The Acquisitive SocietyTawney, R. H. (Richard Henry)
Philosophy
The Acquisitive Society
Tawney, R. H. (Richard Henry)
Economics; Industries; Social problems
So those who dread these qualities, energy and thought and the creative
spirit--and they are many--will not discriminate, as we have tried to
discriminate, between different types and kinds of property, in order
that they may preserve those which are legitimate and abolish those
which are not. They will endeavor to preserve all private property,
even in its most degenerate forms. And those who value those things
will try to promote them by relieving property of its perversions, and
thus enabling it to return to its true nature. They will not desire to
establish any visionary communism, for they will realize that the free
disposal of a sufficiency of personal possessions is the condition of a
healthy and self-respecting life, and will seek to distribute more
widely the property rights which make them to-day the privilege of a
minority. But they will refuse to submit to the naive philosophy which
would treat all proprietary rights as equal in sanctity merely because
they are identical in name. They will distinguish sharply between
property which is used by its owner for the conduct of his profession
or the upkeep of his household, and property which is merely a claim on
wealth produced by another's labor. They will insist that {83}
property is moral and healthy only when it is used as a condition not
of idleness but of activity, and when it involves the discharge of
definite personal obligations. They will endeavor, in short, to base
it upon the principle of function.
{84}
VI
THE FUNCTIONAL SOCIETY
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