Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/393

 DIFFICULTIES OF INDIVIDUALISM 37t treatment of the present generation of proprietors, and even of their children. But against the permanent welfare of. th community the unborn have no rights; and not even a l/ring proprietor can possess a vested interest in the existing system of taxation. The democracy may be trusted to find, in dealing with the landlord, that the resources of civilization are not exhausted. An increase in the death duties, the steady rise of local rates, the special taxation of urban ground values, the graduation ' and differentiation of the income-tax, the simple appropriation of the unearned increment, and the gradual acquirement of land and other monopolies by publi c authorities, will in due course suffice to ' collectivize' the bulk of the tribute of rent and interest in a way which the democracy will regard as sufficiently equitable even if it does not satisfy the conscience of the pro- prietary class itself. This growth of collective ownership it is, and not any vain sharing out of property, which is to achieve the practical equality of opportunity at which democracy aims. Mr. Courtney, who objects to the morality of the action thus foreshadowed, denies neither the incapacity of Individualism to bring about the result in any way whatever, nor the power of Socialism to accomplish what it intends, as far as rent and interest are concerned; and the Liberty and Property Defence League will certainly not place much reliance upon the bulwark of equity with which their newest patron supplies them. Other Individualists have been driven, in their straits, to argue that inequality in wealth is in itself a good thing, and that the objection to it arises from the vain worship of a logical abstraction. But Socialists (who on this point are but taking up the old Radical position) base their indictment against inequality, not on any metaphysical grounds, but on the plain facts of its effect upon social life. We do not need to rely on the'arguments by which Bentham demonstrated, two generations ago, the superior utility .of equality of wealth. The inequality of income at the present time obviously results in a flaowrant ' wrong production' of com- modities. The unequal value of money to our paupers and our millionaires deprives the test of ' effective demand' of all value as an index to social requirements, or even to the production of individual happiness. The last glass of wine at a plutocratic orgy, which may be deemed not even to satisfy any desire, is economically as urgently ' demanded' as the whole day's main- tenance of the dock labouter for which its cost would suffice. W]aether London shall be provided with an Italian Opera, or with BB2