THE STATE
_ITS HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT VIEWED
SOCIOLOGICALLY_
_By_ FRANZ OPPENHEIMER, M.D., PH.D.
Professor of Political Science in the University of Frankfort-on-Main
_Authorized Translation_
_By_ JOHN M. GITTERMAN, PH.D., LL.B.
(Of the New York County Bar)
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
VANGUARD PRESS
_Copyright_, 1914
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
_Copyright_, 1922
B. W. HUEBSCH, INC.
VANGUARD PRINTINGS
_First--August, 1926_
_Second--February, 1928_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
THE MAN (1864--):
_Franz Oppenheimer_, one of a fairly large number of British,
French and German physicians who abandoned their medical pursuits
and rose to fame as political economists, was born in Berlin.
He studied and practiced medicine, became private Lecturer of
Economics at the Berlin University in 1909, and Professor of
Sociology at the Frankfort University in 1919. His libertarian
views made him, for many years, the target of academic
persecutions, until the growing fame of his masterpiece, _The
State_, effectively silenced his detractors.
THE BOOK (1908):
The organic history of the State is a long and exciting
adventure, usually rendered dull in learned accounts. Not so
in Oppenheimer’s _The State_ which extracts that history, in
a highly stimulating manner, from the sharp necessities and
homicidal conflicts of all sorts and conditions of men, from the
Stone Age to the Age of Henry Ford. The easy flow of important
information derivable from this German volume has rendered it
highly acceptable to American readers.
OTHER BOOKS BY DOCTOR FRANZ OPPENHEIMER
Die Siedlungsgenossenschaft 1896
Grossgrundeigentum und Soziale Frage 1898
Das Grundgesetz der Marxschen Gesellschaftslehre 1903
Robertus’ Angriff auf Ricardos Renten-theorie
und der Lexis-Diehl’sche Rettungsversuch 1908
David Ricardos Grundrententheorie 1909
Theorie der Reinen und Politischen Ökonomie 1910
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
TO THE SECOND AMERICAN EDITION
This little book has made its way. In addition to the present
translation into English, there are authorized editions in French,
Hungarian and Serbian. I am also informed that there are translations
published in Japanese, Russian, Hebrew and Yiddish; but these, of
course, are pirated. The book has stood the test of criticism, and has
been judged both favorably and unfavorably. It has, unquestionably,
revived the discussion on the origin and essence of the State.
Several prominent ethnologists, particularly Holsti, the present
Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Finnish Free State, have attacked
the basic principle formulated and demonstrated in this Work, but they
have failed, because their definition of the State assumed the very
matter that required to be proven. They have brought together a large
array of facts in proof of the existence of some forms of _Government_
and _Leadership_, even where no classes obtained, and to the substance
of these forms they have given the name of “The State.” It is not
my intention to controvert these facts. It is self-evident, that in
any group of human beings, be it ever so small, there must exist an
authority which determines conflicts and, in extraordinary situations,
assumes the leadership. But this authority is not “The State,” in
the sense in which I use the word. The State may be defined as an
organization of _one class_ dominating over the other classes. Such
a class organization can come about in one way only, namely, through
conquest and the subjection of ethnic groups by the dominating group.
This can be demonstrated with almost mathematical certainty. Not one of
my critics has brought proofs to invalidate this thesis. Most modern
sociologists, among whom may be named Albion Small, Alfred Vierkandt
and Wilhelm Wundt, accept this thesis. Wilhelm Wundt, in particular,
asserts in unmistakable language, that “the political society (a
term identical with the State in the sense employed in this book)
first came about and could originate only in the period of migration
and conquest,” whereby the subjugation of one people by another was
effected.
But even some of my opponents are favorably inclined to my arguments,
as in the case of the venerable Adolf Wagner, whose words I am proud
to quote. In his article on “The State” in the _Handwörterbuch der
Staatswissenschaften_, he writes: “The sociologic concept of the State,
to which I have referred, particularly in the broad scope and treatment
of it given by Oppenheimer, deserves careful consideration, especially
from political economists and political historians. The vista opened
out, from this point of view, of the economic development of peoples
and that of the State during historic times, should be attractive even
to the opponents of the concept itself.”
The “sociologic concept of the State,” as Ludwig Gumplowicz termed it,
is assured of ultimate general acceptance. Its opponents are strenuous
and persevering, and I once called them “the sociologic root of all
evil;” but the concept, none the less, is the basic principle of
“bourgeoisie” sociology, and will be found of value in the study, not
only of economics and history, but in that of Law and Constitutional
History. I permit myself to make a few remarks on this point.
The earliest evidence of the recognition of the idea underlying the
_law of previous accumulation_, may be traced back, at the latest, to
the period of the decay of classical civilization, at the time when
the capitalistic slave economy brought the city states to ruin as
though their peoples had suffered from a galloping consumption. As
in our modern capitalistic age, which resembles that period in many
respects, there occurred a breach in all those naturally developed
relations in which the individual has found protection. What Ferdinand
Toennies calls the “community bonds” were loosened. The individual
found himself unprotected, compelled to rely on his own efforts and
on his own reason in the seething sea of competition which followed.
The collective reason, the product of the wisdom of thousands of years
of experience, could no longer guide or safeguard him. It had become
scattered. Out of this need for an individual reason, there arose the
idea of _nationalism_. This idea had its justification at first, as a
line of development and a method in the newly born science of social
government; but when later it became what Rubenstein (in his work
_Romantic Socialism_) calls a “tendency,” it was not justified. The
community, to use Toennies’ term, changed into a “society.” “Contract”
seemed to be the only bond that held men together--the contract based
on the purely rationalistic relation of service for service, the _do
ut des_, the “Contrat Social” of Rousseau. A “society” would thus
appear to be a union of self-seeking individuals who hoped through
combination to obtain their personal satisfactions. Aristotle had
taught that the State had developed, by gradual growth, from the family
group. The Stoics and Epicureans held that individuals formed the
State--with this difference, that the former viewed the individual as
being socially inclined by nature, and the latter that he was naturally
anti-social. To the Stoics, therefore, the “State of Nature” was a
peaceful union; to the Epicureans it was a war of each against the
other, with Society as a compelling means for a decent modus vivendi.
With the one a Society was conditioned “physei” (by nature); with the
other it was “nomo” (by decree).
In spite, however, of this fundamental difference between these
schools, both assumed the premise that, at the beginning, individuals
were _free_, _equal_ politically and economically, and that it was from
such an original social order there had developed, through gradual
differentiation, the fully developed State with its class hierarchy.
This is the _law of previous accumulation_.
But we should err if we believed that this thesis was originally
intended as a historical account. Rationalism is essentially
unhistoric, even anti-historic. On the contrary, the thesis was
originally put forward as a “fiction,” a theory, a conscious
unhistorical assumption. In this form it acquired the name of _natural
law_. It was under this name that it came into modern thought,
tinctured stoically in Grotius and Puffendorf, and epicureanally in
Hobbes. It became the operative weapon of thought among the rising
third estate of the capitalists.
The capitalists used the weapon, first against the feudal state with
its privileged class, and, later against the fourth estate, with its
class theory of Socialism. Against the feudal domination it argued
that a “Law of Nature” knows and permits no privileges. After its
victories in the English Revolution of 1648, and the great French
Revolution of 1789, it justified, by the same reasoning, its own _de
facto_ pre-eminence, its own social and economic class superiority,
against the claims of the working classes. According to Adam Smith, the
classes in a society are the results of “natural” development. From an
original state of equality, these arose from no other cause than the
exercise of the economic virtues of industry, frugality and providence.
Since these virtues are pre-eminently those of a bourgeoisie society,
the capitalist rule, thus sanctioned by natural law, is just and
unassailable. As a corollary to this theorem the claims of Socialism
cannot be admitted.
Thus, what originally was put forward as a “fiction,” became first, a
hypothesis and finally the _axiom_ of all bourgeoisie sociology. Those
who support it accept the axiom as self-evident, as not requiring
proof. For them, class domination, on this theory, is the result of a
gradual differentiation from an original state of general equality and
freedom, with no implication in it of any extra-economic power. Robert
Malthus applied this alleged law to the future, in his attempt to
demonstrate any kind of Socialism to be purely Utopian. His celebrated
_Law of Population_ is nothing but the _law of original accumulation_
projected into the future. He claims that if any attempt were made to
restore the state of economic equality, the workings of the law would
have the effect--because of the difference in economic efficiency--of
restoring modern class conditions. All orthodox sociology begins
with the struggle against this supposed law of class formations. Yet
every step of progress made in the various fields of the science of
sociology, has been made by tearing up, one by one, the innumerable and
far-spreading roots which have proceeded from this supposed axiom. A
sound sociology has to recall the fact that class formation in historic
times, did not take place through gradual differentiation in pacific
economic competition, but was the result of violent conquest and
subjugation.
As both Capitalism and Socialism had their origins in England,
these new ideas were certain to find their first expression in that
country. So that we find Gerrard Winstanley, the leader of the “true
levellers” of Cromwell’s time, arraying the facts of history against
this anti-historical theoretical assumption. He showed that the
English ruling class (the Squirearchy) was composed essentially of the
victorious conquerors, the Normans, and that the subject class were the
conquered English Saxons. But his demonstration had little influence.
It was only when the great French Revolution brought the contrast out
sharply that the thought sunk in. No less a person than Count St.
Simon, acknowledged as the founder of the science of modern sociology,
and the no less scientific Socialism, discovered in the dominant class
of his country the Frankish and Burgundian conquerors, and in its
subject population, the descendants of the Romanized Celts. It was
the publication of this discovery that gave birth to Western European
sociology. The conclusions drawn from it were carried further by St.
Simon’s disciple, August Comte, in his _Philosophy of History_, and
by the Saint Simonists, Enfantin and Bazard. These thinkers had great
influence on the economic development of the next century; but their
chief contribution was the elaboration of the sociologic idea of the
State.
Among the peoples of Western Europe, the new sociology found a readier
acceptance than it did among those of Eastern Europe. The reason for
this can easily be seen when it is remembered that in the East the
contrast between the “State” and “Society,” had not been so definitely
realized, as it had been in the West. Even in the West, this contrast
was only fully appreciated, as a social fact, in England, France, the
Netherlands and Italy, because in these countries only the class of
mobile wealth which had worked its way up as the third estate, had
succeeded in ousting the feudal “State.” In France, the league of the
capitalists with the Crown against the then armed and active nobility
had succeeded in subjecting the Frondeurs under the absolute power of
the King. From this time on, this new estate represented itself as
the Nation, and the term “National Economy” takes the place of the
older term “Political Economy.” The members of this third estate felt
themselves to be those subjects of the State whose rights and liberties
had been curtailed by the privileges of the two dominant estates of
the nobility and the clergy. Henceforth, the Third Estate proclaims
the rights of “Society” and against the “State,” opposes the eternal
Law of Nature--that of original equality and freedom--against the
theoretic-historical rights of the Estates. The concept of Society as a
contrast to the concept of the State, first appears in Locke, and from
his time on this contrast was more and more defined, especially in the
writings of the physiocrat school of economists.
In this struggle between classes and ideas, neither Middle nor Eastern
Europe played any important part. In Germany there had once developed
a Capitalist class (in the period of the Fuggers of Augsburg) which
attained to almost American magnitude. But it was crushed by the
Religious Wars and the various French invasions of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, which left Germany a devastated, depopulated
desert. At the end of the period there remained a few cities and small
states under the absolute domination of princes. Within the cities
the artisans were bound together in their craft-leagues, and the rest
consisted of those of educational pursuits and academic officials. In
a large degree all these were dependent on the State--the members of
the craft-guilds because they accepted a privileged condition, the
officials because they were servants of the State, and the professional
men, because they belonged to the upper estate of the society. For this
reason there was no economic or social movement of the third estate in
Germany; there was only a literary movement influenced by the flow of
ideas from the West. This explains why the contrast between the two
ideas of the State and of Society was not present in the minds of the
German people. On the contrary, the two terms were used as synonyms,
both connotating an essentially necessary conformity to nature.
But there is still another cause for this difference in the mental
attitude between Western and Eastern Europe. In England and France,
from the time of Descartes, the problems and inquiries of science
were set by men trained in mathematics and the natural sciences.
Especially in the new study of the philosophy of history, the beginning
of our modern sociology, did these men act as guides. In Germany, on
the contrary, it was the theologians and especially the Protestant
theologians who were the leaders of thought. In their hands the State
came to be looked upon as an instrument of Divine fashioning, and,
indeed, of immanent divinity. This thought resulted in a worship of
the State, which reached its height in the well-known Hegelian system.
It thus happened that two rivers of thought flowed for a time side by
side--the Sociology of Western Europe, and the philosophy of History of
Germany--with occasional intercommunicating streams, such as Althusios
and Puffendorf into the French, English and Dutch teaching of natural
law, and that of Rousseau into Hegel. In 1840, however, a direct
junction was effected through Lorenz Stein, one of Hegel’s most gifted
pupils who, later, became the leading German teacher of administrative
law, and influenced generations of thinkers. He came to Paris, as a
young man, for the purpose of studying Socialism at the fountain head.
He became acquainted with the celebrated men of that heroic time--with
Enfintin and Bazard, with Louis Blanc, Reybaud, and Proudhon.
Lorenz Stein absorbed the new thought with enthusiasm, and in his
fertile mind there was precipitated the creative synthesis between the
Western Europe scientific sociological thought and the metaphysical
German philosophy of history. The product was called by him the Science
of Society (_Gesellschaftswissenschaft_). It is from the writings of
Stein that almost all the important developments of German sociologic
thought received their first impulses. Karl Marx, especially (as Struve
has shown), as well as Schaeffle, Othmar Spann and Gumplowicz are
largely indebted to him.
It is not my purpose to develop this historical theme. I am concerned
only in tracing the development of the sociologic idea of the State.
The first effect of this meeting of the two streams of thought was a
mischievous confusion of terminology. The writers in Western Europe had
long ago lost control of the unification of expressions in thinking.
As stated above, the Third Estate began by thinking itself to be
“Society,” as opposed to the State. But when the Fourth Estate grew to
class consciousness and became aware of its own theoretic existence,
it arrogated to itself the term “Society” (as may be seen from the
selection of the word Socialism), and it treated the Bourgeoisie as a
form of the “State,” of the class state. There were thus two widely
differing concepts of “Society.” Yet here was an underlying idea common
to both Bourgeoisie and Socialist, since they conceived the State as
a collection of privileges arising and maintained _in violation_ of
natural law, while Society was thought of as the prescribed form of
human union in _conformity_ with natural law. They differed in one
essential only, namely, that while the Third Estate declared its
capitalistic Society to be the result of the processes of natural law,
the Socialists regarded their aims as not yet attained, and proclaimed
that the ideal society of the future which would really be the product
of the processes of natural law, could only be realized by the
elimination of all “surplus value.” Though both were in conflict with
regard to fundamentals, both agreed in viewing the “State” as _civitas
diaboli_ and “Society” as _civitas dei_.
Stein, however, reversed the objectives of the two concepts. As an
Hegelian, and pre-eminently a worshipper of the State, he conceived the
State as _civitas coelestis_. Society, which he understood to mean only
the dominant bourgeoisie Society, he viewed through the eyes of his
Socialist friends and teachers, and conceived it as _civitas terrena_.
What in Plato’s sense is the “pure idea,” the “ordre naturel” of the
early physiocrats and termed by Frenchmen and Englishmen “Society,”
was to Stein, the “State.” What had been contaminated and made impure
by the admixture of coarse matter, they termed the “State,” while
the German called it “Society.” In reality, however, there is little
difference between the two. Stein realized with pain, that Hegel’s pure
concept of a State based on right and freedom, was bound to remain
an “idea” only. Eternally fettered, as he assumed it must be, by the
forces of property and the culture proceeding from them, it could never
be a fact. This is his conclusion regarding “Society,” so that its
effective development is obstructed by the beneficent association of
human beings, as Stein conceived that association.
Thus was attained the very pinnacle of confused thinking. All German
sociologists, with the single exception of Carl Dietzel, soon realized
that the Hegelian concept of the State was impotent, existing only in
the “Idea.” In no point did it touch the reality of historical growth,
and in no sense could it be made to stand for what had always been
considered as the State. Long ago both Marx and Bakunin--respectively
the founders of scientific collectivism and practical anarchism--and
especially Ludwig Gumplowicz, abandoned the Hegelian terminology and
accepted that of Western Europe and this has been generally accepted
everywhere.
In this little book I have followed the Western European terminology.
By the “State,” I do not mean the human aggregation which may perchance
_come about to be_, or, as it properly _should be_. I mean by it
that summation of privileges and dominating positions which are
brought into being by extra-economic power. And in contrast to this,
I mean by Society, the totality of concepts of all purely natural
relations and institutions between man and man, which will not be
fully realized until the last remnant of the creations of the barbaric
“ages of conquest and migration,” has been eliminated from community
life. Others may call any form of leadership and government or some
other ideal, the “State.” That is a matter of personal choice. It is
useless to quarrel about definitions. But it might be well if those
other thinkers were to understand that they have not controverted the
sociologic idea of the “State,” if a concept of the “State” grounded on
a different basis, does not correspond to that which they have evolved.
And they must guard themselves particularly against the danger of
applying any definition other than that used in this book to those
actual historical products which have hitherto been called “States,”
the essence, development, course and future of which must be explained
by any true teaching or philosophy of the State.
FRANZ OPPENHEIMER.
Frankfort-on-Main, April 1922.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
AUTHOR’S PREFACE iii
I THEORIES OF THE STATE 1
The Sociological Idea of the State 15
II THE GENESIS OF THE STATE 22
(a) Political and Economic Means 24
(b) Peoples Without a State: Huntsmen and Grubbers 27
(c) Peoples Preceding the State: Herdsmen and Vikings 33
(d) The Genesis of the State 51
III THE PRIMITIVE FEUDAL STATE 82
(a) The Form of Dominion 82
(b) The Integration 89
(c) The Differentiation: Group Theories and Group
Psychology 92
(d) The Primitive Feudal State of Higher Grade 105
IV THE MARITIME STATE 121
(a) Traffic in Prehistoric Times 122
(b) Trade and the Primitive State 135
(c) The Genesis of the Maritime State 140
(d) Essence and Issue of the Maritime States 155
V THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FEUDAL STATE 174
(a) The Genesis of Landed Property 174
(b) The Central Power in the Primitive Feudal State 182
(c) The Political and Social Disintegration of the
Primitive Feudal State 191
(d) The Ethnic Amalgamation 213
(e) The Developed Feudal State 221
VI THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL STATE 229
(a) The Emancipation of the Peasantry 231
(b) The Genesis of the Industrial State 236
(c) The Influences of Money Economy 243
(d) The Modern Constitutional State 257
VII THE TENDENCY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE STATE 274
NOTES 293
THE STATE
CHAPTER I
THEORIES OF THE STATE
This treatise regards the State from the sociological standpoint only,
not from the juristic--sociology, as I understand the word, being both
a philosophy of history and a theory of economics. Our object is to
trace the development of the State from its socio-psychological genesis
up to its modern constitutional form; after that, we shall endeavor to
present a well-founded prognosis concerning its future development.
Since we shall trace only the State’s inner, essential being, we need
not concern ourselves with the external forms of law under which its
international and intra-national life is assumed. This treatise, in
short, is a contribution to the philosophy of State development; but
only in so far as the law of development here traced from its generic
form affects also the social problems common to all forms of the modern
State.
With this limitation of treatment in mind, we may at the outset dismiss
all received doctrines of public law. Even a cursory examination of
conventional theories of the State is sufficient to show that they
furnish no explanation of its genesis, essence and purpose. These
theories represent all possible shadings between all imaginable
extremes. Rousseau derives the State from a social contract, while
Carey ascribes its origin to a band of robbers. Plato and the followers
of Karl Marx endow the State with omnipotence, making it the absolute
lord over the citizen in all political and economic matters; while
Plato even goes so far as to wish the State to regulate sexual
relations. The Manchester school, on the other hand, going to the
opposite extreme of liberalism, would have the State exercise only
needful police functions, and would thus logically have as a result
a scientific anarchism which must utterly exterminate the State.
From these various and conflicting views, it is impossible either to
establish a fixed principle, or to formulate a satisfactory concept of
the real essence of the State.
This irreconcilable conflict of theories is easily explained by the
fact that none of the conventional theories treats the State from the
sociological view-point. Nevertheless, the State is a phenomenon common
to all history, and its essential nature can only be made plain by a
broad and comprehensive study of universal history. Except in the field
of sociology, the king’s highway of science, no treatment of the State
has heretofore taken this path. All previous theories of the State
have been class theories. To anticipate somewhat the outcome of our
researches, every State has been and is a class State, and every theory
of the State has been and is a class theory.
A class theory is, however, of necessity, not the result of
investigation and reason, but a by-product of desires and will. Its
arguments are used, not to establish truth, but as weapons in the
contest for material interests. The result, therefore, is not science,
but nescience. By understanding the State, we may indeed recognize the
essence of theories concerning the State. But the converse is not true.
An understanding of theories about the State will give us no clue to
its essence.
The following may be stated as a ruling concept, especially prevalent
in university teaching, of the origin and essence of the State. It
represents a view which, in spite of manifold attacks, is still
affirmed.
It is maintained that the State is an organization of human community
life, which originates by reason of a social instinct implanted in men
by nature (Stoic Doctrine); or else is brought about by an irresistible
impulse to end the “war of all against all,” and to coerce the savage,
who opposes organized effort, to a peaceable community life in place
of the anti-social struggle in which all budding shoots of advancement
are destroyed (Epicurean Doctrine). These two apparently irreconcilable
concepts were fused by the intermediation of mediæval philosophy.
This, founded on theologic reasoning and belief in the Bible, developed
the opinion that man, originally and by nature a social creature, is,
through original sin, the fratricide of Cain and the transgression at
the tower of Babel, divided into innumerable tribes, which fight to the
hilt, until they unite peaceably as a State.
This view is utterly untenable. It confuses the logical concept of a
class with some subordinate species thereof. Granted that the State is
_one_ form of organized political cohesion, it is also to be remembered
that it is a form having _specific_ characteristics. Every state in
history was or is a _state of classes_, a polity of superior and
inferior social groups, based upon distinctions either of rank or of
property. This phenomenon must, then, be called the “State.” With it
alone history occupies itself.
We should, therefore, be justified in designating every other
form of political organization by the same term, without further
differentiation, had there never existed any other than a class-state,
or were it the only conceivable form. At least, proof might properly
be called for, to show that each conceivable political organization,
even though originally it did not represent a polity of superior and
inferior social and economic classes, since it is of necessity subject
to inherent laws of development, must in the end be resolved into the
specific class form of history. Were such proof forthcoming, it would
offer in fact only one form of political amalgamation, calling in
turn for differentiation at various stages of development, viz., the
preparatory stage, when class distinction does not exist, and the stage
of maturity, when it is fully developed.
Former students of the philosophy of the State were dimly aware of this
problem. And they tried to adduce the required proof, that because of
inherent tendencies of development, every human political organization
must gradually become a class-state. Philosophers of the canon law
handed this theory down to philosophers of the law of nature. From
these, through the mediation of Rousseau, it became a part of the
teachings of the economists; and even to this day it rules their views
and diverts them from the facts.
This assumed proof is based upon the concept of a “primitive
accumulation,” or an original store of wealth, in lands and in movable
property, brought about by means of purely economic forces; a doctrine
justly derided by Karl Marx as a “fairy tale.” Its scheme of reasoning
approximates this:
Somewhere, in some far-stretching, fertile country, a number of free
men, of equal status, form a union for mutual protection. Gradually
they differentiate into property classes. Those best endowed with
strength, wisdom, capacity for saving, industry and caution, slowly
acquire a basic amount of real or movable property; while the stupid
and less efficient, and those given to carelessness and waste, remain
without possessions. The well-to-do lend their productive property to
the less well-off in return for tribute, either ground rent or profit,
and become thereby continually richer, while the others always remain
poor. These differences in possession gradually develop social class
distinctions; since everywhere the rich have preference, while they
alone have the time and the means to devote to public affairs and
to turn the laws administered by them to their own advantage. Thus,
in time, there develops a ruling and property-owning estate, and a
proletariate, a class without property. The primitive state of free and
equal fellows becomes a class-state, by an inherent law of development,
because in every conceivable mass of men there are, as may readily be
seen, strong and weak, clever and foolish, cautious and wasteful ones.
This seems quite plausible, and it coincides with the experience of our
daily life. It is not at all unusual to see an especially gifted member
of the lower class rise from his former surroundings, and even attain
a leading position in the upper class; or conversely, to see some
spendthrift or weaker member of the higher group “lose his class” and
drop into the proletariate.
And yet this entire theory is utterly mistaken; it is a “fairy tale,”
or it is a class theory used to justify the privileges of the upper
classes. The class-state never originated in this fashion, and never
could have so originated. History shows that it did not; and economics
shows deductively, with a testimony absolute, mathematical and binding,
that it could not. A simple problem in elementary arithmetic shows that
the assumption of an original accumulation is totally erroneous, and
has nothing to do with the development of the class-state.
The proof is as follows: All teachers of natural law, etc., have
unanimously declared that the differentiation into income-receiving
classes and propertyless classes can only take place when all fertile
lands have been occupied. For so long as man has ample opportunity
to take up unoccupied land, “no one,” says Turgot, “would think of
entering the service of another;” we may add, “at least for wages,
which are not apt to be higher than the earnings of an independent
peasant working an unmortgaged and sufficiently large property;” while
mortgaging is not possible as long as land is yet free for the working
or taking, as free as air and water. Matter that is obtainable for the
taking has no value that enables it to be pledged, since no one loans
on things that can be had for nothing.
The philosophers of natural law, then, assumed that complete occupancy
of the ground must have occurred quite early, because of the natural
increase of an originally small population. They were under the
impression that at their time, in the eighteenth century, it had taken
place many centuries previous, and they naïvely deduced the existing
class aggroupment from the assumed conditions of that long-past point
of time. It never entered their heads to work out their problem; and
with few exceptions their error has been copied by sociologists,
historians and economists. It is only quite recently that my figures
were worked out, and they are truly astounding.[A]
[A] Franz Oppenheimer, _Theorie der Reinen und Politischen Œkonomie_.
Berlin, 1912.--_Translator._
We can determine with approximate accuracy the amount of land of
average fertility in the temperate zone, and also what amount is
sufficient to enable a family of peasants to exist comfortably, or
how much such a family can work with its own forces, without engaging
outside help or permanent farm servants. At the time of the migration
of the barbarians (350 to 750 A. D.), the lot of each able-bodied man
was about thirty morgen (equal to twenty acres) on average lands, on
very good ground only ten to fifteen morgen (equal to seven or ten
acres), four morgen being equal to one hectare. Of this land, at least
a third, and sometimes a half, was left uncultivated each year. The
remainder of the fifteen to twenty morgen sufficed to feed and fatten
into giants the immense families of these child-producing Germans, and
this in spite of the primitive technique, whereby at least half the
productive capacity of a day was lost. Let us assume that, in these
modern times, thirty morgen (equal to twenty acres) for the average
peasant suffices to support a family. We have then assumed a block
of land sufficiently large to meet any objection. Modern Germany,
populated as it is, contains an agricultural area of thirty-four
million hectares (equal to eighty-four million, fifteen thousand, four
hundred and eighty acres). The agricultural population, including
farm laborers and their families, amounts to seventeen million; so
that, assuming five persons to a family and an equal division of the
farm lands, each family would have ten hectares (equal to twenty-five
acres). In other words, not even in the Germany of our own day would
the point have been reached where, according to the theories of the
adherents of natural law, differentiation into classes would begin.
Apply the same process to countries less densely settled, such, for
example, as the Danube States, Turkey, Hungary and Russia, and still
more astounding results will appear. As a matter of fact, there are
still on the earth’s surface, seventy-three billion, two hundred
million hectares (equal to one hundred eighty billion, eight hundred
eighty million and four hundred sixteen thousand acres); dividing
into the first amount the number of human beings of all professions
whatever, viz., one billion, eight hundred million, every family of
five persons could possess about thirty morgen (equal to eighteen
and a half acres), _and still leave about two-thirds of the planet
unoccupied_.
If, therefore, purely economic causes are ever to bring about a
differentiation into classes by the growth of a propertyless laboring
class, the time has not yet arrived; and the critical point at which
ownership of land will cause a natural scarcity is thrust into the dim
future--if indeed it ever can arrive.
As a matter of fact, however, for centuries past, in all parts of the
world, we have had a class-state, with possessing classes on top and
a propertyless laboring class at the bottom, even when population was
much less dense than it is to-day. Now it is true that the class-state
can arise only where all fertile acreage has been _occupied_
completely; and since I have shown that even at the present time, all
the ground is not occupied economically, this must mean that it has
been preëmpted politically. Since land could not have acquired “natural
scarcity,” the scarcity must have been “legal.” This means that the
land has been preëmpted by a ruling class against its subject class,
and settlement prevented. Therefore the State, as a class-state, can
have originated in no other way than through conquest and subjugation.
This view, the so-called “sociologic idea of the state,” as the
following will show, is supported in ample manner by well-known
historical facts. And yet most modern historians have rejected it,
holding that both groups, amalgamated by war into one State, before
that time had, each for itself formed a “State.” As there is no method
of obtaining historical proof to the contrary, since the beginnings
of human history are unknown, we should arrive at a verdict of “not
proven,” were it not that, deductively, there is the absolute certainty
that the State, as history shows it, the class-state, could not have
come about except through warlike subjugation. The mass of evidence
shows that our simple calculation excludes any other result.
THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEA OF THE STATE
To the originally, purely sociological, idea of the State, I have added
the economic phase and formulated it as follows:
What, then, is the State as a sociological concept? The State,
completely in its genesis, essentially and almost completely during the
first stages of its existence, is a social institution, forced by a
victorious group of men on a defeated group, with the sole purpose of
regulating the dominion of the victorious group over the vanquished,
and securing itself against revolt from within and attacks from abroad.
Teleologically, this dominion had no other purpose than the economic
exploitation of the vanquished by the victors.
No primitive state known to history originated in any other manner.[1]
Wherever a reliable tradition reports otherwise, either it concerns
the amalgamation of two fully developed primitive states into one body
of more complete organization; or else it is an adaptation to men of
the fable of the sheep which made a bear their king in order to be
protected against the wolf. But even in this latter case, the form and
content of the State became precisely the same as in those states where
nothing intervened, and which became immediately “wolf states.”
The little history learned in our school-days suffices to prove this
generic doctrine. Everywhere we find some warlike tribe of wild men
breaking through the boundaries of some less warlike people, settling
down as nobility and founding its State. In Mesopotamia, wave follows
wave, state follows state--Babylonians, Amoritans, Assyrians, Arabs,
Medes, Persians, Macedonians, Parthians, Mongols, Seldshuks, Tartars,
Turks; on the Nile, Hyksos, Nubians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs,
Turks; in Greece, the Doric States are typical examples; in Italy,
Romans, Ostrogoths, Lombards, Franks, Germans; in Spain, Carthaginians,
Visigoths, Arabs; in Gaul, Romans, Franks, Burgundians, Normans; in
Britain, Saxons, Normans. In India wave upon wave of wild warlike
clans has flooded over the country even to the islands of the Indian
Ocean. So also is it with China. In the European colonies, we find
the selfsame type, wherever a settled element of the population has
been found, as for example, in South America and Mexico. Where that
element is lacking, where only roving huntsmen are found, who may be
exterminated but not subjugated, the conquerors resort to the device
of importing from afar masses of men to be exploited, to be subject
perpetually to forced labor, and thus the slave trade arises.
An apparent exception is found only in those European colonies in
which it is forbidden to replace the lack of a domiciled indigenous
population by the importation of slaves. One of these colonies, the
United States of America, is among the most powerful state-formations
in all history. The exception there found is to be explained by this,
that the mass of men to be exploited and worked without cessation
_imports itself_, by emigration in great hordes from primitive states
or from those in higher stages of development in which exploitation has
become unbearable, while liberty of movement has been attained. In this
case, one may speak of an infection from afar with “statehood” brought
in by the infected of foreign lands. Where, however, in such colonies,
immigration is very limited, either because of excessive distances
and the consequent high charges for moving from home, or because of
regulations limiting the immigration, we perceive an approximation
to the final end of the development of the State, which we nowadays
recognize as the necessary outcome and finale, but for which we have
not yet found a scientific terminology. Here again, in the dialectic
development, a change in the quantity is bound up with a change of
the quality. The old form is filled with new contents. We still find
a “State” in so far as it represents the tense regulation, secured by
external force, whereby is secured the social living together of large
bodies of men; but it is no longer the “State” in its older sense.
It is no longer the instrument of political domination and economic
exploitation of one social group by another; it is no longer a “State
of Classes.” It rather resembles a condition which appears to have
come about through a “social contract.” This stage is approached by
the Australian Colonies, excepting Queensland, which after the feudal
manner still exploits the half enslaved Kanakas. It is almost attained
in New Zealand.
So long as there is no general assent as to the origin and essence of
states historically known or as to the sociological meaning of the word
“State,” it would be futile to attempt to force into use a new name
for these most advanced commonwealths. They will continue to be called
“states” in spite of all protests, especially because of the pleasure
of using confusing concepts. For the purpose of this study, however, we
propose to employ a new concept, a different verbal lever, and shall
speak of the result of the new process as a “Freemen’s Citizenship.”
This summary survey of the states of the past and present should, if
space permitted, be supplemented by an examination of the facts offered
by the study of races, and of those states which are not treated in our
falsely called “Universal History.” On this point, the assurance may be
accepted that here again our general rule is valid without exception.
Everywhere, whether in the Malay Archipelago, or in the “great
sociological laboratory of Africa,” at all places on this planet where
the development of tribes has at all attained a higher form, the State
grew from the subjugation of one group of men by another. Its basic
justification, its raison d’être, was and is the economic exploitation
of those subjugated.
The summary review thus far made may serve as proof of the basic
premise of this sketch. The pathfinder, to whom, before all others,
we are indebted for this line of investigation is Professor Ludwig
Gumplowicz of Graz, jurist and sociologist, who crowned a brave life
by a brave self-chosen death. We can, then, in sharp outlines, follow
in the sufferings of humanity the path which the State has pursued in
its progress through the ages. This we propose now to trace from the
primitive state founded on conquest to the “freemen’s citizenship.”