The
possessors of land and capital are able at present, by economic
pressure, to use force against those who have no possessions. This
force is sanctioned by law, while force exercised by the poor against
the rich is illegal. Such a state of things is unjust, and does not
diminish the use of private force as much as it might be diminished.
The whole realm of the possessive impulses, and of the use of force to
which they give rise, stands in need of control by a public neutral
authority, in the interests of liberty no less than of justice.
Within a nation, this public authority will naturally be the state; in
relations between nations, if the present anarchy is to cease, it will
have to be some international parliament.
But the motive underlying the public control of men's possessive
impulses should always be the increase of liberty, both by the
prevention of private tyranny and by the liberation of creative
impulses. If public control is not to do more harm than good, it must
be so exercised as to leave the utmost freedom of private initiative
in all those ways that do not involve the private use of force. In
this respect all governments have always failed egregiously, and there
is no evidence that they are improving.
The creative impulses, unlike those that are possessive, are directed
to ends in which one man's gain is not another man's loss.
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