Chapter V.

Chapter V.Community Of Goods And Private Property. Capital—Property.Section LXXVII.Capital.—Importance Of Private Property.As human labor can attain its full development, only on the supposition that personal freedom is allowed to develop to its full economic importance and dimensions, so capital can develop its full productive power only on the supposition of the existence of the freedom of personal property. Who would save anything, that is, give up present enjoyment, if he were not certain of future enjoyment?468The legitimacy of private property has, since the time of Locke,469been based, by the greater number of political economists, on the right inherent in every workman, either to consume or to save the product of his labor. But it should not be forgotten here that, at least in the higher stages of the economy of a nation, scarcely any work or saving is possible without the coöperation of society. And society must be conceived not only as the sum-total of the now living individuals that compose it, but in its entire[pg 236]past, present and future, and also as being led and borne onward by eternal ideas and wants.470[pg 237]Section LXXVIII.Socialism And Communism.In opposition to this, the idea of a community of goods has found favor, especially in times when the four following conditions met:471A.A well-defined, confrontation of rich and-poor.So long as there is a middle class of considerable numbers between them, the two extremes are kept, by its moral force, from coming into collision. There is no greater preservative against envy of the superior classes and contempt for the inferior, than the gradual and unbroken fading of one class of society into another.Sperate miseri, cavete felices!In such a state of social organization, we find the utmost and freshest productive activity at every round of the great ladder. Those at the bottom are straining every nerve to rise, and those higher up,[pg 238]not to fall below. But where the rich and the poor are separated by an abyss which there is no hope of ever crossing, how pride on the one side and envy on the other rage! and especially in thefociof industry, the great cities, where the deepest misery is found side by side with the most brazen-faced luxury, and where the wretched themselves conscious of their numbers, mutually excite their own bad passions. It cannot, unfortunately, be denied, that when a nation has attained the acme of its development, we find a multitude of tendencies prevailing to make the rich richer and the poor, at least relatively poorer, and thus to diminish the numbers of the middle class from both sides; unless, indeed, remedial influences are brought to bear and to operate in a contrary direction.472B.A high degree of the division of labor, by which, on the one hand, the mutual dependence of man on man grows ever greater, but by which, at the same time, the eye of the uncultured man becomes less and less able to perceive the connection existing between merit and reward, or service and remuneration. Let us betake ourselves in imagination to Crusoe's island. There, when one man, after the labor of many months, has hollowed out a tree into a canoe, with no tools but an animal's tooth, it does not occur to another who, in the meantime was, it may be, sleeping on his bear-skin, to contest the right of the former to the fruit of his labor. How different this from the condition of things where civilization is advanced, as it is in our day; where the banker, by a single stroke of his pen, seems to earn a thousand times more than a day-laborer in a week; where, in the case of those who loan money on interest, their debtors too frequently forget how laborious was the process of acquiring the loaned capital by the possessors, or their predecessors in ownership. More especially, we have, in times of“over-population,”whole masses[pg 239]of honest men asking not alms, but only work, an opportunity to earn their bread, and yet on the verge of starvation.473C.A violent shaking or perplexing of public opinion in its relation to the feeling of Right, by revolutions, especially when they follow rapidly one on the heels of another, and take opposite directions. On such occasions, both parties have generally prostituted themselves for the sake of the favor of the masses; and the latter have become conscious of the changes which the force of their arms may effect. In this way, it is impossible that until order is again entirely established, the reins of power should not be slackened in many ways at the demands of the multitude. In this way, too, they are stirred up to the making of pretentious claims which it is afterwards very difficult to silence. In every long and far-reaching revolution, whether undertaken in the interest of the crown, the nobility or the middle classes, we find, side by side with the seed it intended to sow, the tares of communism sprout up.D.Pretensions of the lower classes in consequence of a democratic constitution.Communism is the logically not inconsistent exaggeration of the principle of equality. Men who always hear themselves designated as“the sovereign people,”and their welfare as the supreme law of the state, are more apt than others to feel more keenly the distance which separates their own misery from the superabundance of others. And, indeed, to what an extent our physical wants are determined by our intellectual mould! The Greenlander feels comfortable in his mud hut, with his oil-jug. An Englishman in the same condition would despair.474475[pg 240]Section LXXIX.Socialism And Communism. (Continued.)What has just been said will serve to explain why, in the following four periods of the world's history, socialistic and communistic ideas have been most widespread: among the ancients at the time of the decline of Greece,476and in that of the degeneration of the Roman Republic;477among the moderns[pg 241]in the age of the Reformation,478and again, in our own day.479Section LXXX.Socialism And Communism. (Continued.)We thus see, that the attempts made by socialism and communism are, by no means, phenomena unheard of in the past,[pg 242]and peculiar to modern times, as the blind adherents and opponents of them would have us believe. They are rather diseases[pg 243]of the body social, which have affected every highly civilized nation at certain periods of its existence. If the[pg 244]body be too weak to react healthily and curatively (§84), the evil is very apt to lead to the decline of all true freedom and[pg 245]order. The communist, viewing all other things, especially the organization of the state, only as instruments to supply his material and absolute wants, considers the liberal either as a fool who is ever pursuing the phantoms of the brain, or as a knave who covers his own selfishness under the mask of the public welfare.480Hence the adherents of communism are satisfied with any form of government which seems to offer them most, and this a ruthless despotism can do, at least, for the moment. And, although they are ever ready for any revolution in the form of government, and easily to be won over to it, they are most readily captivated by a despotic revolution. On the other hand, when communism seriously threatens all that constitutes the wealth of a people, the owners of that wealth are compelled to fly to any refuge which holds out the promise to protect them from it, although by seeking that same refuge they may destroy their own political freedom.481The Achean league, which under the leadership of Aratos, the“enemy of tyrants,”had come into existence, promising so much hope, beheld itself later, and mainly through fear of the contagious effects of Spartan socialism under Cleomenes, compelled[pg 246]to unite with the Macedonians, that is, to give themselves up entirely. (§ 204).Section LXXXI.Community Of Goods.We now, for the present, turn our gaze from the frightful revolution, destructive of all civilization, which would necessarily precede the establishment of a community of goods,482and inquire what would be the consequences. Among angels (“gods and sons of gods”of Plato) and mere animals, a community of goods might, perhaps, exist without producing injury. And so, too, it might exist among men bound one to the other by the bonds of the truest love. The life of every model family is accompanied by a species of community of goods.483But in more extensive social organizations, this love is never found except as an element of the most exalted religious enthusiasm, which, as a rule, is of very short duration; of which the Acts of the Apostles (II, 44 ff, 32 ff, V, I, II) affords us the best known and most beautiful example.484[pg 247]Where this love does not exist, each participant in the community of goods will, as a rule, seek to do the least and enjoy the most possible.485In a society of one hundred thousand[pg 248]members, each individual would be interested in the results of its aggregate frugality only indirectly, and only to the extent of a one-hundred thousandth part of the whole; that is, practically, not at all.486Individual selfishness would expend itself entirely on the division of what the whole community produced. It would, consequently, and almost always be detrimental to the whole, and to the other individuals of the society; whereas, at present, it does so only in exceptional cases. When Louis Blanc, as Mably had before him, recommended that thepoint d' honneurshould take the place of theinterêt personnel, as a spur to production, and a check on consumption, and cited the army as an illustration of its workings, he forgot, among other things, the thirty cases in which the[pg 249]code militairepronounces sentence of death on the violators of its provisions. And, as a matter of fact, the Münster Anabaptists could not help punishing with death every transgression of their communistic precepts.487If, in a community in which the principles of communism were rigorously carried out, all the burthens and enjoyments of life were equal, and equally divided according to the ideas of the crowd, men like Thaer, Arkwright, and others of their class, who now provide bread for hundreds of thousands from their studies and laboratories, would then be able, at most, with a rake and shovel, to provide food for three or four. The division of labor, with its infinite amount of productive force, would, for the most part, cease. Nor would the consequence be that the humbler classes would be freed from work of a coarse, mechanical, unintellectual and severe nature; but that the higher classes would be dragged down to engage in it likewise. And what an increase there would be in the number of consumers at the same time! Every man would, with a light heart, follow the most imperious of human impulses if the whole community were to educate his children. But we have seen that a community of goods is desired most urgently in times of over-population. Hence, here it would make the evil greater yet, by increasing consumption and diminishing production.Where there are now one thousand wealthy persons, and one hundred thousand proletarians, there would be, after one generation, no one wealthy and two hundred thousand proletarians. Misery and want would be universal.488For the purpose[pg 250]of giving the crowd a very agreeable,489but rather short-lived period of pleasure, a period simply of transition, almost all that constitutes the wealth of a nation, all the higher goods of life, would have to be cast to the waves, and henceforth all men would have to content themselves with the gratifications afforded by potatoes, brandy and the pleasures of the most sensual of appetites. And then, the equal education of all, demanded by the communists, would have no result but this, that no one would acquire a higher scientific training.490But, after all, there lurks concealed in communism much more of envy than is generally supposed.[pg 251]Section LXXXII.The Organization Of Labor.Most theoretical adherents of the doctrine of a community of goods, feeling491more or less the weight of the above objections, have supplemented it with the idea of an organization of labor492or the centralized superintendence of all production and consumption, either by the government already existing, or by one to be created anew. Such a government would be, of course, a despotism such as the world has scarcely yet seen, a Cæsaro-Papacy, usurping both the place and power of Father of the universal Family.493But the evils mentioned above would be entailed none the less. Every incentive which now[pg 252]moves man to industry or frugality would disappear, and nothing remain but universal philanthrophy; or, if you will, but patriotism, virtues which are not wanting even now. Even guardianship of the government newly created would be carried on in a very loose manner; for it would be exercised without any feeling of personal interest, even in the most favorable case supposable. It is well known and easily understood, that state industries are never engaged in, in the long run, with the same zeal, nor crowned with the same success, as competing private industries. It is well known, too, how intimate the connection is between the political freedom of a people and their economic production; that, for instance, England's greater wealth, as compared with that of Turkey, depends, most largely, on the freedom that obtains in the former country and the servitude that prevails in the latter.494And we may inquire just here, what the result would be, if the despotism of government should go ten times farther that it has ever gone in Turkey, when, moreover, the despot who led the state, was not an individual with his few officials, but the whole crowd, with its million eyes and million hands. It would, practically, be to give every producer an escort of a policeman and a revenue agent, as if he were a prisoner.And where would be the gain? A division of wealth which would seem unjust to many would exist now as well as before, because the idle and the unskillful would receive the same reward as the most industrious and skillful.495The opposition of one class of society to another, so much complained[pg 253]of, would continue. The only difference would be, that whereas, it now comes from the weak, it would then come from the strong.496Compulsory association is certainly more prolific in strife and crime than is a state of society in which everybody manages his own affairs.A journey on foot, in company with others, is allowed, on all hands, to be a very good test of friendship. But, a community of goods would, in the strictest sense of the word, be a journey on foot through the whole of life with numberless“friends.”Here, every one would believe himself entitled to possess whatever pleased him. And, who would decide; since so many communists preach the dissolution and extinction of all government, and the reign of anarchy? Besides, there can be no doubt, that the difference of human talents and human wants, would soon, spite of every law, lead to a difference in property again. Hence, that first revolution would have to be repeated from time to time—a real Sisyphus labor! No sooner have the bees produced anything, than the drones come, and divide anew!Section LXXXIII.The Organization Of Labor. (Continued.)Experience, however, teaches us, that, in all the lower stages of civilization, a community of goods exists to a greater or lesser extent.497The institution of private property has been more fully evolved out of this condition of things, only in proportion as well-being and culture have been developed as cause and effect of such well-being. Thus, among most nations of hunters and fishermen, the idea of private property was unknown[pg 254]when these nations were first discovered. This is, indeed, very natural. Their chief spring of production flows as if of itself, apparently inexhaustible; and the hunter can hardly think of such a thing as saving any of his booty.498And, among nomadic nations, the land is a great meadow held in common; and the industry of plunder is considered, as it is in all inferior stages of civilization, especially honorable.499Theconquistadoresof Peru found there something very like a community of goods, under the despotic guardianship of the state, viz.: a yearly division of all lands among the people, in proportion to their rank; the cultivation of these lands in common, under the superintendence of the state, and to the sound of music. But, at the stage of civilization that Peru was then in, land is about the only resource possessed. The results were the usual ones. A country like Peru, with[pg 255]only one city, no beasts of burthen, no plows, no trades and no commerce, cannot possibly be rich.500That the constitution of Lycurgus established a sort of community of goods among the Spartans, is well known. I need only recall the public education, the meals in common, the authorization of stealing,501the prohibition of trade, of the precious metals and fine furniture, the equal division of property and the inalienable character of the land502etc. With such laws, Sparta could neither be, nor desire to become, wealthy. Of all Greek states of any historical importance, it preserved longest the economic peculiarities belonging to a low stage of civilization. Among most modern nations, the fundamental idea of their land laws, which had their origin in the middle ages, is, that each family is only the usufructuary, and that the community is the sovereign proprietor of the soil. This community of landed possession finds expression, among other things, in the vast extent of communal woods and pasturages, in the varied intersecting of parcels of land one by the other, which, indeed, change proprietors from time to time, and in the common[pg 256]working of the land, carried as far as possible etc.503In all medieval times,504not only the individual is considered an owner of the land, but, over and above him, the family. At the same time, we are wont to find existing an amount of mortmain property in the hands of corporations, monastery lands, crown lands and domains of very great importance.505All these institutions have declined in number and shown a disposition to disappear, in proportion as national husbandry or economy has grown more productive.Section LXXXIV.The Organization Of Labor. (Continued.)To this tendency we find, indeed, another, and a no less powerful one, opposed. Everywhere as civilization advances, the sphere of action of the state grows larger, and the ends it serves more numerous.In its origin, government was established to preserve only the external security of its subjects. By degrees, it comes to look after their internal legal security, by enforcing internal peace, prohibiting revenge for bloodshed etc. It next extends its care to the well-being, the culture, and even to the comfort of the people. But the claims of the state must grow in the same proportion as the service it renders. While Lowe, in 1822, estimated the yearly net income of the British people at[pg 257]£251,000,000; the government expenses,506in 1813 and 1814, averaged £106,000,000, and these sums were voluntarily devoted to public purposes by parliament. And so, between 1685 and 1841, the population of England more than trebled its numbers, But, in the same period of time, the outlay of the state increased forty fold. (Macaulay.) Simultaneously with this development of things, it becomes more and more usual by the exercise of the power of eminent domain and others like it, to sacrifice private rights, acquired by the very best of titles, to the preponderating common good. We may allude, further, to the duty, universally imposed in modern times, of performing military service, to the national systems of public instruction in so many countries; to the large number of societies, joint-stock companies, popular holidays; but particularly to the associations for insurance of every description. And so it may, indeed, be claimed that we have come nearer to a community of goods than could have been dreamed of a hundred years ago.507And yet, these are, for the most part, institutions in which we find reflected the peculiar strength and solidity of our age. Whoever wishes to compare the power of one people with that of another, must take into account not only the elements which constitute their intellectual and physical force, but especially their inclination to permit these elements to coöperate for public purposes.508[pg 258]We may now inquire: At what point does this increasing community cease to be a gain? This is as easily determined generally, as it is difficult to say what the limit to it is in particular instances. Progress in the direction of a community of interests of this nature is beneficial, only so long but certainly as long as it corresponds with the feeling entertained by the community, that they have interests in common. Hence it is, that such a noble kind of communism reigns in art and literature, one which causes the stronger to willingly labor for the weaker, and with the greatest success.509And so, too, the christian care of the poor, even were it carried to the height of the Gospel counsels (Luke, 3:11), would be no direct obstacle in the way of the development of a nation's public economy, provided it were given, and accepted, only as christian benevolence. Every approximation towards a community of goods should be effected by the love of the rich for the poor, not by the hatred of the poor for the rich. If all men were true Christians, a community of goods might exist without danger. But then, also, the institution of private property would have no dark side to it. Every employer would give his workmen the highest wages possible, and demand in return only the smallest possible sacrifice.510511[pg 259]Section LXXXV.The Right Of Inheritance.The right of inheritance to resources has its origin in a combination of the idea of the family with the idea of property. And, indeed, this combination of ideas is a very natural one. The larger portion of mankind consider the pleasures of the family as the highest attainable, and endeavor, whenever their economic means make it at all possible, to secure them. At the same time, the selfishness of most men is not confined to their own persons, but extends also to their posterity. Hence it is that bed and board,eonnubiumandcommercium, have, from time immemorial, been considered correlative ideas; and, to all the more logical socialists, a community of wives (or celibacy)512is as dear as a community of goods.513(§ 245.) And in practice, the greater number of nations of hunters, who, according to our conceptions, have no knowledge of a real family and no knowledge of property, have a custom of burying with the dead the things they used, to kill their cattle etc., or to deprive minor children of their inheritance.514[pg 260]Section LXXXVI.Economic Utility Of The Right Of Inheritance.The certainty, that the material welfare of their children depends, in great part, on their industry and frugality, is one of the most powerful incentives to good, in the case of most men. And this is the basis of the economic utility of the family right of inheritance.515There is scarcely any other institution which opposes over-population with such efficiency, for the reason, that the obstacle placed in its way here is placed very directly, at the point where it can make itself felt most, viz.: in the life of the family itself. The weaker the family feeling, the less does the abolition of the right of inheritance interfere with the economic interests of a nation. Hence, for instance, it is, that taxes imposed upon legacies, bequests, testamentary gifts etc., are less objectionable in proportion as they affect only those in the more remote degrees of relationship in which inheritance is something merely accidental. While, when a nation is yet in the intermediate stages of civilization, thefamilyright of inheritance seems to be very strong, especially as regards landed property, a consequence of the fact, that a superior kind of title to such property is recognized to exist in the family; at a period, when individualism becomes more developed, the liberty of devise by will is wont to prevail more and more.516Then the right of inheritance becomes,[pg 261]so to speak, a more elevated species of personal property, a prolongation of the same beyond the grave. Should testamentary freedom be too much hampered, selfishness would manifest itself in a way much more detrimental to economic interests, viz.: in the consumption of wealth, during the lifetime of its owner. Every man would be but a life annuitant of his own property.But, at the same time, in periods of moral decline, complete freedom may degenerate so as to produce evils equally great. The wealthy Bœotians, in the later days of Hellenic history, were wont to form themselves into dissolute drinking companies; and not only the childless, but even fathers of families made over their property to these companies, limiting their offspring to a portion which it was made their duty to let them have. It was so in Rome, also, in Cicero's time, when every acquaintance of standing took it very ill if not remembered in the will of the testator, and where Octavian, for instance, in the last twenty years of his reign, received about 70,000,000 thalers through legacies left him by his“friends.”517Here,[pg 262]the repeal of the law making it obligatory on testators to leave a certain proportion of their wealth to their children would remove the last safe-guard of their material welfare.518Section LXXXVII.Landed Property.As land, in its uncultivated state, has neither been produced by man, nor can be entirely consumed by him, the above demonstration of the necessity of private property cannot without[pg 263]any more ado, be extended to land.519Hence, individual property in land is everywhere much more recent than individual property in capital.520But a certain expenditure of capital and labor is necessary that land may be used productively, and, in most instances, this employment of capital and labor is of long duration, irrevocable in the very nature of things, and one the fruits of which can be reaped only after some time has elapsed. Now, this cooperation of capital and labor is such, that no one would undertake to employ them in the cultivation of the land, had he not the strongest assurance of possessing it. Hence, agriculture in its most rudimentary stage supposes ownership of the land, at least from the time that it is“tickled with the hoe,”until it“smiles with the harvest;”or, to express it more accurately, all the time intervening between the work of the plow and the labor of the sickle. The more, afterwards, population and civilization increase, the more products must be wrung from the soil. But this can be accomplished only by means of its moreintensivecultivation (higher farming), by lavishing a greater amount of capital and labor on it, and, as a rule, by extending the circle of agricultural operations by means of combinations more and more artificial. Hence, the progress of civilization demands an ever increasing fixity, and a more pronounced shaping of landed property (thespecificationof jurists), in the interests of all who share in this progress, and even of those who own no landed property themselves. Were there no property in land, every one would find it more[pg 264]difficult and laborious to gratify his want of agricultural products;521and the products themselves would be of an inferior kind.Thus, for instance, in Camargo, the lackmus was formerly prepared from plants to be had“free”in the woods. It was then, however, much dearer than it is now that the plants are artificially raised on landed property.522It is otherwise with the fisheries. The appropriation of rivers or seas would not tend to increase the abundance of their products, and hence this appropriation is, on the whole, rare.523Section LXXXVIII.Landed Property. (Continued.)Whenever this admixture of capital and labor with land has taken place to no great extent, private property in land is not found developed in any degree. Thus, there are even now many half-civilized countries in which the land is forfeited because not tilled for many years, and where it may be occupied by the first person who will cultivate it.524In Europe, common[pg 265]possession of forests and pasture lands asserted itself much longer than that of arable land, because, in the case of the former, labor and capital play a much less important part in the management of them. And yet, even in the case of arable land etc., and, in the highest stages of civilization, the property-quality is yet less developed than the property-quality of capital. How seldom do we findfidei commissaof capital, or capital juridically tied up. We find that the law of all ancient nations drew a marked distinction between moveable and immoveable property, and that the power of disposing of the former by sale, pledge, in dowry, partition etc., was a much freer one. And even now, the police power which may be exercised over moveable property is much more restricted than that over houses and land.525The justice of the exclusive right of possession to what one has earned and saved is obvious to every one. On the other hand, the appropriation of“original and indestructible natural forces”has its basis not so much in justice as in the general good; and the state has always considered itself entitled to attach to the“monopoly of land,”which it accorded to the first possessor, all kinds of limitations and conditions in the interest of the common good,[pg 266]and sometimes to consider private property in land in the light of a semi-public function.526I may instance the feudal principles of the latter portion of the middle ages, which are so far removed from our ideas of private property in land; and yet, of which many echoes are heard, even in our day, and are not without their influence in practice. Thus, further, for instance, even in England, the greater number of the poor-rates, of taxes for the support of the established church, the maintenance of public highways etc., are heaped upon the rent of land. Many socialists have proposed to make the state the sole proprietor of the soil,527sometimes adding the condition, that the previous private owners should be compensated in capital, when it would be at least supposable that private capital might be enticed to cultivate it, if long and sure leases of it were made. This would be a“good”demesne-husbandry, extending over the entire country. We need only glance at those kingdoms in which something analogous is to be found,[pg 267]especially the despotisms of the east,528to divine that such a system does not suffice to insure the real productiveness of a nation's economy.529[pg 268]

Chapter V.Community Of Goods And Private Property. Capital—Property.Section LXXVII.Capital.—Importance Of Private Property.As human labor can attain its full development, only on the supposition that personal freedom is allowed to develop to its full economic importance and dimensions, so capital can develop its full productive power only on the supposition of the existence of the freedom of personal property. Who would save anything, that is, give up present enjoyment, if he were not certain of future enjoyment?468The legitimacy of private property has, since the time of Locke,469been based, by the greater number of political economists, on the right inherent in every workman, either to consume or to save the product of his labor. But it should not be forgotten here that, at least in the higher stages of the economy of a nation, scarcely any work or saving is possible without the coöperation of society. And society must be conceived not only as the sum-total of the now living individuals that compose it, but in its entire[pg 236]past, present and future, and also as being led and borne onward by eternal ideas and wants.470[pg 237]Section LXXVIII.Socialism And Communism.In opposition to this, the idea of a community of goods has found favor, especially in times when the four following conditions met:471A.A well-defined, confrontation of rich and-poor.So long as there is a middle class of considerable numbers between them, the two extremes are kept, by its moral force, from coming into collision. There is no greater preservative against envy of the superior classes and contempt for the inferior, than the gradual and unbroken fading of one class of society into another.Sperate miseri, cavete felices!In such a state of social organization, we find the utmost and freshest productive activity at every round of the great ladder. Those at the bottom are straining every nerve to rise, and those higher up,[pg 238]not to fall below. But where the rich and the poor are separated by an abyss which there is no hope of ever crossing, how pride on the one side and envy on the other rage! and especially in thefociof industry, the great cities, where the deepest misery is found side by side with the most brazen-faced luxury, and where the wretched themselves conscious of their numbers, mutually excite their own bad passions. It cannot, unfortunately, be denied, that when a nation has attained the acme of its development, we find a multitude of tendencies prevailing to make the rich richer and the poor, at least relatively poorer, and thus to diminish the numbers of the middle class from both sides; unless, indeed, remedial influences are brought to bear and to operate in a contrary direction.472B.A high degree of the division of labor, by which, on the one hand, the mutual dependence of man on man grows ever greater, but by which, at the same time, the eye of the uncultured man becomes less and less able to perceive the connection existing between merit and reward, or service and remuneration. Let us betake ourselves in imagination to Crusoe's island. There, when one man, after the labor of many months, has hollowed out a tree into a canoe, with no tools but an animal's tooth, it does not occur to another who, in the meantime was, it may be, sleeping on his bear-skin, to contest the right of the former to the fruit of his labor. How different this from the condition of things where civilization is advanced, as it is in our day; where the banker, by a single stroke of his pen, seems to earn a thousand times more than a day-laborer in a week; where, in the case of those who loan money on interest, their debtors too frequently forget how laborious was the process of acquiring the loaned capital by the possessors, or their predecessors in ownership. More especially, we have, in times of“over-population,”whole masses[pg 239]of honest men asking not alms, but only work, an opportunity to earn their bread, and yet on the verge of starvation.473C.A violent shaking or perplexing of public opinion in its relation to the feeling of Right, by revolutions, especially when they follow rapidly one on the heels of another, and take opposite directions. On such occasions, both parties have generally prostituted themselves for the sake of the favor of the masses; and the latter have become conscious of the changes which the force of their arms may effect. In this way, it is impossible that until order is again entirely established, the reins of power should not be slackened in many ways at the demands of the multitude. In this way, too, they are stirred up to the making of pretentious claims which it is afterwards very difficult to silence. In every long and far-reaching revolution, whether undertaken in the interest of the crown, the nobility or the middle classes, we find, side by side with the seed it intended to sow, the tares of communism sprout up.D.Pretensions of the lower classes in consequence of a democratic constitution.Communism is the logically not inconsistent exaggeration of the principle of equality. Men who always hear themselves designated as“the sovereign people,”and their welfare as the supreme law of the state, are more apt than others to feel more keenly the distance which separates their own misery from the superabundance of others. And, indeed, to what an extent our physical wants are determined by our intellectual mould! The Greenlander feels comfortable in his mud hut, with his oil-jug. An Englishman in the same condition would despair.474475[pg 240]Section LXXIX.Socialism And Communism. (Continued.)What has just been said will serve to explain why, in the following four periods of the world's history, socialistic and communistic ideas have been most widespread: among the ancients at the time of the decline of Greece,476and in that of the degeneration of the Roman Republic;477among the moderns[pg 241]in the age of the Reformation,478and again, in our own day.479Section LXXX.Socialism And Communism. (Continued.)We thus see, that the attempts made by socialism and communism are, by no means, phenomena unheard of in the past,[pg 242]and peculiar to modern times, as the blind adherents and opponents of them would have us believe. They are rather diseases[pg 243]of the body social, which have affected every highly civilized nation at certain periods of its existence. If the[pg 244]body be too weak to react healthily and curatively (§84), the evil is very apt to lead to the decline of all true freedom and[pg 245]order. The communist, viewing all other things, especially the organization of the state, only as instruments to supply his material and absolute wants, considers the liberal either as a fool who is ever pursuing the phantoms of the brain, or as a knave who covers his own selfishness under the mask of the public welfare.480Hence the adherents of communism are satisfied with any form of government which seems to offer them most, and this a ruthless despotism can do, at least, for the moment. And, although they are ever ready for any revolution in the form of government, and easily to be won over to it, they are most readily captivated by a despotic revolution. On the other hand, when communism seriously threatens all that constitutes the wealth of a people, the owners of that wealth are compelled to fly to any refuge which holds out the promise to protect them from it, although by seeking that same refuge they may destroy their own political freedom.481The Achean league, which under the leadership of Aratos, the“enemy of tyrants,”had come into existence, promising so much hope, beheld itself later, and mainly through fear of the contagious effects of Spartan socialism under Cleomenes, compelled[pg 246]to unite with the Macedonians, that is, to give themselves up entirely. (§ 204).Section LXXXI.Community Of Goods.We now, for the present, turn our gaze from the frightful revolution, destructive of all civilization, which would necessarily precede the establishment of a community of goods,482and inquire what would be the consequences. Among angels (“gods and sons of gods”of Plato) and mere animals, a community of goods might, perhaps, exist without producing injury. And so, too, it might exist among men bound one to the other by the bonds of the truest love. The life of every model family is accompanied by a species of community of goods.483But in more extensive social organizations, this love is never found except as an element of the most exalted religious enthusiasm, which, as a rule, is of very short duration; of which the Acts of the Apostles (II, 44 ff, 32 ff, V, I, II) affords us the best known and most beautiful example.484[pg 247]Where this love does not exist, each participant in the community of goods will, as a rule, seek to do the least and enjoy the most possible.485In a society of one hundred thousand[pg 248]members, each individual would be interested in the results of its aggregate frugality only indirectly, and only to the extent of a one-hundred thousandth part of the whole; that is, practically, not at all.486Individual selfishness would expend itself entirely on the division of what the whole community produced. It would, consequently, and almost always be detrimental to the whole, and to the other individuals of the society; whereas, at present, it does so only in exceptional cases. When Louis Blanc, as Mably had before him, recommended that thepoint d' honneurshould take the place of theinterêt personnel, as a spur to production, and a check on consumption, and cited the army as an illustration of its workings, he forgot, among other things, the thirty cases in which the[pg 249]code militairepronounces sentence of death on the violators of its provisions. And, as a matter of fact, the Münster Anabaptists could not help punishing with death every transgression of their communistic precepts.487If, in a community in which the principles of communism were rigorously carried out, all the burthens and enjoyments of life were equal, and equally divided according to the ideas of the crowd, men like Thaer, Arkwright, and others of their class, who now provide bread for hundreds of thousands from their studies and laboratories, would then be able, at most, with a rake and shovel, to provide food for three or four. The division of labor, with its infinite amount of productive force, would, for the most part, cease. Nor would the consequence be that the humbler classes would be freed from work of a coarse, mechanical, unintellectual and severe nature; but that the higher classes would be dragged down to engage in it likewise. And what an increase there would be in the number of consumers at the same time! Every man would, with a light heart, follow the most imperious of human impulses if the whole community were to educate his children. But we have seen that a community of goods is desired most urgently in times of over-population. Hence, here it would make the evil greater yet, by increasing consumption and diminishing production.Where there are now one thousand wealthy persons, and one hundred thousand proletarians, there would be, after one generation, no one wealthy and two hundred thousand proletarians. Misery and want would be universal.488For the purpose[pg 250]of giving the crowd a very agreeable,489but rather short-lived period of pleasure, a period simply of transition, almost all that constitutes the wealth of a nation, all the higher goods of life, would have to be cast to the waves, and henceforth all men would have to content themselves with the gratifications afforded by potatoes, brandy and the pleasures of the most sensual of appetites. And then, the equal education of all, demanded by the communists, would have no result but this, that no one would acquire a higher scientific training.490But, after all, there lurks concealed in communism much more of envy than is generally supposed.[pg 251]Section LXXXII.The Organization Of Labor.Most theoretical adherents of the doctrine of a community of goods, feeling491more or less the weight of the above objections, have supplemented it with the idea of an organization of labor492or the centralized superintendence of all production and consumption, either by the government already existing, or by one to be created anew. Such a government would be, of course, a despotism such as the world has scarcely yet seen, a Cæsaro-Papacy, usurping both the place and power of Father of the universal Family.493But the evils mentioned above would be entailed none the less. Every incentive which now[pg 252]moves man to industry or frugality would disappear, and nothing remain but universal philanthrophy; or, if you will, but patriotism, virtues which are not wanting even now. Even guardianship of the government newly created would be carried on in a very loose manner; for it would be exercised without any feeling of personal interest, even in the most favorable case supposable. It is well known and easily understood, that state industries are never engaged in, in the long run, with the same zeal, nor crowned with the same success, as competing private industries. It is well known, too, how intimate the connection is between the political freedom of a people and their economic production; that, for instance, England's greater wealth, as compared with that of Turkey, depends, most largely, on the freedom that obtains in the former country and the servitude that prevails in the latter.494And we may inquire just here, what the result would be, if the despotism of government should go ten times farther that it has ever gone in Turkey, when, moreover, the despot who led the state, was not an individual with his few officials, but the whole crowd, with its million eyes and million hands. It would, practically, be to give every producer an escort of a policeman and a revenue agent, as if he were a prisoner.And where would be the gain? A division of wealth which would seem unjust to many would exist now as well as before, because the idle and the unskillful would receive the same reward as the most industrious and skillful.495The opposition of one class of society to another, so much complained[pg 253]of, would continue. The only difference would be, that whereas, it now comes from the weak, it would then come from the strong.496Compulsory association is certainly more prolific in strife and crime than is a state of society in which everybody manages his own affairs.A journey on foot, in company with others, is allowed, on all hands, to be a very good test of friendship. But, a community of goods would, in the strictest sense of the word, be a journey on foot through the whole of life with numberless“friends.”Here, every one would believe himself entitled to possess whatever pleased him. And, who would decide; since so many communists preach the dissolution and extinction of all government, and the reign of anarchy? Besides, there can be no doubt, that the difference of human talents and human wants, would soon, spite of every law, lead to a difference in property again. Hence, that first revolution would have to be repeated from time to time—a real Sisyphus labor! No sooner have the bees produced anything, than the drones come, and divide anew!Section LXXXIII.The Organization Of Labor. (Continued.)Experience, however, teaches us, that, in all the lower stages of civilization, a community of goods exists to a greater or lesser extent.497The institution of private property has been more fully evolved out of this condition of things, only in proportion as well-being and culture have been developed as cause and effect of such well-being. Thus, among most nations of hunters and fishermen, the idea of private property was unknown[pg 254]when these nations were first discovered. This is, indeed, very natural. Their chief spring of production flows as if of itself, apparently inexhaustible; and the hunter can hardly think of such a thing as saving any of his booty.498And, among nomadic nations, the land is a great meadow held in common; and the industry of plunder is considered, as it is in all inferior stages of civilization, especially honorable.499Theconquistadoresof Peru found there something very like a community of goods, under the despotic guardianship of the state, viz.: a yearly division of all lands among the people, in proportion to their rank; the cultivation of these lands in common, under the superintendence of the state, and to the sound of music. But, at the stage of civilization that Peru was then in, land is about the only resource possessed. The results were the usual ones. A country like Peru, with[pg 255]only one city, no beasts of burthen, no plows, no trades and no commerce, cannot possibly be rich.500That the constitution of Lycurgus established a sort of community of goods among the Spartans, is well known. I need only recall the public education, the meals in common, the authorization of stealing,501the prohibition of trade, of the precious metals and fine furniture, the equal division of property and the inalienable character of the land502etc. With such laws, Sparta could neither be, nor desire to become, wealthy. Of all Greek states of any historical importance, it preserved longest the economic peculiarities belonging to a low stage of civilization. Among most modern nations, the fundamental idea of their land laws, which had their origin in the middle ages, is, that each family is only the usufructuary, and that the community is the sovereign proprietor of the soil. This community of landed possession finds expression, among other things, in the vast extent of communal woods and pasturages, in the varied intersecting of parcels of land one by the other, which, indeed, change proprietors from time to time, and in the common[pg 256]working of the land, carried as far as possible etc.503In all medieval times,504not only the individual is considered an owner of the land, but, over and above him, the family. At the same time, we are wont to find existing an amount of mortmain property in the hands of corporations, monastery lands, crown lands and domains of very great importance.505All these institutions have declined in number and shown a disposition to disappear, in proportion as national husbandry or economy has grown more productive.Section LXXXIV.The Organization Of Labor. (Continued.)To this tendency we find, indeed, another, and a no less powerful one, opposed. Everywhere as civilization advances, the sphere of action of the state grows larger, and the ends it serves more numerous.In its origin, government was established to preserve only the external security of its subjects. By degrees, it comes to look after their internal legal security, by enforcing internal peace, prohibiting revenge for bloodshed etc. It next extends its care to the well-being, the culture, and even to the comfort of the people. But the claims of the state must grow in the same proportion as the service it renders. While Lowe, in 1822, estimated the yearly net income of the British people at[pg 257]£251,000,000; the government expenses,506in 1813 and 1814, averaged £106,000,000, and these sums were voluntarily devoted to public purposes by parliament. And so, between 1685 and 1841, the population of England more than trebled its numbers, But, in the same period of time, the outlay of the state increased forty fold. (Macaulay.) Simultaneously with this development of things, it becomes more and more usual by the exercise of the power of eminent domain and others like it, to sacrifice private rights, acquired by the very best of titles, to the preponderating common good. We may allude, further, to the duty, universally imposed in modern times, of performing military service, to the national systems of public instruction in so many countries; to the large number of societies, joint-stock companies, popular holidays; but particularly to the associations for insurance of every description. And so it may, indeed, be claimed that we have come nearer to a community of goods than could have been dreamed of a hundred years ago.507And yet, these are, for the most part, institutions in which we find reflected the peculiar strength and solidity of our age. Whoever wishes to compare the power of one people with that of another, must take into account not only the elements which constitute their intellectual and physical force, but especially their inclination to permit these elements to coöperate for public purposes.508[pg 258]We may now inquire: At what point does this increasing community cease to be a gain? This is as easily determined generally, as it is difficult to say what the limit to it is in particular instances. Progress in the direction of a community of interests of this nature is beneficial, only so long but certainly as long as it corresponds with the feeling entertained by the community, that they have interests in common. Hence it is, that such a noble kind of communism reigns in art and literature, one which causes the stronger to willingly labor for the weaker, and with the greatest success.509And so, too, the christian care of the poor, even were it carried to the height of the Gospel counsels (Luke, 3:11), would be no direct obstacle in the way of the development of a nation's public economy, provided it were given, and accepted, only as christian benevolence. Every approximation towards a community of goods should be effected by the love of the rich for the poor, not by the hatred of the poor for the rich. If all men were true Christians, a community of goods might exist without danger. But then, also, the institution of private property would have no dark side to it. Every employer would give his workmen the highest wages possible, and demand in return only the smallest possible sacrifice.510511[pg 259]Section LXXXV.The Right Of Inheritance.The right of inheritance to resources has its origin in a combination of the idea of the family with the idea of property. And, indeed, this combination of ideas is a very natural one. The larger portion of mankind consider the pleasures of the family as the highest attainable, and endeavor, whenever their economic means make it at all possible, to secure them. At the same time, the selfishness of most men is not confined to their own persons, but extends also to their posterity. Hence it is that bed and board,eonnubiumandcommercium, have, from time immemorial, been considered correlative ideas; and, to all the more logical socialists, a community of wives (or celibacy)512is as dear as a community of goods.513(§ 245.) And in practice, the greater number of nations of hunters, who, according to our conceptions, have no knowledge of a real family and no knowledge of property, have a custom of burying with the dead the things they used, to kill their cattle etc., or to deprive minor children of their inheritance.514[pg 260]Section LXXXVI.Economic Utility Of The Right Of Inheritance.The certainty, that the material welfare of their children depends, in great part, on their industry and frugality, is one of the most powerful incentives to good, in the case of most men. And this is the basis of the economic utility of the family right of inheritance.515There is scarcely any other institution which opposes over-population with such efficiency, for the reason, that the obstacle placed in its way here is placed very directly, at the point where it can make itself felt most, viz.: in the life of the family itself. The weaker the family feeling, the less does the abolition of the right of inheritance interfere with the economic interests of a nation. Hence, for instance, it is, that taxes imposed upon legacies, bequests, testamentary gifts etc., are less objectionable in proportion as they affect only those in the more remote degrees of relationship in which inheritance is something merely accidental. While, when a nation is yet in the intermediate stages of civilization, thefamilyright of inheritance seems to be very strong, especially as regards landed property, a consequence of the fact, that a superior kind of title to such property is recognized to exist in the family; at a period, when individualism becomes more developed, the liberty of devise by will is wont to prevail more and more.516Then the right of inheritance becomes,[pg 261]so to speak, a more elevated species of personal property, a prolongation of the same beyond the grave. Should testamentary freedom be too much hampered, selfishness would manifest itself in a way much more detrimental to economic interests, viz.: in the consumption of wealth, during the lifetime of its owner. Every man would be but a life annuitant of his own property.But, at the same time, in periods of moral decline, complete freedom may degenerate so as to produce evils equally great. The wealthy Bœotians, in the later days of Hellenic history, were wont to form themselves into dissolute drinking companies; and not only the childless, but even fathers of families made over their property to these companies, limiting their offspring to a portion which it was made their duty to let them have. It was so in Rome, also, in Cicero's time, when every acquaintance of standing took it very ill if not remembered in the will of the testator, and where Octavian, for instance, in the last twenty years of his reign, received about 70,000,000 thalers through legacies left him by his“friends.”517Here,[pg 262]the repeal of the law making it obligatory on testators to leave a certain proportion of their wealth to their children would remove the last safe-guard of their material welfare.518Section LXXXVII.Landed Property.As land, in its uncultivated state, has neither been produced by man, nor can be entirely consumed by him, the above demonstration of the necessity of private property cannot without[pg 263]any more ado, be extended to land.519Hence, individual property in land is everywhere much more recent than individual property in capital.520But a certain expenditure of capital and labor is necessary that land may be used productively, and, in most instances, this employment of capital and labor is of long duration, irrevocable in the very nature of things, and one the fruits of which can be reaped only after some time has elapsed. Now, this cooperation of capital and labor is such, that no one would undertake to employ them in the cultivation of the land, had he not the strongest assurance of possessing it. Hence, agriculture in its most rudimentary stage supposes ownership of the land, at least from the time that it is“tickled with the hoe,”until it“smiles with the harvest;”or, to express it more accurately, all the time intervening between the work of the plow and the labor of the sickle. The more, afterwards, population and civilization increase, the more products must be wrung from the soil. But this can be accomplished only by means of its moreintensivecultivation (higher farming), by lavishing a greater amount of capital and labor on it, and, as a rule, by extending the circle of agricultural operations by means of combinations more and more artificial. Hence, the progress of civilization demands an ever increasing fixity, and a more pronounced shaping of landed property (thespecificationof jurists), in the interests of all who share in this progress, and even of those who own no landed property themselves. Were there no property in land, every one would find it more[pg 264]difficult and laborious to gratify his want of agricultural products;521and the products themselves would be of an inferior kind.Thus, for instance, in Camargo, the lackmus was formerly prepared from plants to be had“free”in the woods. It was then, however, much dearer than it is now that the plants are artificially raised on landed property.522It is otherwise with the fisheries. The appropriation of rivers or seas would not tend to increase the abundance of their products, and hence this appropriation is, on the whole, rare.523Section LXXXVIII.Landed Property. (Continued.)Whenever this admixture of capital and labor with land has taken place to no great extent, private property in land is not found developed in any degree. Thus, there are even now many half-civilized countries in which the land is forfeited because not tilled for many years, and where it may be occupied by the first person who will cultivate it.524In Europe, common[pg 265]possession of forests and pasture lands asserted itself much longer than that of arable land, because, in the case of the former, labor and capital play a much less important part in the management of them. And yet, even in the case of arable land etc., and, in the highest stages of civilization, the property-quality is yet less developed than the property-quality of capital. How seldom do we findfidei commissaof capital, or capital juridically tied up. We find that the law of all ancient nations drew a marked distinction between moveable and immoveable property, and that the power of disposing of the former by sale, pledge, in dowry, partition etc., was a much freer one. And even now, the police power which may be exercised over moveable property is much more restricted than that over houses and land.525The justice of the exclusive right of possession to what one has earned and saved is obvious to every one. On the other hand, the appropriation of“original and indestructible natural forces”has its basis not so much in justice as in the general good; and the state has always considered itself entitled to attach to the“monopoly of land,”which it accorded to the first possessor, all kinds of limitations and conditions in the interest of the common good,[pg 266]and sometimes to consider private property in land in the light of a semi-public function.526I may instance the feudal principles of the latter portion of the middle ages, which are so far removed from our ideas of private property in land; and yet, of which many echoes are heard, even in our day, and are not without their influence in practice. Thus, further, for instance, even in England, the greater number of the poor-rates, of taxes for the support of the established church, the maintenance of public highways etc., are heaped upon the rent of land. Many socialists have proposed to make the state the sole proprietor of the soil,527sometimes adding the condition, that the previous private owners should be compensated in capital, when it would be at least supposable that private capital might be enticed to cultivate it, if long and sure leases of it were made. This would be a“good”demesne-husbandry, extending over the entire country. We need only glance at those kingdoms in which something analogous is to be found,[pg 267]especially the despotisms of the east,528to divine that such a system does not suffice to insure the real productiveness of a nation's economy.529[pg 268]

Chapter V.Community Of Goods And Private Property. Capital—Property.Section LXXVII.Capital.—Importance Of Private Property.As human labor can attain its full development, only on the supposition that personal freedom is allowed to develop to its full economic importance and dimensions, so capital can develop its full productive power only on the supposition of the existence of the freedom of personal property. Who would save anything, that is, give up present enjoyment, if he were not certain of future enjoyment?468The legitimacy of private property has, since the time of Locke,469been based, by the greater number of political economists, on the right inherent in every workman, either to consume or to save the product of his labor. But it should not be forgotten here that, at least in the higher stages of the economy of a nation, scarcely any work or saving is possible without the coöperation of society. And society must be conceived not only as the sum-total of the now living individuals that compose it, but in its entire[pg 236]past, present and future, and also as being led and borne onward by eternal ideas and wants.470[pg 237]Section LXXVIII.Socialism And Communism.In opposition to this, the idea of a community of goods has found favor, especially in times when the four following conditions met:471A.A well-defined, confrontation of rich and-poor.So long as there is a middle class of considerable numbers between them, the two extremes are kept, by its moral force, from coming into collision. There is no greater preservative against envy of the superior classes and contempt for the inferior, than the gradual and unbroken fading of one class of society into another.Sperate miseri, cavete felices!In such a state of social organization, we find the utmost and freshest productive activity at every round of the great ladder. Those at the bottom are straining every nerve to rise, and those higher up,[pg 238]not to fall below. But where the rich and the poor are separated by an abyss which there is no hope of ever crossing, how pride on the one side and envy on the other rage! and especially in thefociof industry, the great cities, where the deepest misery is found side by side with the most brazen-faced luxury, and where the wretched themselves conscious of their numbers, mutually excite their own bad passions. It cannot, unfortunately, be denied, that when a nation has attained the acme of its development, we find a multitude of tendencies prevailing to make the rich richer and the poor, at least relatively poorer, and thus to diminish the numbers of the middle class from both sides; unless, indeed, remedial influences are brought to bear and to operate in a contrary direction.472B.A high degree of the division of labor, by which, on the one hand, the mutual dependence of man on man grows ever greater, but by which, at the same time, the eye of the uncultured man becomes less and less able to perceive the connection existing between merit and reward, or service and remuneration. Let us betake ourselves in imagination to Crusoe's island. There, when one man, after the labor of many months, has hollowed out a tree into a canoe, with no tools but an animal's tooth, it does not occur to another who, in the meantime was, it may be, sleeping on his bear-skin, to contest the right of the former to the fruit of his labor. How different this from the condition of things where civilization is advanced, as it is in our day; where the banker, by a single stroke of his pen, seems to earn a thousand times more than a day-laborer in a week; where, in the case of those who loan money on interest, their debtors too frequently forget how laborious was the process of acquiring the loaned capital by the possessors, or their predecessors in ownership. More especially, we have, in times of“over-population,”whole masses[pg 239]of honest men asking not alms, but only work, an opportunity to earn their bread, and yet on the verge of starvation.473C.A violent shaking or perplexing of public opinion in its relation to the feeling of Right, by revolutions, especially when they follow rapidly one on the heels of another, and take opposite directions. On such occasions, both parties have generally prostituted themselves for the sake of the favor of the masses; and the latter have become conscious of the changes which the force of their arms may effect. In this way, it is impossible that until order is again entirely established, the reins of power should not be slackened in many ways at the demands of the multitude. In this way, too, they are stirred up to the making of pretentious claims which it is afterwards very difficult to silence. In every long and far-reaching revolution, whether undertaken in the interest of the crown, the nobility or the middle classes, we find, side by side with the seed it intended to sow, the tares of communism sprout up.D.Pretensions of the lower classes in consequence of a democratic constitution.Communism is the logically not inconsistent exaggeration of the principle of equality. Men who always hear themselves designated as“the sovereign people,”and their welfare as the supreme law of the state, are more apt than others to feel more keenly the distance which separates their own misery from the superabundance of others. And, indeed, to what an extent our physical wants are determined by our intellectual mould! The Greenlander feels comfortable in his mud hut, with his oil-jug. An Englishman in the same condition would despair.474475[pg 240]Section LXXIX.Socialism And Communism. (Continued.)What has just been said will serve to explain why, in the following four periods of the world's history, socialistic and communistic ideas have been most widespread: among the ancients at the time of the decline of Greece,476and in that of the degeneration of the Roman Republic;477among the moderns[pg 241]in the age of the Reformation,478and again, in our own day.479Section LXXX.Socialism And Communism. (Continued.)We thus see, that the attempts made by socialism and communism are, by no means, phenomena unheard of in the past,[pg 242]and peculiar to modern times, as the blind adherents and opponents of them would have us believe. They are rather diseases[pg 243]of the body social, which have affected every highly civilized nation at certain periods of its existence. If the[pg 244]body be too weak to react healthily and curatively (§84), the evil is very apt to lead to the decline of all true freedom and[pg 245]order. The communist, viewing all other things, especially the organization of the state, only as instruments to supply his material and absolute wants, considers the liberal either as a fool who is ever pursuing the phantoms of the brain, or as a knave who covers his own selfishness under the mask of the public welfare.480Hence the adherents of communism are satisfied with any form of government which seems to offer them most, and this a ruthless despotism can do, at least, for the moment. And, although they are ever ready for any revolution in the form of government, and easily to be won over to it, they are most readily captivated by a despotic revolution. On the other hand, when communism seriously threatens all that constitutes the wealth of a people, the owners of that wealth are compelled to fly to any refuge which holds out the promise to protect them from it, although by seeking that same refuge they may destroy their own political freedom.481The Achean league, which under the leadership of Aratos, the“enemy of tyrants,”had come into existence, promising so much hope, beheld itself later, and mainly through fear of the contagious effects of Spartan socialism under Cleomenes, compelled[pg 246]to unite with the Macedonians, that is, to give themselves up entirely. (§ 204).Section LXXXI.Community Of Goods.We now, for the present, turn our gaze from the frightful revolution, destructive of all civilization, which would necessarily precede the establishment of a community of goods,482and inquire what would be the consequences. Among angels (“gods and sons of gods”of Plato) and mere animals, a community of goods might, perhaps, exist without producing injury. And so, too, it might exist among men bound one to the other by the bonds of the truest love. The life of every model family is accompanied by a species of community of goods.483But in more extensive social organizations, this love is never found except as an element of the most exalted religious enthusiasm, which, as a rule, is of very short duration; of which the Acts of the Apostles (II, 44 ff, 32 ff, V, I, II) affords us the best known and most beautiful example.484[pg 247]Where this love does not exist, each participant in the community of goods will, as a rule, seek to do the least and enjoy the most possible.485In a society of one hundred thousand[pg 248]members, each individual would be interested in the results of its aggregate frugality only indirectly, and only to the extent of a one-hundred thousandth part of the whole; that is, practically, not at all.486Individual selfishness would expend itself entirely on the division of what the whole community produced. It would, consequently, and almost always be detrimental to the whole, and to the other individuals of the society; whereas, at present, it does so only in exceptional cases. When Louis Blanc, as Mably had before him, recommended that thepoint d' honneurshould take the place of theinterêt personnel, as a spur to production, and a check on consumption, and cited the army as an illustration of its workings, he forgot, among other things, the thirty cases in which the[pg 249]code militairepronounces sentence of death on the violators of its provisions. And, as a matter of fact, the Münster Anabaptists could not help punishing with death every transgression of their communistic precepts.487If, in a community in which the principles of communism were rigorously carried out, all the burthens and enjoyments of life were equal, and equally divided according to the ideas of the crowd, men like Thaer, Arkwright, and others of their class, who now provide bread for hundreds of thousands from their studies and laboratories, would then be able, at most, with a rake and shovel, to provide food for three or four. The division of labor, with its infinite amount of productive force, would, for the most part, cease. Nor would the consequence be that the humbler classes would be freed from work of a coarse, mechanical, unintellectual and severe nature; but that the higher classes would be dragged down to engage in it likewise. And what an increase there would be in the number of consumers at the same time! Every man would, with a light heart, follow the most imperious of human impulses if the whole community were to educate his children. But we have seen that a community of goods is desired most urgently in times of over-population. Hence, here it would make the evil greater yet, by increasing consumption and diminishing production.Where there are now one thousand wealthy persons, and one hundred thousand proletarians, there would be, after one generation, no one wealthy and two hundred thousand proletarians. Misery and want would be universal.488For the purpose[pg 250]of giving the crowd a very agreeable,489but rather short-lived period of pleasure, a period simply of transition, almost all that constitutes the wealth of a nation, all the higher goods of life, would have to be cast to the waves, and henceforth all men would have to content themselves with the gratifications afforded by potatoes, brandy and the pleasures of the most sensual of appetites. And then, the equal education of all, demanded by the communists, would have no result but this, that no one would acquire a higher scientific training.490But, after all, there lurks concealed in communism much more of envy than is generally supposed.[pg 251]Section LXXXII.The Organization Of Labor.Most theoretical adherents of the doctrine of a community of goods, feeling491more or less the weight of the above objections, have supplemented it with the idea of an organization of labor492or the centralized superintendence of all production and consumption, either by the government already existing, or by one to be created anew. Such a government would be, of course, a despotism such as the world has scarcely yet seen, a Cæsaro-Papacy, usurping both the place and power of Father of the universal Family.493But the evils mentioned above would be entailed none the less. Every incentive which now[pg 252]moves man to industry or frugality would disappear, and nothing remain but universal philanthrophy; or, if you will, but patriotism, virtues which are not wanting even now. Even guardianship of the government newly created would be carried on in a very loose manner; for it would be exercised without any feeling of personal interest, even in the most favorable case supposable. It is well known and easily understood, that state industries are never engaged in, in the long run, with the same zeal, nor crowned with the same success, as competing private industries. It is well known, too, how intimate the connection is between the political freedom of a people and their economic production; that, for instance, England's greater wealth, as compared with that of Turkey, depends, most largely, on the freedom that obtains in the former country and the servitude that prevails in the latter.494And we may inquire just here, what the result would be, if the despotism of government should go ten times farther that it has ever gone in Turkey, when, moreover, the despot who led the state, was not an individual with his few officials, but the whole crowd, with its million eyes and million hands. It would, practically, be to give every producer an escort of a policeman and a revenue agent, as if he were a prisoner.And where would be the gain? A division of wealth which would seem unjust to many would exist now as well as before, because the idle and the unskillful would receive the same reward as the most industrious and skillful.495The opposition of one class of society to another, so much complained[pg 253]of, would continue. The only difference would be, that whereas, it now comes from the weak, it would then come from the strong.496Compulsory association is certainly more prolific in strife and crime than is a state of society in which everybody manages his own affairs.A journey on foot, in company with others, is allowed, on all hands, to be a very good test of friendship. But, a community of goods would, in the strictest sense of the word, be a journey on foot through the whole of life with numberless“friends.”Here, every one would believe himself entitled to possess whatever pleased him. And, who would decide; since so many communists preach the dissolution and extinction of all government, and the reign of anarchy? Besides, there can be no doubt, that the difference of human talents and human wants, would soon, spite of every law, lead to a difference in property again. Hence, that first revolution would have to be repeated from time to time—a real Sisyphus labor! No sooner have the bees produced anything, than the drones come, and divide anew!Section LXXXIII.The Organization Of Labor. (Continued.)Experience, however, teaches us, that, in all the lower stages of civilization, a community of goods exists to a greater or lesser extent.497The institution of private property has been more fully evolved out of this condition of things, only in proportion as well-being and culture have been developed as cause and effect of such well-being. Thus, among most nations of hunters and fishermen, the idea of private property was unknown[pg 254]when these nations were first discovered. This is, indeed, very natural. Their chief spring of production flows as if of itself, apparently inexhaustible; and the hunter can hardly think of such a thing as saving any of his booty.498And, among nomadic nations, the land is a great meadow held in common; and the industry of plunder is considered, as it is in all inferior stages of civilization, especially honorable.499Theconquistadoresof Peru found there something very like a community of goods, under the despotic guardianship of the state, viz.: a yearly division of all lands among the people, in proportion to their rank; the cultivation of these lands in common, under the superintendence of the state, and to the sound of music. But, at the stage of civilization that Peru was then in, land is about the only resource possessed. The results were the usual ones. A country like Peru, with[pg 255]only one city, no beasts of burthen, no plows, no trades and no commerce, cannot possibly be rich.500That the constitution of Lycurgus established a sort of community of goods among the Spartans, is well known. I need only recall the public education, the meals in common, the authorization of stealing,501the prohibition of trade, of the precious metals and fine furniture, the equal division of property and the inalienable character of the land502etc. With such laws, Sparta could neither be, nor desire to become, wealthy. Of all Greek states of any historical importance, it preserved longest the economic peculiarities belonging to a low stage of civilization. Among most modern nations, the fundamental idea of their land laws, which had their origin in the middle ages, is, that each family is only the usufructuary, and that the community is the sovereign proprietor of the soil. This community of landed possession finds expression, among other things, in the vast extent of communal woods and pasturages, in the varied intersecting of parcels of land one by the other, which, indeed, change proprietors from time to time, and in the common[pg 256]working of the land, carried as far as possible etc.503In all medieval times,504not only the individual is considered an owner of the land, but, over and above him, the family. At the same time, we are wont to find existing an amount of mortmain property in the hands of corporations, monastery lands, crown lands and domains of very great importance.505All these institutions have declined in number and shown a disposition to disappear, in proportion as national husbandry or economy has grown more productive.Section LXXXIV.The Organization Of Labor. (Continued.)To this tendency we find, indeed, another, and a no less powerful one, opposed. Everywhere as civilization advances, the sphere of action of the state grows larger, and the ends it serves more numerous.In its origin, government was established to preserve only the external security of its subjects. By degrees, it comes to look after their internal legal security, by enforcing internal peace, prohibiting revenge for bloodshed etc. It next extends its care to the well-being, the culture, and even to the comfort of the people. But the claims of the state must grow in the same proportion as the service it renders. While Lowe, in 1822, estimated the yearly net income of the British people at[pg 257]£251,000,000; the government expenses,506in 1813 and 1814, averaged £106,000,000, and these sums were voluntarily devoted to public purposes by parliament. And so, between 1685 and 1841, the population of England more than trebled its numbers, But, in the same period of time, the outlay of the state increased forty fold. (Macaulay.) Simultaneously with this development of things, it becomes more and more usual by the exercise of the power of eminent domain and others like it, to sacrifice private rights, acquired by the very best of titles, to the preponderating common good. We may allude, further, to the duty, universally imposed in modern times, of performing military service, to the national systems of public instruction in so many countries; to the large number of societies, joint-stock companies, popular holidays; but particularly to the associations for insurance of every description. And so it may, indeed, be claimed that we have come nearer to a community of goods than could have been dreamed of a hundred years ago.507And yet, these are, for the most part, institutions in which we find reflected the peculiar strength and solidity of our age. Whoever wishes to compare the power of one people with that of another, must take into account not only the elements which constitute their intellectual and physical force, but especially their inclination to permit these elements to coöperate for public purposes.508[pg 258]We may now inquire: At what point does this increasing community cease to be a gain? This is as easily determined generally, as it is difficult to say what the limit to it is in particular instances. Progress in the direction of a community of interests of this nature is beneficial, only so long but certainly as long as it corresponds with the feeling entertained by the community, that they have interests in common. Hence it is, that such a noble kind of communism reigns in art and literature, one which causes the stronger to willingly labor for the weaker, and with the greatest success.509And so, too, the christian care of the poor, even were it carried to the height of the Gospel counsels (Luke, 3:11), would be no direct obstacle in the way of the development of a nation's public economy, provided it were given, and accepted, only as christian benevolence. Every approximation towards a community of goods should be effected by the love of the rich for the poor, not by the hatred of the poor for the rich. If all men were true Christians, a community of goods might exist without danger. But then, also, the institution of private property would have no dark side to it. Every employer would give his workmen the highest wages possible, and demand in return only the smallest possible sacrifice.510511[pg 259]Section LXXXV.The Right Of Inheritance.The right of inheritance to resources has its origin in a combination of the idea of the family with the idea of property. And, indeed, this combination of ideas is a very natural one. The larger portion of mankind consider the pleasures of the family as the highest attainable, and endeavor, whenever their economic means make it at all possible, to secure them. At the same time, the selfishness of most men is not confined to their own persons, but extends also to their posterity. Hence it is that bed and board,eonnubiumandcommercium, have, from time immemorial, been considered correlative ideas; and, to all the more logical socialists, a community of wives (or celibacy)512is as dear as a community of goods.513(§ 245.) And in practice, the greater number of nations of hunters, who, according to our conceptions, have no knowledge of a real family and no knowledge of property, have a custom of burying with the dead the things they used, to kill their cattle etc., or to deprive minor children of their inheritance.514[pg 260]Section LXXXVI.Economic Utility Of The Right Of Inheritance.The certainty, that the material welfare of their children depends, in great part, on their industry and frugality, is one of the most powerful incentives to good, in the case of most men. And this is the basis of the economic utility of the family right of inheritance.515There is scarcely any other institution which opposes over-population with such efficiency, for the reason, that the obstacle placed in its way here is placed very directly, at the point where it can make itself felt most, viz.: in the life of the family itself. The weaker the family feeling, the less does the abolition of the right of inheritance interfere with the economic interests of a nation. Hence, for instance, it is, that taxes imposed upon legacies, bequests, testamentary gifts etc., are less objectionable in proportion as they affect only those in the more remote degrees of relationship in which inheritance is something merely accidental. While, when a nation is yet in the intermediate stages of civilization, thefamilyright of inheritance seems to be very strong, especially as regards landed property, a consequence of the fact, that a superior kind of title to such property is recognized to exist in the family; at a period, when individualism becomes more developed, the liberty of devise by will is wont to prevail more and more.516Then the right of inheritance becomes,[pg 261]so to speak, a more elevated species of personal property, a prolongation of the same beyond the grave. Should testamentary freedom be too much hampered, selfishness would manifest itself in a way much more detrimental to economic interests, viz.: in the consumption of wealth, during the lifetime of its owner. Every man would be but a life annuitant of his own property.But, at the same time, in periods of moral decline, complete freedom may degenerate so as to produce evils equally great. The wealthy Bœotians, in the later days of Hellenic history, were wont to form themselves into dissolute drinking companies; and not only the childless, but even fathers of families made over their property to these companies, limiting their offspring to a portion which it was made their duty to let them have. It was so in Rome, also, in Cicero's time, when every acquaintance of standing took it very ill if not remembered in the will of the testator, and where Octavian, for instance, in the last twenty years of his reign, received about 70,000,000 thalers through legacies left him by his“friends.”517Here,[pg 262]the repeal of the law making it obligatory on testators to leave a certain proportion of their wealth to their children would remove the last safe-guard of their material welfare.518Section LXXXVII.Landed Property.As land, in its uncultivated state, has neither been produced by man, nor can be entirely consumed by him, the above demonstration of the necessity of private property cannot without[pg 263]any more ado, be extended to land.519Hence, individual property in land is everywhere much more recent than individual property in capital.520But a certain expenditure of capital and labor is necessary that land may be used productively, and, in most instances, this employment of capital and labor is of long duration, irrevocable in the very nature of things, and one the fruits of which can be reaped only after some time has elapsed. Now, this cooperation of capital and labor is such, that no one would undertake to employ them in the cultivation of the land, had he not the strongest assurance of possessing it. Hence, agriculture in its most rudimentary stage supposes ownership of the land, at least from the time that it is“tickled with the hoe,”until it“smiles with the harvest;”or, to express it more accurately, all the time intervening between the work of the plow and the labor of the sickle. The more, afterwards, population and civilization increase, the more products must be wrung from the soil. But this can be accomplished only by means of its moreintensivecultivation (higher farming), by lavishing a greater amount of capital and labor on it, and, as a rule, by extending the circle of agricultural operations by means of combinations more and more artificial. Hence, the progress of civilization demands an ever increasing fixity, and a more pronounced shaping of landed property (thespecificationof jurists), in the interests of all who share in this progress, and even of those who own no landed property themselves. Were there no property in land, every one would find it more[pg 264]difficult and laborious to gratify his want of agricultural products;521and the products themselves would be of an inferior kind.Thus, for instance, in Camargo, the lackmus was formerly prepared from plants to be had“free”in the woods. It was then, however, much dearer than it is now that the plants are artificially raised on landed property.522It is otherwise with the fisheries. The appropriation of rivers or seas would not tend to increase the abundance of their products, and hence this appropriation is, on the whole, rare.523Section LXXXVIII.Landed Property. (Continued.)Whenever this admixture of capital and labor with land has taken place to no great extent, private property in land is not found developed in any degree. Thus, there are even now many half-civilized countries in which the land is forfeited because not tilled for many years, and where it may be occupied by the first person who will cultivate it.524In Europe, common[pg 265]possession of forests and pasture lands asserted itself much longer than that of arable land, because, in the case of the former, labor and capital play a much less important part in the management of them. And yet, even in the case of arable land etc., and, in the highest stages of civilization, the property-quality is yet less developed than the property-quality of capital. How seldom do we findfidei commissaof capital, or capital juridically tied up. We find that the law of all ancient nations drew a marked distinction between moveable and immoveable property, and that the power of disposing of the former by sale, pledge, in dowry, partition etc., was a much freer one. And even now, the police power which may be exercised over moveable property is much more restricted than that over houses and land.525The justice of the exclusive right of possession to what one has earned and saved is obvious to every one. On the other hand, the appropriation of“original and indestructible natural forces”has its basis not so much in justice as in the general good; and the state has always considered itself entitled to attach to the“monopoly of land,”which it accorded to the first possessor, all kinds of limitations and conditions in the interest of the common good,[pg 266]and sometimes to consider private property in land in the light of a semi-public function.526I may instance the feudal principles of the latter portion of the middle ages, which are so far removed from our ideas of private property in land; and yet, of which many echoes are heard, even in our day, and are not without their influence in practice. Thus, further, for instance, even in England, the greater number of the poor-rates, of taxes for the support of the established church, the maintenance of public highways etc., are heaped upon the rent of land. Many socialists have proposed to make the state the sole proprietor of the soil,527sometimes adding the condition, that the previous private owners should be compensated in capital, when it would be at least supposable that private capital might be enticed to cultivate it, if long and sure leases of it were made. This would be a“good”demesne-husbandry, extending over the entire country. We need only glance at those kingdoms in which something analogous is to be found,[pg 267]especially the despotisms of the east,528to divine that such a system does not suffice to insure the real productiveness of a nation's economy.529[pg 268]

Chapter V.Community Of Goods And Private Property. Capital—Property.Section LXXVII.Capital.—Importance Of Private Property.As human labor can attain its full development, only on the supposition that personal freedom is allowed to develop to its full economic importance and dimensions, so capital can develop its full productive power only on the supposition of the existence of the freedom of personal property. Who would save anything, that is, give up present enjoyment, if he were not certain of future enjoyment?468The legitimacy of private property has, since the time of Locke,469been based, by the greater number of political economists, on the right inherent in every workman, either to consume or to save the product of his labor. But it should not be forgotten here that, at least in the higher stages of the economy of a nation, scarcely any work or saving is possible without the coöperation of society. And society must be conceived not only as the sum-total of the now living individuals that compose it, but in its entire[pg 236]past, present and future, and also as being led and borne onward by eternal ideas and wants.470[pg 237]Section LXXVIII.Socialism And Communism.In opposition to this, the idea of a community of goods has found favor, especially in times when the four following conditions met:471A.A well-defined, confrontation of rich and-poor.So long as there is a middle class of considerable numbers between them, the two extremes are kept, by its moral force, from coming into collision. There is no greater preservative against envy of the superior classes and contempt for the inferior, than the gradual and unbroken fading of one class of society into another.Sperate miseri, cavete felices!In such a state of social organization, we find the utmost and freshest productive activity at every round of the great ladder. Those at the bottom are straining every nerve to rise, and those higher up,[pg 238]not to fall below. But where the rich and the poor are separated by an abyss which there is no hope of ever crossing, how pride on the one side and envy on the other rage! and especially in thefociof industry, the great cities, where the deepest misery is found side by side with the most brazen-faced luxury, and where the wretched themselves conscious of their numbers, mutually excite their own bad passions. It cannot, unfortunately, be denied, that when a nation has attained the acme of its development, we find a multitude of tendencies prevailing to make the rich richer and the poor, at least relatively poorer, and thus to diminish the numbers of the middle class from both sides; unless, indeed, remedial influences are brought to bear and to operate in a contrary direction.472B.A high degree of the division of labor, by which, on the one hand, the mutual dependence of man on man grows ever greater, but by which, at the same time, the eye of the uncultured man becomes less and less able to perceive the connection existing between merit and reward, or service and remuneration. Let us betake ourselves in imagination to Crusoe's island. There, when one man, after the labor of many months, has hollowed out a tree into a canoe, with no tools but an animal's tooth, it does not occur to another who, in the meantime was, it may be, sleeping on his bear-skin, to contest the right of the former to the fruit of his labor. How different this from the condition of things where civilization is advanced, as it is in our day; where the banker, by a single stroke of his pen, seems to earn a thousand times more than a day-laborer in a week; where, in the case of those who loan money on interest, their debtors too frequently forget how laborious was the process of acquiring the loaned capital by the possessors, or their predecessors in ownership. More especially, we have, in times of“over-population,”whole masses[pg 239]of honest men asking not alms, but only work, an opportunity to earn their bread, and yet on the verge of starvation.473C.A violent shaking or perplexing of public opinion in its relation to the feeling of Right, by revolutions, especially when they follow rapidly one on the heels of another, and take opposite directions. On such occasions, both parties have generally prostituted themselves for the sake of the favor of the masses; and the latter have become conscious of the changes which the force of their arms may effect. In this way, it is impossible that until order is again entirely established, the reins of power should not be slackened in many ways at the demands of the multitude. In this way, too, they are stirred up to the making of pretentious claims which it is afterwards very difficult to silence. In every long and far-reaching revolution, whether undertaken in the interest of the crown, the nobility or the middle classes, we find, side by side with the seed it intended to sow, the tares of communism sprout up.D.Pretensions of the lower classes in consequence of a democratic constitution.Communism is the logically not inconsistent exaggeration of the principle of equality. Men who always hear themselves designated as“the sovereign people,”and their welfare as the supreme law of the state, are more apt than others to feel more keenly the distance which separates their own misery from the superabundance of others. And, indeed, to what an extent our physical wants are determined by our intellectual mould! The Greenlander feels comfortable in his mud hut, with his oil-jug. An Englishman in the same condition would despair.474475[pg 240]Section LXXIX.Socialism And Communism. (Continued.)What has just been said will serve to explain why, in the following four periods of the world's history, socialistic and communistic ideas have been most widespread: among the ancients at the time of the decline of Greece,476and in that of the degeneration of the Roman Republic;477among the moderns[pg 241]in the age of the Reformation,478and again, in our own day.479Section LXXX.Socialism And Communism. (Continued.)We thus see, that the attempts made by socialism and communism are, by no means, phenomena unheard of in the past,[pg 242]and peculiar to modern times, as the blind adherents and opponents of them would have us believe. They are rather diseases[pg 243]of the body social, which have affected every highly civilized nation at certain periods of its existence. If the[pg 244]body be too weak to react healthily and curatively (§84), the evil is very apt to lead to the decline of all true freedom and[pg 245]order. The communist, viewing all other things, especially the organization of the state, only as instruments to supply his material and absolute wants, considers the liberal either as a fool who is ever pursuing the phantoms of the brain, or as a knave who covers his own selfishness under the mask of the public welfare.480Hence the adherents of communism are satisfied with any form of government which seems to offer them most, and this a ruthless despotism can do, at least, for the moment. And, although they are ever ready for any revolution in the form of government, and easily to be won over to it, they are most readily captivated by a despotic revolution. On the other hand, when communism seriously threatens all that constitutes the wealth of a people, the owners of that wealth are compelled to fly to any refuge which holds out the promise to protect them from it, although by seeking that same refuge they may destroy their own political freedom.481The Achean league, which under the leadership of Aratos, the“enemy of tyrants,”had come into existence, promising so much hope, beheld itself later, and mainly through fear of the contagious effects of Spartan socialism under Cleomenes, compelled[pg 246]to unite with the Macedonians, that is, to give themselves up entirely. (§ 204).Section LXXXI.Community Of Goods.We now, for the present, turn our gaze from the frightful revolution, destructive of all civilization, which would necessarily precede the establishment of a community of goods,482and inquire what would be the consequences. Among angels (“gods and sons of gods”of Plato) and mere animals, a community of goods might, perhaps, exist without producing injury. And so, too, it might exist among men bound one to the other by the bonds of the truest love. The life of every model family is accompanied by a species of community of goods.483But in more extensive social organizations, this love is never found except as an element of the most exalted religious enthusiasm, which, as a rule, is of very short duration; of which the Acts of the Apostles (II, 44 ff, 32 ff, V, I, II) affords us the best known and most beautiful example.484[pg 247]Where this love does not exist, each participant in the community of goods will, as a rule, seek to do the least and enjoy the most possible.485In a society of one hundred thousand[pg 248]members, each individual would be interested in the results of its aggregate frugality only indirectly, and only to the extent of a one-hundred thousandth part of the whole; that is, practically, not at all.486Individual selfishness would expend itself entirely on the division of what the whole community produced. It would, consequently, and almost always be detrimental to the whole, and to the other individuals of the society; whereas, at present, it does so only in exceptional cases. When Louis Blanc, as Mably had before him, recommended that thepoint d' honneurshould take the place of theinterêt personnel, as a spur to production, and a check on consumption, and cited the army as an illustration of its workings, he forgot, among other things, the thirty cases in which the[pg 249]code militairepronounces sentence of death on the violators of its provisions. And, as a matter of fact, the Münster Anabaptists could not help punishing with death every transgression of their communistic precepts.487If, in a community in which the principles of communism were rigorously carried out, all the burthens and enjoyments of life were equal, and equally divided according to the ideas of the crowd, men like Thaer, Arkwright, and others of their class, who now provide bread for hundreds of thousands from their studies and laboratories, would then be able, at most, with a rake and shovel, to provide food for three or four. The division of labor, with its infinite amount of productive force, would, for the most part, cease. Nor would the consequence be that the humbler classes would be freed from work of a coarse, mechanical, unintellectual and severe nature; but that the higher classes would be dragged down to engage in it likewise. And what an increase there would be in the number of consumers at the same time! Every man would, with a light heart, follow the most imperious of human impulses if the whole community were to educate his children. But we have seen that a community of goods is desired most urgently in times of over-population. Hence, here it would make the evil greater yet, by increasing consumption and diminishing production.Where there are now one thousand wealthy persons, and one hundred thousand proletarians, there would be, after one generation, no one wealthy and two hundred thousand proletarians. Misery and want would be universal.488For the purpose[pg 250]of giving the crowd a very agreeable,489but rather short-lived period of pleasure, a period simply of transition, almost all that constitutes the wealth of a nation, all the higher goods of life, would have to be cast to the waves, and henceforth all men would have to content themselves with the gratifications afforded by potatoes, brandy and the pleasures of the most sensual of appetites. And then, the equal education of all, demanded by the communists, would have no result but this, that no one would acquire a higher scientific training.490But, after all, there lurks concealed in communism much more of envy than is generally supposed.[pg 251]Section LXXXII.The Organization Of Labor.Most theoretical adherents of the doctrine of a community of goods, feeling491more or less the weight of the above objections, have supplemented it with the idea of an organization of labor492or the centralized superintendence of all production and consumption, either by the government already existing, or by one to be created anew. Such a government would be, of course, a despotism such as the world has scarcely yet seen, a Cæsaro-Papacy, usurping both the place and power of Father of the universal Family.493But the evils mentioned above would be entailed none the less. Every incentive which now[pg 252]moves man to industry or frugality would disappear, and nothing remain but universal philanthrophy; or, if you will, but patriotism, virtues which are not wanting even now. Even guardianship of the government newly created would be carried on in a very loose manner; for it would be exercised without any feeling of personal interest, even in the most favorable case supposable. It is well known and easily understood, that state industries are never engaged in, in the long run, with the same zeal, nor crowned with the same success, as competing private industries. It is well known, too, how intimate the connection is between the political freedom of a people and their economic production; that, for instance, England's greater wealth, as compared with that of Turkey, depends, most largely, on the freedom that obtains in the former country and the servitude that prevails in the latter.494And we may inquire just here, what the result would be, if the despotism of government should go ten times farther that it has ever gone in Turkey, when, moreover, the despot who led the state, was not an individual with his few officials, but the whole crowd, with its million eyes and million hands. It would, practically, be to give every producer an escort of a policeman and a revenue agent, as if he were a prisoner.And where would be the gain? A division of wealth which would seem unjust to many would exist now as well as before, because the idle and the unskillful would receive the same reward as the most industrious and skillful.495The opposition of one class of society to another, so much complained[pg 253]of, would continue. The only difference would be, that whereas, it now comes from the weak, it would then come from the strong.496Compulsory association is certainly more prolific in strife and crime than is a state of society in which everybody manages his own affairs.A journey on foot, in company with others, is allowed, on all hands, to be a very good test of friendship. But, a community of goods would, in the strictest sense of the word, be a journey on foot through the whole of life with numberless“friends.”Here, every one would believe himself entitled to possess whatever pleased him. And, who would decide; since so many communists preach the dissolution and extinction of all government, and the reign of anarchy? Besides, there can be no doubt, that the difference of human talents and human wants, would soon, spite of every law, lead to a difference in property again. Hence, that first revolution would have to be repeated from time to time—a real Sisyphus labor! No sooner have the bees produced anything, than the drones come, and divide anew!Section LXXXIII.The Organization Of Labor. (Continued.)Experience, however, teaches us, that, in all the lower stages of civilization, a community of goods exists to a greater or lesser extent.497The institution of private property has been more fully evolved out of this condition of things, only in proportion as well-being and culture have been developed as cause and effect of such well-being. Thus, among most nations of hunters and fishermen, the idea of private property was unknown[pg 254]when these nations were first discovered. This is, indeed, very natural. Their chief spring of production flows as if of itself, apparently inexhaustible; and the hunter can hardly think of such a thing as saving any of his booty.498And, among nomadic nations, the land is a great meadow held in common; and the industry of plunder is considered, as it is in all inferior stages of civilization, especially honorable.499Theconquistadoresof Peru found there something very like a community of goods, under the despotic guardianship of the state, viz.: a yearly division of all lands among the people, in proportion to their rank; the cultivation of these lands in common, under the superintendence of the state, and to the sound of music. But, at the stage of civilization that Peru was then in, land is about the only resource possessed. The results were the usual ones. A country like Peru, with[pg 255]only one city, no beasts of burthen, no plows, no trades and no commerce, cannot possibly be rich.500That the constitution of Lycurgus established a sort of community of goods among the Spartans, is well known. I need only recall the public education, the meals in common, the authorization of stealing,501the prohibition of trade, of the precious metals and fine furniture, the equal division of property and the inalienable character of the land502etc. With such laws, Sparta could neither be, nor desire to become, wealthy. Of all Greek states of any historical importance, it preserved longest the economic peculiarities belonging to a low stage of civilization. Among most modern nations, the fundamental idea of their land laws, which had their origin in the middle ages, is, that each family is only the usufructuary, and that the community is the sovereign proprietor of the soil. This community of landed possession finds expression, among other things, in the vast extent of communal woods and pasturages, in the varied intersecting of parcels of land one by the other, which, indeed, change proprietors from time to time, and in the common[pg 256]working of the land, carried as far as possible etc.503In all medieval times,504not only the individual is considered an owner of the land, but, over and above him, the family. At the same time, we are wont to find existing an amount of mortmain property in the hands of corporations, monastery lands, crown lands and domains of very great importance.505All these institutions have declined in number and shown a disposition to disappear, in proportion as national husbandry or economy has grown more productive.Section LXXXIV.The Organization Of Labor. (Continued.)To this tendency we find, indeed, another, and a no less powerful one, opposed. Everywhere as civilization advances, the sphere of action of the state grows larger, and the ends it serves more numerous.In its origin, government was established to preserve only the external security of its subjects. By degrees, it comes to look after their internal legal security, by enforcing internal peace, prohibiting revenge for bloodshed etc. It next extends its care to the well-being, the culture, and even to the comfort of the people. But the claims of the state must grow in the same proportion as the service it renders. While Lowe, in 1822, estimated the yearly net income of the British people at[pg 257]£251,000,000; the government expenses,506in 1813 and 1814, averaged £106,000,000, and these sums were voluntarily devoted to public purposes by parliament. And so, between 1685 and 1841, the population of England more than trebled its numbers, But, in the same period of time, the outlay of the state increased forty fold. (Macaulay.) Simultaneously with this development of things, it becomes more and more usual by the exercise of the power of eminent domain and others like it, to sacrifice private rights, acquired by the very best of titles, to the preponderating common good. We may allude, further, to the duty, universally imposed in modern times, of performing military service, to the national systems of public instruction in so many countries; to the large number of societies, joint-stock companies, popular holidays; but particularly to the associations for insurance of every description. And so it may, indeed, be claimed that we have come nearer to a community of goods than could have been dreamed of a hundred years ago.507And yet, these are, for the most part, institutions in which we find reflected the peculiar strength and solidity of our age. Whoever wishes to compare the power of one people with that of another, must take into account not only the elements which constitute their intellectual and physical force, but especially their inclination to permit these elements to coöperate for public purposes.508[pg 258]We may now inquire: At what point does this increasing community cease to be a gain? This is as easily determined generally, as it is difficult to say what the limit to it is in particular instances. Progress in the direction of a community of interests of this nature is beneficial, only so long but certainly as long as it corresponds with the feeling entertained by the community, that they have interests in common. Hence it is, that such a noble kind of communism reigns in art and literature, one which causes the stronger to willingly labor for the weaker, and with the greatest success.509And so, too, the christian care of the poor, even were it carried to the height of the Gospel counsels (Luke, 3:11), would be no direct obstacle in the way of the development of a nation's public economy, provided it were given, and accepted, only as christian benevolence. Every approximation towards a community of goods should be effected by the love of the rich for the poor, not by the hatred of the poor for the rich. If all men were true Christians, a community of goods might exist without danger. But then, also, the institution of private property would have no dark side to it. Every employer would give his workmen the highest wages possible, and demand in return only the smallest possible sacrifice.510511[pg 259]Section LXXXV.The Right Of Inheritance.The right of inheritance to resources has its origin in a combination of the idea of the family with the idea of property. And, indeed, this combination of ideas is a very natural one. The larger portion of mankind consider the pleasures of the family as the highest attainable, and endeavor, whenever their economic means make it at all possible, to secure them. At the same time, the selfishness of most men is not confined to their own persons, but extends also to their posterity. Hence it is that bed and board,eonnubiumandcommercium, have, from time immemorial, been considered correlative ideas; and, to all the more logical socialists, a community of wives (or celibacy)512is as dear as a community of goods.513(§ 245.) And in practice, the greater number of nations of hunters, who, according to our conceptions, have no knowledge of a real family and no knowledge of property, have a custom of burying with the dead the things they used, to kill their cattle etc., or to deprive minor children of their inheritance.514[pg 260]Section LXXXVI.Economic Utility Of The Right Of Inheritance.The certainty, that the material welfare of their children depends, in great part, on their industry and frugality, is one of the most powerful incentives to good, in the case of most men. And this is the basis of the economic utility of the family right of inheritance.515There is scarcely any other institution which opposes over-population with such efficiency, for the reason, that the obstacle placed in its way here is placed very directly, at the point where it can make itself felt most, viz.: in the life of the family itself. The weaker the family feeling, the less does the abolition of the right of inheritance interfere with the economic interests of a nation. Hence, for instance, it is, that taxes imposed upon legacies, bequests, testamentary gifts etc., are less objectionable in proportion as they affect only those in the more remote degrees of relationship in which inheritance is something merely accidental. While, when a nation is yet in the intermediate stages of civilization, thefamilyright of inheritance seems to be very strong, especially as regards landed property, a consequence of the fact, that a superior kind of title to such property is recognized to exist in the family; at a period, when individualism becomes more developed, the liberty of devise by will is wont to prevail more and more.516Then the right of inheritance becomes,[pg 261]so to speak, a more elevated species of personal property, a prolongation of the same beyond the grave. Should testamentary freedom be too much hampered, selfishness would manifest itself in a way much more detrimental to economic interests, viz.: in the consumption of wealth, during the lifetime of its owner. Every man would be but a life annuitant of his own property.But, at the same time, in periods of moral decline, complete freedom may degenerate so as to produce evils equally great. The wealthy Bœotians, in the later days of Hellenic history, were wont to form themselves into dissolute drinking companies; and not only the childless, but even fathers of families made over their property to these companies, limiting their offspring to a portion which it was made their duty to let them have. It was so in Rome, also, in Cicero's time, when every acquaintance of standing took it very ill if not remembered in the will of the testator, and where Octavian, for instance, in the last twenty years of his reign, received about 70,000,000 thalers through legacies left him by his“friends.”517Here,[pg 262]the repeal of the law making it obligatory on testators to leave a certain proportion of their wealth to their children would remove the last safe-guard of their material welfare.518Section LXXXVII.Landed Property.As land, in its uncultivated state, has neither been produced by man, nor can be entirely consumed by him, the above demonstration of the necessity of private property cannot without[pg 263]any more ado, be extended to land.519Hence, individual property in land is everywhere much more recent than individual property in capital.520But a certain expenditure of capital and labor is necessary that land may be used productively, and, in most instances, this employment of capital and labor is of long duration, irrevocable in the very nature of things, and one the fruits of which can be reaped only after some time has elapsed. Now, this cooperation of capital and labor is such, that no one would undertake to employ them in the cultivation of the land, had he not the strongest assurance of possessing it. Hence, agriculture in its most rudimentary stage supposes ownership of the land, at least from the time that it is“tickled with the hoe,”until it“smiles with the harvest;”or, to express it more accurately, all the time intervening between the work of the plow and the labor of the sickle. The more, afterwards, population and civilization increase, the more products must be wrung from the soil. But this can be accomplished only by means of its moreintensivecultivation (higher farming), by lavishing a greater amount of capital and labor on it, and, as a rule, by extending the circle of agricultural operations by means of combinations more and more artificial. Hence, the progress of civilization demands an ever increasing fixity, and a more pronounced shaping of landed property (thespecificationof jurists), in the interests of all who share in this progress, and even of those who own no landed property themselves. Were there no property in land, every one would find it more[pg 264]difficult and laborious to gratify his want of agricultural products;521and the products themselves would be of an inferior kind.Thus, for instance, in Camargo, the lackmus was formerly prepared from plants to be had“free”in the woods. It was then, however, much dearer than it is now that the plants are artificially raised on landed property.522It is otherwise with the fisheries. The appropriation of rivers or seas would not tend to increase the abundance of their products, and hence this appropriation is, on the whole, rare.523Section LXXXVIII.Landed Property. (Continued.)Whenever this admixture of capital and labor with land has taken place to no great extent, private property in land is not found developed in any degree. Thus, there are even now many half-civilized countries in which the land is forfeited because not tilled for many years, and where it may be occupied by the first person who will cultivate it.524In Europe, common[pg 265]possession of forests and pasture lands asserted itself much longer than that of arable land, because, in the case of the former, labor and capital play a much less important part in the management of them. And yet, even in the case of arable land etc., and, in the highest stages of civilization, the property-quality is yet less developed than the property-quality of capital. How seldom do we findfidei commissaof capital, or capital juridically tied up. We find that the law of all ancient nations drew a marked distinction between moveable and immoveable property, and that the power of disposing of the former by sale, pledge, in dowry, partition etc., was a much freer one. And even now, the police power which may be exercised over moveable property is much more restricted than that over houses and land.525The justice of the exclusive right of possession to what one has earned and saved is obvious to every one. On the other hand, the appropriation of“original and indestructible natural forces”has its basis not so much in justice as in the general good; and the state has always considered itself entitled to attach to the“monopoly of land,”which it accorded to the first possessor, all kinds of limitations and conditions in the interest of the common good,[pg 266]and sometimes to consider private property in land in the light of a semi-public function.526I may instance the feudal principles of the latter portion of the middle ages, which are so far removed from our ideas of private property in land; and yet, of which many echoes are heard, even in our day, and are not without their influence in practice. Thus, further, for instance, even in England, the greater number of the poor-rates, of taxes for the support of the established church, the maintenance of public highways etc., are heaped upon the rent of land. Many socialists have proposed to make the state the sole proprietor of the soil,527sometimes adding the condition, that the previous private owners should be compensated in capital, when it would be at least supposable that private capital might be enticed to cultivate it, if long and sure leases of it were made. This would be a“good”demesne-husbandry, extending over the entire country. We need only glance at those kingdoms in which something analogous is to be found,[pg 267]especially the despotisms of the east,528to divine that such a system does not suffice to insure the real productiveness of a nation's economy.529

Section LXXVII.Capital.—Importance Of Private Property.As human labor can attain its full development, only on the supposition that personal freedom is allowed to develop to its full economic importance and dimensions, so capital can develop its full productive power only on the supposition of the existence of the freedom of personal property. Who would save anything, that is, give up present enjoyment, if he were not certain of future enjoyment?468The legitimacy of private property has, since the time of Locke,469been based, by the greater number of political economists, on the right inherent in every workman, either to consume or to save the product of his labor. But it should not be forgotten here that, at least in the higher stages of the economy of a nation, scarcely any work or saving is possible without the coöperation of society. And society must be conceived not only as the sum-total of the now living individuals that compose it, but in its entire[pg 236]past, present and future, and also as being led and borne onward by eternal ideas and wants.470

As human labor can attain its full development, only on the supposition that personal freedom is allowed to develop to its full economic importance and dimensions, so capital can develop its full productive power only on the supposition of the existence of the freedom of personal property. Who would save anything, that is, give up present enjoyment, if he were not certain of future enjoyment?468The legitimacy of private property has, since the time of Locke,469been based, by the greater number of political economists, on the right inherent in every workman, either to consume or to save the product of his labor. But it should not be forgotten here that, at least in the higher stages of the economy of a nation, scarcely any work or saving is possible without the coöperation of society. And society must be conceived not only as the sum-total of the now living individuals that compose it, but in its entire[pg 236]past, present and future, and also as being led and borne onward by eternal ideas and wants.470

Section LXXVIII.Socialism And Communism.In opposition to this, the idea of a community of goods has found favor, especially in times when the four following conditions met:471A.A well-defined, confrontation of rich and-poor.So long as there is a middle class of considerable numbers between them, the two extremes are kept, by its moral force, from coming into collision. There is no greater preservative against envy of the superior classes and contempt for the inferior, than the gradual and unbroken fading of one class of society into another.Sperate miseri, cavete felices!In such a state of social organization, we find the utmost and freshest productive activity at every round of the great ladder. Those at the bottom are straining every nerve to rise, and those higher up,[pg 238]not to fall below. But where the rich and the poor are separated by an abyss which there is no hope of ever crossing, how pride on the one side and envy on the other rage! and especially in thefociof industry, the great cities, where the deepest misery is found side by side with the most brazen-faced luxury, and where the wretched themselves conscious of their numbers, mutually excite their own bad passions. It cannot, unfortunately, be denied, that when a nation has attained the acme of its development, we find a multitude of tendencies prevailing to make the rich richer and the poor, at least relatively poorer, and thus to diminish the numbers of the middle class from both sides; unless, indeed, remedial influences are brought to bear and to operate in a contrary direction.472B.A high degree of the division of labor, by which, on the one hand, the mutual dependence of man on man grows ever greater, but by which, at the same time, the eye of the uncultured man becomes less and less able to perceive the connection existing between merit and reward, or service and remuneration. Let us betake ourselves in imagination to Crusoe's island. There, when one man, after the labor of many months, has hollowed out a tree into a canoe, with no tools but an animal's tooth, it does not occur to another who, in the meantime was, it may be, sleeping on his bear-skin, to contest the right of the former to the fruit of his labor. How different this from the condition of things where civilization is advanced, as it is in our day; where the banker, by a single stroke of his pen, seems to earn a thousand times more than a day-laborer in a week; where, in the case of those who loan money on interest, their debtors too frequently forget how laborious was the process of acquiring the loaned capital by the possessors, or their predecessors in ownership. More especially, we have, in times of“over-population,”whole masses[pg 239]of honest men asking not alms, but only work, an opportunity to earn their bread, and yet on the verge of starvation.473C.A violent shaking or perplexing of public opinion in its relation to the feeling of Right, by revolutions, especially when they follow rapidly one on the heels of another, and take opposite directions. On such occasions, both parties have generally prostituted themselves for the sake of the favor of the masses; and the latter have become conscious of the changes which the force of their arms may effect. In this way, it is impossible that until order is again entirely established, the reins of power should not be slackened in many ways at the demands of the multitude. In this way, too, they are stirred up to the making of pretentious claims which it is afterwards very difficult to silence. In every long and far-reaching revolution, whether undertaken in the interest of the crown, the nobility or the middle classes, we find, side by side with the seed it intended to sow, the tares of communism sprout up.D.Pretensions of the lower classes in consequence of a democratic constitution.Communism is the logically not inconsistent exaggeration of the principle of equality. Men who always hear themselves designated as“the sovereign people,”and their welfare as the supreme law of the state, are more apt than others to feel more keenly the distance which separates their own misery from the superabundance of others. And, indeed, to what an extent our physical wants are determined by our intellectual mould! The Greenlander feels comfortable in his mud hut, with his oil-jug. An Englishman in the same condition would despair.474475

In opposition to this, the idea of a community of goods has found favor, especially in times when the four following conditions met:471

A.A well-defined, confrontation of rich and-poor.So long as there is a middle class of considerable numbers between them, the two extremes are kept, by its moral force, from coming into collision. There is no greater preservative against envy of the superior classes and contempt for the inferior, than the gradual and unbroken fading of one class of society into another.Sperate miseri, cavete felices!In such a state of social organization, we find the utmost and freshest productive activity at every round of the great ladder. Those at the bottom are straining every nerve to rise, and those higher up,[pg 238]not to fall below. But where the rich and the poor are separated by an abyss which there is no hope of ever crossing, how pride on the one side and envy on the other rage! and especially in thefociof industry, the great cities, where the deepest misery is found side by side with the most brazen-faced luxury, and where the wretched themselves conscious of their numbers, mutually excite their own bad passions. It cannot, unfortunately, be denied, that when a nation has attained the acme of its development, we find a multitude of tendencies prevailing to make the rich richer and the poor, at least relatively poorer, and thus to diminish the numbers of the middle class from both sides; unless, indeed, remedial influences are brought to bear and to operate in a contrary direction.472

B.A high degree of the division of labor, by which, on the one hand, the mutual dependence of man on man grows ever greater, but by which, at the same time, the eye of the uncultured man becomes less and less able to perceive the connection existing between merit and reward, or service and remuneration. Let us betake ourselves in imagination to Crusoe's island. There, when one man, after the labor of many months, has hollowed out a tree into a canoe, with no tools but an animal's tooth, it does not occur to another who, in the meantime was, it may be, sleeping on his bear-skin, to contest the right of the former to the fruit of his labor. How different this from the condition of things where civilization is advanced, as it is in our day; where the banker, by a single stroke of his pen, seems to earn a thousand times more than a day-laborer in a week; where, in the case of those who loan money on interest, their debtors too frequently forget how laborious was the process of acquiring the loaned capital by the possessors, or their predecessors in ownership. More especially, we have, in times of“over-population,”whole masses[pg 239]of honest men asking not alms, but only work, an opportunity to earn their bread, and yet on the verge of starvation.473

C.A violent shaking or perplexing of public opinion in its relation to the feeling of Right, by revolutions, especially when they follow rapidly one on the heels of another, and take opposite directions. On such occasions, both parties have generally prostituted themselves for the sake of the favor of the masses; and the latter have become conscious of the changes which the force of their arms may effect. In this way, it is impossible that until order is again entirely established, the reins of power should not be slackened in many ways at the demands of the multitude. In this way, too, they are stirred up to the making of pretentious claims which it is afterwards very difficult to silence. In every long and far-reaching revolution, whether undertaken in the interest of the crown, the nobility or the middle classes, we find, side by side with the seed it intended to sow, the tares of communism sprout up.

D.Pretensions of the lower classes in consequence of a democratic constitution.Communism is the logically not inconsistent exaggeration of the principle of equality. Men who always hear themselves designated as“the sovereign people,”and their welfare as the supreme law of the state, are more apt than others to feel more keenly the distance which separates their own misery from the superabundance of others. And, indeed, to what an extent our physical wants are determined by our intellectual mould! The Greenlander feels comfortable in his mud hut, with his oil-jug. An Englishman in the same condition would despair.474475

Section LXXIX.Socialism And Communism. (Continued.)What has just been said will serve to explain why, in the following four periods of the world's history, socialistic and communistic ideas have been most widespread: among the ancients at the time of the decline of Greece,476and in that of the degeneration of the Roman Republic;477among the moderns[pg 241]in the age of the Reformation,478and again, in our own day.479

What has just been said will serve to explain why, in the following four periods of the world's history, socialistic and communistic ideas have been most widespread: among the ancients at the time of the decline of Greece,476and in that of the degeneration of the Roman Republic;477among the moderns[pg 241]in the age of the Reformation,478and again, in our own day.479

Section LXXX.Socialism And Communism. (Continued.)We thus see, that the attempts made by socialism and communism are, by no means, phenomena unheard of in the past,[pg 242]and peculiar to modern times, as the blind adherents and opponents of them would have us believe. They are rather diseases[pg 243]of the body social, which have affected every highly civilized nation at certain periods of its existence. If the[pg 244]body be too weak to react healthily and curatively (§84), the evil is very apt to lead to the decline of all true freedom and[pg 245]order. The communist, viewing all other things, especially the organization of the state, only as instruments to supply his material and absolute wants, considers the liberal either as a fool who is ever pursuing the phantoms of the brain, or as a knave who covers his own selfishness under the mask of the public welfare.480Hence the adherents of communism are satisfied with any form of government which seems to offer them most, and this a ruthless despotism can do, at least, for the moment. And, although they are ever ready for any revolution in the form of government, and easily to be won over to it, they are most readily captivated by a despotic revolution. On the other hand, when communism seriously threatens all that constitutes the wealth of a people, the owners of that wealth are compelled to fly to any refuge which holds out the promise to protect them from it, although by seeking that same refuge they may destroy their own political freedom.481The Achean league, which under the leadership of Aratos, the“enemy of tyrants,”had come into existence, promising so much hope, beheld itself later, and mainly through fear of the contagious effects of Spartan socialism under Cleomenes, compelled[pg 246]to unite with the Macedonians, that is, to give themselves up entirely. (§ 204).

We thus see, that the attempts made by socialism and communism are, by no means, phenomena unheard of in the past,[pg 242]and peculiar to modern times, as the blind adherents and opponents of them would have us believe. They are rather diseases[pg 243]of the body social, which have affected every highly civilized nation at certain periods of its existence. If the[pg 244]body be too weak to react healthily and curatively (§84), the evil is very apt to lead to the decline of all true freedom and[pg 245]order. The communist, viewing all other things, especially the organization of the state, only as instruments to supply his material and absolute wants, considers the liberal either as a fool who is ever pursuing the phantoms of the brain, or as a knave who covers his own selfishness under the mask of the public welfare.480Hence the adherents of communism are satisfied with any form of government which seems to offer them most, and this a ruthless despotism can do, at least, for the moment. And, although they are ever ready for any revolution in the form of government, and easily to be won over to it, they are most readily captivated by a despotic revolution. On the other hand, when communism seriously threatens all that constitutes the wealth of a people, the owners of that wealth are compelled to fly to any refuge which holds out the promise to protect them from it, although by seeking that same refuge they may destroy their own political freedom.481The Achean league, which under the leadership of Aratos, the“enemy of tyrants,”had come into existence, promising so much hope, beheld itself later, and mainly through fear of the contagious effects of Spartan socialism under Cleomenes, compelled[pg 246]to unite with the Macedonians, that is, to give themselves up entirely. (§ 204).

Section LXXXI.Community Of Goods.We now, for the present, turn our gaze from the frightful revolution, destructive of all civilization, which would necessarily precede the establishment of a community of goods,482and inquire what would be the consequences. Among angels (“gods and sons of gods”of Plato) and mere animals, a community of goods might, perhaps, exist without producing injury. And so, too, it might exist among men bound one to the other by the bonds of the truest love. The life of every model family is accompanied by a species of community of goods.483But in more extensive social organizations, this love is never found except as an element of the most exalted religious enthusiasm, which, as a rule, is of very short duration; of which the Acts of the Apostles (II, 44 ff, 32 ff, V, I, II) affords us the best known and most beautiful example.484[pg 247]Where this love does not exist, each participant in the community of goods will, as a rule, seek to do the least and enjoy the most possible.485In a society of one hundred thousand[pg 248]members, each individual would be interested in the results of its aggregate frugality only indirectly, and only to the extent of a one-hundred thousandth part of the whole; that is, practically, not at all.486Individual selfishness would expend itself entirely on the division of what the whole community produced. It would, consequently, and almost always be detrimental to the whole, and to the other individuals of the society; whereas, at present, it does so only in exceptional cases. When Louis Blanc, as Mably had before him, recommended that thepoint d' honneurshould take the place of theinterêt personnel, as a spur to production, and a check on consumption, and cited the army as an illustration of its workings, he forgot, among other things, the thirty cases in which the[pg 249]code militairepronounces sentence of death on the violators of its provisions. And, as a matter of fact, the Münster Anabaptists could not help punishing with death every transgression of their communistic precepts.487If, in a community in which the principles of communism were rigorously carried out, all the burthens and enjoyments of life were equal, and equally divided according to the ideas of the crowd, men like Thaer, Arkwright, and others of their class, who now provide bread for hundreds of thousands from their studies and laboratories, would then be able, at most, with a rake and shovel, to provide food for three or four. The division of labor, with its infinite amount of productive force, would, for the most part, cease. Nor would the consequence be that the humbler classes would be freed from work of a coarse, mechanical, unintellectual and severe nature; but that the higher classes would be dragged down to engage in it likewise. And what an increase there would be in the number of consumers at the same time! Every man would, with a light heart, follow the most imperious of human impulses if the whole community were to educate his children. But we have seen that a community of goods is desired most urgently in times of over-population. Hence, here it would make the evil greater yet, by increasing consumption and diminishing production.Where there are now one thousand wealthy persons, and one hundred thousand proletarians, there would be, after one generation, no one wealthy and two hundred thousand proletarians. Misery and want would be universal.488For the purpose[pg 250]of giving the crowd a very agreeable,489but rather short-lived period of pleasure, a period simply of transition, almost all that constitutes the wealth of a nation, all the higher goods of life, would have to be cast to the waves, and henceforth all men would have to content themselves with the gratifications afforded by potatoes, brandy and the pleasures of the most sensual of appetites. And then, the equal education of all, demanded by the communists, would have no result but this, that no one would acquire a higher scientific training.490But, after all, there lurks concealed in communism much more of envy than is generally supposed.

We now, for the present, turn our gaze from the frightful revolution, destructive of all civilization, which would necessarily precede the establishment of a community of goods,482and inquire what would be the consequences. Among angels (“gods and sons of gods”of Plato) and mere animals, a community of goods might, perhaps, exist without producing injury. And so, too, it might exist among men bound one to the other by the bonds of the truest love. The life of every model family is accompanied by a species of community of goods.483But in more extensive social organizations, this love is never found except as an element of the most exalted religious enthusiasm, which, as a rule, is of very short duration; of which the Acts of the Apostles (II, 44 ff, 32 ff, V, I, II) affords us the best known and most beautiful example.484

Where this love does not exist, each participant in the community of goods will, as a rule, seek to do the least and enjoy the most possible.485In a society of one hundred thousand[pg 248]members, each individual would be interested in the results of its aggregate frugality only indirectly, and only to the extent of a one-hundred thousandth part of the whole; that is, practically, not at all.486Individual selfishness would expend itself entirely on the division of what the whole community produced. It would, consequently, and almost always be detrimental to the whole, and to the other individuals of the society; whereas, at present, it does so only in exceptional cases. When Louis Blanc, as Mably had before him, recommended that thepoint d' honneurshould take the place of theinterêt personnel, as a spur to production, and a check on consumption, and cited the army as an illustration of its workings, he forgot, among other things, the thirty cases in which the[pg 249]code militairepronounces sentence of death on the violators of its provisions. And, as a matter of fact, the Münster Anabaptists could not help punishing with death every transgression of their communistic precepts.487If, in a community in which the principles of communism were rigorously carried out, all the burthens and enjoyments of life were equal, and equally divided according to the ideas of the crowd, men like Thaer, Arkwright, and others of their class, who now provide bread for hundreds of thousands from their studies and laboratories, would then be able, at most, with a rake and shovel, to provide food for three or four. The division of labor, with its infinite amount of productive force, would, for the most part, cease. Nor would the consequence be that the humbler classes would be freed from work of a coarse, mechanical, unintellectual and severe nature; but that the higher classes would be dragged down to engage in it likewise. And what an increase there would be in the number of consumers at the same time! Every man would, with a light heart, follow the most imperious of human impulses if the whole community were to educate his children. But we have seen that a community of goods is desired most urgently in times of over-population. Hence, here it would make the evil greater yet, by increasing consumption and diminishing production.

Where there are now one thousand wealthy persons, and one hundred thousand proletarians, there would be, after one generation, no one wealthy and two hundred thousand proletarians. Misery and want would be universal.488For the purpose[pg 250]of giving the crowd a very agreeable,489but rather short-lived period of pleasure, a period simply of transition, almost all that constitutes the wealth of a nation, all the higher goods of life, would have to be cast to the waves, and henceforth all men would have to content themselves with the gratifications afforded by potatoes, brandy and the pleasures of the most sensual of appetites. And then, the equal education of all, demanded by the communists, would have no result but this, that no one would acquire a higher scientific training.490But, after all, there lurks concealed in communism much more of envy than is generally supposed.

Section LXXXII.The Organization Of Labor.Most theoretical adherents of the doctrine of a community of goods, feeling491more or less the weight of the above objections, have supplemented it with the idea of an organization of labor492or the centralized superintendence of all production and consumption, either by the government already existing, or by one to be created anew. Such a government would be, of course, a despotism such as the world has scarcely yet seen, a Cæsaro-Papacy, usurping both the place and power of Father of the universal Family.493But the evils mentioned above would be entailed none the less. Every incentive which now[pg 252]moves man to industry or frugality would disappear, and nothing remain but universal philanthrophy; or, if you will, but patriotism, virtues which are not wanting even now. Even guardianship of the government newly created would be carried on in a very loose manner; for it would be exercised without any feeling of personal interest, even in the most favorable case supposable. It is well known and easily understood, that state industries are never engaged in, in the long run, with the same zeal, nor crowned with the same success, as competing private industries. It is well known, too, how intimate the connection is between the political freedom of a people and their economic production; that, for instance, England's greater wealth, as compared with that of Turkey, depends, most largely, on the freedom that obtains in the former country and the servitude that prevails in the latter.494And we may inquire just here, what the result would be, if the despotism of government should go ten times farther that it has ever gone in Turkey, when, moreover, the despot who led the state, was not an individual with his few officials, but the whole crowd, with its million eyes and million hands. It would, practically, be to give every producer an escort of a policeman and a revenue agent, as if he were a prisoner.And where would be the gain? A division of wealth which would seem unjust to many would exist now as well as before, because the idle and the unskillful would receive the same reward as the most industrious and skillful.495The opposition of one class of society to another, so much complained[pg 253]of, would continue. The only difference would be, that whereas, it now comes from the weak, it would then come from the strong.496Compulsory association is certainly more prolific in strife and crime than is a state of society in which everybody manages his own affairs.A journey on foot, in company with others, is allowed, on all hands, to be a very good test of friendship. But, a community of goods would, in the strictest sense of the word, be a journey on foot through the whole of life with numberless“friends.”Here, every one would believe himself entitled to possess whatever pleased him. And, who would decide; since so many communists preach the dissolution and extinction of all government, and the reign of anarchy? Besides, there can be no doubt, that the difference of human talents and human wants, would soon, spite of every law, lead to a difference in property again. Hence, that first revolution would have to be repeated from time to time—a real Sisyphus labor! No sooner have the bees produced anything, than the drones come, and divide anew!

Most theoretical adherents of the doctrine of a community of goods, feeling491more or less the weight of the above objections, have supplemented it with the idea of an organization of labor492or the centralized superintendence of all production and consumption, either by the government already existing, or by one to be created anew. Such a government would be, of course, a despotism such as the world has scarcely yet seen, a Cæsaro-Papacy, usurping both the place and power of Father of the universal Family.493But the evils mentioned above would be entailed none the less. Every incentive which now[pg 252]moves man to industry or frugality would disappear, and nothing remain but universal philanthrophy; or, if you will, but patriotism, virtues which are not wanting even now. Even guardianship of the government newly created would be carried on in a very loose manner; for it would be exercised without any feeling of personal interest, even in the most favorable case supposable. It is well known and easily understood, that state industries are never engaged in, in the long run, with the same zeal, nor crowned with the same success, as competing private industries. It is well known, too, how intimate the connection is between the political freedom of a people and their economic production; that, for instance, England's greater wealth, as compared with that of Turkey, depends, most largely, on the freedom that obtains in the former country and the servitude that prevails in the latter.494And we may inquire just here, what the result would be, if the despotism of government should go ten times farther that it has ever gone in Turkey, when, moreover, the despot who led the state, was not an individual with his few officials, but the whole crowd, with its million eyes and million hands. It would, practically, be to give every producer an escort of a policeman and a revenue agent, as if he were a prisoner.

And where would be the gain? A division of wealth which would seem unjust to many would exist now as well as before, because the idle and the unskillful would receive the same reward as the most industrious and skillful.495The opposition of one class of society to another, so much complained[pg 253]of, would continue. The only difference would be, that whereas, it now comes from the weak, it would then come from the strong.496Compulsory association is certainly more prolific in strife and crime than is a state of society in which everybody manages his own affairs.

A journey on foot, in company with others, is allowed, on all hands, to be a very good test of friendship. But, a community of goods would, in the strictest sense of the word, be a journey on foot through the whole of life with numberless“friends.”Here, every one would believe himself entitled to possess whatever pleased him. And, who would decide; since so many communists preach the dissolution and extinction of all government, and the reign of anarchy? Besides, there can be no doubt, that the difference of human talents and human wants, would soon, spite of every law, lead to a difference in property again. Hence, that first revolution would have to be repeated from time to time—a real Sisyphus labor! No sooner have the bees produced anything, than the drones come, and divide anew!

Section LXXXIII.The Organization Of Labor. (Continued.)Experience, however, teaches us, that, in all the lower stages of civilization, a community of goods exists to a greater or lesser extent.497The institution of private property has been more fully evolved out of this condition of things, only in proportion as well-being and culture have been developed as cause and effect of such well-being. Thus, among most nations of hunters and fishermen, the idea of private property was unknown[pg 254]when these nations were first discovered. This is, indeed, very natural. Their chief spring of production flows as if of itself, apparently inexhaustible; and the hunter can hardly think of such a thing as saving any of his booty.498And, among nomadic nations, the land is a great meadow held in common; and the industry of plunder is considered, as it is in all inferior stages of civilization, especially honorable.499Theconquistadoresof Peru found there something very like a community of goods, under the despotic guardianship of the state, viz.: a yearly division of all lands among the people, in proportion to their rank; the cultivation of these lands in common, under the superintendence of the state, and to the sound of music. But, at the stage of civilization that Peru was then in, land is about the only resource possessed. The results were the usual ones. A country like Peru, with[pg 255]only one city, no beasts of burthen, no plows, no trades and no commerce, cannot possibly be rich.500That the constitution of Lycurgus established a sort of community of goods among the Spartans, is well known. I need only recall the public education, the meals in common, the authorization of stealing,501the prohibition of trade, of the precious metals and fine furniture, the equal division of property and the inalienable character of the land502etc. With such laws, Sparta could neither be, nor desire to become, wealthy. Of all Greek states of any historical importance, it preserved longest the economic peculiarities belonging to a low stage of civilization. Among most modern nations, the fundamental idea of their land laws, which had their origin in the middle ages, is, that each family is only the usufructuary, and that the community is the sovereign proprietor of the soil. This community of landed possession finds expression, among other things, in the vast extent of communal woods and pasturages, in the varied intersecting of parcels of land one by the other, which, indeed, change proprietors from time to time, and in the common[pg 256]working of the land, carried as far as possible etc.503In all medieval times,504not only the individual is considered an owner of the land, but, over and above him, the family. At the same time, we are wont to find existing an amount of mortmain property in the hands of corporations, monastery lands, crown lands and domains of very great importance.505All these institutions have declined in number and shown a disposition to disappear, in proportion as national husbandry or economy has grown more productive.

Experience, however, teaches us, that, in all the lower stages of civilization, a community of goods exists to a greater or lesser extent.497The institution of private property has been more fully evolved out of this condition of things, only in proportion as well-being and culture have been developed as cause and effect of such well-being. Thus, among most nations of hunters and fishermen, the idea of private property was unknown[pg 254]when these nations were first discovered. This is, indeed, very natural. Their chief spring of production flows as if of itself, apparently inexhaustible; and the hunter can hardly think of such a thing as saving any of his booty.498And, among nomadic nations, the land is a great meadow held in common; and the industry of plunder is considered, as it is in all inferior stages of civilization, especially honorable.499Theconquistadoresof Peru found there something very like a community of goods, under the despotic guardianship of the state, viz.: a yearly division of all lands among the people, in proportion to their rank; the cultivation of these lands in common, under the superintendence of the state, and to the sound of music. But, at the stage of civilization that Peru was then in, land is about the only resource possessed. The results were the usual ones. A country like Peru, with[pg 255]only one city, no beasts of burthen, no plows, no trades and no commerce, cannot possibly be rich.500That the constitution of Lycurgus established a sort of community of goods among the Spartans, is well known. I need only recall the public education, the meals in common, the authorization of stealing,501the prohibition of trade, of the precious metals and fine furniture, the equal division of property and the inalienable character of the land502etc. With such laws, Sparta could neither be, nor desire to become, wealthy. Of all Greek states of any historical importance, it preserved longest the economic peculiarities belonging to a low stage of civilization. Among most modern nations, the fundamental idea of their land laws, which had their origin in the middle ages, is, that each family is only the usufructuary, and that the community is the sovereign proprietor of the soil. This community of landed possession finds expression, among other things, in the vast extent of communal woods and pasturages, in the varied intersecting of parcels of land one by the other, which, indeed, change proprietors from time to time, and in the common[pg 256]working of the land, carried as far as possible etc.503In all medieval times,504not only the individual is considered an owner of the land, but, over and above him, the family. At the same time, we are wont to find existing an amount of mortmain property in the hands of corporations, monastery lands, crown lands and domains of very great importance.505All these institutions have declined in number and shown a disposition to disappear, in proportion as national husbandry or economy has grown more productive.

Section LXXXIV.The Organization Of Labor. (Continued.)To this tendency we find, indeed, another, and a no less powerful one, opposed. Everywhere as civilization advances, the sphere of action of the state grows larger, and the ends it serves more numerous.In its origin, government was established to preserve only the external security of its subjects. By degrees, it comes to look after their internal legal security, by enforcing internal peace, prohibiting revenge for bloodshed etc. It next extends its care to the well-being, the culture, and even to the comfort of the people. But the claims of the state must grow in the same proportion as the service it renders. While Lowe, in 1822, estimated the yearly net income of the British people at[pg 257]£251,000,000; the government expenses,506in 1813 and 1814, averaged £106,000,000, and these sums were voluntarily devoted to public purposes by parliament. And so, between 1685 and 1841, the population of England more than trebled its numbers, But, in the same period of time, the outlay of the state increased forty fold. (Macaulay.) Simultaneously with this development of things, it becomes more and more usual by the exercise of the power of eminent domain and others like it, to sacrifice private rights, acquired by the very best of titles, to the preponderating common good. We may allude, further, to the duty, universally imposed in modern times, of performing military service, to the national systems of public instruction in so many countries; to the large number of societies, joint-stock companies, popular holidays; but particularly to the associations for insurance of every description. And so it may, indeed, be claimed that we have come nearer to a community of goods than could have been dreamed of a hundred years ago.507And yet, these are, for the most part, institutions in which we find reflected the peculiar strength and solidity of our age. Whoever wishes to compare the power of one people with that of another, must take into account not only the elements which constitute their intellectual and physical force, but especially their inclination to permit these elements to coöperate for public purposes.508[pg 258]We may now inquire: At what point does this increasing community cease to be a gain? This is as easily determined generally, as it is difficult to say what the limit to it is in particular instances. Progress in the direction of a community of interests of this nature is beneficial, only so long but certainly as long as it corresponds with the feeling entertained by the community, that they have interests in common. Hence it is, that such a noble kind of communism reigns in art and literature, one which causes the stronger to willingly labor for the weaker, and with the greatest success.509And so, too, the christian care of the poor, even were it carried to the height of the Gospel counsels (Luke, 3:11), would be no direct obstacle in the way of the development of a nation's public economy, provided it were given, and accepted, only as christian benevolence. Every approximation towards a community of goods should be effected by the love of the rich for the poor, not by the hatred of the poor for the rich. If all men were true Christians, a community of goods might exist without danger. But then, also, the institution of private property would have no dark side to it. Every employer would give his workmen the highest wages possible, and demand in return only the smallest possible sacrifice.510511

To this tendency we find, indeed, another, and a no less powerful one, opposed. Everywhere as civilization advances, the sphere of action of the state grows larger, and the ends it serves more numerous.

In its origin, government was established to preserve only the external security of its subjects. By degrees, it comes to look after their internal legal security, by enforcing internal peace, prohibiting revenge for bloodshed etc. It next extends its care to the well-being, the culture, and even to the comfort of the people. But the claims of the state must grow in the same proportion as the service it renders. While Lowe, in 1822, estimated the yearly net income of the British people at[pg 257]£251,000,000; the government expenses,506in 1813 and 1814, averaged £106,000,000, and these sums were voluntarily devoted to public purposes by parliament. And so, between 1685 and 1841, the population of England more than trebled its numbers, But, in the same period of time, the outlay of the state increased forty fold. (Macaulay.) Simultaneously with this development of things, it becomes more and more usual by the exercise of the power of eminent domain and others like it, to sacrifice private rights, acquired by the very best of titles, to the preponderating common good. We may allude, further, to the duty, universally imposed in modern times, of performing military service, to the national systems of public instruction in so many countries; to the large number of societies, joint-stock companies, popular holidays; but particularly to the associations for insurance of every description. And so it may, indeed, be claimed that we have come nearer to a community of goods than could have been dreamed of a hundred years ago.507And yet, these are, for the most part, institutions in which we find reflected the peculiar strength and solidity of our age. Whoever wishes to compare the power of one people with that of another, must take into account not only the elements which constitute their intellectual and physical force, but especially their inclination to permit these elements to coöperate for public purposes.508

We may now inquire: At what point does this increasing community cease to be a gain? This is as easily determined generally, as it is difficult to say what the limit to it is in particular instances. Progress in the direction of a community of interests of this nature is beneficial, only so long but certainly as long as it corresponds with the feeling entertained by the community, that they have interests in common. Hence it is, that such a noble kind of communism reigns in art and literature, one which causes the stronger to willingly labor for the weaker, and with the greatest success.509And so, too, the christian care of the poor, even were it carried to the height of the Gospel counsels (Luke, 3:11), would be no direct obstacle in the way of the development of a nation's public economy, provided it were given, and accepted, only as christian benevolence. Every approximation towards a community of goods should be effected by the love of the rich for the poor, not by the hatred of the poor for the rich. If all men were true Christians, a community of goods might exist without danger. But then, also, the institution of private property would have no dark side to it. Every employer would give his workmen the highest wages possible, and demand in return only the smallest possible sacrifice.510511

Section LXXXV.The Right Of Inheritance.The right of inheritance to resources has its origin in a combination of the idea of the family with the idea of property. And, indeed, this combination of ideas is a very natural one. The larger portion of mankind consider the pleasures of the family as the highest attainable, and endeavor, whenever their economic means make it at all possible, to secure them. At the same time, the selfishness of most men is not confined to their own persons, but extends also to their posterity. Hence it is that bed and board,eonnubiumandcommercium, have, from time immemorial, been considered correlative ideas; and, to all the more logical socialists, a community of wives (or celibacy)512is as dear as a community of goods.513(§ 245.) And in practice, the greater number of nations of hunters, who, according to our conceptions, have no knowledge of a real family and no knowledge of property, have a custom of burying with the dead the things they used, to kill their cattle etc., or to deprive minor children of their inheritance.514

The right of inheritance to resources has its origin in a combination of the idea of the family with the idea of property. And, indeed, this combination of ideas is a very natural one. The larger portion of mankind consider the pleasures of the family as the highest attainable, and endeavor, whenever their economic means make it at all possible, to secure them. At the same time, the selfishness of most men is not confined to their own persons, but extends also to their posterity. Hence it is that bed and board,eonnubiumandcommercium, have, from time immemorial, been considered correlative ideas; and, to all the more logical socialists, a community of wives (or celibacy)512is as dear as a community of goods.513(§ 245.) And in practice, the greater number of nations of hunters, who, according to our conceptions, have no knowledge of a real family and no knowledge of property, have a custom of burying with the dead the things they used, to kill their cattle etc., or to deprive minor children of their inheritance.514

Section LXXXVI.Economic Utility Of The Right Of Inheritance.The certainty, that the material welfare of their children depends, in great part, on their industry and frugality, is one of the most powerful incentives to good, in the case of most men. And this is the basis of the economic utility of the family right of inheritance.515There is scarcely any other institution which opposes over-population with such efficiency, for the reason, that the obstacle placed in its way here is placed very directly, at the point where it can make itself felt most, viz.: in the life of the family itself. The weaker the family feeling, the less does the abolition of the right of inheritance interfere with the economic interests of a nation. Hence, for instance, it is, that taxes imposed upon legacies, bequests, testamentary gifts etc., are less objectionable in proportion as they affect only those in the more remote degrees of relationship in which inheritance is something merely accidental. While, when a nation is yet in the intermediate stages of civilization, thefamilyright of inheritance seems to be very strong, especially as regards landed property, a consequence of the fact, that a superior kind of title to such property is recognized to exist in the family; at a period, when individualism becomes more developed, the liberty of devise by will is wont to prevail more and more.516Then the right of inheritance becomes,[pg 261]so to speak, a more elevated species of personal property, a prolongation of the same beyond the grave. Should testamentary freedom be too much hampered, selfishness would manifest itself in a way much more detrimental to economic interests, viz.: in the consumption of wealth, during the lifetime of its owner. Every man would be but a life annuitant of his own property.But, at the same time, in periods of moral decline, complete freedom may degenerate so as to produce evils equally great. The wealthy Bœotians, in the later days of Hellenic history, were wont to form themselves into dissolute drinking companies; and not only the childless, but even fathers of families made over their property to these companies, limiting their offspring to a portion which it was made their duty to let them have. It was so in Rome, also, in Cicero's time, when every acquaintance of standing took it very ill if not remembered in the will of the testator, and where Octavian, for instance, in the last twenty years of his reign, received about 70,000,000 thalers through legacies left him by his“friends.”517Here,[pg 262]the repeal of the law making it obligatory on testators to leave a certain proportion of their wealth to their children would remove the last safe-guard of their material welfare.518

The certainty, that the material welfare of their children depends, in great part, on their industry and frugality, is one of the most powerful incentives to good, in the case of most men. And this is the basis of the economic utility of the family right of inheritance.515There is scarcely any other institution which opposes over-population with such efficiency, for the reason, that the obstacle placed in its way here is placed very directly, at the point where it can make itself felt most, viz.: in the life of the family itself. The weaker the family feeling, the less does the abolition of the right of inheritance interfere with the economic interests of a nation. Hence, for instance, it is, that taxes imposed upon legacies, bequests, testamentary gifts etc., are less objectionable in proportion as they affect only those in the more remote degrees of relationship in which inheritance is something merely accidental. While, when a nation is yet in the intermediate stages of civilization, thefamilyright of inheritance seems to be very strong, especially as regards landed property, a consequence of the fact, that a superior kind of title to such property is recognized to exist in the family; at a period, when individualism becomes more developed, the liberty of devise by will is wont to prevail more and more.516Then the right of inheritance becomes,[pg 261]so to speak, a more elevated species of personal property, a prolongation of the same beyond the grave. Should testamentary freedom be too much hampered, selfishness would manifest itself in a way much more detrimental to economic interests, viz.: in the consumption of wealth, during the lifetime of its owner. Every man would be but a life annuitant of his own property.

But, at the same time, in periods of moral decline, complete freedom may degenerate so as to produce evils equally great. The wealthy Bœotians, in the later days of Hellenic history, were wont to form themselves into dissolute drinking companies; and not only the childless, but even fathers of families made over their property to these companies, limiting their offspring to a portion which it was made their duty to let them have. It was so in Rome, also, in Cicero's time, when every acquaintance of standing took it very ill if not remembered in the will of the testator, and where Octavian, for instance, in the last twenty years of his reign, received about 70,000,000 thalers through legacies left him by his“friends.”517Here,[pg 262]the repeal of the law making it obligatory on testators to leave a certain proportion of their wealth to their children would remove the last safe-guard of their material welfare.518

Section LXXXVII.Landed Property.As land, in its uncultivated state, has neither been produced by man, nor can be entirely consumed by him, the above demonstration of the necessity of private property cannot without[pg 263]any more ado, be extended to land.519Hence, individual property in land is everywhere much more recent than individual property in capital.520But a certain expenditure of capital and labor is necessary that land may be used productively, and, in most instances, this employment of capital and labor is of long duration, irrevocable in the very nature of things, and one the fruits of which can be reaped only after some time has elapsed. Now, this cooperation of capital and labor is such, that no one would undertake to employ them in the cultivation of the land, had he not the strongest assurance of possessing it. Hence, agriculture in its most rudimentary stage supposes ownership of the land, at least from the time that it is“tickled with the hoe,”until it“smiles with the harvest;”or, to express it more accurately, all the time intervening between the work of the plow and the labor of the sickle. The more, afterwards, population and civilization increase, the more products must be wrung from the soil. But this can be accomplished only by means of its moreintensivecultivation (higher farming), by lavishing a greater amount of capital and labor on it, and, as a rule, by extending the circle of agricultural operations by means of combinations more and more artificial. Hence, the progress of civilization demands an ever increasing fixity, and a more pronounced shaping of landed property (thespecificationof jurists), in the interests of all who share in this progress, and even of those who own no landed property themselves. Were there no property in land, every one would find it more[pg 264]difficult and laborious to gratify his want of agricultural products;521and the products themselves would be of an inferior kind.Thus, for instance, in Camargo, the lackmus was formerly prepared from plants to be had“free”in the woods. It was then, however, much dearer than it is now that the plants are artificially raised on landed property.522It is otherwise with the fisheries. The appropriation of rivers or seas would not tend to increase the abundance of their products, and hence this appropriation is, on the whole, rare.523

As land, in its uncultivated state, has neither been produced by man, nor can be entirely consumed by him, the above demonstration of the necessity of private property cannot without[pg 263]any more ado, be extended to land.519Hence, individual property in land is everywhere much more recent than individual property in capital.520

But a certain expenditure of capital and labor is necessary that land may be used productively, and, in most instances, this employment of capital and labor is of long duration, irrevocable in the very nature of things, and one the fruits of which can be reaped only after some time has elapsed. Now, this cooperation of capital and labor is such, that no one would undertake to employ them in the cultivation of the land, had he not the strongest assurance of possessing it. Hence, agriculture in its most rudimentary stage supposes ownership of the land, at least from the time that it is“tickled with the hoe,”until it“smiles with the harvest;”or, to express it more accurately, all the time intervening between the work of the plow and the labor of the sickle. The more, afterwards, population and civilization increase, the more products must be wrung from the soil. But this can be accomplished only by means of its moreintensivecultivation (higher farming), by lavishing a greater amount of capital and labor on it, and, as a rule, by extending the circle of agricultural operations by means of combinations more and more artificial. Hence, the progress of civilization demands an ever increasing fixity, and a more pronounced shaping of landed property (thespecificationof jurists), in the interests of all who share in this progress, and even of those who own no landed property themselves. Were there no property in land, every one would find it more[pg 264]difficult and laborious to gratify his want of agricultural products;521and the products themselves would be of an inferior kind.

Thus, for instance, in Camargo, the lackmus was formerly prepared from plants to be had“free”in the woods. It was then, however, much dearer than it is now that the plants are artificially raised on landed property.522It is otherwise with the fisheries. The appropriation of rivers or seas would not tend to increase the abundance of their products, and hence this appropriation is, on the whole, rare.523

Section LXXXVIII.Landed Property. (Continued.)Whenever this admixture of capital and labor with land has taken place to no great extent, private property in land is not found developed in any degree. Thus, there are even now many half-civilized countries in which the land is forfeited because not tilled for many years, and where it may be occupied by the first person who will cultivate it.524In Europe, common[pg 265]possession of forests and pasture lands asserted itself much longer than that of arable land, because, in the case of the former, labor and capital play a much less important part in the management of them. And yet, even in the case of arable land etc., and, in the highest stages of civilization, the property-quality is yet less developed than the property-quality of capital. How seldom do we findfidei commissaof capital, or capital juridically tied up. We find that the law of all ancient nations drew a marked distinction between moveable and immoveable property, and that the power of disposing of the former by sale, pledge, in dowry, partition etc., was a much freer one. And even now, the police power which may be exercised over moveable property is much more restricted than that over houses and land.525The justice of the exclusive right of possession to what one has earned and saved is obvious to every one. On the other hand, the appropriation of“original and indestructible natural forces”has its basis not so much in justice as in the general good; and the state has always considered itself entitled to attach to the“monopoly of land,”which it accorded to the first possessor, all kinds of limitations and conditions in the interest of the common good,[pg 266]and sometimes to consider private property in land in the light of a semi-public function.526I may instance the feudal principles of the latter portion of the middle ages, which are so far removed from our ideas of private property in land; and yet, of which many echoes are heard, even in our day, and are not without their influence in practice. Thus, further, for instance, even in England, the greater number of the poor-rates, of taxes for the support of the established church, the maintenance of public highways etc., are heaped upon the rent of land. Many socialists have proposed to make the state the sole proprietor of the soil,527sometimes adding the condition, that the previous private owners should be compensated in capital, when it would be at least supposable that private capital might be enticed to cultivate it, if long and sure leases of it were made. This would be a“good”demesne-husbandry, extending over the entire country. We need only glance at those kingdoms in which something analogous is to be found,[pg 267]especially the despotisms of the east,528to divine that such a system does not suffice to insure the real productiveness of a nation's economy.529

Whenever this admixture of capital and labor with land has taken place to no great extent, private property in land is not found developed in any degree. Thus, there are even now many half-civilized countries in which the land is forfeited because not tilled for many years, and where it may be occupied by the first person who will cultivate it.524In Europe, common[pg 265]possession of forests and pasture lands asserted itself much longer than that of arable land, because, in the case of the former, labor and capital play a much less important part in the management of them. And yet, even in the case of arable land etc., and, in the highest stages of civilization, the property-quality is yet less developed than the property-quality of capital. How seldom do we findfidei commissaof capital, or capital juridically tied up. We find that the law of all ancient nations drew a marked distinction between moveable and immoveable property, and that the power of disposing of the former by sale, pledge, in dowry, partition etc., was a much freer one. And even now, the police power which may be exercised over moveable property is much more restricted than that over houses and land.525The justice of the exclusive right of possession to what one has earned and saved is obvious to every one. On the other hand, the appropriation of“original and indestructible natural forces”has its basis not so much in justice as in the general good; and the state has always considered itself entitled to attach to the“monopoly of land,”which it accorded to the first possessor, all kinds of limitations and conditions in the interest of the common good,[pg 266]and sometimes to consider private property in land in the light of a semi-public function.526I may instance the feudal principles of the latter portion of the middle ages, which are so far removed from our ideas of private property in land; and yet, of which many echoes are heard, even in our day, and are not without their influence in practice. Thus, further, for instance, even in England, the greater number of the poor-rates, of taxes for the support of the established church, the maintenance of public highways etc., are heaped upon the rent of land. Many socialists have proposed to make the state the sole proprietor of the soil,527sometimes adding the condition, that the previous private owners should be compensated in capital, when it would be at least supposable that private capital might be enticed to cultivate it, if long and sure leases of it were made. This would be a“good”demesne-husbandry, extending over the entire country. We need only glance at those kingdoms in which something analogous is to be found,[pg 267]especially the despotisms of the east,528to divine that such a system does not suffice to insure the real productiveness of a nation's economy.529

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