“Wherever the Industrial system has reached its second generation it is threatened by two mortal perils. The first is the demand by an organized proletariat for sustenance without relation to the product of its labor; a demand which threatens the very existence of PROFIT (on the necessary presumption of which Capitalism reposes). The second, and immediately graver danger is that of a revolt for the confiscation of the means of production.” – Hilaire Belloc, Survivals and New Arrivals: The Old and New Enemies of the Catholic Church. Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1992, p. 52.
In the law, property is the bundle of rights that determines one’s relationship to things. Productive capital (income-producing property) is increasingly the source of the world’s economic growth and, therefore, should become the source of added property ownership incomes for all. If both labor and productive capital are interdependent factors of production, and if productive capital’s proportionate contributions are increasing relative to that of labor, then equality of opportunity and economic justice demands that the right to property (and access to the means of acquiring and possessing property) must in justice be extended to all.
