SECTION CCIV.

DISTRIBUTION OF NATIONAL INCOME.--MONEYED ARISTOCRACIES AND PAUPERISM.

The extreme opposite of this, when the middle class disappears and the whole nation falls into a few over-rich men and numberless proletarians, we call the oligarchy of money, with pauperism as the reverse of the medal. Such a social condition has all the hardship of an aristocracy without its palliatives. As it is, as a rule, the offspring of a degenerated democracy,[204-1] it cannot in form depart too widely from the principle of equality. Only get rich, they cry to the famishing poor; the law puts no obstacle in your way, and you shall immediately share our position.[204-2] Here the uniformity and centralization of the state, which are an abomination in the eyes of genuine aristocracy, are carried to the extreme. Capital takes the place of men, and is valued more than men. All life is made to depend on the state, that its masters, the great money-men, may control it as they will. The falling away of all restrictions on trade, and of all uncommercial considerations relating to persons and circumstances, gives full play to capital, and speculators seek to win all that can be won. And, indeed, all colossal fortunes are generally made at the expense of others, either with the assistance of the state-power or by speculation in the fluctuations of values.[204-3] The dependence of proletarians on others is here all the greater, because from a complete absence of capital and land, so far as they are concerned, they are compelled, uninterruptedly, to carry their entire labor-force to market; and also because the supply of labor is made in masses embracing a large number of individuals, while the demand for labor lies in the hands of very few, and may be very readily and systematically concentrated.[204-4] So great and one-sided a dependence is, for men too far removed from one another for real mutual love, doubtless one of the greatest of moral temptations. It is as easy a matter for the hopelessly poor to hate the law, as it is for the over-rich to despise it.[204-5] Under such circumstances, the contagious power of communism, the dangers of which to order and freedom we have treated of in § So, is great. There is a dreadful lesson in the fact of history, that six individuals owned one-half of the province of Africa, when Nero had them put to death![204-6] Externally, a moneyed oligarchy will always be a weak state. The great majority who have nothing to lose take little interest in the perpetuation of its political independence. They rather rejoice at the downfall of their oppressors hitherto, and are cheered by the hope of obtaining a part of the general plunder.[204-7] The rich, too, separated from the neglected and propertyless masses of the nation, and rightly distrustful of them, begin to forget their nationality, and to balance its advantages against the sacrifices necessary to preserve it. But, a merely materialistic calculation leads doubtless to the conclusion, that universal empire is the most rational form of the state. The world-sovereignty of Rome was, by no circumstance more promoted than by the struggles between the rich and the poor, which devastated the orbis terrarum, and in which the Romans generally sided with the property classes.[204-8] [204-9] [204-10] [204-11] However, the worst horrors of the contrast here described can occur only in slave-countries. Compare Roscher, Nationalökonomik des Ackerbaues, § 141.

"Etwas muss er sein eigen nennen, Oder der Mensch wird morden und brennen."

--i. e., "Something must he call his own, or man will murder and burn."

It is one of J. G. Fichte's fundamental thoughts that as all property is based on mutual disclaimer, the person who has nothing of his own, has disclaimed nothing, and therefore reserves his original right to everything. (Geschlossener Handelstaat., Werke, III, 400, 445.)]

In Sparta, the governing class finally numbered only 700 families, 100 of which owned all the land, and 600 of which were, therefore, only noble proletarians. It is well known that the social attempts at reform by Agis and Kleomenes only precipitated the downfall of the state. (Plutarch, Agis and Kleomenes.) Aratos owed a great part of the consideration in which he was held to the reputation which he obtained by protecting the property of the Sicyonian exiles (Thirlwall, History of Greece, VIII, 167), while on the other hand, men like Agathocles and Nabis supported their faction by persecution of the rich, new debtor-laws and new division of land. (Polyb., XIII, 6, XVI, 13, XVII, 17, XXVI, 2; Livy, XXXII, 38, 40, XXXIV, 31, XXXVIII, 34; Plutarch, Cleom, 20.) Livy expressly says that all the optimates were in favor of the Romans, and that the multitude wanted novare omnia (XXXV, 34). On the frightful struggle between these opposite parties, on the revolutions and counter revolutions, see also Polyb., XIII, 1, 2; XVIII, 36 ff., XXX, 14; XXII, 21; XXXVIII, 2, 3; Diodor., XIX, 6, 9; Exc., 587, 623; Livy, XLI, 25, XLII, 5; Pausan, VII, 14. In Boeotia, no one was for 25 years, chosen by the people for the higher offices, from whom they did not expect a suspension of the administration of justice in the matter of crimes and debts, as well as the spending of the national treasure. (Polyb., XX, 14, 5, 6.) The events at Corinth, before its conquest by the Romans, forcibly remind one of the Paris Commune of 1871. This decline had, as usual, begun earliest in the colonies: thus, in Sicily, even in Thucyd., V, 4. Milesian struggle off the ploutis and cheiromacha in Plutarch, Qu. Gr., 32; Athen., XII, 524.]

The wealth of these important personages must, and that not only relatively, have made the poor poorer and their luxury excited the covetousness of the people; but especially the great number of slaves they kept, combined with their pasturage system of husbandry, which rapidly spread over all of Italy after the provinces had emptied their granaries to supply the wants of the sovereign people, must have made it less and less possible for the proletarians to live by the work of their hands. Previously, the lower classes of the free born had been exempted from the military service, while slaves were conscripted for the fleet. Now, all this was changed; and thus was taken away one of the chief causes which had made the labor of free day laborers more advantageous on the larger estates. (Nitzsch, Gracchen, 124 ff., 235 ff.) The spoils of war and conquest caused the higher middle class to prefer to engage in the usurious loaning of money rather than in industry which would much more rapidly have formed a small middle class. (Mommsen, R. G. I, 622 ff.)

Hence, the misera ac jejuna plebecula, concionalis hirudo aerarii, according to Cicero, ad Att., I, 16, 6. At a time, when the Roman census showed a population of over 1,500,000, Philippus, 104 before Christ, otherwise a "moderate" man, could claim that there were not 2,000 citizens who had any property. (Cic., de Off., II, 21.) True, those few were in such a position, that Crassus would allow that those only were rich, who could feed an army at their own expense. (Cicero, Parad., VI, 61; Plin., H. N., XXXIII, 47.) Concerning the colossal private fortunes under some of the earlier imperators, see Seneca, De Benef., II, 27; Tacit., Ann., XII, 53, XIII, 32; XIV, 35; Dial. de Causis, 8, Dio C., LXIII, 2 seq.

The clients of the time, that is the numerous poorly paid idlers treated as things of little value, in the service of the great, correspond, on a small scale, to the position of the great crowd in relation to the emperor. Compare Friedländer, Sittengeschichte Roms., I, 296 ff. As late as the West-Gothic storm, there were many houses which drew 4,000 pounds in gold, and about 1/3 as much in kind, from their estates, per annum. (Plut., Bibl. Cod., 80, 63, Bekk.) Goddess Pecunia Majestas divitiarum, in Juvenal, I, 113.

If we take the Roman proletariat in its wider extent, the most frightful picture it presents is its slave-wars. Such a war Sicily had shortly before the tribunate of the elder Gracchus, cost over a million (?) livres; and at the same time there was a great uprising of slaves desolating Greece. (Athen., VI, 83, 87 ff., 104.) A second war broke out in the time of Cimbri. But the most frightful was that under Spartacus, who collected 100,000 men, and the course of this uprising will always remain a type of proletarian and slave revolts. It originated among the most dangerous class of slaves, most dangerous because best prepared for the struggle, the gladiators, and among the immense ergastula, where they were held together in large masses. It spread with frightful rapidity, because the combustible material on which it fed was everywhere to be found. It was conducted with the most revolting cruelty. What the slaves demanded before all else was vengeance, and what dread had a gladiator of a death unaccompanied by torture?

After the first successes of the slaves dissensions broke out among them. Such hordes can nowhere long preserve a higher object than the momentary gratification of their passions--a fact which shields human society from their rage. Piracy, also, is another side of this proletarian system. It found its strongest aliment in the system of spoliation practiced by the Romans in Asia Minor. The oppressed along the whole coast, joined the pirates "preferring to do violence rather than to suffer." (Appian, B. Mithr., 92, Dio C., XXXII, 3.) The temples and the wealthy Romans were in special danger. But the worst feature in the horrible picture was that many of the great shared in the spoils with the robbers. They bought slaves and other booty from them at mock prices, even close by the gates of Rome. (Strabo, XIV, 668 seq., Dio C., XXXVI, 5.) Precisely as the slave-wars were looked upon with pleasure by the poorer free men. Incendiarism was one of the chief weapons of mutinous pauperism. (Drumann, IV, 282.) The celebrated bacchanalian trial and the questions of poisoning which followed it as a consequence (186 before Christ) may be looked upon, in Rome, as the first marked symptoms of the disruption between the oligarchy of money and the proletariat. This put the morality of the higher classes in a bad light, while, at the same time, a large slave conspiracy in Apulia, which was not suppressed until the year 185, exhibited the reverse of the picture. Cato, the censor, endeavored to oppose this tendency by high sumptuary taxes, and by establishing proletarian colonies. At the same time we see the various parties among the nobility uniting and the publicans joining them. (Nitzsch, Gracchen, 124 ff.) The history of the last hundred years of the Republic turns chiefly on the three great attempts made by the proletariat to overthrow the citadel of the moneyed oligarchy, under the Gracchi, under Marius and under Cæsar. The last was permanently successful but entailed the loss of the freedom of both parties.

Among the pretty nearly useless remedies employed, besides those described in § 79, I may mention the following also: the great number of agrarian laws intended to lessen estates of too great extent owned by one person, and to restore a free peasant population, in the years 133, 123, 100, 91, 59 before Christ; the law in Hannibal's time (Livy, XXI, 63) that no senator should own a ship with a capacity of more than 300 amphora; the provision (Sueton., Caes., 42) that all great herd-owners should take at least one-third of their shepherds from the ranks of freemen; the many laws de repetundis, the first of which was promulgated 149 before Christ, intended to protect the provinces against spoliation by the governors; the L. Gabinia, 56 before Christ, which prohibited the loaning by the provinces in Rome; lastly, a rigid enforcement of police provisions against slaves, especially against their bearing arms, which were carried to such an extent, that slaves who had killed a boar with a spear were crucified. (Cicero, in Verr., II, 3.) The chief rule of every real oligarchy of money is, while they hold the lower classes in general under their yoke with great severity, to keep dangerous elements in good humor at the expense of the state. Among these are especially the rabble in large cities and the soldiery. Compare Roscher, Betrachtungen über Socialismus und Communismus, 436, 437.]