will be needed, and to direct that that amount shall be produced.1 Men are legally allowed to engage in almost any undertaking that attracts them, and yet we take it for granted that somehow things will get produced in the proper proportions. A hundred men are set to work in a factory making nothing but hats, many more than they or their friends can use, but the manager has faith that heads will be found to wear them all. Farmers confidently proceed to raise wheat, never troubling themselves about the grinding and baking. Neither workmen nor employers in general know why wages are as they are. Men lend money or goods, now for one price, now for another, but few know why they demand interest or why the rate changes. These processes go on visibly before us, but the governing laws are hidden except to the careful investigator. In this respect they are like the laws of physiology. We eat and digest our food, but how many people know how or why digestion takes place? It is easy, however, to overemphasize this idea, for a great deal of our economic activity is conscious and volitional. When we decide to make a law or levy a tax, we do it consciously, considering arguments, and finally will to do the thing in question. And even in business undertakings there must be much careful study of the probable demand for various kinds of goods and of the most economical ways of producing them.

2. The specialization of work and exchange of goods just. referred to necessarily imply that mutual dependence briefly considered in the preceding chapter. Instead of a number of distinct, self-sufficient units, we have a coherent society where one individual relies upon many others to complete his own onesided economic activity. A strike of street-car employees, or of teamsters, or the destruction of an electric lighting plant, would each send a shock of inconvenience through a community. A prolonged railway strike would be felt as a national misfortune. Indeed, this interdependence is international in its scope. England relies on other nations to send her food in exchange for her

1 The government does help, however, by collecting and publishing information, such as crop reports, statistics of the amount of cotton ginned, consular reports as to opportunities in foreign markets, and in various other ways.

manufactured products, and many a German workman would be in distress if our exports of cotton or copper should suddenly cease, as is happening in the great European War, in progress at the time that this is being penned. The United States is more self-sufficient economically than many other nations, but we are nevertheless dependent upon international trading for our supplies of many things.

Economic Classes. In part, also, the specialization of work is responsible for the division of society into classes, but only in part. The differences in the work of the carpenter, machinist, and railway brakeman do not result in the formation of classes of a higher and lower rank. On the other hand, the professional brain worker enjoys some social esteem that does not fall to the lot of the manual worker. But doubtless the most important basis of social classification is the possession of wealth. The power to spend freely, while not the only test, is today the most widely recognized test of social status, regrettable as this may be. Private Property. We proceed now to examine the foundation stones of this system of private enterprise. Private property is the most important of these. For our present purpose we may define private property as the exclusive control over valuable things by private persons. It is to be distinguished from mere possession. The possessor has the use of the thing for the time being, but unless he is at the same time the owner, he is dependent upon the will of another for the use of it. Ownership implies the right of excluding other persons from the employment of a thing. The exclusive right must be recognized and guaranteed effectively by third parties. If the exclusive right of control over some valuable thing is asserted simply by the strength of one's right arm, the right of private property is not thereby established. The exclusive right of control must be recognized by others and must be maintained by them.

Over against private property we have public property, and there are some things, such as air, which fall in neither of these categories. The sphere of private property at present includes not only food, clothes, and other things of personal use, E the instruments of production - land, buildings, and m

In the most important productive processes the tools are in general not owned by the persons who use them.

It may be said that property is the chief seat of social authority. As property carries with it the exclusive right to control things, others may have access to these things only on conditions named by their owners. If we look about us, we find men organized and acting together under direction for purposes of production. In a factory we find an organization of men like that of an army. We discover men moving here and there and performing arduous tasks in obedience to command. If we examine the nature of the authority which some thus exercise over others, we shall find that it resides in property. The law of the land to some extent establishes the authority of man over man; but where one man obeys another because the law in so many words tells him to do so, we find a hundred men obeying others because these others have the authority which resides in exclusive control over valuable things. Indirectly this latter sort of authority rests back upon the laws in so far as these are responsible for the establishment of property. But the chief seat of authority in society is based only indirectly upon the government; it rests immediately upon private property.

The right of private property is one so fundamental in our modern life that we scarcely think of it as a creation of man, maintained by constant vigilance on the part of the State, and subject to human modification. It seems like bed rock, an ultimate right, needing no other justification than its own obviousness. When a custom has obtained very widely and is deeply rooted in human life there is often a tendency to claim it as a "natural right." But the right of private property as we know it now did not always exist. It has not always been so extensive or exclusive as at present. This is especially marked in the case of individuals, whose claims as opposed to those of the tribe were at first slight and vague; but these claims gradually grew, especially in the case of the chieftain, until tribal or communal rights broke down before them. The time was when a Scottish clan had absolute right to the territory it occupied, and no chieftain, however powerful, could have abridged that right. Now there are beautiful tracts of country in Scotland which are almost denuded of their agricultural population because the owners, the descendants of these same chieftains, preferred to raise game on their estates. All are familiar with the liberty generally allowed in this country of hunting and fishing on private estates. This

is unheard of in Europe. Slowly, however, we are extending our property claims to game and fish, and the former leniency of ownership is disappearing.

But the modern State is continually placing limitations and restrictions on the right of private property. Our cities regulate the height of buildings and prescribe the material from which they must be made and the kind of plumbing which must be installed. Restrictions of the uses to which land may be put are common, and no one can use his property in ways that constitute a public "nuisance." The nature and extent of these changes in private property must be controlled by the State in the public interest. How far interference with the right is justified cannot be discussed in general terms: such a discussion must deal with the specific problems of municipal ownership, railway regulation, and innumerable others. The point to be emphasized here is that in solving such problems the mere fact that a proposed solution restricts or enlarges the right of private property cannot in itself be given much weight.

Trademarks, Copyrights, and Patents. These are legal arrangements whereby exclusive privileges are awarded in return for certain services to society. These privileges become a special form of private property. Their justification lies in the fact that they are a means of promoting" the progress of science and useful arts." It must be remembered, however, that all such progress is a historical product. The telephone, for example, was preceded by a century of scientific invention and discovery, most of it poorly remunerated. The telegraph was, similarly, the result of the careful plodding industry of scores of men. Professor Henry, of Princeton College, whose services in connection with the completion of the telegraph were most distinguished, conscientiously refused to take out any patent. It often happens that several persons almost simultaneously and independently make the same discoveries and inventions. Our patent laws seem frequently to reward the man who makes the finishing touches which lead to the utilization of a long line of work. But it is the hope of being the one who may give the practical turn to an idea that lures many a man on to undertake the laborious

task of doing the extensive experimentation often necessary to place an article on the market.

In order that patents and copyrights may not become the bases of burdensome monopolies, they are of limited duration. Patents in the United States run for seventeen years, and copyrights for a period of twenty-eight years. Copyrights may be renewed for another term of the same length. These legal privileges have resulted in an enormous amount of litigation and have given rise to special problems. One of these is the question of the extent to which the manufacturer of a patented article should have the right to control the price after the article has left his hands. It is frequently asserted that owners of patents should be compelled to permit other persons to use them upon the payment of royalty, so as to promote competition in manufacture. But there is some danger that such legislation would defeat the primary object of the patent system. Even with the exclusive right to manufacture an article it frequently requires a long struggle to make an invention a commercial success. It has also been suggested that the United States government should reserve the right to purchase a patent, but it is improbable that this right, if reserved, would be often exercised.

Inheritance. Inheritance is often regarded as a necessary part of the right of private property, and it is true that the entire abolition of the right of inheritance would result in a great enlargement of public property at the expense of private property, unless gifts were used to replace inheritance as a means of transferring property from one generation to the next. But, in truth, property and inheritance are two distinct rights. Private property is an exclusive right of control, whereas inheritance is the transmission of this right from one generation to another.

As in the case of private property itself, the right of inheritance is not recognized today as absolute. Detailed regulations exist on our statute books regarding the making of wills and regulating the descent of property where no will is made, and there is an increasing tendency to limit the right of inheritance by taxation. That which seems a mere natural right at one time seems a wrong at another, as is illustrated in the changing ideas and practices