to the persons making up a society may be grouped in the
following five general classes: force, status, charity, competition,
and authority. These will be discussed in due order.

Sec. 2. #Distribution by force and by status.# Distribution by force is
the most primitive mode of distribution. The stronger takes from the
weaker. Forceful distribution still persists in the form of crime,
and if we include fraud within the term it still affects an enormous
amount of income. The lawless take whatever they can, and the
supporters and officers of the law do what they can to check the acts.
Slavery is distribution by force, as is the levying of war indemnities
from a conquered people.

Distribution may be by status, or set rules and customs. In this case
men receive incomes that are independent of their efforts and outside
of their control. Distribution by status is guided neither by the
personal merit of the recipients nor by the value of their direct
services, but the merits and acts of men not living. Feudal society
was built on status. Men were born to certain privileges and
positions; they inherited property which could neither be bought
nor sold; they followed trades which could rarely be entered by any
outside of favored families. Caste in India and in other Oriental
countries regulates a large part of the life of the people.

This method still prevails to a greater extent in our society than is
usually recognized.[2] By public opinion and by prejudice, status is
still maintained in respect to the choice of occupations even where
the law has formally abolished it, as is seen in modern race problems,
in western countries to-day inheritance of property is the main legal
form of status and it shades off into other forms of distribution.
Private property must find its justification in social expediency.[3]
There is no feature of it that is more questioned than is the right of
inheritance.

Sec. 3. #Social effects of the right to transmit property.# The right
to transmit property by inheritance or by bequest may be judged with
reference to its effects upon the giver, upon the receiver, and upon
society at large. It is well to take these three points of view.
The right to dispose of property either during life or at death has
undoubtedly in many ways a good effect upon the character of men.
It stimulates the husband and father to provide for his wife and
children, and spurs others to continued economic activity. There is