Henry George, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
The right to the use of the earth is as natural as the right to breathe, and for the same reason: both spring from the fact of existence. Mr. Spencer saw this in 1850. He found his first principle in the claim that every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other, and from it he drew the equal right to life and personal liberty, and then the equal right to the use of the earth.1
His argument was that this right springs from men's existence in a world adapted to their needs and into which they are similarly born, and that equity therefore does not permit private property in land, since that would give some the right to deny others the use of it.2 Observe that he did not rest the right on any gift from ancestors, nor on the wrongs of dead men.
The right comes from the fact of the living man's own existence; it begins with his birth, continues till his death, and can be destroyed or superseded by no human action whatever.3 Cultivation and improvement give title to their results, not to the land itself, and even a division made with the consent of all could not bind those born afterward.2
Did he recant? Read the books in their order and judge. In Social Statics the chapter stands out clearly and prominently under the title "The Right to the Use of the Earth." In Justice it is gone, and in its place is a chapter on the rights to the uses of natural media, only a part of which touches land, with a short note thrust into the Appendix, bearing the relation to it that the lady's postscript bears to her letter.4
Land is made one of the natural media, like light and air. That is unphilosophic, for all natural media are appurtenant to land, and the right to the use of every natural element comes from and with, and is inseparably involved in, the right to the use of land. The device serves confusion: the burning question is minimized, and by analogy it becomes easier to slide over an injustice which Mr.
Spencer himself had seen to be inferior only to murder or slavery.4 Observe, too, how reluctantly he approaches solid earth, calling that which is our all-supporting mother, our standing-place and workshop and granary, "that remaining portion of the environment, hardly to be called a medium." Yet the truth, once recognized, cannot be wholly forgotten.5
Even in Justice he admits that men standing in possession of an unportioned territory would no more hesitate to assert the equality of their claims to land than to light and air.5 And in his discussion of property he says that a theoretically equitable right of property may arise where the nominal supreme ownership of land by the state is made real by taking, for the community, the rents paid by occupiers; that the right of property is originally deducible from the law of equal freedom; and that it ceases to be so only when the other corollaries of that law have been disregarded.6
That is the very principle he had just recanted, stated as unmistakably, on careful reading, as in Social Statics itself.6 So the philosopher kept the principle in words and fled its consequences. And the fall was not only on paper: the author who in 1850 denounced the system that let the Duke of Leeds warn tourists off Ben-muich-Dhui, the Duke of Atholl close Glen Tilt, and the Duke of Sutherland displace Highlanders with deer, now has his name beside those of about all the Dukes in the Kingdom, as director of an association formed to defend private property in land.7 But the principle does not depend on him. He proved the right in 1850; no later retreat can unprove it.
The equal right of all men to the use of land is as clear as their equal right to breathe the air; it is proclaimed by the fact of their existence. Herbert Spencer proved it in Social Statics with a force no one has bettered, then disowned it as the great and the titled took him up: first by letters, then by an abridgment that dropped the chapter, then by Justice, which keeps the principle in words and refuses every consequence of it with a demand for compensation that would leave the landlords richer.89 The principle stands; the philosopher fell from it.
The second deduction, only next in importance to the rights to life and personal liberty, and indeed involved in them, he treats at length in a chapter which I give in fullA Perplexed Philosopher
The equal right of all men to the use of land springs from the fact of their existence in a world adapted to their needs, and into which they are similarly born.A Perplexed Philosopher
The equal right to the use of land belongs to each man as man. It begins with his birth; it continues till his death. It can be destroyed or superseded by no human action whatever.A Perplexed Philosopher
This treatment of land, or the surface of the earth, as but one of the natural media is in the highest degree unphilosophic, and could only be adopted for the purpose of confusion.A Perplexed Philosopher
If, while possessing those ethical sentiments which social discipline has now produced, men stood in the possession of a territory not yet individually portioned out, they would no more hesitate to assert equality of their claims to the land than they would hesitate to assert equality of their claims to light and air.A Perplexed Philosopher
Truly \" Justice \" is a suprising book. Here we have Mr. Spencer going back to the very principle he has just recanted.A Perplexed Philosopher
The name of Herbert Spencer now appears with those of about all the Dukes in the Kingdom as the director of an association formed for the purpose of defending private property in landA Perplexed Philosopher
In what follows the reader will find what Mr. Spencer has published on the land question from 1850 to 1892, and, by the difference in type, may readily distinguish his utterances from my comments.:PAJRT i. DECLARATION. I- "SOCIAL STATICS." — THE RIGHT TO LAND. II. THE INCONGRUOUS PASSAGE. III. "SOCIAL STATICS."— THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY. iv. MI: si-KNCER's 'CONFUSION AS TO RIGHTS. V. MR.A Perplexed Philosopher
Unknowable" or " Evolution" for "God" would in no >ilter or lessen the force of the reasoning. How, then, shall Mr. Spencer justify private property in land, which in his letters to the Times he had bound himself to do?A Perplexed Philosopher
His most personal polemic and the one that ties him to Spencer; the question whether Spencer recanted or revised is still argued, and the debate between them can be staged on the texts.