CONCLUSION
54. The same procedure as followed above could be applied to the various optional papers, but I am only qualified to comment on the two that I chose (Logic and Political Theory). The recent additions which have been made to the list of special subjects do not tackle the crucial problems confronting PPE which I have tried to raise in this essay.
ECONOMIC ORGANISATION
52. In the light of the foregoing, this paper obviously should make way for the study of political economy. The paper as it stands at the moment is easy to criticise, primarily because of its partial approach. The major economic problems of this country remain unsolved and the responsibility, at least partly, lies with those academic economists who have not been able to free themselves at this level of discussion from attempts to explain all our problems as the result of a single economic cause. The endless and largely sterile controversies over whether it is the rate of investment, the balance of payments, the level of employment or what have you, which is the real cause of our problems stem from the failure to construct a total, interdisciplinary model which will recognise the possibility of overdetermination of our problems. The spirit of Dunkirk lies heavily on the economic organisation paper: 300 sweating undergraduates are annually employed in Finals to help their examiners help Harold Wilson help British capitalism.
PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMICS
48. Economics is perhaps the most difficult part of the course to criticise. Perhaps the most useful approach is to say that economics at Oxford tends to conflate political economy (roughly the explanation of changes in economic structure and functioning set in a social context) and praxiology (the science of practical reasoning). When the latter is studied without reference to the history and methodology of economic thought, there is a tendency to make an improper transition from the universality and rationality of a linguistic practice to an assumption of the universality and rationality of a particular social-political formation, namely capitalism.
BRITISH POLITICAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY SINCE 1865
44. The difficult problems raised in the preceding paragraphs do not arise in connection with this paper. There is in fact only one major question: how can this paper most rapidly be consigned to the dustbin of academic history? For it does not illuminate the study of the history of this country, or of its political institutions, or its economic organisation.
THEORY AND WORKING OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS
37. Since the questions: why do we have political institutions? is generally omitted from consideration in the study for this paper, or if not omitted, answered in a plainly circular way (Why do we have a Parliament? In order to govern), the student has excluded from his consideration questions concerning (e.g.) the economic basis of power and the difference between power and authority, and is thrust instead immediately into social engineering considerations. The only questions which arise when such a perspective is adopted ask how the various systems can be made to function better within their own terms of reference. The trivia churned out by the reform of parliament industry become the centrepiece of the course; the level of discussion is indistinguishable from that orchestrated by the Sunday press (the writers are generally the same people); the examination paper asks for a civil servant’s background brief: Question 11 in the 1967 paper reads “‘A proper relationship between policy and good government remained the nub of good government.’ In which of the countries you have studied is this best achieved?”
MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
31. This paper is certainly an abortion, as Gareth Stedman Jones has said. The paper in fact has very little to do with moral and political philosophy, and only provides the student with a second dose of indoctrination in linguistic philosophy on top of the draught he has been given in the misnamed ‘General’ Philosophy paper.
AN IMPORTANT DIGRESSION
29. We should not pretend, however, that altering the content of a paper whilst retaining the present examination system can fulfil the conditions necessary for an integrated course. Whilst there are eight papers the course will be fragmented. In the same way, to break down the examination system will also, necessarily, be to break down the tutorial system. The tutorial is only another form of examination. It cannot be an integrative factor in our studies – only a class or seminar can bring to bear on the same problem minds with different trainings. In a sense then, the only way to be realistic is to demand the impossible: that is, that which is impossible given the present system of University and social power and authority. As we criticise each paper and offer suggestions for change, however radical, we shall time and time again be confronted with the inability to solve the problem of content without simultaneously solving the problem of form. In short, the deficiencies of the way we are taught and what we are taught reinforce each other mutually. To treat this problem fully, we should have to consider the length of the course, why only a few of the available teaching and work methods are employed, etc. [NOTE: I owe these insights largely to C. H. Allen.]
GENERAL PHILOSOPHY: FROM DESCARTES TO THE PRESENT TIME
24. It has been maintained by Greats men that philosophy cannot be properly understood without a knowledge of classical philosophy: hence to begin a course with Descartes is not only to use an arbitrary starting point but fundamentally misconceived. [NOTE: E. W. F. Tomlin, “Scrutiny of Modern Greats”, Scrutiny, 1936.] This belief was reflected in a refusal in the early years of PPE to accept PPE men for post-graduate work in philosophy. Even today the majority of philosophy tutors in PPE are Greats trained. This is, no doubt, one important source of the failure to integrate the philosophy and social science syllabi, and consequently to realise the aims of the founders of PPE.
19. The conception of PPE’s content, if not its form, advanced in the preceding paragraphs has something in common with the traditional conception of the Greats course, which was to provide the student with a picture of a total social system, and to provide him with the tools to cope with all its facets. It offered a study of an entire culture and society, and provided its students with an understanding of the complexity of inter-relationships subsisting among its elements. Aside from the glorification which accompanied the study, this ideal is worth striving for in PPE, even though the possibility of its attainment is more distant. But that it is more difficult of attainment is not only a consequence of the complexity of the modern world, the sheer size of its cultures and societies, the enormous input of labour devoted to its understanding. It is also a consequence of tendencies in modern philosophy and social science which lead to a fragmentation of learning, and a shying away from any integration of work in separate fields, especially the integration of facts and values. The Marxists have always resisted these tendencies, and there are some signs of a change in attitude on the part of official philosophy and social science. For example, there is the renaissance of political economy – a renaissance which modifications in the economics course at Oxford could do much more to hasten (more of this in connection with the Economic Organisation paper later).
14. Against this we must assert the primary importance of the discussion of values. And, intellectually, we must seek to understand why in recent years there has come about this systematic devaluation of values: how has it come about the ideal has been collapsed into that which is? What are the origins of the consensus – which is not only a party political phenomenon but has its counterpart in political theory, as we shall see later. [NOTE: Para. 38.]
7. A University education is intended in part to have an effect on our personal lives – the intention may be that it should have a good effect, but the effect does not necessarily coincide with the intention. We also have our intentions in opting for a University education – most obviously we may hope for higher career earnings. A specific course may be intended for its effects on our personal lives, and we may study a particular course because we hope for personal benefits. But the course also has a social intention – paradigmatically to meet the labour needs of the economy: and we may have a social intention too in choosing a particular course – we may study theology in order that we become equipped to save men’s souls, and it is part of the intention of theology so to equip us. Why anyone should have such intentions is another matter.
INTRODUCTION
1. To become a University student is to enter into a set of personal relationships limited in space and time, which are partly dependent on, and partly independent of one’s will. These relations are also social relations, that is, relations conditioned by pre-existing organisational forms. Thus, relationships are not only relationships of person to person, but also relationships of student to student, tutor, dean, master, lecturer, examiner, Proctor, college servant, townsman. To become a University student also entails the alteration of certain pre-existing patterns of relationships, e.g., with parents and friends.
PREFACE
Even in writing these notes towards a critique of PPE, it is doubtful that I have freed myself entirely from those aspects of PPE of which I am most critical: the subjection of oneself to a particular course for three years has too profound effects on the working’s of one’s mind and one’s personality for an escape to be made immediately even from those aspects one consciously repudiates. Thus, most strikingly, in criticising PPE for lacking that sociological approach which alone could hold the course together, I am myself the victim of this deficiency, and my own critique, in so far as I have not yet had the opportunity to correct the felt inadequacies, suffers accordingly. Though PPE students have the opportunity to take two optional papers in sociology, this sociology is treated as something alongside the other two social scientific disciplines and not as a synthetic discipline which offers a framework within which the thought and action of man, the structure and workings of society, can be located. This deficiency is only a reflection of the lack of an indigenous classical sociology in Britain, and the corresponding lack of a national Marxism. [NOTE: See Perry Anderson, “Components of the National Culture”, New Left Review 50.]
Apart from lectures and examinations, PPE is studied on a college basis, and consequently permits many idiosyncratic variations in its content. No doubt individual cases can be found which confound some of my listed sins of commission and omission, but I do not think any general points will be invalidated in such a fashion.
In the structure of these notes and even in their prose style, the effects of PPE will no doubt be clear to the observant reader. Not even one’s personality is unaffected by this particular university education: a way of looking at life, even one’s own life, with detachment, with impartiality, is encouraged; ratiocination holds sway where emotion would be more appropriate.
For these and other reasons, this critique should only be regarded as a tentative outline: the ‘PPE’ way of putting this might be to say that it is both tentative and an outline. If it has merit at all, then that is partly attributable to those with whom I have discussed these questions at various times over the last three years: Chris Allen, Roy Bhaskhar, John Birtwhistle, Phillip Hodson, Selwyn Hughes, Ahfar Hussain, John Jervis, Sarah Kay, Jack Lively, Trevor Munroe, and Gareth Stedman-Jones should be especially mentioned, though none of them is responsible for what I have written. I should be more than grateful to receive the opinions of others on the essay published here.
TREVOR PATEMAN
Nuffield College,
Oxford.
October, 1968.
“The Oxford School of Politics, Philosophy and Economics is based on two unalterable principles: first, everything written about politics and philosophy by Karl Marx (1818-83) is out of date and dangerously biased, while everything written by John Stuart Mill (1806-73) is modern, vigorous and untainted by bias; secondly, everything written about economics by Karl Marx (1818-83) is out of date and dangerously biased, while everything written by Alfred Marshall (1842-1924) is modern, vigorous and untainted by bias.”
– Paul Foot, The Politics of Harold Wilson (1968), p.32.
Forty years on, we’re going to being hearing a lot this year about nineteen sixty-eight, the year of the Tet Offensive (January), the My Lai massacre (March) the Prague Spring, Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech (April), the évenements in Paris (May), the assassinations of Martin Luther King (April) and Robert F. Kennedy (June), the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia (August), and so on; a year of great ferment and mobilisation and optimism on the Left, but also of some of the Right’s greatest electoral triumphs: Richard Nixon elected to the Presidency of the United States in November, and Charles de Gaulle’s landslide in the legislative elections in France in June.
And as one might perhaps expect, 1968 in Oxford had its idiosyncrasies. In part, of course, conflict was heavily localised, as student mobilisations over the 1960s were, often enough, directed against the archaic restrictions that still governed undergraduate life. The prohibitions on students drinking in the city’s pubs had fallen away after the War, in the face of the absurdity of trying to enforce the rule on men who had served for years in the Armed Forces and thereby delayed starting their degree course until their early twenties; but many other restrictions still persisted into the 1960s: evening curfews, pre-censorship of student publications, restrictions on visitors, especially of the opposite sex, and so on. (All the undergraduate colleges were, of course, still either men’s or women’s colleges right through the 1960s.)
A few weeks ago, I went to London to attend the conference organised by the London Socialist Historians Group at Senate House to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the publication of C. L. R. James’ The Black Jacobins. Slightly to my shame, I hadn’t (and still haven’t) read TBJ - the only James I really know is the astonishingly good book about cricket, Beyond a Boundary - but the conference looked fun, so I trotted along and had an excellent time.
The LSHG is a funny outfit, bridging the world of politics and scholarship. Co-ordinated by legendary man of letters Keith Flett, it’s populated by people who are more familiar with far-left meetings than academic discussions — so when the paper-giver finishes giving a paper, you’re as likely to get a motion proposed from the floor as any kind of question. (Though, as it happens, there was a very good reason for this: the Home Office had prevented Dr. Olukoya Ogen from entering the country to give his paper on Yoruba culture and the Haitian Revolution, and the assembled London Socialist Historians weren’t at all happy.)
But I mention all this, because at the drinks party at Bookmarks afterwards to launch my friend Dave Renton’s new book, C L R James: Cricket’s Philosopher King, I was chatting with an amiable bearded leftie who used to be at New College, and who asked me if I knew a pamphlet written in Oxford many years ago called “The Poverty of Philosophy, Politics and Economics”. As it happened, I hadn’t, but I was sufficiently intrigued by the title to fish a copy out of the Bodleian Library’s stack a few days later, and I very much enjoyed what I read — a no-holds-barred attack on the degree course which I took once upon a time, and in which I spend a medium-sized amount of my life teaching — and I thought it might be an interesting exercise to throw the pamphlet into circulation once again, via republication at the Virtual Stoa as one of our (very) occasional serials here.
The pamphlet’s author, Trevor Pateman, has not only very kindly approved republication at the Stoa, but has also made available to me his own copy of the pamphlet, complete with corrections of various typos, so I think we can safely say that this will be the cleanest text that has even been available. And after serialisation, I’ll distribute a pdf of the complete pamphlet through this site, and a version of the text will also go up at selectedworks.co.uk, which hosts copies of many of Trevor’s essays over the course of his subsequent academic career, much of it at the University of Sussex.
Tomorrow, then, I’ll stick up a post in the morning to introduce the pamphlet to its new audience in blogland; and then the text will appear in thirteen instalments, two or three bite-sized chunks per day, starting at lunchtime on Monday and ending on Friday afternoon — as it happens, of course, the final week of Hilary Term here in Oxford, as the PPE machine continues inexorably to grind away…
Here we go, to end this mini-serial, broken up into a number of shorter paras for ease-of-reading convenience.
We may go one step farther. The property of labour, you say, overbalances the community of land: because the value of it, when compared with the value of land, is worth ninety nine parts in a hundred. Now if, by saying, that the property of labour overbalances the community of land, you only mean, that labour is worth much more than uncultivated land, we might allow it. But if you mean, that, because the value of labour is so much greater than the value of land, the labour of one man will overrule or set aside the common claim of all mankind, we must deny it.For suppose the labour of him, who cultivates the land, to be worth ninety nine parts in a hundred of the whole value of the land, after it is cultivated; all that could be due to the labourer, upon this supposition, would be no more than the produce of his own labour: the ninety nine parts, which belong to him, would not swallow up the hundreth part, which he had originally no exclusive right to. This hundreth part, that is, the land itself, must therefore still remain in common, as it was before; he might labour in it again, if he pleased, as one of the joynt commoners; but he would have no property in it.
Let us try this reasoning in another instance. The landlord, as we call him, or the owner of the soil, after property has been introduced, has an exclusive right to some certain quantity of land, suppose for instance, to an acre which bears twenty bushels of wheat: the tenant ploughs and sows this land; and besides the mere personal act of labour, he uses his own materials in cultivating the land. Now the labour of the occupyer puts the chief value upon the land, and without this labour it would be worth little; for it is to [p.61] this, that we owe all its useful production. For whatever the straw, bran, bread, &c. of that acre of wheat is worth more than the product of an acre of as good land, which lies waste, is all the effects of labour.
You see then how much the property of labour overbalances the property of land. But no one will be led to conclude from hence, that, because, according to this reckoning, in the value of an acre of land ninety nine parts in a hundred are owing to the labour of the occupyer, the property, which he has in his own labour, will swallow up the property, which the landlord has in the soil; and that the land, because he has cultivated it, will for the future become his own.
But if the right of property in the soil, which in estimating the value of land, is but one part in a hundred, is not overruled or set aside by the overbalance in the value of labour; I can see no reason why the same overbalance should be supposed to set aside the common claims of mankind to land, which was never appropriated. Let the right be what it will, whether it is a right of property, or of common claim, if an overbalance in the value of the labour, which is joyned to it, will not swallow up one of them, no good reason can be given, why it should swallow up the other.
And that’s your lot.
I’ve broken up the inordinately long final para., to help bring this epic to a digestible conclusion:
To strengthen this opinion concerning the introduction of property, and to answer an objection, which has been hinted at already, Mr. Lock compares the value of labour with the value of the land, with which it is so mixed.
“Nor is it, says he, so strange, as perhaps before consideration may appear, that the property of labour should be able to balance the community of land. For it is labour indeed, that puts the difference of value on every thing; and let any one consider what the difference is between an acre of land planted with tobacco, or sugar, sown with wheat or barley; and an acre of the same land lying in common, without any husbandry upon it, and he will find, that the improvement of labour makes the far greater part of the value. I think, as he goes on, it will be but a very modest computation to say, that of the products of the earth, useful to the life of man, nine [p.59] tenths are the effects of labour: nay if we will rightly estimate things, as they come to our use, and cast up the several expences about them, what in them is purely owing to nature and what to labour, we shall find, that in most of them ninety nine parts in a hundred are wholly to be put on the account of labour.”
But we may ask in return, what the value of pure labour is, when considered merely as the personal act of the labourer? If neither the timber of his plough, nor the horses that draw it, nor the meat, which they eat, nor the manure, which he lays upon his land, nor the grain, with which he sows it, are his own, what will you rate his labour at? Certainly you rate it much too high, if upon comparing it with the value of the land, you set it at ninety nine parts in a hundred, or even at nine parts in ten. But you will suppose all these materials to be his own. I ask therefore how he gained property in them? You answer, by his labour, and explane this labour to be only the act of taking them or separating them from the common stock. Now this labour is of little or no value at all; and consequently you cannot say, in this instance, that the common right of mankind is overbalanced by the labour of the occupant. And if, in one instance, a labour, which is worth nothing, when compared with the thing acquired, will give the occupant property; then we can have no reason to imagine, that it is the high rate of labour, when compared with the value of land, which so overbalances to the common right of mankind to the land, as to give the labourer an exclusive right to it. You have only dazzled our eyes with this high account of the value of labour; since you must, in order to give it so high a value, suppose property to have been introduced before- [p.60] hand by a labour, which is of little or no value at all.
The end is nigh…
Here’s a bit more, with similar editing principles as in earlier instalments.
[p.57] “In Mr. Locks opinion, property in immoveable goods, such as the earth or soil, is acquired in the same manner and is governed by the same measure, as property in moveable goods.
“As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property. He by his labour does, as it were, enclose it from the common.”
But what is this again, but the exercise of a common right, instead of such an exclusive right as property is. For not to insist here upon the limitation of having property only in so much land, as we can use; let us try the effects of this right, and see whether they are the same with the effects of property. Suppose then, that the man, after he has for some time tilled the land, and cultivated it, was either by age or sickness to become incapable of tilling and cultivating it any longer: if the mixing his labour with it was his whole title to it; when his labour ceases, his title to the land must cease with it; the land can be his no longer, than he can cultivate it; and when he is disabled for labouring, he cannot sell or let it to any other person: that is, it was his to labour in, but not his to dispose of as he pleases: and consequently his right could only be a right to use, and not an exclusive right of property. This Mr. Lock might have been sensible of, if he had attended [to] his own reasoning.
“He, say this author, that in obedience to the command of God, to improve the earth to the benefit of life, tilled and sowed any part of it, thereby annexed to it something, that was his property, which another had no title to, nor could, without injury, take from him. Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of [p.58] land, by improving it, any prejudice to any other man, since there was still enough, and as good left, and more than the yet unprovided for could use.”
If then his title to the land, which he occupies, rests upon this principle, that there was enough for others, besides what he had taken for his own use; it is plane that, unless there had been enough for others, his title would not have been a good one: and from hence it follows, that all his title is no more than a common right to use what he wants, and no an exclusive right of property: because the right of property does not at all depend upon the convenience of others.
Just one more paragraph to go — but it’s a long ‘un.
A bit more, carrying on from where we left off. I’ve indented the quotes from Locke, to break up the long paragraphs somewhat.
That it is this common right which a man exercises, when he separates a thing for his own use, and claims to use it, because he has so separated it, will appear [p.54] from the limitation, which Mr. Lock himself puts upon what he calls property, when it is thus acquired.
“God has given us all things richly, is the voice of reason, confirmed by inspiration. But how far has he given it us? To enjoy. As much as any one can make use of, to any advantage of life, before it spoils, so much he may, by his labour, fix a property in: whatever is beyond this, is more than his share, and belongs to others. Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy.”
But certainly, to take no more than we want, or no more than we can make use of, before it will be spoiled, is a limitation unknown to property: it belongs only to the exercise of a common right in a joynt stock; where no one of the commoners has an exclusive right to keep, but all and each of them have a joint right to use.But Mr. Lock endeavours to take off this limitation, and to shew us by what means, upon the same principles, property might be accumulated.
“The greatest part of things really useful to the life of man, and such as the necessity of subsisting made the first commoners of the world look after, as it doth the Americans now, are generally things of short duration; such, as if they are not consumed by use, will decay and perish of themselves: gold, silver, and diamonds, are things, that fancy or agreement hath put the value on, more than real use, and the necessary support of life. Now of those good things, which nature hath provided in common, every one had a right to as much as he could use, and property in all he could effect with his labour; all, that his [p.55] industry could extend to, to alter from the state nature had put it in. He that gathered a hundred bushels of acorns, or apples, had thereby a property in them, they were his goods, as soon as gathered. He was only to look, that he used them before they spoiled, else he took more than his share, and robbed others. And indeed it was a foolish thing, as well as dishonest, to hoard up more than he could make use of. If he gave away a part to any body else, so that it perished not uselessly in his possession, then he made use of it. And if he also bartered away plums, that would have rotted in a week, for nuts, that would last good for his eating a while year, he did no injury; he wasted not the common stock; he destroyed no part of the portion of goods, that belonged to others, so long as nothing perished uselessly in his hands. Again, if he would give his nuts for a piece of metal, pleased with its colour, or exchange his sheep for shells or wool, for a sparkling pebble or diamond, and keep them by him all his life, he invaded not the rights of others; he might heap up as much of these durable things, as he pleased; the exceeding the bounds of his just property not lying in the largeness of his possessions, but the perishing of any thing uselessly in it.”
But this writer seems here to take for granted the point in question. We contend, and he allows, that the right of him, who gathered acorns or plums, extends no farther than to such a quantity of them, as he can use before they are spoiled: and in shewing how this limitation may be removed, he reasons as if there was no such limitation. How else should he, who had collected more plums, than he could use before they were [p.56] spoiled, or more sheep than he wanted to cloath or to feed himself, barter away the plums for nuts, which would keep the year round, or for metal, that would keep as long as he lived? The very notion of bartering implys property. Our author therefore must suppose the man to have property in what would spoil before he can use it; or else he could not suppose him to barter it away: that is, since this contrivance of bartering was introduced, to shew how property might be accumulated, or to take off the limitation of appropriating no more than can be used, whilst it is good; in order to apply this contrivance, he must suppose the limitation to be taken off already, and the man to have property in plums, or sheep, which he does not want, and which he could not use, before they would perish in his hands. Indeed in mankind would consent and submit thus to barter one with another; this consent would be sufficient to take off the limitation, and to introduce a true right of property. For if I knowingly and willingly bargain with another about my own goods, which are in his possession, as if they were his; this act of mine may well be construed as a tacit consent to make them his. And if in like manner mankind would bargain with one another about goods, which belonged to all in common, as if they were the property of the possessor, they tacitly give up their claim to those goods, and so they become his property. But property, when introduced after this manner, is introduced by consent of parties, and not by the labour, which the possessor, or occupant, has employed in separating the things, which he possesses, from the common stock.
More to come…
OK, let’s fill up some empty space with a bit more of this, continuing from where we left off last time. For convenient reading, I’ve broken this up into three chunks, although it’s one continuous paragraph in the original 1754 edition of the Institutes of Natural Law:
“Mr. Lock has applied these principles to explane the introduction of property both in moveable and immoveable goods. And if we go on to examine what he says upon the subject, we shall find, that he has mistaken the exercise of a common right for the exclusive right of property.
“He that is nourished, says this writer, by the acorns he picked up under an oak, or the apples he gathered from the trees in the wood, has certainly appropriated them to himself, no body can deny but the nourishment is his. I ask then, When did they begin to be his? when he digested? or when he eat? or when he boiled? or when he brought them home? or when he picked them up? And ’tis plain, if the first gathering made them not his, nothing else could. That labour put a distinction between them and common: that added something to them, more than nature, the common mother of all, had done; and so they became his private right. And will any one say, he had no right to those acorns or apples, he thus appropriated, because he had not the consent of all mankind to make them his? Was it robbery, thus to assume to him- [p.53] self what belonged to all in common?”
The answer here is obvious. When those acorns or apples are become a part of his body, we may, if we please, say, that they are his: but the right, which he then has in them, is the same, which he has in his whole person; and is no more to be called a right of property, in the sense that we use this word, when we apply it either to moveable or immoveable goods, than the right, which a man has in his leg or his arm, cam be called by this name. When he gathered them, or when he boyled them, he had likewise a right in them; but it was just such a right as any one else might have had: a right, as one of the joint commoners, to use as much out of the general stock, as he had occasion for. It is by no means necessary either to allow on the one hand, that he had an exclusive right of property in them, or on the other hand to contend, that it was robbery, thus to assume to himself what belonged to all in common. There is a middle opinion between these two, which is the opinion already mentioned; that when he gathered them, and was eating them, he exercised his common right of using and enjoying, out of the joynt stock, what his occasions called for. Though therefore we contend, that he could not acquire an exclusive right of property in them, or in any thing else, without the consent of mankind, either express or tacit; yet there is no fear of his being starved, whilst he is waiting for this consent; because in the mean time the exercise of his common right will sufficiently provide for his subsistence.
More soon, maybe.
At least half-a-dozen at least semi-regular readers of the Stoa are interested in this kind of thing, so here’s a chunk of something I’ve been reading in the Bodleian just now. It’s Thomas Rutherforth of St John’s College, Cambridge, lecturing on Locke’s account of property acquisition, and published as his Institutes of Natural Law, 1754, vol.1, chapter 3, §X, pp.50-2, and with the obvious typo silently corrected:
[p.50] “Mr. Lock agrees with Grotius, that occupancy is the foundation of private property. But then he does not consider occupancy in the same light, that Grotius considers it, as a tacit agreement between the joynt owners of the common stock and the future proprietor. In his opinion things, which originally belonged to all mankind in common, became the property of the first occupant; because, as he has a property in his own person, and consequently in the labour of his body, or in the work of his hands, by removing any thing out of the state, in which nature placed it, he has mixed his own labour or a personal act of his own with it; and by thus joyning to it something, which is his own, he makes it his property. For this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer; no man, but he, can have a right to what that is once joyned to; at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others. Thus, whilst he agrees with Grotius, in words, they differ widely from one another, when the sense of their words is explaned.”I design to examine at large his application of what is here advanced. But before we do that, let us stop a while, and enquire, whether his first principles are true. - As every man has a property in his own person; the labour of his body and the work of his hands [p.51] are properly his. - Now the labour of a mans body, or the work of his hands, may mean either the personal act of working, or the effect which is produced by that act. In the first sense it must be allowed, that a mans labour is properly his own; he has a right to exert his strength in what manner he pleases, where he is under no restraint of law. But it does not follow from hence, that the effect of his labouring, or that the work of his hands, in the other sense of these words, must likewise be properly his own. He has, you may say, mixed his own labour with what he removes out of that state, in which nature had left it: but will you conclude, that by thus joyning to it his act of working, he has made it his own? In order to strengthen such a conclusion it would be necessary to shew, that the labour of one man can overrule or set aside the right of others. If I knowingly employ myself, in working upon the materials of my neighbour; however I may have mixed a personal act, which is my own, with his property; this will never give me a reasonable claim to his materials. You may urge, that the cases are not parallel; because the materials, now in question, are not the property of any one; and consequently, that, by working in such materials, we may gain property in them; though we could not gain it, by the like act, where the materials were appropriated before. But the cases are parallel, as far as the point before us requires. It is allowed, that the materials do not belong to any person by an exclusive right of property; but then they belong to all mankind of common right. And if mixing my labour with the materials of an individual will not make these materials mine, in opposition to his exclusive right, I know not [p.52] how any act of the same kind, or the mixing my labour with materials, which belong to all mankind, should make them mine, in opposition to their common right. As setting aside the right of an individual, without his consent, is an injury to him; so setting aside the common claim of mankind, without their consent, is an injury to them: and if an injury cannot be the foundation of a right in one case; it will not be very easy to prove, that a like injury may be the foundation of a right in the other case.”
There’s more of this kind of thing if people want it, but I doubt you do.
Final Instalment.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
Communism has shown itself to be more than a political creed. Its members, well-trained and severely disciplined, have elevated it to a kind of faith.
We must have an even greater belief in the faith which we hold.
The choice is not between having a faith and having no faith at all, but between faiths of completely different kinds. If Communism forces us to seek a creed, or to examine our own creed again, it will have done us a great service.
Here, then, is the challenge to Scouts in this generation - a challenge to adventure in the service of God, through whom we believe that the eternal is more important than the temporal, the spiritual more important than the physical or mental.
We must be as fervent in our worship of God as were the first followers of our faith, who were likewise surrounded by a world which was hostile to their beliefs. What matters more than anything else is what we believe about God and what is His will for us.
And we must take pains to understand our faith, and the proofs of its truth. Each of us must take his place as a member of his own Church and cannot stand outside and expect other people to carry on the work of the Churches. It is impossible to fight this battle as isolated individuals. We must all stand together.
We must also be passionately concerned with the well-being of the people of our country. Whether we belong to a political party or whether we do not, we must fight against all injustice, cruelty and selfish indifference to the needs of others. Not only is this God’s will for His people, but if we do not do so, we shall help the seed of Communism to grow, for their propaganda has more opportunity where there is injustice and oppression.
This only amounts to saying that we must carry on our Scouting at the highest possible level, and encourage our Scouts to do the same. Many boys have never been brought to realise the full meaning of Scouting. The small boy who joins a Cub Pack or a Scout Troop comes to get fun and adventure, and all too many never get beyond this stage. It is our responsibility as Scouters, through our example, to bring all our Scouts to the realisation that Scouting is indeed an adventure - the greatest of all adventures - the adventure of living under the guidance of God.
Episode Four: Communism on the Scout Promise and Law
But it is not enough to feel that Scouting and Communism are diametrically opposed to each other. We must know why they are so opposed. Let us take our Scout Promise and Law, and see where Communism stands in regards to them.
Duty to God
Communism denies the existence of a Divine Being. It does not believe that man was created by God nor that he has life after death.
In Russia members of the Communist party itself must be professed atheists, and the Churches are permitted to function only so long as they are content to obey the orders of the party.
Duty to the King
Our order of society leaves us free to hold and express our own views about politics and the Government of the day. Elections must be held every few years. The people can change the Government at any election, and can vote for a candidate of any party. In Communist countries there are no free elections - only a list of selected Communists. The individual’s freedom of conscience is gone - he exists only to do what the Government tells him to do. And at all times membership of a Communist party is rigidly controlled by a small group of men who give the orders. Communism, like Fascism, is therefore a dictatorship and in every way the opposite of our constitutional democracy.
The Scout Law
The Scout Law, as we have seen, gives us a moral code to follow. The Communists accept no such code. Anything that supports the Communist cause is right. Lying, treachery, violence are all justified, they say, if they help to spread Communism in the world. With them, honour, loyalty and truth are no virtues if they are embarrassing to their cause.
It is really unnecessary to quote examples, for they can be found in the newspapers any day. But it is wise for us to warn our Scouts against the Communists’ deliberate misuse of language. Even President Roosevelt, who was so anxious to co-operate with the Russians in the task of world-peace, was forced to admit, after his negotiations with Stalin, that the Communists “don’t use language as we do”. They claim, for example, to be a democracy, but as we have seen, their system is the exact opposite of what we understand to be a democracy.
Many other points could be added to the list, but we may perhaps leave it to Scouters to study the question and elaborate the picture when discussing Communism with their senior boys.
Final Episode Coming Shortly: What Can We Do?
Episode Three
[previous instalments here and here]
COMMUNISM
The fourth type of people who challenge our ideals are the Communists, and they are by far the most dangerous. We will presently examine, step by step, the way in which Communism denies all that we stand for, and is out to destroy it.
But first let us dispose of the plausible argument that by opposing Communism we are indulging in party politics. It is true that in a country like Great Britain the Communists put up candidates for Parliament and in our free system are allowed to do so. But it must be obvious, from what has happened in Russia and in the countries dominated by her, that once the Communist party becomes powerful enough they destroy all parliamentary institutions as known to democracy, and refuse to allow any party but their own. The same would happen here if the Communists gain control.
Whatever may be the idealistic theories of Communism, we can see how it works in Russia and the countries dominated by Russia. It may well be argued that the Russian system has ceased to be Communism as Marx understood it, but that system is called Communism today, and it is that system which is being imposed by the Cominform wherever it has the power to do so.
Let us not forget also, that wherever Communists gain control, the Scout and Guide Movements are suppressed. The Communists themselves realise that Scouting and Guiding cannot be reconciled with Communist beliefs. In Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary and other countries our brothers and sisters are forbidden to carry on their Scouting and Guiding, and are terribly punished if they are caught continuing to do so. That alone should make our members sure they can have nothing to do with Communism.
Moreover, until Communism has gained control it has followed a policy of infiltration into youth movements, and we should be on our guard.
Coming soon: Communism on the Scout Promise and Law.
