body be too weak to react healthily and curatively (§ 84), the evil is very apt to lead to the decline of all true freedom and

be denied that his freedom and equality contain, to say the least, germs of communism by no means insignificant. But, he would, in the present state of civil society, have a feeling of respect for the rights of property implanted in the mind of the child very early, and even before the feeling of liberty is developed. (Emile, 1762, Livre II.) About the same time Morelly published his Basiliade ou Naufrage des Iles flottantes, 1753, a political romance in the interest of communism. See the same author's Code de la Nature, 1755. Mably, in his two works, Doutes proposés aux Economistes, 1768, and La Législation ou Principes des Lois, 1776, recommended the abolition of all inequality and a real community of goods. The introduction of property seems to him, une faute qu'il était presque impossible de faire. Even Beccaria calls property a dreadful but perhaps a necessary right which has left to the unfortunate nothing but a naked existence. (Dei Delitti e delle Pene, 1765, cap 22.) The French Reign of Terror came pretty near carrying these ideas into effect. We need only refer to the abolition of the census, the payments made to the workingmen who attended the section meetings, two francs per diem, the enormous extension of confiscation, requisitions and forced loans, the revolution effected in the fortunes of individuals by the system of issuing assignats, the maximum affixed to the price of all the necessaries of life, the abolition of indirect taxes, and of what remained of the economic institutions handed down from the middle ages. According to St. Just: l'opulence est une infamie; il ne faut ni riches ni pauvres. The Cahier des Pauvres demands, first of all, that salaries "should no longer be estimated in accordance with the murderous principles of unbridled luxury." See Forster's letter dated November 15, 1793. (Sämmtl. Schriften, IX, 125.) On the conspiracy of Baboeuf, who was executed in 1796, and who wanted to see the completest equality and community of labor, of enjoyment and education, the abolition of large cities etc., see Buonarotti, La Conjuration de B., 1821. This book contributed powerfully towards the revival of communistic ideas after the July revolution. Among modern communists who are to be distinguished from the more ancient, especially by the industrial coloring given to their theories, Cabet, Voyage en Icarie, 1840, II, holds a very prominent place. He declares the abolition of religion, of the family and of the state, to be open questions, and desires to bring the practice of a community of goods to a successful issue only through the peaceful channel of conviction.

Compare Reybaud, Etudes sur les Réformateurs contemporains ou Socialistes modernes, 1840. L. Stein, Der Socialismus und Communismus des heutigen Frankreich. See, also, the learned history of socialistic systems in Marlo's Weltökonomie, I, 2, 435 ff.; and in what concerns the most recent time, R. Meyer, Der Emancipationskampf des vierten Standes, II, 1874, seq.:

order. The communist, viewing all other things, especially the organization of the state, only as instruments to supply his material and absolute wants, considers the liberal either as a fool who is ever pursuing the phantoms of the brain, or as a knave who covers his own selfishness under the mask of the public welfare.1 Hence the adherents of communism are sattisfied with any form of government which seems to offer them most, and this a ruthless despotism can do, at least, for the moment. And, although they are ever ready for any revolution in the form of government, and easily to be won over to it, they are most readily captivated by a despotic revolution. On the other hand, when communism seriously threatens all that constitutes the wealth of a people, the owners of that wealth are compelled to fly to any refuge which holds out the promise to protect them from it, although by seeking that same refuge they may destroy their own political freedom.2 The Achean league, which under the leadership of Aratos, the enemy of tyrants," had come into existence, promising so much hope, beheld itself later, and mainly through fear of the contagious effects of Spartan socialism under Cleomenes, com

a book which, in spite of its many defects, both doctrinal and journalistic, is as rich in thought, and in the knowledge of the subject it treats of, as it is permeated by a love of truth regardless of consequences. Among the opponents of socialism and communism, Malthus, On Population, B. III, ch. 3, and B. Hildebrand, Die Nationalökonomie der Gegenwart und Zukunft, vol. I, 1848, hold a very distinguished place. 7. S. Mill, Principles, II, ch. 1, 3, calls attention to the fact that hitherto the principle of free property has never been consistently carried out. The first social arrangement of modern society was almost everywhere the result of conquest and violence, large traces of which yet remain. Things have always been made property which ought not to be property. Governments have endeavored to intensify the darkness of the dark side of property, and favored the concentration instead of the diffusion of wealth etc. Hence, no one can claim that the social wrongs, so-called, had their origin in property as such. Schäffle, Kapitalismus und Socialismus, 1870, has made a very note-worthy effort to recognize whatever of truth there is in socialism, and to combat its errors.

1Saint Simon's reproach to the liberals, that their fundamental principle was: ôte-toi de là, que je m'y mette, is well known.

9 Compare Malthus, Additions to the Essay on Population, 1817, IV, ch. 7

pelled to unite with the Macedonians, that is, to give themselves up entirely. (§ 204).

SECTION LXXXI.

COMMUNITY OF GOODS.

We now, for the present, turn our gaze from the frightful revolution, destructive of all civilization, which would necessarily precede the establishment of a community of goods,1 and inquire what would be the consequences. Among angels ("gods and sons of gods" of Plato) and mere animals, a community of goods might, perhaps, exist without producing injury. And so, too, it might exist among men bound one to the other by the bonds of the truest love. The life of every model family is accompanied by a species of community of goods. But in more extensive social organizations, this love is never found except as an element of the most exalted religious enthusiasm, which, as a rule, is of very short duration; of which the Acts of the Apostles (II, 44 ff, 32 ff, V, I, II) affords us the best known and most beautiful example.

'The travailleurs égalitaires wished to murder not only the king, the court, and the ministry, but also the Liberals and all owners of property.

As soon, indeed, as this true love disappears in the married state, the community of goods even there degenerates only too easily into a spoliation of the better party by the worse.

3 The community of goods of the first Christians at Jerusalem, so frequently cited and extolled ( Fames, I, 1), was only a community of use, not of ownership (Acts IV, 32), and, throughout, a voluntary act of love, not a duty (V. 4), least of all, a right which the poorer might assert. Spite of all this, that community of goods produced a chronic state of poverty in the church of Jerusalem. Hence, Paul had collections taken up for them on all sides, without, however, anywhere establishing a similar institution. (Romans, 15, 26; I. Corinth., 16, 1.) Compare Mosheim, De vera Natura Communionis Bonorum in Ecclesia Hierosol., in his Dissertatt. ad Histor. Eccles. pertinentes, II, 1 ff. As to whether Barnabas (Epist., 19) desired to say anything more, compare Epist. ad Diognetum, 5. For a real recommendation of a commuuity of goods, on economic grounds, see Joh. Chrysostom., in Acta Apost., Hom. XI. Also Clemens Rom. c. 2 C. 12, qu. 1. Community of goods among the Essenes: Philo.

Where this love does not exist, each participant in the community of goods will, as a rule, seek to do the least and enjoy the most possible. In a society of one hundred thousand

Opp. II. 457 ff. Joseph. Bell, Jud., II. S. Bellermann, Geschichtliche Nachrichten über die Essener. (1821.) In many monasteries, there has been and is a species of community of goods. There was once a singular contest on this subject, carried on between the Minorites and the Pope, in the time of Louis of Bavaria. The Minorities claimed that property was a thing, so much to be condemned, that even food, at the moment of eating it, did not belong to the person using it. The Pope taught on the other hand, that even Christ and the Apostles possessed property, part personal and part in common. (Raynaldi, Ann. eccl., XV, 241, 285 ff.) Community of goods of the Homiliates, later of the Brothers of Common Life, after the manner of the monks, but of a much higher kind. (Ullmann, Reformatoren v. d. Reform, II, 62 ff.) The first settlers of New Haven, Connecticut, held their property in common. Land was divided among families in proportion to the number of persons in them, and of the number of cattle they had brought with them; and all sales and purchases were made on account of the whole community. And so in Massachusetts during the first seven years of the colony's existence. (Ebeling, Geschichte und Erdbeschreib. der Vereinigten Staaten, II, 391, I, 557.) Herrnhut community of goods in Pennsylvania, from 1742 to 1762, but which was done away with when the number of colonists became too great. (Ebeling, IV, 717.) Community of goods of the Shakers and Lutheran Rappers. (Buckingham, Eastern States, II, 214, 427. Prinz Neuwied, Reise in Nord Amerika, I, 136, ff.) Russian sects with community of goods. (v. Haxthausen, I, 366, 407.) Harless, christliche Ethik § 501, distinguishes very weil between the "anti-christian" and "pseudo christian" stand point, from which it is sought to establish the doctrine of a community of goods. The Christian view of this subject (compare Ephes., 4, 28, I; Thess., 4, 11, II, 3, 12; Matth., 6, 24; Pet. 4, 10; Matth., 26, 7-11) is accused of hypocrisy by many socialists. It is very easy, they say, when one is himself in comfortable circumstances, to represent to the poor that their poverty is a school for heaven, and to preach a contempt for riches etc. They entirely forget, that the first promulgation of the Gospel was made at a time when the worst kind of pauperism prevailed; and that even the Master Himself, and the greater number of His Apostles belonged to the lowest stratum of society. Luke, 9, 58. Many of the Fathers of the Church, however, in their exhortations to benevolence, used language in which modern Socialists have found a rich mine which they have sedulously worked. (Compare Villegardelle, Histoire des Idées sociales, 1846, 61 ff.)

4 Even Aristotle says that what is common to many is a matter of little concern to any one. (Polit., II, 1.) Bastiat remarks: We compete to-day to see who works most and best. Under another regime, we should emulate

members, each individual would be interested in the results of its aggregate frugality only indirectly, and only to the extent of a one-hundred thousandth part of the whole; that is, practically, not at all.5 Individual selfishness would expend itself entirely on the division of what the whole community produced. It would, consequently, and almost always be detrimental to the whole, and to the other individuals of the society; whereas, at present, it does so only in exceptional cases. When Louis Blanc, as Mably had before him, recommended that the point d'honneur should take the place of the interêt personnel, as a spur to production, and a check on consumption, and cited the army as an illustration of its workings, he forgot, among other things, the thirty cases in which the

one another to see who should work least and worst." (Harmonies Econ., ch. VIII.) When the first settlers of Virginia, in 1611, gave up the system of common labor and of joint-stock companies, as much work was performed in a day as formerly in a week, or as much by three workmen as formerly by thirty. (Purchas, Pilgrims, iv, 1866. Bancroft, History of the United States, I, 161.) Even in New England, therefore among men both steady and accustomed to labor, who for conscience sake had sacrificed so much, a community of goods was accompanied uninteruptedly by famine. A change for the better took place, for the first time in 1623 with the introduction of the institution of private property which was followed in 1624 by the right of inheritance. (Bancroft, I, 340.) The military colonies of Algeria, also, in which husbandry in common was carried on, begged, at the end of a year, that the system should be abandoned, for the reason that it was good for nothing but to generate idlers; and yet, these colonists were all powerful men of about the same age, and accustomed to order and service in common. They were, moreover, assisted by the nation with pay and food. Compare Bugeaud's account: Revue des deux Mondes, June 1, 1848. "The French associations (after 1848), whose object was labor in common, have nearly all died out." M. Chevalier in the Journal des Débats, Feb. 3, 1851. In the United States, sixteen phalansteries of Fourierites, founded between 1840 and 1846, had all collapsed in 1855. (D. Vierteljahrsschrift, October, 1855, 205 ff.) 5 Even in New Harmony, the members considered the task which they had to perform to obtain food, clothing and shelter, as villeinage in the worst sense of the term. (H. Bernhard v. Weimar, Nordamerikan. Reise, V, 134 ff.; 151, 310, ff.) It is very inconsistent in socialists to continue the proprietorship and heirship of the state. To be consistent they should give both these rights only to mankind as a whole. Compare Kiraly, Ueber Socialismus und Comm., 1868, 35.