ETHICS AND ECONOMICS. tjj 



pointment with the results which the invention of labor-saving 

 machinery promised to fulfill. " It was expected that labor-saving 

 inventions would lighten the toil and improve the condition of the 

 laborer; that the enormous increase in the power of producing 

 wealth would make real poverty a thing of the past." * For the 

 first time in the history of the world the niggardliness of Nature 

 seemed to have been overcome, and it appeared possible for man 

 to produce enough to satisfy all his wants. The cry of " overpro- 

 duction," now so generally heard, lends some color to this view. 

 Yet it is susceptible of mathematical proof that if the whole pro- 

 duction of the civilized world could be distributed equally among 

 all the inhabitants thereof, it would not raise any of them to afflu- 

 ence or rid them of the necessity of close economy and of hard, 

 continuous labor. This disappointment with Nature does not, 

 however, wholly account for existing sentiment in regard to the 

 distribution of wealth. There is still a residuum to be explained. 



The fundamental principle upon which social intercourse rests 

 is that of equal freedom, or the right of " every man to do all that 

 he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other 

 man." f Certain conditions are necessary to social well-being, 

 and this equality of freedom is essential, so that men's characters 

 may be wrought into harmony with these necessary conditions. 

 It is upon this right to equal freedom that the right to property 

 rests : indeed, the two rights are regarded as synonymous. " The 

 legitimacy of private property has, since the time of Locke, been 

 based by the greater number of political economists on the right 

 inherent in every workman either to consume or to save the prod- 

 uct of his labor," J that is to say, on the freedom to do as he wills 

 with his own, provided he does not infringe upon the equal right 

 of others to do the same. Furthermore, it is a logical deduction 

 from the principle of freedom that every man is entitled to claim 

 as his own the fruits of his labor and his savings, for this principle 

 requires not that all shall share alike, but that each shall have 

 like freedom to pursue and acquire the object of his desires. 



Beyond the restraints which the law of equal freedom itself 

 imposes, there are other secondary restraints which are necessary 

 to right living. Men may in a variety of ways make themselves 

 obnoxious to their fellows without breaking the law of equal free- 

 dom; hence the necessity of both negative and positive benefi- 

 cence as supplementary principles to regulate human nature. 

 These, however, belong to the sphere of ethics proper, and not to 

 that part of it we are considering. 



It seems to be an inevitable conclusion that, subject only to 



* " Progress and Poverty," Henry George, p. 3. 

 f "Social Statics," Herbert Spencer, p. 121. 

 \ Roscher's " Political Economy," vol. i, p. 235. 



