The Socialization of Property

by Charles Bruehl, D.D.

The common good demands that property be socialized. By this we mean that the existing goods of the earth must be made to serve the needs of all men, for that is patently their first purpose. From this original purpose of the goods of the earth emanates the fundamental right of every man to such goods as are required for the maintenance of his life and his specifically human needs. This basic right extends to all men without exception, and never may the goods of the earth be so exclusively appropriated or cornered by a limited group of men as to debar the rest from their use. The destination to minister to the needs of all men is so essentially stamped on all earthly goods that it can never be effaced. We might say that on all possessions rests a species of social servitude of a permanent character which is ever renewed and ever reborn. The totality of the material wealth existing at any given time has the object of supplying the needs of the men who live at that time. Catholic social philosophy has always and unequivocally asserted the social aspect of property, and has never admitted the existence of any property completely divorced from social obligation. The concept of absolute property is foreign to Christian teaching, and is naturally repugnant to any man not entirely devoid of humane sentiments. This socialization of property as we understand it, however, does not destroy the principle of private ownership. Private ownership is not only not incompatible with the fundamental social aspect of property but appears the best means of realizing it.

Socialization of property may be taken in another sense, namely, in that of collective ownership. That is the construction put on the phrase by the adherents of socialism and communism. If taken in that sense, it excludes private ownership and places itself in opposition to historical development and traditional Catholic teaching. Socialization after the manner in which we understand it aims at making effective the theory of St. Thomas, according to which things may be private as to ownership but common as to use. Of course, the owner may use the external things of which he is the rightful owner for his own needs. This right, however, need not be stressed, for natural self-interest and self-love will see to that. Withal, the use of property for private enjoyment is limited by the moral law and the various virtues which regulate the pleasures of the senses. But the social use of property does not follow with the same spontaneity, and must be explicitly commanded and at times enforced by the authority which is entrusted with the care for the public good. Thus, it was an accepted axiom that the landowner who allowed large tracts of land to lie fallow, though the cultivation of them was necessary to supply the needs of the community, could be compelled to put these fields under cultivation. True, he was the legitimate owner of these tracts, but it was his duty to use them in a socially beneficial manner. The duty of the socially beneficent use of property was, for example, completely ignored in England when after the Reformation the nobles enclosed the commons and converted what was intended for the good of community to their own private pleasure and enjoyment. In this case we have a denial of the fundamental social character of private property, and this disregard of the social obligation of property resulted in the excessive enrichment of the few and the degrading impoverishment of those who had formerly derived sustenance from these lands unjustly withdrawn from public use. In the Scholastic theory, the social use of property is the chief title to private ownership, as Dr. George O'Brien well says: "The principle of community of user logically flows from the very nature of property itself as defined by Aquinas, who taught that the supreme justification of private property was that it was the most advantageous method of securing for the community the benefits of material riches. While the owner of property has therefore an absolute right to the goods he possesses, he must at the same time remember that this right is established primarily on his power to benefit his neighbor by his proper use of it. The best evidence of the correctness of this statement is the fact that the Scholastics admitted that, if the owner of property was withholding it from the community or from any member of the community who had a real need of it, he could be forced to apply it to its proper end."¹ With the medieval theologians it was a commonplace that, whatever form private property assumed, it could never be divorced from social duties and had to justify itself by the advantages it brought to the community. With the Scholastics this was an ethical law which the proper authority could enforce; with the Classical economists it was an economic law which had to be left entirely to itself and with which public authority should in no way interfere.

Social justice, then, consists in this, that the fundamental social character of property is brought to fruition. It demands that the property-owner make the right social use of his possessions. It arises out of a social relationship in which one member of society becomes to another the dispenser of the material goods required for human existence. This relationship presupposes a dependence predicated on the fact that the one is owner of material goods and the other is without them. The owner exercises in regard to these material goods a stewardship for the benefit of others. Since it is not only a question of distributing goods for immediate use but also of providing them for the needs of the future, it becomes the owner's duty properly to husband his possessions and to render them productive. The obligations towards others naturally increase in proportion to the extent of the property owned. Let us localize our consideration and adjust it to the actual and practical units in which mankind exists on earth. We speak of national economy, thereby indicating that the actual unit of economic life is the nation. In the same manner we also speak of national wealth, implying that a certain definite amount of natural goods belongs to a certain political unit and is intended to serve its needs. The term "national household" gives expression to the same idea. In no practical sense could we speak of human economy meaning that the resources of the earth are immediately managed for the general welfare of the human race. At present there is no agency or organ by which mankind acts as a unit or a whole, either politically, socially, culturally or economically. We have no intention of suggesting that any nation or country could or should be economically self-sufficient. Withal, in spite of the mutual interdependence of the nations and countries of the earth, there is such a thing as a national household, and it is this national household which constitutes the practical unit, subject and end of economic activity.

The national wealth, then, comprises the total resources which a country commands, and which are supposed to sustain the people which lives within the boundaries of this country. For efficient management this wealth is privately owned, but its purpose is to maintain the entire population in conformity with the requirements of decent human living. The maintenance of the people is the social claim against the national wealth, and the fulfillment of this claim is the object of social justice. The propertyless acquire a title to their share of the national wealth by the service they render in making the national resources available for use. Social justice accordingly is a virtue of the property-holders with respect to those who must live by their labor or by some service which they render. Not the State but capitalists and industrialists are the subjects of this virtue.

The State and Social Justice

It is a question of great importance to determine accurately in what precise relation public authority stands to social justice, for here lies the watershed between communistic and Catholic theories of society. Catholic theory does not wish to compromise private ownership, though it calls on the State to enforce the social obligations attaching to private property. When the State enforces the demands of social justice, it does this, not because it is the supreme owner of the national wealth, but because it must safeguard the rights of its members and adjust their relations towards one another. Its function in this case in no way differs from its function when it adjudges a question of commutative justice. When, for example, in a litigation a piece of property is adjudicated to one of the contestants in the case, the State does not give or confer the property in question, but orders the one who unjustly possesses it to restore it to its rightful owner. The situation in the case of social justice is identically the same. The State here acts, not as the distributor of the national wealth, but merely as the judge of rights that lie deeper than the rights created by law and are embedded in the fundamental structure of human society. Particularly do we stress the point that the enforcement of social justice is not an exercise of the power of eminent domain. The power of eminent domain is but rarely called into play, whereas social justice is supposed to regulate ordinary and frequently occurring relations in society. Moreover, eminent domain is directly concerned with property and material possessions, whilst social justice is directed towards persons and the relations existing between them. The State does not own in any sense, either ordinarily or eminently, the material goods of its subjects, but it has jurisdictional power over the activities of the citizens and can make them conform to the dictates of the moral law. It has the power to specify, modify and restrict the rights of individuals to the extent that this is required by the exigencies of social life. This power naturally extends to the right of ownership, which is cardinal in all social relations. Not by virtue of a superior ownership has the State any competence in the distribution of the national wealth, but in its capacity as regulator of personal rights in society. Social justice, then, envisages the proper regulation of property rights in regard to the common good. It constitutes a jurisdictional function. Its ultimate norms are the primary rights which flow from human nature and the ultimate purpose of material goods. It assumes different expressions as the forms of property-holding and ownership change in the course of human progress. Social justice in a regime of serfdom would not be the same as social justice in a capitalistic order. Only in its essential content it would be invariable, inasmuch as it demands for all the members of the national household a living which must not fall below essential human standards and which must be proportionate to the stage of prosperity which the nation has achieved.

In our days when communistic ideas are rapidly spreading, it is vitally important that we do not attribute to the State an ownership which it cannot claim. So, when we say that the State must enforce social justice, we do not mean that it is the office of public authority to distribute the national wealth, because this wealth is individually and privately owned. The distributive justice, of which the Scholastics speak, has nothing to do with this matter but bears on something quite different, namely, the equitable distribution of public burdens and the proper apportioning of public offices. The State practises distributive justice, whereas it enforces social justice. The insistence on social justice, therefore, in no way weakens the right of private ownership. This appears clearly from the manner in which Dr. J. Kelleher sets forth the duty of the State in regard to the fair distribution of the goods of the country, for it is plain to every open-minded individual that social authority must have something to say on this subject. Dr. Kelleher writes: "With regard to material goods, as complete and independent every individual has an inalienable right to their use, but as social, as one destined by nature to live with others and exercise this right in conjunction with them, his right is subject to social authority . . . Social authority controls the individual's use of goods, by virtue not of ownership but of jurisdiction. The State, as the institution charged with the responsibility of maintaining social peace and prosperity, does not acquire an exclusive right over goods to administer them in the interests of its subjects, or to hand them over as it thinks fit to administer them themselves. The right in material goods which individuals enjoy even as members of society are not received from the State, but are simply developments of the indefinite rights which all have prior to and independent of every action of the State."² Thus, social justice is not based on an implicit collectivism, but frankly admits individual and private ownership.

In another passage the author develops his ideas as follows: "But how can the State change the indefinite right that all men have into such definite, exclusive rights as belong to private ownership? Not by any power of ownership. The State cannot destroy the indefinite right of all its subjects, so as to acquire exclusive right over all goods, and thus be in a position to hand over as much as it thinks well to any individual it chooses. It cannot create exclusive rights. But it can make laws to regulate the use of the indefinite rights that men have prior to and independent of the State, and by virtue of these laws these rights tend to become exclusive . . . But the State must legislate for the public good, not for the special advantage of any particular individuals and classes; such exclusiveness of rights as it establishes must, therefore, be made for the benefit of the community as a whole, not for the personal benefit of proprietors. Moreover, since the State cannot abolish the original indefinite rights altogether, those who through its legislative action acquire exclusive rights must be made liable for the maintenance of others."³

Private ownership of a genuine and exclusive character but with fully realized and enforced social responsibility has many advantages over collective ownership, because on the one hand it is more likely to safeguard the productive capital of a nation, and on the other hand it constitutes a powerful incentive to individual enterprise and endeavor. It may also be pointed out that there always will be numerous individuals in every community who will never learn to use productive property economically and manage it profitably. For such it will be more beneficial if they live by their services to property-holders, provided of course that their work is rewarded in a way that will maintain them decently. If the Papal Encyclicals recommend a wide diffusion of private ownership, they hardly envision a situation in which really all men will be actual owners. Such a condition of affairs would be ideal, but in view of human imperfection utopian and not practicable. What is absolutely speaking the best may not at all be the best under certain given circumstances. Not all can govern, nor can all rise to the condition of industrial managers and employers. All that reason demands and justice requires is that a state of affairs be established in which each individual is properly cared for according to his ability, in which fair opportunities are offered to those who wish to avail themselves of these opportunities, and in which more ample prizes are held out to those who are willing to take greater risks and to give more generous social service. It would be folly to blink the fact that we have and always will have among us men whose vision does not extend beyond their immediate needs, and who therefore depend on the foresight of others; men who will not exert themselves unless compelled by want, and who in no case can be prevailed upon to put forth more than a minimum of effort; men who lack the ability to create opportunities for themselves and to launch on new enterprises; men who have no spark of the pioneer spirit in their souls and possess no resourcefulness or inventiveness. They are, like the laborers in the parable of the vineyard, waiting to be hired by some one who comes along and offers them work. The social structure unquestionably must also make provision for them, but in a way which is adapted to their outlook on life. They will do well enough in dependent positions, while others assume the responsibility and do the planning. Such positions will be found in a regime of private ownership, because productive property always has need of labor. This scheme will even be preferable from the point of view of the laborer, for besides providing him with a decent livelihood it ensures him a measure of liberty which he would not enjoy under a collectivistic arrangement. Under collectivism there would be no choice of a master, since there would be only one employer; under a system of diffused ownership there would be many employers to whom the laborer could offer his services. Well does Dr. Kelleher say "Private ownership on a broad basis would secure the two things which Schaffie vainly looked for in a Collectivist organization, namely, freedom for workmen and efficiency in production. Granted a large number of proprietors, these would compete with one another to secure the services of workers and the patronage of consumers."⁴

The benefits and advantages referred to are not claimed, let it be understood, for a regime of unrestricted capitalistic competition, but for a system of regulated private ownership as we have tried to describe it. For such a system utilizes to the best advantage the inherent tendencies and aspirations of the human heart, and curbs them at the point where they begin to become harmful to others and to cause social abuses. Social justice and the common good involve many factors which must be delicately balanced in order to achieve the desired result. There are opposing tendencies which in some manner have to be reconciled and harmonized. Reservations and qualifications have to be inserted and concessions made to the practical exigencies of human nature. One who expects anything simple and quite clear-cut in this matter is certainly doomed to disappointment. In fact, we would do well to mistrust any formula or synthesis that offers too simple and ready a solution. True, both collectivism and liberalism are extremely simple, but this very simplicity is against them.

Notes

1. "An Essay on Medieval Economic Teaching" (London).
2. "Private Ownership. Its Basis and Equitable Conditions" (Dublin).
3. Op. cit.
4. Op. cit.

© Joseph F. Wagner, Inc.

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