Ethics

by John Dewey; James Hayden Tufts

§ 8. PRESENT TENDENCIES

Individualistic Foundations.—The general tendency up to very recent time in the United States has been decidedly individualistic, both in the policy concerning the method of holding property, and in the legal balance between vested property rights and the social welfare. Public lands were granted on easy terms to homesteaders; mines as well as soil were practically free to the prospector; school fund lands were in most cases sold for a song instead of being kept for the public. So general has been the attitude that all wealth ought to be in private hands that it has been difficult to convict men who have fraudulently obtained vast tracts of public land. The magnitude of the operation has given "respectability" to the beneficiaries. The taxing power has done little to maintain adjustment. In this, as in many other respects, the policy of the United States has been far more individualistic than that of Great Britain. The latter has graded income and inheritance taxes. In the United States, on the other hand, the Federal taxation bears more heavily on the poor as they are the large body of consumers,—not, of course, in the sense that the individual poor man pays more than the individual rich man, but in the sense that a million of dollars owned by a thousand men pays more than a million owned by one man. Legally, the Constitution of the United States and certain of its amendments gave private rights extraordinary protection, especially when contracts were construed to mean charters, as well as private contracts. The public welfare was conceived to reside almost solely in private rights.[244]

Increased Recognition of Public Welfare.—Recent policy and legal decisions show a decided change. Reserves of forest lands have been established. Water-supplies, parks, and many other kinds of property have been changed from private to public ownership. The question as to mines has been raised. Graded inheritance taxes have been established in some states, and the question of graded income taxes is likely to be more generally considered unless some other form of taxation based on the social values given to land, or franchises, or other forms of property seems more equitable. The Supreme Court in recent decisions "has read into the constitution two sweeping exceptions to the inviolability of property rights."[245] One is that of public use. "Whenever the owner of a property devotes it to a use in which the public has an interest, he in effect grants to the public an interest in such use, and must to the extent of that use submit to be controlled by the public for the common good so long as he maintains the use." The second exception is that of the police power which in 1906 (204 U. S., 311, 318) was declared to extend "to so dealing with the conditions which exist in the state as to bring out of them the greatest welfare of its people." The application of this broad principle is still in an uncertain condition, but there can be no question that it recognizes a changed situation. When people are living in such interdependence as in the collective life of to-day, it is no longer possible to locate public welfare in any such preponderating degree in private rights as was justified under the conditions of a new country a century ago. Says Professor Smith:

"On the fundamental question of the relation of public policy to private property rights the [Supreme] Court has abandoned the individualist views with which the founders of the constitution were imbued; and in its doctrines of the public use and the police power it has distinctly accepted what may be termed, in the literal and proper sense of the word, the socialist view. In so doing, it has unquestionably expressed the dominant opinion of the American people. The American people does not accept the collectivist theory; it believes in private property; but it recognizes that rights of property must yield, in cases of conflict, to the superior rights of society at large."

If some of the means set forth above for securing juster distribution were adopted, the first step toward Mill's demand[246] would be met. If the community should reap the return for its own growth, if taxation should be so arranged as to fall most heavily on those best able to pay rather than on those who are most honest or least able to evade, it would seem rational to hold that society will find a way to continue the four forms of control now existing, making such shifts as changing conditions require.

Some of these shiftings are already evident and give promise of greater justice without loss of any of the benefits accruing from private property.

Social Justice through Economic, Social, and Scientific Progress.—Not all moral advance comes "with observation," or by political agency. The economic process is providing in certain lines a substitute for property. Science and invention, which are themselves a fine illustration of the balance and interaction between individual and social intelligence, individual effort and social coöperation, are making possible in many ways a state of society in which men have at once greater freedom and greater power through association, greater individual development and greater socialization of interests, less private property but greater private use and enjoyment of what is common.

The substitute for property provided by the economic process itself is permanence or security of support. If the person can count definitely upon a future, this is equivalent to the security of property. And through the organization of modern industry supplemented by insurance and pensions, either state, institutional, or in corporations, or in mutual benefit associations, there has been on the whole, a great increase of security, although it is still unfortunately true that the wage-worker may in most cases be dismissed at any moment, and has virtually no contract, or even any well-assured confidence of continued employment.

It is a mutual coöperation of economic, social, and scientific factors which has brought about a great increase of individual use and enjoyment through public ownership. This has placed many of the things which make life worth living within the enjoyment of all, and at the same time given a far better service to the users than the old method of private ownership. In this change lies, perhaps, the greatest advance of justice in the economic sphere, and a great promise for the future. There was a time when if a man would sit down on a piece of ground and enjoy a fine landscape, he must own it. If he would have a plot where his children might play, he must own it. If he would travel, he must carry his own lantern, and furnish his own protection from thieves. If he would have water, he must sink his own well. If he would send a letter, he must own or hire a messenger. If he would read a book, he must not merely own the book, but own or hire the author or copyist. If he would educate his children, he must own or hire the tutor. We have learned that public parks, public lighting and water works, public libraries, and public schools, are better than private provision.

The objection which comes from the individualist to this programme is that it does too much for the individual. It is better, urges individualism, to stimulate the individual's activity and leave his wants largely unsatisfied than to satisfy all his wants at the expense of his activity. But this assumes that what is done through public agencies is done for the people and not by the people. A democracy may do for itself what an aristocracy may not do for a dependent class. The greatest demoralization at the present time is not to those who have not, but to those who appropriate gains due to associated activity, complacently supposing that they have themselves created all that they enjoy.