Note 37 — Chapter II · THE STATISTICIANS.

I cannot show the views of the author better than by quoting the following: “That the number of offenses against property must be related to the prevailing economic conditions, seems to need no proof. For the man who lives in the possession of abundance, the motive for appropriating the property of others is lacking, even though the inclination to commit all possible crimes slumbers within him. It is a favorite expression of the Social-democrats, that the abolition of private property would cause all crimes against property to disappear. They forget, while maintaining this, the probability that just as earlier private individuals were robbed, so under the new order the state would be, by people of the same kind—those who today, without living in want, still are not content with their lawful gains, and reach out after unlawful ones. The apostles of state-ownership, in order to make their contention credible, must at least offer proof that the offenses against property which are now punished, are entirely due to hunger and need on the part of those convicted. They cannot however, offer such proof. This is not because the government statistics … give no data with regard to the economic condition of the convicts, but because, as a matter of fact, the worst offenses against property are not committed by the hungry. The merchant who goes into a fraudulent bankruptcy, the banker who embezzles deposits, the worldling who forges drafts, have all taken the step into crime from a life, if not of abundance, at least of a competence. People of this kind will not disappear from the socialistic state. In their case the lack is not in the social system, but in their individual make-up.”37