Note 42 — CRIMINALITY.

The first of these characteristic traits is this: production takes place among these peoples for personal consumption and not for exchange as with us. It has often been claimed that the primitive peoples lived in a state of communism. Taken in the sense of a communism in production this assertion is true only in part; except for hunts undertaken in common, production was not carried on in common but was individual. The weapons and utensils of the hunt were private property, while the hunting-ground was held in common. Just so as soon as architectural technique made some progress the houses often became common property. At its inception agriculture was not practiced in common. It was only when it had attained a certain development that this was sometimes the case.42 But if we take communism in the sense of consumption in common, then the assertion becomes much more exact. I do not mean to say that consumption always took place in common (though several primitive peoples took their food in common), but when from whatever cause some members of the group had failed to produce, the other members who had been more fortunate provided for them. The productivity of labor was still small; there was not generally any surplus of labor. Even if there had been there could not have been any possibility of exchange, since the division of labor was very slight, and consequently each one was capable of making for himself what others would have been able to offer in exchange.