within this scheme, which makes the state the source of all energy, and the final legatee, what will be the nature of the property a man may own? under modern conditions — indeed, under any conditions — a man without some negotiable property is a man without freedom, and the extent of his property is very largely the measure of his freedom. without any property, without even shelter or food, a man has no choice but to set about getting these things; he is in servitude to his needs until he has secured property to satisfy them. but with a certain small property a man is free to do many things, to take a fortnight’s holiday when he chooses, for example, and to try this new departure from his work or that; with so much more, he may take a year of freedom and go to the ends of the earth; with so much more, he may obtain elaborate apparatus and try curious novelties, build himself houses and make gardens, establish businesses and make experiments at large. very speedily, under terrestrial conditions, the property of a man may reach such proportions that his freedom oppresses the freedom of others. here, again, is a quantitative question, an adjustment of conflicting freedoms, a quantitative question that too many people insist on making a qualitative one.

the object sought in the code of property laws that one would find in operation in utopia would be the same object that pervades the whole utopian organisation, namely, a universal maximum of individual freedom. whatever far-reaching movements the state or great rich men or private corporations may make, the starvation by any complication of employment, the unwilling deportation, the destruction of alternatives to servile submissions, must not ensue. beyond such qualifications, the object of modern utopian statesmanship will be to secure to a man the freedom given by all his legitimate property, that is to say, by all the values his toil or skill or foresight and courage have brought into being. whatever he has justly made he has a right to keep, that is obvious enough; but he will also have a right to sell and exchange, and so this question of what may be property takes really the form of what may a man buy in utopia?

a modern utopian most assuredly must have a practically unqualified property in all those things that become, as it were, by possession, extensions and expressions of his personality; his clothing, his jewels, the tools of his employment, his books, the objects of art he may have bought or made, his personal weapons (if utopia have need of such things), insignia, and so forth. all such things that he has bought with his money or acquired — provided he is not a professional or habitual dealer in such property — will be inalienably his, his to give or lend or keep, free even from taxation. so intimate is this sort of property that i have no doubt utopia will give a man posthumous rights over it — will permit him to assign it to a successor with at the utmost the payment of a small redemption. a horse, perhaps, in certain districts, or a bicycle, or any such mechanical conveyance personally used, the utopians might find it well to rank with these possessions. no doubt, too, a house and privacy owned and occupied by a man, and even a man’s own household furniture, might be held to stand as high or almost as high in the property scale, might be taxed as lightly and transferred under only a slightly heavier redemption, provided he had not let these things on hire, or otherwise alienated them from his intimate self. a thorough-going, democratic socialist will no doubt be inclined at first to object that if the utopians make these things a specially free sort of property in this way, men would spend much more upon them than they would otherwise do, but indeed that will be an excellent thing. we are too much affected by the needy atmosphere of our own mismanaged world. in utopia no one will have to hunger because some love to make and have made and own and cherish beautiful things. to give this much of property to individuals will tend to make clothing, ornamentation, implements, books, and all the arts finer and more beautiful, because by buying such things a man will secure something inalienable — save in the case of bankruptcy — for himself and for those who belong to him. moreover, a man may in his lifetime set aside sums to ensure special advantages of education and care for the immature children of himself and others, and in this manner also exercise a posthumous right. [footnote: but a statute of mortmain will set a distinct time limit to the continuance of such benefactions. a periodic revision of endowments is a necessary feature in any modern utopia.]

for all other property, the utopians will have a scantier respect; even money unspent by a man, and debts to him that bear no interest, will at his death stand upon a lower level than these things. what he did not choose to gather and assimilate to himself, or assign for the special education of his children, the state will share in the lion’s proportion with heir and legatee.

this applies, for example, to the property that a man creates and acquires in business enterprises, which are presumably undertaken for gain, and as a means of living rather than for themselves. all new machinery, all new methods, all uncertain and variable and non-universal undertakings, are no business for the state; they commence always as experiments of unascertained value, and next after the invention of money, there is no invention has so facilitated freedom and progress as the invention of the limited liability company to do this work of trial and adventure. the abuses, the necessary reforms of company law on earth, are no concern of ours here and now, suffice it that in a modern utopia such laws must be supposed to be as perfect as mortal laws can possibly be made. caveat vendor will be a sound qualification of caveat emptor in the beautifully codified utopian law. whether the utopian company will be allowed to prefer this class of share to that or to issue debentures, whether indeed usury, that is to say lending money at fixed rates of interest, will be permitted at all in utopia, one may venture to doubt. but whatever the nature of the shares a man may hold, they will all be sold at his death, and whatever he has not clearly assigned for special educational purposes will — with possibly some fractional concession to near survivors — lapse to the state. the “safe investment,” that permanent, undying claim upon the community, is just one of those things utopia will discourage; which indeed the developing security of civilisation quite automatically discourages through the fall in the rate of interest. as we shall see at a later stage, the state will insure the children of every citizen, and those legitimately dependent upon him, against the inconvenience of his death; it will carry out all reasonable additional dispositions he may have made for them in the same event; and it will insure him against old age and infirmity; and the object of utopian economics will be to give a man every inducement to spend his surplus money in intensifying the quality of his surroundings, either by economic adventures and experiments, which may yield either losses or large profits, or in increasing the beauty, the pleasure, the abundance and promise of life.

besides strictly personal possessions and shares in business adventures, utopia will no doubt permit associations of its citizens to have a property in various sorts of contracts and concessions, in leases of agricultural and other land, for example; in houses they may have built, factories and machinery they may have made, and the like. and if a citizen prefer to adventure into business single-handed, he will have all the freedoms of enterprise enjoyed by a company; in business affairs he will be a company of one, and his single share will be dealt with at his death like any other shares. . . . so much for the second kind of property. and these two kinds of property will probably exhaust the sorts of property a utopian may possess.

the trend of modern thought is entirely against private property in land or natural objects or products, and in utopia these things will be the inalienable property of the world state. subject to the rights of free locomotion, land will be leased out to companies or individuals, but — in view of the unknown necessities of the future — never for a longer period than, let us say, fifty years.

the property of a parent in his children, and of a husband in his wife, seems to be undergoing a steadily increasing qualification in the world of to-day, but the discussion of the utopian state of affairs in regard to such property may be better reserved until marriage becomes our topic. suffice it here to remark, that the increasing control of a child’s welfare and upbringing by the community, and the growing disposition to limit and tax inheritance are complementary aspects of the general tendency to regard the welfare and free intraplay of future generations no longer as the concern of parents and altruistic individuals, but as the predominant issue of statesmanship, and the duty and moral meaning of the world community as a whole.