Further difficulties are suggested by the qualification, that 128 THE RIGHT OF PEOPERTi'.
the claim to any article of property thus obtained, is valid only " when there is enough and as good left in common for others." A condition hke this gives birth to such a host of queries, doubts, and limitations, as practically to neutralize the general proposition entirely. It may be asked, for example — How is it to be known that enough is " left in common for others? " Who can determine whether what remains is " as good" as what is taken? How if the remnant is less accessible? If there is not enough " left in common for otJiers," how must the right of appropriation be exercised? Why, in such case, does the mixing of labour with the acquired object, cease to " exclude the common right of other men? " Supposing enough to be attainable, but not all equally good,\i-y what rule must each man choose? Out of which inquisition it seems impossible to liberate the alleged right, without such mutilations as to render it, in an ethical point of view, entirely valueless.
Thus, as already hinted, we find, that the circumstances of savage life, render the principles of abstract morality inapplicable; for it is impossible, under ante-social conditions, to determine the rightness or wrongness of certain actions by an exact measurement of the amount of freedom assumed by the parties concerned. We must not expect, therefore, that the right of propeity can be satisfactorily based upon the premises afforded by such a state of existence.
But, under the system of land tenure pointed out in the last chapter, as the only one that is consistent with the equal claims of all men to the use of the earth, these difficulties disappear; and the right of property obtains a legitimate foundation. We have seen that, without any infraction of the law of equal freedom, an individual may lease from society a given surface of soil, by agreeing to pay in return a stated amount of the produce he obtains from that soil. We found that, in doing tliis, he does no more than what every other man is equally &ee with himself to do — that each has the same power with himself to hecome the tenant — and that the rent he pays accrues alike to all. Having thus hired a tract of land from his fellow-men, for a given period, for understood purposes, and on specified terms — having thus obtained, for a time, the exclusive use of that land by a definite agreement with its owners, it is manifest that an individual may, without any infringement of the rights of others, appropriate to himself that portion of produce wliich remains after he has paid to mankind the promised rent. He has now, to use Locke's expression, "mixed his labour with" certain products of the earth; and his claim to them is in this case valid, because he obtained the consent of society before so expending his labour; and having fulfilled the condition which society imposed ia giving that consent — the payment of rent, — society, to fulfil its part of the agreement, must acknowledge his title to that sui-plus which remains after the rent has been paid. " Provided you deliver to us a stated share of the produce which by cultivation you can obtain from this piece of land, we give you the exclusive use of the remainder of that produce: " these are the words of the contract; and in virtue of this contract, the tenant may equitably claim the supplementary share as his private property: may so claim it without any disobedience to the law of equal freedom; and has therefore a right so to claim it.
Any doubt that may be felt as to the fact that this is a logical deduction from our first principle, that every man has freedom to do all that he wills provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, may be readily cleared up by comparing the respective degrees of freedom assumed in such a case by the occupier and the members of society with whom he bargains. As was shown in the preceding chapter, if the pubhc altogether deprive any individual of the use of the earth, they allow him less liberty than they themselves claim; and by so breaking the law of equal freedom, commit a wrong. If, conversely, an individual usurps a given portion of the earth, to K which, as we have seen, all other men have as good a title as himself he hreaks the law, hy assuming more Uberty than the rest. But when an individual holds land as a tenant of society, a balance is maintained between these extremes, and the claims of both parties are respected. A price is paid by the one, for a certain privilege granted by the other. By the fact of the agreement being made, it is shown that such price and privilege are considered to be equivalents. The lessor and the lessee have both, within the prescribed limits, done that which they willed: the one in letting a certain holding for a specified sum; the other in agreeing to give that sum. And so long as this contract remains intact, the law of equal freedom is duly observed. If, however, any of the prescribed conditions be not fulfilled, the law is necessarily broken, and the parties are involved in one of the predicaments above named. If the tenant refuses to pay the rent, then he tacitly lays claim to the exclusive use and benefit of the land he occupies — ^practically asserts that he is the sole ovraer of its produce; and consequently violates the law, by assuming a greater share of freedom than the rest of mankind. If, on the other hand, society take from the tenant that portion of the fruits obtained by the culture of his farm, which remains with him after the payment of rent, they virtually deny him the use of the earth entirely (for by the use of the earth we mean the use of its products), and in so doing, claim for themselves a greater share of liberty than they allow him. Clearly, therefore, this surplus produce equitably remains with the tenant: society cannot take it without trespassing upon his freedom; he can take it without trespassing on the freedom of society. And as, according to the law, he is free to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other, he is free to take possession of such surplus as his property.
The doctrine that all men have equal rights to the use of the earth, does indeed at first sight, seem to countenance a species of social organization, at variance with that from which the right of property has just been deduced; an organization, namely, in which the public, instead of letting out the land to individual members of their body, shall retain it in their own hands; cultivate it by joint- stock agency; and share the produce: in fact, what is usually termed Socialism or Communism.
Plausible though it may be, such a scheme is not capable of realization in strict conformity with the moral law. Of the two forms under which it may be presented, the one is ethically im- ' perfect; and the other, although correct in theory, is impracticable.
. -Thus, if an equal portion of the earth's produce is awarded to every man, irrespective of the amount or quality of the labour he has contributed towards the obtainment of that produce, a breach of equity is committed. Our first principle requires, not that all shall have like shares of the things which minister to the gratification of the faculties, but that all shall have like freedom to pursue. those things — shall have Kke scope. It is one thing to give to each an opportunity of acquiring the objects he desires; it is another, and quite a different thing, to give the objects themselves, no matter whether due endeavour has or has not been made to obtain them. The one we have seen to be the primary law of the Divine scheme; the other, by interfering with the ordained connection between desire and gratification, shows its disagreeinent with that scheme. Nay more, it necessitates an absolute violation of the principle of equal freedom. For when we assert the entire liberty of each, bounded only by the like liberty of all, we assert that each is free to do whatever his desires dictate, within the prescribed limits — that each is fr-ee, therefore, to claim for himself air those gratifications, and sources of gratification, attainable by him within those limits — aU those gratifications, and •sources of. gratification which he can procure without trespassing upon tte'spieres of action of his neighbours. If, therefore, out of many starting with like fields of activity, one obtains, by his greater strength, greater ingenuity, or greater application, more gratifications and sources of gratification than the rest, and does this without in any way trenching upon the equal freedom of the rest, the moral law assigns him an exclusive right to all those extra gratifications and sources of gratification; nor can the rest take them fi-om him without claiming for themselves greater hherty of action than he claims, and thereby violating that law. Whence it follows, that an equal apportionment of the fruits of the earth amongst all, is not consistent with pure justice.
If, on the odier hand, each is to have allotted to him a share of produce proportionate to the degree in which he has aided production, the proposal, whilst it is abstractedly just, is no longer practicable. Were all men cultivators of the soil, it would perhaps be possible to form an approximate estimate of their several claims. But to ascertain the respective amounts of help given by different kinds of mental and bodily labourers, towards procuring the general stock of the necessaries of life, is an utter impossibility. We have no means of making such a division save that afibrded by the law of supply and demand, and this means, the hypothesis excludes ^.
An argument fatal to the communist theory, is suggested by the fact, that a desire for property is one of the elements of our nature. Repeated allusion has been made to the admitted truth, that acquisitiveness is an unreasoning impulse quite distinct firom the desires whose gratifications property secures — an impulse that is often obeyed at the expense of those desires. And if a propensity to personal acquisition be really a component of man's constitution, then that cannot be a right form of society which affords it no scope. Socialists do indeed allege that private appropriation is an abuse of this propensity, whose normal function, they say, is to impel us to accumulate " These inferences do not at all militate against joint-stock systems of production and living, which are in all probability what Socialism prophesies.
for the benefit of the public at large. But in thus attempting to escape from one difficulty, they do but entangle themselves in another. Such an explanation overlooks the fact that the use and abuse of a faculty (whatever the etymology of the words may imply) differ only in degree; whereas their assumption is, that they differ in hind. Gluttony is an abuse of the desire for food; timidity, an abuse of the feeling which in moderation produces prudence; serviHty, an abuse of the sentiment tliat generates respect; obstinacy, of that from which firmness springs: in all of which cases we find that the legitimate manifestations differ from the illegitimate ones, merely in quantity, and not in quality. So also with the instinct of accumulation. It may be quite true that its dictates have been, and stiU are, followed to an absurd excess; but it is also true that no change in the state of society will alter its nature and its office. To whatever extent moderated, it must still be a desire for personal acquisition. Whence it follows that a system affording opportunity for its exercise must ever be retained; which means, that the system of private property must be retained; and this presupposes a right of private property, for by right we mean that which harmonizes with the human constitution as divinely ordained.
There is, however, a still more awkward dilemma into which M. Proudhon and his party betray themselves. For if, as they assert, " aU property is robbery " — if no one can equitably become the exclusive possessor of any article — or as we say, obtain a right to it, then, amongst other consequences, itfollows, thata man can have no right to the things he consiunes for food. And if these are not his before eating them, how can they become his at all? As Locke asks, " when do they begin to be his? when he digests? or when he eats? or when he boils? or when he brings them home?" If no previous acts can make them his property, neither can any process of assimilation do it; not even their absorption into the tissues. Wherefore, pursuing the 134 THE RIGHT OF PKOPERTY.
idea, we axrive at the curious conclusion, that as the whole of his bones, muscles, skin, &c., have been thus built up from nutriment not belonging to him, a man has no property in his own flesh and blood— can have no valid title to himself— has no more claim to his own limbs than he has to the limbs of another— and has as good a right to his neighbour's body as to his own! Did we exist after the same fashion as those compound polyps, in which a number of individuals are based upon a living trunk common to them aU, such a theory would be rational enough. But until Communism can be carried to that extent, it will be best to stand by the old doctrine.
Further argument appears to be unnecessary. We have seen that the right of property is deducible from the law of equal freedom — that it is presupposed by the human constitution — and that its denial involves absurdities.
Were it not that we shall frequently have to refer to the fact hereafter, it would be scarcely needful to show that the taking away another's property is an infringement of the law of equal freedom, and is therefore wrong. If A appropriate to himself something belonging to B, one of two things must take place: either B does the like to A, or he does not. If A has no property, or if his property is inaccessible to B, B has evidently no opportunity of exercising equal freedom with A, by claiming from him something of hke value; and A has therefore assumed a greater share of freedom than he allows B, and has broken the law. If again, A's property is open to B, and A permits B to use like freedom with himseK by taking an equivalent, there is no violation of the law; and the affair practically becomes one of barter. But such a transaction will never take place save in theory; for A has no motive to appropriate B's property with the intention of letting B take an equivalent: seeing that if he really means to let B have what B thinks an equivalent, he will prefer to make the exchange by consent in the ordinary way.
The only case simulating this, is one in which A takes from B a thing that B does not wish to part ■with; that is, a thing for which A can give B nothing that B thinks an equivalent; and as the amount of gratification which B has in the possession of this thing, is the measure of its value to him, it follows that if A cannot give B a thing which affords B equal gratification, or in other words what he thinks an equivalent, then A has taken from B what affords A satisfaction, hut does not return to B what affords B satisfaction; and has therefore broken the law by assuming the greater share of freedom. Wherefore we find it to be a logical deduction from the law of equal freedom, that no man can rightfully take property from another against his will.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XI.
It is tolerably self-evident that no violation of the law of equal freedom is committed in the acquisition of knowledge — that knowledge, at least, which is open to aU. A man may read, hear, and observe, to as great an extent as he pleases, without in the least diminishing the hberty of others to do the like — in fact, without affecting the condition of others in any way. It is clear, too, that the knowledge thus obtained may be digested, re-organized, or combined afresh, and new knowledge educed from it by its possessor, without the rights of Ms feUows being thereby trespassed upon. And it is further manifest, that the moral law permits a man who has by his intellectual labour ■ obtained such new knowledge, to keep it for his own exclusive use, or claim it as his private property. He who does this, in no degree exceeds the prescribed limits of individual freedom. He abridges no one's liberty of action. Every other person retains as much scope for thought and deed as before. And each is free to acquire the same facts — to elaborate from them, if he can, the same new ideas — and in a similar manner employ those new ideas for his private advantage. Seeing, therefore, that a man may claim the exclusive use of his original ideas without overstepping the boundaries of equal freedom, it follows that he has a right so to claim them; or, in other words, such ideas are his property.
Of course the argument used in the last chapter to show that material property cannot be taken from its possessor without a breach of the law, is applicable to property of this kind also.
That a, man's right to the produce of his brain is equally valid with his right to the produce of his hands, is a fact which has yet obtained but a very imperfect recognition. It is true that we have patent laws, a law of copyright, and acts for the registration of designs; but these, or at any rate two of them, have been enacted not so much in obedience to the dictates of justice, as in deference to the suggestions of trade policy. "A patent is not a thing which can be claimed as a right," we are told by legal authorities, but is intended to " act as a stimulus to industry and talent" It is not because the piracy of patterns would be wrong that legislators forbid it, but because they wish to afford " encouragement to manufactures." Similar also are the current opinions. Measm'es of this nature are commonly considered by the public as giving to inventors a certain " privilege," a " reward," a sort of modified " monopoly." It is on the ground of commercial statesmanship that they are approved; and not as being necessary for the administration of justice.
The prevalence of such a belief is by no means creditable to the national conscience, and indicates a sad bluntness of moral feeling. To think that the profits which a speculator makes by a rise in the share-market, should be recognised as legally and equitably his property, and yet that some new combination of ideas, which it may have cost an ingenious man years of application to complete, cannot be " claimed as a right" by that man! To think that a sinecurist should be held to have a " vested interest " in his ofiice, and a just title to compensation if it is abolished, and yet that an invention.over which no end of mental toil has been spent, and on which the poor mechanic has laid out perhaps his last sixpence — an invention which he has completed entirely by his own labour and with his own materials — has wrought, as it were, out of the very substance of his own mind — should not be acknowledged 138 THE EIGHT OF PROPERTY IN IDEAS.
as his property! To think that his title to it should be admitted merely as a matter of convenience — admitted even then only on payment of some £400 — and, after all, quashed on the most trifling pretences! What a thick-skinned perception of justice does this show! What a want of ability to appreciate matters at all removed beyond the sphere of the external senses! One would think that equity afforded no guidance beyond transactions in material things — weights, measures, and money. Let a shop-boy take from his master's till a visible, tangible, ponderable sovereign, and all can see that the rights of ownership have been violated. Yet those who exclaim with such indignant virtue against theft, will purchase a pirated edition of a book, without any qualms of conscience concerning the receipt of stolen goods. Dishonesty, when shown in house-breaking or sheep-stealing, is held up to eternal infamy, and those convicted of it are for ever excluded from society; but the manufacturer who steals his foreman's improved plan for the spinning of cotton, or the building of steam engines, continues to be held in high respect. The law is active enough in apprehending the urchin v?ho may have deprived some comfortable citizen of his pocket-handkerchief, and wiU deal with the young scapegrace at the public expense; but there is no redress for the poverty-stricken schemer who is robbed by some we-althy scamp of that which formed the sole hope of his life. Strong illustrations these of the fact, that the moral sense, when unguided by systematic deduction, fails to find its way through the labyrinth of confused opinion, to a correct code of duty.
As already remarked, it is a common notion, and one more especially pervading the operative classes, that the exclusive use by its discoverer of any new or improved mode of production, is a species of monopoly, in the sense in which that word is conventionally used. To let a man have the entire benefit accruing from the employment of some more efScient machine, or better process invented by him; and to allow no other person to adopt and apply for his own advantage the same plan, they hold to be an injustice. Nor are there wanting philanthropic and even thinking men, who consider that the valuable ideas originated by individuals — ideas which may be of great national advantage — should be taken out of private hands and thrown open to the public at large.
" And pray, gentlemen," an inventor might fairly reply, " why may not I make the same proposal respecting yoirr goods and chattels, your clothing, your houses, your railway shares,-and your money in the funds? If you are right in the interpretation you give to the term ' monopoly,' I do not see why that term should not be applied to the coats upon your backs and the provisions on your dinner tables. With equal reason I might argue that you unjustly ' monopoUze' your furniture, and that you ought not in equity to have the ' exclusive use' of so many apartments. If ' national advantage' is to be the supreme rule, why should we not appropriate yom wealth, and the wealth of others like you, to the liquidation of the state debt? True, as you say, you came honestly by all this property: but so did I by my invention. True, as you say, this capital, on the interest of which you subsist, was acquired by years of toil — is the reward of persevering industry: well, I may say the like of this machine. Whilst you were gathering profits, I was collecting ideas; the time you spent in conning the prices current, was employed by me in studying mechanics; your speculations in new articles of merchandise, answer to my experiments, many of which were costly and fruitless; when you were writing out your accounts, I was making drawings; and the same perseverance, patience, thought, and toil, which enabled you" to make a fortune, have enabled me to complete my invention. Tike your wealth, it represents so much accumulated labour; ■ and I am liviug upon the profits it produces me, just as you are living upon the interest of -your invested.savings. Beware, then, how you question my claim.; If I am a monopoUst, so also are you; so also is every man. If I have no right to these products of my brain, neither have you to those of your hands: no one can become the sole owner of any article "whatever; and ' all property is robbery.' " They fall into a serious error, who suppose that the exclusive right assumed by a discoverer, is something taken from the public. He who in any way increases the powers of production, is seen by all, save a few insane Luddites, to be a general benefactor who gives rather than takes. The successful inventor makes a further conquest over nature. By him the laws of matter are rendered stiU more subservient to the wants of mankind. He economises labour— helps to emancipate men from their slavery to the needs of the body — harnesses a new power to the car of human happiness. He cannot, if he would, prevent society from largely participating in his good fortune. Before he can realize any benefit from liis new process or apparatus, he must first confer a benefit on his fellow men — must either offer them a better article at the price usually charged, or the same article at a less price. If he fails to do this, his invention is a dead letter; if he does it, he makes society a partner in the new mine of wealth he has opened. For all the exertion he has had in subjugating a previously unknown region of nature, he simply asks an extra proportion of the fruits. The rest of mankind unavoidably come in for the main advantage — will in a short time have the whole. Meanwhile, they cannot without injustice disregard his claims.
Let us remember, too, that in this, as in other cases, disobedience to the moral law is ultimately detrimental to all parties— to those who infringe the rights of the individual as well as to the individual himself. It is a well-proved fact, that that insecurity of material property which results from general dishonesty, inevitably reacts to the punishment of all. The rationale of this is obvious. Industrial energy diminishes just in proportion to the uncertainty of its reward. Those who do not know that they shall reap ■will not sow. Instead of employing it in business, capitaUsts hoard what they possess, because productive investments are dangerous. Hence arises a universal straitness of means. Every enterprise is crippled by want of confidence. And from general distrust spring general discouragement, apathy, idleness, poverty, and their attendant miseries, involving ahke all grades of men. Similar in kind, and less only in degree, is the curse attendant upon insecurity of property in ideas. Just in so far as the benefits likely to accrue to the inventor are precarious, wiU he be deterred from carrying out his plans. " If," thinks he to himself, " others are to enjoy the fruits of these wearisome studies and these numberless experiments, why should I continue them? If, in addition to aU the possibilities of failure in the scheme itself, all the time, trouble, and expense of my investigations, all the chances of destruction to my claim by disclosure of the plan, aU the heavy costs attendant upon obtaining legal protection, I am liable to be deprived of my right by any scoundrel who may infringe it in the expectation that I shall not have money or madness enough to institute a chancery suit against him, I had better abandon the project at once." And although such reflections may often fail to extinguish the sanguine hopes of an inventor — although he may still prosecute his scheme to the end, regardless of all risks, yet after having once suffered the losses which ten to one society wiU inflict upon him, he will take good caie never again to enter upon a sinulai undertaking.
Whatever other ideas he may then or subsequently entertain — some of them most hkely valuable ones — will remain undeveloped and probably die with him. Did mankind know the many important discoveries which the ingenious are prevented from giving to the world by the cost of obtaining legal protection, or by the distrust of that protection if obtained — were people duly to appreciate the consequent check put upon the development of the means of production — and could they properly estimate the loss thereby entailed upon themselves, they would begin to see that the recognition of the right of property in 142 TH£ RIGHT OF PROPERTY IN IDEAS.- ideas, is only less. important than the recognition of the right of property in goods.
In consequence of the probability, or perhaps we may say the certainty, that the causes leading to the evolution of a new idea in our mind, wiU eventually produce a hke result in some other mind, the claim above set forth must not be admitted without hmitation. Many have remarked the tendency that exists for an important invention or discovery to be made by independent investigators nearly at the same time. There is nothing really mysterious in this. A certain state of knowledge, a recent advancement in science, the occurrence of some new social want, — these form the conditions under which minds of similar characters are stimulated to like trains of thought, ending as they are prone to do in the same result. Such being the fact, there arises a qualification to the right of property in ideas, which it seems difficult and even impossible to specify definitely. The laws of patent and copyright, express this quahfication by confining the inventor's or author's privilege within a certain term of years. But in what way the length of that term may be found with correctness there is no saying. In the mean time, as already pointed out (p. 110), such a difficulty does not in the least mihtate against the right itself.
CHAPTEK XII.
THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY IN CHARACTER.
Could we accurately analyze the stimulus by which men are usually impelled to action — could we determine the proportions of the several motives which go to make up that stimulus, we should prohahly find that amongst those classes removed from the absolute pressure of bodily wants, its chief component is a desire for the good opinion, regard, or admiration of others. Whether we observe this feeling as shown by the tattooed savage in his willingness to undergo torture that he may obtain a character for fortitude, and to risk auy amount of danger that he may be called brave; or whether, turning to civihzed life, we contemplate that ambition so universally exhibited by poets, orators, statesmen, artists, soldiers, and others known to fame; or whether, by taking off its disguises, we discover the true nature of that insane eagerness with which people pursue wealth; we are alike instructed in the fact that, after those instincts immediately connected with the preservation of life, love of approbation exercises the greatest influence over human conduct.