2. CHAPTER II
PRINCIPLES OF PROPERTY
Having considered at large the question of the person entitled to the
use of the means of benefit or pleasure, it is time that we proceed to the
second question, of the person in whose hands the preservation and distribution
of any of these means will be most justly and beneficially vested. An interval
must inevitably occur between the production of any commodity and its consumption.
Those things which are necessary for the accommodation of man in society
cannot be obtained without the labour of man. When fit for his use, they
do not admit of being left at random, but require that some care and vigilance
should be exerted to preserve them, for the period of actual consumption.
They will not, in the first instance, fall into the possession of each individual,
in the precise proportion necessary for his consumption. Who then is to be
the factor or warehouseman that is to watch over their preservation, and
preside at their distribution?
This is strictly speaking the question of property. We do not call the
person who accidentally takes his dinner at my table the proprietor of what
he eats, though it is he, in the direct and obvious sense, who receives the
benefit of it. Property implies some permanence of external possession, and
includes in it the idea of a possible competitor.
Of property there are three degrees.
The first and simplest degree is that of my permanent right in those things
the use of which being attributed to me, a greater sum of benefit or pleasure
will result than could have arisen from their being otherwise appropriated.
It is of no consequence, in this case, how I came into possession of them,
the only necessary conditions being their superior usefulness to me, and
that my title to them is such as is generally acquiesced in by the community
in which I live. Every man is unjust who conducts himself in such a manner
respecting these things as to infringe, in any degree, upon my power of using
them, at the time when the using them will be of real importance to me.
It has already appeared[1] that one of the most essential of the rights
of man is my right to the forbearance of others; not merely that they shall
refrain from every thing that may, by direct consequence, affect my life,
or the possession of my powers, but that they shall refrain from usurping
upon my understanding, and shall leave me a certain equal sphere for the
exercise of my private judgement. This is necessary because it is possible
for them to be wrong, as well as for me to be so, because the exercise of
the understanding is essential to the improvement of man, and because the
pain and interruption I suffer are as real, when they infringe, in my conception
only, upon what is of importance to me, as if the infringement had been,
in the utmost degree, palpable. Hence it follows that no man may, in ordinary
cases, make use of my apartment, furniture or garments, or of my food, in
the way of barter or loan, without having first obtained my consent.
The second degree of property is the empire to which every man is entitled
over the produce of his own industry, even that part of it the use of which
ought not to be appropriated to himself. It has been repeatedly shown that
all the rights of man which are of this description are passive.[2] He has
no right of option in the disposal of anything which may fall into his hands.
Every shilling of his property, and even every, the minutest, exertion of
his powers have received their destination from the decrees of justice. He
is only the steward. But still he is the steward. These things must be trusted
to his award, checked only by the censorial power that is vested, in the
general sense, and favourable or unfavourable opinion, of that portion of
mankind among whom he resides. Man is changed from the capable subject of
illimitable excellence, into the vilest and most despicable thing that imagination
can conceive, when he is restrained from acting upon the dictates of his
understanding. All men cannot individually be entitled to exercise compulsion
on each other, for this would produce universal anarchy. All men cannot collectively
be entitled to exercise unbounded compulsion, for this would produce universal
slavery: the interference of government, however impartially vested, is,
no doubt, only to be resorted to upon occasions of rare occurrence, and indispensable
urgency.
It will readily be perceived that this second species of property is in
a less rigorous sense fundamental than the first. It is, in one point of
view, a sort of usurpation. It vests in me the preservation and dispensing
of that which in point of complete and absolute right belongs to you.
The third degree of property is that which occupies the most vigilant
attention in the civilized states of Europe. It is a system, in whatever
manner established, by which one man enters into the faculty of disposing
of the produce of another man's industry. There is scarcely any species of
wealth, expenditure or splendour, existing in any civilized country, that
is not, in some way, produced by the express manual labour, and corporeal
industry, of the inhabitants of that country. The spontaneous productions
of the earth are few, and contribute little to wealth, expenditure or splendour.
Every man may calculate, in every glass of wine he drinks, and every ornament
he annexes to his person, how many individuals have been condemned to slavery
and sweat, incessant drudgery, unwholesome food, continual hardships, deplorable
ignorance, and brutal insensibility, that he may be supplied with these luxuries.
It is a gross imposition that men are accustomed to put upon themselves when
they talk of the property bequeathed to them by their ancestors. The property
is produced by the daily labour of men who are now in existence. All that
their ancestors bequeathed to them was a mouldy patent which they show as
a title to extort from their neighbours what the labour of those neighbours
has produced.
It is clear therefore that the third species of property is in direct
contradiction to the second.
The most desirable state of human society would require that the quantity
of manual labour and corporal industry to be exerted, and particularly that
part of it which is not the uninfluenced choice of our own judgement, but
is imposed upon each individual by the necessity of his affairs, should be
reduced within as narrow limits as possible. For any man to enjoy the most
trivial accommodation, while, at the same time a similar accommodation is
not accessible to every other member of the community, is, absolutely speaking,
wrong. All refinements of luxury, all inventions that tend to give employment
to a great number of labouring hands, are directly adverse to the propagation
of happiness. Every additional tax that is laid on, every new channel that
is opened for the expenditure of the public money, unless it be compensated
(which is scarcely ever the case) by an equivalent deduction from the luxuries
of the rich, is so much added to the general stock of ignorance, drudgery
and hardship. The country-gentleman who, by levelling an eminence, or introducing
a sheet of water into his park, finds work for hundreds of industrious poor
is the enemy, and not, as has commonly been imagined, the friend, of his
species. Let us suppose that, in any country, there is now ten times as much
industry and manual labour as there was three centuries ago. Except so far
as this is applied to maintain an increased population, it is expended in
the more costly indulgences of the rich. Very little indeed is employed to
increase the happiness or conveniences of the poor. They barely subsist at
present, and they did as much at the remoter period of which we speak. Those
who, by fraud or force, have usurped the power of buying and selling the
labour of the great mass of the community are sufficiently disposed to take
care that they should never do more than subsist. An object of industry added
to or taken from the general stock produces a momentary difference, but things
speedily fall back into their former state. If every labouring inhabitant
of Great Britain were able and willing today to double the quantity of his
industry, for a short time he would derive some advantage from the increased
stock of commodities produced. But the rich would speedily discover the means
of monopolizing this produce, as they had done the former. A small part of
it only could consist in commodities essential to the subsistence of man,
or be fairly distributed through the community. All that is luxury and superfluity
would increase the accommodations of the rich, and perhaps, by reducing the
price of luxuries, augment the number of those to whom such accommodations
were accessible. But it would afford no alleviation to the great mass of
the community. Its more favoured members would give their inferiors no greater
wages for twenty hours' labour, suppose, than they now do for ten.
What reason is there then that this species of property should be respected?
Because, ill as the system is, it will perhaps be found that it is better
than any other, which, by any means, except those of reason, the love of
distinction, or the love of justice, can be substituted in its place. It
is not easy to say whether misery or absurdity would be most conspicuous
in a plan which should invite every man to seize upon everything he conceived
himself to want. If, by positive institution, the property of every man were
equalized today, without a contemporary change in men's dispositions and
sentiments, it would become unequal tomorrow. The same evils would spring
up with a rapid growth; and we should have gained nothing, by a project which,
while it violated every man's habits, and many men's inclinations, would
render thousands miserable. We have already shown,[3] and shall have occasion
to show more at large,[4] how pernicious the consequences would be if government
were to take the whole permanently into their hands, and dispense to every
man his daily bread. It may even be suspected that agrarian laws, and others
of a similar tendency which have been invented for the purpose of keeping
down the spirit of accumulation, deserve to be regarded as remedies more
pernicious than the disease they are intended to cure.[5]
An interesting question suggests itself in this stage of the discussion.
How far is the idea of property to be considered as the offspring of positive
institution? The decision of this question may prove extremely essential
to the point upon which we are engaged. The regulation of property by positive
laws may be a very exceptionable means of reforming its present inequality,
at the same time that an equal objection may by no means lie against a proceeding
the object of which shall be merely to supersede positive laws, or such positive
laws as are peculiarly exceptionable.
In pursuing this enquiry, it is necessary to institute a distinction between
such positive laws, or established practices (which are often found little
less efficacious than laws), as are peculiar to certain ages and countries,
and such laws or practices as are common to all civilized communities, and
may therefore be perhaps interwoven with the existence of society.
The idea of property, or permanent empire, in those things which ought
to be applied to our personal use, and still more in the produce of our industry,
unavoidably suggests the idea of some species of law or practice by which
it is guaranteed. Without this, property could not exist. Yet we have endeavoured
to show that the maintenance of these two kinds of property is highly beneficial.
Let us consider the consequences that grow out of this position.
Every man should be urged to the performance of his duty, as much as possible,
by the instigations of reason alone.[6] Compulsion to be exercised by one
human being over another, whether individually, or in the name of the community,
if in any case to be resorted to, is at least to be resorted to only in cases
of indispensable urgency. It is not therefore to be called in for the purpose
of causing one individual to exert a little more, or another a little less,
of productive industry. Neither is it to be called in for the purpose of
causing the industrious individual to make the precise distribution of his
produce which he ought to make. Hence it follows that, while the present
erroneous opinions and prejudices respecting accumulation continue, actual
accumulation will, in some degree, take place.
For, let it be observed that, not only no well informed community will
interfere with the quantity of any man's industry, or the disposal of its
produce, but the members of every such well informed community will exert
themselves to turn aside the purpose of any man who shall be inclined, to
dictate to, or restrain, his neighbour in this respect.
The most destructive of all excesses is that where one man shall dictate
to another, or undertake to compel him to do, or refrain from doing, anything
(except, as was before stated, in cases of the most indispensable urgency)
otherwise than with his own consent. Hence .it follows that the distribution
of wealth in every community must be left to depend upon the sentiments of
the individuals of that community. If, in any society, wealth be estimated
at its true value, and accumulate and monopoly be regarded as the seals of
mischief, injustice and dishonour, instead of being treated as titles attention
and deference, in that society the accommodations of human life will tend
to their level, and the equality of conditions will be destroyed.[7] A revolution opinions is the only means of attaining to this inestimable benefit. Every
attempt to effect this purpose by means of regulation will probably be found
ill conceived and abortive. Be this as it will, every attempt to correct
the distribution of wealth by individual violence is certainly to be regarded
as hostile to the first principles of public security.
If one individual, by means of greater ingenuity or more indefatigable
industry, obtain a great proportion of the necessaries or conveniences of
life than his neigh-hour, and, having obtained them, determine to convert
them into the means of permanent inequality, this proceeding is not of a
sort that it would be just or wise to undertake to repress by means of coercion.
If, inequality being thus introduced, the poorer member of the community
shall be so depraved as to be willing, or so unfortunately circumstanced
as to be driven, to make himself the hired servant or labourer of his richer
neighbour, this probably is not an evil to be corrected by the interposition
of government. But, when we have gained this step, it will be difficult to
set bounds to the extent of accumulation in one man, or of poverty and wretchedness
in another.
It has already appeared that reason requires that no man shall endeavour,
by individual violence, to correct this inequality. Reason would probably,
in a well ordered community, be sufficient to restrain men from the attempt
so to correct it. Where society existed in the simplicity which hag formerly
been described,[8] accumulation itself would be restrained by the very means
that restrained depredation, the good sense of the community, and the inspection
of all exercised upon all. Violence therefore would, on the one hand, have
little to tempt it as, on the other, it would be incessantly and irresistibly
repressed.
But, if reason prove insufficient for this fundamental purpose, other
means must doubtless be employed.[9] It is better that one man should suffer
than that the community should be destroyed. General security is one of those
indispensable preliminaries without which nothing, good or excellent can
be accomplished. It is therefore right that property, with all its inequalities,
such as it is sanctioned by the general sense of the members of any state,
and so long as that sanction continues unvaried should be defended, if need
be, by means of coercion.
We have already endeavoured to show that coercion would probably, in no
case, be necessary but for the in-judicious magnitude and complication of
political societies.[10] In a general and absolute sense therefore it cannot
be vindicated. But there are duties incumbent upon us of a temporary and
local nature; and we may occasionally be required, by the pressure of circumstances,
to suspend and contravene principles, the most sound in their general nature.[11]
Till men shall be persuaded to part with the ideas of a complicated government
and an extensive territory, coercion will be necessary, as an expedient to
counteract the most imminent evils. There are however various reasons that
would incline a just man to confine the province of coercion within the severest
limits. It is never to be regarded but as a temporary expedient, the necessity
of having recourse to which is deeply to be regretted. It is an expedient,
protecting one injustice, the accumulation of property, for the sake of keeping
out another evil, still more formidable and destructive. Lastly, it is to
be considered that this injustice, the unequal distribution of property,
the grasping and selfish spirit of individuals, is to be regarded as one
of the original sources of government, and, as it rises in its excesses,
is continually demanding and necessitating new injustice, new penalties and
new slavery.
Thus far then it should seem the system of coercion must be permitted
to extend. We should set bounds to no man's accumulation. We should repress
by wise and effectual, yet moderate and humane, penalties, all forcible invasion
to be committed by one man upon the acquisitions of another. But it may be
asked, are there not various laws or practices, established among civilized
nations, which do not, like these we have described, stop at the toleration
of unequal property, but which operate to its immediate encouragement, and
to the rendering this inequality still wider and more oppressive?
What are we to conceive in this respect of the protection given to inheritance,
and testamentary bequest? "There is no merit in being born the son of
a rich man, rather than of a poor one, that should justify us in raising
this man to affluence, and condemning that to invincible depression. Surely,"
we might be apt to exclaim, "it is enough to maintain men in their usurpation
[for let it never be forgotten that accumulated property is usurpation],
during the term of their lives. It is the most extravagant fiction, which
would enlarge the empire of the proprietor beyond his natural existence,
and enable him to dispose of events, when he is himself no longer in the
world."
The arguments however that may be offered, in favour of the protection
given to inheritance and testamentary bequest, are more forcible than might
at first be imagined. We have attempted to show that men ought to be protected
in the disposal of the property they have personally acquired; in expending
it, in the necessaries they require, or the luxuries in which they think
proper to indulge; in transferring it, in such portions, as justice shall
dictate, or their erroneous judgement suggest. To attempt therefore to take
the disposal out of their hands, at the period of their decease, would be
an abortive and pernicious project. If we prevented them from bestowing it
in the open and explicit mode of bequest, we could not prevent them from
transferring it before the close of their lives, and we should open a door
to vexatious and perpetual litigation. Most persons would be inclined to
bestow their property, after the period of their lives, upon their children
or nearest relatives. Where therefore they have failed to express their sentiments
in this respect, it is reasonable to presume what they would have been; and
this disposal of the property on the part of the community is the mildest,
and therefore the most justifiable, interference. Where they have expressed
a capricious partiality, this iniquity also is, in most cases, to be protected,
because, for the reasons above assigned, it cannot be prevented without exposing
us to still greater iniquities.
But, though it may possibly be true, that inheritance, and the privilege
of testation, are necessary consequences of the system of property in a community
the members of which are involved in prejudice and ignorance, it will not
be difficult to find the instances, in every political country of Europe,
in which civil institution, instead of granting, to the inequalities of accumulation,
only what could not prudently be withheld, has exerted itself, for the express
purpose of rendering these inequalities greater and more oppressive. Such
instances are, the feudal system, and the system of ranks, seignorial duties,
fines, conveyances, entails, the distinction, in landed property, of freehold,
copyhold and manor, the establishment of vassalage, and the claim of primogeniture.
We here distinctly recognize the policy of men who, having first gained a
superiority, by means of the inevitable openings before cited, have made
use of this superiority for the purpose of conspiring to monopolize whatever
their rapacity could seize, in direct opposition to every dictate of the
general interest. These articles fall under the distinction, brought forward
in the outset,[12] of laws or practices not common to all civilized communities, but peculiar to certain ages and countries.
It should seem therefore that these are institutions the abolition of
which is not to be entirely trusted to the silent hostility of opinion, but
that they are to be abrogated by the express and positive decision of the
community. For their abrogation, it is not necessary that any new law or
regulation should be promulgated, an operation which, to say the least, should
always be regarded with extreme jealousy. Property, under every form it can
assume, is upheld by the direct interference of institution; and that species
which we at present contemplate must inevitably perish the mordent the protection
of the state is withdrawn. Of the introduction of new regulations of whatever
description it becomes the friend of man to be jealous; but we may allow
ourselves to regard with a more friendly eye a proceeding which consists
merely in their abolition.
The conclusion however in this instance must not be pushed further than
the premises will justify. The articles enumerated will perhaps, all of them,
be found to tally with the condition annexed; they depend for their existence
upon the positive protection of the state. But there are particulars which
have grown up under their countenance that are of a different sort. Such,
for instance, are titles, armorial bearings and liveries. If the community
refuse to countenance feudal and seignorial claims, and the other substantial
privileges of an aristocracy, they must inevitably cease. But the case is
different in the instances last cited. It is one thing to abolish a law,
or refuse to persist in a practice that is made the engine of tyranny; and
a thing of a totally different sort, by a positive law to prohibit actions,
however irrational, by which no man's security is directly invaded. It should
seem unjustifiable to endeavour, by penalties, to deter a man from calling
himself by any name, or attiring himself or others, with their own consent,
in any manner he thinks proper. Not that these things are, as they have sometimes
been represented, in their own nature trivial. We have endeavoured to prove
the reverse of this.[13] They ought to be assailed with every weapon of
argument and ridicule. in an enlightened community, the man who assumes to
himself a pompous appellation will be considered as a fool or a madman. But
fulminations and penalties are not the proper instruments to repress an ecstasy
of this sort.
There is another circumstance necessary to be stated, by way of qualification
to the preceding conclusion. Evils often exist in a community, which, though
mere excrescences at first, at length become so incorporated with the principle
of social existence that they cannot suddenly be separated without the risk
of involving the most dreadful calamities. Feudal rights, and the privileges
of rank, are, in themselves considered, entitled to no quarter. The inequalities
of property perhaps constituted a state through which it was at least necessary
for us to pass, and which constituted the true original excitement to the
unfolding the powers of the human mind.[14] But it would be difficult to
show that feudality and aristocracy ever produced an overbalance of good.
Yet, were they to be suddenly and instantly abolished, two evils would necessarily
follow. First, the abrupt reduction of thousands to a condition the reverse
of that to which they had hitherto been accustomed, a condition, perhaps
the most auspicious to human talent and felicity, but for which habit had
wholly unfitted them, and which would be to them a continual source of dejection
and suffering. It may be doubted whether the genuine cause of reform ever
demands that, in its name, we should sentence whole classes of men to wretchedness.
Secondly, an attempt abruptly to abolish practices which had originally no
apology to plead for their introduction would be attended with as dreadful
convulsions, and as melancholy a series of public calamities, as an attack
upon the first principles of society itself. All the reasonings therefore
which were formerly adduced under the head of revolutions[15] are applicable
to the present case.
Having now accomplished what was last proposed,[16] and endeavoured to
ascertain in what particulars the present system of property is to be considered
as the capricious offspring of positive institution, let us return to the
point which led us to that enquiry, the question concerning the degree of
respect to which property in general is entitled. And here it is only necessary
that we should recollect the principle in which the doctrine of property
is founded, the sacred and indefeasible right of private judgement. There
are but two objects for which government can rationally be conceived to have
been originated: first, as a treasury of public wisdom, by which individuals
might, in all cases, with advantage be directed, and which might actively
lead us, with greater certainty, in the path of happiness: or, secondly,
instead of being forward to act itself as an umpire, that the community might
fill the humbler office of guardian of the rights of private judgement, and
never interpose but when one man appeared, in this respect, alarmingly to
encroach upon another. All the arguments of this work have tended to show
that the latter, and not the former, is the true end of civil institution.
The first idea of property then is a deduction from the right of private
judgement; the first object of government is the preservation of this right.
Without permitting to every man, to a considerable degree, the exercise of
his own discretion, there can be no independence, no improvement, no virtue
and no happiness. This is a privilege in the highest degree sacred; for its
maintenance, no exertions and sacrifices can be too great. Thus deep is the
foundation of the doctrine of property. It is, in the last resort, the palladium
of all that ought to be dear to us, and must never be approached but with
awe and veneration. He that seeks to loosen the hold of this principle upon
our minds, and that would lead us to sanction any exceptions to it without
the most deliberate and impartial consideration, however right may be his
intentions, is, in that instance an enemy to the whole. A condition indispensably
necessary to every species of excellence is security. Unless I can foresee,
in a considerable degree, the treatment I shall receive from my species,
and am able to predict, to a certain extent, what will be the limits of their
irregularity and caprice, I can engage in no valuable undertaking. civil
society maintains a greater proportion of security among men than can be
found in the savage state: this is one of the reasons why, under the shade
of civil society, arts have been invented, sciences perfected and the nature
of man, in his individual and relative capacity, gradually developed.
One observation it seems proper to add to the present chapter. We have
maintained [17] the equal rights of men, that each man has a perfect claim
upon everything the possession of which will be productive of more benefit
to him than injury to another. "Has he then" it will be asked,
"a right to take it? If not, what sort of right is that which the person
in whom it vests is not entitled to enforce?"
The difficulty here is in appearance, and not in reality. The feature
specified in the present instance adheres to every department of right. It
is right that my actions should be governed by the dictates of my own judgment:
and every man is an intruder who endeavours to compel me to act by his judgement
instead of my own. But it does not follow that I shall always do wisely or
well in undertaking to repel his intrusion by force. Persuasion, and not
force, is the legitimate instrument for influencing the human mind; and I
shall never be justifiable in having recourse to the latter, while there
is any rational hope of succeeding by the former. Add to which, the criterion
of morals is utility. When it has once been determined that my being constituted
the possessor of a certain article will be beneficial, it does not follow
that my attempting, or even succeeding, violently to put myself in possession
of it will be attended with a beneficial result. If I were quietly installed,
it may be unquestionable that that would be an absolute benefit; and yet
it may be true that my endeavours to put myself in possession, whether effectual
or ineffectual, will be attended with worse consequences than all the good
that would follow from right being done as to the object itself. The doctrine
of rights has no rational or legitimate connection with the practice of tumult.
But, though I may not, consistently with rectitude, attempt to put myself
in possession of many things which it is right I should have, yet this sort
of right is by no means futile and nugatory. It may prove to be a great truth,
resting upon irresistible evidence, and may, in that case, be expected to
make hourly progress in the convictions of mankind. If it be true, it is
an interesting truth, and may therefore be expected to germinate in the mind,
and produce corresponding effects upon the conduct. It may appear to be a
truth of that nature which is accustomed to sink deep in the human understanding,
insensibly to mix itself with all our reasonings, and ultimately to produce,
without shadow of violence, the most complete revolution in the maxims of
civil society.
[[1]]
Book 11, Chap. V, VI.
[[3]]
Book VI, Chap. VIII, p. 616.
[[6]]
Book 11, Chap. VI; Book VII, passim.
[[8]]
Book V, Chap. XXIV.
[[10]]
Book VII, Chap. V.
[[11]]
Vol. 1, Book IV, Chap. VI, App, No. 1.
[[13]]
Book V, Chap. XIL.
[[15]]
Book IV, Chap. II.