Section LXXXIII.. The Organization of Labor. (continued.)

The Organization Of Labor. (Continued.)

Experience, however, teaches us, that, in all the lower stages of civilization, a community of goods exists to a greater or lesser extent.(497) The institution of private property has been more fully evolved out of this condition of things, only in proportion as well-being and culture have been developed as cause and effect of such well-being. Thus, among most nations of hunters and fishermen, the idea of private property was unknown when these nations were first discovered. This is, indeed, very natural. Their chief spring of production flows as if of itself, apparently inexhaustible; and the hunter can hardly think of such a thing as saving any of his booty.(498) And, among nomadic nations, the land is a great meadow held in common; and the industry of plunder is considered, as it is in all inferior stages of civilization, especially honorable.(499) The conquistadores of Peru found there something very like a community of goods, under the despotic guardianship of the state, viz.: a yearly division of all lands among the people, in proportion to their rank; the cultivation of these lands in common, under the superintendence of the state, and to the sound of music. But, at the stage of civilization that Peru was then in, land is about the only resource possessed. The results were the usual ones. A country like Peru, with only one city, no beasts of burthen, no plows, no trades and no commerce, cannot possibly be rich.(500) That the constitution of Lycurgus established a sort of community of goods among the Spartans, is well known. I need only recall the public education, the meals in common, the authorization of stealing,(501) the prohibition of trade, of the precious metals and fine furniture, the equal division of property and the inalienable character of the land(502) etc. With such laws, Sparta could neither be, nor desire to become, wealthy. Of all Greek states of any historical importance, it preserved longest the economic peculiarities belonging to a low stage of civilization. Among most modern nations, the fundamental idea of their land laws, which had their origin in the middle ages, is, that each family is only the usufructuary, and that the community is the sovereign proprietor of the soil. This community of landed possession finds expression, among other things, in the vast extent of communal woods and pasturages, in the varied intersecting of parcels of land one by the other, which, indeed, change proprietors from time to time, and in the common working of the land, carried as far as possible etc.(503) In all medieval times,(504) not only the individual is considered an owner of the land, but, over and above him, the family. At the same time, we are wont to find existing an amount of mortmain property in the hands of corporations, monastery lands, crown lands and domains of very great importance.(505) All these institutions have declined in number and shown a disposition to disappear, in proportion as national husbandry or economy has grown more productive.