e to those who have property. On the other hand
property is used as a means of collecting tribute and private taxes, as a
club with which to extort unearned gain from laborers and consumers, and
as the fundamental tool of oppression.

Where do we draw the line? Is it true that property created by productive
labor is a great moralizer, and that property acquired without productive
labor is the great demoralizer? Is it correct that property for use is on
the whole good, and property for power is a menace?

What is the relation between property and self-development? At what point
does property become excessive? At what point does food become excessive
and poisonous? At what point does fertilizer begin to kill a plant? Would
any real social values be lost if incomes averaged $2,000 and none
exceeded $10,000?

To what extent does a moral purpose take the dangers out of acquisition?

Is any life moral in which the natural capacities are not sincerely taxed
to do productive work? If a man's wealth is destined to cut his
descendants off from productive labor, is it a blessing? What is the moral
difference between strenuous occupation and labor? How large a proportion
of our time and energy can be devoted to play and leisure without
softening our moral fiber?

At what points does private property come to be anti-social? If we could
eliminate the monopoly elements and the capacity to levy tribute, would
there be much danger in the remainder?

Does private property, in the enormous aggregations of today and in
control of the essential outfit of society, still correspond to the
essential theoretical conception of private property, or have public
properties and public functions fallen under private control? "Much that
we are accustomed to hear called legitimate insistence upon the rights of
property, the Old Testament would seem to call the robbery of God, and
grinding the faces of the poor" (The Bishop of Oxford).

III

The religious spirit will always have to call the individual farther than
the law can compel him to go. After all unjust and tainted portions have
been eliminated from our property, religion lays its hands on the rest and
says, "You are only a steward over this." In the parables of the talents,
the pounds, and the unjust steward, Jesus argues on the assumption that
our resources are a trust, and not absolute property. We manage and
control them, but always under responsibility. We hold them from God, and