When in the Summa Theologica Saint Thomas Aquinas treats of the sin of theft, he begins by explaining what he means by private property. This is not quite so cynical as it sounds, for all that he is at pains to point out is that I can hardly consider whether I have taken what belongs to another until I am quite settled in my own mind as to what others and myself have a right to possess. Nor is this an academic question idly disputed, of no practical consequence, but rather it is one of the engrossing subjects of the day, and in modern civilization the whole matter is being worked out quite swiftly to a definite conclusion in no very great length of time. Let me, therefore, under the light of God's illumination, examine the whole problem and see where the decisions of the faith step in and where I am left to settle the details by means of my own political and social theories. First, then, it is manifestly obvious that man has dominion over the things of earth - not, indeed, in the sense of having the absolute dominion such as is implied in creation and annihilation, for these are the sole and proper prerogatives of God: man's power lies simply in the faculty of adapting nature to serve his own particular ends. He has, therefore, the use of nature, and can alter its forms by his skill and thereby increase their utility to him. He has, therefore, the right to possess nature as his property. He can bridle the horse, and domesticate the cow, and reap the produce of the earth, and harness the forces of water, and do all the other thousand things that proclaim him the lord of creation. The right to hold property is in this sense nothing more than the development of personality, for when a man has put his own labour into a thing he has made it almost his own.
It is lawful, therefore, for a man to own property; but that is not where the real problem lies. The social grievance, if grievance there be, concerns the actual division of property as here and now obtaining that is to say, the whole trouble is not whether a man may possess things, for he must possess some things, but whether there is any limit or any condition to his possessions. Now it may be generally stated that by various historic developments it has become the practice among civilized nations to allow the individual to hold his own private property to the exclusion of his neighbour. From the oldest records and from the survival of certain customs, it would seem that primitively and till comparatively late the land and capital (if the word be allowed of a state of things prior to the existence of much commerce) were in possession of the tribe or commonalty; but that gradually there came a division of property where by each individual had something that was so entirely his that it could be inherited, exchanged, or given away. And the reason for this division, arising out of an original holding by the whole community, has been supposed to be the actual experience of the race that in this way things worked best. Human nature has repeatedly dis covered that what belongs to everybody becomes nobody's business to attend to, and that quarrels soon arise over what has no limits and no divisions, for perhaps two or more wish for the same or desire the whole to be employed in another way. To escape confusion, quarrelling, and neglect, private property has been devised. This justification, then, for the division of private property given by Saint Thomas and most Catholic writers, is therefore based on no moral law or sacred and inherent right, but only on the practical experience of humanity.
But it will also be noted that in the abstract it is perfectly legitimate to suppose such a condition of society where these troubles would not arise or would be overshadowed by greater evils on the other side. The justification for this division is based on the experience of the race; if, therefore, such a state of things should arise in which the experience of the race suddenly or slowly discovered that to avoid neglect, quarrels, confusion, it were better once again to resort to what is acknowledged on all hands to have been the earlier type of possession, who can denounce such a return as unchristian or immoral? From the Catholic point of view, therefore, I must look to the moral side of the dispute. The mere community of possession is not wrong in any sense; it has been customary among nations, and has been, besides, voluntarily praised by the Church of God. Which suits best the civilization in which I find myself is a matter that I must settle in my own mind, not attempting to define dogmatically what others should do. Least of all should I defend in the name of private property a system in which a certain large class lives always in the immediate vicinity of starvation. It is sheer cant for me to speak of the sacredness of private property when it consists for the moment in depriving many of private property altogether. The present arrangement of property was adopted because it was found to work; it may, there fore, be again discarded if it be found to have outlived its serviceableness. But my personal concern is to realize that what I have is allowed me for my own development, and I must look to it that it does not hinder my due approach to God.
- text taken from Meditations for Layfolk by Father Bede Jarrett, O.P.