The Principles of Ethics: In Two Volumes

12. The Right of Property

Ethics_V2_101-150.indd 111 1/27/12 11:24 AM CHAPTER 12 The Right of Property 299. since all material objects capable of being owned, are in one way or other obtained from the earth, it results that the right of property is originally dependent on the right to the use of the earth. While there were yet no artificial products, and natural products were therefore the only things which could be appropriated, this was an obviously necessary connection. And though, in our developed form of society, there are multitudinous possessions, ranging from houses, furniture, clothes, works of art, to banknotes, railway shares, mortgages, government bonds, &c., the origins of which have no manifest relation to use of the earth; yet it needs but to remember that they either are, or represent, products of labor, that labor is made possible by food, and that food is obtained from the soil, to see that the connection, though remote and entangled, still continues. Whence it follows that a complete ethical justification for the right of property, is involved in the same difficulties as the ethical justification for the right to the use of the earth. The justification attempted by Locke is unsatisfactory. Saying that "though the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person," and inferring that "the labor of his body, and the 111 Ethics_V2_101-150.indd 112 1/27/12 11:24 AM 112 The Ethics of Social Life: Justice work of his hands," are therefore his, he continues: "Whatever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labor with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property ." But one might reply that as, according to the premises, "the earth and all inferior creatures" are "common to all men," the consent of all men must be obtained before any article can be equitably "removed from the common state nature hath placed it in." The question at issue is, whether by labor expended in removing it, a man has made his right to the thing greater than the preexisting rights of all other men put together . The difficulty thus arising may be avoided however. There are three ways in which, under savage, semicivilized, and civilized conditions, men's several rights of property may be established with due regard to the equal rights of all other men. Among the occupiers of a tract who gather or catch the wild products around, it may be tacitly, if not overtly, agreed that having equal opportunities of utilizing such products, appropriation achieved by any one shall be passively assented to by the others. This is the general understanding acted upon by the members of hunting tribes. It is instructive to observe, however, that among some of them there is practically, if not theoretically, asserted the qualification indicated above; for usage countenances a partial claim by other tribesmen to game which one of the tribe has killed: apparently implying the belief that this prey was in part theirs before it was killed. Schoolcraft tells us concerning the Comanches that They recognize no distinct rights of meum and tuum, except to personal property; holding the territory they occupy, and the game that depastures upon it, as common to all the tribe: the latter is appropriated only by capture.... He who kills the game retains the skin, and the meat is divided according to the necessity of the party, always without contention, as each individual shares his food with every member of the tribe. Kindred usages and ideas are found among the Chippewayans . Schoolcraft writes: Ethics_V2_101-150.indd 113 1/27/12 11:24 AM The Right of Property 113 In the former instance [when game is taken in inclosures by a hunting party], the game is divided among those who have been engaged in pursuit of it. In the latter [when taken in private traps] it is considered as private property: nevertheless, any unsuccessful hunter passing by, may take a deer so caught, leaving the head, skin, and saddle for the owner. The quasi-equitable nature of these several arrangements, vaguely, if not definitely, regarded as right, will be fully appreciated by one who is joint tenant of a fishing, or is privileged along with other guests to utilize one, and who is conscious of annoyance...