sers, though
they must not use force against him. It is clear that some
restriction of the liberty of trespass is necessary for the
cultivation of the land. But if such powers are to be given to an
individual, the state ought to satisfy itself that he occupies no more
land than he is warranted in occupying in the public interest, and
that the share of the produce of the land that comes to him is no more
than a just reward for his labors. Probably the only way in which
such ends can be achieved is by state ownership of land. The
possessors of land and capital are able at present, by economic
pressure, to use force against those who have no possessions. This
force is sanctioned by law, while force exercised by the poor against
the rich is illegal. Such a state of things is unjust, and does not
diminish the use of private force as much as it might be diminished.

The whole realm of the possessive impulses, and of the use of force to
which they give rise, stands in need of control by a public neutral
authority, in the interests of liberty no less than of justice.
Within a nation, this public authority will naturally be the state; in
relations between nations, if the present anarchy is to cease, it will
have to be some international parliament.

But the motive underlying the public control of men's possessive
impulses should always be the increase of liberty, both by the
prevention of private tyranny and by the liberation of creative
impulses. If public control is not to do more harm than good, it must
be so exercised as to leave the utmost freedom of private initiative
in all those ways that do not involve the private use of force. In
this respect all governments have always failed egregiously, and there
is no evidence that they are improving.

The creative impulses, unlike those that are possessive, are directed
to ends in which one man's gain is not another man's loss. The man
who makes a scientific discovery or writes a poem is enriching others
at the same time as himself. Any increase in knowledge or good-will
is a gain to all who are affected by it, not only to the actual
possessor. Those who feel the joy of life are a happiness to others
as well as to themselves. Force cannot create such things, though it
can destroy them; no principle of distributive justice applies to
them, since the gain of each is the gain of all. For these reasons,
the creative part of a man's activity ought to be as free as possi