The two-way relationship, whereby he was bound to his land and his use of the land was bound to him, had been dissolved. Many migrated to the cities, where the new industries absorbed them. Many came to America, to dispossess the Indians and set up the same system of private ownership that had victimized them abroad. If he has a job and is performing that job with ability, he has a property in it in so far as the usages of his society help to keep him in possession of it and to guarantee him its rewards. Such thinking suggest that property is as present in a communist state as in a commercial state.
Every state is a property state.
But by treating property as an absolute, rather than as relationship, the agrarians enjoy a one-way conception of property rights. When things are going well, their ideal private farmer, proud and free in the untrammeled possession of his acres, dismisses the government with dignity. On the other hand, if there are adversities, the government must be called in. Such matters as flood control, drought relief, education, road building and medication are to be handled with governmental assistance. One can question whether freedom, as so conceived, meets the needs of the modern economic order.