THE SOCIALISM OF HERBERT SPENCER

Author(s): Jeffrey Paul

Source: History of Political Thought , Winter 1982, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Winter 1982), pp. 499-
514
Published by: Imprint Academic Ltd.

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26212268

REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26212268?seq=1&cid=pdf-
reference#references_tab_contents
You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to History of Political
Thought

This content downloaded from

158.248.0.39 on Mon, 04 Oct 2021 01:40:39 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 THE SOCIALISM OF HERBERT SPENCER

Jeffrey Paul

Herbert Spencer's popular reputation includes his role as one of th

teenth century's severest critics of collectivism. It is suprising, then,
cover that this champion of private property rights was in his own time v
by some as an eloquent spokesman for a type of socialism. In the 1
Spencer was widely hailed as the intellectual progenitor of a burgeoning
nationalization movement and his first major work of political philos
Social Statics, was being cited as its inspiration. Embarrassed by his i
cation with a position which seemed seriously to compromise the very ri
to property that he wished to defend, Spencer sought unambiguou
repudiate those elements in his earlier writings which gave rise to t
wanted identification.

In this paper I will elucidate the aspects of his early work which support a
version of socialism in order to see whether they are echoed by or eliminated
in his later work. If his original collectivism is missing in his later work, then
two questions will be raised about this subsequent tergiversation. First, had
Spencer made adequate provision for it by supplying some larger theoretical
framework which could accommodate both the earlier collectivism and the
later individualism? If no such theoretical basis for this shift can be found then
it would seem that there must be a major discontinuity in the thought of
Spencer. Second, in arguing his original position had he provided a solid
philosophical case for land nationalization?

Spencer's early social theory which is delineated in Social Statics does

indeed defend the joint ownership of land by all persons while adhering to a
doctrine of private ownership of movables. The derivation of this doctrine is
completed by Spencer in three separate arguments. The most famous of these
depends upon an understanding of Divine purpose. Spencer argues that God
intends human happiness as a part of His creative plan.1 It follows, then, that
whatever conduces to the realization of His purpose is good, whatever sub
tracts from it is bad. As 'man's purpose can be obtained only by the exercise of

Herbert Spencer, Social Statics (New York, 1970), p. 67.

HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT. Vol. III. No. 3. Winter. November 1982.

This content downloaded from

158.248.0.39 on Mon, 04 Oct 2021 01:40:39 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 500 J. PAUL

his faculties'2 he has a moral

the faculties must be a right
calls the Law of Equal Freed
the fullest liberty to exerci
like liberty by every other m
formula for land nationali
tion, there are two other a
should consider.

The first of these arguments is an extension of Spencer's evolutionary

philosophy into the moral realm. 'All evil', Spencer contends, 'results from
the non-adaptation of constitution to conditions.'5 Moreover, '. . . where this
non-adaptation exists it is continually being diminished by the changing of
constitution to suit conditions . . Λ6 At present, human beings, due to an
increase in population, live in proximity to one another; that is, in a social
state. As they suffer evil in this state it is clear that they are not fully adapted to
it. Spencer argues that adaptation '. .. requires that each individual shall have
such desires only as may be fully satisfied without trenching upon the ability of
other individuals to obtain like satisfaction.'7 While this requirement is not
the precise equivalent of the Law of Equal Freedom, it resembles it suf
ficiently to enable us to agree that its derivation from this formulation would
be a trivial matter.

Spencer's third argument for this law of equal liberty is founded upon the
attribution of a moral sense to mankind. This sense which Spencer claims is
part of the collective inheritance of humanity enables persons to distinguish
between the right and wrong exercise of the faculties. It impels mankind to
claim the right of equal liberty enjoyed by its members. This impulse is
comprised of a self-interested and a sympathetic component.8 The first directs
us toward the assertion of personal right, the latter leads to the recognition
that such rights are held by others. The existence of such sentiments is
confirmed by history which records their increased influence upon men as
they become more civilized.9 This law of equal liberty, then, is likewise
supported by evolution, theistic argument, and moral intuition.

2 Ibid., p. 68. 6 Ibid., p. 57.

3 Ibid., pp. 68-9. 7 Ibid., p. 58.

4 Ibid., p. 69. 8 Ibid., pp. 86-9.

5 Ibid., p. 54. ' /tod., pp. 86-8.

This content downloaded from

158.248.0.39 on Mon, 04 Oct 2021 01:40:39 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 THE SOCIALISM OF HERBERT SPENCER 501

Furthermore, its application is fully suited to our present

tation.10 Even though human beings have not yet been fully
evolutionary processes and in spite of the fact that moral princi
codes of conduct for a perfected humanity, Spencer maintains th
in its present imperfect condition must strive to obey the mora
moral principles, then, can only be consistently adhered to
evolved and hence, perfected human being, we are neverth
bound by its dictates however incapable we are of unqualified re

This presumably means that whatever rules of property are en

Law of Equal Freedom must be immediately enforced no m
capable we are of completely conforming to them. The rules
they apply to land are derived as follows by Spencer:

... if each of them 'has freedom to do all that he wills, pr

infringes not the equal freedom of any other,' then each of th
to use the earth for the satisfaction of his wants, provided he
others the same liberty. And conversely, it is manifest that
part of them, may use the earth in such a way as to prevent th
similarly using it; seeing that to do this is to assume greater fr
the rest, and consequently to break the law.

Equity, therefore, does not permit property in land, for if o

of the earth's surface may justly become the possession of an i
and may be held by him for his sole use and benefit as a thing t
has an exclusive right, then other portions of the earth's surf
so held; and eventually the whole of the earth's surface may b
and our planet may thus lapse altogether into private hands.13

From which Spencer concludes that the non-owners of land may

faculties only at the sufferance of the earth's proprietors. Such
reasons, constitutes an infraction of the Law of Equal Freedom

Spencer adds to this attack upon the private ownership of land

argues that if the earth is God's bequest to mankind and so is
property of all persons, portions of it cannot be transferred
without the prior consent of humanity. Even the cultivation of
confer rights to it upon the cultivator, for it already belong
Moreover, those who claim a section of the earth without o
kind's agreement may be divested of their claim after suitable co
paid to them.

10 Ibid., p. 94. 12 Ibid., pp. 414-15.

" Ibid., pp. 36-7. 13 Ibid., pp. 103-4.

This content downloaded from

158.248.0.39 on Mon, 04 Oct 2021 01:40:39 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 502 J. PAUL

Both of these arguments, S

British law which enables th
to do so by an act of Parliam
property of the commonwe
tenants. But their claims t
therefore, invalid. The land m
joint stock ownership by its
process. Parcels of it may b
an equal opportunity to bid f
have neither forcibly preven
rights in the land, nor infrin

How is society to resume it

not present a detailed scheme
owners of land be duly comp

Had we to deal with the part

its heritage, we might ma
nately, most of our pres
mediately or immediately—
their ancestors—given for
wealth, believing that they
manner. To estimate justly a
most intricate problems soci
perplexity and our extricatio
Men having got themselve
law, must get out of it as w
landed class as may be.15
Here, Spencer seems to be
reclamation—but on its tim
of this ambivalence:

Either the public are free to resume as much of the earth's surface as
they think fair, or the titles of the landowners must be considered
absolute, and all national works must be postponed until lords and
squires please to part with the requisite slices of their estates. If we
decide that the claims of individual ownership must give way, then we
imply that the right of the nation at large to the soil is supreme; that the
right of private possession exists only by general consent; that general
consent being withdrawn, it ceases—or, in other words, that it is no
right at all.16

14 Ibid., pp. Ill, 116.

15 Ibid., p. 112. Ibid., p. 111.

This content downloaded from

158.248.0.39 on Mon, 04 Oct 2021 01:40:39 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 THE SOCIALISM OF HERBERT SPENCER 503

And he reminds us to consider the many whose rights remain suspended

long as private ownership in land persists: 'In our tender regard for the veste
interests of the few, let us not forget that the rights of the many are
abeyance, and must remain so, as long as the earth is monopolized b
individuals.'17 It is little wonder that the early Spencer was viewed as having
sounded a clarion call for the expropriation of the proprietorial class. Nor is i
surprising that his sympathizers should have experienced an acute sense
betrayal when he later repudiated the land doctrine of Social Statics.

Chief among Spencer's sympathizers was Henry George whose repudiati

of private property in land appeared in his work, Progress and Poverty, first
published in 1879 in the United States. By 1882 it had been introduced
England in an inexpensive edition which caused its sales to rise precipitously.
Since it contained allusions to the land doctrine of Social Statics, Spencer
early views, which were not well known at the time, were suddenly wide
disseminated. And when they were explicitly associated with those of George
in a review essay on Progress and Poverty in the Edinburgh Review of Janua
1883, Spencer moved to renounce them. This he did in a letter to the S
James's Gazette, a Tory publication18 in which he referred to his chapter on
property in his recently published 'Political Institutions'19 as illustrative of h
newly revised views on land ownership. Furthermore, he emphasized that
had 'withdrawn Social Statics from circulation in England, and .. . interdicted
translations'.20 Moreover, his deprecatory references to George in The M
Versus the State emphasized the differences between their views:
Communistic theories, partially indorsed by one Act of Parliament after
another, and tacitly if not avowedly favored by numerous public men
seeking supporters, are being advocated more and more vociferously by
popular leaders, and urged on by organized societies. There is the
movement for land-nationalization which, aiming at a system of land
tenure equitable in the abstract, is, as all the world knows, pressed by
Mr. George and his friends with avowed disregard for the just claims of
existing owners, and as the basis of a scheme going more than half-way
to State-socialism.21

17 Ibid., p. 112.

18 Henry George, A Perplexed Philosopher (New York, 1892), pp. 53-60.

" Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Sociology, Vol. II (New York, 1895), pp. 538-57.

20 George, A Perplexed Philosopher, p. 58.

21 Herbert Spencer, The Man Versus the State, ed. Donald MaCrae (Baltimore, 1969), pp. 97-8.

This content downloaded from

158.248.0.39 on Mon, 04 Oct 2021 01:40:39 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 504 J. PAUL

Shortly after this was publis

detail the reasons for his recantation in a letter to Auberon Herbert.22 He
publicly reiterated these reasons in a letter to the The Times appearing in its
7 November 1889 edition.23 Startlingly, he claimed in both letters not to have
altered the theoretical position originally expounded in Social Statics, but
merely to have revised its application to present circumstances. Ideally, he
maintained, land collectivization is morally required, but its implementation
must await a more propitious moment in history. This view he developed
further in the Principles of Ethics. There he reaffirms the Law of Equal
Freedom and its corollary of land nationalization, but by embedding it in a
new meta-ethical philosophy reflective of his evolutionism he is able to avoid
the requirement that the latter be immediately implemented.

In Social Statics, moral philosophy, while derived from and applied to a

fully perfected humanity, was, as stated previously, to guide human conduct
in its present unperfected state. Adaptation would some day so improve the
species as to enable its members to adhere without exception to every moral
injunction. In the meantime, hnman beings were to strive, however ineptly,
to fulfil the prescriptive laws. However, in that portion of the Principles of
Ethics entitled 'The Data of Ethics'24 Spencer abandoned this doctrine and
substituted for it another. This other doctrine derives principally from
Spencer's complete replacement of a theistic foundation for his ethical theory
with an evolutionary one. By divorcing himself from the thesis that all moral
imperatives are the eternal commandments of a perfect deity, Spencer was
able to renounce the timeless applicability of ethical principles. Moreover,
the increasing influence of evolutionism upon his thought seemed to enhance
the explicitness of his commitment to a kind of metaphysical determinism.
Men's actions, from this standpoint, could never transcend their current state
of adaptation, this state being strictly determined by the natural and social
environment. Hence, it would be pointless to require them to adhere to an
ideal standard of conduct which exceeds their current limited moral
capacities.

Morally ideal conduct, for Spencer, is that which produces only pleasure
without sediment of pain.25 But such conduct is possible only for a fully

22 Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer, ed. David Duncan, Vol. I (New York, 1908), pp. 330-2.

23 George, A Perplexed Philosopher, pp. 72-8.

24 Herbert Spencer, "The Data of Ethics', The Principles of Ethics, Vol. I, ed. Tibor Machan
(Indianapolis, 1978), pp. 37-338.

23 Ibid., pp. 289-90.

This content downloaded from

158.248.0.39 on Mon, 04 Oct 2021 01:40:39 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 THE SOCIALISM OF HERBERT SPENCER 505

evolved humanity.26 While it is not possible, then, to require i

prior to complete adaptation, it is possible to formulate wh
to moral perfection is possible to mankind in its transitional s
than ideal code of conduct is the subject matter of what Spenc
ethics. The ideal code from which it departs is the subject mat
ethics. The latter is constructed by describing the pleasura
sible to the perfect man. The former is developed by des
painful conduct possible to the imperfect man and, then, by f
closest approximation to the ideal standard that would
conduct.28

The Law of Equal Freedom is a principle of absolute ethics. Hence, it and

its corollaries must be modified to suit present circumstances:

The views on land tenure set forth in Social Statics five and thirty years
ago, were purely ethical in their derivation, and belonged to a system of
what I have called absolute ethics which takes into account existing
arrangements and existing men. When writing them I had no conception
that the question of State-ownership would be raised in our time, or in
any time near at hand; but had in thought a distant future when a better
adaptation of human nature to social life had arisen, and purely equit
able social arrangements had become practicable.29
In this passage, Spencer accurately summarizes his later attitudes. (However,
he does misrepresent his earlier meta-ethical theory which, as we indicated
previously, projects an immutable moral standard for socialized man, what
ever his stage of adaptation.) By the late 1870s it was clear to Spencer that
nineteenth-century British man was unsuited to the life that communal
ownership of land would demand of him. In fact, in 'Political Institutions'
Spencer argued that industrialization could only have been achieved, given
mankind's current state of adaptation, by the institution of private property.30
As industrial society had facilitated a major increase in human pleasure,
private property must be a requirement of the relative social ethics of the
time. Rather than calling for an expropriation of private property by the
community, the later Spencer became an enthusiastic defender of the status
quo.

26 Ibid., p. 303.

27 Ibid., p. 299.

28 Ibid.

29 Duncan, Life and Letters, p. 330.

30 Spencer, Principles of Sociology, Vol. II, pp. 555-6.

This content downloaded from

158.248.0.39 on Mon, 04 Oct 2021 01:40:39 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
506 J. PAUL

While there were additi

thusiasm, it is appropriate
ethical innovation to which
views. The distinction betw
is tenable since the ethica
present capacities and ultim
striction is the result of a r
by character which is, in t
social circumstances, then
to descriptive sociology. Mor
behaviour. It can never recom
by an exercise of will the
stantial conditioning. But,
conduct becomes an absurd
merely explicate the statu
apodictically brings with it
ethically in excess of his cur
to a commendation of pres

Does Spencer in fact subs

would render the foregoing
seems to suggest that he d
. . . the course of civilizatio
has been . . . given an u
appointed to overspread an
are; and no other series of
have taken place.32
If this accurately reflects hi
ethical theory of the 'Data
However, if, in this later p
which permits the exercis
attempt to devise successiv
succeeds, and the criticism
normative content fails.

Spencer's distinction betw

source of his attack upon th

Spencer, 'Data of Ethics', pp. 4

Spencer, Social Statics, p. 367.

This content downloaded from

158.248.0.39 on Mon, 04 Oct 2021 01:40:39 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 THE SOCIALISM OF HERBERT SPENCER 507

and elsewhere33 he introduces other considerations to forestall

of its immediate institution, while continuing to affirm its even
from the standpoint of absolute ethics:

... it appears to be a corollary from the law of equa

interpreted with strictness, that the earth's surface may
priated absolutely by individuals, but may be occupied by the
such manner as recognizes ultimate ownership by other
is—by society at large.34

Originally, Spencer argues, the land was communally held,35 an

privately owned through the exercise of force. However, t
quest made all land in England ultimately the property of t
claim to it thereby superseded all previous titles. As repres
ment has since replaced the power of the monarchy, such absol
as once was vested in the crown is now in the hands of society.
Spencer argues, the land is already the collective property
consequently no further transfer of ownership is require
England to achieve conformity with the Law of Equal Freed

The only question that remains is whether the current 'ten

property should be turned out since their tenancy in mos
originate in contractual or other voluntary arrangements. Spen
that they should not, since the community cannot reclaim t
compensating its present holders for the improvement to it th
paid for or made. For the community to take the land without
improvements would be an act of theft, as all that society is en
earth's unimproved surface.37 And the sum of money requi
divest the present owners of their land would be so vast a
transaction economically adverse. In addition to the improveme
land holders must be paid, there is the question of their histor
to society through their tax payments which Spencer estim
hundred million pounds.38 The interest that society wo

33 Duncan, Life and Letters, H.S. to Auberon Herbert, 13 October 1885, p

The Times, 7 November 1889, in George, A Perplexed Philosopher.

34 Herbert Spencer, 'Justice', The Principles of Ethics, Vol. II, p. 98.

35 Ibid., pp. 102-4.

36 Spencer, 'Justice', p. 107.

37 Ibid., pp. 108-9.

38 Ibid., pp. 458-9.

This content downloaded from

158.248.0.39 on Mon, 04 Oct 2021 01:40:39 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 508 J. PAUL

'mortgage' required to effec

rent that could be extracted from new tenants.39

Leaving aside the economic disadvantage to society of such a reclamation,

Spencer questions the justice of any forced divestiture. The present holders of
land are, in most cases, unrelated to its original usurpers. Hence, expro
priation in pursuing the blameless, does not properly address the genesis of
the land problem.40 But this seems to be Spencer's weakest argument, as it
matters little whether the holders of stolen property are ignorant of their
erroneous claims. They are, nevertheless, bound to forfeit them to their
legitimate owners. Finally, he exhorts us:
... to remember the inferiority of public administration to private
administration, [in order] to see that ownership by the state would work
ill. Under the existing system of ownership, those who manage the land
experience a direct connection between effort and benefit; while were it
under state ownership, those who managed it would experience no
direct connection. The vices of officialism would inevitably entail
immense evils.41

For Spencer practical, moral, and meta-ethical considerations combine to

overwhelm the case for immediate transfer of the land to new tenants. We
have next to review the weightiness of his arguments.

His principal indictment of land nationalization depends upon the dis

tinction between relative and absolute ethics which he introduces in his later
work. This distinction, which enables him to put aside for the present the
injunctions of ideal moral philosophy, depends upon the incapacity of the not
fully evolved man to comply with the dictates of absolute ethics. Does modern
man suffer from such an incapacity? If the grasping of a principle is the
immediate predecessor of the ability (if not the disposition) to act upon it,
then Spencer's own formulation of the perfect moral law would seem to
suggest the opposite. And unless Spencer is able to defend the kind of strict
determinism which precludes the implementation of newly discovered prin
ciples of right action by human choice and effort, man's alleged incapacity to
follow moral injunctions which run counter to present human inclination is
purely speculative.

George, A Perplexed Philosopher, p. 39.

Spencer, 'Justice', pp. 456-7.

Ibid., p. 460.

This content downloaded from

158.248.0.39 on Mon, 04 Oct 2021 01:40:39 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 THF SOCT AT TSM OF HERBERT SPF.NCFR 509

The economic impediment to land reclamation erected b

upon a moral theory at variance with his own stated vie
that the current holders of land who would be displaced
sation by society as a whole; and that the excessiveness of th
to them by society ought to dissuade it from this expro
argument only holds if it is society which owes the disp
some recompense. However, society, organically consider
ulently induce the present holders to take and improve t
originally stolen from it. Society is only recovering what
from it by individuals. If the land-holders are to seek recom
from those who wittingly conveyed the stolen property to
and ultimately from the original plunderers. Society, its leg
the innocent and initially aggrieved party in this matter. In
that is properly its own and a fortiori obtaining the improv
it by others, society commits no further injustice. It has no
fraud by which individuals were solicited to buy and improv
The perpetrator must be called upon to rectify this furt
original victims. Thus, Spencer's economic argument, w
society's alleged compensatory obligation, arises from an
moral responsibility.

Given the inadequacy of Spencer's attempt to ignore th

cations of his theory of land ownership for British public p
the following question. Was this theory conclusively de
either his earlier or later writings? In the next section of
critically examine the reasoning which led him to affirm th
land communism.

II

spencer's arguments tor the collective ownership of the land do not vary
appreciably from Social Stades to 'Justice'. In 'Justice' the theistic foundation
for these arguments is withdrawn leaving only evolutionism and the theory of
moral sentiments as support for the Law of Equal Freedom. However, both
works present two arguments which purport to demonstrate the impropriety
of private ownership of land. The first of these two arguments (and one which
appeared earlier in this paper) is deduced from the Law of Equal Freedom:
1. Every man has a freedom to do all that he wills, provided he does
not infringe the equal freedom of any other in order to sustain his
life ('Justice') and/cr secure his happiness (Social Statics).
2. Therefore, every man is free to use the earth in order to sustain his
life and/or secure his happiness, provided that in doing so he does
not infringe upon the equal freedom of any other person.

This content downloaded from

158.248.0.39 on Mon, 04 Oct 2021 01:40:39 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 510 J. PAUL

3. Property in the earth

surface by some of its inh
4. In this case the non-owners could not use the earth to sustain life
and/or secure happiness without the permission of the owners
which is a perceptible violation of the Law of Equal Freedom.
5. Therefore, land cannot become private property but must by right
be equally available to all for use.
6. Such a right of equal availability implies:
The joint ownership by all members of society of the
land and

b. That land cannot be held individually without the

collective consent.

7. Such consent can be obtained by a process in which individuals bid

to lease land from the whole of society. The results of such an
auction would have been reached voluntarily and, therefore,
without violating the equal right to freedom of each member of
society.

Step three in this argument describes the impediment to equal liberty that
could arise where private ownership of land is permitted. However, it is
difficult to see why this is only an indictment of private property in land. For
the same obstacle could emerge where land is not privately owned. Suppose
that under the bidding process envisaged by Spencer all land is presently
rented. What happens when a new generation appears and the terms of all
extant leases are such that no land will become available for some time? The
equal right to use natural media would, on Spencer's account, have thereby
been denied to the earth's new inhabitants. Moreover, the addition of a single
new inhabitant implies that where existing arrangements remain in force
without his added consent to them his right to equal freedom is thereby
violated. For purposes of consistency, Spencer would have to admit that all
existing leases are annulled with any new addition to the population—an
obviously unmanageable arrangement.

Spencer gets into further difficulty when he argues that the communism
which is appropriate to land is inappropriate to its fruits. Only use rights to
land, Spencer maintains, cohere with the Law of Equal Freedom, whereas the
fruits of the land may be owned privately.42 This is because the contractual

Ibid., pp. 112-14

This content downloaded from

158.248.0.39 on Mon, 04 Oct 2021 01:40:39 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 THE SOCIALISM OF HERBERT SPENCER 511

process which dispenses tracts of land to lessees would include

terms the lessee's absolute right to appropriate what he extracts
land. But why should such a contract be any more consistent wi
rights of others than one which would award rights not only to the f
the land itself? After all, the earth's fruits are an admixture of bot
capital and labour. If the earth's fixed natural capital cannot b
property without violating the rights of future generations, th
detached from that capital cannot be anyone's property witho
results. Either the present generation can confer ownership rights i
and its fruits without violating the rights of future generations or
But if Spencer's argument against private property is valid as ap
P.arth it is P.nnallv valiH whp.n annlip.H to what ran hp rvtrartrH from thp rarth

Moreover, Spencer's bidding process cannot by itself be the genesis of

authoritative initial use rights in the earth and eventual property rights
movables. A valid bidding process assumes that the bidders are already
rightful possession of the wealth with which they will bid. If so, bidding canno
be the initial source of use rights and hence, ownership. For there are already
owned objects prior to the bidding process. What could the other source
these prior ownership rights be? One possibility is the unanimous consent of
mankind. But unanimity simpliciter has multifarious problems associat
with it. For example, if unanimity cannot be achieved in any particular case,
an individual would be denied the use of the earth altogether, a manife
threat to his life and happiness. Furthermore, where unanimity is achieve
the resultant decision can legitimately be enforced only so long as the pop
lation is not increased. Any addition to the population would require th
formation of a new consensus. Thus, the communal ownership of the eart
presents the same threats to life and happiness that Spencer associates wit
private ownership.

This brings us to Spencer's second argument against the private ownership

of land. The previous argument purported to show only that individual
ownership is improper. This argument alleges that, in addition, collecti
ownership is proper. This argument is an extension of the previous one
beginning with step five.43

1. Land must, by right, be equally available to all for use.

2. Such a right of equal availability implies the joint ownership of the

land by all members of society.

Ibid., p. 109.

This content downloaded from

158.248.0.39 on Mon, 04 Oct 2021 01:40:39 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 512 J. PAUL

3. Such joint ownership

a. That absolute prope
prohibited.
b. That use rights to particular parcels of land can be
assigned to individuals but only by the unanimous
consent of all of the original owners.

Now this demonstration which appears in 'Justice'44 is a modification of a

similar theistic derivation presented in Social Statics. The argument of this
earlier work is that ownership of the earth is God's undivided bequest to
mankind.45 From this collective endowment is derived the consensual basis of
land tenure and the prohibition against private ownership. We will not discuss
this version of the communal ownership argument as any competent dis
cussion of its theistic foundations would necessarily be too extensive for the
confines of a single paper. We will, however, consider the above version from
'Justice' which claims to have deduced the propriety of collective ownership
from equal individual rights of access and use.

Before assessing this putative demonstration we must distinguish it from

the previous one that we criticized. This argument deduces the consensual
basis of individual tenancy directly from the equal right to the use of the earth.
Its successor derives that basis from the collective ownership of the earth
which it deduces from the equal rights to the use of material media implied by
the Law of Equal Freedom. Is this derivation of land communism from equal
access and use rights a successful one?

Spencer argues that society's rights in land are derived by summing the
individual rights of access to the earth held by all persons.46 Whether by
combination these individually held use rights become rights of collective
ownership depends upon the interpretation given to the phrase 'equal right to
the use of the earth'. Spencer leaves this phrase unanalyzed in the two works
in which it is discussed and the many letters in which it appears. In so doing he
is able to allege without fear of contradiction that a joint stock ownership of
the earth is implied by it. However, there are plausible renderings of it which
do not have collectivist implications.

Ibid., pp. 109,112.

Spencer, Social Statics, p. 107.

Spencer, 'Justice', p. 109.

This content downloaded from

158.248.0.39 on Mon, 04 Oct 2021 01:40:39 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 THE SOCIALISM OF HERBERT SPENCER 513

One perfectly reasonable interpretation is that of Henry Geor

right, says George, is:
... (1) an absolute right to use any part of the earth as to which
does not conflict with the equal rights of others (i.e. which no o
wants to use at the same time), and (2) a coequal right to the use of
part of the earth which he and others may want to use at the same

A second interpretation, one that slightly modifies that of George, i

1. There is an absolute right to use any part of the earth that

presently being used by another

2. There is an injunction against using that which is presently

used by another without the latter's consent.

3. There is an absolute right to the use of any part of the earth

those who contemporaneously attempt to use it provided that th
can cooperatively and voluntarily agree as to the use that they w
make of it.

Do either of these meanings imply the joint ownership said by S

follow from the existence of equal rights to the use of the earth? Ap
not, for if all men are shareholders in the earth, then no one can use
of it without the permission of the rest. But this limitation is to be
neither of the aforementioned interpretations of equal use right
which supplies a decision rule for land use which does not include the
ment of mankind's consent. Moreover, the conception of equality int
these two formulations is completely foreign to the notion of eq
characterizes the institution of joint ownership. Equal rights of u
conceived, involve an equivalent absence of human interference
vidual or collective uses of the unemployed portions of the earth. Th
implied by the joint ownership concept is that of equally shared cont
individual uses of land. Equal use rights, then, allow an unobstructed
of opportunity to individuals to employ unused portions of the ea
joint ownership involves an equivalent share of power with which
or approve human uses of the earth. The institution of joint ownersh
distribute opportunities to use the earth quite unequally and arb
could deny some people any employment of the earth's resources
the former conception of equal use rights insures that every pers
unobstructed in his attempts to utilize those portions of the ea
presently being employed by anyone. As these two conceptions—
rights and equal rights of joint ownership—contain contradictory fea
would seem that the latter could not logically be deduced from th

George, A Perplexed Philosopher, p. 28.

This content downloaded from

158.248.0.39 on Mon, 04 Oct 2021 01:40:39 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 514 J. PAUL

Unless some other plausible

use of the earth' which in
ported demonstration of m
must fail.

Conclusion

While Herbert Spencer is thought by many to have entirely revised his

views concerning property rights in land in his later years, this paper has
shown that that impression is a spurious one. His theoretical opposition to
private property in land was as unequivocally supported in 'Justice' and other
later writings as it had been in the earlier Social Statics. What changed was the
application that he was willing to make of his theory. The younger Spencer
believed that moral philosophy erected a standard with which mankind,
however morally inept, must strive to comply. The evolutionism which suf
fused the thought of the later Spencer convinced him that such moral
demands were metaphysically impossible to meet and, therefore, ought to be
supplanted by ones that were congruent with the present limited potentialités
of mankind. These metaphysical considerations combined in his thinking with
economic ones to persuade him of the aptness of nineteenth-century British
property arrangements to the condition and character of its inhabitants.

These ingenious efforts to transform his theoretical attachment to

communal property into individualistic policy recommendations were super
fluous, however. For the weaknesses of his theoretical case for the collective
ownership of land are readily exposed. This principle is not deducible from
the central normative principle of his political philosophy, the Right to Equal
Freedom. Moreover, any defence of this latter tenet could easily be im
perilled by the collective ownership doctrine alleged to be implied by it.

Ultimately, Spencer's thought must be unsatisfying to both radical indi

vidualists and land collectivists as he persisted throughout his career in
keeping a practical foot in one camp and a theoretical foot in the other.

Jeffrey Paul BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY

This content downloaded from

158.248.0.39 on Mon, 04 Oct 2021 01:40:39 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms