Has there not always been the aggregation of wealth in the hands of a few in all stages of human society?Certainly there has been a tendency, to such concentration throughout history, if by history be understood the period when civilisation in Egypt and in Asia supervened upon primitive barbaric or tribal society, up to the present time. In its earlier stages this tendency took the form of usury in its crudest phase. Efforts were made in the early Greek democracies to prevent this usury, and to some extent it was mitigated, but its ultimate result was to bring the land, hitherto common property, into the hands of a comparatively few wealthy families.
You speak of primitive barbaric or tribal society, but in what did tribal society differ from civilised society?
Briefly, it differed in that its underlying principle was that of social solidarity and communism, at least in the then principal means of production, the land. As to the tribal solidarity, the individual was of no importance; nay, he was scarcely recognised apart from the social whole to which he belonged. Personal rights as such were unknown; for rights, as such, within the society, only existed between groups, between one clan and another, and one tribe and another, or between federations of tribes. The communism of this primitive society did not, of course, preclude the personal possession of tools, weapons, or other articles of personal use, although this did not enter into the actual structure of the community. The sporadic appearance of private property in a society based on primitive communism no more constituted that society individualistic than the sporadic appearance of phalansteries and such-like communistic “experiments” in a society based upon individualism constitutes that society Communist or Socialist. In both cases we have to consider the essential structure of the social system in question, and not its accidental phenomena.
How do you know that earlier human society was constituted as you say? Where are the proofs of this primitive communism?
To fully answer that question would require a treatise; there are treatises on this subject which may be consulted, but as evidence of the constitution of primitive society being as stated we may instance such examples as survived in the village communities of India before the establishment of British institutions; in the Russian mir, in its older form; in the Arab tribal organisation, and the Javan village communities; in fact, all over the world where the old tribal arrangements of human society, have not been entirely displaced by civilisation in one form or another, may be observed traces of the original primitive communism.
What are the treatises on this subject to which you have referred?
The standard work on this question is the late Emile de Laveleye’s book on “Primitive Property.” Other works which may be referred to on this matter are those of Sir Henry Maine on “Ancient Law,” “Village Communities,” “Early Law and ‘Customs,” Lewis H. Morgan’s “Ancient Society,” also Gomme’s “Village Communities,” and several of the writings of the late Professor Robertson Smith. We here only refer to the works on this question which are accessible in the English language; but in other languages there are innumerable treatises on the same subject.
Assuming, then, that your view of early social organisation is the correct one, and that originally the whole of society was based upon group communism, when and how did the change from this primitive communism to civilisation take place?
This change took place at different times in different parts of the world, and a variety of causes have played their part therein. Briefly the change from primitive society may be said to have been generally brought about through the institution of slavery as a consequence of the conflicts between the kinship groups, tribes, or gentes into which primitive human society was divided. Between the tribes — each of which was bound together by real or assumed family ties — there naturally existed considerable hostility, and from this state of things resulted continuous conflicts which necessarily produced slavery. This slavery assumed two more or less distinct forms. Where a migratory tribe or people conquered a settled population, it would, after the fighting was over, allow the vanquished to live on a portion of the conquered lands, on the condition of rendering service to their conquerors, whose serfs they thus became. On the other hand, frequent raids by the tribes or clans on each other produced another kind of slaves; the captives taken in battle were no longer slaughtered on the field when their captors discovered that their labour might be made use of to produce wealth for themselves and these captives became chattel slaves, as much the property of their masters as their horses or their oxen. With chattel slavery or serfdom, as the case might be, thus established, the production of wealth soon outstripped consumption, and with this increase of production, and of the power of production, came inequality in the distribution of goods. The chiefs or leaders were permitted more than their proportion of the general wealth, and thus individualistic or class society began to be established, the first representatives of this class society being usually the chief men of the tribe and their immediate relatives. In the meantime, nomadic peoples had settled down into villages, surrounded by arable and pasture land enclosed by a stockade, and dominated, in hilly countries, by a fortress built on the most prominent height, called in German communities the “bury” or “burg.” Such villages were the beginnings of the “city,” which at first consisted simply of a federation of tribes living within a given area of limited extent, and thus constituting a people.
How do you regard the Middle Ages? Would you describe the system of society of that tine as individualistic or communistic, barbaric or civilised?
The structure of society during the Middle Ages, the basis of which was what is known as the feudal system, cannot properly be described by any of these terms. The society of the Middle Ages partook to a certain extent of the character of both the primitive barbarism and the later civilisation. It retained many of the features of the older system of society, but these were modified by the new conditions. The idea of common property in land still prevailed to a large extent, with the lord of the manor as in a sense trustee for the general body of the local rural community, but also in a degree as lord and owner. In the latter character he claimed service from the villeins for the use of the land which they held, but they on their side could claim his protection as their military chief. The services rendered included military services, and the lord, although asserting or usurping the rights of ownership, was rather the military head of the community, claiming and rendering service as such, than the owner of the soil with rights and privileges but no duties. Under the feudal system we find, therefore, the land still regarded in a sense as the common property of the inhabitants of each feudal manor, subject to certain restrictions and the superior rights of the lord. The common land of a feudal manor was divided into three parts: the pasture, the arable, and the fallow; the pasture was absolutely common to all the inhabitants, and we find the traces of this common pasture land in our “commons” of to-day; the arable land was parcelled out among the various families, and the fallow was that portion of the arable which was allowed to lie idle from one year to another. In addition to these three divisions of land practically held in common there was the forest or woodland — the unreclaimed land, constituting the actual “waste,” from which timber was obtained, firewood was gathered, and into which the pigs and other animals were turned to feed.
But this explanation of the conditions in the Middle Ages only refers to the rural districts; what was the state of things in the towns at that time?
Practically speaking, there were no towns in the earlier period of the Middle Ages. Round certain strongholds collected peasants and handicraftsmen, and these aggregations of industrial life formed the markets which were the centres for such trade as then existed. This, however, does not refer to the towns, numerous in Italy, but few in other parts of Europe, which had continued their existence and had preserved their urban constitution from the period of the Roman civilisation. These, of course, retained the framework of their old industrial, as well as municipal organisation in the narrower sense; hence it was that Italy took the lead of the rest of Europe throughout the Middle Ages in the matter of industry and commerce.
Then did the modern town grow up out of these aggregations of peasants and handicraftsmen around the feudal strongholds to which you have referred?
Yes. The mediaeval towns mostly grew up out of these conditions, and these towns rose to an independent position in the thirteenth century, and reached their zenith in the following century as civic politico-industrial organisations.
How and when, then, did the MEDIAEVAL SYSTEM break up?
It is difficult to assign precise dates for the beginning or ending of any great historical period. But, roughly speaking, the mediaeval system began to show signs of decay in the second half of the fifteenth century, and the process went on rapidly for the next hundred years, till, by the middle of the sixteenth century the change had proceeded so far that the mediaeval system may by that time be regarded as closed, notwithstanding that as survivals many of its institutions continued to exist until long after that period.
What were the causes which brought about this break-up of the mediaeval system?
The institutions of modern capitalism lay in germ in the conditions of the mediaeval system, just as, we Socialists say, the institutions of the future Socialism lie in germ in the conditions of modern capitalism, and it was the growth of these capitalist germs which burst asunder the forms of the mediaeval system, already become old and effete. Various actual and immediate causes may be assigned; among these may be mentioned the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, the invention of firearms and of printing; the discovery of America and the Cape route, and the sudden influx of the precious metals into Europe. The effect of these events and discoveries was to bring about enormous changes in social relations, and to transform the whole conditions of human society.
What form did these changes take?
The first effect of these changes was the opening up of the world market; the aggregation of large accumulations of personal wealth in the hands of individuals; the substitution of money payments for barter, and the rise of the wage system. This aggregation of wealth in the hands of individuals led to the formation of trade or merchant companies or syndicates to exploit the newly opening world market, which were necessarily opposed by the feudal class. As a further consequence of these changes there arose the grouping together of large bodies of wage labourers working for a single employer, and for his profit. This naturally led to the division of labour and the decay of the old trade guilds, whose organisation was a hindrance to this division, and stood in the way of the capitalistic exploitation of labour by this means.
But were these material causes the only ones which operated to bring about the downfall of the mediaeval system and the beginning of commercialism?
There were other causes, certainly, but these we shall have occasion to touch upon later. Those to which we have referred were the chief and primary, although they were reacted upon by other, secondary, causes.
When, then, did the MODERN capitalist system begin?
The modern capitalist system cannot properly be said to have begun before the middle of the sixteenth century. At this period large workshops, in which considerable bodies of workmen were grouped together under one employer for production for profit, began to be organised in the non-chartered towns, or outside the chartered towns themselves, where they were free from the restrictions of the guilds. In the meantime money payments had definitely superseded barter, a change considerably facilitated by the influx of the precious metals from the New World into Europe. By the grouping together of large bodies of workmen under one roof, which was impossible under the guild system, the division of labour was introduced. This paved the way ultimately and by slow degrees to the introduction of the earlier forms of machinery, while the substitution of money payments for barter meant the introduction of a universal equivalent for commodities in all the exchanges in the world market, which was now developing.
In what did the conditions of that time — the middle of the sixteenth century — differ from those of to-day?
The difference is that the forms which then were in their embryonic or primitive stages have now become fully developed At that time, although the labourers were grouped together and their labour began to be sub-divided, this division of labour was as yet in a very primitive stage, and very different from what it is now, and the labour performed was hand-labour assisted by tools or machines worked by hand, instead of the huge, complex, steam-driven machinery of the great industries of to-day. At that time, too, the political power was still almost entirely in the hands of the feudal, or landed aristocracy; the capitalist class had not yet achieved its emancipation from the domination of the older governing class, the bourgeoisie was not then all-powerful, economically, socially, and politically, as it now is.
When and how did this change take place in the conditions of the capitalist system?
Roughly, the beginning of the industrial change may be traced at the commencement of the second half of the eighteenth century, and by the beginning of the nineteenth century it may be said to be fairly established in a number of industries. The political change, which made the capitalist class the dominant political factor, was largely achieved in England in the seventeenth century, with the success of the Cromwellian revolution, carried further by that which placed William of Orange on the throne of England, and fully accomplished with the passing of the Reform Act of 1832. On the Continent of Europe this change may be said to date from the French Revolution.
May we say, then, that the present organisation of society retains the same form in every essential which it assumed at the end of the eighteenth century?
By no means. Society has in the century which has intervened passed through enormous changes on all sides; not only industrially and commercially, but politically, intellectually and morally. Industrially, the grouping together of men in factories and workshops has been followed by the grouping together of factories and workshops, and the aggregation of various industries, simultaneously with the concentration of capital in large masses and the development of railways and other huge industrial enterprises. Commercially there has been still greater concentration of capital in the formation of trusts and syndicates, representing not merely trading, as did the syndicates which grew up towards the close of the feudal system, but the grouping, for commercial profit-making purposes, of a large number of great industrial undertakings, generally allied to each other in some way, but frequently entirely dissimilar. This development has culminated in our own day in the formation of the giant octopus-like combinations which promise to bring all the industrial businesses of the world under the control of a mere handful of enormously wealthy capitalists.
Belfort Bax and H. Quelch 1903
A New Catechism of Socialism
A New Catechism of Socialism by Belfort Bax and Harry Quelch (marxists.org)
