Watson's Magazine, Vol. IV, No. 2, April, 1906

by Various

I come now to the case of the “score of tribesmen” of whom you speak. While the score were fishing, hunting, drinking or gambling, the one cleared the wild land, fenced out the rest and claimed it as his land. But, in fact, did this make it his land? By virtue of what did it become his land? You doubtless had this question in mind when you attempted to answer it in the following:

“Having put his labor into the land, having changed it from a waste into a farm, it was the most natural thing in the world that he should claim it as his own. Why shouldn’t he? He made it a farm.”

What was his ultimate purpose in putting his labor into the farm? Was it not the products which his labor, applied to the land, would bring forth? You say “he made it a farm.” He found it a farm awaiting his efforts. You will agree that he was entitled only to the result of his own labor. In fact, this is the truth for which you are contending. What were the results of his labor, the farm or the products? Manifestly the latter. These he enjoyed. Upon what possible ground, then, could he go still further and claim also the soil as belonging to himself and his heirs forever?

Moreover, you will concede that before this tribesman determined to abandon the spear and the rod and become a farmer, this piece of ground could have been taken by any of the other twenty men; in other words it was common. It must be further conceded that in casting about to find a suitable location for his farm, he chose the site which offered the best natural advantages relative to fuel, water, fertility of soil, and proximity to the tribal bartering place. At this point let us carry your illustration still further and assume that all or part of the other twenty tribesmen decided to become farmers also.

In the same manner as their forerunner, they look about for the best location, and the one offering the best advantages. But it is taken, and the others must take second, third or fourth place, according to who gets located first. But these men have equal rights. Why should some of them enjoy the exclusive ownership and possession of those sites which give them natural advantages over the others? Manifestly, they should not. But how can they equalize these advantages? Just to the extent that farmer number one holds advantage over farmer number twenty-one—just to that extent should number one compensate the little community as a whole for the privilege which he enjoys. And so with all the others. A community is forming, with its natural demand for revenue for common purposes. Here is the natural revenue. Here lies the fundamental principle which political economists call the Law of Rent. Here reposes the very essence of the law of compensation. Here also is found the basis principle of economic justice, which, traced to its last analysis, as civilization advances, is capable of developing the highest expression of human society. Here is the answer to your question,

“Will universal happiness be the result of putting an end to private ownership of land?”

It was not “just that the twenty idle tribesmen should take away from the one industrious tribesman that which his labor had created.” Neither was it just that he should rob the other twenty when they came to exercise their equal right to the use of the land, as he manifestly would if he were left to the exclusive use of the soil, or the best portion thereof, without compensating those he has excluded.

Let him retain possession of the farm and his products under these conditions, and you have, not private ownership of land, but common ownership.

Another point that you have obviously overlooked, and one that goes to the heart of the social problem, is the element of land monopoly. Your tribesman was not satisfied with selecting the best land, and fencing so much thereof as he could till by his own exertion, but he fenced in vast areas that he could not use, and also claimed that as “his own.” By so doing he not only enjoyed the fruits of his own labor, but forced the other twenty to share their products with him as a tribute for using that part of “his land” which he himself could not, or did not, care to use. You may say that they had equal opportunities with him to get first choice. Even if this were granted, it makes no difference in principle. The fact still remains that he has the power to wring unwilling tribute from them. Only one could have the best, and though his contemporaries may have been justly punished for their lack of foresight—which I do not admit—there is yet another side to the question. What is the status of future generations in relation to this proposition? Are they guilty of sleeping upon their rights when all the land has been taken before they were born, or are they born into conditions which they have had no voice in making?

If your lonely tribesman, for whose welfare you manifest such solicitation, had been content with the amount of land he could utilize to good advantage, had he been willing to contribute his just share to the common expense, and had he been sufficiently just to recognize and respect the equal rights of his compeers, the common would yet have remained after all had been supplied. What was true of the primitive state is true today in our highly organized society. Shifting conditions make no changes in universal principles.