“We have here to consider, not the causes, but the consequences, of the rules according to which wealth may be distributed. Those, at least, are as little arbitrary, and have as much the character of physical laws, as the laws of production.”

“The objection ordinarily made to a system of community of property and equal distribution of the produce, that each person would be incessantly occupied in evading his fair share of the work, points, undoubtedly, to a real difficulty. But those who urge this objection, forget how great an extent the same difficulty exists under the system on which nine-tenths of the business of society is now conducted.”

“But to make the comparison applicable, we must compare Communism at its best, with the regime of individual property, not as it is, but as it might be made. The principle of private property has never yet had a fair trial in any country.”

“Private property, in every defence made of it, is supposed to mean, the guarantee to individuals of the fruits of their own labour and abstinence.”

“When the ‘sacredness of property’ is talked of, it should always be remembered, that any such sacredness does not belong in the same degree to landed property.”

“If a conjecture may be hazarded, the decision will probably depend mainly on one consideration, viz. which of the two systems [individual agency or Socialism] is consistent with the greatest amount of human liberty and spontaneity.”