 Now Spencer’s repudiation of the moral right to use the earth and the political right to ignore the state, as well as the political right of universal suffrage, undermines his distinction between rational and empirical utilitarianism. In forswearing the right to use the earth — because he subsequently became convinced that land nationalization undermined, rather than promoted general utility — Spencer betrays just how much of a traditional empirical utilitarian he was. He abandoned land nationalization not because he concluded that the right to use the earth did not follow deductively from the principle of equal freedom. Rather, he abandoned land reform simply because he became convinced that it was an empirically counterproductive strategy for promoting utility.