An Employer's View of Property

T HE Christian ethic makes demand upon all men to act as if in a brotherhood. If this demand is to be granted any practical meaning it must be that each man's life is expected to deliver its maximum service towards the truest good of all men. To approach this objective each man must be more and more nearly fitted into the place best suited to his abilities, and spurred by the influences most appropriate to his make-up; and all men, but especially leaders, must have a more definite, more practical, and more uniform notion of what does actually tend towards the truest good of all. If there can be any such applied science as social engineering, its ultimate objective cannot differ much from this demand of the Christian ethic. The problems of the ownership and of the control of property are for the Christian teacher and social engineer alike problems of organizing the forces and influences which work upon men so that they will lead towards a progressively greater utilization of the powers of each individual for the deepest good of all. Of the two commonly accepted privileges attaching to the ownership of property, control of its use and ownership of its fruits, the former can most profitably receive the present focus of attention. Only if long and ingenious efforts should fail to modify the control of wealth would ownership of the fruits of wealth constitute a problem; namely, the problem of the basic rights of ownership, so long debated by socialist, communist, and individualist, with high passion and meager profit. It is admitted as a basic theory in all democratic communities that there are somewhere limits to the freedom with

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