8 Cathrein's careless clerical critique - Part II: nineteenth-century British and continental critics

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The,  Nov, 2003  by Robert V. Andelson

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Labor is not, said Cathrein, the original source of ownership. He grants that all men are divinely endowed at birth with a general right of acquiring property, but this right exists prior to labor, and is not logically restricted to things produced by labor since it is merely a general right that does not apply to the possession of determinate entities.

First occupancy, not labor, Cathrein maintains, constitutes the original title to the permanent possession of determinate goods. He who first appropriates an ownerless good violates by that action nobody's right, but only exercises the right vested in himself of acquiring property. With the death of the first proprietor, the title ceases to be occupancy and becomes hereditary succession. If George wishes to deny the right of inheritance, "he must do so with regard to movable as well as in the case of immovable goods, or at least he must demonstrate why immovables, and not movables, should be inheritable." (16)

Cathrein's terminology here reflects a careless reading of Progress and Poverty, where George specifically dismisses as unphilosophical the distinction between things movable and immovable, in favor of that between labor products (wealth) and the gratuitous offerings of nature (land). (17) The reason, of course, why George denies the right of inheritance in land as opposed to labor products is simply that he is unwilling to concede that anybody ever had a right to own it in the first place--if ownership be interpreted to include the retention of whatever ground rent it may possess or acquire. First occupancy may justify security of possession, but, as Locke observes, (18) this can hold only where "there is enough and as good left in common for others,"--that is, as long as the land in question has no market value. Once ground rent, the measure of monopolistic advantage, has arisen, security of possession cannot be rightfully retained, according to George, unless that rent be turned over to the community as a compensation for the deprivation thereby sustained by its other members.

George attacks the principle of first occupancy with striking illustrations: "Has the first-comer at a banquet the right to turn back all the chairs and claim that none of the other guests shall partake of the food provided, except as they make terms with him? Does the first man who presents a ticket at the door of a theater and passes in, acquire by his priority the right to shut the doors and have the performance go on for himself alone?" (19)

Cathrein tries to answer the objection by discussing the second of these illustrations:

   He who appears first in a theatre has not the right to exclude others
   from
   the theatre, but he has the right to choose his seat and to hold it
   against
   everybody else. Whosoever would remove him from his seat would wrong
   him. Just so it is with the occupation of this earth.... He who makes
   his
   appearance on earth first, may choose at pleasure his dwelling place.
   He
   may fence in his field and build his house, and call both his own, as
   long
   as he lives. Those who come later may likewise choose their dwelling
   place but they have no right to drive away the first-comer from his
   house
   and home. (20)