fruits of labor" at all, the
fruits are the proprietor's and the labor that of some one else.
Property {68} has no more insidious enemies than those well-meaning
anarchists who, by defending all forms of it as equally valid, involve
the institution in the discredit attaching to its extravagances. In
reality, whatever conclusion may be drawn from the fact, the greater
part of modern property, whether, like mineral rights and urban
ground-rents, it is merely a form of private taxation which the law
allows certain persons to levy on the industry of others, or whether,
like property in capital, it consists of rights to payment for
instruments which the capitalist cannot himself use but puts at the
disposal of those who can, has as its essential feature that it confers
upon its owners income unaccompanied by personal service. In this
respect the ownership of land and the ownership of capital are normally
similar, though from other points of view their differences are
important. To the economist rent and interest are distinguished by the
fact that the latter, though it is often accompanied by surplus
elements which are merged with it in dividends, is the price of an
instrument of production which would not be forthcoming for industry if
the price were not paid, while the former is a differential surplus
which does not affect the supply. To the business community and the
solicitor land and capital are equally investments, between which,
since they possess the common characteristic of yielding income without
labor, it is inequitable to discriminate; and though their significance
as economic categories may be different, their effect as social
institutions is the same. It is to separate property from creative
ability, and to divide society into two classes, of which one has its
{69} primary interest in passive ownership, while the other is mainly
dependent upon active work.

Hence the real analogy to many kinds of modern property is not the
simple property of the small land-owner or the craftsman, still less
the household goods and dear domestic amenities, which is what the word
suggests to the guileless minds of clerks and shopkeepers, and which
stampede them into displaying the ferocity of terrified sheep when the
cry is raised that "Property" is threatened. It is the feudal dues
which robbed the French peasant of part of his produce till the
Revolution abolished them. How do royalties differ from _quintaines_
and _lods