5. According to certain economists such as Roscher, Mill, and Courcelle-Seneuil, human nature is such as to requireproperty, for without this there would be no stimulus to labour or saving. M. Adolph Wagner calls this system the economictheory of nature. Roscher formulates it thus: "Just as human labour can only arrive at complete productivity when it is free,so capital does not attain to full productive power except under the system of free private property. Who would care tosave, and renounce immediate enjoyment, if he could not reckon on future enjoyment?" (Roscher, Syst . I. ?77 and 82.)"Landed property," says Mill, "if legitimate, must rest on some other justification than the right of the labourer to what hehas created by his labour. The land is not of man's creation; and for a person to appropriate to himself a mere gift of nature,not made to him in particular, but which belonged as much to all others until he took possession of it, is primâ facie aninjustice to all the rest The private appropriation of land has been deemed to be beneficial to those who do not, as well asto those who do, obtain a share. And in what manner beneficial? Let us take particular note of this. Beneficial, because thestrongest interest which the community and the human race have in the land is that it should yield the largest amount offood, and other necessary or useful things required by the community. Now, though the land itself is not the work of humanbeings, its produce is; and to obtain enough of that produce somebody must exert much labour, and, in order that this labourmay be supported, must expend a considerable amount of the savings of previous labours. Now we have been taught byexperience that the great majority of mankind will work much harder, and make much greater pecuniary sacrifices, forthemselves and their immediate descendants than for the public. In order, therefore, to give the greatest encouragement toproduction, it has been thought right that individuals should have an exclusive property in land, so that they may have themost possible to gain by ****** the land as productive as they can, and may be in no danger of being hindered from doingso by the interference of any one else. This is the reason usually assigned for allowing the land to be private property, and itis the best reason that can be given.
Human institutions ought, in fact, to be alike just, and such as to procure the greatest possible happiness for the greatestnumber. But, as M. Adolph Wagner very well remarks, quiritary property in land is not indispensable for the goodcultivation of the soil. In fact we see on all sides, perfectly cultivated lands, which belong to the State, to corporations, tovillage communities, and to great landowners, but are farmed by temporary occupants. It cannot therefore be maintainedthat private property in the soil is an economic necessity. As Mr Mill very truly says, if the end aimed at in establishingprivate ownership of the soil is to create the most powerful motive for realizing its good cultivation, the ownership shouldalways be assigned directly to the cultivators. In any case, according to Mill, the increased value of the soil, resulting fromnational activity, should be reserved to the nation, and not granted to sinecurists, who reap the advantage in the form of anincreased rental.
The "natural-economical" theory has this great advantage, that by basing property on general utility, it allows of successiveimprovements in existing institutions by the elimination of what is contrary to equity and the general interests, and bymodifications consonant with new wants and technical advances. (6)6. The sixth system regards property as a natural right. In the present day all the advocates of property vie with one anotherin repeating that it is a natural right; but there are but few of them who understand the import of these words. Thephilosophical jurists of Germany have however explained it very well. Fichte's theory on the point is this. The personal rightof man as determined by nature is to possess a sphere of action sufficient to supply him with the means of support. Thisphysical sphere should therefore be guaranteed to every one, conditionally however on his cultivating it by his own labour.
Thus all should labour, and all should also have wherewith to labour. Here are the actual words of Fichte in his excellentwork on the French Revolution, Beiträge zur Berichtigung des Urtheils über die französische Revolution : "Thetransformation ( bildung ) of materials by our own efforts is the true juridical basis of property, and the only natural one. Hewho does not labour cannot eat, unless I give him food; but he has no right to be fed. He cannot justly make others work forhim. Every man has over the material world a primordial right of `appropriation,' and a right of property over such thingsonly as have been modified by him." In his book on natural law, Grundlage des Naturrechts , Fichte says every man has aninalienable right to live by his labour, and consequently to find the means of employing his hands.
