Book 2 — Footnotes (continued 3)

348.

Saxo Gramm., Hist. Dan. V, 101. Turner, Hist. of the A. Saxons B. VII, ch. 11. Nibel., 351 ff. There is a French proverb: du temps que la reine Berthe filait. Queen Bertha was a mythic daughter of Charlemagne. It may be that the character meant is the old German spinning goddess Berchta. Concerning the daughter of Otto the Great, see Dithmar, Merseb. II. Homer, Od. V, 31 ff.; X, 106; XXIII, 189 ff. Herodot., VIII, 137. Livy, I. 57.

349.

Eden, State of the Poor I, 558 ff. In the interior of Peru, the priest is also usually a shop-keeper (Pöppig, Reise, II, 365); in Canada, as in many of the villages of the Alps which are not often visited, a hotel keeper. In countries with an unadvanced civilization, the little division of labor that exists is also very awkwardly regulated. Thus in Russia, weak children are very frequently put to work on farms, while powerful men are found in the city offering all kinds of eatables and the pictures of saints for sale. (Storch, Gemälde des russischen Reichs II, 364. v. Haxthausen, Studien I, 335.)

350.

Babbage, Economy of Machinery, 1833, 201. L. Faucher, Angleterre II, Ch. “la Ville des Serruriers.” The industrial statistics of Paris, furnished by H. Say in 1847 and 1848, show that in that city alone there are 325 different branches of industry, 17 of which are concerned with the production of food; 21 with building; 32 with the manufacture of furniture; 21 with that of clothing; 36 with that of thread and tissues; 7 with skins and leathers; 14 with vehicles, saddlery, and military equipment; 33 with chemicals and pottery; 33 with working in metal, glass etc.; 35 in that of the precious metals and jewels; 27 with printing, engraving and paper; 15 with that of wooden-ware and wicker-ware; 34 with articles de Paris. Journal des Economistes, Janv., 1853, 107. According to the industrial almanac of Birmingham, there are in that city manufacturers of buttons in gold, silver, metal, mother-of-pearl etc.; manufacturers of hammers, ink-stands, coffin-nails, dog-collars, tooth-picks, stirrups, fish-hooks, spurs, pack-needles etc.

351.

And so with the subdivisions. Flannel is manufactured almost exclusively in Halifax, woolen blankets between Leeds and Huddersfield etc.

352.

The same division of labor was developed among the Dutch in the 17th century, and excited then the wonder of the English. See Sir W. Temple, Observations upon the U. Provinces, 1672, ch. 3. Works, I, 128, 143. In 1615, Montchrêtien held up the Flemish as a model to the French, in this respect.

353.

On the bees, see Virgil, Georg. IV, 158.

354.

The principle of the division of labor was known to the ancients: Xenophon, Cyri Discipl., VIII, 2, 5. Plato, de Rep., II, 369, III, 394, IV, 443; Isocrat., Busir., 8. Aristot., Polit., II, 8, 8. Among the more modern writers, compare Thomas Aquin., De Reg. pr., I, 1, II, 3. Luther (Works by Walch, I, 388), in his Commentary on Genesis, 3, 19. Petty, Several Essays, 1682, p. 113. Considerations upon the East India Trade, London, 1701. Roscher, Geschichte der englischen Volkswirthschaftslehre, 118. Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees, enlarged edition of 1723, p. 411. Berkeley, Querist, 1735, No. 415, 430, 520 ff., 586: “What is everybody's business is nobody's.” Harris, on Money and Coins (1757), I, 16. J. J. Rousseau, Emile (1762), L. III. Turgot, Sur la Formation et la Distribution des Richesses, § 3, p. 50, 62, 66. Diderot, Encyclopédie de l'Art, s. v. Art. J. Tucker, Four Tracts (1774), p. 25 ff. Boccaria, Economia pubblica, I, 1, 9. But the author to whom we owe most on this score is undoubtedly Adam Smith. To him we are indebted almost entirely for our knowledge of the natural laws developed in § 59 seq.

355.

According to Adam Smith, a nailer can make 2,300 nails (Rau says 3,000 shoemaker's tacks in the Odenwalde) per day; a smith who is only occasionally employed in the manufacture, from 800 to 1,000; and smiths who never made nails before, from 200 to 300. A clever filer makes 200 strokes in a minute; a skilled comb-maker can make in a day from 60 to 70 combs of such fineness that there are from 40 to 48 teeth to the inch in them; eight Liege brick-makers, working together, produce 4,800 bricks per day; children employed in a needle manufactory, in making the eyes of needles, grow so skillful at it that they can make a small hole in the finest hair and draw another hair through it. Rau, Lehrbuch I, § 115. The old proverb, “practice makes perfect,” is followed even by thieves in their great division of labor. See Thiele, Die jüdischen Gauner I, 87. Fregier, Des Classes Dangéreuses.

356.

Children, with their thinner fingers, can point twice as many needles in the same time as a grown person.

357.

The manufacture of English needles demands, on the part of workmen, degrees of skill so different that their pay varies from 6 pence to 20 shillings per day. If the most skillful workman were to manufacture whole needles alone, he would partly be obliged to be satisfied with one-fortieth of what he might otherwise receive. Babbage, loc. cit.

358.

In the case of machines and in the chemical branches of industry, the labor increases in a much smaller ratio than the material used in production.

359.

In opposition to monopolies, and to practical constraint which has its source in ignorance etc.

360.

Hence Torrens calls foreign trade the “territorial division of labour.” (Essay on the Production of Wealth (1821), 155 ff.)

361.

See Bastiat, Harmonies, ch. 1, for a very beautiful exposition of the doctrine that each man receives much more from society than he accomplishes on his part, for it.

362.

The working together of a great number of persons is often carried on to the detriment of agriculture, for each then waits for all the others to work, throws all the blame on them etc. (Columella, I, 9.) As many a housekeeper must have observed, two seamstresses or ironers accomplish, in a day, less than one, in two days. Of course, this rule does not apply in the case of work which cannot be performed by one man, under any circumstances, or the magnitude of which would easily discourage him, and in which mutual aid is easily obtained; as in the raising of heavy loads, the construction of roads, dikes etc.

363.

Ad. Smith, B., II, Introd. Hufeland, Neue Grundlegung, I, 215. In many instances, a division of labor, of course, favors the saving of capital. If every workman needed all the tools necessary to the work in which he participates, three-fourths of them would have to lie idle at present. J. Rae, New Principles on the Subject of Political Economy, 164.

364.

This necessity is observable, although in a peculiar form, even where what has been called the “despotic organization of labor” prevails, instead of freedom.

365.

In the highlands of Scotland, in Adam Smith's time, there were no smiths who manufactured nails only; for the reason that no smith had a market for more than 1,000 nails a year, that is not for so many as might be manufactured in a single day.

366.

It is of course very different when there is question of a foreign market, even if it be only indirectly. Thus, for instance, there are in the Hartz mountains, persons who are simply post-makers, trough-makers, chess-wood-makers, block-hewers, shingle-makers etc.

367.

Too much should not be inferred from the existence among the Egyptians of physicians, specialists for the several members of the body. Herodot., II, 84. Something analogous is to be found even among barbarous nations; but it is accounted for entirely by the superstition of the people. See Klemm, Kulturgeschichte, I, 266.

368.

In the whole of Hesse, there were under Philip the Magnanimous, only two apothecaries, one at Cassel and one at Marburg. Rommel, Gesch. v. Hessen, IV, p. 419, note. And there were no bakers among the Romans before the time of the war with Perseus. All the bread needed by the family was baked by the wife or by female domestics. Plin., H. N. XVIII, 28. The common oven in new towns marks the period of transition. Even yet, in the central part of France, there are localities where each family bakes its own bread for a whole month in advance; and, in the Alpine departments for even a year in advance. M. Chevalier, Cours II, 366.

369.

It is obvious from the foregoing that, in decaying nations, in which the market contracts and capital decreases, the division of labor also must grow less.

370.

According to Arago, a horse uses the same amount of force to draw 20 cwt. along an ordinary road that he does to draw 200 over a railroad track, or 1,200 on a canal. He could carry scarcely 2 or 3 on his back! Moniteur, 1838, No. 116. It is, however, certain that the introduction of our railroads has somewhat detracted from the advantages of coasts.

371.

Compare Humboldt, Essai politique sur l'Ile de Cuba, II, 205.

372.

Strabo, II, 121 ff. In Europe, there is one mile of coast to every 31 square miles in the interior; in North America, to 56; in South America, 91; in Asia, 100; in Africa, 142. (Humboldt.)

373.

If the original connection of the Caspian sea and the sea of Aral with the Frozen Ocean were still in existence, it is probable that an Asiatic Scandinavia would have been formed in consequence.

374.

What is true of the sea in this respect may be claimed, also, though in a less degree, for the streams that carry the civilizing fruits of the coasts far into the interior. Nearly all large cities not situated on the harbors of coasts derive their importance from rivers; especially when they have been built on spots adapted by nature to the transhipment of merchandise. That Venice finally eclipsed Genoa is to be ascribed, in greatest part, to its control of an important stream, the Po. The economic importance of Holland, of Hamburg and Bremen will, in the long run, bear the same relation to one another as the geographical importance of the valleys of the Rhine, Elbe and Weser. As nothing is more disastrous to a nation than the loss of its coast (we need only cite the efforts of the Lybian kings and, later, of Philip of Macedon to conquer the Greek colonies on their coasts; and in more recent times, of Russia before Peter the Great, or of the Zollverein without the shores of the German sea), so, also, the economic and political influence of a stream increases as one approaches its mouth. Hence the justification of the great interest taken by Germany and Austria in the question of the Danubian principalities. The United States recognized this fact when they purchased Louisiana for 80,000,000 francs. Bignon, Hist. de France III, 111 seq. Readers of history are familiar with the important part played by the three Asiatic Mesopotamias: that between the Euphrates and the Tigris; that between the Ganges and the Brahmapootra; that between the Hoang-Ho and the Yang-tse-Kiang, to which finally the Punjab might be added. This relation is recognized by popular consciousness, in the case of the Ganges, by the belief in the sacredness of the stream. No river has had so much influence on civilization as the Nile: its periodical risings have made the labor of agriculture extraordinarily easy; their extent and regularity favored the progress of astronomy; the flooding over of the land led to geodesy; the hydraulic labors necessitated by the rising of the waters produced a school of architecture to which the river furnished an excellent means of transportation for the enormous masses to be moved. K. Ritter, Erdkunde, I, p. 880 seq; VI, p. 1,168 seq. In this matter, also, America and Europe have the advantage over Asia and Africa. While the Danube is, in places, scarcely three German miles from the Rhine—which, however, flows in an almost opposite direction—in Asia, the eastern streams are separated from the western, and the northern from the southern, by a strip of land difficult to be traveled, and about 300 German miles in extent. Besides, the principal streams of northern Asia have their exit into the Frozen Ocean, a fact which diminishes their importance greatly. The source of the Missouri is only about one mile distant from the Columbia river, although the two flow towards opposite seas.

375.

The law governing the march of civilization from the mountain to the plain and to coast lands was observed even by Strabo, XIII, 592, and partly by Plato, De Leg., 677 ff.

376.

Thus, for instance, that all the customers of a shoemaker together form a shoe-association etc. Dunoyer, Liberté du Travail, L. IV, ch. 10.

377.

Storch, Handbuch, III, 188 ff. The Dutch traveler, Usselinx, speaks in a similar way of the imitativeness and many-sidedness of the Swedes (Argonautica Gustavica, 20). Chilian servants (peones) are a good combination of the cook, the muleteer, builder, courier etc. Once they have passed over a road, they never forget it. A knife stands them in stead of most tools, and pieces of leather in stead of nails. Pöppig, Reise, I, 171 ff.

378.

von Haxthausen, Studien, I, 63, 113. In 1827, a Russian hatter got 12 rubles for a hat, a German one 35 (Schön, N. Œkonomie, 78).

379.

See the report of a large manufacturer in Kohl, England und Wales, p. 332 seq.

380.

Raynal, Histoire des Indes (1780), L. XV. And so Rousseau, Discours sur l'Inegalité (1754), who also declaims against all kinds of capital; were there no ladders, men would climb better; and throw a stone better if they had no slings. There is certainly a misunderstood truth in this saying. It is assuredly very salutary, in the actual state of society, in which every one's business is transacted for him by some one else, that a time should occasionally come when no one can take our place, and a man can only call upon himself. And herein lies the immense value which just war, when not much prolonged, but which is brought to a happy termination, sometimes has upon the life of a people.

381.

The American savages are, on an average, weaker than the whites. In a fist-fight the Kentuckians and Virginians showed themselves far superior to the Indians. See Lawrence, Lectures, 403, supra, § 40.

382.

For a very unprejudiced estimate of the dark and bright sides of the division of labor, even before Adam Smith's time, see Ferguson, History of of Civil Society (1767), IV, I, V, 3 ff. Also Garve, Versuche, III, 41. Adam Smith was not blind to the dark side of the division of labor, which, in part, he would remove by popular instruction at the expense of the state, and by a species of compulsory education. W. of N., V, ch. 1, 3, art. 2. One of the chief peculiarities of J. Möser's Political Economy is his great opposition to all highly developed division of labor. Patr. Ph., I, 2, 21, III, 32, 34.

383.

von Ledebur, Reise in Altai, I, 384. The working together of wife and child, introduced recently by manufacturers, cannot be considered as a higher grade of the division of labor, but only as a very unfavorable change in the kind of it; inasmuch as it were better to employ the women in their domestic avocations and to leave children to their studies and their sports. Among the higher classes, it should be made the part of female education, to counterbalance, in the family, the effects of the ever increasing division of labor among the male portion, by the development of that which is universally human—art, sociability, house-keeping etc.

384.

Schleiermacher, Christliche Sitte, 465 ff., 676 ff., 154 ff. From a similar feeling, although much exaggerated, the Greeks of the classic age proper considered all callings followed for gain dishonorable, not excepting even those of the physician and of the teacher. Plato, de Rep., I, 347 ff. Aristot., Rhet., I, 9, 27: μηδεμίαν ἐργάζεσθαι βὰναυσον τέχνην, ἐλευθέρον γάρ τὸ μὴ πρὸς ἄλλον ζην.

385.

As, for instance, the superintendent of a manufactory must have a better general training, but can get along with less of a special, than his workmen.

386.

Thucydides says of the contemporaries of Pericles: “The same men devote themselves, among us, in part to domestic and political business; in part, others who busy themselves with agriculture and industry have no mean knowledge of the affairs of state. We call those who take no part in the former not people loving their ease, but useless men.” (II, 40.) During the succeeding period, Athens was destroyed mainly by the ever increasing division of labor between citizens and soldiers. For, “to separate the arts which form the citizen and the statesman, the arts of policy and war, is an attempt to dismember the human character, and to destroy those very arts we mean to improve.” (Ferguson.) We know from Valerius Maximus, that the Roman soldiers from the time of Marius had, doubtless, a better technic training than their ancestors who who defeated Hannibal; but was it in a military or political sense that they were thus better trained? The beautiful definition of Cato intimates something of the same nature; the good orator was vir bonus dicendi peritus. (Quintilian, XII, I.) And so Garve, Versuche, IV, 51 ff., expects from the political elevation of citizenship, of those possessed of the right of citizens, not only usefulness in a particular direction but the development of the whole man, a thing hitherto expected only of the nobility.

387.

As one's peculiar calling does not take up all his life, we must draw a clear distinction between the one-sidedness of labor and the one-sidedness of life, (von Mangoldt, Volkswirthschaftslehre, 227.) Only the last is to be avoided at all hazards; and we find it in the middle ages, with its limited divisions of labor, perhaps more frequently than where civilization has attained a higher stage. During the middle ages, it was not unusual to make feelings which every one should cultivate at times, if only temporarily, the lasting calling of some. Thus one prayed his whole life long, or was engaged in contemplation, and relieved others of the necessity of performing these duties. The consequence was, that the latter sank as deeply in worldliness and want of the interior spirit as the former were plunged in idleness and hypocrisy. But, on the other hand, when, in our day, the printer relieves the writer of a portion of the labor which might be his, the personal development of neither suffers.

388.

L'uomo è un' tal potenza, che unita all' altra non fa un eguale alla somma, ma al quadrato della somma. (Genovesi.) As to how the action of every individual man is a species of division and union of different kinds of labor, see Stein, Lehrbuch, 24.

389.

Compare Ad. Müller, Elemente der Staatskunst, III, 1809. Fr. List, System der polit. Œkonomie, 222 ff., 409 ff. Wakefield, in his edition of Adam Smith, distinguishes two degrees of coöperation, simple and complex. In the case of simple labor, the same sort of work is performed at the same time and place by several individuals, as, for instance, by a lot of hod-carriers in building. In the other case, there are different kinds of work performed at different times and places, but all intended for the one greater end. Agriculture affords room for the first especially, and it is known also to a great number of animal species.

390.

Flemish weavers in England, French refugees in Protestant countries; German miners in Spain, Scandinavia, Hungary and America.

391.

This, so very largely developed in Egypt and India, where the principle of caste obtains, is very little developed in the despotisms of Asia. The great princes, in the latter countries, build largely from vanity only. Hence their successors seldom complete their works, and scarcely repair them. Nowhere else are there so many half completed and yet decaying buildings. Klemm, Kulturgeschichte, VIII, 86. Riedel, N. Œkonomie I, 259, very correctly remarks that such kinds of coöperation as contribute most to the propagation of skill, both in commerce and manual labor, have less real division of labor, and vice versa.

392.

Compare Leplay, La Réforme sociale en France (1864).

393.

Concerning association in general, see M. Chevalier, Cours, III, Leçon, 24, 25. On this subject so much talked of in our day, see, more in detail, concerning its application to agriculture, my work, Nationalökonomik des Ackerbaues, 4, § 39, 47 ff.; 68, 133 ff.; on its application to industry, especially where there is question of the relation of handiwork and manufactures to large factories; see Roscher, Ansichten der Volkswirthschaft, II, Aufl., 1861, Abhandlung, IV, V.

394.

Adam Smith remarked that the laws of the division of labor obtain also in intellectual works; and indeed, among all nations in a very low grade of civilization, the germs of all art and science are found connected with theology; and later, the germs of all poetry and history with the epic. The expression: non defuit homini, sed scientiæ, quod nescivit Salmasius, is a clear proof of the insignificance of the science of the time. Think of the increase during the last hundred years of the branches of study in our German universities. There are now thirty-four regular professors in the Leipzig philosophical faculty, where then there were only nine. But here also the principle proves true, that an excessive division of labor, where the broader connection and the deeper foundation of all sciences disappear from the consciousness, undermines intellectual health and freedom. And the injury here is greater and more irreparable than in the domain of mere physical labor. See Hufeland, N. Grundlegung, I, 207 ff. If we have just become Alexandrians, we have, however, no Aristotle to hope for. Jurisprudentia est divinarum atque humanarum rerum notitia, justi atque injusti scientia (Ulpian). It is remarkable that nations who possess no real national literature of their own, when they once get beyond the bounds of utter barbarism, learn foreign languages etc., most easily.

395.

The socialistic utopia of Ch. Fourier (Théorie des quatre Mouvements, 1808. Théorie de l'Unité universelle, 1822. Le nouveau Monde industriel et sociétaire, 1829) are based upon the following fundamental ideas. A. The present civilization is that of a topsy-turvy world, especially in so far as it ascribes a “moral” (a word always used by him in an ironical sense) self-government to man. In Fourier's world, on the other hand, every man is supposed, at all times, to give free rein to every passion; and the play of these gratifications constitutes the harmonie, in which the poorest find more enjoyment than do kings at the present time. (See § 207 of this work.) B. The main thing to further this is a radical reform in the division and cooperation of labor as they exist at present. Instead of the present villages and cities, we should have only phalansteries, each with 2,000 inhabitants, and situated in the center of the land cultivated by them. Instead of the present nations and states, we should have a universal confederate republic, hierarchically graded, with French as the universal language. According to the demands of the passion papillonne, each one should carry on the most different kinds of business side by side, and each one of them at most two hours per day; i.e., every one should be a dilettante, no one a master, and everything should be done as badly as possible. Proudhon, Contradictions économiques, ch. 3, objects to this, that a workman must, in some way, be held responsible for his work. Fourier himself calculates that, in his harmonie all pleasures are productive labor; and that by this constant change, one might be satisfied with from 4-½ to 5-½ hours of sleep, and that even children 2-½ years old might take part in the work. Thus, there would be a great rivalry between apple-growers and pear-growers, so great “that more intrigues in attack and defense [passion cabaliste] would arise there than in all the cabinets of Europe,” in the settling of which the growers of quinces would act as intermediaries. There are, in addition to all this, wonderful aids; a fructifying crown of light rises over the north pole; oranges bloom in Siberia; the sea becomes as delicious as lemonade; dangerous animals die, and in their stead anti-lions and anti-whales come into being, animals useful to man, which draw his ships for him during calms. These ideas are by no means retracted in Fourier's later works, See Nouveau Monde (Oeuvres) IV, 447. The propositions of Robert Owen, A new View of Society (1812), have much similarity with those of Fourier. They differ only in the absence of the French barrack-like character of the phalanxes, and the fantastic character of the presentation of the doctrine. He would have all the land divided into districts of 1,000 acres each; each district to have a four-cornered town with 1,000 inhabitants, following a system of production and consumption in common, but not with full equality; carrying on both agriculture and other business. A principal feature here is an entirely new system of education. The author says that man has hitherto been the slave of an execrable trinity: positive religion, personal property and indissoluble wedlock. (Declaration of mental independence.)

396.

Compare Tacitus, Histor., II, 44.

397.

See Iselin, Geschichte der Menschheit (1764), III, 7. Bazard, Exposition de la Doctrine de Saint Simon, 1831, 153. Among negro nations deprivation of freedom is one of the most usual punishments for crime; but the criminal has the option of substituting his wife or child for himself. L.A. de Oliveira Mendez, in the Memor. econom. of the Royal Academy of Lisbon, vol. IV, I, 1812. As to slavery on account of crime among the Germans, see Grimm, D. Rechtsalterth., 328 seq.

398.

Loss at play was a frequent cause of slavery among the ancient Germans. Tacit., Germ., 24. For the principal causes of slavery among the Israelites, see the books of Moses, II, 22, 3; III, 25, 39; IV, 21, 26 seq.; among the Indians, Laws of Menu, VIII, 415. The first serfs of Russia were prisoners of war and their children. The laws of Jaroslaws recognize, besides, the following causes: insolvency, contracting marriage with a slave, the illegal breach of a contract for service, flight, unconditional contract for service. Karamsin, Russ. Gesch., II, 37.

399.

At least seed and the means of subsistence until harvest time.

400.

Cases of voluntary slavery to escape famine. Papencordt, Geschichte der Vandalen, 186; Victor, Chron., V, 17; Tur., VII, 45; Lex Bajuv, VI, 3; L. Fris, XI, I. According to the Edictum Pistense (a., 864), c., 34, one could free himself again by paying back the purchase money and 20 per cent. in addition. It frequently happened that people spontaneously accepted the condition of a vassal in order to enjoy the protection of a powerful personage. See Stüve, Lasten des Grundeigenthums, p. 74. In 1812, a young Himalayan offered himself to the traveler Moorcroft as a slave in order to obtain food during the famine. K. Ritter, Erdkunde, III, p. 999. The same fact occurred, but in greater proportions under Joseph in Egypt. Moses, I, 47, 18 seq.

401.

Cæsar, B.G., VI, 13.

402.

Solon was the first to prohibit this commerce in Athens. Kindlinger, in his Geschichte der deutschen Hörigkeit, p. 621, speaks of a child promised as a slave before its birth, by its parents, as a species of farm-rent. (See the Edictum Pistense, in Baluz, II, 192.) In Chili, the poorest country people who were not entirely white, sold their children in the towns, where they grew up with the families of their masters, and were then kept as servants in a state of semi-serfdom. There is, it is true, no law governing this condition of things. (Pöppig, Reise, I, 201 ff.)

403.

Ritter, XIII, 727. For instance, men in South America used for the purpose of riding. M. Chevalier, Cours, I, 251; Lœwenstern, Le Mexique, Souvenirs d'un Voyageur (1843); and Stephens, Travels in Yucatan (1841), show how, even yet, in Central America, although the Indians are legally free, yet, by their senseless way of running into debt, a number of legal relations, amounting virtually to glebæ adscriptio, arise. But compare, however, Humboldt, Neuspanien, IV, 263. This condition of things has been produced in Peru, also, by the payment of one or two years' wages in advance. (Pöppig, Reise, II, 225.)

404.

Thus Forbonnais, Eléments du Commerce (1854) I, 364, says of trade with savages: il fait naître dans ces nations le goût du superflu et des commodités, qui multiplie le, échanges et leur donne le goût du travail.

405.

In very uncivilized nations, among whom serfdom is not known, we generally find the slavery of woman and the temporary bondage of the son-in-law in order to secure the daughter in marriage. This is still the case among the Laplanders. Klemm, Kulturgeschichte III, p. 54. Slavery was unknown among the Greeks in the very earliest times. Herod., VI, 263. F. A. Wolf, Darstell. der Afterthumswissenschaft, III, doubts whether any great advance in the higher development of the mind would have been possible without slavery.

406.

In Russia, where free peasants and serfs lived side by side, it has been remarked that the latter were never so rich and never so poor as the former. (Kohl, Reise durch Russland II, 8, 300.) The Livonian peasants have become poorer since their emancipation. (Cancrin, Œkonomie der menschlichen Gesellschaften, 41). Many of the serfs refused to accept emancipation. (Büsch, Geldumlauf, Einleitung, § 6.) And so Martius, Reise in Brasilien II, 552 ff., assures us that the negro slaves in Brazil are as a rule a very merry set. He is also of the opinion that they are better clothed, lodged, fed and employed than in their own country. For the remarkable official defense of North American slavery directed by Calhoun, to Lord Aberdeen, see the Allg. Zeitung, 1844, No. 145. In this document, we find a comparison instituted between the free negroes of the north and the slaves of the south. In the north, there was one deaf-mute, a case of blindness and of insanity in every 96; in the south, in every 672; a pauper, invalid and prisoner in every 6 at the north, in every 54 at the south. In Maine, 1/12th of the negroes were afflicted by disease; in Florida, 1/1105th(?). The fact that the slave population of the United States increased, between 1840 and 1860, from 2,873,698 to 4,441,830, while the free negro population of Jamaica, between 1833 and 1843, underwent a frightful decrease, is to the same purport. However, too much must not be inferred from all this, as the negroes in America are very far from being the children of the soil.

407.

The servants in the Odyssey who cared for hogs and cattle etc. were certainly in a better condition in many respects than the peasants of Attica, who were free, but buried in debt until the time of Solon. Concerning the mildness of the treatment of slaves in very early Roman times, see Plutarch, Coriol., 24, and Cato, I, 3, 20 ff.; Cato, de Re rust, 5, 56 ff.; Macrob., Stat. I, 10 ff. On the state of the serfs among the Germans, see Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, p. 339 ff.; among the ancient Scandinavians etc., Dahlman, Geschichte von Dänemark, I, 163. See Tacit., Germ., 25.

408.

Compare Landnamabok, I, 6.

409.

The opinions of the ancients for and against slavery are found in Arist. Polit. I, 2. See especially the beautiful passages in Philemon: Meineke, Comicorum jr., 364, 410. Aristotle even thinks that there are cases in which master and slave might be brought together by a mutual want, each of the other. The former wants hands to execute the work of his brain; the latter a guiding brain for his hands. Where the degree of dependence corresponds exactly to the difference of ability, Aristotle, leaving its abuses out of the question, declares slavery to be just. See, also, Eth. Nicom., VIII, 11. Similarly the Pythagorean Bryson in Stobœus, Florid. LXXXV, 15. But Aristotle would hold up emancipation to all slaves as a reward they might have in prospect. Polit VII, 9, 9; Œcon. I, 5. It is characteristic of the many testaments of philosophers, found in Diogenes Laertius, that they contain declarations giving slaves their freedom. The Essenes and Therapeutics condemned slavery under all circumstances. Philo., Opp. II, pp. 458, 482, Opp. I. See Seneca, De Benef. III, 20. The jus naturale of the age of the Cæsars recognized the freedom and equality of man. Digest, XII, 664., L. 17, 32. The New Testament does not reject it absolutely, but would sanctify it as well as all other relations in life. Compare Luke, 17, 7; Eph. 6 5 ff.; Coloss. 3, 22; Tit. 2, 9. More especially, I Timothy, VI, 1 ff. It was not until the ninth century that the opinion that slavery was anti-Christian because men were all made in the image of God, arose. Planck, Geschichte der kirchlichen Gesellschaftsverfassung, II, 350. Sachsenspiegel, III, 42. A writer as recent as Pufendorf explains slavery as arising from a free contract; faciam, ut des. Jus naturæ (1672) VI, 3. More recently Linguet, Théorie des Lois civiles (1767), V, ch. 30, and Hugo, Naturrecht, § 186 ff. have endeavored to prove that slaves are in a condition preferable to that of poor free men. And so Möser Patriot Phantasien, II,. p. 154, seq. Those who with Thaer separate the element of production, “labor” from that of “intelligence,” justify slavery on the same principle that Aristotle did, without knowing it. Per contra, see F. G. Schultze, N. Œkonomie (1856), 418.

410.

Turgot, Sur la Formation etc., § 21. The universal empire of the Romans demonstrated this. Then it was, for instance, that during the wars of Lucullus, a slave cost only four drachmas. (Appian., Bell. Mithr., 78.) Sardi venales: on account of the glutting of the market with Sardinian slaves, made through the victory of Tib. Gracchus, 177, before Christ. Many of the lesser wars of the Romans can be looked upon only as slave-hunts. But the great wars also were followed by uprisings of slaves on account of the many new slaves which they made. Thus 198 in Latium, 196 in Etruria. (Bücher, Aufstände der unfreien Arbeiter von, 143-129, v. Chr., 1874.) During the relatively peaceful periods which preceded many of the Roman revolutions, pirates delivered over great masses of slaves. It frequently happened that several thousand slaves were led to Delos and sold in a single day. (Strabo, XIV, 668.) As emancipation was a measure which people could not make up their minds to adopt, these pirates satisfied a “want” for a time, and this partly explains the otherwise incomprehensible forbearance of the state towards them.

411.

Gregor. Turon., III, 15.

412.

Grimm, D. Rechtsalterthümer, 323. It is a strange fact that prisoners of war were in several remarkable instances sold as slaves in Italy during the fifteenth century. (Sismondi, Hist. des Républiques italiennes, IX, p. 312 seq.; XI, p. 138 seq.) And even in the sixteenth century, the pope allowed those of states opposed to him to be treated in this way. Sismondi, supra, XI, 251; XIII, 485. Raynold, Ann. eccl. 1506, § 25 ff.

413.

This graduation of slave, serf and workman, has been carried out especially by Saint Simon, Oeuvres, 328 ff. Even Proudhon admits that the condition of the lower classes is better now than formerly. (Contradictions économiques, ch. X, 2.) Compare M. Chevalier, Cours, I. Leçons 1 and 2, where he shows that our productive power has increased during the last four or five centuries in the production of iron in the proportion of 1 to from 25 to 30; in the preparation of flour since the time of Homer in the proportion of 1:144; in the production of cotton during the last 70 years in the proportion of 1:320. Aristotle predicted, long ago, that “when the shuttle would move of itself, and plectra of themselves strike the lyre, we should need no more slaves.” Polit., 2, 5. Every step of true progress brings us nearer the fulfillment of the prophecy.

414.

The North American planters employed coarse tools rather than fine ones, mules rather than horses, because their slaves took so little care of them.

415.

It can never obtain as much labor from the slave, as the fear of losing his situation and of not being able to obtain another, will from the free workman. (Hume.) Marlo, Weltœkonomie, 1848, I, 2, 38, grants this to be true only where all the forces of nature are appropriated by occupation, and the number of workmen is greater than the want of workmen.

416.

Even in Brazil, only free men are, as a rule, employed as sugar refiners, distillers, teamsters etc. (Koster, Travels in Brazil, 1816, 362.) Storch, Russland unter Alexander I, Heft, 23, p. 255, cites the opinion of an eminent Russian manufacturer, that it would first be necessary to liberate the serf factory-hands. Masters have generally given up employing their own serfs in manufactures, allowed them to seek work for themselves, and only required them to pay them a species of tax. When this plan was adopted, it was found that they worked much better, (v. Haxthausen, Studien I, 61, 116.) It was a consequence of slavery that, in antiquity, the very wealthy purchased so little: omnia domi nascuntur! (Petron., 38.)

417.

Thus Homer, Od. XVII, 322, in whose time even there were day laborers, θῆτες or ἔριθοι. (Od. IV, 644; X, 85; XI, 490; XIV, 102. Hesiod, Opera, 602.) And Varro, De Re rust. I, 17, advises that difficult labor should be performed rather by day laborers. Coli rura ab ergastulis pessimum est et quidquid agitur a desperantibus. Plin., H. N. XVIII, 7. Omne genus agri tolerabilius sub liberis colonis, quam sub villicis. (Columetta, De Re rust I, 7.) It has been estimated, that, in the West Indies, a negro slave performed only one-third of the work performed by an Englishman in his own country. (B. Edwards, History of the British West Indies, II, 131.) During the one afternoon, in every week, in which the negroes were allowed to work on their own account, they accomplished as much as on other entire days. Edinburgh R. IV, 842. Compare Bentham, Traité de Législation I, 319. Ch. Comte, Traité de Législation, 1827, Livre V.; Cairnes, The Slave-Power, its Character, Career and probable Designs, 1862; Olmsted, Journeys and Explorations in the Cotton Kingdom, 1861.

418.

While the older tyrants had prohibited idleness, Draco and Solon even under pain of degradation (see places in Büchsenschütz, Besitz und Erwerb, 260). Socrates called the ἅργια the sister of Freedom (Aelian, V.H.X, 14), and the σκολή the most beautiful of all professions.

419.

B. Franklin, Observations concerning the Peopling of New Countries etc., 1751.

420.

Monument erected to Bernstorff by his peasants, 8, 15. The Zàmoiski estates yielded, 17 years after emancipation, three times as much as they did when serfdom prevailed. Coxe, Travels in Poland, I, 22. The transformation of the serfs into hereditary farmers cost Count Bernstorff 100,000 thalers; but the revenue derived from his lands increased in consequence, in twenty-four years, from 3,000 to 27,000 thalers. An English mower can mow a field two and three times as great as a Russian mower in a given time. If the former receives daily wages equivalent to seventy pounds of wheat, and the latter to only twelve, the Englishman's labor is still the cheaper; for he turns out 100 pounds of hay while the latter turns out only eight. Jacob, 43 seq. But the hiring out of serfs in the large cities of Russia yielded less to their masters than in the interior. Storch, Handbuch, II, 286.

421.

Tucker, Progress of the United States, 1843, pp. 111 ff. We need not call attention to the inaccuracy of these figures, nor remark how little serviceable for our present purpose an average obtained from the density of population in different parts of Russia, where such densities are themselves so very different, would be.

422.

The Spartans seemed to have counted on an adult free man for twice as much coarse food as a bondsman. (Thucyd., VI, 16.)

423.

Stewart, Principles, I, 7, in accordance with historical data, says, that the peasantry in our days work for other people, because they have wants which can be satisfied only in this way; because “they are slaves of their own wants.” The unquestionable superiority of free to slave labor, in point of economy, has been dwelt upon especially by Turgot, Sur la Formation et la Distribution, § 28, and by Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, I, 8, III, 2. But see J. B. Say, Traité, I, ch. 19, and Storch, Handbuch, II, 184. When Hume, Discourses, No. 11, Populousness of ancient Nations, demonstrates the greater cost of slavery from the fact that the master of slaves must either breed or buy them, he forgets that in the case of free workmen he is obliged to provide also for the support of the workman's children. Only, the slaveholder has, indeed, to advance the whole at once.

424.

Humboldt, Cuba, I, 177. Ashworth, Tour in the U.S. Cuba and Canada, 1861. The slaves in Louisiana were so overworked that they lived, on an average, scarcely seven years. Edinburg Rev., LXXXIII, 73. Even the Stoics were not agreed, whether it was right, in case of shipwreck, to sacrifice a cheap slave in order to save a valuable horse. (Cicero, de Off. III, 23.) Whether the self-interest of masters is an inducement to the mild treatment of their slaves depends on the price for which fresh slaves may be obtained. This is a strong reason why a high degree of civilization, where there are not counteracting influences, must make slavery less endurable. The more valuable slaves are, the worse is their condition. In the unfertile Bahamas, the price was £21; in Demarara, £86. In the former place they were required to do little work and were well fed and well clothed. Hence their numbers have increased there, while in Demarara they have decreased. (Edinburgh Rev., XLVI, 496, 180.)

425.

Proverb: quot servi totidem hostes. (Macrob., Sat. I, 11, 13.)

426.

Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 212. The chastity of both parties especially suffers. The leno of ancient comedy was a slave trader! Compare L. 27, Digest, V, 3. In the English negro colonies, it was not unusual for the guests of the planters, even in the best families, on retiring, to ask the accompanying servant for a girl, with as little concern as they would in England for a light. (Negro Slavery, or a Creed of ... that state of Society as it exists in the United States and in the Colonies of the West Indies, London, 1823, 53.)

427.

Even the law of Upland forbade the sale of Christians. The children of a slave and of a free person were born free. Emancipation was considered a Christian act, to be performed for “the salvation of one's soul.” Voluntary slavery was prohibited in 1266, and Magnus Erichson forbade slavery generally from the year 1335. See Geijer, Geschichte von Schweden, pp. 157, 185, 273. Estrup, in Falcks N. Staatsburg Magazin, 1837, 179, ff.

428.

L. Alam, 137, 1. L. Fris., 17, 5. Decree of 960 concerning the abolition of the trade in Christian slaves between Germany, Italy and the Byzantine Empire. Tafel und Thomas, Urkunden der Staats-und Handelsgeschichte von Venedig, I, 18 ff.

429.

Tacit. Germ. 25. In the Legg. Walliæ 206 (Wolton) we read: “Hero eadem potestas in servum suum ac in jumentum.”

430.

The council of London in 1102 forbade men to be sold like beasts. (Concil., ed. Venet. 1730, XII, 1100, No. 27.) Guérard, Polyptiques d'Irminon, Prolegg., 220, describes a pedagogical model emancipation by the Church of its own serfs. On the whole, the church contributed more towards the emancipation of the serfs of others than of its own. See ch. 39, C. XII, qu. 2; c. 3,4; De Rebus eccl.

431.

In Flanders since the end of the twelfth century. Warnkönig, Flandrische Staats und Rechtsgeschichte (I, 244).

432.

In what relates to Germany, compare Sugenheim, Geschichte der Aufhebung der Leibeigenschaft in Europa, 1861, p. 350 ff. The destruction of the old manorial system (Hofwesen) in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was often unfavorable to bondmen and favorable to serfs. Maurer, Gesch. der Frohnhöfe, II, 92. In Poland, where all were originally equal land-owners, many sank gradually through poverty to the condition of the so-called kinetes, who, although personally free, were not very far removed from slaves. Beginning with the thirteenth century, a great number of immunities, after the model of those accorded in Germany, were granted, by means of which they lost, for the most part, their direct subjection to the emperor and the empire alone. This was soon followed as a consequence by their personal oppression. (Röpell, Geschichte von Polen, I, p. 308 seq., and p. 570 seq.) In Bohemia, the old form of serfdom had so far disappeared in the fourteenth century, that it might be said it was known only to history. But during the reign of the weak king, Ladislaus II, a new species of serfdom came into vogue, the result of the preponderance of the aristocratic element. Palacky, Gesch. von Böhmen, II, p. 33 seq.; III, 31 seq. Aristocratic Denmark, before the peasant war of 1255-1258, subjected the free peasantry who had been leaseholders for a term of years to unlimited socage duty. Waldemar III, reduced to the same kind of service the land-owning peasantry, which especially from the date of Margaret's reign, developed into a species of glebæ adscriptio. From the sixteenth century, when the royal power almost disappeared, these public privileges were abandoned to the nobility to such an extent that, in 1650, there were scarcely 5,000 free peasants. Dahlmann, III, p. 73 seq. However the severity of traeldom made way in the fourteenth century for the vornedskap (modified bondage), a milder species of vassalage. See Kolderup Rosenvinge, Grundriss der dänischen Rechtsgeschichte, § 94.

433.

The French expression mainmorte comes originally from the deprivation of the right of inheritance. In Beaumanoir's time, 1283, it was customary, after a number of serfs had lived together for a year and a day, for their chattels movable to become the common property of the community. (Warnkönig, Französische Rechtsgeschichte, II, 157.)

434.

In France, Louis X. made it a fiscal speculation to sell serfs their liberty in whole districts, even against their will. His edict, Ordonnances, I, 583, recognizes that all men are by nature free, and that France is not without reason called the land of the Franks etc. Even in 1298, Philip IV. had exchanged the serfdom to the crown of several provinces for a land duty. The last ruler of Dauphiny gave all the serfs of the crown their liberty gratis, in 1394. (Sugenheim, p. 130.) When the so-called coutumes were written, there were only nine provincees in which by local law serfdom was permitted. The defeat of the jacquerie injured the cause of emancipation in France in the same way that the suppression of the war of the peasants did in Germany. About 1779, mainmorte was abolished in all lands of the crown, and its proof made almost impossible in all others. (Warnkönig, II, 151 seq.) Yet it is said that there were 150,000 serfs de corps in France in 1789. (Cassagnac, Causes de la Revolution, III, 11.) Koloman, who died in 1114, forbade the slave trade in Hungary, and labored to raise all Christian slaves to conditionarii (renters). But the right of migration was abolished in 1351. King Sigismund, and still more, Matthias Corvinus, restored it, after the suppression of the war of the peasants, but in 1514 it was again lost until 1586. Further progress was arrested until the Urbarium of Maria Theresa.

435.

In Italy, Frederick II. liberated all the serfs of the crown. (Constitutt. Regni Sicil., 164.) A model instance of emancipation at Bologna in 1256. The serfs of the state were simply set at liberty; the freedom of those of private persons was purchased with the money of the state, and a small corn-tithe laid on the emancipated as a compensation for the expense incurred in their behalf. In the future, there was not to be a bondman on Bologna territory. The motives which led to this measure are a strange admixture of Christianity and Democracy. (Muzzi, Annali di Bologna, 1840, I, 479.) Italy, at the end of the fourteenth century, was entirely free from Christian serfdom. (Muratori, Antt. Ital., I, 798.) In the canton of Berne, Switzerland, slavery was gradually abolished, the process commencing about the beginning of the fifteenth century. It continued, however, in the case of ordinary masters until 1798. Sugenheim, p. 530 seq. In England, Alfred the Great's efforts towards the gradual abolition of slavery (Wilkins, Leges, 29) remained without result. The steps taken by William I, towards a much narrower end, however, seem to have been more successful. (Leges Will. Conq., 225, 229; Turner, Hist. of England, I, 135.) From the time of the Norman conquest, prisoners of war ceased to recruit the ranks of slavery. Under Henry III and Edward I, socage tenants became more and more frequent; but, before long, their duties became less onerous, and might be discharged by others hired for the purpose, instead of by themselves. The first remarkable vestige of a class working for wages is met with in the law of 1351, which may be considered an effort made by the nobility to oppose the tendencies in favor of emancipation, which were a consequence of the development of cities. (Eden, State of the Poor, I, 7, 12, 30, 41,) Infra, § 175. Although the peasant war under Wat Tyler and Straw, who wished to abolish servitude at a blow, failed of its object, we find that there were a great many instances of emancipation by individuals in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries when death or sickness overtook them, in which they declared the moral unfitness of slavery. (Wycliffe: “When Adam dalve and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?”) Elizabeth liberated the last serfs of the crown. Compare 12 Charles II, ch. 24, 1660. Emancipation in the lowlands of Scotland was completed in 1574. (Tytler, Hist. of Scotland, II, 260.)

436.

Modern Emancipation Laws: in Prussia, 1719, 1807, 1819; Lausitz; 1820, Westphalia; in Austria, 1781 (Bohemia and Moravia), 1782 (other German countries and Galicia); 1785 (Hungaria); Schleswig-Holstein, 1804, after many of the landed gentry had voluntarily emancipated their own serfs; in Bavaria, in 1808; in the kingdom of Westphalia, in 1808; in Hessen-Darmstadt, in 1811; in Württemberg, in 1817; in Baden, in 1783, 1820 in newly acquired countries; in Mecklenburg, in 1820; in the kingdom of Saxony, in 1832; in Hanover, in 1833. The law of 1702, abolishing serfdom in Denmark, was evaded until 1788, and in part, even until 1800 by the Schollband (clod-bond) introduced in its stead. The only Christian people in Europe, who, until recently, kept serfs, was the Russian. The serfs of Russia, in 1834, numbered 22,000,000, i.e., about 40 per cent. of the entire population. In the meantime, the law of February 19, 1861, passed after four years of preparation, fixed the date of emancipation at the beginning of the year 1863. Slavery has been abolished in the United States since January 1, 1863; first of all in all portions of the country engaged in rebellion.

437.

There is a very interesting discussion in the Journ. des Economistes for June 1863, of the question whether the owners of serfs are entitled to compensation on their emancipation, by Laboulaye, Wolowski, Lavergne, Garnier, Simon and others. In the United States it would have required $2,000,000,000 to fully compensate the slave-holders for depriving them of their slaves. (Quart. R., Jan., 1874, 142.) Compare my view, Roscher, Nationalökonomi des Ackerbaues, § 124.

438.

Leave a new-born child to its “natural freedom” for twenty-four hours, and it will in all probability be dead at the end of the time!

439.

Compare Edinburgh Review, LXXXIII, 64 ff., April, 1851, 333. Klein's Annalen XXV, 70, ff. Even in the fifth book of Moses, 15, 13, ff., we see that experience had taken into consideration that a freed serf without capital or landed property might very readily be in a worse condition than he was before. In the United States, the anticipation that the emancipated negroes might diminish in numbers has not been realized. The census of 1870 showed a negro population of 4,880,000, nearly ten per cent. more than in 1860. The increase of the number of churches, schools and savings banks also bears testimony to the prosperity of the negro. (R. Somers, The Southern States since the War, 1871.)

440.

J. S. Mill, Principles, 10, ch. 7.

441.

As to the Jews, see Ewald, Geschichte von Israel, I 2, p. 198. In general, see H. Wallon, Hist, de l'Esclavage dans l'Antiquité, II, 1847.

442.

Thucyd. IV, 27; Xenoph. De Re. rep. Art. I, 10 ff., Aristoph. Nubes, 6; Antiph. De Caede Herod, 727. In the “Frogs” of Aristophanes, the relation between the slave Xanthias and his master is eloquent testimony to the good treatment he received. Slaves enjoyed great freedom of speech. (Demosth. Phil. III, iii.) Concerning masters accused of cruelty, see Demosth. Mid. 529, 7. Athen. VI, 266. The slave who had been ill-treated might seek refuge in a temple, after which his master was compelled to sell him. (Schol. Aristoph. Equitt. 1309. Plutarch, Thes. 36.)

443.

Slaves might purchase their own freedom with their peculium. See Petit. Legg., Art. II, 179. There were many who lived entirely on their own account, paying a certain duty or tax to their masters, and who were well able to make savings. R. F. Hermann, Privatalterthümer, § 13, 9, 58, 11 ff. See the instance in Plato, De Rep. VI, 495, where a slave who had grown wealthy asks the daughter of his former master in marriage. Moreover, there was a general indisposition to hold Greeks as slaves. (Philostr. Apoll. VIII, 7, 12.) The case cited in Demosth. adv. Nicostr. 1249 ff., is all the stronger on this account.

444.

Under Cleomenes, many purchased their freedom with their own means. Plutarch, Cleom. 23. At an earlier period, men like Lysandros, Gylippos, Kallikratidos had belonged to a class composed of the children of slaves brought up as citizens.

445.

Cicero, pro Muræna, IX, 22.

446.

Think of the subterranean ergastula, the fettered door-keepers and the gladiatorial exhibitions.

447.

Even from the time of Plautus, the servi honestiores were wont to keep vicarios, or subordinate slaves. Plaut. Asin. I, 4, Seneca De Tranq. Anim. 8. Compare Cicero, Parad. V, 2. Of the slaves of the state, the public scribes were sometimes found in excellent circumstances.

448.

The peculium was fully developed in the time of Plautus and Terence. Compare Terent., Phorm. I, 1. It was customary to promise slaves their freedom as soon as they had acquired a certain peculium. (Dionys. Hal., Antt. Rom., IV, 24. Tac., Ann., XIV, 42.) Humane masters permitted their slaves to dispose freely of their peculium by will. (Plin., Ep., VIII, 16.) There were many of the Romans who gave their slaves a fixed salary, from which they could make savings. (Senec., Epist., 80, 7.) Shepherds raised some sheep for themselves alone. (Plaut., Asin., III, 1, 36; Varro, R. R., I, 17, 7.) Premiums were offered for certain products (Athen., VI, 274 d), and there were cases even in which businesses were farmed out to slaves. (Corp. Inscr. Gr., No. 4,713 f.) The servi publici had the right to dispose of the half of what they owned, by will. (Ulpian, XX, 16.) Contracts of loan were sometimes made between master and slave. (Plut., Cato, I, 21, L., 49, § 2, Digest, XV, 1.)

449.

Compare Tacit., Ann., XIII, 26 seq. During the time from 356 to 211 A.C., it seems that there were, on an average, 1,380 slaves emancipated yearly. (Dureau de la Malle, Economie polit. des Romains, I, 290 ff.)

450.

Concerning the highly educated slaves of Atticus, of the like of whom the Greeks had formerly few examples, see Drumann, Geschichte Roms., V, 66. The high prices, 100,000, and even 200,000 sesterces, paid for slaves, suppose a very high degree of education. (Martial, I, 59; III, 62; XI, 70; Seneca, Ep., 27.) But even Cicero was ashamed of his affliction over the death of an exceptionally clever slave. (Ad. Att., I, 12.)

451.

At an earlier period, even the censor had punished cruel masters. But most of what was done to prevent the arbitrary condemnation to death of slaves, their castration etc., and to give them rights against their masters for libidinous acts towards them, for cruelty and insufficient support, or the furnishing them with bad food, was done after the time of Hadrian. (Compare Seneca, de Benef., III, 22; de Ira, III, 40, Sueton., Claud, 25, Dom., 7; Spartian., Hadr., 18; Gaius, I, 53; L., 1, § 2, Digest, I, 6; L., 1, § 8, D., I, 12; L., 1, § 2, D., XLVII, 8; L., 1; Cod., IX, 14; Contra, see Dio Cass, I, V, 17.) However, the vitæ necisque potestas existed in the time of Justinian. (Zimmern, Geschichte des röm., Privatrechts, I, 2, 661 ff.)

452.

Salvian, De Gubern. Dei, V, 8. Theod., Cad. V, 4. Eumenis, Paneg Coast. 8, 9. Trebell, Poll. Claud., 9. Justin. Cad., XI, 26, 47. Compare v. Savigny, Ueber den romischen Colonat. Berliner Akad., 1822-23.

453.

The figures given in Athen., VI, 103, concerning the number of bondmen in Greece are almost incredible. For Attica alone, the estimates vary between 110,000 (Letronne, in the Mem. de I'Académie des Inscr., 1822, 192, ff.) and 400,000 (Athen. 1. c.), while the free men are estimated at from 130,000 to 150,000. In Rome, during the time from the expulsion of the kings until the destruction of Carthage, the number of the slaves remained about the same. (Blair, State of Slavery among the Romans, 1833, 10, 15.) On the other hand, Dureau de la Malle is of opinion, that in 576 B.C., the number of slaves was to the number of free men as 1 to 25, and in 225 B.C. (including the metics), as 22 to 27. (Economie polit. des Romains I 270 ff., 296.) Compare Cato, de Re. rust. I, 3, IV, X, 1 XI; 1, XVII, XVIII, 1. In Germany, the number of bondmen, from the eighth to the tenth century, was estimated to be at least as great as that of free men. (Grimm, D. Rechtsaltherthümer, 334.) Among the Anglo Saxons, before the Norman conquest, it was much higher, even three-fourths of the entire population. (Turner, Hist. of the A. S., VIII, 9.) Compare on the subject of this whole chapter my paper in the Archiv. der polit Œkonomie, N. F., IV, 30 ff.

454.

Klöntrupp, Abhandlung der Lehre vom Zwangsdienste, 1801. Frequently, the lord had only a right of preference in case the children of the tenant desired to abandon the parental roof and take service elsewhere.

455.

In Adam Smith's time, in England, the presumption was that a servant had been hired for a year. (I, 2, 15 ed., Bas.) Frederick the Great's ordinance of 1769, on this subject, forbade any one to enter into service for a shorter time than this (II, § 1 ff.), while the Saxon ordinance of 1835, on the same matter, allowed engagements by the month, in cities. Darjes, Erste Gründe der Cameralwissenschaften, 2d ed. (1768), p. 432, demands that servants should always hire themselves for at least four or five years, and that their masters should have, during the whole of this time, the right to enforce the contract. In North America, however, service by the month has become customary and general, and no notice of the dissolution of the contract is, as a rule, required. (Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift, 1853, II, 191.) In Switzerland, contracts for service by the week are frequently made even by country servants. (Böhmert, Arbeiterverhh., II, 157.)

456.

In the south of England, farm hands were used to change service only at Michaelmas. The choice of such a date made farmers very dependent on them, as it fell in harvest time. (Marshall, Rural Economy of the Southern Countries, II, 233.) A similar complaint in Cleves. (Schwerz, Rheinischwestphälische Landw., 21 ff.) In Jülich, a half year's notice was required, during which time the servant who had received it, performed his work with disgust, and stirred up his fellow servants against their master. (Schwerz, II, 87.)

457.

The families of day laborers, to whom the owner of the land gives the use of a house, small garden, a cow etc., constitute such a transition; and also, workmen who are fed. In Brandenburg, in 1644, only married persons or widowers with children were permitted to work as day laborers. (Mylius, C. C. March., V, 1, 3, 11.)

458.

Wakefield, Swing Unmasked, or the Causes of rural Incendiarism, 1831.

459.

By means of the former, the number of independent small householders was much increased in the country. Masters feel indisposed to hire young men liable to be subjected to military duty, because they may be called away at the moment their services are most needed. The returning soldier, as a rule, feels above doing menial service. (Schwerz, passim, I, 191 ff., 236.) On this account, servants' wages in Cleves rose much higher than those of day laborers. (194.) In Belgium, a farm hand cost, on an average, 400 francs a year; a day laborer, counting 300 working days to the year, only 339 francs. (Horn, Statist. Gemälde, 175.) In the Palatinate, day laborers who receive nothing but their wages cost their masters less than those who receive only their food; and servants are the dearest of all. (Hanssen, Archiv der Politischen Œkonomie, N. F. X, 243.) If servants were relatively more poorly paid in 1813 than day laborers (Lotz, Revision, III, 147), it was because of the at least temporary retrogression of civilization which every great war causes.

460.

Engel, Preuss. Statist. Jahrb., II, 261. Services which contribute to personal convenience are naturally committed much less frequently to independent day laborers than those which aid in production proper. Hence it is, that, as civilization advances, house-servants, especially of the female sex, constitute an ever-increasing portion of the total number of servants. In Prussia, in 1816, the number of servants who ministered to personal comfort was only 4.19 per cent. of the total number of servants engaged in industry; of female servants, it was 13.4 per cent. In 1861, on the other hand, the percentages were 8.4 and 37.2. In Great Britain, of the total number of servants over 20 years of age, only 2 per cent. were engaged in personal services. In 1841, they were 3-½ per cent. (Meidinger.) In France, in 1851, 2.5 per cent. of the whole population were in domesticité. (Stat. off.)

461.

In England, now more especially, out of farm-hand day laborers: Edinburgh Rev., April, 1862.

462.

A chief element in the earlier “organization of labor.” So, also, in the Magdeburg Gesindeordnung (service-regulation) of 1789.

463.

Saxon Landesordnungen of 1482 and 1543. Cod. August. I, 3, 23. The Gesindeordnung (service regulation) of Frederick the Great, threatened with the house of correction the receivers, and under certain circumstances also the givers of wages higher than the fixed rate of wages; but as a “matter of course,” the payment of wages less than this was permitted. (V, § 7) Great care was taken that wages greater than the law allowed should not be evaded by the payment of arrha or payment in produce. The same law forbade the deprivation of the servant of his right to determine the service by making of loans to him on long time (II, § 7.) Even v. Berg, Handbuch des deutschen Polizeirechts, calls it a duty of the public authorities charged with the protection of property and of the public security, to see to it that there be no lack of good servants, and that the public (as if those who sell their services were not a part of it) should not be made the victims of exorbitant demands in the matter of servants' wages. Jung, more humane, demands that the authorities shall protect, especially, the weaker party. (Grundlehre der Staatswirthschaft, 1792, 700.) In Prussian legislation, the Silesian rescript of March 13, 1809, is the beginning of the new order of things. (Rabe, Samml. preuss. Gesetze, X, 59 ff.) The Obertribunal, or high court, decided, in 1874, that the bringing back of absconding servants by the police, which the law concerning servants of 1810 provided for, should not be allowed to occur any more.

464.

Ordinance of the elector of Saxony of 1766, prohibiting the inhabitants of cities to take an apprentice from among the peasantry, unless he had served at least four years as a farm hand, beginning with his fourteenth year. Similarly, in Prussia in 1781.

465.

In Berlin, even before the “populationistischen” period: Fidicin, Histor. diplom. Beiträge zur Gesch. der Stadt Berlin, I, 101. (From the year 1397.)

466.

I Peter, 2, 18 ff.; I Timoth., 6, 12; Ephes., 6, 5; Philem., 15 ff.

467.

In the German colonies of Mennonites in Russia, every youth serves a few years in the family of some other peasant. This is considered a sort of school. Wages are of course very large, and the treatment very mild. v. Haxthausen, Studien, II, 185. Southwestern Germany where small landed proprietors are many, something very analogous to this continues. (v. d. Goltz, loc. cit., 452.)

468.

For a masterly exposition of the doctrine that the right of prescription or limitation is related to the politico-economical necessity of property, see John Stuart Mill, Principles, 3, II, ch. 2, sec. 2.

469.

Locke, On Civil Government, II, §25-51; and so L. Mendelssohn, Jerusalem (1783), 32; Thiers, Du Droit de la Propriété (1849).

470.

Modern writers, in their attempt to find a philosophical basis for the right of property, have taken two principal directions, the first a juridical, the second a political one. The axiom, res nullius cedit primo occupanti (compare L. 3, Digest, XLI, 1), explains only the smallest part of the relations of property, and that only because of a very fortuitous circumstance. According to Hobbes (Leviathan, 24), property has its origin in the recognition of it by the power of the state, by the autorité publique, the gouvernement (Bossuet, Politique tirée de l'Ecriture, Sainte, L. 3, 4), or as Montesquieu (Esprit des Lois XXVI., 15) more mildly expresses it, in the laws. The application of this principle would, on account of the extreme changeableness of the laws of every state, lead to most extreme insecurity, and to a steady oscillation from one Utopia to another, from one revolution to another, if it were not, at the same time, recognized that each one had a just title to the acquisitions he had made, not because the law, for the time being existing, acknowledged the right, but because they were the product of his labor and saving. The theory which bases the right of property on contract cannot be objected to with as much reason. Thus, Hugo Grotius, Jus Belli et Pacis, II, 2, who even justifies the occupation of things without an owner, on the supposition of the existence of an implied contract. It is very characteristic of the English, that in their political language, the words “liberty” and “property” are so frequently found in each other's company. In one of his classic speeches made by Fox in 1784, he gives a definition of liberty which begins with the words, “It consists in the safe and sacred possession of a man's property” etc. The recent doctrine, not unfrequently to be met with, that every man has a right to an amount of property corresponding to his wants, may be used to sanction all kinds of socialistic inferences. 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.

Considering the aversion exhibited against private property by J. J. Rousseau, and the unlimited power which he accords to the majority for the time being in the state (Contrat Social, 1761, II, ch. 4), it cannot be denied that his freedom and equality contain, to say the least, germs of communism by no means insignificant. But, he would, in the present state of civil society, have a feeling of respect for the rights of property implanted in the mind of the child very early, and even before the feeling of liberty is developed. (Emile, 1762, Livre II.) About the same time Morelly published his Basiliade ou Naufrage des Iles flottantes, 1753, a political romance in the interest of communism. See the same author's Code de la Nature, 1755. Mably, in his two works, Doutes proposés aux Economistes, 1768, and La Législation ou Principes des Lois, 1776, recommended the abolition of all inequality and a real community of goods. The introduction of property seems to him, une faute qu'il était presque impossible de faire. Even Beccaria calls property a dreadful but perhaps a necessary right which has left to the unfortunate nothing but a naked existence. (Dei Delitti e delle Pene, 1765, cap. 22.) The French Reign of Terror came pretty near carrying these ideas into effect. We need only refer to the abolition of the census, the payments made to the workingmen who attended the section meetings, two francs per diem, the enormous extension of confiscation, requisitions and forced loans, the revolution effected in the fortunes of individuals by the system of issuing assignats, the maximum affixed to the price of all the necessaries of life, the abolition of indirect taxes, and of what remained of the economic institutions handed down from the middle ages. According to St. Just: l'opulence est une infamie; il ne faut ni riches ni pauvres. The Cahier des Pauvres demands, first of all, that salaries “should no longer be estimated in accordance with the murderous principles of unbridled luxury.” See Forster's letter dated November 15, 1793. (Sämmtl. Schriften, IX, 125.) On the conspiracy of Baboeuf, who was executed in 1796, and who wanted to see the completest equality and community of labor, of enjoyment and education, the abolition of large cities etc., see Buonarotti, La Conjuration de B., 1821. This book contributed powerfully towards the revival of communistic ideas after the July revolution. Among modern communists who are to be distinguished from the more ancient, especially by the industrial coloring given to their theories, Cabet, Voyage en Icarie, 1840, II, holds a very prominent place. He declares the abolition of religion, of the family and of the state, to be open questions, and desires to bring the practice of a community of goods to a successful issue only through the peaceful channel of conviction. Compare Reybaud, Etudes sur les Réformateurs contemporains ou Socialistes modernes, 1840. L. Stein, Der Socialismus und Communismus des heutigen Frankreich. See, also, the learned history of socialistic systems in Marlo's Weltökonomie, I, 2, 435 ff.; and in what concerns the most recent time, R. Meyer, Der Emancipationskampf des vierten Standes, II, 1874, seq.; a book which, in spite of its many defects, both doctrinal and journalistic, is as rich in thought, and in the knowledge of the subject it treats of, as it is permeated by a love of truth regardless of consequences. Among the opponents of socialism and communism, Malthus, On Population, B. III, ch. 3, and B. Hildebrand, Die Nationalökonomie der Gegenwart und Zukunft, vol. I, 1848, hold a very distinguished place. J. S. Mill, Principles, II, ch. 1, 3, calls attention to the fact that hitherto the principle of free property has never been consistently carried out. The first social arrangement of modern society was almost everywhere the result of conquest and violence, large traces of which yet remain. Things have always been made property which ought not to be property. Governments have endeavored to intensify the darkness of the dark side of property, and favored the concentration instead of the diffusion of wealth etc. Hence, no one can claim that the social wrongs, so-called, had their origin in property as such. Schäffle, Kapitalismus und Socialismus, 1870, has made a very note-worthy effort to recognize whatever of truth there is in socialism, and to combat its errors.

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.