Individual Liberty - Evernote

say to the householder: "Here, I can, if I choose, enter your house one of these fine
nights and carry off your valuables; I therefore demand that you immediately hand
them over to me as compensation for the sacrifice which I make and the protection
which I afford you in not doing so."
Egoist asserted that it would be difficult to show that the occupier of superior land
would be entitled to that part of the production from his land that would be in excess
of what, with an equal application of labor, could be produced from inferior land. Mr.
Tucker replied:
Precisely as difficult as it would be to show that the man of superior skill (native, not
acquired) who produces in the ratio of five hundred to another's three hundred is
equitably entitled to this surplus exchange value. There is no more reason why we
should pool the results of our lands than the results of our hands. And to compel such
pooling is as meddlesome and tyrannical in one case as in the other. That school of
Socialistic economists which carries Henry George's idea to its conclusions,
confiscating not only rent but interest and profit and equalizing wages, - a school of
which G. Bernard Shaw may be taken as a typical representative, - is more logical
than the school to which Mr. George and Egoist belong, because it completes the
application of the tyrannical principle.
The cultivator of land who does not ask protection does not expect the community to
secure him the opportunity referred to. He simply expects the community not to
deprive him of this opportunity. He does not say to the community: "Here! an invader
is trying to oust me from my land; come and help me to drive him off." He says to the
community: "My right to this land is as good as yours. In fact it is better, for I am
already occupying and cultivating it. I demand of you simply that you shall not
disturb me. If you impose certain burdens upon me by threatening me with
dispossession, I, being weaker than you, must of course submit temporarily. But in the
mean time I shall teach the principle of liberty to the individuals of which you are
composed, and by and by, when they see that you are oppressing me, they will
espouse my cause, and your tyrannical yoke will speedily be lifted from my neck."
If the cost principle of value cannot be realized otherwise than by compulsion, then it
had better not be realized. For my part, I do not believe that it is possible or highly
important to realize it absolutely and completely. But it is both possible and highly
important to effect its approximate realization. So much can be effected without
compulsion, - in fact, can only be effected by at least partial abolition of compulsion, -
and so much will be sufficient. By far the larger part of the violations of the cost
principle - probably nine-tenths - result from artificial, law-made inequalities; only a
small portion arise from natural inequalities. Abolish the artificial monopolies of
money and land, and interest, profit, and the rent of buildings will almost entirely
disappear; ground rents will no longer flow into a few hands; and practically the only
inequality remaining will be the slight disparity of products due to superiority of soil
and skill. 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; talents will approximate towards equality,
though their variety will be greater than ever; freedom of locomotion will be vastly
increased; the toilers will no longer be anchored in such large numbers in the present