produced, I would not waste a moment's energy on it."[801]
Free land is needed in the second place.[802] "'The land for the
people,' according to 'Liberty', means the protection of all people who
desire to cultivate land in the possession of whatever land they
personally cultivate, without distinction between the existing classes
of landlords, tenants, and laborers, and the positive refusal of the
protecting power to lend its aid to the collection of any rent
whatsoever."[803] This "system of occupying ownership, accompanied by no
legal power to collect rent, but coupled with the abolition of the
State-guaranteed monopoly of money, thus making capital readily
available,"[804] would "abolish ground-rent"[805] and "distribute the
increment naturally and quietly among its rightful owners."[806]
In the third and fourth place, free trade and freedom of intellectual
products are necessary.[807] If they were added to freedom in money,
"profit on merchandise would become merely the wages of mercantile
labor."[808] Free trade "would result in a great reduction in the prices
of all articles taxed."[809] And "the abolition of the patent monopoly
would fill its beneficiaries with a wholesome fear of competition which
would cause them to be satisfied with pay for their services equal to
that which other laborers get for theirs."[810]
If equal liberty is realized in these four spheres, its realization in
the sphere of property follows of itself: that is, a distribution of
property in which every one is guaranteed the product of his labor.[811]
"Economic privilege must disappear as a result of the abolition of
political tyranny."[812] In a society in which there is no more
government of man by man, there can be no such things as interest, rent,
and profits;[813] every one is guaranteed the ownership of the product
of his labor. "Socialism does not say: 'Thou shalt not steal!' It says:
'When all men have Liberty, thou wilt not steal.'"[814]
3. "Liberty will abolish all means whereby any laborer can be deprived
of any of his product; but it will not abolish the limited inequality
between one laborer's product and another's."[815] "There will remain
the slight disparity of products due to superiority of soil and skill.
But even this disparity will soon develop a tendency to decrease. Under
the new economic conditions and enlarged opportunities resulting from
freedom of credit and land classes will tend to disappear; great
capacities will not be developed in a few at the expense of stunting
those of the many; freedom of locomotion will be vastly increased; the
toilers will no longer be anchored in such large numbers in the present
commercial centres, and thus made subservient to the city landlords;
territories and resources never before utilized will become easy of
access and development; and under all these influences the disparity
above mentioned will decrease to a minimum."[816]
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