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Single Idea 23049

[filed under theme 25. Social Practice / C. Rights / 4. Property rights ]

Full Idea

The rationale of property is that every one should be secured by society in the power of getting and keeping the means of realising a will which in possibility is a will directed to social good.

Gist of Idea

Property is needed by all citizens, to empower them to achieve social goods

Source

T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882], §220), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III

Book Ref

Muirhead,John H.: 'The Service of the State: T.H. Green' [John Murray 2021], p.80


A Reaction

An interesting argument. If you want free citizens in a liberal society to be capable of achieving social good, you must allow them the right to acquire the means of doing so.


The 27 ideas from T.H. Green

Knowledge is secured by the relations between its parts, through differences and identities [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
Equality also implies liberty, because equality must be of opportunity as well as possessions [Green,TH]
National spirit only exists in the individuals who embody it [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
The ground of property ownership is not force but the power to use it for social ends [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
The highest political efforts express our deeper social spirit [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
Communism is wrong because it restricts the freedom of individuals to contribute to the community [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
States only have full authority if they heed the claims of human fellowship [Green,TH]
Original common ownership is securing private property, not denying it [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
Property is needed by all citizens, to empower them to achieve social goods [Green,TH]
The good life aims at perfections, or absolute laws, or what is absolutely desirable [Green,TH]
People are improved by egalitarian institutions and habits [Green,TH]
All talk of the progress of a nation must reduce to the progress of its individual members [Green,TH]
People only develop their personality through co-operation with the social whole [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
The good is identified by the capacities of its participants [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
A true state is only unified and stabilised by acknowledging individuality [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
God is the ideal end of the mature mind's final development [Green,TH]
The ideal is a society in which all citizens are ladies and gentlemen [Green,TH]
What is distinctive of human life is the desire for self-improvement [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
Hedonism offers no satisfaction, because what we desire is self-betterment [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
Politics is compromises, which seem supported by a social contract, but express the will of no one [Green,TH]
Ideals and metaphysics are practical, not imaginative or speculative [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
Truth is a relation to a whole of organised knowledge in the collection of rational minds [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
All knowledge rests on a fundamental unity between the knower and what is known [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
The ultimate test for truth is the systematic interdependence in nature [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
If something develops, its true nature is embodied in its end [Green,TH]
God is the realisation of the possibilities of each man's self [Green,TH]
Enfranchisement is an end in itself; it makes a person moral, and gives a basis for respect [Green,TH]