Section LXXXVIII.
Landed Property. (Continued.)
Whenever this admixture of capital and labor with land has taken place to no great extent, private property in land is not found developed in any degree. Thus, there are even now many half-civilized countries in which the land is forfeited because not tilled for many years, and where it may be occupied by the first person who will cultivate it.[524] In Europe, common [pg 265] possession of forests and pasture lands asserted itself much longer than that of arable land, because, in the case of the former, labor and capital play a much less important part in the management of them. And yet, even in the case of arable land etc., and, in the highest stages of civilization, the property-quality is yet less developed than the property-quality of capital. How seldom do we find fidei commissa of capital, or capital juridically tied up. We find that the law of all ancient nations drew a marked distinction between moveable and immoveable property, and that the power of disposing of the former by sale, pledge, in dowry, partition etc., was a much freer one. And even now, the police power which may be exercised over moveable property is much more restricted than that over houses and land.[525] The justice of the exclusive right of possession to what one has earned and saved is obvious to every one. On the other hand, the appropriation of “original and indestructible natural forces” has its basis not so much in justice as in the general good; and the state has always considered itself entitled to attach to the “monopoly of land,” which it accorded to the first possessor, all kinds of limitations and conditions in the interest of the common good, [pg 266] and sometimes to consider private property in land in the light of a semi-public function.[526] I may instance the feudal principles of the latter portion of the middle ages, which are so far removed from our ideas of private property in land; and yet, of which many echoes are heard, even in our day, and are not without their influence in practice. Thus, further, for instance, even in England, the greater number of the poor-rates, of taxes for the support of the established church, the maintenance of public highways etc., are heaped upon the rent of land. Many socialists have proposed to make the state the sole proprietor of the soil,[527] sometimes adding the condition, that the previous private owners should be compensated in capital, when it would be at least supposable that private capital might be enticed to cultivate it, if long and sure leases of it were made. This would be a “good” demesne-husbandry, extending over the entire country. We need only glance at those kingdoms in which something analogous is to be found, [pg 267] especially the despotisms of the east,[528] to divine that such a system does not suffice to insure the real productiveness of a nation's economy.[529]