The savage in a savage country, free from all constraint of law, custom, or government, must, I suppose, be admitted to enjoy the greatest freedom conceivable. He is free to hunt what animals he chooses; to pick the fruits of the earth; to gather the shells by the seashore. He is free also to till any part of the land if he knows how to do it; to sow and harvest it. He is also free to rob his fellow men; to enslave them; to kill them and, if his tastes so incline, to eat them.
But such a savage, while enjoying the greatest freedom conceivable, is also exposed to the greatest risk conceivable; for example, he is exposed to the risk of having the animals he hunts taken from him by one stronger than he; if he tills the ground and reaps the harvest, he is liable to have that harvest taken from him; and though he is free to rob, enslave, kill, and eat his fellow men, his fellow men are equally free to rob, enslave, kill, and eat him.
The same thing, of course, is true of his domestic relations. He may capture any female he likes and compel her to serve as his wife; but he is liable at any time to have his wife taken from him. As regards his physical and domestic needs, therefore, while he enjoys the greatest freedom possible, he is exposed to the greatest risk also.
§ 1. Origin of Property
It may be said for this order of things, if things can be said to have order where there is no order, that the strong men would prefer this system to one under which they would be limited as to the satisfaction of appetite, passion, and caprice. But the strongest men are liable to be subdued by a sufficient number of weaker men, as Polyphemus was subdued by Ulysses and his crew. So the strong men in the community as well as the weak, early discovered the importance of agreeing to respect each one the rights of the other in the things which through their labor they had acquired. Long, then, before there was any system of written law, our savage ancestors recognized the right of men in the product of their toil; and this recognition, whether we find it in the Ten Commandments of the Jews, or the Twelve Tables of the Romans, or in the customs of more savage races, is nothing more nor less than the institution of property.
Although this institution of property involves an abridgment of freedom—for under the property system nobody is free to rob another—nevertheless it is an abridgment of freedom by which everyone except the lazy profits; and it tends to put an end to laziness, because, under this institution of property, only those who work can eat.
It is because the institution of property is an abridgment of freedom that property and liberty are treated together in this chapter. It is impossible correctly to understand the one without the other. It will be seen later that as civilization develops and men are crowded together in a small space, it becomes indispensable to the convenience of all that freedom should be further abridged; and that so long as the freedom of the individual is abridged, not only for the benefit of his neighbors, but of himself, the abridgment is a good thing and not a bad. Whereas, when we find freedom being abridged to the disadvantage of the many and the advantage of a few, then it will turn out that this abridgment is a bad thing and not a good.
One feature about the abridgment of freedom it is impossible to emphasize too much: In nations in which liberty is supposed most to prevail, the abridgment of freedom is for the most part confined to matters which involve little or no sacrifice. For example, the average citizen does not find himself in the slightest degree hampered by the criminal code; he does not want to kill or rob; it is perfectly clear to him that the sacrifice he makes of his freedom to kill or rob is of no importance by the side of the enormous security he receives as regards those people who might want to kill or rob him.
Socialism has been much injured by certain fanciful writers who have suggested various abridgments of human freedom that would be altogether abominable; as for example, the undue limitation of a man's liberty to choose his wife, and to choose his occupation. And opponents of Socialism use these totally discredited suggestions as weapons with which to fight Socialism; though in fact, modern Socialism repudiates them altogether.
The institution of property, in abridging freedom, creates duties; and in furnishing security, establishes rights. Thus we say that men have a right of property in the product of their toil; a right to enjoy the cabins they have built; a right to harvest the grain they have sown. And the same thing can be said of rights and duties as has been said about the abridgment of freedom. So long as no man exacts rights of property in anything more than the result of his labor, so long is he only asking what is due to him.