The Acquisitive Society · Chapter
Rights and Functions explained
This chapter contrasts the French and English approaches to rights and property, arguing that while France abolished feudal property rights in the name of natural rights, England retained absolute property rights under the guise of utility.
What happens
This chapter contrasts the French and English approaches to rights and property, arguing that while France abolished feudal property rights in the name of natural rights, England retained absolute property rights under the guise of utility. It introduces the concept of function—activity embodying social purpose—as a critique of a society organized around individual rights without corresponding obligations. The chapter traces the historical shift from a purpose-driven social order to a mechanistic one, culminating in the industrial era's emphasis on individual rights divorced from social function.
Themes in this chapter
Function vs. Rights
The chapter explicitly defines function as activity embodying social purpose, contrasting it with the prevailing emphasis on individual rights irrespective of social contribution.
Property and Privilege
The chapter critiques absolute property rights as the foundation of social organization, arguing they privilege owners without requiring service or function.
Critique of the Acquisitive Society
The chapter criticizes a society where economic self-interest is pursued without moral limitation, and where rights are divorced from social purpose.
Characters to notice
- Bentham
Bentham is presented as completing the shift from natural rights to utility, transferring emphasis from individual freedom to social expediency, yet still endorsing absolute property rights.
- Adam Smith
Adam Smith is mentioned as a precursor who showed how individual rights could serve public good through the 'invisible hand' of the market.
- Providence
Providence is referenced in the context of the eighteenth-century belief in natural instincts as a substitute for God, with a quote about 'self-love and social' being the same.
Key passages
“A function may be defined as an activity which embodies and expresses the idea of social purpose. The essence of it is that the agent does not perform it merely for personal gain or to gratify himself, but recognizes that he is responsible for its discharge to some higher authority.”
A function is an activity that serves a social purpose, not just personal gain, and the agent is accountable to a higher authority.
This is the core definition of function, central to the chapter's argument.
“The result of such ideas in the world of practice was a society which was ruled by law, not by the caprice of Governments, but which recognized no moral limitation on the pursuit by individuals of their economic self-interest.”
These ideas led to a society governed by law but with no moral restraints on individuals pursuing economic self-interest.
This summarizes the critique of the acquisitive society.
“In England the idea of right had been negative and defensive, a barrier to the encroachment of Governments. The French leapt to the attack from trenches which the English had been content to defend, and in France the idea became affirmative and militant, not a weapon of defense, but a principle of social organization.”
In England, rights were seen as defensive barriers against government overreach, while in France they became an active principle for reorganizing society.
This contrasts the English and French conceptions of rights.