The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted
- Thomas Hodgskin (author)
In this series of letters to Lord Braugham, Hodgskin distinguishes between the natural right of property (based upon Lockean principles of natural law) and the artificial right of property (which is decreed by parliament). He associated the doctrine of the artificial right of property with Benthamite reformers who were attempting to reform the English state.
Key Quotes
Property Rights
I look on a right of property—on the right of individuals, to have and to own, for their own separate and selfish use and enjoyment, the produce of their own industry, with power freely to dispose of the whole of that in the manner most agreeable to themselves, as essential to the welfare and even…
Property Rights
Rapidly therefore as the gentlemen at Westminster work, making three or four hundred laws per year, repeating their tasks session after session—actively as they multiply restraints, or add patch after patch, they invariably find that the call for their labours is continually renewed. The more they…