Читать книгу Distributive Justice: The Right and Wrong of Our Present Distribution of Wealth - John A. Ryan - Страница 29

Table of Contents

The indirect character of the right of private landownership, its relativity to and dependence upon social conditions, is not always sufficiently grasped by either its advocates or its opponents. In the writings of the former we sometimes find language which suggests that this right is as independent of social conditions as the right to marriage or the right to life. "The State has no right to abolish private property [in land] because private property is not a social right, but an individual right derived from nature, not derived from the State." It exists for human welfare, not merely for civil welfare.[37] The only defect in this reasoning is that the premises do not justify the conclusion. Undoubtedly the State may not abolish private ownership, so long as it is necessary for human or individual welfare; but, when this necessity ceases, the moral justification of the institution likewise disappears. The institution may then be abolished, somehow, by some agency, without any violation of individual rights. Why may not the task of abolition be performed by the State? No other agency is available. The assertion that the State is incompetent to decide whether the institution of private ownership has outlived its usefulness, is entirely gratuitous; besides, it implies that a small minority of selfishly interested persons may justly require the continuation of a system of land tenure which has become harmful to the overwhelming majority of the community. Extreme defences of the right of private landownership are largely responsible for the misconceptions of many of its opponents. Occasionally the latter represent this right as an a priori monstrosity which is serenely independent of the facts of life and industry. While such persons are at liberty to reject the interpretations of facts contained in the preceding paragraphs, they cannot reasonably deny the logic of the process which has led to the conclusion that the individual has a natural right to own land.

So much for the natural right of landownership as seen in the light of reason. Let us now consider it briefly from the side of doctrinal authority, namely, the writings of the Fathers and Theologians of the Church, and the formal pronouncements of the Popes.