R. H. Tawney carries this tradition further. Tawney, a positive liberal was also a Fabian socialist. The Acquisitive Society and Equality, he explains his ideas on property and equality respectively and what role the State should play. He rejected the argument of the negative liberals and laissez-faire theorists, which stressed that pursuit of acquisition of private property, should not be interfered with for the sake of social goals. For Tawney, liberty and equality are compatible and in fact, liberty is equality in action. Equality provides meaningful liberty and only equal liberty can be the basis of a good society.
Tawney argued for socio-economic equality and subordination of property to social service. He makes a distinction between personal and private property. Personal property is property for consumption (physical wants, future security, etc.) and private property is property for power, domination or profit for the sake of profit. Tawney calls the first as active property, as it is need-based and second, as passive or functionless property. The latter is property for acquisition and not for consumption. In Acquisitive Society, he writes:
Functionless property appears natural to those who believe that society should be organized for the acquisition of private wealth … those, however, who hold that social unity and effective work are possible only if society is organized and wealth distributed on the basis of function, will ask of an institution not,’ ‘What dividends it pay?’ but ‘What service does it perform?’54
Thus, property is to be related to function and the use it has for society. An acquisitive society becomes a threat for liberty of all. He seeks liberty of one in association with other fellow beings and demands that passive property must be regulated. He associated laissez-faire with inequality and injustice, as an unregulated economy results in limiting the scope of freedom of those who are deprived of even active possessions for living a good life.
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