Chapter LXII: Section CCIV

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

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

[Footnote 204-1: The more the lower classes degenerate into
the rabble, and the more the national sovereignty comes into
the hands of this rabble, the easier will it become for the
rich to buy up the State.]

[Footnote 204-2: In the middle stages of the nation's
economy, such as are described in §§ 62, 66, 90, 207, in
which even the relative advantages of industry on a large
scale over industry on a small scale, are not much developed
the making political rights dependent on the possession of a
certain amount of property is certainly a means of promoting
equality. Hence, therefore, a reconciliation between the
differences of class created by birth, may be effected for a
long time here.]

[Footnote 204-3: _Hermann_, Staatsw. Untersuchungen, II,
Aufl. 136.]

[Footnote 204-4: _Necker_, Législation et Commerce des
Grains, 1775,1. passim. Compare _Bacon_, Serm fideles, 15,
29, 34, 39.]

[Footnote 204-5: _Schiller's_ terrible words:

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

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

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

[Footnote 204-6: _Plin._, H. N., XVIII, 7.]

[Footnote 204-7: How frequently this circumstance turned to
the advantage of the Germans during the migration of
nations! Compare _Salvian_, De Gubern, Dei, VII. Very
remarkable answer given by a Roman taken prisoner by Attila,
why it must be more agreeable to live among the Huns than in
the over-civilized Roman Empire: Prisci legatio, in
_Niebuhr_, Corp. histor. Byzant., I, 191 ff. And thus the
conquest of Constantinople by the crusaders, took place amid
the jubilation of the populace and of the country people:
_Nicetus_, Chron. Hist. Urbs capta, § 11, 340. This law of
nature becomes most apparent when one compares the
preponderating power of Rome against Carthage, with its
weakness against the Cimbri and Mithradates. May not
Hannibal have been to his own country a phenomenon like that
which Cæsar was afterwards to Rome? A healthy and united
Carthage he certainly could have held against Italy.]

[Footnote 204-8: On the tendencies of the later times of the
Jewish monarchy toward an oligarchy of money, see _Amos_, 2,
6 seq.; 6 1 ff.; 8, 5 ff.; _Micha_, 2; 2 _Isaias_, 5, 8 seq.
Compare _Nehem._ 5. While Exodus, 30 and 38, mentions over
663,000 taxable men, the ten tribes comprising the kingdom
of Israel had only 60,000. XII Kings, 15, 19. _Ewald_,
Geschichte des Volkes Israel, II, 2, 320.]

[Footnote 204-9: The spirit of the Grecian moneyed oligarchy
is best revealed by _Plato_, De Republ., VIII, and
_Aristotle_, Polit., III, VI, passim, the first of whom
considers the contrast between rich and poor as in itself
demoralizing (IV, 422). All that can be called by the name
of tradition, the political faith of a people, and the
national feeling of right, had, in the Grecian world, been
transformed into mere reasoning and concerned itself, with
frightful exclusiveness, to the contrast existing between
rich and poor. Compare _Aristot._, Pol., II, 4, 1, with
_Droysen_, Gesch. des Hellenismus, II, 496 etc., and the
citations from _Menander_ in _Stob._, Serm., LXXXIX, 503, in
which gold and silver are proclaimed almighty. It is a
remarkable proof of the _omne venalia esse_ in Greece that
_Thucydides_ (II, 65) lauds even _Pericles_, especially for
his incorruptibility. _Demosthenes_ says of his
contemporaries, that it excited envy when any one was
bribed, laughter when he confessed it; that he who was
convicted of it (bribery) was pardoned, and he who blamed
it, hated. (Phil., II, 121.) Compare the list in _Demosth._,
Pro. Cor., 324; _Pausan_, III, 10. In Athens, on the
occasion of the census-constitution imposed forcibly on the
state by _Antipater_, that in a population of 21,000
citizens, only 9,000 had a property worth 2,000 drachmas or
more, that is, enough for a man to live on in the most
niggardly way, on the highest interest it would yield. If,
in addition to this, account be taken of the large number of
slaves, the small number of the property class is all the
more surprising, inasmuch as Lycurgus' financial
administration bears evidence that the people were in a
flourishing and comfortable condition; that afterwards,
peace for the most part prevailed, and that Alexander's
victories enabled Grecian commerce to make large gains.
Compare _Boeckh_, Staatsh. IV, 3, 9.

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

[Footnote 204-10: The disappearance of the middle class in
Rome, between the second and third Punic war, was brought
about chiefly by the great foreign conquests made by it. An
idea of the wealth which the governors of the provinces
might extort may be formed from this among other facts, that
Cicero originally demanded against Verres a fine of
5,000,000 thalers. (_Cic._, in Verrem Div., 5.) Verres is
related to have said, that he would be satisfied if he could
retain the first year's booty; that during the second, he
collected for his defenders; and during the third, for his
judges! (_Cic._, in Verr., I, 14.) Even _Cicero_ became
richer within the space of one year, in Cilicia, where it
was well known he was not oppressive, by 110,000 thalers,
which sum does not include numerous presents, pictures, etc.
(_Drumann_, Gesch. Roms., VI, 384.) On the frightful
oppression and extortion practised by Brutus (!) in Asia,
see _Cicero_, ad. Att, V, 21; VI, 1. _Sallust_, in his
Jugurtha, has shown how such men waged war, and to what
extremes their well-deserved want might push them in his
Catiline. _Patricium scelus!_ Most of the senators were in
debt to Crassus; and this, together with his great political
insurance-activity and power in elections, criminal cases at
law, etc., it depended that he, for a time, figured beside
Cæsar and Pompey.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 204-11: In medieval Italy, also, popular freedom
was lost through a moneyed oligarchy and a proletariat.
_Popolo grasso_ and _minuto_ (_bourgeoisie_--_peuple_) in
Florence. The former were reproached especially with the
breach of trust in the matter of the public moneys
(_Sismondi_, Gesch. der Ital. Republiken, II, 323, seq.),
which reminds one of the French cry, _corruption_ in 1847.
_Machiavelli_ gives a masterly description of the class
contrasts during the last quarter of the fourteenth century,
in his Istoria Fiorent., III, a. 1378, 4. The poor, whose
spokesmen recall the most desperate shibboleths of modern
socialists, dwell principally on this, that there is only
one important difference, that between rich and poor; that
all men are by nature entirely equal; that people get rich
only through deceit or violence; that the poor want revenge
etc. It is significant how, in Florence, the largest banker
finally became absolute despot, and that contemporaneously
in Genoa, the Bank of St. George, in a measure, absorbed the
state; the former supported by numerous loans made to
influential persons like Crassus (_Machiavelli_, Ist. Fior.,
VII); the latter by the overstraining of the system of
national debt.]