Prophets, Jurists, and Property; W. J. Palmer

92 learns the inevitable penalties for mistaken judgment and dishon esty and the equally inevitable re wards for good judgment and in tegrity. In summary, he grows in stature as a constructive, trust worthy being. Out of this extension and en largement of the person through the ownership of property and the related contractual activities come men and women qualified to do the big jobs, to carry the heavyre sponsibilities of our economic re gime. For them we reserve one of the highest encomiums of our work-a-daylives and associations, namely, "His word is as good as his bond." To cut off from the individual person the medium of self-exten sion and development provided by freedom to acquire and own prop1967 PROPHETS, JURISTS, AND PROPERTY 93 erty is to do damage to his person in analagous manner as cutting off an arm or a leg or destroying the sense of sight or of hearjng \vould do to his body. It is an in evitable, logical result that to a mind that has suffered such dam age, a mind molded in thephiloso phy and practices of communism, even a solemn treaty-contract car ries no binding obligation, is only a device by which to buy time, to deceive or to gain some other ad vantage, a mere contractual form to be broken whenever to honor it would appear to be fraught with some disadvantage to the signing communist body.

The Law of Usefulness and Returns When we turn to the larger, composite, social aspects of pri vate ownership of property, as ex hibited in our business. corpora tions,we are compelled, if we would be true,. to acknowledge this fact: In the long pull, such pri vately owned property can and does serve its owners only and commensurately as it serves all the people. Even as to personal hold ings, basic data compiled by· the Internal Revenue Service justify the conclusion that at least 85 per cent of the personal wealth of our wealthiest citizens is in the active service of the general, total econ omy in the form of corporation capital, government bonds, investments in insurance,bank accounts and loans, paying wages, creating tools, building homes, andprovid ing security for others. These facts are joined by an other: the natural and particular concern that thecprivate owner has for the care, improvement, and usefulness of his own property.

The· brevity .of that observation should not obscure the· far-reach .. ingvitality and effectiveness of its truth. When we substitute the politician ·dealing with. otherpeo pIe's money for the businessman dealing with his own, the result is certain to be extravagance· and waste and often corruption and failure. A thousand and more ex amples of this truth, from our own governments and from around the world,· could· be cited if neces sary. But no knowledgeable person needs such. proof. These conjoined facts give to private ownership and manage ment an exclusively distinctive en dowment for benefiting the whole economic and social structure. They constitute what Adam Smith referred to as an "invisible hand" serving .the best interests of· so ciety. To use a metaphor that con forms with modern science, these factors might be called the genes that have determined the magnifi cent posture and performance of our organisms of private property and private adventure, and the ab94 THE FREEMAN February sence of which has determined the numerous failures of socialism and totalitarianism.

Modern Mythology This is a unique period in human history for thoughtful people to spend a while focusing their thoughts on the concepts of pri vate property and ownership. Cur rent in the world is the notion which, stated with the samegen erality as it usually is expressed, assumes that an intrinsic antag onism exists between property rights and human rights. The con flicting factors intended to be de noted by the slogans and shibbo leths are, on the one hand, the ownership of property by individ ual persons, and, on the other , the well-being of all members of a so ciety. Not only are large national groupings of the world's peoples under the absolute domination of autocrats who profess to believe that this notion is true, but in our own country the shibboleth is comtnonly used, or truth is im plied in it, by seekers and holders of public office, demagogues, so. cialists, and communists. Into the minds of thousands of school and college students the notion has been implanted by teachers and by influences organized and directed from outside the school grounds and campuses.

Perhaps we ought promptly to dispatch this proposition that property rights are inimical to human rights by pointing to the illogicality and/or the insincerity of its proclaimers and apologists. What they seek to obtain is prop erty, either directly for themselves or to hold or control, with auto cratic power of distribution and dissipation. Property delivered to them, property controlled by or for them, is their own barked guaran tee of human rights and their one cure for a real or alleged absence of such rights. They, themselves, are the arch proponents of the fan tasy that property is the panacea for the ills, ignorance, indolence, evils, confusion, and muddles of mankind. Although it is quite proper in controversial dialogue to thus dis miss a current myth or fallacy, it is for us, rather, to think construc tively and to try, at least, to ex press truths that can flow into the mental vacuum wherever it may exist. Let us examine anew cer tain premises that we usually as sume a priori. What are the genu ine human values in which we are or ought to be concerned?

These are Human Values The basic one, of course, is free dom. Lest there be misinterpreta tion or misrepresentation, let us substitute a term evolved in en1967 PROPHETS, JURISTS, AND PROPERTY 95 lightened political and juristic phi losophy, namely, "civil liberty." This term embraces all the famil iar inalienable rights of man. No fact has been more convincingly proved by history and no conclu sion is logically more unavoidable than this: civil liberty is impossi ble without the right and freedom of individual persons through their own efforts ,to ac,quire and own property and to have all authority in the management of the same as will not infringe upon the equal rights of others and as will con form with a reasonable exercise of police power by government. When, by some governing pow er, individual persons are deprived of opportunity to acquire and to own property, they necessarily are dependent' upon and are the liege men of the power that claims to own all property and, having means of violence to enforce its claims, exercises the prerogatives of ownership - whether that pow er be king, feudal lord, or ruling persons bearing any vestment of authority. All are vassals of the king, be he robed, crowned, and on a throne, or a coterie of commis sars or an· assembly or bureau of government officials, when the con trol of all property has been usurped by that king through myth, general ignorance, custom, deception, violence, or election.

The destiny of liberty is the destiny of the private ownership of property. "A Man's Castle" Another human value of inesti mable significance is the home, the house-home which, upheld by en lightened Anglo-American juris prudence, is a man's castle, a place of refuge, and a place for privacy. But a man's home cannot be his castle, a personal fortress, unless he, himself, owns the right of pos session, a right that he acquires through ownership of either the fee title or a leasehold. A pater nalistic, allowning government might provide him revocable shel ter, but whether that be in a hovel, a crowded room, apartment, or a palace, he never can receive from it the gratifications and the human values, nor the security, that de rive from himself being the owner and master of a home. Probably no human value sur passes that of the man who loves the fertile soil and the useful and beautiful creations that grow from it, who presides over an area of ground of which he can say: "This is my own," and on which he can labor in the near-God enterprises of tilling, planting, harvesting, and animal husbandry, knowing that the fruits of his toil and the earth's fertility will belong to him.

He is the lord of what has been called "a corner of tranquillity,"

96 THE FREEMAN February wherein he knows the spiritual satisfactions of being a self-directed, free man. But no "corner of tranquillity" exists after preda tors, by violence· or the inoculation of deceiving ideas, have stolen from individual persons their own and, through sneaking and violent devices of suppression, have closed the avenues for private ownership of property. Control of Cultural Environment Another human value is one which no intelligent person, hav ing once enjoyed, will surrender willingly: the value derived from being free to create the cultural environment to which he and his family will be exposed and within which, patterns of thought, taste, and character will be formed. This value derives not alone from re specting his own thinking and judgment, but from being free to pursue them in the selection of books, newspapers, magazines, fur nishings and decor, works of art, radio and television programs, other forms of entertainment, re ligious institutions, and methods of education.

But this immeasurable human value can be had only when nu merous individual persons are the respective private owners of nu merous properties: newspapers, publishing houses, churches, schools, factories, radio and television stations, theaters, mercan tile establishments, banks and other financial institutions, and countless items of machinery and equipment. The destiny of culture is the destiny of the private ownership of property ~ The Means of Benevolence l No attempt is being made here to inventory all the human values that are made possible by and are dependent upon the private owner ship of property. Yet another ought to be mentioned, because, although not the most fundamen tal, it is the crowning, irradiating capstone of the structure. It con sists of the coexistence of benevo lent impulses in the psyche of the individual person and his private ownership of the means by which to materialize those impulses in charitable giving. It is doubtful if many of us have a fitting appre ciation of the manifold, far-reach ing fruitfulness of that human value, although its personal grati fications have been widely experi enced.

A reliable estimate based on various records is that in 1963 gifts made by citizens and insti tutions of the United States to 1 The data used in this section is taken from Senior Scholastic, December 9, 1964, p. 8 et seq. and 1966 Reader's Digest Al manac.

1967 PROPHETS, JURISTS, AND PROPERTY 97 philanthropic causes amounted to more than ten billion dollars. The varied purposes of those gifts em braced immediate help to the needy; religious activities; educa tion in many areas; projects in art, literature, and other phases of culture; health, medical, and hos pital care; scholarships, fellow ships, advanced studies and re search, and explorations in science. Out beyond the realm of records and statistics, in those areas where countless kind persons ask no credit and no acclaim, are the continuing, numerous, silent gifts of money and valuable things from one to another. Of the more than ten billion dol lars in traceable charity, gifts to taling nearly eight billion dollars were those of individual persons. More than 50 million volunteer, unpaid persons, including three million of America's business and professional leaders, gave of their time and energy to carryon the benevolent services involved and to do the soliciting and gathering in of the gifts.

Near ly half of all this giving of private property was done for the support of churches and church related activities, including church-affiliated hospitals. Anoth er 15 per cent of the gifts made possible such welfare and educa tional activities as youth organiza tions, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and similar programs, community planning for various phases of bet terment, and projects for the pre vention of juvenile delinquency. Fifteen thousand foundations, endowed by gifts of private prop erty, made possible major .philan thropic enterprises by their contri butions of 819 million dollars. Twenty-four of those foundations, the ones best known, having no purpose other than to promote through their benefactions the well-being and progress of human beings around the world, have as sets of over six billion dollars. The existence of numerous pri vate schools and colleges, where independence of political controls and pressure groups can be re tained, and religious and cultural ideals and disciplines can be main tained, is made possible only by gifts of pri vate property. In the fiscal year, 1963-1964, 35 of the better known c9lleges and univer sities of our country received gifts totaling 343 million dollars. But numerous other colleges and uni versities received gifts. The total of all gifts of private property to education in one form or another in the year 1963 has been esti mated to have been over one bil lion, seven hundred million dollars.