The first thing to grasp is that _someone_ must control every piece of wealth if it is to be used to any purpose. Every bundle of economic values in the community must be under the control of some human will; otherwise those pieces of wealth “run to waste,” that is, are consumed without use to mankind. For instance, a ton of threshed wheat represents a bundle of economic values. It represents a piece of wealth equivalent, in currency measure, to say £16. If no one has the right to decide upon its preservation and use, when and how it is to be kept dry and free from vermin, when and how it is to be ground and the flour made into bread, then it will rot or be eaten by rats, and in a short time its economic values will have disappeared. It will be worthless. The £16 worth of wealth will have been “consumed without use”; in plain language, wasted. But if wealth were all wasted humanity would die out. So men must, of necessity, arrange for a _control_ of all wealth, and this they do by laws which fix the control of one parcel of wealth by one authority, of another by another; men make laws allowing such control by some people and preventing attempted control by other people not authorised. This lawful control over a piece of wealth we call _Property_ in it. * * * * * Thus, the coal in your cellar which you have bought is by our laws your property. It is for you to burn it as you want it and when you choose. If another person comes in and takes some of it without your leave, to burn it as _he_ chooses, he is called a thief and punished as such. The coal in the Admiralty Stores is State property. The State has the right to decide into what ships it is to be put and how and when it is to be burnt, and so on. But whether the control is in private hands such as yours, or in the naval authorities who are officers of the State, control there must always be. When people say that they want to “abolish property,” or that “There ought to be no property,” they mean _Private_ property: the right of individuals, or families, or corporations to control wealth. Property in the full sense, meaning the control of wealth by _someone_, whether the State, or private individuals, or what not, is inevitable, and is necessary in every human society. So, granting that property must exist, we will first examine the various forms it may take. At the beginning of our examination we noticed that wealth, owned and controlled by whoever it may be--the State, or an individual, or a corporation--is of two kinds. There is the wealth which will be consumed in enjoyment and the wealth which will be consumed in producing future wealth.