means of civilization, of the machinery
which the brains of other men have devised, of the human apparatus which
is the gift of acquired civilization. Society thus provides conditions
or opportunities of which one man will make much better use than
another, and the use to which they are put is the individual or personal
element in production which is the basis of the personal claim to
reward. To maintain and stimulate this personal effort is a necessity of
good economic organization, and without asking here whether any
particular conception of Socialism would or would not meet this need we
may lay down with confidence that no form of Socialism which should
ignore it could possibly enjoy enduring success. On the other hand, an
individualism which ignores the social factor in wealth will deplete the
national resources, deprive the community of its just share in the
fruits of industry and so result in a one-sided and inequitable
distribution of wealth. Economic justice is to render what is due not
only to each individual but to each function, social or personal, that
is engaged in the performance of useful service, and this due is
measured by the amount necessary to stimulate and maintain the efficient
exercise of that useful function. This equation between function and
sustenance is the true meaning of economic equality.

Now to apply this principle to the adjustment of the claims of the
community on the one hand and the producers or inheritors of wealth on
the other would involve a discrimination of the factors of production
which is not easy to make in all instances. If we take the case of urban
land, referred to above, the distinction is tolerably clear. The value
of a site in London is something due essentially to London, not to the
landlord. More accurately a part of it is due to London, a part to the
British empire, a part, perhaps we should say, to Western civilization.
But while it would be impossible to disentangle these subsidiary
factors, the main point that the entire increment of value is due to one
social factor or another is sufficiently clear, and this explains why
Liberal opinion has fastened on the conception of site value as being
by right communal and not personal property. The monopoly value of
licensed premises, which is the direct creation of laws passed for the
control of the liquor traffic, is another case in point. The difficulty
which society finds in dealing with these cases is that it has allow