The objects may be of use to other people—if they had them—as in innumerable pieces of china, but of no use to him; or they may be of no use to anybody, like defaced postage-stamps—but that does not affect the collecting instinct. This depraved appetite, seeking to acquire for personal “ownership” without even the excuse of consumption, frankly waiving the pleasure of using the things and affixing that pleasure solely to the getting and having of them, is as morbid a process as could well be imagined. It is “the mania for owning things” in full delirium.
What is the normal law of ownership? It is simple, like all natural laws.
Social processes are served through the social body, through a great number of detached mechanical structures. The social functionaries, in order to carry on their functions, must have a certain extra-physical environment. The family and the individuals therein must have homes, the body must have its clothes, the worker of all sorts must have his tools, his shop, all that is necessary for his work. Society requires of the individual the performance of certain functions. That performance requires the continuous use of certain mechanical adjuncts. Society must guarantee to the individual the continuous possession of those adjuncts, of the things necessary for him to do his work. That is the social “right of property.”
All property is a social product, evolved in the course of social development, needed by society for the social service. Any social factor, a carpenter, for instance, is a working agent consisting of a human animal specially skilled and specially tooled. Without the skill and the tools he is not a carpenter. Society having evolved the skill and the tools, certain members of Society then become carpenters. Since their skill is essential to the social service, Society must educate them; since their tools are essential to the social service, Society must secure the tools to the man. This is ownership, a social right, quite just, and perfectly natural.
Social relations are psychic. Property rights are psychic relations. We agree that such men shall own such things, and they do. We deny that such men own such things, and they don’t! Men once owned slaves—everywhere. This “right” was gradually withdrawn by the givers, until it now only exists in certain localities of low social development. Parents once “owned” their children, could kill or sell them. This right has been withdrawn.
There is no ultimate basis for human rights but the best interests of Society, and our conscious recognition of human right depends on our knowledge of those interests. Thus our rights change from age to age, as Society changes, and our laws and customs slowly follow the new developments in social consciousness. In our time we are in the active throes of change on two great subjects, the rights of women and the rights of property.
On the latter head this formula is advanced as a safe one: The individual has a right to those things necessary for him to best serve Society. That is, the carpenter has a right to his tools, and the musician to his instrument, both to their special education, and they and all men to the food, shelter, clothing, and other things necessary to their best social service.
Not a return equivalent to, as we try to arrange our system of payment, but a supply necessary to, in advance. If a man is to write books for humanity he has a right to his pen, ink, and paper; and to such other conditions as are essential to his best productivity; but because one man’s books are worth ten times as much as another’s, is no reason why he should have ten times as much pen, ink, and paper.
Consumption is a means to production—impression is of value as it conduces to expression. The pleasure and the duty are in Doing. Having is merely contributory.
Our mistake about consumption is what our payment system rests on; we work merely to obtain something; and that something is rigorously measured according to our previous labour. In changing the ground of our thought, we shall recognise that production is the main issue of life; that consumption is essential to it; that each social factor has a right to such supplies as shall best promote his productivity, and that they shall be provided him in advance.