybody, except the individuals despoiled. Thus the task of the future is undoubtedly to elevate the institution of private ownership above present day standards, to create a wealthy class whose property, over and above their physical needs would really be sacred according to the definition given above, and therefore to make it as difficult and onerous to be rich, as in the best days of Feudalism it was difficult and onerous to be a leader. This task will hardly be accomplished unless we can solve the problem of organizing society once more upon a basis of mutual loyalty and obligation, of duty and responsibility bound up with benefit, so that from the lowest to the highest in the land, everyone is in a position of honour, security and service. But, apart from suggesting that, in order to achieve this end, Government will have to be decentralized and much of the freedom and absoluteness now traditionally associated with private ownership will have to be abolished along lines utterly at variance with Communism and Socialism, the problem is really beyond the scope of this essay.
7. Nevertheless, since to drop the subject at this point may leave many readers wondering how the above criterion and test of proprietary right is to be applied in practice, perhaps a brief outline of its possible practical application may not be without interest.
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If the proof of proprietary right lies in the irreparable loss that would accrue both to the community and to the property itself, by the removal of the latter from its owner, it is obvious, in the first place, that some sort of tribunal would have to be constituted to examine the question of transfer and to decide it. There would be no need of a central tribunal. Though its constitution would everywhere be the same, it might be repeated any number of times all over the country. As to the constitution of the tribunal, the history of human institutions does not leave us in any doubt. From our knowledge of all corporations and bodies of men, who have a certain reputation, a certain standard of service, and certain common interests to maintain and protect, it is clear that those most ready jealously to guard the prestige and standards of an order are usually the men who belong to it. There are exceptions to this rule, the most conspicuous being the body represented by the peers of England. But, generally speaking, except where great stupidity and blindness have operated as obstacles, the rule is usually observed. This is seen in the merchant and trade Guilds of the Middle Ages. Members of these Guilds exercised vigilance over their fellow-members in order to maintain both the prestige of the body and the quality of its service. A similar vigilance on a much higher plane was also exercised by the Council of Ten in Venice, which by ensuring the proper discipline of that body, and by insisting on a certain standard of performance among the Venetian aristocracy, was undoubtedly largely responsible for the exceptionally long endurance of that aristocracy's rule. Had the English aristocracy, as I have already pointed out, 1 possessed a Watch Committee in any way resembling the Venetian
