«Принципы политической экономии, том 1»

An entirely bewildered and bewildering description is to be found in Proudhon's Qu'est ce que la Propriété, 1848, as the precursor of which Brissot's Recherches philosophiques sur le Droit de Propriété et le Vol, may be considered. In medieval times, there are always a multitude of other titles to property besides production and saving. The title which is held in highest esteem for the time being is always because of this very extreme vis-a-vis of all other titles, strengthened and made general.471.The word socialism brought into use by L. Reybaud is as ambiguous as the word communism is simple and intelligible. But most socialists agree that actual “society” (which is indeed to be distinguished from the state) is, together with its foundations, the existing relations of property and the family, entirely wrong. A radical reconstruction, they say, is needed to remove forever the chief evil of this system, viz.: the glaring difference between the rich and the poor, the educated and the uneducated. The difference between the doctrines of the socialists and of Political Economy does not, by any means, consist in this, that the former concerns itself more with the welfare of the lower classes, or even that it gives wider scope to economy in common. But socialism is, indeed, a living or housekeeping in common (Gemeinwirthschaft), which goes far beyond the feeling for the common interest (Gemeinsinn). Such economy in common is always opposed to freedom, and, at its first introduction, contrary to law. It can guarantee no compensation to those who have suffered from violence or force, because it leads to a thoughtless and wasteful exhaustion of the nation's resources, inasmuch as it weakens the incentive to industry and frugality. Political Economy, on the other hand, recommends an expropriation when the incentives to industry and frugality are thereby strengthened; and the increased resources thus obtained serve it, as full compensation to those whose property has been expropriated.472.See Roscher, Betrachtungen über Socialismus und Communismus, Berliner Zeitschrift für Geschichtwissenschaft, 1845, III, 422 ff.473.Vivre en travaillant ou mourir en combattant—the device on the flags of the mutinous silk-weavers at Lyons, in 1832.474.We are so assured by Vauban (Dime Royale, 34 seq), of the later years of the reign of Louis XIV, that nearly 1/10 of the French people begged, that 5/10 could give no alms, because they were themselves on the very brink of indigence; 3/10 were fort malaisés, embarassés de dettes et de procès; scarcely one per cent. could be said to be fort à leur aise. How much better off is the present Parisian workman! And yet, at that time, there was not the least spread of communistic doctrines. It is indeed seldom that completely down-trodden men react against their wretchedness with great energy.475.“If my caprice be the source of law, then my enjoyment may be the source of the division of the nation's resources.” Stahl, Rechtsphilosophie, II, 2, 72.476.That the socialism of Plato, De Repub., V, was no mere fancy, is proved by the polemic which Aristophanes directs against it in his Ecclesiazuses. See also Aristot., Polit., II, 2, Schn. In the contemporary practice of the Greeks, with the increasing democratization of the state, it became more and more usual for it to bear the expense of the outlay for the means of subsistence of the great crowd. (See Plutarch, Cimo, 10.) Every act of public life was paid for. Citizens were paid for attending popular meetings three oboli per day, while the pay of the soldiers was six, and that of the sailors three. (Thucyd., III, 17; VII, 27; VIII, 45.) The pay of the commonest day laborer was from three to four oboli per day. Aristophan., Eccl., 310, and Pollux, VII, 29. The number of magistrates was very large, in order that as many as possible might participate in this species of remuneration. Thus, in Athens, when it had only about 20,000 inhabitants, there were 6,000 judges. In addition to all this, there were numberless feasts, plays, banquets etc., which were offered to the people gratis. The wealthy who were compelled to meet all the expense thus incurred, lived in such a state of terror of the populace, that they considered their own impoverishment as a species of deliverance. (Xenoph., Conviv., 4, and Lysias, pro Bonis.) Isocrates called it much more dangerous to be rich than to commit a crime, since in the latter case one might obtain a pardon or a mild punishment. (De Permut., p. 160.) (Lysias, De Invalido, de sacra Olea, seq.) There is little difference between this state of things and a semi-community of goods. Only that, indeed, the great mass of the slaves were excluded from enjoying them. The contrast which somewhat later distinguished the Cynics from the Cyreno-Epicureans affords a striking analogy to that which, in our own times, exists between the pure socialists and the worshipers of mammon after the fashion of Doctor Ure. Concerning the Utopia of Iambulos, see Diodor., II, 55 ff.477.Our sources of information concerning the division of the Roman republic into a moneyed oligarchy, and the proletariat are very numerous. Compare infra, § 205. The speeches of the Gracchi (e.g. Plut., T. Gracchus, 9), and still more the violent discourses of Catiline's conspiracy (Sallust, Cat., 20, 23, 37-39), remind us very forcibly of the shibboleths of modern socialism. We very frequently meet with the expression of a longing desire to return to the most uncivilized and hoary past, when there was no money and no wealth—an aspiration which lies at the very foundation of communism. Thus Virgil, Geo., I, 125, ff., Tibull. I, 3, 35, ff. Propert. II, 13, III, 5, 11; Seneca, Epist., 90; Senec., Oct. II, Hippol., II, 2; Plin., H. N. XXXII, 3. On the other hand, the practice of supporting the populace at the expense of great candidates or of the state, was developed to a very great extent. The masses lived very largely by the sale of their right of suffrage to the highest bidder. At the election of consuls in the year 54, 500,000 thalers were offered to the century called on to vote first. (Cicero, ad Quintum II, 15; ad. A.H. IV, 15.) Even Cato had a part in such bribery. (Sueton., Caes., 19.) In the social reform of the younger Gracchus, besides the limitation of large land-ownership, the principal points were the following: the sale of wheat under the market price, but only to the inhabitants of Rome itself; the construction of great highways in Italy; colonization at the expense of the state, and the increase of soldiers' pay. (Ritsch, Gracchen, 392 ff.) The socialistic plans of Rullus went much further. Were his agrarian laws put in execution, he would have confiscated very nearly the entire country in the interest of the poor, and of their demagogues! (Cicero, De Lege agrar.) Rome twice experienced a social revolution of the most frightful character, one by which a great portion of all private goods fell into the hands of the propertyless (soldiers), who knew nothing of how to turn it to account or to invest it—under Sulla, and then under the later Triumviri. (Compare Appian, Bell, civil., V, 5, 22.) Complaints concerning the latter, in Horat., Epist., I, 2, 49; Virgil, Buc., IX, 28; Tibull. I, 1, 19, IV, 1, 182; Propert., IV, 1, 129. The elder Gracchus had promised compensation to the last possessors. Tabulæ novæ of Cinna, Catiline, Cælius, Dolebella. Clodius introduced the distribution of wheat, which according to Cicero pro Sext., 25, ate up almost one-fifth of the public revenues. About 320,000 persons were, in this way, supported for a long period of time (Sueton., Caes, 41, Dio C., XLIII, 21; L. LV, 10), but only in such a manner as to keep them from starvation. (Sallust, 268 ed. Bip.) To all this was soon added distributions of salt, meal and oil, also free baths, numberless public plays, colossal banqueting, payment of one year's rent etc. Panem et circenses! (Juvenal, X, 80 seq.) The mere distribution of money under Augustus, in which from 200,000 to 320,000 men participated, cost each time from 2,500,000 to 6,000,000 thalers. (Monum Ancyr., 372 Wolf.) Extraordinary assistance was, by way of preference, accorded to colonies of the poor. (Sueton., Caes, 42.) Concerning this entire policy, see Plin., Paneg., 26 ff. Even in Constantinople, at the time of its foundation, large distributions of bread were made at the expense of Egypt, although there could scarcely be any real pauperism in that new and flourishing city. (Theod., Cod., XIII, 4, XIV 16; Socrat., II, 13.) I can only allude to the plan proposed by the emperor Gallien by the neo-platonist Plotin, to found a city in which the ideas of Plato's republic should be carried out. (Porphyr., V, Plotin., 8.)478.During the two centuries of which the Reformation constituted the middle point, the transition from the peasant system of agriculture to the large farming system of modern times bore very heavily on the inferior classes. Such, too, was the operation of the fall in price of the precious metals. (§ 140.) The suppression of the many monasteries caused an increase in the wretchedness of the poor; and the numerous poor-laws enacted in England, Spain etc., were not sufficient to supply a remedy. The feeling of the people during this period of tribulation found expression in the War of the Peasants, in the sect of Anabaptists, in the many reformations and counter-reformations, in the revolt of the Netherlands, in the conflicts for the crown in France and England etc. In Italy, the contrast existing between the moneyed oligarchy and the proletariat had been developed several centuries, but from the middle of the sixteenth century, it had become much more oppressive by reason of the universal impoverishment of the country. For an account of the pantheistic “Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit,” with their community of goods and of women, see Ullmann, Reformatoren vor der Reformation, II, 18 ff. They were very numerous from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century in Italy and France, as well as in Germany, and lead us to the Adamites in the Hussite war. (Aschbach, Geschichte K. Sigismunds, III, 109.) Earlier yet, we have the sect of the Giovannali, who had their property and women in common, and who, in 1355, had won the third of Corsica, but who were afterwards suppressed by Genoa and the Church. (Lebret, Geschichte von Italien, VI, 208 ff.) The coarse socialist, John Balle, bears about the same relation to Wycliffe, that Münzer and Bockholt did to Luther. (Walsingham, Hist. Angliæ in Camden, Scriptt., 275.) Hans Böheim of Würzburg, 1476, seems to be the direct precursor of Münzer. (Ullmann, I, 421 ff.) It was almost as usual in Luther's time, as in 1848, or in our day, to hear of the deep demoralization of trade—the Fuggerei of the Germany of the time—and of the universal system of fraud that prevailed. See the citations in Hagen, Deutschland's Verhältnisse im Reform-Zeitalter, II, 313 ff. Münzer's fundamental principle: Omnia simul communia! Sebastian Frank, Chronica, Zeytbuch und Geschychtbibel etc., 1551, fol. VI, 16, 27, 116, 194, 414, 433. John Bockholt's life presents us with a striking contrast. While they were bringing his perfumed women, sparkling with jewels, to his rose-covered bed, hung with curtains of gold cloth, on which he was reclining, his subjects were a prey to the horrors of famine, to such an extent that they were compelled to salt the bodies of children who had died of starvation. How frightful the end of this communistic benefactor of mankind! Libertine community of goods and women. (Calvin, Instructio adv. Libertinos, cap. 21.) English communists in the age of the reformation. (J. Story, Comment. on the Constitution of the U.S., I, 36.) Even under Cromwell, there were many Englishmen who believed that farmers were no longer obliged to pay rent to land-owners. On the sect of Levellers, see Walker, History of the Independency, II, 152. Even in Erasmus, we find some sympathy with communism. (Enchirid. milit. Christ, 80.) Contra, see Melanchthon, Prolegg. in Cic. de Off., Corp. Reform, XVI, 549 ff. The most remarkable systematic works of this period are Thomas More's, Utopia, 1516, and Campanella's Civitas, solis, 1620. Thomas More bluntly says that all existing governments are in fact only permanent conspiracies of the rich to further their own interests under the mask of the common good, and to despoil labor. The abolition of money, which should be continued in use only to carry on foreign war, would, he contends, remove all misery. There was no really private property in his Utopia. There should be a rigid superintendence of all work by the public authorities, whose duty it should be to see to it, that no one should abandon agricultural pursuits. All should eat at a common table and dress after the same fashion. Internal commerce should give way to a mutual exchange of gifts under the supervision of the state. Campanella, besides a community of goods, recommends continually varying occupation, to last not more than four hours daily; education in common, especially by means of pictures, popular encyclopedias etc., all under the supreme guidance of a despotism to be composed of the wise, some secular and some spiritual, operating through the confessional. Socialists nearly always succeed better in the critical part of their works than in the positive. Compare R. Mohl, Geschichte und Literatur der Staatswissenschaften, § 1, 165 ff.479.Учитывая неприязнь к частной собственности, проявленную Ж. Ж. Руссо, и неограниченную власть, которую он предоставляет большинству на данный момент в государстве (Contrat Social, 1761, II, гл. 4), нельзя отрицать, что его свобода и равенство содержат, по меньшей мере, зачатки коммунизма, отнюдь не незначительные. Но он хотел бы, в нынешнем состоянии гражданского общества, чтобы чувство уважения к правам собственности было привито в сознании ребенка очень рано, и даже до того, как разовьется чувство свободы. (Emile, 1762, Livre II.) Примерно в то же время Морелли опубликовал свою Basiliade ou Naufrage des Iles flottantes, 1753, политический роман в интересах коммунизма. См. Code de la Nature того же автора, 1755. Мабли, в своих двух работах, Doutes proposés aux Economistes, 1768, и La Législation ou Principes des Lois, 1776, рекомендовал отмену всякого неравенства и реальную общность имущества. Введение собственности кажется ему une faute qu'il était presque impossible de faire. Даже Беккариа называет собственность ужасным, но, возможно, необходимым правом, которое оставило несчастным ничего, кроме голого существования. (Dei Delitti e delle Pene, 1765, cap. 22.) Французское господство террора было довольно близко к тому, чтобы претворить эти идеи в жизнь. Нам нужно только сослаться на отмену ценза, выплаты, произведенные рабочим, которые посещали собрания секций, два франка в день, огромное расширение конфискаций, реквизиций и принудительных займов, революцию, произведенную в состояниях индивидов системой выпуска ассигнатов, максимум, установленный на цену всех предметов первой необходимости, отмену косвенных налогов и того, что осталось от экономических институтов, переданных из средних веков. Согласно Сен-Жюсту: l'opulence est une infamie; il ne faut ni riches ni pauvres. Cahier des Pauvres требует, прежде всего, чтобы оклады «больше не оценивались в соответствии с убийственными принципами необузданной роскоши». См. письмо Форстера от 15 ноября 1793 года. (Sämmtl. Schriften, IX, 125.) О заговоре Бабефа, который был казнен в 1796 году и который хотел видеть полнейшее равенство и общность труда, наслаждения и образования, отмену больших городов и т. д., см. Буонаротти, La Conjuration de B., 1821. Эта книга внесла мощный вклад в возрождение коммунистических идей после июльской революции. Среди современных коммунистов, которые должны быть отличены от более древних, особенно промышленной окраской, приданной их теориям, Кабе, Voyage en Icarie, 1840, II, занимает очень видное место. Он объявляет отмену религии, семьи и государства открытыми вопросами и желает довести практику общности имущества до успешного завершения только через мирный канал убеждения.

Ср. Рейбо, «Etudes sur les Réformateurs contemporains ou Socialistes modernes», 1840. Л. Штейн, «Der Socialismus und Communismus des heutigen Frankreich». См. также глубокое исследование истории социалистических систем в «Weltökonomie» Марло, I, 2, 435 и сл.; а что касается самого недавнего времени — Р. Мейер, «Der Emancipationskampf des vierten Standes», II, 1874 и сл.; книга, которая, несмотря на многие свои недостатки, как доктринальные, так и публицистические, столь же богата мыслями и знанием предмета, о котором она повествует, сколь и проникнута любовью к истине, невзирая на последствия. Среди противников социализма и коммунизма Мальтус («О народонаселении», кн. III, гл. 3) и Б. Гильдебранд («Die Nationalökonomie der Gegenwart und Zukunft», т. I, 1848) занимают весьма выдающееся место. Дж. С. Милль («Основания политической экономии», кн. II, гл. 1, 3) обращает внимание на тот факт, что до сих пор принцип свободной собственности никогда не проводился в жизнь последовательно. Первое социальное устройство современного общества почти повсеместно было результатом завоевания и насилия, значительные следы которых сохраняются до сих пор. Вещи всегда превращались в собственность, которая не должна была быть собственностью. Правительства стремились усилить мрачные стороны собственности и способствовали концентрации, а не распределению богатства и т. д. Следовательно, никто не может утверждать, что так называемые социальные пороки берут свое начало в собственности как таковой. Шеффле («Kapitalismus und Socialismus», 1870) предпринял весьма примечательную попытку признать ту долю истины, которая содержится в социализме, и побороть его заблуждения. 480.Saint Simon's reproach to the liberals, that their fundamental principle was: ôte-toi de là, que je m'y mette, is well known.481.Compare Malthus, Additions to the Essay on Population, 1817, IV, ch. 7.482.The travailleurs égalitaires wished to murder not only the king, the court, and the ministry, but also the Liberals and all owners of property.483.As soon, indeed, as this true love disappears in the married state, the community of goods even there degenerates only too easily into a spoliation of the better party by the worse.484.The community of goods of the first Christians at Jerusalem, so frequently cited and extolled (James, I, 1), was only a community of use, not of ownership (Acts IV, 32), and, throughout, a voluntary act of love, not a duty (V. 4), least of all, a right which the poorer might assert. Spite of all this, that community of goods produced a chronic state of poverty in the church of Jerusalem. Hence, Paul had collections taken up for them on all sides, without, however, anywhere establishing a similar institution. (Romans, 15, 26; I. Corinth., 16, 1.) Compare Mosheim, De vera Natura Communionis Bonorum in Ecclesia Hierosol., in his Dissertatt. ad Histor. Eccles. pertinentes, II, 1 ff. As to whether Barnabas (Epist., 19) desired to say anything more, compare Epist. ad Diognetum, 5. For a real recommendation of a community of goods, on economic grounds, see Joh. Chrysostom., in Acta Apost., Hom. XI. Also Clemens Rom. c. 2 C. 12, qu. 1. Community of goods among the Essenes: Philo. Opp. II. 457 ff. Joseph. Bell, Jud., II. 8. Bellermann, Geschichtliche Nachrichten über die Essener. (1821.) In many monasteries, there has been and is a species of community of goods. There was once a singular contest on this subject, carried on between the Minorites and the Pope, in the time of Louis of Bavaria. The Minorites claimed that property was a thing, so much to be condemned, that even food, at the moment of eating it, did not belong to the person using it. The Pope taught on the other hand, that even Christ and the Apostles possessed property, part personal and part in common. (Raynaldi, Ann. eccl., XV, 241, 285 ff.) Community of goods of the Homiliates, later of the Brothers of Common Life, after the manner of the monks, but of a much higher kind. (Ullmann, Reformatoren v.d. Reform, II, 62 ff.) The first settlers of New Haven, Connecticut, held their property in common. Land was divided among families in proportion to the number of persons in them, and of the number of cattle they had brought with them; and all sales and purchases were made on account of the whole community. And so in Massachusetts during the first seven years of the colony's existence. (Ebeling, Geschichte und Erdbeschreib. der Vereinigten Staaten, II, 391, I, 557.) Herrnhut community of goods in Pennsylvania, from 1742 to 1762, but which was done away with when the number of colonists became too great. (Ebeling, IV, 717.) Community of goods of the Shakers and Lutheran Rappers. (Buckingham, Eastern States, II, 214, 427. Prinz Neuwied, Reise in Nord Amerika, I, 136, ff.) Russian sects with community of goods. (v. Haxthausen, I, 366, 407.) Harless, christliche Ethik § 501, distinguishes very well between the “anti-christian” and “pseudo christian” stand point, from which it is sought to establish the doctrine of a community of goods. The Christian view of this subject (compare Ephes., 4, 28, I; Thess., 4, 11, II, 3, 12; Matth., 6, 24; Pet. 4, 10; Matth., 26, 7-11) is accused of hypocrisy by many socialists. It is very easy, they say, when one is himself in comfortable circumstances, to represent to the poor that their poverty is a school for heaven, and to preach a contempt for riches etc. They entirely forget, that the first promulgation of the Gospel was made at a time when the worst kind of pauperism prevailed; and that even the Master Himself, and the greater number of His Apostles belonged to the lowest stratum of society. Luke, 9, 58. Many of the Fathers of the Church, however, in their exhortations to benevolence, used language in which modern Socialists have found a rich mine which they have sedulously worked. (Compare Villegardelle, Histoire des Idées sociales, 1846, 61 ff.)485.Even Aristotle says that what is common to many is a matter of little concern to any one. (Polit., II, 1.) Bastiat remarks: “We compete to-day to see who works most and best. Under another regime, we should emulate one another to see who should work least and worst.” (Harmonies Econ., ch. VIII.) When the first settlers of Virginia, in 1611, gave up the system of common labor and of joint-stock companies, as much work was performed in a day as formerly in a week, or as much by three workmen as formerly by thirty. (Purchas, Pilgrims, iv, 1866. Bancroft, History of the United States, I, 161.) Even in New England, therefore among men both steady and accustomed to labor, who for conscience sake had sacrificed so much, a community of goods was accompanied uninterruptedly by famine. A change for the better took place, for the first time in 1623 with the introduction of the institution of private property which was followed in 1624 by the right of inheritance. (Bancroft, I, 340.) The military colonies of Algeria, also, in which husbandry in common was carried on, begged, at the end of a year, that the system should be abandoned, for the reason that it was good for nothing but to generate idlers; and yet, these colonists were all powerful men of about the same age, and accustomed to order and service in common. They were, moreover, assisted by the nation with pay and food. Compare Bugeaud's account: Revue des deux Mondes, June 1, 1848. “The French associations (after 1848), whose object was labor in common, have nearly all died out.” M. Chevalier in the Journal des Débats, Feb. 3, 1851. In the United States, sixteen phalansteries of Fourierites, founded between 1840 and 1846, had all collapsed in 1855. (D. Vierteljahrsschrift, October, 1855, 205 ff.)486.Even in New Harmony, the members considered the task which they had to perform to obtain food, clothing and shelter, as villeinage in the worst sense of the term. (H. Bernhard v. Weimar, Nordamerikan. Reise, V, 134 ff.; 151, 310, ff.) It is very inconsistent in socialists to continue the proprietorship and heirship of the state. To be consistent they should give both these rights only to mankind as a whole. Compare Kiraly, Ueber Socialismus und Comm., 1868, 35.487.It would not be entirely fair to take a partisan view of the ateliers nationaux of 1848, and claim them as a practical refutation of socialistic utopias, since no serious experiment was made with them. Compare E. Thomas, Histoire des Ateliers nationaux considérés sous le double Point de Vue politique et social, 1848.488.Socialists generally overlook the fact, that the greater number of enjoyments from which the poorer classes are excluded, by the right of property, would not exist at all were it not for that very right. (Spittler, Politik, 356 ff.) This remark may also be made of Hugo's ingenious objections. (Naturrecht, § 208 ff.) One of the most effective pieces of socialistic declamation is that the lower classes have a much shorter average of life than the upper. Hence the institution of private property is charged with being a species of spoliation of the poor of so many years of life, and the entire “present society” condemned on that account. Here again it is not borne in mind, that a few centuries ago the general average of life was probably still smaller; and that it was precisely the growth and development of “present society” that lengthened the days of the poorer classes even, although it may have lengthened those of the rich in a still greater proportion. See § 246.489.But a community of goods would not, by a great deal, accomplish as much as is generally supposed. In Prussia, for instance, in 1867, only about three per cent. of the entire number of families in the community had a yearly income of 1,000 thalers; only nine per cent. had 500 thalers or more, and only 6,465 returned an income of more than 4,000 thalers, while only 590 returned one of 16,000 thalers. (Preuss. statist. Ztschr, 1868, 83. Held, Die Einkommensteuer, 197 ff) How little, therefore, could the poor here gain by the spoliation of the rich! Besides, the purely personal consumption of the rich is, after all, not so great; and if all luxury were abandoned, an innumerable number of men would lose their gains. (Compare Ad. Smith, Wealth of Nations, I, ch. 11, 2.) It would be to kill the hen that had hitherto laid the golden egg in order to divide its flesh a little more equally.490.Babeuf declared all arts and sciences to be evils. He would have no one learn anything but Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and a little of the Geography of France; and have the strictest censorship enforced to keep every one within these limits. Compare the able criticism of Proudhon, Contradictions, ch. 12.491.According to Umpfenbach, Nationalökonomie, 201, where a community of goods obtains, there can be but the alternative, viz.: whether each person or each family shall receive just the same amount. (The former would be more in harmony with principle, but what an over-population would be the consequence!) Precisely so, too, if each person were to come and take his own portion (anarchy!), or if it were parcelled out to each by a board of distributors (despotism!).492.This expression came into vogue, principally, through L. Blanc, Organization du Travail (1841), the leading ideas in which work are the following: The suppression of competition by the establishment of state industries; equality of remuneration for labor; equality and legislative determination of the rate of interest; the choice of superintendents by the workmen. With many modern socialists, the shibboleth is not so much liberté as solidarité. Besides, Fichte's Naturrecht (1796), and his geschlossener Handelsstaat, are, without doubt, among the most remarkable works favoring an “organization of labor.” They aim at the destruction of the present social system, which, at most, needs only to be reformed and rejuvenated; and to galvanize the dead body into a new and different life (Medea's magic cauldron!). Compare Corvaja, Bancocrazia o il gran Libro sociale, 1840.493.Cabet's Icarian colony in America numbered 298 adults and only 107 children. Yet spite of this condition, so favorable to production, it did but a very sorry business. Its government was very similar to that of a house of correction or a penitentiary. Even in religious matters, spite of all pretended toleration, those members who did not agree with Cabet were described in the official weekly paper as des infames ou des aveugles. (D. Vierteljahrsschrift, 1855, October, 205 ff.)494.An eastern sage says, that land possesses the ideal of legal security through which a beautiful woman, decked with pearls, might travel without danger. What would such a sage say of a European country, in which even orphan children have their property not only preserved to them, but find it increased from having been placed at interest, as soon as they reach their majority? (Barrow.)495.“The equality of communism is the worst species of inequality, because it guarantees to one for two hours of poor labor as much as it does to an other for four hours of good work.” (Bastiat, Harmonies économiques, ch. 8.)496.Proudhon, Qu'est-ce que la Propriété, 283, says, very justly, that “a community of goods is the spoliation of the strong by the weak.”497.Called a negative community of goods, by Zacchariä, Vierzig Bücher vom Staate, IV, 146, in contradistinction to the positive and universal community of gain, as desired by the communists.498.Community of goods and of women among the Ichthyophages on the Red Sea, who lived in caves, went naked for the most part, plundered all shipwrecked people, and never reached an advanced age. Diodor., III, 15 ff. Peripl., Maris Erythr., 12. Concerning the Scythians, see Strabo, VII, 300; the Spaniards, Plutarch, Marius, 6; the Rhetians, Dio Cass. LIV, 22; the Triballi, Isocr., Panath., § 237; the Kilici, Sext., Empir. Pyrrh. Hypot. III, 24. Community of goods among the Caribs who performed all their work in common, and had, at least in the case of males, a common table and common stores with supplies. (Petr. Martyr, Dec. VII, 1. Rochefort, II, c. 16. B. Edwards, History of the West Indies, I, 43 ff.) Among the Kuskowimers of Russian America, all the able-bodied men of the tribe live together. (v. Wrangell, Nachrichten, 129.) Among the inhabitants of the Aleutian islands, at least in times of scarcity of food, the produce of the fisheries is divided according to their need. (V. Wrangell, 185.) The organization of labor is rigidly enforced among the Otomacs, on the banks of the Orinoco, and they are, nevertheless, more civilized than their neighbors. (Depons, Voyage, I, 295.) A community of goods must, however, be considered an advance, in the case of an isolated people; and it is an error to look upon it as the most primitive condition, as does, for instance, Ambrosius, De off. Minist. I, 28, and Frederick II, in the preface to his general code. (Allgemein. Gesetzbuche, 1231.) The hospitality of the inhabitants of the Friendly Islands borders on a community of goods. (Mariner, Freundschaftsinseln, 75, 81. Klemm, Kulturgeschichte, IV, 398.) Concerning the beginnings of property among the Esquimaux, See Klemm, II, 294.499.Οὐκ ἄδοξον ἧν παρὰ τοῖς παλαιοῖς ληστεύειν, ἀλλ᾽ ἔνδξον. (Didym., ad Odyss. II, 73, IX, 252.)500.In Mexico, the Spaniards found land ownership among the most distinguished of the natives, but only a species of possession in common and common store houses among the peasantry. (Robertson, History of America, § VII.) Hence, the agriculture of the country was so unimportant that the little army of the conquistadores frequently produced a famine by their marches.501.The Tcherkesses considered robbery honorable provided the robber was not caught in flagrante. Compare Koch, Reise in den kaukasischen Isthmus, I, 370 ff. Bell, Journal of a Residence in Circassia, I, 181, II, 201. The organized robber bands of ancient Egypt, when it was so highly civilized (Diodor., I, 80) may, on the other hand, be accounted for by similar conditions actually existing in the large cities of our own day.502.What a frightful organization of labor we find in Sparta, combined with a community of goods! Let us recall the exposing of children authorized by law, the mode of education which must have cost the life of all whose constitution was weak, the cryptia, the stern hierarchy of age etc. Plut., Inst. Lac. 2, appreciates the bad taste of the black broth at its true value. The Cretan community of goods was based chiefly on the unnatural relation created by the authorities known as paiderastia; and which was a very efficient means to prevent over-population. (Plat., De Legg, I, 636. Arist., Polit. II, 8.)503.Remarkable reasons therefor in Cæsar, Bell. Gall., VI, 22.504.There are, especially in Russia, a multitude of such institutions among the inhabitants of the country still. See Roscher, Nationalökonomik des Ackerbaues, § 71 ff.505.In the Corpus Juris Canonici, that crown of medieval theology, politics and jurisprudence, the ideal of a community of goods occupies a place almost as prominent as in the works of modern socialists. The only difference is, that in the former the opposition to private property arises from a one-sided religiousness and contempt of the world, while, in the latter, it arises generally from irreligiousness and over-estimation of worldly goods.506.This does not include the cost of the schools, churches and benevolent institutions.507.According to Lassalle, System der erworbenen Rechte, 1861, § 259, history shows that law, as civilization advances, curtails more and more the proprietary sphere of private individuals, inasmuch as it tends more and more to place a greater number of objects outside the circle of individual ownership.508.Saint Simonism is a warning example of this tendency.

Saint Simon never lost an opportunity to give vent to his utter contempt for the liberals, and for constitutional government—ce bátard du régime féodal et du régime industriel; and to counsel the crown, after the example of Louis XI. to place itself at the head of the working class, and in opposition to the middle class. (Oeuvres de Saint Simon, éd. 1841, 44, 148, 209.) Bazard, Exposition, 76, demanded that all antagonism between the temporal and spiritual powers, all opposition for the sake of freedom, méfiance organisée of parliaments, and all competition, should cease. Even education he would have bestowed according to capacité, which he would have determined by the chefs légitimes de la société (280). To the criminal court should be referred all cases of delicts, that is, all inopportune acts, even in the scientific and artistic departments. They should be tried after the manner of the “courts of trade;” that is, in a summary way, without appeal, and by experts (317 ff). All the relations of property should be determined by the décision arbitrale des chefs d'industrie (326). Bazard everywhere insists that the reign of genius and of self-sacrifice on the one hand, and on the other of confidence and obedience, is the only true policy (330). Saint Simonism was nearly related to Bonapartism.509.Schäffle, Nat. Œk., III, Aufl., I, 61.510.If we remove in thought, all injurious elements from a community of goods, and add to it all the incentives and restraints necessary to be added, we shall have a state of things entirely similar to that in a nation whose public and private affairs are carried on in accordance with the principles of a healthy system of Political Economy as understood to-day. (Edinburgh Review, January, 1851.)511.How true freedom is accompanied by what Bastiat calls “true Saint Simonism and true communism,” see infra, § 210.512.The experiments of a community of goods, which have proved successful in practice, were all based on the more or less complete celibacy of the members of the societies. Compare Hermann, Staatsw. Unters., II, Aufl., 45.513.Thus Proudhon (Contradictions, ch. 5) says that the many socialists, who would construct their societies after the type of the family, as the molscule organique, are all wrong. The family has a “monarchical, patriarchal” character. In it, the principle of authority is formed and preserved. On it, ancient and feudal society was based; and “precisely against this old patriarchal constitution, modern democracy protests and revolts.” Fourier calls marriage, un groupe essentiellement faux: faux par le nombre borné à deux, par l'absence de liberté et par les dissidences du goṅt, qui éclatent dès le premier jour. (Nouveau Monde, 57.)514.On the Indians of North America, see Schoolraft, Information respecting the Indian Tribes of the United States, II, 194; on the South American d'Orbigny, Voyage, IV, 220, and passim, on the South Sea Islanders, the Novara-Reise, II, 418; on the ancient Albanians, Strabo, XI, 503.515.The hereditary transmission of property to posterity has an obvious tendency to make a man a good citizen. It ranges his passions on the side of duty, and induces him to make himself profit the common good, and it assures him that his reward shall not die with himself, but that it shall be handed down to those to whom he is joined by the dearest and most tender feelings. (See Blackstone's Commentaries, II, 11.) Without the right of inheritance, credit is scarcely possible, since with the death of the debtor the only stay of the creditor would cease.516.Testamentary freedom (which obtained in places there about the beginning of the eighteenth century) prevails completely in England at present, contrary to the principle of the Roman law requiring an obligatory portion (la légitime) to be left to the heirs, which is still binding in France, but in a very much developed form. The consequence is that last testaments are as frequent in England as they are rare in France. There were, in Paris, in 1825, 7,649 judicial, and only 1,081 testamentary partitions of property. (Monnier.) In Great Britain, in 1838, the number of testamentary alienations of property taxed stood to those in which there was no will, in the proportion of 8:3; and the values of the alienated property as 10:1. (Porter.) Among a people noted for their high moral tone, testamentary freedom is a powerful means of strengthening paternal authority on the one hand, and of keeping alive, in the minds of parents, on the other, a sense of responsibility for the future of their children. Compare Helferich, Tübinger Zeitschr., 1854, 143, ff.517.Polyb., XX, 6. Hence it was, that all (?) the wealth of Thebes, when it was destroyed by Alexander the Great, was only 440 talents. (Athen., IV, 148.) Drumann, Gesch. Roms. etc., VI, 333 ff. Cicero, Phil., II, 16. Hoeck, Röm. Gesch., I, 2, 118. Sueton., Octav., 66. An especially scandalous instance in Petron., 140. For a masterly theory of legacy-hunting, see Horat., Sat., II, 5. Compare Lucian, Dialogues of the Dead, 5-9. Petronius speaks of a turba hæredipetarum. (124.)518.Even the revolutionary shibboleth, paternité, really means nothing more than the equal right of inheritance of all, i.e., the abolition of the right of inheritance! (R. Meyer.) The strongest attack, from a scientific point of view, made on the right of inheritance in more recent times, comes from Saint Simonism. The founder himself, after a life rich in experience but poor in action, spent in the search of much but in the finding of little, succeeded only in arraying the industrial and proprietary classes against each other, in declaring the poorest class to be the most important of all, and in basing the new religion of love on the emancipation of labor. His disciples went further. In order to abolish all the privileges of birth, Bazard, Exposition de la Doctrine de Saint Simon, 1831, p. 172, ff., taught that it was not enough to distribute public employments according to merit, and in the interest of the people generally, but that the distribution of property should be made in accordance with the same principle. The inequality of ownership should correspond with the inequality of merit. Every one may, during his life, keep what he had acquired himself, but give it to the state at death. Thus would a reconciliation be effected between the general interest and private interest; and the public revenue, supplied in this way, might easily be employed in place of the revenue raised by such taxation as weighs most heavily on the inferior classes. F. Huet, also, Le Regne social du Christianisme, 1853, III, 5, would have all private property, after the death of the owner, fall également à tous les jeunes travailleurs. The practical consequences of this system may now be seen in Turkey. There, the principal military fiefs are held in this way. Hence it is, that the Turkish owner of such a fief builds as little as possible. When one of his walls threatens to fall, it is kept standing by means of props. If it falls in fact, the only consequence is that there are fewer rooms in the house, and the owner settles beside the ruins. (Denon, I, p. 193.) In the Butan, there exists a species of practical Saint Simonism. Robinson, Descriptive Account of Assan, 1841.519.It was chiefly fear of the consequences of the declamations of the socialists and their declamation against “monopoly” that induced Bastiat to reduce all the value of landed property to that of the capital employed in its manuring, improvement etc. (Harmonies, ch. 9.) We may, however, unreservedly grant him that, as a rule, until the time of its original possession by man, land had no valeur whatever (278).520.Kant thinks the very contrary: Metaph. Anfangsgründe der Rechtslehre, (Werke, IX, 72 ff). Contra, Grotius, J. B. et P., II, 2. Graswinkel, in his Schriften für die Freiheit des Meeres, 1652 ff., in Laspeyres, Geschichte der niederländischen N. Œk., 12. Hufeland, Neue Grundlegung, I, 307.521.“A district of Tartary of ten square miles, in which several hordes pasture their flocks, may contain between 400 and 500 shepherds, who find employment in this mode of production.” In Brie, in France, on the same area, 50,000 peasants who own no land, live and draw their sole income from their labors in the fields (J. B. Say).522.Schubert, Reise durch Frankreich und Italien, I, 188.523.“Without labor, the earth bestows nothing on man but a stopping place. Hence, the reasons for private property do not extend so far as to prove that the great land and water highways should not be reserved as common property, and as a home to every man.” (Zachariä, vom Staate, VII, 43.)524.This is the practice in Taway. Ritter, Erdkunde, V, 130. And so in ancient Germany. J. Grimm, Rechtsalterthümer, 92. Right of the “dead fire” in Spain and Portugal during the middle ages. S. Rosa de Viterbo: Elucidario das Palavras etc., I, 470. In many parts of Persia, the land belongs to anyone who has provided it with water by canals or wells. (Fraser, Journey in Chorasan, ch. 7.) Especially after the Mongolian devastation about the beginning of the fourteenth century, it was decreed that land which had remained uncultivated for a long time should belong to the person who made it productive. (d'Ohsson, Hist. des Mongols, IV, 418.) Similarly, in the time of the ancient Persians (Polyb., X, 28, 3), the harvest for the first five years belonged to the person who first irrigated the land. On the upper Euphrates, likewise, the land is very often neither sold nor leased. Anyone who will till it and pay one-tenth of the produce to the bey may have it for nothing. (Ritter, X, 669; compare VIII, 468; IX, 900.) So, too, among the Fulah and Mandingo negroes, and even among the Tscherkessans. (Klemm, Kulturgeschichte, III, 337 ff.) As the latest stages of development so often present instances of a reversion to the earliest, we find that Theodosius and Valentinian decreed that the agri deserti should, after two years' cultivation, belong to the possessor. L. 8, Cod. Just., XI, 58.525.Thus anyone may burn his own coat or throw it in the water; but no one may set fire to his own house or drown his land by the destruction of a dam. Even the non-user of a large area, in a thickly populated region, would scarcely be permitted. The taking of property by the state, at the present day in times of peace, is confined almost exclusively to land.526.Thus P. v. Arnim, in a work entitled “Ideen zu einer vollständigen landwirthschaftlichen,” Buchführung, 1805, a treatise on “agricultural book-keeping,” considers the farmer as a state official who should cultivate whatever he believed in conscience, or what the state declared to be, most necessary. He suggests that the state should subject all new purchasers of land to an examination to ascertain whether they are rich and noble enough to act in this way.527.Thus, for instance, Herbert Spencer, Social Statics, 1851, 114 ff., and to some extent Spinoza, Tract. polit., VI, 2. There are now in England several Land-Tenure-Reform-Associations, some of which would “expropriate” all land and vest the title in the state. The programme of the others embraces not only opposition to the right of primogeniture, to family fidei commissa and the assertion of the right of freedom of trade in land, and of a more democratic use of common lands, but also the appropriation by the state of the increase in the rent of land which is caused by no labor of the landlord, but solely by the increase of population and of the wealth of the community or of the nation. Newmarch, on the other hand, very correctly remarks, that since it is impossible to draw a line of demarkation showing the increase of the value of land growing out of the increase of population etc., the owner of land in making improvements would never know whether he made them for himself or for the state. (Statist. Journal, 1871, 488 ff.) Compare Wolkoff, Sur la Rente foncière, 1854, and H. H. Gossen, Entwickelung der Gesetze des menschlichen Verkehrs (1854).528.In Congo and on the gold coast of Guinea the land, in whole villages, is tilled in common and the harvest distributed among the families per capita. Wherever absolutism reigns, the prince is also the owner of all the land. (Klemm, III, 337.) In China, where the original tenure in common of the land by all was broken through in the third century before Christ, all the land of the country now belongs, strictly speaking, to the state; and the possessor of land who permits it to go untilled is punished. (Plath. in the phil.-hist. Sitzungsberichten der Münchener Akad., 1873, 793 ff.) In Corea, private property in land is unknown; arable land is divided by the state according to the number in a family. (Ritter, IV, 633.) The example, on the largest scale, of a country without private property in land is the British East Indies. Compare the paper by Ch. Campbell, in the Essays published by the Cobden Club; System of Land Tenure in various Countries, 1870.529.The legal and economic difference between property in land and property in capital is well defined by J. S. Mill, Principles, II, ch. 2, 6. “The reasons which form the justification, in an economical point of view, of property in land, are only valid in so far as the proprietor of the land is its improver. In no sound theory of private property was it ever contemplated that the proprietor of land should be merely a sinecurist quartered on it.” He here alludes specially to Ireland. The Fourierist, Considérant, distinguishes accurately between the capital produced by labor and saving, and the increase of the value of land caused by capital and labor, and its original value. Only the first two elements can justly be made property. But as, for prudential reasons, it is necessary to grant individuals the right of private property in land, those who are not such proprietors must, as a compensation for the common property which they have lost, be guaranteed the right to labor. (Théorie du Droit de Propriété et du Droit au Travail.) In England, the opinion that the compulsory support of the poor was introduced in compensation to them for the establishment of private property in land has met with considerable favor. Bishop Woodward, On the Expediency of a Regular Plan for the Maintenance of the Poor in Ireland, 1775. Compare Eden, State of the Poor, I, 413. However, the poor rates, in a country like England, are much more than an equivalent of what its soil could produce without the assistance of capital.530.The principal classical work on this subject is Nebenius, Der öffentliche Credit, 1820, 2d ed., 1829. Previously, Salmasius, De Modo Usurarum, 1639; and even Demosthenes, adv. Dionysiod, 1283. Compare further Schäffle, in the Deutsch. Vierteljahrsschrift, No. 106, II, 289 ff.531.Compulsory loans by the state, for instance, occupy an intermediate position between taxes and credit-operations, properly so called.532.Besides loans proper, all payments in advance, or delays made in the payments of earnest-money, all leases and lettings, which Courcelle-Seneuil calls un médiocre degré de crédit, insurances and even all contracts for wages where the payment is delayed for a long period of time, are species of credit. For a nice distinction between leasing (Pacht) and letting (Miethe), see Knies, Tübinger Ztschr., 1860, 180 ff., and the Freiburger Univ. Programm., 9. September, 1862. D. Wakefield, Essay upon Political Economy, 1804, 35, distinguishes between “loan-credit” which is given to a poor man in the hope of his paying it by means of his labor, and “exchange-credit,” or credit between property owners. Cieszkowski's definition: le crédit c'est la métamorphose des capitaux stables et engagés en capitaux circulants et dégagés. (Du Crédit et de la Circulation, 2d ed., 1847.) According to Knies, Tübinger Ztschr., 1859, 568, every credit-operation is an exchange or sale of services, one of which is to be performed in the present, and the counter-service of the other party in the future. According to Macleod, it is “a sale of debts.”533.Personal credit, of course, preponderates in commerce. Hence it is, that in mercantile life, information concerning the personal status, reputation etc. of his colleagues, plays so important a part with the merchant. This information was made more accessible in England by the Lloyd institution. On similar North American institutions, see Tellkampf, Beiträge, I, 51. Credit given on security is a modification, sometimes of personal and sometimes of real credit. Compare, infra, the theory on bankers, brokers etc.534.In despotisms, credit is almost entirely personal. Montesquieu Esprit des Lois, L.V., 15. In New York, says M. Chevalier, a merchant with resources worth 200,000 francs, can do a business of from 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 francs. In Paris, under similar circumstances, the same man would find it difficult to be credited to the extent of 500,000 francs. In Holland, two hundred years ago, a person who hypothecated his property was obliged to pay a higher rate of interest than in business (Becher, Polit. Discurs, 1763, 699), while the stationary period, one hundred years ago, made personal credit extremely difficult. In Zurich, it was encouraged by the prohibition of loaning money out of the country. (Büsch, Geldumlauf, III, 40.)535.Schäffle, Nat. Œk., II, Aufl., 112.536.Schäffle, according to the purpose which it is intended to subserve, divides credit into production-credit (investment of loans in immoveable property and in moveable property engaged in industrial operations), consumption-credit and clearing-credit, or loans made to pay respited purchase and earnest money, inheritances etc. (Kapitalismus und Socialismus, 552.)537.Pinto, Traité de la Circulation et du Crédit, 1771, considers loans bearing interest as new portions of the resources of a country (p.