All slavery is based solely on the fact that one man can deprive another
of his life, and by threatening to do so can compel him to do his will.
We may see for certain that whenever one man is enslaved by another,
when, against his own will and by the will of another, he does certain
actions contrary to his inclination, the cause, if traced to its source,
is nothing more nor less than a result of this threat. If a man gives to
others all his labour, has not enough to eat, has to send his little
children from home to work hard, leaves the land, and devotes all his
life to a hated and unnecessary task, which happens before our own eyes
in the world (which we term civilized because we ourselves live in it),
then we may certainly say that he does so only because not to do so
would be equivalent to loss of life.
Therefore in our civilized world, where the majority of the people,
amidst terrible privations, perform hated labours unnecessary to
themselves, the greater number of men are in a slavery based on the
threat of being deprived of their existence. Of what, then, does this
slavery consist? Wherein lies this power of threat?
In olden times the means of subjugation and the threat to kill were
plain and obvious to all: the primitive means of enslaving men then
consisted in a direct threat to kill with the sword.
An armed man said to an unarmed, "I can kill thee, as thou hast seen I
have done to thy brother, but I do not want to do it: I will spare
thee,--first, because it is not agreeable for me to kill thee; secondly,
because, as well for me as for thee, it will be more convenient that
thou shouldst labour for me than that I should kill thee. Therefore do
all I order thee to do, but know that, if thou refusest, I will take thy
life."
So the unarmed man submitted to the armed one and did everything he was
ordered to do. The unarmed man laboured, the armed threatened. This was
that personal slavery which appeared first among all nations, and which
still exists among primitive races.
This means of enslaving always begins the work; but when life becomes
more complicated it undergoes a change. With the complication of life
such a method presents great inconveniences to the oppressor. Before he
can appropriate the labour of the weaker he must feed and clothe them
and keep them at work, and so their number remains small; and, besides,
this compels the slave-holder to remain continually with the slaves,
driving them to work by the threat of murdering them. And thus another
means of subjugation is developed.
Five thousand years ago (according to the Bible) this novel, convenient,
and clever means of oppression was discovered by Joseph the Beautiful.
It is similar to that employed now in the menageries for taming restive
horses and wild beasts.
It is hunger!
This contrivance is thus described in the Bible (Genesis xli., 48-57):--
And he (Joseph) gathered up all the food of the seven years, which
were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities: the
food of the field, which was round about every city, laid he up in
the same.
And Joseph gathered corn as the sand of the sea, very much, until he
left numbering; for it was without number.
And the seven years of plenteousness, that was in the land of Egypt,
were ended.
And the seven years of dearth began to come, according as Joseph had
said: and the dearth was in all lands; but in all the land of Egypt,
there was bread.
And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to
Pharaoh for bread: and Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, Go unto
Joseph; what he said to you, do.
And the famine was over all the face of the earth: And Joseph opened
all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians; and the famine
waxed sore in the land of Egypt.
And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; even
because that the famine was so sore in all lands.
Joseph, making use of the primitive means of enslaving men by the threat
of the sword, gathered corn during the years of plenty in expectation of
years of famine which generally follow years of plenty,--men know all
this without the dreams of Pharaoh,--and then by the pangs of hunger he
made all the Egyptians and the inhabitants of the surrounding countries
slaves to Pharaoh more securely and conveniently. And when the people
began to be famished, he arranged matters so as to keep them in his
power _forever_.
(Genesis xlvii., 13-26.) And there was no bread in all the land; for
the famine was very sore, so that the land of Egypt and all the land
of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine.
And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of
Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the corn which they bought:
and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house.
And when money failed in the land of Egypt, and in the land of
Canaan, all the Egyptians came unto Joseph, and said, Give us bread:
for why should we die in thy presence? for the money faileth. And
Joseph said, Give your cattle; and I will give you for your cattle,
if money fail. And they brought their cattle unto Joseph: and Joseph
gave them bread in exchange for horses, and for the flocks, and for
the cattle of the herds, and for the asses: and he fed them with
bread for all their cattle for that year.
When that year was ended, they came unto him the second year, and
said unto him, We will not hide it from my Lord, how that our money
is spent; my lord also hath our herds of cattle; there is not ought
left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands:
Wherefore shall we die before thine eyes, both we and our land? buy
us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto
Pharaoh: and give us seed, that we may live, and not die, and that
the land be not desolate. And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt
for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the
famine prevailed over them: so the land became Pharaoh's. And as for
the people, he removed them to cities from one end of the borders of
Egypt even to the other end thereof.
Only the lands of the priests bought he not; for the priests had a
portion assigned them of Pharaoh, and did eat their portion which
Pharaoh gave them: wherefore they sold not their lands.
Then Joseph said unto the people, Behold, I have bought you this day
and your land for Pharaoh: lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall
sow the land. And it shall come to pass in the increase, that ye
shall give the fifth part unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your
own, for seed of the field, and for your food, and for them of your
households, and for food for your little ones.
And they said, Thou hast saved our lives: let us find grace in the
sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh's servants.
And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt unto this day, that
Pharaoh should have the fifth part; except the land of the priests
only, which became not Pharaoh's.
Formerly, in order to appropriate labour, Pharaoh had to use violence
towards them; but now, when the stores and the land belonged to Pharaoh,
he had only to keep these stores by force, and hunger compelled the men
to labour for him.
All the land now belonged to Pharaoh, and he had all the stores (which
were taken away from the people); and therefore, instead of driving them
to work individually by the sword, he had only to keep food from them
and they were enslaved, not by the sword, but by hunger.
In a year of scarcity, all men may be starved to death at Pharaoh's
will; and in a year of plenty, all may be killed who, from casual
misfortunes, have no stores of corn.
Thus comes into operation the second means of enslaving, not directly
with the sword,--that is, by the strong man driving the weak one to
labour under threat of killing him,--but by the strong one having taken
away from the weak the stores of corn which, keeping by the sword, he
compels the weak to work for.
Joseph said to the hungry men, "I could starve you to death, because I
have the corn; but I will spare your lives, but only under the condition
that you do all I order you for the food which I will give you." For the
first means of enslaving, the oppressor only needs soldiers to ride to
and fro among the inhabitants, and make them fulfil the requirements of
their master under threat of death. And thus the oppressor has only to
pay his soldiers. But with the second means, besides the soldiers, the
oppressor must have different assistants for keeping and protecting the
land and stores from the starving people.
These are the Josephs and their stewards and distributors. And the
oppressor has to reward them, and to give Joseph a dress of brocade, a
gold ring, and servants, and corn and silver to his brothers and
relatives. Besides this, from the very nature of the second means, not
only the stewards and their relations, but all who have stores of corn
become participators in this violence, just as by the first means, based
upon immediate force, every one who has arms becomes a partner in
tyranny, so by this means, based upon hunger, every one who has stores
of provision shares in it, and has power over those who have no stores.
The advantage of this method over the former consists, first and
chiefly, in the fact that the oppressor need no longer compel the
workmen to do his will by force, for they themselves come to him and
sell themselves to him; secondly, in the circumstance that fewer men
escape from his violence. The drawback is, that he has to employ a
greater number of men. For the oppressed the advantage of it consists in
the fact that they are no longer exposed to rough violence but are left
to themselves; and can always hope to pass from being the oppressed to
becoming oppressors in their turn, which by fortunate circumstances they
sometimes really do. The drawback for them is, that they can never
escape from participating in the oppression of others.
This new means of enslaving generally comes into operation together with
the old one; and the oppressor lessens the one and increases the other
according to his desires. But this does not fully satisfy the man who
wishes to take away as much as possible of the products of the labour of
as many working-people as he can find, and to enslave as many men as
possible; and, therefore, a third means of oppression is evolved.
This is the slavery of taxation, and, like the second, it is based upon
hunger; but to the means of subduing men by depriving them of bread is
added the deprivation of other necessaries.
The oppressor requires from the slaves so much of the money he himself
has coined, that, in order to obtain it, the slaves are compelled to
sell not only stores of corn in greater quantity than the fifth part
which was fixed by Joseph, but the first necessaries of life as
well,--meat, skins, wool, clothes, firewood, even their buildings; and
therefore the oppressor always keeps his slaves in his power, not only
by hunger, but by thirst, cold and other privations.
And thus the third means of slavery comes into operation, a monetary,
tributary one, consisting in the oppressor saying to the oppressed, "I
can do with each of you just what I like; I can kill and destroy you by
taking away the land by which you earn your living; I can, with this
money which you must give me, buy all the corn upon which you feed, and
sell it to strangers, and at any time annihilate you by starvation; I
can take from you all that you have,--your cattle, your houses, your
clothes; but it is neither convenient nor agreeable for me to do so, and
therefore I let you alone, to work as you please; only give me so much
of the money which I demand of you, either as a poll-tax, or according
to your land or the quantity of your food and drink, or your clothes or
your houses. Give me this money, and do what you like among yourselves,
but know that I shall neither protect nor maintain widows nor orphans
nor invalids nor old people, nor such as have been burned out: I shall
only protect the regular circulation of this money. This right will
always be mine, to protect only those who regularly give me the fixed
number of these pieces of money: as to how or where you get it, I shall
not in the least trouble myself." And so the oppressor distributes these
pieces of money as an acknowledgement that his demand has been complied
with.
The second method of enslaving consisted in this, that, having taken
away the fifth part of the harvest, and collected stores of corn,
Pharaoh, besides the personal slavery by the sword, received, by his
assistants, the possibility of dominion over the working-people during
the time of famine, and over some of them during misfortunes which
happen to them.
The third method consists in this: Pharaoh requires from the
working-people more money than the value of the fifth part of corn which
he took from them; he and his assistants get a new means of dominion
over the working-class, not merely during the famine and their casual
misfortunes, but permanently.
By the second method, men retain some stores of corn which help them to
bear indifferent harvests and casual misfortunes without going into
slavery; but by the third, when there are more demands, the stores, not
of corn only but of all other necessaries of life are taken away from
them, and at the first misfortune a workman, having neither stores of
corn nor any other stores which he might exchange for corn, falls into
slavery to those who have money.
To set the first in motion an oppressor need have only soldiers, and
share the booty with them; for the second, besides the protectors of the
land and the stores, he must have collectors and clerks for the
distribution of the corn; for the third, besides the soldiers for
keeping the land and his property, he must have collectors of taxes,
assessors of direct taxation, supervisors, custom-house clerks, managers
of money, and coiners of it.
The organization of the third method is much more complicated than that
of the second. By the second, the getting in of corn may be leased out,
as was done in olden times and is still the custom in Turkey; but by
putting taxes on men there is need of a complicated administration,
which has to ensure the right levying of the taxes. And therefore by the
third method the oppressor has to share the plunder with a still greater
number of men than by the second; besides, according to the very nature
of the thing, all the men of the same or of the foreign country who
possess money become sharers with the oppressed.
The advantage of the third method over the first and second consists
chiefly in the following fact: that by it there is no need to wait for a
year of scarcity, as in the time of Joseph, but years of famine are
established forever, and (whilst by the second method the part of the
labour which is taken away depends upon the harvest, and cannot be
augmented _ad libitum_, because if there is no corn, there is nothing to
take) by the new _monetary_ method the requirement can be brought to any
desired limit, for the demand for money can always be satisfied, because
the debtor, to satisfy it, must sell his cattle, clothes, or houses. The
chief advantage to the oppressor of this method is that he can take away
the greatest quantity of labour in the most convenient way; for a
money-tax, like a screw, may easily and conveniently be turned to the
utmost limit, and golden eggs be obtained though the bird that lays them
is all but dead.
Another of its advantages for the oppressor is that its violence reaches
all those also who, by possessing no land, formerly escaped from it by
giving only a part of their labour for corn; whereas now, besides that
part which they give for corn, they must now give another part for
taxes. A drawback for the oppressor is that he has to share the plunder
with a still greater number of men, not only with his direct assistants,
but also with all those men of his own country, and even of foreign
countries, who may have the money which is demanded from the slaves.
Its advantage for the oppressed is only that he is allowed greater
independence than under the second method; he may live where he chooses,
do what he likes; he may sow or not sow; he has to give no account of
his labour; and if he has money, he may consider himself entirely free,
and constantly hope, though only for a time, to obtain not only an
independent position, but even to become an oppressor himself, when he
has money to spare.
The drawback for the oppressed is, that on a general average their
situation becomes much worse, and they are deprived of the greater part
of the products of their labour, because the number of those who utilize
their labour has increased, and therefore the burden of keeping them
falls upon a smaller number of men.
This third method of enslaving men is also very old, and comes into
operation with the former two without entirely excluding them.
These three methods of enslaving men have always been in operation.
They may all be compared to screws which secure the board laid on the
work-people which presses them down. The fundamental, or middle screw,
without which the other screws could not hold, which is first screwed
up, and which is never slackened, is the screw of personal slavery, the
enslaving of some men by others under threat of slaughter; the second,
which is screwed up after the first, is that of enslaving men by taking
away the land and stores of provisions from them, such alienation being
maintained by the threat to murder; and the third screw is slavery
enforced by the requirement of certain money taxes; and this demand is
also maintained under threat of murder.
These three screws are made fast, and it is only when one of them is
tightened more that the others are slackened. For the complete
enslavement of the workman, all three are necessary; and in our society,
all three are in operation together. The first method of personal
slavery under threat of murder by the sword has never been abolished,
and never will be so long as there is any oppression, because every kind
of oppression is based on this alone.
We are all quite sure that personal slavery is abolished in our
civilized world; that the last remnant of it has been annihilated in
America and in Russia, and that it is only among the barbarians that
real slavery exists, and that with us it is no longer in being. We
forget only one small circumstance,--those hundreds of millions of
standing troops without which no state exists, and with the abolition of
which all the economical organization of each state would inevitably
fall to pieces. Yet what are these millions of soldiers but the personal
slaves of those who rule them? Are not these men compelled to do the
will of their commanders under the threat of torture and death,--a
threat often carried out? the difference consisting only in the fact
that the submission of these slaves is not called slavery, but
discipline, and that slaves are slaves from their birth, but soldiers
only during a more or less short period of their so-called "service."
Personal slavery, therefore, is not only not abolished in our civilized
world, but, under the system of conscription, it has of late years been
confirmed; and it has remained as it has always existed, only slightly
changed from its original form. And it cannot but exist, because, so
long as there is the enslaving of one man by another there will be this
personal slavery too, this slavery which, under the threat of the sword,
maintains serfdom, land-ownership, and taxes.
It may be that this slavery of troops is useful, as it is said, for the
defence and the glory of the country; but this kind of utility is more
than doubtful, because we see how often in the case of unsuccessful wars
it serves only for the subjugation and shame of the country. But of the
expediency of this slavery for maintaining that of the land and taxes
there is no question.
If Irish or Russian peasants were to take possession of the land of the
proprietors, troops would be sent to dispossess them. If you build a
distillery or a brewery and do not pay excise, then soldiers will be
sent to shut it up. Refuse to pay taxes, and the same thing will happen
to you.
The second screw is the method of enslaving men by taking away from them
their land and their stores of provisions. This method has also always
been in existence wherever men are oppressed; and, whatever changes it
may undergo, it is everywhere in operation.
Sometimes all the land belongs to the sovereign, as in Turkey, and there
one-tenth is given to the state treasury. Sometimes a part of the land
belongs to the sovereign, and taxes are raised on it. Sometimes all the
land belongs to a few people and is let out for labour, as in England.
Sometimes more or less large portions of land belong to the land-owners,
as in Russia, Germany, and France. But wherever there is enslaving there
exists also the appropriation of the land by the oppressor, and this
screw is slackened or tightened only according to the condition of the
other screws.
Thus, in Russia, when personal slavery was extended to the majority of
the working-people there was no need of land-slavery; but the screw of
personal slavery was slackened in Russia only when the screws of land
and tax slavery were tightened. Only when the government had
appropriated the land and divided it among private individuals, and had
instituted money payments and taxation, did it give the peasants
personal freedom.
In England, for instance, land-slavery is pre-eminently in operation,
and the question about the nationalizing of the land consists only in
the screw of taxation being tightened in order that the screw of land
appropriation may be slackened.
The third method of enslaving men, by taxes, has also been in operation
for ages; and in our days, with the extension of uniform standards of
money and the strengthening of state powers it has become an especially
powerful influence.
This method is so developed in our days that it tends to be a substitute
for the second method of enslaving,--the land monopoly.
It is obvious from the state of the political economy of all Europe,
that it is by the tightening of this screw that the screw of land
slavery is slackened.
In our own lifetime we have witnessed in Russia two transformations of
slavery. When the serfs were liberated, and their landlords retained the
right to the greater part of the soil, the landlords were afraid they
would lose their power; but experience has shown that having let go the
whole chain of personal slavery, they had only to seize another,--that
of the land. A peasant was short of corn; he had not enough to live on.
The landlord had land and stores of corn: and therefore the peasant
still remained the same slave.
Another transformation was caused by the government screw of taxation
being pressed home. The majority of working-people, having no stores,
were obliged to sell themselves to their landlords and to the factories.
This new form of oppression held the people still tighter, so that
nine-tenths of the Russian working-people are still working for their
landlords and in the factories to pay these taxes. This is so obvious,
that, if the government were to remit taxation for one year only, all
labour would be stopped in the fields of the landlords, and in the
factories. Nine-tenths of the Russian people hire themselves out during
and before the collection of taxes.
All these three methods have never ceased to operate, and are still in
operation, but people are inclined to ignore them or to invent new
excuses for them. And, what is most remarkable of all is, that the very
means on which everything is based, that screw which is screwed up
tighter than all others, which holds everything at the moment in
question, is not noticed so long as it holds. When in the ancient world
the entire economical order was upheld by personal slavery, the greatest
intellects did not notice it. To Plato, as well as to Xenophon, and
Aristotle, and to the Romans, it seemed that it could not be otherwise,
and that slavery was an unavoidable and natural result of wars, without
which the existence of mankind was inconceivable. Similarly, in the
Middle Ages, and till recently, people did not apprehend the meaning of
land-ownership, on which depended the entire economical organization of
their time.
So also, at present, no one sees or wants to see, that in our time the
slavery of the majority of the people depends on taxes collected by the
government from its own land slaves, taxes collected _by administration
and the troops_,--by the very same troops which are maintained by these
taxes.