different kinds of work required in every society are very unequal in hardness and unpleasantness. To measure these against one another, so as to make quality equivalent to quantity, is so difficult that communists generally propose that all should work by turns at every kind of labor. But this involves an almost complete sacrifice of the economic advantages of the division of employments, advantages which are indeed frequently overestimated (or rather the counter considerations are underestimated) by political economists, but which are nevertheless, in the point of view of productiveness of labor, very considerable, for the double reason that the coöperation of employment enables the work to distribute itself with some regard to the special capacities and qualifications of the worker, and also that every worker acquires greater skill and rapidity in one kind of work by confining himself to it. The arrangement, therefore, which is deemed indispensable to a just distribution would probably be a very considerable disadvantage in respect of production. But further, it is still a very imperfect standard of justice to demand the same amount of work from every one. People have unequal capacities of work, both mental and bodily, and what is a light task for one is an insupportable burden to another. It is necessary, therefore, that there should be a dispensing power, an authority competent to grant exemptions from the ordinary amount of work, and to proportion tasks in some measure to capabilities. As long as there are any lazy or selfish persons who like better to be

worked for by others than to work, there will be frequent attempts to obtain exemptions by favor or fraud, and the frustration of these attempts will be an affair of considerable difficulty, and will by no means be always successful."

1

The above is, of course, but one of the many difficulties in the organization and administration of a communistic society. Such other evils as would inevitably arise from the persistence of rivalries for personal reputation and power, from the discouragement, or at least lack of encouragement, of the higher forms of activity, from the loss of effective stimulus to industry and concentration of effort, from undue increase of population, from the dulness and monotony of life necessarily attendant upon a scheme of absolute equality, such evils and many others suggest themselves at the very first thought. Despite these defects and difficulties, however, Mill, in his Political Economy, makes the following oft-quoted declaration: "If," he says, "the choice were to be made between communism with all its chances, and the present state of society with all its sufferings and injustices, if the institution of private property necessarily carried with it, as a consequence, that the produce of labor should be apportioned as we now see it, almost in an inverse ratio to the labor, -the largest portions to those who have not worked at all, the next largest to those whose work is almost nominal, and so in descending scale, the remuneration dwindling as the work grows

1 "The Difficulties of Socialism," Fortnightly Review, April, 1879.

harder and more disagreeable, until the most fatiguing and exhausting bodily labor cannot count with certainty on being able to earn even the necessaries of life, if this, or communism, were the alternative, all the difficulties, great or small, of communism would be but as dust in the balance. But to make the comparison applicable, we must compare communism at its best with the régime of individual property, not as it is, but as it might be made. The principle of private property has never yet had a fair trial in any country.'

The idea of Equality being repudiated as an abstract principle of justice, the true principle or principles of desert must be found in the idea of Proportionality; that is, in the proportioning of rewards in each particular case according to some ascertainable conditions of time, place, or person. The different canons of justice that have been based upon this idea we shall presently consider. First, however, we must examine the idea of property.

1 Book II, Chapter I.

CHAPTER IV

PROPERTY

THE idea of property lies at the very basis of the political, legal, and economic sciences. In economic science, dealing largely with exchange values, the idea of ownership is involved in almost all of its reasonings, and implied in all of its laws. In jurisprudence, with its rules directed to the regulation of the rights arising out of the quiet possession and enjoyment of articles of value, the idea of ownership is still more fundamental. While in political science the protection of property is ranked along with protection of person as one of the chief purposes for which government exists. It is the aim of this chapter to examine somewhat carefully this idea of ownership, in order that we may discover both the real meaning of the conception, and the ethical justification, if there be one, for permitting particular individuals to exercise exclusive rights over objects of value.

In tracing the history of theories of property we find that the right of ownership has been based by different writers upon a variety of abstract principles. The chief of these have been those of

first occupancy, law, labor performed, and needs. Whether it be proper to accept any one of these as absolutely valid, we shall now consider.

Occupation Theory. This is a theory which, strictly interpreted, means that he who first gains actual possession of an article of value should be considered its rightful owner, and should not be disturbed by others in its possession or enjoyment. In a settled society, where practically every article of value, which is susceptible of private appropriation, has been taken possession of by some one, the occupation theory has obviously little opportunity for application. As a matter of fact the theory has mainly been held to explain how, in a state of nature, it was possible for private property rights to be created which it was the moral duty of men to respect. Even there, however, the theory has been held as applicable only to those articles of value which are considered the direct gifts of God or nature. The right of the individual to that which he has made by his own labor is not denied, but the right to the material upon which his labor is expended has been based upon the fact of his first taking possession of it.

As would naturally be expected, we find the occupation theory especially dwelt upon by those writers who have founded their ethical and political systems. upon the idea of an original state of nature. A typical view is that of Grotius. "God gave the human race generally a right to the things of a lower nature," says Grotius. "... Everything was com