Frederick Engels
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
VIII. The Formation of the State among Germans, concluded ...
And yet progress was made during these four hundred years.
Though at the end we find almost the same main classes as at the beginning, the human beings who formed these classes were different.
Ancient slavery had gone, and so had the pauper freemen who despised work as only fit for slaves.
Between the Roman colonus and the new bondsman had stood the free Frankish peasant.
The “useless memories and aimless strife” of decadent Roman culture were dead and buried.
The social classes of the ninth century had been formed, not in the rottenness of a decaying civilization, but in the birth-pangs of a new civilization.
Compared with their Roman predecessors, the new breed, whether masters or servants, was a breed of men.
The relation of powerful landowners and subject peasants which had meant for the ancient world the final ruin, from which there was no escape, was for them the starting-point of a new development.
And, further, however unproductive these four centuries appear, one great product they did leave: the modern nationalities, the new forms and structures through which west European humanity was to make coming history.
The Germans had, in fact, given Europe new life, and therefore the break-up of the states in the Germanic period ended, not in subjugation by the Norsemen and Saracens, but in the further development of the system of benefices and protection into feudalism, and in such an enormous increase of the population that scarcely two centuries later the severe blood-letting of the Crusades was borne without injury.
But what was the mysterious magic by which the Germans breathed new life into a dying Europe?
Was it some miraculous power innate in the Germanic race, such as our chauvinist historians romance about?
Not a bit of it.
The Germans, especially at that time, were a highly gifted Aryan tribe, and in the full vigor of development.
It was not, however, their specific national qualities which rejuvenated Europe, but simply – their barbarism, their gentile constitution.
Their individual ability and courage, their sense of freedom, their democratic instinct which in everything of public concern felt itself concerned; in a word, all the qualities which had been lost to the Romans and were alone capable of forming new states and making new nationalities grow out of the slime of the Roman world - what else were they than the characteristics of the barbarian of the upper stage, fruits of his gentile constitution?
If they recast the ancient form of monogamy, moderated the supremacy of the man in the family, and gave the woman a higher position than the classical world had ever known, what made them capable of doing so if not their barbarism, their gentile customs, their living heritage from the time of mother-right?
If in at least three of the most important countries, Germany, northern France and England, they carried over into the feudal state a genuine piece of gentile constitution, in the form of mark communities, thus giving the oppressed class, the peasants, even under the harshest medieval serfdom, a local center of solidarity and a means of resistance such as neither the slaves of classical times nor the modern proletariat found ready to their hand - to what was this due, if not to their barbarism, their purely barbarian method of settlement in kinship groups?
Lastly: they were able to develop and make universal the milder form of servitude they had practiced in their own country, which even in the Roman Empire increasingly displaced slavery; a form of servitude which, as Fourier first stressed, gives to the bondsmen the means of their gradual liberation as a class (“fournit aux cultivateurs des moyens d'affranchissement collectif et Progressif”); a form of servitude which thus stands high above slavery, where the only possibility is the immediate release, without any transitional stage, of individual slaves (abolition of slavery by successful rebellion is unknown to antiquity), whereas the medieval serfs gradually won their liberation as a class.
And to what do we owe this if not to their barbarism, thanks to which they had not yet reached the stage of fully developed slavery, neither the labor slavery of the classical world nor the domestic slavery of the Orient?
All the vigorous and creative life which the Germans infused into the Roman world was barbarism.
Only barbarians are able to rejuvenate a world in the throes of collapsing civilization.
And precisely the highest stage of barbarism, to which and in which the Germans worked their way upwards before the migrations, was the most favorable for this process.
That explains everything.
Footnotes
[1] The number assumed here is confirmed by a statement of Diodorus about the Celts of Gaul: “In Gaul dwell many peoples of varying strength. Among those that are greatest the number is about 200,000, among the smallest, 50,000” (Diodorus Siculus, V, 75). On an average, therefore, 125,000; it can undoubtedly be assumed that, owing to their higher stage of development, the single peoples among the Gauls were rather larger than among the Germans.
[2] According to Bishop Liutprand of Cremona, in the tenth century the chief industry of Verdun – in the Holy German Empire, observe – was the manufacture of eunuchs, who were exported at great profit to Spain for the Moorish harems.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
ENGEL - ORIGINS OF FAMILY
Re: ENGEL - ORIGINS OF FAMILY
Frederick Engels
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
IX. Barbarism and Civilization
We have now traced the dissolution of the gentile constitution in the three great instances of the Greeks, the Romans, and the Germans.
In conclusion, let us examine the general economic conditions which already undermined the gentile organization of society at the upper stage of barbarism and with the coming of civilization overthrew it completely.
Here we shall need Marx's Capital as much as Morgan’s book.
Arising in the middle stage of savagery, further developed during its upper stage, the gens reaches its most flourishing period, so far as our sources enable us to judge, during the lower stage of barbarism.
We begin therefore with this stage.
Here – the American Indians must serve as our example – we find the gentile constitution fully formed.
The tribe is now grouped in several gentes, generally two.
With the increase in population, each of these original gentes splits up into several daughter gentes, their mother gens now appearing as the phratry.
The tribe itself breaks up into several tribes, in each of which we find again, for the most part, the old gentes.
The related tribes, at least in some cases, are united in a confederacy.
This simple organization suffices completely for the social conditions out of which it sprang.
It is nothing more than the grouping natural to those conditions, and it is capable of settling all conflicts that can arise within a society so organized.
War settles external conflicts; it may end with the annihilation of the tribe, but never with its subjugation.
It is the greatness, but also the limitation, of the gentile constitution that it has no place for ruler and ruled.
Within the tribe there is as yet no difference between rights and duties; the question whether participation in public affairs, in blood revenge or atonement, is a right or a duty, does not exist for the Indian; it would seem to him just as absurd as the question whether it was a right or a duty to sleep, eat, or hunt.
A division of the tribe or of the gens into different classes was equally impossible.
And that brings us to the examination of the economic basis of these conditions.
The population is extremely sparse; it is dense only at the tribe’s place of settlement, around which lie in a wide circle first the hunting grounds and then the protective belt of neutral forest, which separates the tribe from others.
The division of labor is purely primitive, between the sexes only.
The man fights in the wars, goes hunting and fishing, procures the raw materials of food and the tools necessary for doing so.
The woman looks after the house and the preparation of food and clothing, cooks, weaves, sews.
They are each master in their own sphere: the man in the forest, the woman in the house.
Each is owner of the instruments which he or she makes and uses: the man of the weapons, the hunting and fishing implements, the woman of the household gear.
The housekeeping is communal among several and often many families. [1]
What is made and used in common is common property - the house, the garden, the long-boat.
Here therefore, and here alone, there still exists in actual fact that “property created by the owner’s labor” which in civilized society is an ideal fiction of the jurists and economists, the last lying legal pretense by which modern capitalist property still bolsters itself up.
But humanity did not everywhere remain at this stage.
In Asia they found animals which could be tamed and, when once tamed, bred.
The wild buffalo-cow had to be hunted; the tame buffalo-cow gave a calf yearly and milk as well.
A number of the most advanced tribes – the Aryans, Semites, perhaps already also the Turanians – now made their chief work first the taming of cattle, later their breeding and tending only.
Pastoral tribes separated themselves from the mass of the rest of the barbarians: the first great social division of labor.
The pastoral tribes produced not only more necessities of life than the other barbarians, but different ones.
They possessed the advantage over them of having not only milk, milk products and greater supplies of meat, but also skins, wool, goat-hair, and spun and woven fabrics, which became more common as the amount of raw material increased.
Thus for the first time regular exchange became possible.
At the earlier stages only occasional exchanges can take place; particular skill in the making of weapons and tools may lead to a temporary division of labor.
Thus in many places undoubted remains of workshops for the making of stone tools have been found, dating from the later Stone Age.
The artists who here perfected their skill probably worked for the whole community, as each special handicraftsman still does in the gentile communities in India.
In no case could exchange arise at this stage except within the tribe itself, and then only as an exceptional event.
But now, with the differentiation of pastoral tribes, we find all the conditions ripe for exchange between branches of different tribes and its development into a regular established institution.
Originally tribes exchanged with tribe through the respective chiefs of the gentes; but as the herds began to pass into private ownership, exchange between individuals became more common, and, finally, the only form.
Now the chief article which the pastoral tribes exchanged with their neighbors was cattle; cattle became the commodity by which all other commodities were valued and which was everywhere willingly taken in exchange for them – in short, cattle acquired a money function and already at this stage did the work of money.
With such necessity and speed, even at the very beginning of commodity exchange, did the need for a money commodity develop.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
IX. Barbarism and Civilization
We have now traced the dissolution of the gentile constitution in the three great instances of the Greeks, the Romans, and the Germans.
In conclusion, let us examine the general economic conditions which already undermined the gentile organization of society at the upper stage of barbarism and with the coming of civilization overthrew it completely.
Here we shall need Marx's Capital as much as Morgan’s book.
Arising in the middle stage of savagery, further developed during its upper stage, the gens reaches its most flourishing period, so far as our sources enable us to judge, during the lower stage of barbarism.
We begin therefore with this stage.
Here – the American Indians must serve as our example – we find the gentile constitution fully formed.
The tribe is now grouped in several gentes, generally two.
With the increase in population, each of these original gentes splits up into several daughter gentes, their mother gens now appearing as the phratry.
The tribe itself breaks up into several tribes, in each of which we find again, for the most part, the old gentes.
The related tribes, at least in some cases, are united in a confederacy.
This simple organization suffices completely for the social conditions out of which it sprang.
It is nothing more than the grouping natural to those conditions, and it is capable of settling all conflicts that can arise within a society so organized.
War settles external conflicts; it may end with the annihilation of the tribe, but never with its subjugation.
It is the greatness, but also the limitation, of the gentile constitution that it has no place for ruler and ruled.
Within the tribe there is as yet no difference between rights and duties; the question whether participation in public affairs, in blood revenge or atonement, is a right or a duty, does not exist for the Indian; it would seem to him just as absurd as the question whether it was a right or a duty to sleep, eat, or hunt.
A division of the tribe or of the gens into different classes was equally impossible.
And that brings us to the examination of the economic basis of these conditions.
The population is extremely sparse; it is dense only at the tribe’s place of settlement, around which lie in a wide circle first the hunting grounds and then the protective belt of neutral forest, which separates the tribe from others.
The division of labor is purely primitive, between the sexes only.
The man fights in the wars, goes hunting and fishing, procures the raw materials of food and the tools necessary for doing so.
The woman looks after the house and the preparation of food and clothing, cooks, weaves, sews.
They are each master in their own sphere: the man in the forest, the woman in the house.
Each is owner of the instruments which he or she makes and uses: the man of the weapons, the hunting and fishing implements, the woman of the household gear.
The housekeeping is communal among several and often many families. [1]
What is made and used in common is common property - the house, the garden, the long-boat.
Here therefore, and here alone, there still exists in actual fact that “property created by the owner’s labor” which in civilized society is an ideal fiction of the jurists and economists, the last lying legal pretense by which modern capitalist property still bolsters itself up.
But humanity did not everywhere remain at this stage.
In Asia they found animals which could be tamed and, when once tamed, bred.
The wild buffalo-cow had to be hunted; the tame buffalo-cow gave a calf yearly and milk as well.
A number of the most advanced tribes – the Aryans, Semites, perhaps already also the Turanians – now made their chief work first the taming of cattle, later their breeding and tending only.
Pastoral tribes separated themselves from the mass of the rest of the barbarians: the first great social division of labor.
The pastoral tribes produced not only more necessities of life than the other barbarians, but different ones.
They possessed the advantage over them of having not only milk, milk products and greater supplies of meat, but also skins, wool, goat-hair, and spun and woven fabrics, which became more common as the amount of raw material increased.
Thus for the first time regular exchange became possible.
At the earlier stages only occasional exchanges can take place; particular skill in the making of weapons and tools may lead to a temporary division of labor.
Thus in many places undoubted remains of workshops for the making of stone tools have been found, dating from the later Stone Age.
The artists who here perfected their skill probably worked for the whole community, as each special handicraftsman still does in the gentile communities in India.
In no case could exchange arise at this stage except within the tribe itself, and then only as an exceptional event.
But now, with the differentiation of pastoral tribes, we find all the conditions ripe for exchange between branches of different tribes and its development into a regular established institution.
Originally tribes exchanged with tribe through the respective chiefs of the gentes; but as the herds began to pass into private ownership, exchange between individuals became more common, and, finally, the only form.
Now the chief article which the pastoral tribes exchanged with their neighbors was cattle; cattle became the commodity by which all other commodities were valued and which was everywhere willingly taken in exchange for them – in short, cattle acquired a money function and already at this stage did the work of money.
With such necessity and speed, even at the very beginning of commodity exchange, did the need for a money commodity develop.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ENGEL - ORIGINS OF FAMILY
Frederick Engels
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
IX. Barbarism and Civilization, continued ...
Horticulture, probably unknown to Asiatic barbarians of the lower stage, was being practiced by them in the middle stage at the latest, as the forerunner of agriculture.
In the climate of the Turanian plateau, pastoral life is impossible without supplies of fodder for the long and severe winter.
Here, therefore, it was essential that land should be put under grass and corn cultivated.
The same is true of the steppes north of the Black Sea.
But when once corn had been grown for the cattle, it also soon became food for men.
The cultivated land still remained tribal property; at first it was allotted to the gens, later by the gens to the household communities and finally to individuals for use.
The users may have had certain rights of possession, but nothing more.
Of the industrial achievements of this stage, two are particularly important.
The first is the loom, the second the smelting of metal ores and the working of metals.
Copper and tin and their alloy, bronze, were by far the most important.
Bronze provided serviceable tools and weapons, though it could not displace stone tools; only iron could do that, and the method of obtaining iron was not yet understood.
Gold and silver were beginning to be used for ornament and decoration, and must already have acquired a high value as compared with copper and bronze.
The increase of production in all branches – cattle-raising, agriculture, domestic handicrafts – gave human labor-power the capacity to produce a larger product than was necessary for its maintenance.
At the same time it increased the daily amount of work to be done by each member of the gens, household community or single family.
It was now desirable to bring in new labor forces.
War provided them; prisoners of war were turned into slaves.
With its increase of the productivity of labor, and therefore of wealth, and its extension of the field of production, the first great social division of labor was bound, in the general historical conditions prevailing, to bring slavery in its train.
From the first great social division of labor arose the first great cleavage of society into two classes: masters and slaves, exploiters and exploited.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
IX. Barbarism and Civilization, continued ...
Horticulture, probably unknown to Asiatic barbarians of the lower stage, was being practiced by them in the middle stage at the latest, as the forerunner of agriculture.
In the climate of the Turanian plateau, pastoral life is impossible without supplies of fodder for the long and severe winter.
Here, therefore, it was essential that land should be put under grass and corn cultivated.
The same is true of the steppes north of the Black Sea.
But when once corn had been grown for the cattle, it also soon became food for men.
The cultivated land still remained tribal property; at first it was allotted to the gens, later by the gens to the household communities and finally to individuals for use.
The users may have had certain rights of possession, but nothing more.
Of the industrial achievements of this stage, two are particularly important.
The first is the loom, the second the smelting of metal ores and the working of metals.
Copper and tin and their alloy, bronze, were by far the most important.
Bronze provided serviceable tools and weapons, though it could not displace stone tools; only iron could do that, and the method of obtaining iron was not yet understood.
Gold and silver were beginning to be used for ornament and decoration, and must already have acquired a high value as compared with copper and bronze.
The increase of production in all branches – cattle-raising, agriculture, domestic handicrafts – gave human labor-power the capacity to produce a larger product than was necessary for its maintenance.
At the same time it increased the daily amount of work to be done by each member of the gens, household community or single family.
It was now desirable to bring in new labor forces.
War provided them; prisoners of war were turned into slaves.
With its increase of the productivity of labor, and therefore of wealth, and its extension of the field of production, the first great social division of labor was bound, in the general historical conditions prevailing, to bring slavery in its train.
From the first great social division of labor arose the first great cleavage of society into two classes: masters and slaves, exploiters and exploited.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ENGEL - ORIGINS OF FAMILY
Frederick Engels
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
IX. Barbarism and Civilization, continued ...
As to how and when the herds passed out of the common possession of the tribe or the gens into the ownership of individual heads of families, we know nothing at present.
But in the main it must have occurred during this stage.
With the herds and the other new riches, a revolution came over the family.
To procure the necessities of life had always been the business of the man; he produced and owned the means of doing so.
The herds were the new means of producing these necessities; the taming of the animals in the first instance and their later tending were the man’s work.
To him, therefore, belonged the cattle, and to him the commodities and the slaves received in exchange for cattle.
All the surplus which the acquisition of the necessities of life now yielded fell to the man; the woman shared in its enjoyment, but had no part in its ownership.
The “savage” warrior and hunter had been content to take second place in the house, after the woman; the “gentler” shepherd, in the arrogance of his wealth, pushed himself forward into the first place and the woman down into the second.
And she could not complain.
The division of labor within the family had regulated the division of property between the man and the woman.
That division of labor had remained the same; and yet it now turned the previous domestic relation upside down, simply because the division of labor outside the family had changed.
The same cause which had ensured to the woman her previous supremacy in the house – that her activity was confined to domestic labor – this same cause now ensured the man's supremacy in the house: the domestic labor of the woman no longer counted beside the acquisition of the necessities of life by the man; the latter was everything, the former an unimportant extra.
We can already see from this that to emancipate woman and make her the equal of the man is and remains an impossibility so long as the woman is shut out from social productive labor and restricted to private domestic labor.
The emancipation of woman will only be possible when woman can take part in production on a large, social scale, and domestic work no longer claims anything but an insignificant amount of her time.
And only now has that become possible through modern large-scale industry, which does not merely permit of the employment of female labor over a wide range, but positively demands it, while it also tends towards ending private domestic labor by changing it more and more into a public industry.
The man now being actually supreme in the house, the last barrier to his absolute supremacy had fallen.
This autocracy was confirmed and perpetuated by the overthrow of mother-right, the introduction of father-right, and the gradual transition of the pairing marriage into monogamy.
But this tore a breach in the old gentile order; the single family became a power, and its rise was a menace to the gens.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
IX. Barbarism and Civilization, continued ...
As to how and when the herds passed out of the common possession of the tribe or the gens into the ownership of individual heads of families, we know nothing at present.
But in the main it must have occurred during this stage.
With the herds and the other new riches, a revolution came over the family.
To procure the necessities of life had always been the business of the man; he produced and owned the means of doing so.
The herds were the new means of producing these necessities; the taming of the animals in the first instance and their later tending were the man’s work.
To him, therefore, belonged the cattle, and to him the commodities and the slaves received in exchange for cattle.
All the surplus which the acquisition of the necessities of life now yielded fell to the man; the woman shared in its enjoyment, but had no part in its ownership.
The “savage” warrior and hunter had been content to take second place in the house, after the woman; the “gentler” shepherd, in the arrogance of his wealth, pushed himself forward into the first place and the woman down into the second.
And she could not complain.
The division of labor within the family had regulated the division of property between the man and the woman.
That division of labor had remained the same; and yet it now turned the previous domestic relation upside down, simply because the division of labor outside the family had changed.
The same cause which had ensured to the woman her previous supremacy in the house – that her activity was confined to domestic labor – this same cause now ensured the man's supremacy in the house: the domestic labor of the woman no longer counted beside the acquisition of the necessities of life by the man; the latter was everything, the former an unimportant extra.
We can already see from this that to emancipate woman and make her the equal of the man is and remains an impossibility so long as the woman is shut out from social productive labor and restricted to private domestic labor.
The emancipation of woman will only be possible when woman can take part in production on a large, social scale, and domestic work no longer claims anything but an insignificant amount of her time.
And only now has that become possible through modern large-scale industry, which does not merely permit of the employment of female labor over a wide range, but positively demands it, while it also tends towards ending private domestic labor by changing it more and more into a public industry.
The man now being actually supreme in the house, the last barrier to his absolute supremacy had fallen.
This autocracy was confirmed and perpetuated by the overthrow of mother-right, the introduction of father-right, and the gradual transition of the pairing marriage into monogamy.
But this tore a breach in the old gentile order; the single family became a power, and its rise was a menace to the gens.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ENGEL - ORIGINS OF FAMILY
Frederick Engels
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
IX. Barbarism and Civilization, continued ...
The next step leads us to the upper stage of barbarism, the period when all civilized peoples have their Heroic Age: the age of the iron sword, but also of the iron plowshare and ax.
Iron was now at the service of man, the last and most important of all the raw materials which played a historically revolutionary role – until the potato.
Iron brought the tillage of large areas, the clearing of wide tracts of virgin forest; iron gave to the handicraftsman tools so hard and sharp that no stone, no other known metal could resist them.
All this came gradually; the first iron was often even softer than bronze.
Hence stone weapons only disappeared slowly; not merely in the Hildebrandslied, but even as late as Hastings in 1066, stone axes were still used for fighting.
But progress could not now be stopped; it went forward with fewer checks and greater speed.
The town, with its houses of stone or brick, encircled by stone walls, towers and ramparts, became the central seat of the tribe or the confederacy of tribes – an enormous architectural advance, but also a sign of growing danger and need for protection.
Wealth increased rapidly, but as the wealth of individuals.
The products of weaving, metal-work and the other handicrafts, which were becoming more and more differentiated, displayed growing variety and skill.
In addition to corn, leguminous plants and fruit, agriculture now provided wine and oil, the preparation of which had been learned.
Such manifold activities were no longer within the scope of one and the same individual; the second great division of labor took place: handicraft separated from agriculture.
The continuous increase of production and simultaneously of the productivity of labor heightened the value of human labor-power.
Slavery, which during the preceding period was still in its beginnings and sporadic, now becomes an essential constituent part of the social system; slaves no longer merely help with production - they are driven by dozens to work in the fields and the workshops.
With the splitting up of production into the two great main branches, agriculture and handicrafts, arises production directly for exchange, commodity production; with it came commerce, not only in the interior and on the tribal boundaries, but also already overseas.
All this, however, was still very undeveloped; the precious metals were beginning to be the predominant and general money commodity, but still uncoined, exchanging simply by their naked weight.
The distinction of rich and poor appears beside that of freemen and slaves - with the new division of labor, a new cleavage of society into classes.
The inequalities of property among the individual heads of families break up the old communal household communities wherever they had still managed to survive, and with them the common cultivation of the soil by and for these communities.
The cultivated land is allotted for use to single families, at first temporarily, later permanently.
The transition to full private property is gradually accomplished, parallel with the transition of the pairing marriage into monogamy.
The single family is becoming the economic unit of society.
The denser population necessitates closer consolidation both for internal and external action.
The confederacy of related tribes becomes everywhere a necessity, and soon also their fusion, involving the fusion of the separate tribal territories into one territory of the nation.
The military leader of the people, res, basileus, thiudans – becomes an indispensable, permanent official.
The assembly of the people takes form, wherever it did not already exist.
Military leader, council, assembly of the people are the organs of gentile society developed into military democracy – military, since war and organization for war have now become regular functions of national life.
Their neighbors' wealth excites the greed of peoples who already see in the acquisition of wealth one of the main aims of life.
They are barbarians: they think it more easy and in fact more honorable to get riches by pillage than by work.
War, formerly waged only in revenge for injuries or to extend territory that had grown too small, is now waged simply for plunder and becomes a regular industry.
Not without reason the bristling battlements stand menacingly about the new fortified towns; in the moat at their foot yawns the grave of the gentile constitution, and already they rear their towers into civilization.
Similarly in the interior.
The wars of plunder increase the power of the supreme military leader and the subordinate commanders; the customary election of their successors from the same families is gradually transformed, especially after the introduction of father-right, into a right of hereditary succession, first tolerated, then claimed, finally usurped; the foundation of the hereditary monarchy and the hereditary nobility is laid.
Thus the organs of the gentile constitution gradually tear themselves loose from their roots in the people, in gens, phratry, tribe, and the whole gentile constitution changes into its opposite: from an organization of tribes for the free ordering of their own affairs it becomes an organization for the plundering and oppression of their neighbors; and correspondingly its organs change from instruments of the will of the people into independent organs for the domination and oppression of the people.
That, however, would never have been possible if the greed for riches had not split the members of the gens into rich and poor, if “the property differences within one and the same gens had not transformed its unity of interest into antagonism between its members” (Marx), if the extension of slavery had not already begun to make working for a living seem fit only for slaves and more dishonorable than pillage.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
IX. Barbarism and Civilization, continued ...
The next step leads us to the upper stage of barbarism, the period when all civilized peoples have their Heroic Age: the age of the iron sword, but also of the iron plowshare and ax.
Iron was now at the service of man, the last and most important of all the raw materials which played a historically revolutionary role – until the potato.
Iron brought the tillage of large areas, the clearing of wide tracts of virgin forest; iron gave to the handicraftsman tools so hard and sharp that no stone, no other known metal could resist them.
All this came gradually; the first iron was often even softer than bronze.
Hence stone weapons only disappeared slowly; not merely in the Hildebrandslied, but even as late as Hastings in 1066, stone axes were still used for fighting.
But progress could not now be stopped; it went forward with fewer checks and greater speed.
The town, with its houses of stone or brick, encircled by stone walls, towers and ramparts, became the central seat of the tribe or the confederacy of tribes – an enormous architectural advance, but also a sign of growing danger and need for protection.
Wealth increased rapidly, but as the wealth of individuals.
The products of weaving, metal-work and the other handicrafts, which were becoming more and more differentiated, displayed growing variety and skill.
In addition to corn, leguminous plants and fruit, agriculture now provided wine and oil, the preparation of which had been learned.
Such manifold activities were no longer within the scope of one and the same individual; the second great division of labor took place: handicraft separated from agriculture.
The continuous increase of production and simultaneously of the productivity of labor heightened the value of human labor-power.
Slavery, which during the preceding period was still in its beginnings and sporadic, now becomes an essential constituent part of the social system; slaves no longer merely help with production - they are driven by dozens to work in the fields and the workshops.
With the splitting up of production into the two great main branches, agriculture and handicrafts, arises production directly for exchange, commodity production; with it came commerce, not only in the interior and on the tribal boundaries, but also already overseas.
All this, however, was still very undeveloped; the precious metals were beginning to be the predominant and general money commodity, but still uncoined, exchanging simply by their naked weight.
The distinction of rich and poor appears beside that of freemen and slaves - with the new division of labor, a new cleavage of society into classes.
The inequalities of property among the individual heads of families break up the old communal household communities wherever they had still managed to survive, and with them the common cultivation of the soil by and for these communities.
The cultivated land is allotted for use to single families, at first temporarily, later permanently.
The transition to full private property is gradually accomplished, parallel with the transition of the pairing marriage into monogamy.
The single family is becoming the economic unit of society.
The denser population necessitates closer consolidation both for internal and external action.
The confederacy of related tribes becomes everywhere a necessity, and soon also their fusion, involving the fusion of the separate tribal territories into one territory of the nation.
The military leader of the people, res, basileus, thiudans – becomes an indispensable, permanent official.
The assembly of the people takes form, wherever it did not already exist.
Military leader, council, assembly of the people are the organs of gentile society developed into military democracy – military, since war and organization for war have now become regular functions of national life.
Their neighbors' wealth excites the greed of peoples who already see in the acquisition of wealth one of the main aims of life.
They are barbarians: they think it more easy and in fact more honorable to get riches by pillage than by work.
War, formerly waged only in revenge for injuries or to extend territory that had grown too small, is now waged simply for plunder and becomes a regular industry.
Not without reason the bristling battlements stand menacingly about the new fortified towns; in the moat at their foot yawns the grave of the gentile constitution, and already they rear their towers into civilization.
Similarly in the interior.
The wars of plunder increase the power of the supreme military leader and the subordinate commanders; the customary election of their successors from the same families is gradually transformed, especially after the introduction of father-right, into a right of hereditary succession, first tolerated, then claimed, finally usurped; the foundation of the hereditary monarchy and the hereditary nobility is laid.
Thus the organs of the gentile constitution gradually tear themselves loose from their roots in the people, in gens, phratry, tribe, and the whole gentile constitution changes into its opposite: from an organization of tribes for the free ordering of their own affairs it becomes an organization for the plundering and oppression of their neighbors; and correspondingly its organs change from instruments of the will of the people into independent organs for the domination and oppression of the people.
That, however, would never have been possible if the greed for riches had not split the members of the gens into rich and poor, if “the property differences within one and the same gens had not transformed its unity of interest into antagonism between its members” (Marx), if the extension of slavery had not already begun to make working for a living seem fit only for slaves and more dishonorable than pillage.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ENGEL - ORIGINS OF FAMILY
Frederick Engels
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
IX. Barbarism and Civilization, continued ...
We have now reached the threshold of civilization.
Civilization opens with a new advance in the division of labor.
At the lowest stage of barbarism men produced only directly for their own needs; any acts of exchange were isolated occurrences, the object of exchange merely some fortuitous surplus.
In the middle stage of barbarism we already find among the pastoral peoples a possession in the form of cattle which, once the herd has attained a certain size, regularly produces a surplus over and above the tribe’s own requirements, leading to a division of labor between pastoral peoples and backward tribes without herds, and hence to the existence of two different levels of production side by side with one another and the conditions necessary for regular exchange.
The upper stage of barbarism brings us the further division of labor between agriculture and handicrafts, hence the production of a continually increasing portion of the products of labor directly for exchange, so that exchange between individual producers assumes the importance of a vital social function.
Civilization consolidates and intensifies all these existing divisions of labor, particularly by sharpening the opposition between town and country (the town may economically dominate the country, as in antiquity, or the country the town, as in the middle ages), and it adds a third division of labor, peculiar to itself and of decisive importance: it creates a class which no longer concerns itself with production, but only with the exchange of the products – the merchants.
Hitherto whenever classes had begun to form, it had always been exclusively in the field of production; the persons engaged in production were separated into those who directed and those who executed, or else into large-scale and small-scale producers.
Now for the first time a class appears which, without in any way participating in production, captures the direction of production as a whole and economically subjugates the producers; which makes itself into an indispensable middleman between any two producers and exploits them both.
Under the pretext that they save the producers the trouble and risk of exchange, extend the sale of their products to distant markets and are therefore the most useful class of the population, a class of parasites comes into being, “genuine social ichneumons,” who, as a reward for their actually very insignificant services, skim all the cream off production at home and abroad, rapidly amass enormous wealth and correspondingly social influence, and for that reason receive under civilization ever higher honors and ever greater control of production, until at last they also bring forth a product of their own – the periodical trade crises.
At our stage of development, however, the young merchants had not even begun to dream of the great destiny awaiting them.
But they were growing and making themselves indispensable, which was quite sufficient.
And with the formation of the merchant class came also the development of metallic money, the minted coin, a new instrument for the domination of the non-producer over the producer and his production.
The commodity of commodities had been discovered, that which holds all other commodities hidden in itself, the magic power which can change at will into everything desirable and desired.
The man who had it ruled the world of production – and who had more of it than anybody else?
The merchant.
The worship of money was safe in his hands.
He took good care to make it clear that, in face of money, all commodities, and hence all producers of commodities, must prostrate themselves in adoration in the dust.
He proved practically that all other forms of wealth fade into mere semblance beside this incarnation of wealth as such.
Never again has the power of money shown itself in such primitive brutality and violence as during these days of its youth.
After commodities had begun to sell for money, loans and advances in money came also, and with them interest and usury.
No legislation of later times so utterly and ruthlessly delivers over the debtor to the usurious creditor as the legislation of ancient Athens and ancient Rome – and in both cities it arose spontaneously, as customary law, without any compulsion other than the economic.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
IX. Barbarism and Civilization, continued ...
We have now reached the threshold of civilization.
Civilization opens with a new advance in the division of labor.
At the lowest stage of barbarism men produced only directly for their own needs; any acts of exchange were isolated occurrences, the object of exchange merely some fortuitous surplus.
In the middle stage of barbarism we already find among the pastoral peoples a possession in the form of cattle which, once the herd has attained a certain size, regularly produces a surplus over and above the tribe’s own requirements, leading to a division of labor between pastoral peoples and backward tribes without herds, and hence to the existence of two different levels of production side by side with one another and the conditions necessary for regular exchange.
The upper stage of barbarism brings us the further division of labor between agriculture and handicrafts, hence the production of a continually increasing portion of the products of labor directly for exchange, so that exchange between individual producers assumes the importance of a vital social function.
Civilization consolidates and intensifies all these existing divisions of labor, particularly by sharpening the opposition between town and country (the town may economically dominate the country, as in antiquity, or the country the town, as in the middle ages), and it adds a third division of labor, peculiar to itself and of decisive importance: it creates a class which no longer concerns itself with production, but only with the exchange of the products – the merchants.
Hitherto whenever classes had begun to form, it had always been exclusively in the field of production; the persons engaged in production were separated into those who directed and those who executed, or else into large-scale and small-scale producers.
Now for the first time a class appears which, without in any way participating in production, captures the direction of production as a whole and economically subjugates the producers; which makes itself into an indispensable middleman between any two producers and exploits them both.
Under the pretext that they save the producers the trouble and risk of exchange, extend the sale of their products to distant markets and are therefore the most useful class of the population, a class of parasites comes into being, “genuine social ichneumons,” who, as a reward for their actually very insignificant services, skim all the cream off production at home and abroad, rapidly amass enormous wealth and correspondingly social influence, and for that reason receive under civilization ever higher honors and ever greater control of production, until at last they also bring forth a product of their own – the periodical trade crises.
At our stage of development, however, the young merchants had not even begun to dream of the great destiny awaiting them.
But they were growing and making themselves indispensable, which was quite sufficient.
And with the formation of the merchant class came also the development of metallic money, the minted coin, a new instrument for the domination of the non-producer over the producer and his production.
The commodity of commodities had been discovered, that which holds all other commodities hidden in itself, the magic power which can change at will into everything desirable and desired.
The man who had it ruled the world of production – and who had more of it than anybody else?
The merchant.
The worship of money was safe in his hands.
He took good care to make it clear that, in face of money, all commodities, and hence all producers of commodities, must prostrate themselves in adoration in the dust.
He proved practically that all other forms of wealth fade into mere semblance beside this incarnation of wealth as such.
Never again has the power of money shown itself in such primitive brutality and violence as during these days of its youth.
After commodities had begun to sell for money, loans and advances in money came also, and with them interest and usury.
No legislation of later times so utterly and ruthlessly delivers over the debtor to the usurious creditor as the legislation of ancient Athens and ancient Rome – and in both cities it arose spontaneously, as customary law, without any compulsion other than the economic.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ENGEL - ORIGINS OF FAMILY
Frederick Engels
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
IX. Barbarism and Civilization, continued ...
Alongside wealth in commodities and slaves, alongside wealth in money, there now appeared wealth in land also.
The individuals’ rights of possession in the pieces of land originally allotted to them by gens or tribe had now become so established that the land was their hereditary property.
Recently they had striven above all to secure their freedom against the rights of the gentile community over these lands, since these rights had become for them a fetter.
They got rid of the fetter – but soon afterwards of their new landed property also.
Full, free ownership of the land meant not only power, uncurtailed and unlimited, to possess the land; it meant also the power to alienate it.
As long as the land belonged to the gens, no such power could exist.
But when the new landed proprietor shook off once and for all the fetters laid upon him by the prior right of gens and tribe, he also cut the ties which had hitherto inseparably attached him to the land.
Money, invented at the same time as private property in land, showed him what that meant.
Land could now become a commodity; it could be sold and pledged.
Scarcely had private property in land been introduced than the mortgage was already invented (see Athens).
As hetaerism and prostitution dog the heels of monogamy, so from now onwards mortgage dogs the heels of private land ownership.
You asked for full, free alienable ownership of the land and now you have got it – “tu l'as voulu, Georges Dandin.” [It's your fault, Georges Dandin, from Molière’s play].
With trade expansion, money and usury, private property in land and mortgages, the concentration and centralization of wealth in the hands of a small class rapidly advanced, accompanied by an increasing impoverishment of the masses and an increasing mass of impoverishment.
The new aristocracy of wealth, in so far as it had not been identical from the outset with the old hereditary aristocracy, pushed it permanently into the background (in Athens, in Rome, among the Germans).
And simultaneous with this division of the citizens into classes according to wealth there was an enormous increase, particularly in Greece, in the number of slaves, [2] whose forced labor was the foundation on which the superstructure of the entire society was reared.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
IX. Barbarism and Civilization, continued ...
Alongside wealth in commodities and slaves, alongside wealth in money, there now appeared wealth in land also.
The individuals’ rights of possession in the pieces of land originally allotted to them by gens or tribe had now become so established that the land was their hereditary property.
Recently they had striven above all to secure their freedom against the rights of the gentile community over these lands, since these rights had become for them a fetter.
They got rid of the fetter – but soon afterwards of their new landed property also.
Full, free ownership of the land meant not only power, uncurtailed and unlimited, to possess the land; it meant also the power to alienate it.
As long as the land belonged to the gens, no such power could exist.
But when the new landed proprietor shook off once and for all the fetters laid upon him by the prior right of gens and tribe, he also cut the ties which had hitherto inseparably attached him to the land.
Money, invented at the same time as private property in land, showed him what that meant.
Land could now become a commodity; it could be sold and pledged.
Scarcely had private property in land been introduced than the mortgage was already invented (see Athens).
As hetaerism and prostitution dog the heels of monogamy, so from now onwards mortgage dogs the heels of private land ownership.
You asked for full, free alienable ownership of the land and now you have got it – “tu l'as voulu, Georges Dandin.” [It's your fault, Georges Dandin, from Molière’s play].
With trade expansion, money and usury, private property in land and mortgages, the concentration and centralization of wealth in the hands of a small class rapidly advanced, accompanied by an increasing impoverishment of the masses and an increasing mass of impoverishment.
The new aristocracy of wealth, in so far as it had not been identical from the outset with the old hereditary aristocracy, pushed it permanently into the background (in Athens, in Rome, among the Germans).
And simultaneous with this division of the citizens into classes according to wealth there was an enormous increase, particularly in Greece, in the number of slaves, [2] whose forced labor was the foundation on which the superstructure of the entire society was reared.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ENGEL - ORIGINS OF FAMILY
Frederick Engels
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
IX. Barbarism and Civilization, continued ...
Let us now see what had become of the gentile constitution in this social upheaval.
Confronted by the new forces in whose growth it had had no share, the gentile constitution was helpless.
The necessary condition for its existence was that the members of a gens or at least of a tribe were settled together in the same territory and were its sole inhabitants.
That had long ceased to be the case.
Every territory now had a heterogeneous population belonging to the most varied gentes and tribes; everywhere slaves, protected persons and aliens lived side by side with citizens.
The settled conditions of life which had only been achieved towards the end of the middle stage of barbarism were broken up by the repeated shifting and changing of residence under the pressure of trade, alteration of occupation and changes in the ownership of the land.
The members of the gentile bodies could no longer meet to look after their common concerns; only unimportant matters, like the religious festivals, were still perfunctorily attended to.
In addition to the needs and interests with which the gentile bodies were intended and fitted to deal, the upheaval in productive relations and the resulting change in the social structure had given rise to new needs and interests, which were not only alien to the old gentile order, but ran directly counter to it at every point.
The interests of the groups of handicraftsmen which had arisen with the division of labor, the special needs of the town as opposed to the country, called for new organs.
But each of these groups was composed of people of the most diverse gentes, phratries, and tribes, and even included aliens.
Such organs had therefore to be formed outside the gentile constitution, alongside of it, and hence in opposition to it.
And this conflict of interests was at work within every gentile body, appearing in its most extreme form in the association of rich and poor, usurers and debtors, in the same gens and the same tribe.
Further, there was the new mass of population outside the gentile bodies, which, as in Rome, was able to become a power in the land and at the same time was too numerous to be gradually absorbed into the kinship groups and tribes.
In relation to this mass, the gentile bodies stood opposed as closed, privileged corporations; the primitive natural democracy had changed into a malign aristocracy.
Lastly, the gentile constitution had grown out of a society which knew no internal contradictions, and it was only adapted to such a society.
It possessed no means of coercion except public opinion.
But here was a society which by all its economic conditions of life had been forced to split itself into freemen and slaves, into the exploiting rich and the exploited poor; a society which not only could never again reconcile these contradictions, but was compelled always to intensify them.
Such a society could only exist either in the continuous open fight of these classes against one another, or else under the rule of a third power, which, apparently standing above the warring classes, suppressed their open conflict and allowed the class struggle to be fought out at most in the economic field, in so-called legal form.
The gentile constitution was finished.
It had been shattered by the division of labor and its result, the cleavage of society into classes.
It was replaced by the state.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
IX. Barbarism and Civilization, continued ...
Let us now see what had become of the gentile constitution in this social upheaval.
Confronted by the new forces in whose growth it had had no share, the gentile constitution was helpless.
The necessary condition for its existence was that the members of a gens or at least of a tribe were settled together in the same territory and were its sole inhabitants.
That had long ceased to be the case.
Every territory now had a heterogeneous population belonging to the most varied gentes and tribes; everywhere slaves, protected persons and aliens lived side by side with citizens.
The settled conditions of life which had only been achieved towards the end of the middle stage of barbarism were broken up by the repeated shifting and changing of residence under the pressure of trade, alteration of occupation and changes in the ownership of the land.
The members of the gentile bodies could no longer meet to look after their common concerns; only unimportant matters, like the religious festivals, were still perfunctorily attended to.
In addition to the needs and interests with which the gentile bodies were intended and fitted to deal, the upheaval in productive relations and the resulting change in the social structure had given rise to new needs and interests, which were not only alien to the old gentile order, but ran directly counter to it at every point.
The interests of the groups of handicraftsmen which had arisen with the division of labor, the special needs of the town as opposed to the country, called for new organs.
But each of these groups was composed of people of the most diverse gentes, phratries, and tribes, and even included aliens.
Such organs had therefore to be formed outside the gentile constitution, alongside of it, and hence in opposition to it.
And this conflict of interests was at work within every gentile body, appearing in its most extreme form in the association of rich and poor, usurers and debtors, in the same gens and the same tribe.
Further, there was the new mass of population outside the gentile bodies, which, as in Rome, was able to become a power in the land and at the same time was too numerous to be gradually absorbed into the kinship groups and tribes.
In relation to this mass, the gentile bodies stood opposed as closed, privileged corporations; the primitive natural democracy had changed into a malign aristocracy.
Lastly, the gentile constitution had grown out of a society which knew no internal contradictions, and it was only adapted to such a society.
It possessed no means of coercion except public opinion.
But here was a society which by all its economic conditions of life had been forced to split itself into freemen and slaves, into the exploiting rich and the exploited poor; a society which not only could never again reconcile these contradictions, but was compelled always to intensify them.
Such a society could only exist either in the continuous open fight of these classes against one another, or else under the rule of a third power, which, apparently standing above the warring classes, suppressed their open conflict and allowed the class struggle to be fought out at most in the economic field, in so-called legal form.
The gentile constitution was finished.
It had been shattered by the division of labor and its result, the cleavage of society into classes.
It was replaced by the state.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ENGEL - ORIGINS OF FAMILY
Frederick Engels
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
IX. Barbarism and Civilization, continued ...
The three main forms in which the state arises on the ruins of the gentile constitution have been examined in detail above.
Athens provides the purest, classic form; here the state springs directly and mainly out of the class oppositions which develop within gentile society itself.
In Rome, gentile society becomes a closed aristocracy in the midst of the numerous plebs who stand outside it, and have duties but no rights; the victory of plebs breaks up the old constitution based on kinship, and erects on its ruins the state, into which both the gentile aristocracy and the plebs are soon completely absorbed.
Lastly, in the case of the German conquerors of the Roman Empire, the state springs directly out of the conquest of large foreign territories, which the gentile constitution provides no means of governing.
But because this conquest involves neither a serious struggle with the original population nor a more advanced division of labor; because conquerors and conquered are almost on the same level of economic development, and the economic basis of society remains therefore as before – for these reasons the gentile constitution is able to survive for many centuries in the altered, territorial form of the mark constitution and even for a time to rejuvenate itself in a feebler shape in the later noble and patrician families, and indeed in peasant families, as in Ditmarschen. [3]
The state is therefore by no means a power imposed on society from without; just as little is it “the reality of the moral idea,” “the image and the reality of reason,” as Hegel maintains.
Rather, it is a product of society at a particular stage of development; it is the admission that this society has involved itself in insoluble self-contradiction and is cleft into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to exorcise.
But in order that these antagonisms, classes with conflicting economic interests, shall not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, a power, apparently standing above society, has become necessary to moderate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of “order”; and this power, arisen out of society, but placing itself above it and increasingly alienating itself from it, is the state.
In contrast to the old gentile organization, the state is distinguished firstly by the grouping of its members on a territorial basis.
The old gentile bodies, formed and held together by ties of blood, had, as we have seen, become inadequate largely because they presupposed that the gentile members were bound to one particular locality, whereas this had long ago ceased to be the case.
The territory was still there, but the people had become mobile.
The territorial division was therefore taken as the starting point and the system introduced by which citizens exercised their public rights and duties where they took up residence, without regard to gens or tribe.
This organization of the citizens of the state according to domicile is common to all states.
To us, therefore, this organization seems natural; but, as we have seen, hard and protracted struggles were necessary before it was able in Athens and Rome to displace the old organization founded on kinship.
The second distinguishing characteristic is the institution of a public force which is no longer immediately identical with the people’s own organization of themselves as an armed power.
This special public force is needed because a self-acting armed organization of the people has become impossible since their cleavage into classes.
The slaves also belong to the population: as against the 365,000 slaves, the 90,000 Athenian citizens constitute only a privileged class.
The people’s army of the Athenian democracy confronted the slaves as an aristocratic public force, and kept them in check; but to keep the citizens in check as well, a police-force was needed, as described above.
This public force exists in every state; it consists not merely of armed men, but also of material appendages, prisons and coercive institutions of all kinds, of which gentile society knew nothing.
It may be very insignificant, practically negligible, in societies with still undeveloped class antagonisms and living in remote areas, as at times and in places in the United States of America.
But it becomes stronger in proportion as the class antagonisms within the state become sharper and as adjoining states grow larger and more populous.
It is enough to look at Europe today, where class struggle and rivalry in conquest have brought the public power to a pitch that it threatens to devour the whole of society and even the state itself.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
IX. Barbarism and Civilization, continued ...
The three main forms in which the state arises on the ruins of the gentile constitution have been examined in detail above.
Athens provides the purest, classic form; here the state springs directly and mainly out of the class oppositions which develop within gentile society itself.
In Rome, gentile society becomes a closed aristocracy in the midst of the numerous plebs who stand outside it, and have duties but no rights; the victory of plebs breaks up the old constitution based on kinship, and erects on its ruins the state, into which both the gentile aristocracy and the plebs are soon completely absorbed.
Lastly, in the case of the German conquerors of the Roman Empire, the state springs directly out of the conquest of large foreign territories, which the gentile constitution provides no means of governing.
But because this conquest involves neither a serious struggle with the original population nor a more advanced division of labor; because conquerors and conquered are almost on the same level of economic development, and the economic basis of society remains therefore as before – for these reasons the gentile constitution is able to survive for many centuries in the altered, territorial form of the mark constitution and even for a time to rejuvenate itself in a feebler shape in the later noble and patrician families, and indeed in peasant families, as in Ditmarschen. [3]
The state is therefore by no means a power imposed on society from without; just as little is it “the reality of the moral idea,” “the image and the reality of reason,” as Hegel maintains.
Rather, it is a product of society at a particular stage of development; it is the admission that this society has involved itself in insoluble self-contradiction and is cleft into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to exorcise.
But in order that these antagonisms, classes with conflicting economic interests, shall not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, a power, apparently standing above society, has become necessary to moderate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of “order”; and this power, arisen out of society, but placing itself above it and increasingly alienating itself from it, is the state.
In contrast to the old gentile organization, the state is distinguished firstly by the grouping of its members on a territorial basis.
The old gentile bodies, formed and held together by ties of blood, had, as we have seen, become inadequate largely because they presupposed that the gentile members were bound to one particular locality, whereas this had long ago ceased to be the case.
The territory was still there, but the people had become mobile.
The territorial division was therefore taken as the starting point and the system introduced by which citizens exercised their public rights and duties where they took up residence, without regard to gens or tribe.
This organization of the citizens of the state according to domicile is common to all states.
To us, therefore, this organization seems natural; but, as we have seen, hard and protracted struggles were necessary before it was able in Athens and Rome to displace the old organization founded on kinship.
The second distinguishing characteristic is the institution of a public force which is no longer immediately identical with the people’s own organization of themselves as an armed power.
This special public force is needed because a self-acting armed organization of the people has become impossible since their cleavage into classes.
The slaves also belong to the population: as against the 365,000 slaves, the 90,000 Athenian citizens constitute only a privileged class.
The people’s army of the Athenian democracy confronted the slaves as an aristocratic public force, and kept them in check; but to keep the citizens in check as well, a police-force was needed, as described above.
This public force exists in every state; it consists not merely of armed men, but also of material appendages, prisons and coercive institutions of all kinds, of which gentile society knew nothing.
It may be very insignificant, practically negligible, in societies with still undeveloped class antagonisms and living in remote areas, as at times and in places in the United States of America.
But it becomes stronger in proportion as the class antagonisms within the state become sharper and as adjoining states grow larger and more populous.
It is enough to look at Europe today, where class struggle and rivalry in conquest have brought the public power to a pitch that it threatens to devour the whole of society and even the state itself.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ENGEL - ORIGINS OF FAMILY
Frederick Engels
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
IX. Barbarism and Civilization, continued ...
In order to maintain this public power, contributions from the state citizens are necessary – taxes.
These were completely unknown to gentile society.
We know more than enough about them today.
With advancing civilization, even taxes are not sufficient; the state draws drafts on the future, contracts loans, state debts.
Our old Europe can tell a tale about these, too.
In possession of the public power and the right of taxation, the officials now present themselves as organs of society standing above society.
The free, willing respect accorded to the organs of the gentile constitution is not enough for them, even if they could have it.
Representatives of a power which estranges them from society, they have to be given prestige by means of special decrees, which invest them with a peculiar sanctity and inviolability.
The lowest police officer of the civilized state has more “authority” than all the organs of gentile society put together; but the mightiest prince and the greatest statesman or general of civilization might envy the humblest of the gentile chiefs the unforced and unquestioned respect accorded to him.
For the one stands in the midst of society; the other is forced to pose as something outside and above it.
As the state arose from the need to keep class antagonisms in check, but also arose in the thick of the fight between the classes, it is normally the state of the most powerful, economically ruling class, which by its means becomes also the politically ruling class, and so acquires new means of holding down and exploiting the oppressed class.
The ancient state was, above all, the state of the slave-owners for holding down the slaves, just as the feudal state was the organ of the nobility for holding down the peasant serfs and bondsmen, and the modern representative state is the instrument for exploiting wage-labor by capital.
Exceptional periods, however, occur when the warring classes are so nearly equal in forces that the state power, as apparent mediator, acquires for the moment a certain independence in relation to both.
This applies to the absolute monarchy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which balances the nobility and the bourgeoisie against one another; and to the Bonapartism of the First and particularly of the Second French Empire, which played off the proletariat against the bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie against the proletariat.
The latest achievement in this line, in which ruler and ruled look equally comic, is the new German Empire of the Bismarckian nation; here the capitalists and the workers are balanced against one another and both of them fleeced for the benefit of the decayed Prussian cabbage Junkers. [German: Krautjunker, translated as ‘country squire’, but with pejorative overtones.]
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
IX. Barbarism and Civilization, continued ...
In order to maintain this public power, contributions from the state citizens are necessary – taxes.
These were completely unknown to gentile society.
We know more than enough about them today.
With advancing civilization, even taxes are not sufficient; the state draws drafts on the future, contracts loans, state debts.
Our old Europe can tell a tale about these, too.
In possession of the public power and the right of taxation, the officials now present themselves as organs of society standing above society.
The free, willing respect accorded to the organs of the gentile constitution is not enough for them, even if they could have it.
Representatives of a power which estranges them from society, they have to be given prestige by means of special decrees, which invest them with a peculiar sanctity and inviolability.
The lowest police officer of the civilized state has more “authority” than all the organs of gentile society put together; but the mightiest prince and the greatest statesman or general of civilization might envy the humblest of the gentile chiefs the unforced and unquestioned respect accorded to him.
For the one stands in the midst of society; the other is forced to pose as something outside and above it.
As the state arose from the need to keep class antagonisms in check, but also arose in the thick of the fight between the classes, it is normally the state of the most powerful, economically ruling class, which by its means becomes also the politically ruling class, and so acquires new means of holding down and exploiting the oppressed class.
The ancient state was, above all, the state of the slave-owners for holding down the slaves, just as the feudal state was the organ of the nobility for holding down the peasant serfs and bondsmen, and the modern representative state is the instrument for exploiting wage-labor by capital.
Exceptional periods, however, occur when the warring classes are so nearly equal in forces that the state power, as apparent mediator, acquires for the moment a certain independence in relation to both.
This applies to the absolute monarchy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which balances the nobility and the bourgeoisie against one another; and to the Bonapartism of the First and particularly of the Second French Empire, which played off the proletariat against the bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie against the proletariat.
The latest achievement in this line, in which ruler and ruled look equally comic, is the new German Empire of the Bismarckian nation; here the capitalists and the workers are balanced against one another and both of them fleeced for the benefit of the decayed Prussian cabbage Junkers. [German: Krautjunker, translated as ‘country squire’, but with pejorative overtones.]
TO BE CONTINUED ...