The Philosophical Review/Volume 1/Summary: Platter - The Right of Private Property in Land
The question, Is the holding of private property in land warranted? is but a phase of the larger question, Is the law of civilized nations by which it is allowed justifiable? and this again is a phase of the more general inquiry, Is history justifiable? But in this last form it becomes simply absurd. For the fundamental institutions of races create the standard by reference to which individual action is judged to be right or wrong; and, therefore, are not themselves subject to that standard. History does not follow law or moral principles. The contents of the abstract conception of right vary according to times and circumstances, and to ask whether any past institution was justifiable can mean only whether it would conform to the present contents of that conception. It was introduced in the struggle to survive, and, in comparison, the influence of individuals' moral ideas may be neglected. Property was originally a brutal fact like manslaughter, but afterwards like other useful things it came to be defended by bayonets and religion. Before private property existed all free members of the tribes were equal and armed. When a part of the tribe had settled on the common land long enough to lay aside their weapons, the other part subjugated them, seized the land, and enslaved the workers. That subjugation of the many to the few, as in slavery and property, must end some day and the fruits reaped be distributed. Then the instrument of education, productive property, would disappear.
Criticism of a social institution on moral grounds is a sign of its approaching change or dissolution. In reference to property, when there is enough power to establish new institutions, the real right will be born. The struggle for the possession of the fruits secured to society by competition has begun, and new institutions must arise to express the interests of the victors. They will not be the party of Henry George and the German land-nationalizers, for it shows no trace of a new conception of society and does not see that all property in the means of production has the same tendency and results.