In such an arrangement, one is dealing with transfers of a right. The
legal regulation of the terms on which such transfers shall take place,
is a matter for the "rights-State." It will be for the "rights-State"
also to see that these transfers are carried out and to conduct the
process. It is conceivable that, in detail, the regulations laid
down for any such transfer of a right will take very various forms,
according as the common sense of right (the "rights-consciousness")
varies in its view of what is right. No mode of conception, which, like
the present one, aims at being true to life, will ever attempt to do
more than indicate the general direction that such regulation should
take. If one keeps to this direction and uses one's understanding,
one will always, in any concrete instance discover what is the
appropriate thing to do. One must judge always from the special
circumstances and according to the spirit of the thing, what the
right course is in actual practice. The more true to life any mode
of thought is, the less it will attempt to lay down hard-and-fast
rules for details, from preconceived notions of what is requisite. On
the other hand, the very spirit of such a form of thought will lead
necessarily and decisively to one result or another. For instance,
it results unquestionably from such a mode of thought, that the
"rights-State" must never use its control of rights-transfers to get
any capital into its own hands. Its only business will be to see,
that the transfer is made to a person, or group, whose individual
abilities seem to warrant it. This at once presupposes also, as a
general principle, that anyone, who is proposing to effect a transfer
of capital under the circumstances described, will be at liberty to
select his successor in the use of it. He will be free to select a
person or group of people, or else to transfer the right of use to a
corporate body belonging to the spiritual organisation. For anyone,
who has rendered practical services to society through his management
of capital is a person likely to judge from native ability and with
social sense, what should be done with the capital afterwards. And it
will be more advantageous to the community to go upon what he decides,
than to discard his judgment, and leave the decision to persons who
have no direct connection with the matter.
Some settlement of this kind will be required in the case of capital
accumulations over a certain amount, which have been acquired
by persons, or groups, through the means of production (including
land),--except where these accumulations become private property by the
terms originally agreed upon for the exercise of individual ability.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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