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DISCRETE STRUCTURES
BY HARRIET FELL AND JAVED A. ASLAM

EDITION

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 5.1 Simple Shift Ciphers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
5.1.1 Simple Shift Cipher Toys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
5.2 Encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
5.3 The mod Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
5.3.1 Properties of mod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
5.4 Simple Substitution Ciphers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
5.4.1 Shift Cipher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
5.4.2 Linear Ciphers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
5.5 Modular Arithmetic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.6 Powers mod n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
5.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

6 Integers and Division 71

6.1 Divides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
6.2 Primes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
6.2.1 Finding Primes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
6.2.2 Prime Number Decomposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
6.2.3 More About Primes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
6.3 Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
6.3.1 Racket (Scheme) Functions Related to Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
6.4 Greatest Common Divisor and Least Common Multiple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
6.4.1 Applications of gcd and lcm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
6.5 Euclidean Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
6.5.1 Using the Euclidean Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
6.5.2 Euclidean Algorithm Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
6.6 Extended Euclidean Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
6.7 Inverses mod n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
6.8 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

7 The RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adelman) Cryptosystem 87

7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
7.2 How Do Public-key Cryptosystems Work? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
7.3 How Does RSA Work? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
7.4 Why Does RSA Work? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
7.5 Is RSA Secure and Efficient? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

-
 7.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

III Combinatorics: Sets, Counting, and Probability 93

8 Sets 95
8.1 Set Definition and Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
8.2 Set Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
8.3 Set-Builder Notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
8.4 Venn Diagrams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
8.5 Set Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
8.5.1 ∪ Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
8.5.2 ∩ Intersection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
8.5.3 A Complement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
8.5.4 Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
8.5.5 Symmetric Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
8.5.6 Power Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
8.5.7 Cartesian Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
8.6 Computer Representation of Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
8.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

9 Counting 109
9.1 Basic Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
9.2 Inclusion-exclusion Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
9.3 Pigeonhole Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
9.3.1 Generalized Pigeonhole Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
9.4 Permutations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
9.5 Combinations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
9.6 Binomial Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
9.6.1 Pascal’s Triangle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
9.7 Balls-in-Bins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
9.8 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

-
10 Probability 137
10.1 Definitions and Basic Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
10.2 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
10.2.1 Dice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
10.2.2 Cards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
10.2.3 Urns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
10.2.4 Bytes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
10.3 Conditional Probability and Bayes Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
10.3.1 Conditional Probability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
10.3.2 Bayes Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
10.3.3 Explaining Monty Hall paradox using Bayes Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . 145
10.3.4 Another Application of Bayes Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
10.4 Markov Chains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
10.4.1 A Practical Method for Estimating the Stationary Distribution . . . . . . 150
10.5 PageRank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
10.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

IV Algorithmic Analysis: Searching and Sorting 159

11 Algorithms for Searching and Sorting: Description and Analyses 161

11.1 Algorithms for Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
11.1.1 Unordered Linear Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
11.1.2 Ordered Linear Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
11.1.3 Chunk Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
11.1.4 Binary Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
11.2 Analysis of Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
11.2.1 Linear Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
11.2.2 Chunk Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
11.2.3 Binary Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
11.2.4 Comparison of Search Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
11.3 Algorithms for Sorting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
11.3.1 Insertion Sort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
11.3.2 Selection Sort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
11.3.3 Merge Sort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
11.3.4 Comparison of Sorting Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

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 11.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

12 Sequences, Sums, and Series 175

12.1 Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
12.1.1 Arithmetic Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
12.1.2 Geometric Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
12.1.3 Quadratic Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
12.2 Series and Partial Sums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
12.2.1 Arithmetic Sums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
12.2.2 Geometric Sums and Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
12.2.3 Some Special Sums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
12.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

13 Mathematical Induction 191

13.1 The Principle of Mathematical Induction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
13.2 A First Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
13.3 More Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
13.4 Variations of Mathematical Induction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
13.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

14 Recurrences 197
14.1 Specifying Recurrences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
14.2 Solving Recurrences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
14.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

15 Growth of Functions 203

15.1 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

16 PCR 207
16.1 Why is PCR Such a Major Breakthrough? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
16.2 Why is PCR Controversial? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
16.3 Basic Biology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
16.4 Elementary Transformations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
16.5 The PCR Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

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 16.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

V Networks: Graphs and Trees 215

17 Graphs 217
17.1 Simple Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
17.2 Weighted Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
17.3 Graph Data Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
17.3.1 Adjacency List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
17.3.2 Matrices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
17.3.3 Adjacency Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
17.4 Graph Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
17.4.1 Graph Traversal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
17.4.2 Any Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
17.4.3 Shortest Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
17.4.4 Cheapest Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
17.4.5 Spanning Tree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
17.5 Graph Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
17.6 Directed Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
17.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

VI Relations: Properties and Applications 239

18 Relations 241
18.1 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
18.1.1 Equality and Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
18.1.2 Divides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
18.1.3 Set Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
18.1.4 Congruence mod n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
18.1.5 Triangles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
18.1.6 People to People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
18.1.7 People to Things . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
18.1.8 Programming Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
18.1.9 Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
18.1.10 Partitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

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 18.1.11 Networks and Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
18.2 Properties of Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
18.2.1 Reflexive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
18.2.2 Symmetric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
18.2.3 Transitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
18.3 Equivalence Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
18.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

VII Appendices 251

A Variables and Expressions 253

A.1 Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254

B Composite Expressions 255

Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

C Exponentials and Logarithms 259

C.1 Exponential Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
C.1.1 Properties of Exponentiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
C.2 Logarithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
C.2.1 Properties of Logarithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
C.3 Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

D Special Functions 263

D.1 Factorial Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
D.2 Floor and Ceiling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
D.3 Truncate and Round . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
D.4 Absolute Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

Solutions to Selected Exercises 267

Chapter 1 Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Chapter 2 Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Chapter 3 Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
Chapter 5 Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

-
 Chapter 6 Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
Chapter 7 Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Chapter 8 Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
Chapter 9 Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
Chapter 10 Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
Chapter 11 Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
Chapter 12 Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Chapter 13 Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
Chapter 14 Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Chapter 17 Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
Chapter A Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Chapter B Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Chapter C Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

Bibliography 319

Index 321

-
 Preface

Course Goals
This course introduces the mathematical structures and methods that form the foundation of
computer science. It includes many techniques that students are likely to use throughout their
careers in computer and information science. These techniques are motivated by applications
from computer science and supported by mathematical theory. Students will learn:

• specific skills, e.g., binary and modular arithmetic, set notation, and methods of count-
ing, evaluating sums, solving recurrences, . . .

• general knowledge, e.g., basics of probability, proof by induction, growth of functions,

and analysis techniques

• general problem solving techniques with many applications to real problems.

Topics
The course material is divided into five modules. Each module starts with a motivating ap-
plication then goes into techniques related to that application and the theory behind those
techniques. Each module ends with one or more fairly deep applications based on the material.

xiii

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Computers and Computing: Numbers, Circuits, and Logic

We start by discussing how we can represent things on a computer using only 0s and 1s and
how this can be implemented with transistors and switches. This leads naturally into a study
of gates (e.g. AND, OR, NOT gates), the mathematics (Boolean Algebra or Symbolic Logic)
underlying logic gates and how to design circuits based on truth tables. The module ends with
the construction of a ripple-carry adder and even a simple, programmable CPU.

Cryptography: Integers and Modular Arithmetic

We use the Caesar Cipher and other simple shift ciphers as a link to modular arithmetic. We
then encipher messages with linear functions and see the need to learn more about the algebra
of modular arithmetic. In particular, we need modular multiplicative inverses to decipher mes-
sages and this leads us to primes, prime factorization, the Euclidean Algorithm for efficiently
computing the GCD (greatest common divisor) of two positive integers, and the Extended

-
Euclidean Algorithm to efficiently compute multiplicative inverses modn when they exist. Fi-
nally, we talk about public-key cryptography and apply all of this math to understanding the
RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman) public-key cryptosystem.

Combinatorics: Sets, Counting, and Probability

We start by evaluating password criteria by counting how many passwords satisfy the given
conditions. Before we can count how many items there are in a set, we find that we need some
of the mathematics of sets e.g, set-builder notation, Venn diagrams, set operations, power sets,
and Cartesian products. Then we really get down to counting. That sounds simple but, for
most students, it is the hardest part of the course. We introduce the sum and product rules,
the inclusion-exclusion principle, the pigeonhole principle, permutations and combinations, the
Binomial theorem, and balls-in-bins alone and together to solve complex problems.
We first introduce probability in spaces where all outcomes are equally likely so that finding
the probability of an event comes down to counting the number of successful occurrences and
dividing by the total number of possible occurrences. This helps reinforce the counting methods.
We go on to conditional probability and Bayes’ theorem and its application to hypothesis testing.
We end with an introduction to Markov chains and their applications.

Algorithmic Analysis: Searching and Sorting

We begin by describing three algorithms for searching an ordered list of length n that run in time
√
proportional to n, n, and lg(n), respectively, in order to introduce the ideas of algorithmic
analysis. In order to analyze the performance of even for these simple algorithms, we see the
need for some mathematical formalization and tools for sequences and sums. We put these tools
to work for sorting algorithms but also delve into recurrence equations to model and analyze
binary search and merge sort. We introduce mathematical induction to support working with
and solving recurrence equations.
Growth of functions comes up as we discuss what all our analysis of algorithms means on
real computers. We demonstrate that a good algorithm is probably more important than a
faster machine. We also demonstrate that some algorithms are wholly impractical in the real
world because they take too long to run on any conceivable machine.

Networks: Graphs and Trees

Networks are ubiquitous these days: the internet, phone networks, the local area network at
your work or school, the subway system in your city are all networks. We use mathematical
graphs to model networks and work with the data structures that are used to represent them on

-
computers. We investigate some graph theory problems that are important in computing, e.g.,
finding the shortest or cheapest path between two nodes and finding a minimal sub network
that connects all the nodes. When you complete this module, you should be able to give the
adjacency list of a graph, use traversal algorithms to visit all the nodes of a graph, and follow
algorithms to find shortest paths and minimal spanning trees.

Acknowledgments
Several people have contributed to this book, and we would like to thank them here. Rajmohan
Rajaraman wrote the chapter on building a CPU. This chapter is based on material from the
course “Great Theoretical Ideas in Computer Science” taught by Steven Rudich at Carnegie
Mellon University. Eric Ropiak added the section on programming the CPU. He also contributed
many of the solutions to exercises. Chris Burrows wrote the chapter on mathematical induction,
and Ravi Sundaram wrote the chapter on PCR (polymerase chain reaction). We would also like
to thank the many instructors who have taught Discrete Structures in the College of Computer
and Information Science at Northeastern University, as well as the students who have taken
this course. Their collective feedback has been invaluable.

-
 Part I

Computers and Computing:

Numbers, Circuits, and Logic

-
 Chapter 1

Number Representations

Everything on computers is represented using 0s and 1s: positive integers, negative integers,
real numbers, text, all sorts of symbols, images, music, even videos and games. To understand
how we can do everything with just 0s and 1s, we’ll start by seeing how nonnegative integers
(0, 1, 2, and so on) can be represented this way.
We usually use ten digits (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) to represent numbers. If we do not
allow leading zeros, every nonnegative integer has a unique representation as a finite sequence
of digits. This way of representing numbers is called the decimal or base 10 system. This
system seems natural to us, partly because we have grown up with it and partly because we
have ten fingers. The word “digits” comes from the Latin word for finger, digitus. Computers
don’t usually have fingers; they have bits (0, 1) from the words “Binary” and “digIT.” Numbers
on computers are represented with just 0 and 1, using the binary or base 2 system. Before we
look at the binary system let’s remember and formalize how the decimal system works.
Let’s look at the number 35032 in decimal or base 10 notation. We don’t think of this number
as just the digits that make it up. We know that the position of the digits matters. At a glance,
we know this number as “thirty-five thousand thirty-two” Each of the digits represents some
number of ones or tens or hundreds or thousands or ten thousands depending on its position.
There are two 3s in 35032. The leftmost 3 represents three 10-thousands or 3 · 104 and the other
3 represents 3 tens or 3 · 101 . The zero means there are no hundreds and we write it to make
sure that the digits to the left of it land in the right place.

3503210 = 3 · 104 + 5 · 103 + 0 · 102 + 3 · 101 + 2 · 100 (remember that 100 is just 1)
= 30000 + 5000 + 00 + 30 + 2

-
4 Number Representations

We only need the digits 0, 1, ... ,9 to represent all nonnegative integers base 10, and there is
only one way to write each of these integers base 10.
Formally, if d0 , d1 , · · · , dn−1 , dn are digits, then

dn dn−1 · · · d2 d1 d0 = dn · 10n + dn−1 · 10n−1 + · · · + d1 · 101 + d0 · 100

n
= dk · 10k .
k=0

The following theorem tells us that we can use any integer b as a base for a number
representation system.

Theorem 1 Let b be an integer greater than 1. Then if n is a positive integer, n can be

expressed uniquely in the form

n = ak · bk + ak−1 · bk−1 + · · · + a1 · b1 + a0 · b0

where k is a nonnegative integer, a0 , a1 , · · · , ak are nonnegative integers less than b and ak = 0.

We say b is the base of expansion of n and we write n = (ak ak−1 · · · a1 a0 )b . For “short” numbers,
typically those with three digits or less, we often eliminate the parentheses (e.g., 1012 ). When
the base is understood, we do not write it as a subscript.

Example 1.1

2013 = 2 · 32 + 0 · 31 + 1 · 30
= 2·9+0·3+1·1
= 1910

2015 = 2 · 52 + 0 · 51 + 1 · 50
= 2 · 25 + 0 · 5 + 1 · 1
= 5110

We use the decimal (base 10) representation of integers in our everyday lives but as computer
scientists, we will also use binary (base 2) and hexadecimal (base 16) representations. The octal
(base 8) representation is rarely used these days but is included below for historical reasons.

-
1.1 Binary Representation 5

1.1 Binary Representation

In the binary representation, the base is 2 and the integers, ak , ak−1 , . . . , a1 , a0 must be nonneg-
ative and less than 2. The only choices are 0 and 1 but we are still able to express any positive
integer as indicated in the theorem.

Example 1.2

(100101)2 = 1 · 25 + 0 · 24 + 0 · 23 + 1 · 22 + 0 · 21 + 1 · 20
= 1 · 32 + 0 · 16 + 0 · 8 + 1 · 4 + 0 · 2 + 1 · 1
= 3710

(11010111)2 = 1 · 27 + 1 · 26 + 0 · 25 + 1 · 24 + 0 · 23 + 1 · 22 + 1 · 21 + 1 · 20
= 1 · 128 + 1 · 64 + 0 · 32 + 1 · 16 + 0 · 8 + 1 · 4 + 1 · 2 + 1 · 1
= 21510

The decimal numbers 0 through 15 written in their binary or base 2 representation are:

0, 1, 10, 11, 100, 101, 110, 111, 1000, 1001, 1010, 1011, 1100, 1101, 1110, 1111.

1.1.1 Simple Binary Arithmetic

Binary Addition

When you add two positive decimal integers by hand, you probably use the addition algorithm
you learned in elementary school. You write the numbers one under the other, right adjusted,
then, starting on the right-hand side, you add the two digits in the ones column. If the sum
is 9 or less, i.e. a single digit, you write the digit and go on to the tens place. If the sum is
10 or greater, you write the ones place digit and carry the tens place digit by writing it above
the tens column. You then add the digits in the tens column as you did with the ones column,
carrying to the hundreds column and so one, until you have no digits left to add.

-
6 Number Representations

Example 1.3

1 1 1

3 8 0 8 5 3
+ 5 4 3 2 9
4 3 5 1 8 2

The same algorithm applies to adding binary integers but when you add the bits in a column,
you either get a sum less than two and you write the single bit, 0 or 1, in that place, or you get
a sum of 2 or 3 and you write the ones bit of the sum in that place and carry the twos bit to
the next place.

Example 1.4

1 1 1 1 1

1 1 0 1 0 1 5 3
⇐⇒
+ 1 0 1 1 1 + 2 3
1 0 0 1 1 0 0 7 6

Binary Subtraction

The subtraction algorithm you learned in elementary school can also be applied to subtracting
binary numbers. Let’s first look at the following example of decimal (base 10) subtraction. We
start on the right-hand side, in the ones place. Since 3 is less than 9, we borrow 1 from the tens
place to make 13. To do this, we replace the 5 in the tens place with a 4. We than subtract 9
from 13 and write down the resulting 4 in the answer’s ones place. We subtract 2 from 4 in the
tens place to get 2. In the hundreds place, we have to borrow again but this time we have to
do a double borrow as there is a 0 in the top number’s thousands place. We borrowed 1 from
the 8 in the ten-thousands place to make 10 in the thousands place and then borrowed 1 from
that ten to make 12 in the hundreds place.

Example 1.5

7 9 4
3 8 10 12 5 13

− 5 4 3 2 9
3 2 5 9 2 4

-
1.1 Binary Representation 7

The following example shows a subtraction of one binary number from another. In the ones
place, 1 take-away 1 results in 0. In the twos place, we have to borrow 1 from the fours place.
Then 102 = 210 take-away 1 results in 1. We now have to subtract 1 from 0 in the fours place
so we have to borrow again and this time it is a double borrow similar to the situation in the
decimal example above.

Example 1.6

1 1
0 1 0
1 1 10 1 10 1 5 3
⇐⇒
− 1 0 1 1 1 − 2 3
1 1 1 1 0 3 0

Binary Multiplication

Once again, let’s start by looking at an example of the multiplication algorithm in standard
decimal (base 10) notation. Below, we compute the product 312 × 2013. We multiply 312 by
each of the digits of 2013, starting at the right and writing the results below the line. Each
successive product is placed one space to the left of the previous product to account for the
extra power of 10 implicit in the computation. When a digit of the multiplier is 0, we usually
just write a single 0 for the product and then place the next product on the same line, as shown
below. Finally, we add the results of our multiplies by one digit to get the desired result.

Example 1.7

3 1 2
× 2 0 1 3
9 3 6
3 1 2
6 2 4 0
6 2 8 0 5 6

Binary multiplication works the same way but it is much easier to do since there are only
0s and 1s to work with. Each little computation is a multiply by 1 where you just copy the
multiplicand or a multiply by 0 where you just write 0 and go on to the next bit. With binary

-
8 Number Representations

arithmetic, you are writing each little result one place further to the left to account for an extra
power of 2. Here is an example of binary multiplication.

Example 1.8

1 1 0
× 1 0 1 1
1 1 0
1 1 0
1 1 0 0
1 0 0 0 0 1 0

Multiplication and Division by 2

When we multiply an integer by ten all we have to do is add a zero to the right side of the
integer’s decimal representation.

10 × 3257 = 32570

This follows from the meaning of the decimal representation.

3257 = 3 · 103 + 2 · 102 + 5 · 101 + 7 · 100

10 × 3257 = 3 · 104 + 2 · 103 + 5 · 102 + 7 · 101 = 32570

Inversely, if a decimal integer ends in a zero, we can easily divide the integer by ten by simply
removing the zero. If the integer does not end in a zero then removing the rightmost digit gives
the integer part of the result of dividing by ten.

Similarly, in binary, we can multiply an integer by two by adding a zero to the right hand side
of its binary representation.

210 × 110101 = 102 × 1101012 = 11010102

This follows from the meaning of the binary representation.

1101012 = 1 · 25 + 1 · 24 + 0 · 23 + 1 · 22 + 0 · 21 + 1 · 20

-
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
social, military, and political services, as well as a payment for the
use of land. This system was private ownership, indeed, but if we
apply the Roman notion of ownership we shall find it difficult to
decide whether the tenant or the lord should more properly be called
the owner. At any rate, the right of ownership possessed by the lord
was greatly limited by restrictions which favoured the masses of the
cultivators. In every community there were common wood lands and
pasture lands for the free use of all the inhabitants. Among other
restrictions of private ownership and control in favour of the principle
of equal access to the land by all persons, we may mention the
division of the English villein's holding into several portions,
intermingled with those of his neighbours, so that each would have
about the same amount of good land; and the ancient Hebrew law
whereby alienated land was returned to the descendants of its
original owners every fifty years.[7]
Reckoning the feudal lord, and all other overlords who had the same
control over land, as private proprietors, we may say that in
historical times the arable land of every country has been owned by
a minority of the population. Since the downfall of feudalism, the
tendency in most regions of the Western world has been toward an
increase in the number of owners, and a decrease in the number of
great estates. This tendency has been especially marked during the
last one hundred years. It will, however, need to continue for a very
long time, or else to increase its pace very rapidly, before land
ownership will be diffused in anything like the measure that is
necessary if its benefits are to be shared by all the people. Even in
the United States, where the distribution is perhaps more general
than in any other country, only 38.4 per cent. of the families in
towns and cities owned, in 1910, the homes in which they lived, and
therefore the land upon which their homes were located. In the rural
districts the per cent. of home-owning families was only 62.8.

Conclusions from History

What conclusions does history warrant concerning the social and
moral value of private landownership? Here we are on very uncertain
ground; for different inferences may be drawn from the same group
of facts if a different section of them be selected for emphasis. Sir
Henry Maine and Henry George both accepted the theory of
primitive agrarian communism, but the former saw in this assumed
fact a proof that common ownership was suited only to the needs of
rude and undeveloped peoples, while the latter regarded it as a sure
indication that common ownership was fundamentally natural and in
accordance with permanent social welfare. The fact that practically
all peoples whose history we know discarded communal for private
ownership as soon as they had acquired a moderate degree of
proficiency in methods of cultivation and in the arts of civilised life
does, indeed, create a presumption that the latter system is the
better for civilised men. To this extent Sir Henry Maine is right.
Against this presumption Henry George maintained that common
ownership was abandoned solely because of the usurpation, fraud,
and force employed by the powerful and privileged classes.
Undoubtedly this factor played a great part in bringing about the
private ownership that has existed and still exists, but it does not
account for the institution as a whole and everywhere. If chiefs,
kings, and other powerful personages had never usurped control of
the land, if no people had ever conquered the territory of another, it
is probable that private ownership would have taken place to the
same extent, although it would have been much more widely
diffused. For the system of periodical repartition of land, to say
nothing of communal cultivation and communal distribution of the
product, does hinder that attachment to a particular portion of the
soil and that intensive cultivation which are so necessary to the best
interests of the cultivator, the most productive use of the land, and
therefore the welfare of society.
On the other hand, the limitations on the right of private ownership
which have been established in so many places and times in favour
of those who were not owners, show that men have very generally
looked upon land as in some measure the inheritance of all the
people. Hence arises the presumption that this conviction is but the
reflection of fundamental and permanent human needs.
Summing up the matter, we may say that the history of land tenure
points on the whole to the conclusion that private ownership is
socially and individually preferable to agrarian communism, but that
it should be somewhat strictly limited in the interest of the non-
owners, and of the community as a whole.
 CHAPTER III
THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST PRIVATE LANDOWNERSHIP

If land were not privately owned there would be no receiving of rent

by individuals. Therefore, the morality of the landlord's share of the
national product is intimately related to, and is usually treated in
connection with, the morality of private ownership.
Substantially all the opponents of private property in land to-day are
either Socialists or disciples of Henry George. In the view of the
former, land as well as the other means of production should be
owned and managed by the State. Although they are more
numerous than the Georgeites, their attack upon private
landownership is less conspicuous and less formidable than the
propaganda carried on by the Henry George men. The Socialists give
most of their attention to the artificial instruments of production,
dealing with land only incidentally, implicitly, or occasionally. The
followers of Henry George, commonly known as Single Taxers or
Single Tax men, defend the private ownership of artificial capital, or
capital in the strict economic sense, but desire that the control of the
community over the natural means of production should be so far
extended as to appropriate for public uses all economic rent. Their
criticism of private ownership is not only more prominent than that
made by the Socialists, but is based to a much greater extent upon
ethical considerations.

Arguments by Socialists

Indeed, the orthodox or Marxian Socialists are logically debarred by

their social philosophy from passing a strictly moral judgment upon
property in land. For their theory of economic determinism, or
historical materialism, involves the belief that private landownership,
like all other social institutions, is a necessary product of economic
forces and processes. Hence it is neither morally good nor morally
bad. Since neither its existence nor its continuance depends upon
the human will, it is entirely devoid of moral quality. It is as unmoral
as the succession of the seasons, or the movement of the tides. And
it will disappear through the inevitable processes of economic
evolution. As expressed by Engels: "The growing perception that
existing social institutions are unreasonable and unjust, that reason
has become unreason, and right wrong, is only proof that in the
modes of production and exchange changes have taken place, with
which the social order, adapted to earlier economic conditions, is no
longer in keeping."[8]
Frequently, however, the individual Socialist forgets this materialistic
theory, and falls back upon his common sense, and his innate
conceptions of right and wrong, of free will and responsibility.
Instead of regarding the existing land system as a mere product of
blind economic forces, he often denounces it as morally wrong and
unjust. His contentions may be reduced to two propositions: The
proprietor who takes rent from a cultivator robs the producer of a
part of his product; and no one has a right to take for his exclusive
use that which is the natural heritage and means of support for all
the people. Referring to the receipt of 35,000,000 pounds a year in
rent by 8,000 British landlords, Hyndman and Morris exclaim: "Yet in
the face of all this a certain school still contend that there is no class
robbery."[9] Since the claim that the labourer has a right to the full
product of his labour applies to capital as well as to land, it can be
more conveniently considered when we come to treat of the income
of the capitalist. With regard to the second contention, the following
statement by Robert Blatchford may be taken as fairly representative
of Socialist thought: "The earth belongs to the people.... So that he
who possesses land possesses that to which he has no right, and he
who invests his savings in land becomes the purchaser of stolen
property."[10] Inasmuch as this argument is substantially the same
as one of the fundamental contentions in the system of Henry
George, it will be discussed in connection with the latter, in the
pages immediately following.

Henry George's Attack on the Title of First

Occupancy

Every concrete right, whether to land or to artificial goods, is based

upon some contingent fact or ground, called a title. By reason of
some title a man is justified in appropriating a particular farm,
house, or hat. When he becomes the proprietor of a thing that has
hitherto been ownerless, his title is said to be original; when he
acquires an article from some previous owner, his title is said to be
derived. As an endless series of proprietors is impossible, every
derived title must be traceable ultimately to some original title.
Among the derived titles the most important are contract,
inheritance, and prescription. The original title is either first
occupancy or labour. The prevailing view among the defenders of
private landownership has always been that the original title is not
labour but first occupancy. If this title be not valid every derived title
is worthless, and no man has a true right to the land that he calls his
own. Henry George's attack upon the title of first occupancy is an
important link in his argument against private property in land.
"Priority of occupation give exclusive and perpetual title to the
surface of a globe in which, in the order of nature, countless
generations succeed each other!... Has the first comer at a banquet
the right to turn back all the chairs, and claim that none of the other
guests shall partake of the food provided, except as they make
terms with him? Does the first man who presents a ticket at the door
of a theatre, and passes in, acquire by his priority the right to shut
the doors and have the performance go on for him alone?... And to
this manifest absurdity does the recognition of the individual right to
land come when carried to its ultimate that any human being, could
he concentrate in himself the individual rights to the land of any
country, could expel therefrom all the rest of the inhabitants; and
could he concentrate the individual rights to the whole surface of the
globe, he alone of all the teeming population of the earth would
have the right to live."[11]
In passing, it may be observed that Henry George was not the first
distinguished writer to use the illustration drawn from the theatre.
Cicero, St. Basil, and St. Thomas Aquinas all employed it to refute
extravagant conceptions of private ownership. In reply to the
foregoing argument of Henry George, we point out: first, that the
right of ownership created by first occupancy is not unlimited, either
extensively or intensively; and, second, that the historical injustices
connected with private ownership have been in only a comparatively
slight degree due to the first occupation of very large tracts of land.
The right of first occupancy does not involve the right to take a
whole region or continent, compelling all subsequent arrivals to
become tenants of the first. There seems to be no good reason to
think that the first occupant is justified in claiming as his own more
land than he can cultivate by his own labour, or with the assistance
of those who prefer to be his employés or his tenants rather than
independent proprietors. "He has not the right to reserve for himself
alone the whole territory, but only that part of it which is really
useful to him, which he can make fruitful."[12] Nor is the right of
private landownership, on whatever title it may rest, unlimited
intensively, that is, in its powers or comprehension. Though a man
should have become the rightful owner of all the land in a
neighbourhood, he would have no moral right to exclude therefrom
those persons who could not without extreme inconvenience find a
living elsewhere. He would be morally bound to let them cultivate it
at a fair rental. The Christian conception of the intensive limitations
of private ownership is well exemplified in the action of Pope
Clement IV, who permitted strangers to occupy the third part of any
estate which the proprietor refused to cultivate himself.[13]
Ownership understood as the right to do what one pleases with
one's possessions, is due partly to the Roman law, partly to the Code
Napoléon, but chiefly to modern theories of individualism.
In the second place, the abuses which have accompanied private
property in land are very rarely traceable to abuses of the right of
first occupancy. The men who have possessed too much land, and
the men who have used their land as an instrument of social
oppression, have scarcely ever been first occupants or the
successors thereof through derived titles. This is especially true of
modern abuses, and modern legal titles. In the words of Herbert
Spencer: "Violence, fraud, the prerogative of force, the claims of
superior cunning,—these are the sources to which these titles may
be traced. The original deeds were written with the sword, rather
than with the pen: not lawyers but soldiers were the conveyancers:
blows were the current coin given in payment; and for seals blood
was used in preference to wax."[14] Not the appropriation of land
which nobody owned, but the forcible and fraudulent seizure of land
which had already been occupied, has been one of the main causes
of the evils attending upon private landownership. Moreover, in
England and all other countries that have adopted her legal system,
the title of first occupancy could never be utilised by individuals: all
unoccupied land was claimed by the Crown or by the State, and
transferred thence to private persons or corporations. If some
individuals have got possession of too much land through this
process, the State, not the title of first occupancy, must bear the
blame. This is quite clear in the history of land tenure in the United
States and Australasia.
Henry George's attack upon private landownership through the title
of first occupancy is therefore ineffective; for he attributes to this
qualities that it does not possess, and consequences for which it is
not responsible.

His Defence of the Title of Labour

Thinking that he has shattered the title of first occupancy, Henry
George undertakes to set up in its place the title of labour. "There
can be to the ownership of anything no rightful title which is not
derived from the title of the producer, and does not rest on the
natural right of the man to himself."[15] The only original title is
man's right to the exercise of his own faculties; from this right
follows his right to what he produces; now man does not produce
land; therefore he cannot have rightful property in land. Of these
four propositions the first is a pure assumption, the second is
untrue, the third is a truism, and the fourth is as unfounded as the
first. Dependently upon God, man has, indeed, a right to himself and
to the exercise of his own faculties; but this is a right of action, not
of property. By the exercise of this right alone man can never
produce anything, never become the owner of anything. He can
produce only by exerting his powers upon something outside of
himself; that is, upon the goods of external nature. To become the
producer and the owner of a product, he must first become the
owner of materials. By what title is he to acquire these? In one
passage[16] Henry George seems to think that no title is necessary,
and refers to the raw material as an "accident," while the finished
product is the "essence," declaring that "the right of private
ownership attaches the accident to the essence, and gives the right
of ownership to the natural material in which the labour of
production is embodied." Now this solution of the difficulty is too
simple and arbitrary. Its author would have shrunk from applying it
universally; for example, to the case of the shoemaker who produces
a pair of shoes out of stolen materials, or the burglar who makes an
overcoat more useful (and therefore performs a task of production)
by transferring it from a warehouse to his shivering back! Evidently
Henry George has in mind only raw material in the strict sense, that
which has not yet been separated from the storehouse of nature; for
he declares in another place that "the right to the produce of labour
cannot be enjoyed without the free use of the opportunities offered
by nature."[17] In other words, man's title to the materials upon
which he is to exercise his faculties, and of which he is to become
the owner by right of production, is the title of gift conferred by
nature, or nature's God.
Nevertheless this title is applicable only to those goods that exist in
unlimited abundance, not to those parts of the natural bounty that
are scarce and possess economic value. A general assumption by
producers that they were entitled to take possession of the gifts of
nature indiscriminately would mean industrial anarchy and civil war.
Hence Henry George tells us that the individual should pay rent to
"the community to satisfy the equal rights of all other members of
the community."[18] Inasmuch as the individual must pay this price
before he begins to produce, his right to the use of natural
opportunities is not "free," nor does his labour alone constitute a
title to that part of them that he utilises in production. Consequently
labour does not create a right to the concrete product. It merely
gives the producer a right to the value that he adds to the raw
material. His right to the raw material itself, to the elements that he
withdraws from the common store, and fashions into a product, say,
wheat, lumber, or steel, does not originate in the title of labour but
in the title of contract. This is the contract by which in exchange for
rent paid to the community he is authorised to utilise these
materials. Until he has made this contract he has manifestly no full
right to the product into which natural forces as well as his own
labour have entered. According to Henry George's own statements,
therefore, the right to the product does not spring from labour
alone, but from labour plus compensation to the community. Since
the contract by which the prospective user agrees to pay this
compensation or rent must precede his application of labour, it
instead of labour is the original title. Since the contract is made with
a particular community for the use of a particular piece of land, the
title that it conveys must derive ultimately from the occupation of
that land by that community,—or some previous community of which
the present one is the legal heir. So far as economically valuable
materials are concerned, therefore, the logic of Henry George's
principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that the original title of
ownership is first occupancy.
Even in the case of economically free goods, the original title of
ownership is occupancy. Henry George declares that the traveller
who has filled his vessels at a free-for-all spring owns the water
when he has carried it into a desert, by the title of labour.[19]
Nevertheless, in its original place this water belonged either to the
community or to nobody. In the former supposition it can become
the property of the traveller only through an explicit or implicit gift
from the community; and it is this contract, not labour, that
constitutes his title to the water. If we assume that the spring was
ownerless, we see that the labour of carrying a portion of it into the
desert still lacks the qualifications of a title; for the abstracted water
must have belonged to him before he began the journey. It must
have been his from the moment that he separated it from the
spring. Otherwise he had no right to take it away. His labour of
transporting it gave him a right to the utility thus added to the water,
but not a right to the water when it first found a local habitation in
his vessels. Nor was the labour of transferring it from the spring into
his vessels the true title; for labour alone cannot create a right to the
material upon which it is exerted, as we see in the case of stolen
objects. If it be contended that labour together with the natural right
to use the ownerless goods of nature have all the elements of a valid
title, the assertion must be rejected as unprecise and inadequate.
The right to use ownerless goods is a general and abstract right that
requires to become specific and concrete through some title. In the
case of water it is a right to water in general, to some water, but not
a right to a definite portion of the water in this particular spring. The
required and sufficient title here is that of apprehension, occupation,
the act of separating a portion from the natural reservoir. Therefore,
it is first occupancy as exemplified in mere seizure of an ownerless
good, not labour in the sense of productive activity, nor labour in the
sense of painful exertion, that constitutes the precise title whereby
the man acquires a right to the water that he has put into his cup or
barrel. Mere seizure is a sufficient title in all such cases as that which
we are now considering, simply because it is a reasonable method of
determining and specifying ownership. There is no need whatever of
having recourse to the concept of labour to justify this kind of
property right. In the present case, indeed, the acts of apprehension
and of productive labour (the labour of dipping the water into a
vessel is productive inasmuch as the water is more useful there than
in the spring) are the same physically, but they are distinct logically
and ethically. One is mere occupation, while the other is production;
and ownership of a thing must precede, in morals if not in time, the
expenditure upon it of productive labour.
"The theory which bases the right of property on labour really
depends in the ultimate resort on the right of possession and the
fact that it is socially expedient, and is therefore upheld by the laws
of society. Grotius, discussing this in the old Roman days, pointed
out that since nothing can be made except out of pre-existing
matter, acquisition by means of labour depends, ultimately, on
possession by means of occupation."[20]
Since man's right to his faculties does not of itself give him a right to
exercise them upon material objects, productive labour cannot of
itself give him a right to the product therefrom created, nor
constitute the original title of ownership. Since labour is not the
original title to property, it is not the only possible title to property in
land. Hence the fact that labour does not produce land, has no
bearing on the question of private landownership.
In passing it may be observed that Henry George implicitly admitted
that the argument from the labour title was not of itself sufficient to
disprove the right of private property in land. Considering the
objection, "if private property in land be not just, then private
property in the products of land is not just, as the material of these
products is taken from the land," he replied that the latter form of
ownership "is in reality a mere right of temporary possession," since
the raw material in the products sooner or later returns to the
"reservoirs provided for all ... and thus the ownership of them by
one works no injury to others."[21] But private ownership of land, he
continued, shuts out others from the very reservoirs. Here we have a
complete abandonment of the principle which underlies the labour
argument. Instead of trying to show from the nature of the situation
that there is a logical difference between the two kinds of
ownership, he shifts his ground to a consideration of consequences.
He makes the title of social utility instead of the title of labour the
distinguishing and decisive consideration. As we shall see later, he is
wrong even on this ground; for the fundamental justification of
private landownership is precisely the fact that it is the system of
land tenure most conducive to human welfare. At present we merely
call attention to the breakdown in his own hands of the labour
argument.
To sum up the entire discussion on the original title of ownership:
Henry George's attack upon first occupancy is futile because based
upon an exaggerated conception of the scope of private
landownership, and upon a false assumption concerning the
responsibility of that title for the historical evils of the system. His
attempt to substitute labour as the original title is likewise
unsuccessful, since labour can give a right only to the utility added
to natural materials, not to the materials themselves. Ownership of
the latter reaches back finally to occupation. Whence it follows that
the title to an artificial thing, such as a hat or coat, water taken from
a spring, a fish drawn from the sea, is a joint or two-fold title;
namely, occupation and labour. Where the product embodies scarce
and economically valuable raw material, occupation is usually prior
to labour in time; in all cases it is prior to labour logically and
ethically. Since labour is not the original title, its absence in the case
of land does not leave that form of property unjustified. The title of
first occupancy remains. In a word, the one original title of all
property, natural and artificial, is first occupancy.
The other arguments of Henry George against private landownership
are based upon the assumed right of all mankind to land and land
values, and on the contention that this right is violated by the
present system of tenure.
The Right of All Men to the Bounty of the Earth

"The equal right of all men to the use of land is as clear as their
equal right to breathe the air—it is a right proclaimed by the fact of
their existence. For we cannot suppose that some men have a right
to be in the world, and others no right.
"If we are here by the equal permission of the Creator, we are all
here with an equal title to the enjoyment of his bounty—with an
equal right to the use of all that nature so impartially offers.... There
is in nature no such thing as a fee simple in land. There is on earth
no power which can rightfully make a grant of exclusive ownership
of land. If all existing men were to grant away their equal rights,
they could not grant away the rights of those who follow them. For
what are we but tenants for a day? Have we made the earth that we
should determine the rights of those who after us shall tenant it in
their turn?"[22]
The right to use the goods of nature for the support of life is
certainly a fundamental natural right; and it is substantially equal in
all persons. It arises, on the one hand, from man's intrinsic worth,
his essential needs, and his final destiny; and, on the other hand,
from the fact that nature's bounty has been placed by God at the
disposal of all His children indiscriminately. But this is a general and
abstract right. What does it imply specifically and in the concrete? In
the first place, it includes the actual and continuous use of some
land; for a man cannot support life unless he is permitted to occupy
some portion of the earth for the purposes of working, and eating,
and sleeping. Secondly, it means that in time of extreme need, and
when more orderly methods are not available, a man has the right to
seize sufficient goods, natural or produced, public or private, to
support life. So much is admitted and taught by all Catholic
authorities, and probably by all other authorities. Furthermore, the
abstract right in question seems very clearly to include the concrete
right to obtain on reasonable conditions at least the requisites of a
decent livelihood; for example, by direct access to a piece of land, or
in return for a reasonable amount of useful labour. All of these
particular rights are equally valid in all persons.
Does the equal right to use the bounty of nature include the right to
equal shares of land, or land values, or land advantages? Since the
resources of nature have been given to all men in general, and since
human nature is specifically and juridically equal in all, have not all
persons the right to share equally in these resources? Suppose that
some philanthropist hands over to one hundred persons an
uninhabited island, on condition that they shall divide it among
themselves with absolute justice. Are they not obliged to divide it
equally? On what ground can any person claim or be awarded a
larger share than his fellows? None is of greater intrinsic worth than
another, nor has any one made efforts, or sacrifices, or products
which will entitle him to exceptional treatment. The correct principle
of distribution would seem to be absolute equality, except in so far
as it may be modified on account of varying needs, and varying
capacities for social service. In any just distribution account must be
taken of differences in needs and capacities; for it is not just to treat
men as equal in those respects in which they are unequal, nor is it
fair to deprive the community of those social benefits which can be
obtained only by giving exceptional rewards for exceptional services.
The same amount of food allotted to two persons might leave one
hungry and the other sated; the same amount of land assigned to
two persons might tempt the one to wastefulness and discourage
the other. To be sure, the factor of exceptional capacity should not
figure in the distribution until all persons had received that measure
of natural goods which was in each case sufficient for a decent
livelihood. For the fundamental justification of any distribution is to
be sought in human needs; and among human needs the most
deserving and the most urgent are those which must be satisfied as
a prerequisite to right and reasonable life.
Now it is true that private ownership of land has nowhere realised
this principle of proportional equality and proportional justice. No
such result is possible in a system that, in addition to other
difficulties, would be required to make a new distribution at every
birth and at every death. Private ownership of land can never bring
about ideal justice in distribution. Nevertheless it is not necessarily
out of harmony with the demands of practical justice. A community
that lacks either the knowledge or the power to establish the ideal
system is not guilty of actual injustice because of this failure. In such
a situation the proportionally equal rights of all men to the bounty of
nature are not actual rights. They are conditional, or hypothetical, or
suspended. At best they have no more moral validity than the right
of a creditor to a loan that, owing to the untimely death of the
debtor, he can never recover. In both cases it is misleading to talk of
injustice; for this term always implies that some person or
community is guilty of some action which could have been avoided.
The system of private landownership is not, indeed, perfect; but this
is not exceptional in a world where the ideal is never attained, and
all things are imperfect. Henry George declares that "there is on
earth no power which can rightfully make a grant of exclusive
ownership in land"; but what would he have a community do which
has never heard of his system? Introduce some crude form of
communism, or refrain from using the land at all, and permit the
people to starve to death in the interests of ideal justice? Evidently
such a community must make grants of exclusive ownership, and
these will be as valid in reason and in morals as any other act that is
subject to human limitations which are at the time irremovable.
Perhaps the Single Taxer would admit the force of the foregoing
argument. He might insist that the titles given by the State in such
conditions were not exclusive grants in the strict sense, but were
valid only until a better system could be set up, and the people put
in possession of their natural heritage. Let us suppose, then, that a
nation were shown "a more excellent way." Suppose that the people
of the United States set about to establish Henry George's system in
the way that he himself advocated. They would forthwith impose
upon all land an annual tax equivalent to the annual rent. What
would be the effect upon private land-incomes, and private land-
wealth? Since the first would be handed over to the State in the
form of a tax, the second would utterly disappear. For the value of
land, like the value of any other economic good, depends upon the
utilities that it embodies or produces. Whoever controls these will
control the market value of the land itself. No man will pay anything
for a revenue-producing property if some one else, for example, the
State, is forever to take the revenue. The owner of a piece of land
which brings him an annual revenue or rent of one hundred dollars,
will not find a purchaser for it if the State appropriates the one
hundred dollars in the form of a tax that is to be levied year after
year for all time. On the assumption that the revenue represents a
selling value of two thousand dollars, the private owner will be worth
that much less after the introduction of the new system.
Henry George defends this proceeding as emphatically just, and
denies the justice of compensating the private owners. In the
chapter of "Progress and Poverty" headed, "Claim of Land Owners to
Compensation," he declares that "private property in land is a bold,
bare, enormous wrong, like that of chattel slavery"; and against
Mill's statement that land owners have a right to rent and to the
selling value of their holdings, he exclaims: "If the land of any
country belong to the people of that country, what right, in morality
and justice, have the individuals called land owners to the rent? If
the land belong to the people, why in the name of morality and
justice should the people pay its salable value for their own?"[23]
Here, then, we have the full implication of the Georgean principle
that private property in land is essentially unjust. It is not merely
imperfect,—tolerable while unavoidable. When it can be supplanted
by the right system, its inequalities must not continue under another
form. If inequalities are continued through the compensation of
private owners, individuals are still hindered from enjoying their
equal rights to land, and the State becomes guilty of formal and
culpable injustice. The titles which the State formerly guaranteed to
the private owners did not have in morals the perpetual validity
which they professed to have. Since the State is not the owner of
the land, it was morally powerless to create or sanction titles of this
character. Even if all the citizens at any given time had deliberately
transferred the necessary authorisation to the State, "they could
not," in the words of Henry George, "grant away the right of those
who follow them." The individual's right to land is innate and natural,
not civil or social. The author of "Progress and Poverty" attributes to
the individual's common right to land precisely the same absolute
character that Father Liberatore predicates of the right to become a
private land owner.[24] In the view of Henry George, the State is
merely the trustee of the land, having the duty of distributing its
benefits and values so as to make effective the equal rights of all
individuals. Consequently, the legal titles of private ownership which
it creates or sanctions are valid only so long as nothing better is
available. At best such titles have no greater moral force than the
title by which an innocent purchaser holds a stolen watch; and the
persons who are thereby deprived of their proper shares of land
benefits, have the same right to recover them from the existing
private owners that the watch-owner has to recover his property
from the innocent purchaser. Hence the demand for compensation
has no more merit in the one case than in the other.
To the objection that the civil laws of many civilised countries would
permit the innocent purchaser of the watch to retain it, provided that
sufficient time had elapsed to create a title of prescription, the Single
Taxer would reply that the two kinds of goods are not on the same
moral basis in all respects. He would contend that the natural
heritage of the race is too valuable, and too important for human
welfare to fall under the title of prescription.
To put the matter briefly, then, Henry George contends that the
individual's equal right to land is so much superior to the claim of
the private owner that the latter must give way, even when it
represents an expenditure of money or other valuable goods. The
average opponent does not seem to realise the full force of the
impression which this theory makes upon the man who
overemphasises the innate rights of men to a share in the gifts of
nature. Let us see whether this right has the absolute and
overpowering value which is attributed to it by Henry George.
In considering this question, the supremely important fact to be kept
in mind is that the natural right to land is not an end in itself. It is
not a prerogative that inheres in men, regardless of its purposes or
effects. It has validity only in so far as it promotes individual and
social welfare. As regards individual welfare, we must bear in mind
that this phrase includes the well being of all persons, of those who
do as well as of those who do not at present enjoy the benefits of
private landownership. Consequently the proposal to restore to the
"disinherited" the use of their land rights must be judged by its
effects upon the welfare of all persons. If existing landowners are
not compensated they are deprived, in varying amounts, of the
conditions of material well being to which they have become
accustomed, and are thereby subjected to varying degrees of
positive inconvenience and hardship. The assertion that this loss
would be offset by the moral gain in altruistic feelings and
consciousness, may be passed over as applying to a different race of
beings from those who would be despoiled. The hardship is
aggravated considerably by the fact that very many of the
dispossessed private owners have paid the full value of their land out
of the earnings of labour or capital, and that all of them have been
encouraged by society and the State to regard landed property in
precisely the same way as any other kind of property. In the latter
respect they are not in the same position as the innocent purchaser
of the stolen watch; for they have never been warned by society
that the land might have been virtually stolen, or that the
supposedly rightful claimants might some day be empowered by the
law to recover possession. On the other hand, the persons who own
no land under the present system, the persons who are deprived of
their "birthright," suffer no such degree of hardship when they are
continued in that condition. They are kept out of something which
they have never possessed, which they have never hoped to get by
any such easy method, and from which they have not been
accustomed to derive any benefit. To prolong this condition is not to
inflict upon them any new or positive inconvenience. Evidently their
welfare and claims in the circumstances are not of the same moral
importance as the welfare and claims of persons who would be
called upon to suffer the loss of goods already possessed and
enjoyed, and acquired with the full sanction of society.
Henry George is fond of comparing the private owner of land with
the slave owner, and the landless man with the man enslaved; but
there is a world of difference between their respective positions and
moral claims. Liberty is immeasurably more important than land, and
the hardship suffered by the master when he is compelled to free
the slave is immeasurably less than that endured by the slave who is
forcibly detained in bondage. Moreover, the moral sense of mankind
recognises that it is in accordance with equity to compensate slave
owners when the slaves are legally emancipated. Infinitely stronger
is the claim of the landowner to compensation.
If the Georgeite replies that the landless man is at present kept out
of something to which he has a right, while confiscation would take
from the private owner something which does not really belong to
him, the rejoinder must be that this assertion begs the question. The
question is likewise begged when the unreasonable defender of
private property declares that the right of the landless is vague and
undetermined, and therefore morally inferior to the determinate and
specific right of the individual landowner. This is precisely the
question to be solved. Does the abstract right of the landless man
become a concrete right which is so strong as to justify confiscation?
Is his natural right valid against the acquired right of the private
proprietor? These questions can be answered intelligently only by
applying the test of human welfare, individual and social. To say that
land of its very nature is not morally susceptible of private
ownership, is to make an easy assertion that may be as easily
denied. To interpret man's natural right to land by any other
standard than human welfare, is to make of it a fetish, not a thing of
reason. Henry George himself seemed to recognise this when he
wrote that wonderfully eloquent but overdrawn and one-sided
description of the effects of private ownership which occurs in the
chapter entitled, "Claim of Landowners to Compensation."[25]
When we say that human welfare is the final determinant of the
right to land, we understand this phrase in the widest possible
sense. To divide the goods of the idle rich among the deserving poor,
might be temporarily beneficial to both these classes, but the more
remote and enduring consequences would be individually and
socially disastrous. To restore a legacy to persons who had been
defrauded of it when very young, would probably cause more
hardship to the swindler than the heirs would have suffered had
there been no restitution; nevertheless the larger view of human
welfare requires that the legacy should be restored. When, however,
two or three generations have been kept out of their inheritance, the
civil law permits the children of the swindler to retain the property
by the title of prescription; and for precisely the same reason,
human welfare.
The social consequences of the confiscation of rent and land values,
would be even more injurious than those falling upon the individuals
despoiled. Social peace and order would be gravely disturbed by the
protests and opposition of the landowners, while the popular
conception of property rights, and of the inviolability of property,
would be greatly weakened, if not entirely destroyed. The average
man would not grasp or seriously consider the Georgean distinction
between land and other kinds of property in this connection. He
would infer that purchase, or inheritance, or bequest, or any other
title having the immemorial sanction of the State, does not create a
moral right to movable goods any more than to land. This would be
especially likely in the matter of capital. Why should the capitalist,
who is no more a worker than the landowner, be permitted to
extract revenue from his possessions? In both cases the most
significant and practical feature is that one class of men contributes
to another class an annual payment for the use of socially necessary
productive goods. If rent-confiscation would benefit a large number
of people, why not increase the number by confiscating interest?
Indeed, the proposal to confiscate rent is so abhorrent to the moral
sense of the average man that it could never take place except in
conditions of revolution and anarchy. If that day should ever arrive
the policy of confiscation would not stop with land.

The Alleged Right of the Community to Land

Values

In the foregoing pages we have confined our attention to the

Georgean principle which bases men's common right to land and
rent upon their common nature, and their common claims to the
material gifts of the Creator. Another argument against private
ownership takes this form: "Consider what rent is. It does not arise
spontaneously from the soil; it is due to nothing that the landowners
have done. It represents a value created by the whole community....
But rent, the creation of the whole community, necessarily belongs
to the whole community."[26]
Before taking up the main contention in this passage, let us notice
two incidental points. If all rent be due to the community by the title
of social production, why does Henry George defend at such length
the title of birthright? If the latter title does not extend to rent it is
restricted to land which is so plentiful as to yield no rent. Since the
owners or holders of such land rarely take the trouble to exclude any
one from it, the right in question, the inborn right, has not much
practical value. Probably, however, the words quoted above ought
not to be interpreted as excluding the title of birthright. In that case,
the meaning would be that rent belongs to the community by the
title of production, as well as by the congenital title.
The second preliminary consideration is that the community does not
create all land values nor all rent. These things are as certainly due
to nature as to social action. In no case can they be attributed
exclusively to one factor. Land that has no natural qualities or
capacities suitable for the satisfaction of human wants will never
have value or yield rent, no matter what society does in connection
with it: the richest land in the world will likewise remain valueless,
until it is brought into relation with society, with at least two human
beings. If Henry George merely means to say that, without the
presence of the community, land will not produce rent, he is stating
something that is perfectly obvious, but it is not peculiar to land.
Manufactured products would have no value outside of society, yet
no one maintains that their value is all created by social action.
Although the value of land is always due to both nature and society,
for practical purposes we may correctly attribute the value of a
particular piece of land predominantly to nature, or predominantly to
society. When three tracts, equally distant from a city, and equally
affected by society and its activities, have different values because
one is fit only for grazing, while the second produces large crops of
wheat, and the third contains a rich coal mine, their relative values
are evidently due to nature rather than to society. On the other
hand, the varying values of two equally fertile pieces of land
unequally distant from a city, must be ascribed primarily to social
action. In general, it is probably safe to say that almost all the value
of land in cities, and the greater part of the value of land in thickly
settled districts, is specifically due to social action rather than to
differences in fertility. Nevertheless, it remains true that the value of
every piece of land arises partly from nature, and partly from
society; but it is impossible to say in what proportion.
Our present concern is with those values and rents which are to be
attributed to social action. These cannot be claimed by any person,
nor by any community, in virtue of the individual's natural right to
the bounty of nature. Since they are not included among the ready
made gifts of God, they are no part of man's birthright. If they
belong to all the people the title to them must be sought in some
historical fact, some fact of experience, some social fact. According
to Henry George, the required title is found in the fact of production.
Socially created land values and rents belong to the community
because the community, not the private proprietor, has produced
them. Let us see in what sense the community produces the social
value of land.
In the first place, this value is produced by the community in two
different senses of the word community, namely, as a civil, corporate
entity, and as a group of individuals who do not form a moral unit.
Under the first head must be placed a great deal of the value of land
in cities; for example, that which arises from municipal institutions
and improvements, such as, fire and police protection, water works,
sewers, paved streets, and parks. On the other hand, a considerable
part of land values both within and without cities is due, not to the
community as a civil body, but to the community as a collection of
individuals and groups of individuals. Thus, the erection and
maintenance of buildings, the various economic exchanges of goods
and labour, the superior opportunities for social intercourse and
amusement which characterise a city, make the land of the city and
its environs more valuable than land at a distance. While the
activities involved in these economic and "social" facts and relations
are, indeed, a social not an individual product, they are the product
of small, temporary, and shifting groups within the community. They
are not the activities of the community as a moral whole. For
example, the maintenance of a grocery business implies a series of
social relations and agreements between the grocer and his
customers; but none of these transactions is participated in by the
community acting as a community. Consequently such actions and
relations, and the land values to which they give rise are not due to,
are not the products of the community as a unit, as a moral body, as
an organic entity. What is true of the land values created by the
grocery business applies to the values which are due to other
economic institutions and relations, as well as to those values which
arise out of the purely "social" activities and advantages. If these
values are to go to their producers they must be taken, in various
proportions, by the different small groups and the various individuals
whose actions and transactions have been directly responsible.
To distribute these values among the producers thereof in proportion
to the productive contribution of each person is obviously
impossible. How can it be known, for example, what portion of the
increase in the value of a city's real estate during a given year is due
to the merchants, the manufacturers, the railroads, the labourers,
the professional classes, or the city as a corporation? The only
practical method is for the city or other political unit to act as the
representative of all its members, appropriate the increase in value,
and distribute it among the citizens in the form of public services,
institutions, and improvements. Assuming that the socially produced
value of land ought to go to its social producer rather than to the
individual proprietor, this method of public appropriation and
disbursement would seem to be the nearest approximation to
practical justice that is available.
Is the assumption correct? Do the socially produced land values
necessarily belong to the producer, society? Does not the assumption
rest upon a misconception of the moral validity of production as a
canon of distribution? Let us examine some of the ways in which
values are produced.
The man who converts leather and other suitable raw materials into
a pair of shoes, increases the utility of these materials, and in
normal market conditions increases their value. In a certain sense he
has created value, and he is universally acknowledged to have a
right to this product. Similarly the man who increases the utility and
value of land by fertilising, irrigating, or draining it, is conceded the
benefit of these improvements by the title of production.
But value may be increased by mere restriction of supply, and by
mere increase in demand. If a group of men get control of the
existing supply of wheat or cotton, they can artificially raise the
price, thereby producing value as effectively as the shoemaker or the
farmer. If a syndicate of speculators gets possession of all the land
of a certain quality in a community, they can likewise increase its
value, produce new value. If a few powerful leaders of fashion
decide to adopt a certain style of millinery, their action and example
will effect an increase in the demand for and the value of that kind
of goods. Yet none of these producers of value are regarded as
having a moral right to their product.
When we turn to what is called the social creation of land values, we
find that it takes two forms. It always implies increase of social
demand; but the latter may be either purely subjective, reflecting
merely the desires and power of the demanders themselves, or it
may have an objective basis connected with the land. In the first
case it may be due solely to an increase of population. Within the
last few years, agricultural land which is no more fertile nor any
better situated with regard to markets or other social advantages
than it was thirty years ago, has risen in value because its products
have risen in value. Its products have become dearer because
population, and therefore demand, have grown faster than
agricultural production. Merely by increasing its wants the population
has produced land values; but it has obviously no more right to them
than have the leaders of fashion to the enhanced value which they
have given to feminine headgear. On the other hand, the increased
demand for land, and the consequent increase in its value, are
frequently attributable specifically to changes connected with the
land itself. They are changes which affect its utility rather than its
scarcity. The farmer who irrigates desert land increases its utility, as
it were, intrinsically. The community that establishes a city increases
the utility of the land therein and thereabout extrinsically. New
relations are introduced between that land and certain desirable
social institutions. Land that was formerly useful only for agriculture
becomes profitable for a factory or a store. Through its new external
relations, the land acquires new utility; or better, its latent and
potential uses have become actual. Now these new relations, these
utility-creating and value-creating relations, have been established
by society, in its corporate capacity through civil institutions and
activities, and in its non-corporate capacity through the economic
and "social" (in the narrower "society" sense) activities of groups
and individuals. In this sense, then, the community has created the
increased land values. Has it a strict right to them? a right so
rigorous and exact that private appropriation of them is unjust?
As we have just seen, men do not admit that mere production of
value constitutes a title of ownership. Neither the monopolist who
increases value by restricting supply, nor the pace-makers of fashion,
who increase value by merely increasing demand, are regarded as
possessing a moral right to the value that they have "created." It is
increase of utility, and not either actual or virtual increase of scarcity
to which men attribute a moral claim. Why do men assign these
different ethical qualities to the production of value? Why has the
shoemaker a right to the value that he adds to the raw material in
making a pair of shoes? What is the precise basis of his right? It
cannot be labour merely; for the cotton monopolist has laboured in
getting his corner on cotton. It cannot be the fact that the
shoemaker's labour is socially useful; for a chemist might spend
laborious days and nights producing water from its component
elements, and find his product a drug on the market. Yet he would
have no reasonable ground of complaint. Why, then, is it reasonable
for the shoemaker to require, why has he a right to require payment
for the utilities that he produces? Because men want to use his
products, and because they have no right to require him to serve
them without compensation. He is morally and juridically their equal,
and has the same right as they to have access on reasonable terms
to the earth and the earth's possibilities of a livelihood. Being thus
equal to his fellows, he is under no obligation to subordinate himself
to them by becoming a mere instrument for their welfare. To assume
that he is obliged to produce socially useful things without
remuneration, is to assume that all these propositions are false; it is
to assume that his life and personality and personal development are
of no intrinsic importance, and that his pursuit of the essential ends
of life has no meaning except in so far as may be conducive to his
function as an instrument of production. In a word, the ultimate
basis of the producer's right to his product, or its value, is the fact
that this is the only way in which he can get his just share of the
earth's goods, and of the means of life and personal development.
His right to compensation does not rest on the mere fact of value-
production.
As a producer of land values, the community is not on the same
moral ground with the shoemaker. Its productive action is indirect
and extrinsic, instead of direct and intrinsic, and is merely incidental
to its principal activities and purposes. Land values are a by-product
which do not require the community to devote thereto a single
moment of time or a single ounce of effort. The activities of which
land values are a by-product, have already been remunerated in the
price paid to the wage-earner for his labour, the physician for his
services, the manufacturer and the merchant for their wares, and
the municipal corporation in the form of taxes. On what ground can
the community, or any part of it, set up a claim in strict justice to the
increased land values? The right of the members of the community
to the means of living and self development is not dependent upon
the taking of these values by the community. Nor are they treated as
instruments to the welfare of the private owners who do get the
socially created land values; for they expend neither time nor labour
in the interest of the latter directly. Their labour is precisely what it
would have been had there been no increase in the value of the
land.
Since social production does not constitute a right to land values nor
to rent, it affords not a shadow of justification for the confiscation of
these things by the community. If social appropriation of socially
created land values had been introduced with the first occupation of
a piece of land, it might possibly have proved more generally
beneficial than the present system. In that case, however, the moral
claim of the community to these values would have rested on the
fact that they did not belong to anybody by a title of strict justice.
They would have been a "res nullius" ("nobody's property") which
might fairly have been taken by the community according as they
made their appearance. The community could have appropriated
them by the title of first occupancy. But there could have been no
moral title of social production. When, however, the community or
the State failed to take advantage of its opportunity to be the first
occupant of these values, when it permitted the individual proprietor
to appropriate them, it forfeited its own claim. Ever since it has had
no more right to already existing land values than it has to seize the
labourer's wages or the capitalist's interest,—no more right than one
person has to recover a gift or donation that he has unconditionally
bestowed upon another.
To sum up the conclusions of this chapter: The argument against
first occupancy is valid only with regard to the abuses of private
ownership, not with regard to the institution; the argument based
upon the title of labour is the outcome of a faulty analysis, and is
inconsistent with other statements of its author; the argument
derived from men's equal rights to land merely proves that private
ownership does not secure perfect justice, and the proposal to
correct this defect by confiscating rent is unjust because it would
produce greater evils; and the so called production of the social
values of land confers upon the community no property right
whatever.
 CHAPTER IV
PRIVATE OWNERSHIP THE BEST SYSTEM OF LAND TENURE

The defence of private landownership set forth in the last chapter

has been conditional. It has tended to show that the institution is
morally lawful so long as no better system is available. As soon as a
better system has been discovered, the State and the citizens are
undoubtedly under some degree of moral obligation to put it into
practice. Hence the important present question is whether this
condition or contingency has become a reality. The only proposed
and the only possible alternative systems are Socialism and the
Single Tax. All other forms of tenure are properly classed as
modifications of private ownership, rather than as distinct systems.
Consequently the worth, and efficiency, and morality of private
ownership can be adequately determined by comparison with the
two just mentioned.

The Socialist Proposals Impracticable

As now existing and as commonly understood, private

landownership comprises four elements which are not found
together in either Socialism or the Single Tax. They are: security of
possession combined with the power to transfer and transmit; the
use of land combined with the power to let the use to others; the
receipt of revenue from improvements in or upon the land; and the
receipt of economic rent, the revenue due to the land itself, apart
from improvements. In its extreme form, and as formerly
understood by the majority of its authoritative exponents, Socialism
would take from the individual all of these elements or powers. The
State, or the Collectivity, would own and manage all productive land
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